Elise tugged at Elrick’s arm.

“Can you hear me?”

She was crouched down beside him, her shoulder pressing against his. She was covered in leaves, and her face was caked with dirt. The dried dirt and mud cracked as she scowled at him.

He could hear her. He could still see in the darkness.

No. The sun had come up already.

His heightened senses were entirely gone. His bones were tired, and his stomach was a pit. He didn’t crave human blood anymore. He craved food. And water.

They were being hunted, and it was light out now.

“Did they give up on us?” Elrick asked.

“Something happened,” she said, “just at dawn.”

She was speaking in a low whisper. Elrick matched her volume.

“What?” he asked.

He was covered in leaves too. She’d covered them both. He brought a finger to his face, careful not to move the leaves covering them too much. It was caked with mud just like Elise’s.

“I covered our scent with a potion, but they tracked the scent of the potions I stole. And you were too heavy to move.”

She could have just abandoned him and saved herself, but she’d buried him in leaves and covered him in dirt. She’d stuck with him.

He saw and heard nothing and no one. No sounds of horses, and no shouts of men. He was no longer a Drinker, but still, if they came close enough, he’d hear them.

“They were almost on us, Elrick,” she said. “I almost did it.”

“Did what?”

She didn’t meet his eyes. “I almost...fed you. I would have rather died than be taken back there, and if I was going to die, I wanted you to kill them all for me.”

“You didn’t feed me though,” he said. “Speaking of, do you have any bread, dried meat, anything?”

It wasn’t bread that she’d almost fed him. There was still a trace of longing for fresh blood, and for the flood of life he would feel as he drank it down.

She handed him a piece of meat that looked like it was dry-seasoned in dirt and mud. “You probably want to wipe it off a bit.”

“Just as I decided to offer my blood to you--when they were just on top of us,” she said. “The alchemists started dying.”

Elrick chewed the jerky, spitting out gristly pieces of dirt as they ground against his teeth.

“I just hid here,” she said. “I heard people dying, shouting, horses running away. Then a man spoke. He called himself the Black Knight. He said he owned this forest, and he wanted tribute. One of the master alchemists was there, a real by-the-book asshole, Jarruk. I recognized his voice when he refused the Black Knight’s offer. He just explained that they were ‘of the Guild,’ and should not be touched, and that Guild Alchemists pay no tribute to highwaymen.”

“How’d that work out for him?” Elrick asked.

“It didn’t,” she said. “The Black Knight slaughtered all of them save for one. An apprentice, younger than me. Told him to tell the Guild what happened, and to stay out of the Black Knight’s forest.”

“Lucky break for us,” Elrick said.

“We’re still in the Black Knight’s forest,” she said. “Pretty deep in. Some of them came back on patrol in the middle of the night. He must have a lot of men. I think they’re searching for survivors.”

“So how do we get out of here?”

“I think we have to wait until dark. We’ll never make it out in broad daylight.”

Elrick eyed the sky. He’d been in this world with no clocks or phones or computers long enough to be able to read the sun. It was barely past dawn.

“It will be like camping,” Elrick said.

“We should stay silent,” she hissed at him. “Speak only of what is necessary.”

He hadn’t been in this world long enough to be able to lie buried in foliage for ten hours— perfectly still and silent—without being bored out of his mind. And what if one of them had to pee?

“Do you still have your satchel?” Elrick asked.

“I buried it in case they could track the scent of it. Neither the alchemists or the Black Knight found it.”

“Can you find it?”

“I’m not sure,” she said.

“Would whatever’s left in it help us at all?”

She nodded with her eyes, careful not to rustle the leaves.

“We should try to find it then.”

“I have your sword. It’s buried between us. How skilled are you with it?”

Elrick checked his HUD. 56.9. It wasn’t very good. He’d been focusing so heavily on Coppersmithing that his combat skills had lagged behind. Now that he was being hunted by someone called “The Black Knight,” he’d gladly have traded away all of his Coppersmithing skill for more Swordsmanship.

