The woman finished casting a spell, and Ethan saw his opponent heal up in seconds. He groaned, raised his sword, and said, “Well, that is great! Any chance we could talk this through? “ The man in front of Ethan did not answer but charged instead, as the woman behind him called out, “Clay, wait!”

The man, Clay, did not wait and pressed on with his attack, uncaring about sustaining damage, putting Ethan on the back foot. Again, Ethan saw the man’s conviction as he landed a flurry of attacks on him, inflicting more cuts on his arms and torso. While the cuts were superficial, they still stung and piled on Ethan. It was a matter of time before they would immobilize Ethan.

Then the man surprised Ethan and vanished momentarily before appearing on Ethan’s right, cutting at his neck. Ethan reacted instinctually and tried to avoid the slash, slightly ducking, not seeing the cliff behind him. But, as luck would have it, him not being the luckiest person, Ethan slipped on a patch of wet grass and lost his balance. He flailed his arms around momentarily before falling backward toward the raging river below.

- - -

Clay watched as the huge, bloodied brute screamed and fell to his death. The river below was enough to kill any apprentice rank fighter with water-related aspects. Then, just as he was about to turn around and smile at his victory, he felt a blow land at the back of his head, making him stumble forward.

“What the hell was that for, Elsa?” he asked his one and only teammate, who also happened to be the woman who saved his skin. Again, in the last ten minutes.

“What do you mean?” she asked, hands on her hips. “I asked you to stop. And what do you do? You charge ahead! Now, look what we do we have. A civilian dead!”

“What civilian?” he asked, not understanding the problem. For Clay, the fight had ended as he had expected. He succeeded in finding and slaying another of the wretched sect members plaguing the region, contributing to the battle and his pay for the Guild contract.

“The guy that fell off this cliff?” she exclaimed, waving her hands toward where Ethan had been just a moment ago. “Did he look like any of the zealots around here?” she asked, pointing to the loud battle behind them.

Clay shrugged and asked, after looking back at the river below, not seeing a body come up, ”And? Why does it matter? One less sect cunt to take care of later.”

That earned him another smack on the head from Elsa. She continued, “Because! I am the team leader, and we talked about this! You agreed to at least listen before making important decisions. We need to work on team dynamics, and I mean discuss the tactics before you dash off without a word, try to kill things, and hope I catch up with you on time to heal you up.”

Elsa looked around them. Their guilder counterparts were still fighting, although mopping up the stragglers, while others were clearing up the gruesome ritual site around them. She sighed before continuing, “Besides, did you not evaluate the guy? The aspect he was using, or more importantly, the fact that he was not using any spells at all? Even the simplest initiates of the sect had more aspects in their repertoire than that guy!”

“Yea, I did. He managed to land a few cuts, the shit. Scary mother fucker as well. Did you see how huge he was? And those arms?” Clay asked calmly, not caring in the slightest at the ire his teammate was displaying.

Elsa sighed, tired of arguing with him. The man sometimes did not see anything besides what was right before him. “Not that, you dumbass. He was not from around here. The pictures he had on his arms? The bulk? He was either from the southern plains or somewhere else. Not your usual sect member. ”

Clay shrugged again, saying nothing as he observed the fight behind them, noting that the rest of the gathered guilders were moping things up nicely. Even their master rank leader was finishing his battle with his sect counterpart, clashing with spells in the distance, setting the forest on fire.

“Still, scary fucker,” Clay said and sat down, checking himself for injuries and storing his daggers. “Wait, where is his sword?” he asked, looking around and earning another smack from the healer, who was about to depart to check on the captives.

- - -

Elsa Ainsworth looked at her team member, the only rogue she could find in the forsaken town of Veer, and sighed. Unwilling to educate the man further, she turned on her heel and walked off to report to their guilder counterparts. She was a healer, after all, and wanted to help heal the captives they had come to liberate.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Since running away from the capital and her father six months ago, she did not have the wildest idea it would be so hard. The north was anything but what she had read in the books in her family’s library, as more challenges popped up daily. This expedition she was on now just being the latest one of them.

Over-saturated mana, spewing beasts of various ranks, drunken nobility, refusing to take charge and responsibility, and disorganized guilders, without their grandmaster leader. In short - utter chaos welcomed her in the north, in the town of Veer.

Everything was a huge mess. A mess that her father had warned her about before she decided to rebel and run away from the arranged marriage she did not want to hear about not bothering to evaluate the husband-to-be.

The road to Veer was long and arduous, spewing multiple monsters at their caravan with other guilders guarding it. She swore to her father that she would rather become a respected guilder in the wild north than marry some asshat of a prince they had found for her. Her sisters could take care of that, after all. She was not the only princess the kingdom of Hersis had.

All she had to do for her father to leave her alone was form a good team and train them using the arts and strategies taught to her early by a long line of tutors. Once that was done, she would gain the reputation of a well-known and capable team, enabling her to get her father off her back. However, even the first step proved impossible once she arrived in Veer, as the place had only one thing in common with the capital - too many nobles and not much work being done.

She was lucky to have found Clay, a suspiciously good rogue, unlike others she had interviewed in these parts. But, of course, it was not the only problem she encountered. The tokens she had taken to pay her way to Veer were running out, and there were no easy means to get more. Moreover, she was unwilling to flaunt her status as the royal princess and prove her father right - that it was all she was. No, she would rather die than fail and prove her father right and chose to continue to pose as a novice guilder.

That was why the only way forward was to sign up for the large mission the guilder’s hall had posted in recent days. Some raid one a forsaken castle in the middle of nowhere, north of Veer. A simple task, really, by all accounts, besides the fact that the people meeting them were no mere bandits to be exterminated but the goddamn sect of some newfound god.

Elsa's mood had soured when she reached one of the tents erected at the side of the vile summoning diagram. She stopped at the diagram coated in blood, fresh from the victims stuffed away in the cages, and observed the people her fellow guilders were liberating. She frowned, seeing that there were three dead for every soul saved.

She approached one of the team leaders and asked, “Need a hand here?” The man looked at her, noting her white healer’s garb, and nodded, pointing to the disheveled victims sitting next to the tent, unwilling to look at the dead bodies being dragged out and collected from the iron cages.

She started checking the people sitting on the ground, dressed in rags, noting they were covered in blood, likely from their peers. They did not meet her gaze, only staring ahead or down at the ground, mumbling something unintelligible, clutching their knees.

She gritted her teeth and started healing one person after another, cursing herself silently. What type of animals can do something like this to another person? They were just ordinary people trying to survive up here in the north, she thought, biting her lip.

As she went over the victims, she saw that most of the survivors were without wounds, just malnourished and tired. There was little I could do here. Some hero I am. A joke, really. I could not even form my team properly before coming here, she admonished herself silently.

After checking the captives, she returned to the man who freed the people she healed and reported her findings. He listened to her report, thanked her, and waved her off. The guilders in the north were different from those in the capital, after all. All business, no fuss while they were sober. They did the work while the nobles slouched about back in Veer, happy that enough taxes were paid each month for the time being.

Elsa looked around the site and noted that the matters were handled well. The master rank sect leader was defeated if the silence from the now burning forest was an indicator. The on-site teams dealt with the situation like a well-oiled machine, rounding up captives for interrogation in an array that suppressed their aspect powers, cutting off their only source of bravery.

She sighed, sat by one of the empty cages, and looked at the sky, wondering if this was what she wanted. To see the suffering, unable to prevent any of it. She closed her eyes briefly, lost in her thoughts, until Clay silently appeared beside her.

“Elsa, listen,” he started, “I am sorry. You are right. I should have waited and consulted with you.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, seeing a candid look on his slightly scarred face. “I know, Clay. Thank you. Let’s do that next time,” she said, remembering the disheveled and bloodied man and the scared expression in his silver eyes once they had caught up to him.

She knew from the moment she saw him hiding in the tunnel next to the diagram that he was not part of things here. One more soul I could not save, she thought and sighed.

“What?” he asked.

“You really should not have pushed that man off the cliff,” she said, standing up, unwilling to confront her feelings in the middle of a battlefield. Instead, she turned on her heel and started walking to where the leadership was converging.