Gilbert was strongly against getting mixed in with the commander and his business. Adventurers were supposed to stay neutral in political matters, and he had found it easier to do by simply not getting involved. But Emilia was a priestess first and adventurer second, so when an opportunity to spread the word and do some good came around, she couldn’t be talked out from doing it. So with a groan Gilbert caved in and agreed to the commander’s suggestion.

“Brilliant! Just follow us to the camp over there.” Commander Valza said and pointed towards a few pillars of smoke in the distance.

Gilbert intentionally slowed down the party a bit to get out of the soldiers’ earshot. “They seem alright, but don’t let your guard down. When we get to the camp, I’ll stick with Emilia and King will look after Anastacia, okay?” He said while keeping an eye on the men ahead of them.

“Why do I need to be looked after?!” Anastacia objected.

The party leader hushed her. “Because you’re naïve and I trust the simulacrum to keep you safe more than I trust you to do that.” He pointed out and started to increase their walking pace to catch up with the riders. “Oh, and if you find trouble, mention goblins in some context so we know to bail out, we’ll do the same. King, you clap three times as a signal.”

The soldiers steered their mounts off the road to a small path that ran through the forest. It was barely traversable by horse, even after they had cleared most of the roots off it. The party followed them and soon enough they came to an edge of a clearing; spread around it were roughly fifty soldiers and a few large tents. The commander jumped off his horse and gave it to one of the soldiers.

“Sorry if the mood is a bit gloomy, things haven’t exactly gone well recently. Hopefully they’ll cheer up when they see you.” He apologized and offered his hand to Gilbert. “I’ve already introduced myself, how about you tell me who you are?”

Gilbert shook the commander’s hand while squeezing it with a little more force than was needed. “The name is Gilbert; the ladies are Anastacia and Emilia and the simulacrum is called King.” He introduced everyone and Anton went around shaking hands with them.

“Are you on a family trip or something?” Anton asked, very clearly trying to get even a bit more information on his guests. “I must say, you’re punching above your weight, my friend.” He laughed.

“You have no idea.” Gilbert chuckled. He had no intention to say anything more than what was absolutely necessary.

Led by Anton, they walked through the camp, no doubt so that the soldiers could see the priestess. Looking completely spent and hopeless, a few of the soldiers gazed at the party, but quickly returned to their sulking around the barely lit campfires. At first Anastacia wondered if they were running low on supplies, but that didn’t seem to be the case, as the soldiers seemed to have plenty of meals that had barely been touched. Whatever it was, the situation was obviously dire. Most of the army consisted of humans and orcs, but there were a few men from beast races and at least two elves. Anastacia didn’t know much about the subject, but apparently it was somewhat rare to see an army consisting of more than one or two races and usually it suggested that there were some mercenaries in the mix, but they would have already fled if things were going south.

They stopped in front of a closed tent and the commander turned to Emilia. “Here’s where we keep the injured… the ones that have a chance to pull through at least…” He said and lost his cheery mood for a bit. “Go on inside and do what you can; the medical supplies are in the back.”

Emilia headed inside and Gilbert followed her, but as Anastacia was about to enter, Gilbert pushed her out. “You don’t need to see this, just stay there and wait.” He said and closed the tent again.

Anastacia figured that he was probably right, and on a second thought, wasn’t quite sure why she even wanted to go inside in the first place. Not that standing outside and slowly gathering more and more looks from the hopeless soldiers was that much better.

“Would you like a snack or something?” Anton suggested suddenly.

“I… I could go for a coffee.” Anastacia responded. Not having to stare at the miserable ranks would have been great too, but she stopped herself from saying that.

Anton took her to the commander’s tent that was placed by the end of the camp, so that you could see the crestfallen army in its entirety from it. He told one of the guards to get some coffee for Anastacia and himself, and sat down next to a table with a large map of the area spread on it. A second chair was fetched so Anastacia could sit down too.

“Why is everyone so down?” She asked to break the silence.

“Well you see, unless there’s a miracle, we’ll all be dead within a week.” Anton said bluntly. “Four days ago, my superior and I came here with one hundred and twelve men. We were expected to hold the area against a minor attack, but that minor attack turned out to be around five hundred men, including a group of mages.” He explained and laughed at his own misery. “We lost about half of our strength right then and there, including my superior. Now we’re pretty much just waiting for them to come and finish us off.”

The situation was considerably direr than what Anastacia had imagined. “Why don’t you just flee?” She suggested.

“Ours is not a gentle lord. If we go back, we’ll be executed. If we disappear, it will be our families who pay.” He replied, obviously having already gone through every possible course of action in his head. “This is our lot in life, hopefully yours is better. I actually feel slightly bad, having dragged you here when there’s a chance of an attack, but I have to do something so those men don’t have to spend their last days in pain.”

Anastacia bit her lip and repeated Gilbert’s advice about not getting involved in her head, over and over again. If she and her party were to intervene, they could probably even the odds or even win if they went all out and could choose the grounds for the battle. If Coquelicot was still with them, the battle would be over before anyone even noticed there was one. It felt unreal that all these people would have to die, when the whole matter could be solved by two necromancers.

Anton noticed that the girl was holding back something. “I know what you’re thinking. You can’t help us, and you shouldn’t either. If you had come across the enemy camp, they would have told you how our side started this mess and you’d feel like you should help them.” He pointed out, and was more than likely right.

