“Come on, run faster!”

“Shut up, you muscle bound fool, not everyone can run as fast as you!”

“Well then cast a spell or something.”

“I can’t, there’s not enough time to cast a spell with that thing chasing after us. Why don’t you distract it?”

“I broke my sword earlier.”

“Of course, you did. What is this the fifth one?”

“The sixth.”

Two girls rush towards the exit of a dark cavern with stalagmites and stalactites surrounding them dropping water. Behind them, a loud roar echoes across the cavern as loud stomping sounds come out from the behind them. Their muscles ache and their bodies strain as they run along the rocky and wet surface of the cave carefully avoiding falling in their heist.

“It’s getting closer, Lyn, we need to do something.”

“I know Rayne, you don’t have to tell me!” She reaches down and picks up the smaller girl. “I’m going to do it.”

“Wait, the cavern is too small you’re going to scrape up against the ceiling and fall.”

She steels her face and leaps into the air. “We don’t have much of a choice here!”

She stands on the empty air and leaps ahead towards the mouth of the cave as sunlight comes into view. She jumps ahead faster and faster as she approaches the roof with the girl on her back shifting to lower herself and avoid the stalagmites scratching against her.

“Come on!” She yells out.

With a large leap, the pair jumps out of the cavern and fall straight down to the ground smashing hard onto the grass. One lifts and stares ahead gripping her first as a large creature stands at the roaring loudly before retreating inside.

“We got lucky that the dumb thing was territorial.”

“Are you sure, it feels like we lost in the end?”

“Lyndis Mackel!” The shorter of the pair a young girl with a darker skin tone and long green hair, in a black witch’s costume with a large hat, stands tall in front of the other. “We were lucky to avoid meeting our deaths on this day. In fact, what happened to your sword?”

Lyn looks away and rubs the back of her head nervously. “I broke it against a rock.”

“It was a rock this time? That’s the least unimaginable way that you’ve broken your swords yet.”

“Come on Rayne, it wasn’t like last time!” She yells out jumping up in her light armor and her short blue hair swaying as she shakes her head. “I thought I saw a Monere, and I just attacked it, but it turned out to be a rock.”

Rayne sighs exasperatedly from the recent encounter. “Look, you can’t keep doing that. You know what your boss said?”

“If I come back from another foolhardy adventure with a broken sword, then he’s going to take the costs of repairs out of my pay,” Lyn says lowering her head. “What am I gonna do!?”

“Do you at least still have the hilt?”

She reaches back and pulls the hilt of a broken blade out of the sheath on her back. “This is all I have.”

Rayne takes the sword and stares at it. “I might be able to get this fixed.”

“Really!?”

“Yes, I’ll ask Sister Glenn for a favor. She’s been dating one of the blacksmiths in town for about a month now.”

“Do you think she will?”

Rayne smirks. “Oh, she will, she’s supposed to be focusing on her training, not chasing boys around.”

“You Witches have some odd rules.”

“Never mind let’s get going,” Rayne says walking ahead. “Besides you owe me since I lost my staff in there.”

“Your staff? Did you really go in with one?”

Rayne sighs and walks off into the forest. “Alright answer me this, do you really need a sword?”

“Okay, I get it,” Lyn says chasing after her and returning the blade to its sheath. “So, I’m going to need a cool sword to help get us through.”

“And some common sense to tell what’s a rock and what’s not.”

Lyn blushes and looks away. “I thought I was helping, I didn’t want you getting hurt.”

“That’s appreciated,” Rayne says as she slows down her pace. “I can take care of myself, you need to make sure to watch your back though.”

“Fine,” Lyn says with a wide grin. “Looks like I’ll owe you another favor.”

“What’s over a decades’ worth of debt compared to anything else,” Rayne says with a wide grin. “Let’s make out that payment plan that I told you about before.”

“Are you sure I don’t think I can afford it,” Lyn says lowering her head.

The pair walks through the forest as they make their way to the main path through the forest, meeting with a series of carts in a caravan as they start walking along with them. Before long the group arrives in front of a large wall surrounding a large city with the gates open allowing everyone to enter or exit the city.

“Alright, let’s get back home,” Rayne says jokingly.

“I wish we could go on more adventures,” Lyn says dejectedly.

Rayne smiles slightly. “Well we have to pay the bills, somehow don’t we?”