“Miss Tandra, how pleasant to see your face” The female clerk smiles at her as Tandra drops a black gorilla’s head with dull red veins engraved on it, on the desk in front of her.

“It’s a pleasure to see you too, now my payment” She smiles to the clerk, looks back and gives a snarl to the onlookers.

No one jeers her, no one laughs at her. Only a few even dare to stare. She is quite pleased with how the adventurers here have become so tame towards her.

It all happened a week ago, when they finally exited that damned mine and came back to Ronthar. They had walked into the adventurers post and when they had given in the quest literally everyone’s faces hit the floor in shock.

No one expected just two of them to finish a ten man mission and in only a few days. Little did they know they actually just did it in one, the rest was finding the necromancer.

Nobody messed with her after that day, mostly because they were afraid of what she could do, and afraid of her new friend as he is much more mysterious than her, definitely making him more dangerous in their eyes.

The clerk returns with a small bag of coins and she adds twenty gold pieces to her inventory.

Hunting missions for beast is decently lucrative monetary wise, but not so much on the xp side.

This was her second kill in the whole week, and although her pockets were filling up nicely, she felt empty, annulled of a purpose.

“Ah clerk” The clerk turns back her way, smiling her fake business smile as usual “Do you know where my friend is?”

“Your friend…I heard he’s-”

*BANG*

The man stumbles into the room, crashing onto a table and dragging himself off it, swaying wildly until he spots Tandra. Then he points towards her and sways wildly.

“Ahh Shhandra istsh been….a week shince I’ve sheen you, all shix of you, hehehe” He giggles childishly, hiccupping from the drink while he stumbles towards her, arms wide.

“Seems like you’ve hit the tavern”

“Hit?” He stops, cocking his head “I don’t quite remember hitting...” he stares off into the sky “Ah wait, I did, hihihi”

“You’re drunk” She states flatly

“Drunk? DRUNK? Of courshe not….i’m not drunk, just…don’t tell Tandra ok” He gives her a wink as he stumbles towards her, knocking over a chair and tripping over it onto the floor.

She gnashes her teeth slightly and stomps towards him.

Helping him up, the foul smell of cheap ale wrenches from his mouth and spews all over her face.

“You reek”

“I’m not reek. I’m BLAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGH”

Vomit slowly rolls down her newly bought leather chest-piece, chunky bits plopping to the floor.

“Oh I’m sho sho-”

*Thwack*

His head hits the floor and Tandra clenches her broken fist, gnashing her teeth in both anger and pain.

Unceremoniously, she drags him up the stairs to their room.

Throwing him on the bed, she goes to wash off and cool off.

Coming back to the room, he’s still conscious, curled up in a ball in his bed, rolling around and…crying, well sniffling to be exact.

“Are you ok?” She asks, moving to his side and putting a damp hand on his shoulder.

“Oh, Sshtandra, yesh I’m fine, just a little cold” he turns towards her and opens his arms “Hug?”

She rolls her eyes deep into their sockets, but does give a hug; since he is still a friend and sometimes she’s got to go through their drunken shit. Though she never expected to see him drunk, ever. Especially since he’s a priest, albeit insane.

She quickly regrets her decision however, as he rolls over in mid-hug, taking her with him and he quickly tightens the hug, head buried in her shoulder.

The rolling of her eyes deepen as she tries to loosen herself from his grip.

“It’s…so cold” He sniffles into the pillow, making it barely audible for her.

Since she’s so close, she can feel the shivers coming from his warm body, almost feel fear she thinks.

Feeling sorry for him, she decides to let this go for tonight; she’ll get her revenge on him tomorrow, or maybe make him owe her for this. She might even get a good deal out of it.

Hugging him back, she whispers into his ear “its ok, I’m here to keep you warm”

“If only I could feel…”*Snore*

…

“Good morning fair world. Aegi, did I hit my head against the tavern wall again Maria?” The man jumps down the stairs, limber as a lamb.

“I’m afraid not ser” The clerk shakes her head sadly towards him.

“Afraid? Afraid of what? Is there something to be afraid of in this fine town?” He claps his hands merrily and skips around the place waving at a few of the early risers who he has gotten to know decently in the past week.

“How about me” A slightly cracked voice comes from the stairs. The voice is laced with anger, salted with annoyance, encased with rage.

From the stairs appears Tandra, hair a mess, eyes drooping from lack of sleep.

“Well you do look pretty damn terrifying this morning, what the hell happened to you?”

She responds by grabbing his neck and smashing his head on the table.

“That, was for throwing up on me last night”

She kicks him hard in the balls, holding him up by his throat.

“And that, was for hugging me when you reeked of alcohol”

Letting him fall to the floor, he mocks pain and drops. She knows he’s just playing but no one else does.

“Now get up and go buy me breakfast and some bloody good drink, because me and you are going to have a little chat”

He stands up, fake wheezing in pain.

“Right, breakfast, got it”

He stumbles off, leaving her to go back upstairs and sort her looks out as much as she could.

But then again, it wasn’t the outside that needed fixing after last night.

…

*Slam*

Slamming her pint of good ale on the table she looks at him as he chomps delicately on some roast mutton in their private booth.

“Now, tell me. What have you been doing this past week?” She stares into his eyes ferociously, forcing him to stop eating.

“I…have been thinking” He goes back to his food.

She raises an eyebrow and purses her lips.

“You’ve been drinking, that’s for sure”

“Thinking, drinking, I can do both right?” He smirks, before wiping it off his face in response to her low growl.

“Depends on whether your thinking merits the drinking” She narrows her eyes suspiciously.

