Pope led the group out from cover and walked up to Terry. They both looked at Izzy with new regards. Pope seeming a bit more terrified of her and Terry a bit more respect for her. They walked over to the group of elves she was helping.

The two men of the line were trying their best to shield the women and children from Izzy. She was holding up her sword trying to cut the ropes. Terry put his hand on her arm and lowered her sword. “I think you’re scaring them.”

Her demeanor suddenly changed and she got a remorseful look on her face as she looked at her sword and then at the group. “Oh, sorry.” She sheathed her sword.

“Tamara, mind if we borrow your dagger?” He asked and held out his hand.

“Sure” she drew the dagger and handed it to him.

He took the blade and knelt down in front of the two men of the group. He then spread his hands out gesturing for the men to follow his lead and then motioned with the blade cutting the rope. It took a few more moments for the men to understand but eventually one of the kids thrust their hands forward with the rope tight.

Terry slowly took the rope and cut it with the dagger, the kid saying something in a language he didn’t understand. After that the men held out their hands and he cut their bonds, followed by the other kid and the women. Once they were all free, Terry’s group helped the prisoners untie the rope and started handing out food and water to them.

Again, the one kid was the first to come forward and take the proffered food and water, followed by the rest. As the group filled their bellies, Terry kept an eye out for anything, or any one, that might come to investigate the earlier commotion.

Once the group was finished and feeling a bit better, he asked “can you walk?” and motioned getting up and walking.

The man was about six foot two inches with long black hair that was ruffled and he had pointy ears, like the elves in Lord of the Rings. His hair covered them, though Terry could see them when the wind would blow. His skin complexation was light, though not quite pale, like an ivory color. He had brown eyes that seemed to take everything in and he seemed to be the leader, he looked at Terry and then slowly nodded. He then motioned for the others to stand and Terry had them in the middle with Bradley and Susan.

He tried to keep a decent pace that hopefully wouldn’t strain the new comers too much yet still put them a good distance away from the battle scene. They had made it about three blocks when one of the elven women stumbled and fell to the ground.

The group stopped and when he went to examine the woman’s legs, he saw they were black and blue all over the place. He then motioned towards the woman’s legs and to the others. The lead man looked at him but didn’t seem to understand. Terry pointed at the woman’s legs again and then at the rest of them, trying to indicate if they all looked like hers.

The one kid looked like an exact copy of the man who was the leader, except they had a bit higher cheek bones and shorter nose and they only were about four and a half feet tall. They pulled up their pants and showed Terry their legs, which were also black and blue and nodded, then said something to the lead man, who also nodded.

“I’m not sure how far any of them will get with legs like that.” Terry said to Izzy and the group.

“We’re not going to just leave them.” She growled.

“I’m not saying we leave them, just that I’m not sure how far we’ll get.”

At that, she knelt down in front of the fallen woman and gestured for her to get on her back so she could carry her. The woman looked at her then at the man and then the child. “It’s okay, I’ll carry you.” she softly said.

The woman climbed onto Izzy’s back. She stood up and nodded at Terry. He looked at the elves and nodded, then took off again. They only made it two more blocks before another woman fell. This time Tamara offered her back.

After the second time, the other men of Terry’s group all offered their backs to the other women, even Penelope, though Sam was the holdout. After that they made better time and were able to get back onto the highway soon enough.

As the group got back on the highway, Terry turned and looked for the giant bird thing. It looked to be about a mile away, so he felt they should be safe enough from it as long as they didn’t do anything to draw its attention. He led the group down the highway with no incidents, which he was thankful for.

By the time the sun was just hitting the horizon on its way down, the group had made it half way to the edge of the city. All they had around them were vehicles on the road but there were quite a few of them so Terry found a group of trucks and SUVs that they could use to rest in.

They could only fit six people in each vehicle so he had three people from his group and three of the elves fit into each vehicle. Izzy, Tamara, Pope and Terry each took a group so that way each group would have something of a fighter, or illusionist in Pope’s case.

