The bandit walked around the back of the tree and bashed the restraints, there was an electric sounding “pop” and Andromeda felt the strange feeling about her dissipate.. At first Andromeda was worried the noise might be loud enough to hear, but it seemed there was an argument happening in the distance between the mage and Fatter.

He walked back around and crouched in front of her. “What’s your plan?” He asked. Andromeda placed her now free hands on the ropes holding her to the tree and applied Expliza Mending, they dissolved into dust in a moment and Andromeda stood up.

“Go out into the brush and get everyone’s attention, tell them I ran off.” Andromeda said.

“First, make me that copy you promised.” He said.

>Sorry, he doesn’t want to bend on this. I can’t do anything about it.<

Andromeda sighed, he was bending her arm right now.

“Fine, give me that thing.” She said, snatching the knife from his hand.

She stared at it and got a read on its internal structure. She had gotten to a point with her Mending that she could almost engrave patterns into the surface of an object without touching it through Expliza. Here it was a matter of simply breaking it in half down the center.

The knife peeled apart like a fruit sliced in two. She handed the one side back to him and focused on the one side she was holding.

She adjusted the visualization to not reverse the damage, but to replace lost material. It took her a few tries to get the technique down, but after a minute she found herself holding a fully complete knife in her hand.

“Damn…” The man said.

She handed the good knife back to him, while he inspected it she applied the same technique to the other knife. Doing it the second time was a lot easier now that she knew what worked, she handed the second knife back to him and he held both of them in his hands.

“Right, I’ll sneak this back into my buddy’s things and then run out.” He said.

“Should I just hang out here?” Andromeda said.

“They might notice if you run off before I’m ready. Just sit tight and wait for my signal.” He said.

Andromeda wanted to argue, but something gave her the impression he might lose his patience if she tried. So she sat back down and wrapped her arms around like they were. She couldn’t restore the ropes, but it was still dark enough that they shouldn't be able to tell.

Hey, Whisper, Question?

>Shoot.<

You said you can’t control people, or read their minds. So how are you making this guy do what we want?

>I’m not controlling him per say, it's more like I’m pushing him one way or the other. If he wasn’t at least a little bit willing to help you then I wouldn’t have been able to do anything. Andromeda did most of the work.<

Alright, but explain the memories you pulled from Fatter, and how you could tell how this guy was feeling.

>Basic memories are easier to find than more personal and deep ones, and current thoughts are easier to find than buried ones. If Andromeda asked me to find his deepest, darkest secrets then I probably wouldn’t have found them.<

That seems kind of arbitrary.

>Hey, it's not like human memories are easy to sift through, I’m doing my best here.<

“Lay off White.” Andromeda said. White harrumphed and sent a wave of annoyance, but that was interrupted by Andromeda noticing the man from before sitting by the fire. He looked over to her then nodded. She took it as a sign and stood up, she crawled around the treeline toward Eli, then a few moments later he looked toward where she was and screamed “She’s gone!”

He then ran off into the other direction, with everyone verifying what he said and running after him. The whole camp besides a few people peeled off into the distance. Leaving only a few who were still waking up suddenly or couldn’t move (that being the mage tied to a tree.). Once she reached Eli, she broke his ropes and let him go.

He slumped forward and she kept him from bouncing his head off the ground.

“Wha-aa-aa?” He mumbled. His speech was slurred and his attention was wavering. Andromeda's mind was drawn back to what Fatter had said. He poisoned them with something he called “Knock-out drops''. Eli was still under its effects.

“Eli, stay still. This might hurt. Try not to bite your tongue.” Andromeda said.

She focused on him and used both Purification and Mending on Eli at once.

The act of purification turns contaminants into whatever is supposed to be in the subject, and when someone is poisoned it travels through their bloodstream. So what was going to happen in a minute was that she was going to remove a portion of his blood. She could have just slowly purified his blood and let his body do the rest of the work. But they were in a rush.

To counteract the very likely chance of causing catastrophic embolisms in his veins by removing a portion of his bloodstream, she would heal/mend as she purified his blood. There was no room for failure, so despite the crippling pain she experienced while healing his body, she forced herself to stay focused.

