Breakfast was a somber affair. Realizing that one of your companions was not what they seemed? A burden, but likely one the group could have dealt with. Although young, they had each been through hardship, and learned to roll with the punches. Realizing that one of your companions might not even be human – or anything you had ever heard of – and that there may be a secret group out to kill another of your companions? That was a horse of an altogether different color. Still, some things could not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

Val ranted, pointing at Squeaker. “So you ignored a warning that summoning that would put your life, all our lives, in danger. Ignored Keana, whoever or whatever in the Hells she really is, and then stabbed yourself to death, drank a mana potion and here we are. Did I leave anything out?”

“I don’t know why you’re making a fuss about little Squeaker,” Arn said. “You’ve never seen a . . . Red Bird before? I couldn’t leave him, motherless, alone in the jungle, could I? What are you, heartless? He won’t be any trouble, will you buddy?” With a little mental prompting and some help from a waving piece of jerky, Squeaker made a stop-teasing-and-give-me-the-damn jerky squeak.

“A Red Bird?” Val skeptically asked. “Obviously,” Arn said. “You can’t tell?”

Pepper snorted. “Fascinating as this is, we have at least a day before ‘Jennifer’ is back. Don’t reckon any mysterious secret society nut jobs are likely to ride in today, and if they do, probably better we ain’t here anyway. Judging from Arn’s spiffy new gear, he got good coin from picking shit off the forest floor. Mayor’s going to let folks out the gate in an hour or two. Figure we should go do some picking, plan to come back tomorrow afternoon.”

Arn nodded. “Yep, there is definitely gold just lying around. I sold everything this morning, and made nice with Silver Tongue. Decided to tell him a tiny bit of the truth, because he knows too much about me already. He said there are always a few nuts that want to prove themselves, but he’s never heard of any kind of organized group hunting legendary classers. Still, he agreed to drop the promotional stuff for now, and even gave me this fancy weapon for two gold added onto the loan agreement. Called it a crystal hand-bow.”

As he spoke, Arn drew an odd looking contraption consisting of an eight inch cylinder attacked perpendicularly to a grip containing a trigger. Just before the cylinder joined the grip, it expanded into a three-inch diameter metal housing. “The grip slides on and off and is hollow” Arn explained while demonstrating. Pointing at the hollow grip, Arn noted that “inside are five ordinary steel balls.” Sliding the metal housing open revealed a gleaming crystal. “The crystal powers enchantments sending the steel balls through the tube faster than a crossbow. Supposedly, they will rip through steel armor.”

“Something’s fishy” Pepper declared. “That looks like a real deal weapon, you’re already in debt to him and he gives it to you for a loan? He has some kind of game. I don’t like it with all the other shit going down.”

Arn looked sheepish. “Eh, well . . . he did say he bought five of these years back for a hell of a lot more than two gold each . . . but two of them exploded. Two that he knows of. This one . . . will probably explode eventually too. He said that the ‘high concentration of channeled mana erodes the spell-forged steel over time’ or something like that. He hoped to sell it to an enchanter willing to make one out of mithril, but the ones he showed it to thought it would be too pricey in mithril for what it does.”

Pepper smiled. “So he sold literally the only person willing to maybe lose an arm something with no value to anyone else for two gold?” she asked with obvious amusement.

“Hey now” Arn said. “The crystal alone is worth close to a gold. If it explodes on me before I use the twenty steel balls he gave me, it’s free. And I’m not paying anything for years. Let’s be real; I’ll either be high level and rich, or the in-the-ground kind of dead. Either way, no skin off my back.” Arn hesitated, continuing “admittedly with my love life being caput on account of Keana probably being a demon, I kind of need that hand, but I’ll make do.”

* * *

Learning about the boy was easy as pie. Part of it was the nature of Reach; it was completely natural for a party of two to ask about the other adventurers in town. Part of it was the boy; like most of the others they had encountered, he was too stupid to conceal the fact he had a legendary class. Granted, they were obviously higher level than their quarry, and obviously didn’t need him to round out their party, but it was nonetheless perfectly natural to be curious about the rumor of a legendary classer. People in town liked to talk to begin with, and apparently the boy was something of a minor celebrity, having somehow survived a ravager swarm after detonating an explosive on himself. Unfortunately, they had just missed the bastard; boy was off gallivanting about in the jungle. Well, wasn’t all bad. A few days relaxing in an inn never hurt anyone. Boss might object, but it wasn’t like they could find him in the forest was it? Trying to wait for him outside town would arouse suspicion surely. Ernest reasoned that the boss should be pleased he was making the smart play.

Ernest turned to Vern. “It has been too damn busy Vern. Running here and there, never stopping to smell the roses. Ten minutes! Ten minutes he gave us! That might be fine for you, but I like to take my time! We’ve got years before . . .” Vern casually swatted Ernest and went back to his ale. Ernest nodded, “right, right, watch the tongue, sorry. Just saying, we’re stuck here, might as well make the best of it. We can spare the coin for some girls tonight. What the boss doesn’t know . . .” Inside Vern’s pocket, the “crystal communicator” began to vibrate; it was an incredibly expensive piece of enchanting, but on that, at least, Blackjack hadn’t been cheap. Vern held the thing up to his ear and felt his entire head begin to vibrate and buzz. After a moment, Vern heard Blackjack’s voice:

“We got overconfident after a few easy ones. The girl is in the wind; I am headed to you. Will pick up Manson on the way; little bitch got him. Do not engage the regenerator until we get there. Repeat, do not engage until we get there.”

Ernest sighed. “You’re not going to like it Vern. Orders are to sit until the boss gets here.” Vern shrugged.

* * *

Anya both didn’t have the heart to leave Sylus behind, and hated herself for what Sylus being with her meant. On the one hand, Sylus had no home and no wife thanks to her; if he wanted to give up his last years for a chance at revenge on the smiling bastard that got away, how could she to say no? On the other hand, Sylus would never be able to run. If things went bad, she would leave him or she would die, and, well, she wasn’t ready to die.

Father always said to worry about what you can control, not what you can’t. It seemed one of his better sayings; Anya tried to put her fears aside. She knew that as long as it didn’t come to running from a hopeless fight, Sylus would definitely help. Having an adult around made her a lot less conspicuous, and as a retired level seventeen Guard, he should be able to hold his own for a bit despite his age.

They paid too much for too little horse in a nearby village, but riding was faster than walking, especially with Sylus along. Father hadn’t wholly ignored riding, woodcraft and the like; one never knew when a target would leave the city. Still, Anya was far from skilled, and cursed the need for the horses, but they didn’t have time to waste. The “Regenerator” would likely be dead before they got to Reach, but at least the horses might get them there before the trail went cold. They had little choice but to try given that the list from the dead mage’s clothing was heavily singed, and most of the still legible names were already crossed off or impossibly distant. That the mage himself had simply dissappeared was an impossible puzzle. Emmergency teleporation artifacts were for the super rich and, in any event, took your clothes with you. Still, Anya received a notification indicating the mage was dead, so she put that aside.

* * *

Jennifer rode towards Reach, unsure why. This was hardly the adventure that psychopath Jack promised her, and she really just wanted to go home, but it didn’t work that way. Still, she could go anywhere other than home; it didn’t have to be Reach, back to a legendary classer and, she now believed, an inevitable confrontation with Jack and his fellow psychos. There couldn’t be anything lasting between her and Arn, not really, and she had already warned him. It wasn’t like he would believe the whole truth even after her demonstration. Sure, she wanted to stop Jack, both from killing Arn and generally, but she knew she wasn’t equipped for that. So what was the point? Still, she rode.

As the sky darkened, bone weariness overtook Jennifer. Just as she decided to give in to the fatigue and make camp for the night, she slowly overtook an old man and a young girl riding hard in the same direction. The pair’s horses looked to be in bad shape. Jennifer didn’t have a mothering instinct that she knew of, but still found herself asking the obvious question as she approached. “Everything ok you two? You seem to be pushing pretty hard, your horses look like they need a rest.” “Grandmother is ill and we are bringing her back medicine she needs,” the young girl answered. Jennifer volunteered without thinking. “I have a faster horse and am headed to Reach as well. I’m near ready to fall out of the saddle, but I can make it without stopping if its life and death.” The young girl answered “thank you, but we can’t trust someone else with her life. Nothing personal, I’m sure you understand. But you are right, we need to rest the horses, and should stop for the night. You’re welcome to make camp with us.”

Jennifer thought it was odd that the young girl was so composed, but was too tired to give anything much thought. The pair introduced themselves as Lichelle and Edward, and offered to share their food with her. Jennifer was too tired to wait and politely declined. She shoved some jerky in her mouth, and bade them a quick goodnight. Since she had almost nothing in the way of supplies, her choice of a pillow was either her horse’s saddle, or her boots. Too tired to fuss with the saddle, she quickly fell asleep on her boots.

Not long after, Jennifer woke to the sensation of someone lying on her and thrashed to get them off. An elbow smashed into her face. As Jennifer came fully awake and focused, she saw Lichelle inches from her face and both saw and felt a dagger on her neck. “Struggle again” Lichelle said, “and I will just kill you. Clear?” Struck by the girl’s total conviction, Jennifer didn’t struggle and simply asked “what do you want?”

Lichelle said “we have questions. If you don’t answer, I kill you. If you lie, I kill you. Start with the tattoo on your ankle.”