“I’m skilled enough to take down those who are not skilled,” he said.

“Great,” she said. “Let’s just hope that a professional band of highwaymen who have managed to take over this entire forest are ‘not skilled.’”

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“That’s why I said we should go get your bag,” Elrick whispered.

“So even if you snuck up on one, alone, you couldn’t take him down?” she asked.

“I could!” he said, his voice coming out much more whiny and defensively than he meant it to. “I’m good at Coppersmithing, and Mining, and—”

“Mining! Can you dig us a tunnel out of here and into the city?”

He didn’t bother answering the obviously rhetorical question. Maybe it would be better to wait for the sun to set in silence.

After at least an hour, he felt her elbow him beneath the pile of detritus. “How did you get sent?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you enter the tower? Why did you seek my master?”

Great. Another conversation topic that would make him look like a total dumbass.

“Why did you get stuck there?” Elrick asked. “Why couldn’t you leave like other apprentices?”

He’d never been with a girl long enough to know for certain, but offense was the best defense in a wide variety of situations. It must work with women too.

She snorted and shut up. His gambit had worked like a charm.

Another hour or two passed, when the sound of laughter pierced the silence of the woods. Elise tensed up, burrowing deeper down into the leaves. She pressed her face down, sinking into the foliage. Elrick did the same.

Your Skill in Stealth has increased by 0.2. It is now 52.5.

“Doubt it,” A man’s deep voice rumbled.

“I bet you five gold!” A raspy voice answered.

“Nah, not betting you.”

They stopped talking, but the sound of a horse snorting told Elrick that they were a bit closer.

“I bet you ten,” the raspy voice said.

“Fuck it,” the deep voice said. “Let’s fuck off with the rest of this patrol and head back early.”

“And you’ll take the bet?”

“If we can fuck off right now. I got a blister on my toe, don’t wanna walk a step further.”

“Yeah, yeah!” He laughed like a hyena. A hyena that was getting further away. Thank God.

Elise and Elrick lay there perfectly still, neither daring to look up or move a muscle. He had to pee, he realized. He had started needing to a little bit before the men had come by, but the adrenaline spike from them coming so close, and this horrible, unbearable waiting had made it so much worse. He could just piss his pants. This was a world where hygiene was not exactly as developed as on Earth. People probably pissed their pants all the time. Well, they probably didn’t piss their pants all the time, but when they did it was probably more acceptable than it would have been on Earth. But there was a girl right next to him. She was even downhill from him a little bit. He wasn’t going to piss on a girl.

Elrick couldn’t even see the sun to know how much time passed, but after what must have been well over an hour, he heard Elise rustle beside him.

He poked his head up, and saw her dirt-covered face furrowing her brows at him.

“You must have messed up pretty bad,” she said.

She wasn’t going to let it go, was she?

Offense.

“I figure you blew up an entire lab,” Elrick said. “Or maybe you blew up one of the other apprentices? I mean before you blew up Eadmon’s lab.”

Probably two more hours until dark. He couldn’t hold the piss in for two hours, could he? It would only take him a minute to get up, piss, and get back in cover. Well, it might take longer if he wanted to piss out of range of Elise being able to hear.

“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand,” she said.

Fuck it. He’d tell her. He needed to do anything to keep his mind off the pressure in his bladder. There was a good chance they were both going to die trying to escape this forest, he might as well give her the story.

“I thought with my dick,” he said.

“Arch Master Typhon taught us that all thoughts form in the heart.”

Was she being naive, or just making fun of him?

“It was my dick,” he said. “I didn’t love this woman.”

He thought he heard her snicker, but they were both keeping their voices as low as possible.

“So it was for a woman?”

“I’m an apprentice, like you. Well, not like you, because I wouldn’t have killed my master.”

“More things you don’t understand.”

“Then tell me after I tell you, and maybe I’ll finally understand.”

That got no answer.