The simultaneous use of two different kinds of magic should have been impossible, not for any arcane reason as far as she was aware, but because her method of use required imagining or sensing the flow of mana. However it’s impossible to completely focus on things at once.

That is, unless you were capable of maintaining two trains of thought, that’s where White came in. Andromeda focused on the process of purifying because it required the sensing of an active mana flow, while White focused on creating the necessary imaginations needed to mend. There was no need for words between them, White knew what was needed almost as soon as Andromeda considered it.

They worked in tandem while Whisper played interference, creating an opportunity where none was before. The mind-altering poison was purified from Eli’s body, his blood was restored. His mind cleared with frightening speed as he quickly realized what happened to him, the situation he was in, and what Andromeda was doing.

When she felt it was done, she pulled away. Her body was in incredible pain, but she forced herself to move. Eli followed after her as they went into the camp proper. Andromeda dissolved, then mended a nearby sword so that it was in her hand and handed it to Eli.

No one who was awoken by the commotion decided to get up, so they had a clear moment to gather their things and run.

>They’re giving up the chase, you have to move!<

Getting everything would be impossible, most of her money was already in the pockets of the bandits, and even then it wouldn’t be practical to go searching through the tents in case she ran into one of the sleeping bandits. There was only one thing above all else that she wanted, and that was her robes.

She searched around while Eli gathered what he could find, eventually she found a tree at the edge of camp with the mage from before, still wearing her robes. They had put a gag in her mouth to keep her from talking, and it looked like they roughed her up somewhat. Probably on Fatter’s orders.

She bent down in front of the mage woman and put her hand on the robes. They dissolved on her touch and appeared again in her hand, then she went a layer lower and dissolved the second layer.

Andromeda purified them and held them under her arm. She felt around the inside of the outer robe and was relieved to feel the presence of the white hood she got from Argo and the white mask that came with the robes.

That still meant that her money, supplies, and second ring were still gone. But those weren’t as important as everything else.

All the while this was happening, the gagged mage was thrashing and raving, trying to get a warning out to anyone. However they were too far away or too deep asleep to hear her.

After giving one last glare to the mage, Andromeda stood up and found Eli a short distance away scavenging weapons and armed where he could. When he stood up he was covered in a mishmash of different leathers, armor pieces, and an assortment of weapons slung over his shoulder in a bag he found. Among them were daggers, a sword, a spear, and a club. He also had a bag of gold that looked like a large portion of Andromeda’s missing gold. Seeing as Fatter’s Greatsword was nearby it was probably his portion.

>You need to go, NOW!<

Andromeda heard the loud grumbles of the bandits coming back into earshot. She grabbed Eli by the arm and dragged him toward the treeline, they didn’t wait to see how the bandits would react.

-----

Lacking a sense of where they were, neither Andromeda nor Eli knew where they were going. They were still in the game general area they were before, a forested region that was likely not far from the border, but in their hurry to leave they didn’t discern where it was they planned on going. Heading further south the overall goal, but that didn’t help them in the middle of an untamed forest.

Eventually the adrenaline in their systems faded and exhaustion took them both. Not even having the energy to walk another step they both collapsed on the forest floor.

For reasons neither of them could understand, the bandits didn’t come after them. It might be that they thought Andromeda and Eli had escaped in the other direction, but that was enough to convince them that they weren’t still being followed.

Eli spoke first.

“Andromeda… I can’t keep doing this, it’s been days. I can barely move…” Eli said.

“I-I know, but we can’t stop.” Andromeda said.

Their already small stockpile was now gone, the majority of Andromeda’s things were gone, they were beyond tired, and hadn't slept peacefully for days. They were lost in the middle of a nameless forest in the middle of nowhere with a cabal of bandits with a grudge chasing after them. In the middle of all of this they had to deal with a malicious soul devouring entity that Andromeda had to bond her soul with just to deal with it.

Even before that there was the concern of what caused Andromeda to break down and force White take over. An event that was directly caused by Eli himself inexplicably injuring himself in a way that a mortal human shouldn’t have been able to. From the beginning of this demented trip, it seemed like everything that could go wrong would in epic fashion.

First Rhys, then Orden and Catherine, then Ferdinand, then the situation at the college. One thing after another, just when she settled into the already insane world she was thrown into, something else would come along and ruin it. All of that leads to her traipsing through remote forest trails in a forest that no human has stepped foot in in who knows how long.

There was only so much a person could handle at once, and at least for Andromeda she had long since passed that limit. She was coming to a breaking point.

White and Whisper were silent in her mind. They were at a loss for words. Both in their own ways understood what Andromeda was going through but had no way of helping her. The situation had passed a point where words of encouragement were enough to make anything happen.

Just when things couldn’t get worse, at the edge of her hearing Andromeda heard footsteps in the brush. They weren’t in a hurry, but they weren’t being careful either. It sounded like someone was just casually walking through the forest at the break of dawn.

She didn’t even have the energy to stand up, neither did Eli.

Eli for his part had accepted his fate. He could almost see into the future. The bandits would happen upon them unable to move. If they were lucky they might get dragged back to camp and killed there. But in the worst case they might be struck down right there. They would be stripped of their belongings and left to rot in the middle of nowhere. Never found. It was a mercy that his tired body let him fall asleep despite the desperation they found themselves in.

Andromeda, for better or worse, couldn’t accept that fate. She had no energy to stand, so every step she heard was like a new dagger into her heart, every single step signaling an end her heart and soul refused to accept. It was like a wound being opened over and over, just as her will to live would refuse to let her accept her death, the encroaching reality would throw her back down.

The most she could do was turn over and face whoever it was that was coming for her.

But when she looked, it wasn’t the grizzled face of a bandit. It was a man in a suit, a suit much more like something Andromeda would have known in her world than anything she knew of here.

He was an old man, his suit was gray and without an imperfection. In the early morning light it almost seemed to shiver with light, like glowing silver.

Likewise, his hair and mustache were white, but with just a hint of vitality that gave it the same shimmer as his suit. Silver hair. He stood in front of her, it was all she could do to push herself up off the ground. He looked down at her with a complicated look.

“Oh dear, I never expected it would be quite like this.” He said as he bent a knee down in front of her. “Who are you?” Andromeda said, her voice barely had the strength to eek above a whisper.

“That is not a question I can answer. I am simply here to make due on a promise I made a long time ago.” The man said. Andromeda didn’t know what he meant by that, but she wasn’t in any position to stop him regardless.

Andromeda pushed herself up farther, just enough that she was on her knees and looking up at him. She couldn’t stop herself from moving, even as her nerves were screaming from the healing before, and as her muscles cried for relief the days of stress they had been under. Her mind wouldn’t let her sit idle and let whatever might happen. Even if it was a useless fight.

“Remarkable, even now…” The Silver haired man said. He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a necklace. He placed it down in front of her, their eyes level for a moment. She could see a soft glow in his silver pupils, it wasn’t like her own glow. It was calm and subdued. Like a star in the sky relative to the fire in hers.

He was tired, very tired. He didn’t need to say anything for her to know that. She saw the same thing in her father’s eyes. Not exhaustion, not depression, not even sadness. It was the pure feeling of wanting it all to end. Not wishing for death, but for a peaceful end.

“You likely won’t understand this, but I’m sure it will be understood in time. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, I only hope you can forgive me.” He said.

Before she could even respond, his form began to shiver in front of her. His solid form wavered and waved in the sunlight as he just looked at Andromeda. She couldn’t even bring herself to move, she just sat as this man in front of her disappeared. Leaving nothing but a necklace on the ground in front of her.

Though she did not know him, he seemed to know her. There was pain and sadness in his heart as he spoke, but it was for something he did not share.

She reached down and picked up the necklace.

The entirety of the surface was a reddish-bronze color. In the center was a glowing red gem with countless perfect facets which seemed to reflect the inside to eternity, the chain was the same color, but each link was woven together with hundreds of almost indiscernible silver lengths. On the back of the pendant where the gem was contained was a solid surface, with the only imperfection being an engraving. The words were small, but carefully made. They read:

Among the stars, our gazes align.

Below the sky filled with White.

We know no world we call our own.

We know no peace but this place, our home.

The darkness came, we called aloud.

They fear our ways, for we are proud.

You must live on, outlast the age.

Become what you must, The One White Mage.

Then without a second thought, she put it on.