He places down the food, looking at her with no smiles.

“My thinking is a matter of morality and a few other things”

“Morality? How could that make you think and drink for a week?”

“Well you remember I told you there was something I was going to do last week, when we were leaving the necromancers?”

“Yes” Her interest was piqued, since she had waited an entire week for him to tell her what he wanted to do.

“Well, I don’t know whether I should go on that journey” He looks down at his food, hands clasped in thought.

“What do you mean by that? Have you something better to do?”

“That is wherein the problem lies” He looks back up at her, sighing frustratedly “You see, I can either move forward, or I can move back. If I move forward, I break a promise to a friend. If I move back, I break a promise to myself”

“Shouldn’t it be obvious then? Your personal promises are more important than one to your friends no?” She answers immediately, since to her a promise kept to herself is something that should be kept.

“True, but that only solves a single part of my dilemma” his sinks towards the table, hands clasped in thought again.

She mimics him, an eyebrow raised.

“If I go forward, I am stepping into the unknown, unprepared for everything, on a quest that I have no idea whether I could succeed in. And if I go forward I can never go back.

If I go back however, I can prepare myself; give myself a better chance of succeeding this quest. And if I go back I can someday go forward. However, I don’t have the time to go back; I don’t have the strength to go forward. So what should I do Tandra?”

She looks at him, confused as to why he is so stressed over this supposed quest he’s given himself. This is a game, so time should not be a problem. However, she has a feeling this time problem has nothing to do with the game.

“Does…does it have something to do with J-”

His finger quickly quietens her.

“Don’t say that name…please, and no it has nothing to do with her…that’s…not part of this game” He trails off, looking into the distance.

Seeing him look wistfully in the distance, she feels like she’s somehow been shown a little about his real life, no, she feels like she’s invaded it.

He had accidentally shown her a part of him last night that looks like he never wanted anyone to see.

Being awake to hear him scream a girl’s name while in tears, unable to wake up from his nightmare, even with her violent shaking…scared her, in a very human way.

The only way he went quiet is when she knocked him fully out with her fists.

She had never heard him scream in pain before; not when his arm was ripped away, not when he was stabbed and bitten by a multitude of beasts.

But now she had…and honestly, she never wants to hear him scream again.

“Right!”

She jumps out of her seat in shock at his sudden happy vibe.

“I’ve decided! Screw my friend” He sends a quick apology to the sky saying ‘Sorry Moren’. “I am going on an adventure. I don’t know where I have to go, how to find it, or what to do when I go there…but I will for the life of me do it. Do you want to join me on a little, well not so little adventure Tandra?” His voice is full of life, not faking it like he does with pain, but real. As if taking a deep breath and turning over a new leaf.

She takes a deep breath, not forgetting, but burying the knowledge she learnt last night about her friend…whatever little knowledge it may be. Who her friend really is and who she is sitting in front of right now are different people, as she is different to her in-game self.

“What we doing?” She asks, jumping with the same energy he exuded.

He grins maniacally “We my dear, are going to go kill ourselves a God”

…

“Fadrim, why am I not killing you?” Ankorr asks through clenched teeth as he internally pushes ‘It’ down to the recess of his soul, slightly confused as to how he is finally able to control himself when Fadrim is bleeding somewhat.

“Simple. I’ve conditioned you to my presence, or well my blood you could argue. Doing so has allowed me to be close to you, to bleed close to you without dying horribly every time” He grins madly as he cuts his finger, letting more blood drip onto the floor ominously.

“That’s mad, ‘It’ doesn’t care if its drunk from you one or a hundred times” Ankorr refuses to give in, pushing ‘It’ down, with the aid of some water.

“Genius i'd rather you'd say. And it is possible, but ‘It’ isn’t the one getting accustomed to me…you are” He chuckles

“What?” Ankorr cleans his ears, confused as to what Fadrim is playing at.

Fadrim begins to pace up and down academically.

“You see, ‘It’ doesn’t really care what blood it has, it wants blood. You however, don’t like it; rather you’re disgusted by it quite viciously. So, in this past week you have become accustomed to the smell of my blood and quite vigorously try to stop yourself. As result, every time you smell my blood your natural reflexes to stop yourself kick in, and each time you’ve tried, your reflexes got quicker, stronger. Until we are almost at the point where you won’t kill me if I bleed” He stops pacing, giving a winning smile to Ankorr.

“I could still kill you, just not for the blood” Ankorr was angry yet also quite amazed by this madman, somehow breaking through a barrier Ankorr never thought he could, but that scared him more than relieved him.

“No you can’t” He chuckles and draws the knife “not yet at least” He throws the knife towards Ankorr, letting it drop by his feet.

“…You want me to kill you?” He picks up the knife, slightly scared since he’s having hard enough time keeping ‘It’ down.

“Yes, I want you to kill me, not ‘It’. You” He points towards Ankorr, making sure he gets his point across.

“You’re mad you know that? What are you getting out of this? All I see is constant death” He moves towards Fadrim, knife in hand.

“I may be mad, true. But then again, genius and mad have such a fine line between them. Also, don’t worry I’m getting what I want..so just focus on your side of things and I’ll focus on mine. Me and you are destined to go on a journey together. Let us begin with you cutting me, slowly”

Grimacing, Ankorr lays the blade on Fadrim’s arm, slowly cutting down.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Corner:

Heeeeeeey! Last chapter for two weeks, so have a nice time mulling over it :D

Hope you enjoyed it, as well as a little sneak peak into the MC's life as well as Fadrim's Mind :D

Please review and comment!!!

-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD