Kita sat and poked the embers, it was a warm night so she didn’t have to keep the fire going. She had a lot of thoughts going around in her head, mostly about Sam as he was a bit weird. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she was sure he hid at least some things about his skills earlier when they talked about theirs. She had been happy to have the opportunity to start a party with Sam, but now she was unsure.

She took a look at Sam, he was sleeping against the tree they had found. He had asked about her Detect Essence skill as if he had never heard about it, which he should have. It was one of the more rare, but well known skills. He then had Mana Control without any practical magic, which was not even possible from what she knew, though she wasn’t sure.

‘He could have lied about it... He was able to take care of the brothers without weapon skill, only Physical Enchant.’ The more she thought about Sam and his skills, the more she was sure that he either lied about his skills or hid a skill.

She awoke from her thoughts by a scream from someone that had camped a bit away. A fire flared up from the directions of the sound. The scream had been chilling and the quiet afterwards felt like piercing.

The whole area had become quiet, if not for the camp fires she would have thought time had stopped.

‘Better use my skill to see what is going on.’ She activated her skill and found more responses than before at the edges of the camp area.

‘Damn, what is going on!’ She crouched down and snucked as fast as she could to Sam. ‘It can only be a raid of sorts… We are near a town so bandits should keep away, that means monsters.’ The thought made her draw her short sword.

‘ I am not sure, but it seems they have us all surrounded… Can’t detect around the whole area. The parts I can detect though, shows that they have placed themself as a net around the camp.’ She put her hand over Sam's mouth so he wouldn’t make a sound as she woke him up.

She pinched his hand, it was rather evil, but it made one clear awake. At this moment they had to be alert and come up with a plan. She didn’t trust that Sam would have an idea how to act, so she had to take the lead.

Sam flickered his eyes open as Kita pinched his skin on his hand. He wanted to scream, but her hand held his mouth shut. He stared at her angrily, not sure what had fallen over her.

“Good, you're awake. Something is going on, maybe a raid, probably monsters.” She whispered close to his face to make sure as little sound was made as possible.

He saw Kita had drawn her sword so he did the same and activated his skills. As he activated his skills, a smell he hadn’t smelt before drifted faintly around. Though it was faintly, it was pungent enough for him to wonder what made it. He hadn’t been able to smell it before, without his skills, but with it he was able to detect it.

“What is going on?” He asked as he tried to get an idea of the situation.

“There was a scream just now, so I used my skill and my skill shows that we are probably surrounded. As I said, probably monsters as we are quite near a bigger town, bandits keep their distance.”

He nodded, ‘if it is monsters, the problem comes to what sort of monsters.’ He thought as he began to understand why she had pinched him, the adrenaline made him clear awake.

“Greenskins!” Someone roared out as a warning as well as a wake up call.

“We are lucky as we didn’t have a noticeable fire going or anything else that marks our location.” Kita quietly said as she turned to look at the direction of the roar.

“They probably haven’t spotted us yet, though their net is tight enough so you can’t sneak through, it seems.”

It was true that he couldn’t, but with her skills, she could probably sneak past. But if she didn’t want to leave him, there wasn’t much they could do other than try not to die while they did their best to help.

A feeling of fear and a bit of adrenaline made Sam’s heart beat hard and rapidly in his chest as his mind started to understand the situation. He couldn’t stop thinking about games and novels and at the sametime fear for his life.

He tried to prepare himself for the inevitable meeting with death, as people and monsters will die near him. The possibility for him and Kita to die didn't go unnoticed in his mind either, a chill ran down his back at the thought. The last fight had been against the brothers, but then he hadn’t had time to think.

“Have you activated your skills? You will be at the front and get their attention and I will try to keep hidden and strike at their backs.” Kita said as she looked into his eyes, they flickered and then she gave him a bit of a slap.

‘She must have guessed what state I was in.’ Sam thought as he tried to get his mind in shape, his Dragon’s Mind helped him a bit.

“Time to work!” Kita said and Sam nodded as he came out from his stupor. His grip hardened around his sword with resolve.

‘Do or die, huh.’ Sam thought and that moment Kita disappeared through the help of her skill.

He breathed out slowly. A whisper of a voice came from behind him as Kita told him where to go and where not to. He sneaked up near the caravan, the guards used the wagons as a makeshift wall. Sam stood there at his hiding spot for a moment, Kita pointing out where he would attack to help the guards. But he didn’t listen, he focused solely on what was in front of him.

‘A orc! A orc! A god damn orc!’ His thoughts tried to keep him from thinking about the dying screams and metal against metal sound he heard. It did it by focusing on the orc.

A shadow moved and a second later a sharp pain at his arm took him out from his once again stupor he was in. This time he had not been lost in fear, but in hysteric concentration over the orc.

He moved fast from the pain and tried to see what had hurt him. There was someone short, at the length of the shopkeeper, where he had been. It held something kind of a dagger.

‘A goblin, first a god damn orc and now a sneaky goblin!’ The wound wasn’t deep and why the goblin hadn’t gone for the kill was passed him, but here they were, eyes locked. The goblins dagger shone in the little light the fires gave.

A moment, a heart beat. A calmness filled his heart and cleared his mind.

The goblin charged forward, it striked out at his chest with its dagger. This time though he was ready and when the goblins dagger closed in, he sidestepped as he had done with the brother. The goblin ran past him with an expression of shock and as the goblin passed him, Sam swung his sword against its back.

He felt how his sword cut into the goblins flesh, how its backbone was in the way to cut any deeper. The goblin squealed from pain and fell to the ground and Sam saw a shadow appear and cleanly cut off its head just moments after the goblin hit the ground.

“Nice move.” The shadow said, the shadow turned and he sighed. It was Kita.

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Kita disappeared again, it wasn’t like she became invisible, but having no essence made one able to look at her without even registering that she stood there. And with the bad light they had and fireplaces that made the shadows flicker, she was truly hard to see.

‘Fuck if I hadn’t seen it was a goblin, the build wasn’t much different from the haflings. Can’t flare out at any shadow or I might kill one of them. Orcs are better, nothing really looks like them and as big as they are, they can’t sneak.’ Sam thought as he did his best not to look at the pool of blood that was beginning to spread from the goblins body. He thanked any and all gods that it was night and the visibility was questionable.

He turned to look for the orc that he had seen before, he found it looking at him too.

“Goblin weak, orc strong! Garr charge human!” His voice bellowed as Sam twitched from the idea to fight something intelligent enough to speak, though badly.

Sam didn’t have time to wallow in the fact as the big orc charged him with it’s club. Sam did the same move as he had done with the goblin and was able to hit the orcs side. The problem was that the orc’s hide was hard and though he was strong he had no real idea how to use a sword. This led to the sword only bouncing on the orc.

“VRA!” The orc roared mighty as he pushed out his chest.

The orcs roar resounded inside Sam and made him shake a little. He tried to keep a watchful eye on his surroundings, but it was easier said than done. But yet no more goblins or other creatures had sneaked up on him while he was occupied by the orc.

The orc took a step forward, it sounded heavy to Sam. Each step the orc took made Sam feel like an ant.

When the orc and Sam were just a few meters from each other, the orc stopped. The smell Sam had smelt before was much stronger and Sam knew the smell now, it was the smell of orc!

They stared at each other, none said a thing, both knew who would win. That would be the orc, The orc was far stronger than Sam. It didn’t change the fact he had to fight it!

The orc moved, ready to swing it’s club at Sam. Sam himself put his short sword in a position to stab with it. Somewhere in his mind a voice told him that it was smarter to move as close to the orc he could. He strode far into the orc’s reaches as he watched the club swing down. For Sam the time moved slowly, though so did he with it. The fear gripped his heart, but his body didn’t care as it moved forward.

He stabbed out at the orcs face and hit just under the chin. The sword pierced the orcs skin and blood flushed out from its mouth and the stab wound.

At the same time the club came down hard, but the orc jerked away from the pain. The club missed Sam’s head, but hit his shoulder instead. Sam was lucky as he was close to the orc, when he was hit. That mitigated some of the force, but he could still feel his collarbone crack and break as he went flying.

He lost consciousness as he landed on the ground.

Kita saw Sam hit the ground as she was just behind the orc. The moment the orc hit Sam, she jumped up on its back to stab a knife through one of its eyes. She nearly missed, from the yerk the orc did, but the knife did hit its target. She put all her strength in pushing the knife farther into its brain.

“Gua!” The orc roared out, this time in pain instead of a show of might.

The orc flung its club around in rage, but Kita was able to not get hit as she clinged on its back. Kita felt the knife glide bit by bit farther in and one last effort got it all inside. The orc stopped moving and then fell forward, it hit the ground with a heavy stud.

She breathed out and rolled off the orc. She lay there a moment, only to register through her skill that Sam and her were not alone. Three reactions were sneaking closer and only around fifteen meters away from them.

She quickly moved over to Sam, she had to protect him as he still was unconscious.