“Anyway,” Elrick said. “My master is great at making swords and armor, but not so good at selling them. He tried to dump the whole selling part onto me, and…”

He told the story, dragging it out as long as he could. It wasn’t so much that he wanted to entertain her, or tell it in as much detail as possible, he just wanted to kill as much time as he could, hoping the sun would go down before he pissed all over both of them.

When he finished, she said nothing.

He waited a minute or two for her to say something. Anything. He’d expected her to make fun of him, call him an idiot, or any number of insults. He’d spared some of the most embarrassing details, like how he’d gotten a boner when Taalia had pressed up against him, but he’d definitely made himself sound like a gullible and horny dumbass.

“Well?” he asked.

“What did she smell like?”

What the hell kind of question was that?

“The woman who tricked you,” Elise said.

He’d known who she meant.

“Taalia,” he said. “I don’t know. She smelled good, like I said. That’s part of what got me thinking with my dick.”

“So her smell caused you to rise?”

He considered ignoring her question, but that left him to focus on his poor kidneys.

“No, not just her smell. You wouldn’t understand. Women are better at resisting this kind of thing than men.”

“I do understand,” she said. “So this woman was very beautiful?”

“Yes,” he said, hoping she didn’t ask for exact details, measurements, cup size…

“How do I compare to her?” Elise asked.

“She was a very mature woman,” Elrick said. “She had certain advantages in that department.”

“Forget it,” Elise said, turning her head so he could see only her matted hair.

“You look fine,” he said, “I mean, I wasn’t saying the thing I just said to compare Taallia to you. Not at all. I wasn’t even thinking of you like that! Not to say you don’t look good. And you saved my life with that pig’s blood, so I am currently a big fan of you. Anyway, you don’t look bad. If you get all the dirt and stuff off, and do something with your hair, and—”

“Shut up,” she said. “I don’t need to know. Consider my original question revoked. We’ll not speak of this ever again.”

“Good by me,” he said. “Elise, how long until we make a run for it?”

“We should wait until a good while after dark,” she said. “They’ll get lazier on their patrols as the night goes on. Still, to be safe, we should wait until deep in the night before we move.”

Okay, that settled it. He couldn’t wait so long to piss. He might as well do it now.

“I have to pee”

“Hold it,” she said.

“I’ve been holding it for half a day. There is no more holding it.”

“Then release it,” she said.

He’d gotten a lay of the land already. He’d thought this through. She was—very unfortunately for both of them—slightly downhill of him. Even if he wriggled himself to face away from her and let it rip, it would flow downhill, right into her. There was no way he could do it in a way that she wouldn’t feel it.

“I can’t,” he said. “I just can’t do that to you.”

She met his eyes, and he saw them roll down along the slope. Her mouth hung open, then she bit her lip and shook her head.

“It’s too risky for you to get up,” she said. “I’m already soiled in blood. If you really can’t hold it, then…”

No. No. He dug his elbows into the ground and pushed himself forward, slithering out of the cover. He would not piss on a girl, no matter how dirty she already was. That is not what he came into this world and this second chance to do.

“Elrick!” she hissed.

He army-crawled forward, staying low to the ground. He moved like an injured crocodile toward the nearest tree. He shot his eyes from side to side as he moved, ready to dive back for cover if he saw a horse—or any movement at all.

Your Skill in Stealth has increased by 0.1, it is now 52.6.

He saw nothing coming for him.

Elise glared at him silently from cover, but she didn’t dare move.

He got on the other side of a tree so she wouldn’t see him—and hopefully wouldn’t hear him too clearly—and let loose.

God, it felt good. He closed his eyes as the ache in his bladder and kidneys leaked out onto the tree. He’d never had sex, but this release must have felt pretty close to it. It felt like he peed forever. He’d pissed for a full minute, and he still had plenty of gas left in the tank.

He couldn’t see Elise. Still, he could feel her glare on him through the tree. He was taking too long, but it wasn’t like he could have just turned off the faucet mid-stream and saved the rest for later. It all needed to come out.

“Caught you with your pants down,” a gruff voice said behind him.