Terry had the lead elf man and all the kids with him. The brave kid was trying to talk to Bradley but he was talking in a weird language so Bradly just kept nodding his head and agreeing. Susan had tried to interact with the other elf kid but that one wasn’t like the first. They kept close to the elf man and stayed quiet.

Once everyone got settled into their vehicles Terry got into the one with his group and started breaking out some food. As he was eating, he thought he might as well try and talk with the elves, so he got the man’s attention and the pointed to himself and said, “Terry.”

The elf man looked at him as he said his name. Then repeated the gesture and said his name again, but the elf just stared at him. The elf kid talking with Bradley stopped and looked at the two men. Watching Terry’s display, the kid got Terry’s attention and pointed at themself and said, “Gantar.”

Terry looked at the kid and then pointed to him and repeated what the kid had said, “Gantar?”

The kid nodded excitedly and repeated his name again and again. “Gantar, Gantar.”

Terry smiled and then repeated his name, “Terry.”

The kid pointed at Terry, “Tare-ee.” He said it with a bit of an accent but Terry nodded. “Tare-ee, Tare-ee.”

Terry smiled though he still couldn’t tell if the kid was a boy or girl since they had such a slim and feminine face structure.

Gantar turned to the elf man and said something in the weird language again. Then the man pointed to himself and said, “Katar.” Then pointed to Terry and said, “Tare-ee.”

He nodded at the man, Katar, and repeated the man’s name a few times. Gantar seemed to be excited to be learning new things as they then turned to Bradley and pointed at him. Bradley just looked at the kid.

“I think he wants to know your name.” Terry told him.

“Oh… Bradley.” He said and pointed to himself. “Bradley.”

“Bra-dley” Gantar sounded the name out but seemed to be having a bit of trouble with the name. They mouthed it a few times then turned to Bradley and pointed again.

“Brad-ley, brad-ley” Bradley said trying to pronounce it slowly.

“Brad-ley.” Gantar said and got a huge smile on their face. “Brad-ley.” They then pointed to Susan.

She pointed to herself and said “Sus-an. Sus-an”

“Sus-an.” Gantar pronounced her name with a long a instead of a short a. Susan just giggled and repeated herself a few more times.

It wasn’t long before Gantar was pointing between the three of them and saying their names, if a bit mispronounced. Then like they just remembered it, they pointed at the other elf kid and said, “Halamar.”

“Hal-a-mar” Terry tried pronouncing it.

“Halamar” Gantar said and nodded their head and smiled.

This went on for another twenty or so minutes and they all learned each other’s names. After they got their names sorted out Terry went around the vehicle and pointed at things naming them off and watching as Gantar tried to repeat them. It was funny to watch as they continued the little game, the other two elves joining in a bit.

When Terry finally ran out of things to point to in the vehicle, Gantar was just about to pass out. The other kid, Halamar, was already asleep and Katar was nodding off as well. With that Terry finally closed his eyes and got some real rest.

A rumbling woke Terry from his slumber. There was light just starting to shine above the horizon when he opened his eyes and looked around. Things were in between that darkness of night and the light of day. Looking around he didn’t see anything but then he looked in the side view mirror and saw a trail of dust rising from something coming their way. Turning around and looking out the back window he saw what looked like elephants in a herd coming towards them.

He looked over to the vehicle and saw Izzy looking at him and motioned for them to stay in the vehicles. She got the idea and passed it onto the others. It didn’t take the elephant creatures long to make it to their vehicles. They were tall, at least twenty feet and they were coming straight for the group. Quickly thinking, he had his skeletons jump up onto the vehicles so they wouldn’t get crushed.

As the first one passed by his vehicle, he saw that they looked almost exactly like earth elephants with the gray skin and tusks but he also caught glimpses of razor-sharp teeth in their mouths. He turned around to try and keep the kids calm as more passed by them.

Eventually though one of them hit Pope’s vehicle and spun it around making it crash into Tamara’s. Then another one spun it again and then one of them stepped on the hood of the vehicle, crushing it like a pop can. All he could do was watch and hope that that’s all they crushed.

Luckily, it was over in just a couple minutes and when it was, Terry and the rest got out of the vehicles and rushed over to Pope and his group. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, I think so.”