They drank their coffees in the awkward silence. Anastacia hoped her friends would come and get her soon. King had followed her to the tent and was now standing next to a guard, making him slightly uncomfortable. Anastacia was so used to his presence that she had almost forgotten that people are usually afraid of simulacra. She asked for him to move a bit further away to spare the guard’s nerves.

“If you’re done with your drink, would you like to take a look around the supply tent? You can pretty much take whatever you want, they’re not going to help us anyway.” Anton asked.

Anastacia nodded. She wasn’t entirely comfortable taking stuff from people who were already miserable, but maybe being able to help her would improve Anton’s mood a bit.

Maybe it was because Anastacia now knew the truth or simply because he couldn’t keep the act up, the commander had been slowly losing his smiley attitude. But for his troops, he had to put on a brave face before they left the tent.

As Anastacia followed him through the camp, she could pick up on some chatter. The soldiers seemed to be wondering who she was. Without giving it much thought, she just waved whenever she noticed someone was staring at her. The supply tent was in the corner of the camp and some opened crates and barrels with varying contents were spread around it. Despite the hopeless situation, they were well stocked. Whoever organized the campaign really wasn’t expecting for them to be overwhelmed like this. Inside the tent, there were an enormous number of spare weaponry; spears, swords, bows and even a few halberds were neatly tucked away in crates. Anastacia compared her weapons to them but decided against changing, since the differences in quality between weapons made for adventurers and ones mass produced for an army were obvious. She did however grab a quiver and some arrows. There were also some kettles, cups and other cooking supplies, but Gilbert and Emilia had made sure they had everything they needed for that. Just so she wouldn’t seem ungrateful, Anastacia took a whetstone and a small bottle of oil. Apparently weapons needed oiling every now and then to not rust, but taking care of her gear wasn’t something Anastacia had put much thought into. She also gave a piece of rope to King, just in case. The one Gilbert had looked old and frayed, and it’s not like a second rope would hurt anyone.

As she was going through some more boxes, three soldiers, two humans and an orc entered the tent. They looked tired like everyone else, but on top of that, they seemed nervous.

“Hey, Anton… Who’s that girl you’re escorting around the camp?” One of the humans asked and pointed at Anastacia.

The commander straightened his pose and stepped between his men and the girl. “Just some travelers we met on the road. Why do you ask?” He asked, even though he could already guess what it was about.

“Well, the boys and I were thinking she must be some kind of noble with the way you’re looking after her.” The soldier explained. “So what if we took her as hostage? We could trade it for our families and then we could move somewhere else and start a new life there.”

“Your cowardliness saddens me. She’s no nobility or anything like that. Now leave us!” Anton commanded the men.

“Figured you’d say that. We’re sorry Sir, but we just don’t believe you.” The soldier said and drew his sword. The other two followed his example. “Just hand her over and we’ll leave the camp.”

King immediately sprang into action, he dropped the items Anastacia had given for him to carry and punched the nearest soldier in the head, sending him flying at the orc. Anastacia hoped that the cracking noise wasn’t the soldier’s neck. The soldier who had drawn his sword first, quickly noticed his weakening position in the fight and lunged at his commander in desperation. Anton was looking for a peaceful solution and hadn’t drawn his sword. He barely managed to dodge the blade but was knocked down against some crates. The soldier turned to Anastacia, who was more worried about Anton and the knocked-out soldier’s condition than about the one who threatened her with a sword.

“Tell the… thing to back off and come with me so no one gets hurt!” The soldier commanded and grabbed Anastacia’s arm. But to his surprise, he wasn’t able to move her. Not because Anastacia resisted, but because his own hand wouldn’t move. “What the fuck?!” He said before the rest of his body shared the same fate.

Anastacia calmly walked past him to check on the other soldier. King had pulled out the slab of metal he used as a sword and pointed it at the orc, who obviously had given up on the plan and held his hands up.

“Well, at least he’s not dead.” Anastacia said and tried her best to drag the soldier into a better position.

Anton had gotten up and was holding his back, as it had hit a corner of a crate pretty badly. “What are you?” He asked from Anastacia and touched the frozen soldier with the pommel of his sword.

“A lot of things these days. He’ll be free once I’m far enough away.” She answered while picking up the items King had dropped. “Guys, I know you’re desperate and that makes people do all kinds of stuff. I won’t hold this against you. But I have to say this was a terrible plan.”

Anton disarmed the three men and ordered the only unharmed one to leave without saying a word to anyone. “Anastacia, I think you and your friends should probably leave. I’ll handle the situation here.” He suggested.

Anastacia agreed and thanked the commander for his hospitality. With King in tow, she left the tent and ran to look for her friends.

Emilia had been busy utilizing all her medical knowledge on top of some healing prayers. The wounded soldiers were pretty far from ‘a bit banged up’, but they should pull through. She wiped her forehead on her sleeve and took a sip of water.

“We done here? Anastacia is probably already in trouble.” Gilbert joked.

“Yeah, nothing more I can do now. Maybe I could hold a speech for the rest of them, maybe a few would consider worshipping My Lady…” The priestess wondered. “The bandage cloth they have here is of pretty high quality. I hope they don’t mind if I pocket a few rolls…”

As they were looking for medical supplies to take with them, Anastacia poked her head through the gap between the tent flaps and shouted. “The goblins are on fire again!”

The party quickly gathered their gear and disappeared into the woods.