‘Fuck, I can only handle one goblin at best. Three is not possible!’ She thought as she saw them.

They grinned at her, and from the few words they said, she knew they wouldn’t let her just die. Greenskins were hated by all as they breed through other races. The belief was that women didn't exist in those races.

Greenskins was not a race, by itself, but a classification of monster races that had the intelligence to understand language. Though often very rudimentary at best, neither had all the races greenskin that were associated with Greenskins.

The goblins eagerly closed the last few meters, but as they got ready to jump her. A light source flared up on top of one of the carriages. A moment later, three small fires shot from the light source towards the goblins. The small fires moved so fast that their flames seemed to burn sideways.

From the time Kita saw the fires shoot out from the light source, to them hitting each goblin was just a blink of the eye. They hit each goblin in the chest and flared up, it turned their chests to char. They didn’t die at once, but they were rendered harmless.

Kita moved as fast as she could and severed their heads with her short sword. Just like she had done with goblin Sam had managed to take down. The blood spurted out from their necks and was building three large pools of blood.

The first time she had fought and killed she had puked and been ill for days afterwards. Now, a few years later from her first time. She was no longer as bothered by it as she was then.

When she had finished off the goblins she went back to Sam. Her skill showed that the raiders were drawing back from the camp area, as well as pointing out that whoever made the light source was heading their way.

Kita went down to her knees as she began checking Sam. He was still alive, but his left shoulder was smashed. The potions she had bought were not able to heal his shoulder at all and the cost to get it healed was not gonna be cheap either.

She sighed as she turned to the person that had just arrived. “Hello, can I help you?” Kita said.

It was a woman around her fifties maybe. She was quite well dressed for a normal traveler, but she had come from the caravan so she could have paid to get a seat.

‘If she is the one that used the magic before, I have to thank her!’ Kita thought.

“Well, the Greenskins are receding, so I thought I should help where I can!” The woman said with a clear voice.

“I saw the man there got hit badly as he fought the orc.” She continued. “Can I see him? I may not be the best at healing, but I can do some things.”

Kita opened her mouth, she was about to decline as the cost for such a thing would be severe.

“Don’t worry, I understand that neither you or him can pay.” Kita looked at the woman with questioning eyes as she continued.

“Let’s say that it is my pay to you as you helped in the fight, hmm?” The woman said like the deal was already made.

“I take it.” Sam said.

Kita jumped as she had missed that Sam had woken up from his unconscious state. His face distorted in pain. Kita looked him over, there was nothing she could do for him as it were.

“Ok then, be still and I will do what I can do.” The woman said to Sam.

She sat down beside Sam and Kita and put a hand on Sam’s head. A moment later, Sam's whole body began to light up, the dim light began to wander over his body toward his shoulder. In the end, it was just concentrated on his shoulder and glowed quite bright.

Kita could see Sam’s shoulder slowly turn back to a more normal state. She couldn’t stop wondering how that would feel, she had been badly wounded and used potions. But never had she needed to fix such a big crush wound.

When it looked like Sam’s body was restored and the woman had to be done healing him. She didn’t take her hand away from his head at first. Kita saw the woman looked a bit thoughtful, something had piqued her interest. But then she took her hand off, like she just now remembered it was still on Sam’s head.

She stood up as did Kita, they looked at each other for a moment. The woman nodded in a way that Kita took as a que to follow her. They walked just far enough that Sam wouldn’t hear them.

“You are his teammate, dear?” She asked Kita, as she looked up to the star filled sky.

“Yea, as of now, it is only him and me, we just started the party.” Kita said as she too looked up.

“Well I guess he hasn’t told you much, right?” The woman turned her head to lock eyes with her.

“No, he hasn't, what do you know?” Kita said as she felt a bit irritated that this unknown woman seemed to know something about Sam, that she didn’t.

The woman let out a light laugh as she turned back to the sky.

“Don’t worry, I am a bit interested, but I'd rather be a client to the two of you later, than become enemies now.”

Kita looked at Sam lying on the ground, something was going on with him! And this woman surely knew what too.

“A tip from me though dear, don’t leave the party because he keeps a secret. You will win in the long run, that I can guarantee! Oh, and my name is Christine Dal’heart by the way. If you two need any help, seek me out. Any guild should know how to get in contact with me.”

Christine winked at her and then began walking away, Kita sighed as she thought about what Chrisine had said. She knew Dal’heart was a renowned family of magicians, but why would one of them travel in a simple caravan at the border cities? Why would she be interested in Sam? She didn’t know. Only that she would listen to the advice and wait on Sam telling her the truth.