Katar was next to the vehicle and talking with the women that had been in there with Pope. He turned and nodded his head at Terry, they seemed to be alright as well.

After that rude awakening, the group decided not to sit around and wait for more or for them to make a trip back. Just as they were about to take off, Izzy spoke up, “Hey Terry, how many of those health potions do you have left?”

It took him a moment to answer as he warred with himself if he wanted to be nice or lie and keep them for himself. He did have ninety-seven potions left though, so he said he had enough and pulled out a dozen and handed them to the elves. Though before he handed them out, he motioned to Katar and Gantar and mimicked drinking the potion and then gagging, trying to convey that they tasted terrible but would heal them.

Gantar was the first to pop the top and drink it, chugging the bottle before leaning over and gagging and almost losing what little food they had in their stomach. Once they were done gagging, they turned to Katar and said something. Katar looked pissed at that but then Terry pointed to Gantar’s legs and they watched as the bruising slowly disappeared.

After that the rest of them plugged their noses and chugged the potions. Taking only seconds for it to work, they were all in much better shape. After they were all healed, they would make better time and would have all their fighters free in case something happened.

Terry took off at a fast walk and the rest followed with the kids in the middle and the skeletons circling the group. As they walked, Gantar made their way to the front and started talking in that weird language to Terry. He tried to keep an ear open for the kid but also wanted to keep an eye out for any danger. Though as they walked and Gantar was by him, he started pointing things out to the kid and saying their names, like they had done the night before.

The little game they played helped distract from the monotonous of the walking. He kept a fast-enough pace to move swiftly but not so fast as to wear the non-leveled people out. Since Gantar didn’t yet know what everything was, they couldn’t do the same thing for Terry.

It was already noon when Terry looked around and saw that they were getting close to the edge of the city and about to get back onto the open road. As they were close to the edge, they decided to stop for a bit for lunch and to take a break.

“Ugh, it’s about time we stopped. And why are you playing with that kid?” Sam quipped.

“Because they’re interested in our world and why not?”

“Whatever, just keep it down, it’s really annoying to listen to.”

He rolled his eyes at her as he sat down next to Gantar and Katar. While they were resting, he decided to take a look at the store for some information on the language they were speaking. He guessed it was elvish, since they were elves. When he opened the store menu, he went to the search box and typed in elvish language and hit search. He was shocked when it came back that there were more than a thousand elvish languages. Some of them cost a few credits and others cost ten thousand credits. Not knowing which one Gantar and the group spoke he closed out of the store with a sigh.

After about fifteen minutes he got the group up and moving. They should make it out of the city and far enough away before night fall. He took out the map and started looking at it for a place they could maybe make camp for the night. Izzy made her way to him and looked over his shoulder.

“How about there?” she asked and pointed to a place on the map. It looked like they would be able to make it there before dark, give or take some.

“Looks as good of place as any.” He said and folded up the map.

Gantar came up to him as he was putting away the map and tugged on it. He looked at them and handed them the map. They opened it and looked at it with wide eyes. O’ing and ah’ing at all the places on it. They started to point out places on the map and Terry would tell them the name and they would repeat it. This continued on for quite some time before Gantar handed the map back to him.

Terry put the map back into his inventory and Gantar moved off to play with Susan and Bradley. Izzy was still by his side and asked “he sure is a friendly little guy.”

He turned and looked at her, “how do you know that’s a boy?”

“His face is more masculine than the other kid’s.”

He turned and looked back at Gantar and tried to see what she meant but he still couldn’t tell the difference between the two. “I’ll take your word for it.”

She chuckled at that and patted him on the shoulder, “That’s our fearless leader.”

“I’m no fearless leader, I’m just trying to get back to my parents and make sure they’re safe.”

“Well, you sure seemed fearless when you fought that zombie bear thing.”

“Ya, I agree wit her.” Tamara said as she joined the two. “Ya didn’t even hesitate to attack the thing, just ran right in swinging your sword.”

He rubbed the back of his helmet and if he wasn’t wearing it the women would have seen his face was bright red. “Stop it you guys.”

The two women laughed but kept ribbing him as they walked.