“Back up!” yelled Eric from somewhere to their left.
Alexis quickly started shuffling backwards, keeping her shield between her and the troll. She made it about nine feet away before another arrow flew into the troll’s left leg and exploded. It completely separated the leg causing the troll to fall to the ground.
Before the troll had even finished falling over, Regina ran in and started attacking the troll’s left arm.
Alexis saw that the troll was literally regrowing the leg as they watched. Lifting her sword she channeled her runic magic to coat her sword in fire and joined Regina in attacking the troll, focusing on damaging the right arm. Ramiro appeared a moment later and started to stab with duel daggers into the troll’s neck as if he was trying to decapitate it. Eric came in next and jumped onto the troll’s chest, nocked an arrow and released it right into one of the troll’s eyes.
The party spent the next ten minutes chopping the limbs and head off the troll with Alexis using her flaming sword to fight the troll’s natural healing and keep them from growing back. Finally they all received a prompt letting them know it was finished.
Congratulations! You’ve slain a level 10 forest troll.
825 experience awarded.
“Finally,” breathed out Alexis. “Mira, could I get a heal? I’m hurting.”
Mira cautiously stepped out from behind the tree she had been hiding behind. “Are you sure it’s dead?”
“Yeah, didn’t you see the notice?” Ramiro asked.
“No. What notice?”
“The one saying it was dead.”
“I didn’t get that notice. It could be because I never attacked it, though.”
“I thought experience was split between everyone in the party,” Regina said.
“It is, but we didn’t get to party up because you took off,” Mira replied.
“Oh,” Regina said with her eyes downcast.
“Let’s go ahead and party up and just stay that way until there’s a reason to change it.” Ramiro said while sending everyone a party invite. As they each accepted it they gained the ability to see one another’s current health, mana, and stamina.
“Shit Alexis, you’re missing a third of your health!” Eric exclaimed.
“Yeah. It was a bit worse but I’ve been regenerating it while we’ve been talking.”
“I’m so sorry,” Mira exclaimed. “I didn’t know. Here,” Mira said while laying a hand on Alexis’s shoulder and casting a healing spell.
“Thank you. That feels a lot better. I think that troll shook some of my insides loose,” Alexis said with a grin.
Everyone was just standing around looking at various things before glancing to Regina and then looking away; as if they were waiting for something. Regina, for her part, was avoiding eye contact with everyone. After a few moments of silence Ramiro spoke up.
“Let’s go get our horses and get moving. No telling what else is out here.”
As they were walking back toward the horses Alexis thought to herself, “I was right. I do need to get a lot stronger to protect everyone.”
⚶
As the group road toward the town of Arimel, Regina stayed silent. She knew she had messed up. She had let her annoyance with Eric cause her to endanger all of their lives. “Why does he have to be so annoying?” She wondered to herself.
And to make it worse, everyone would side with him. They always did. Regina’s the unstable one. He would blame her and they would believe him. And they were her friends, not his. Ugh, why did he have to come? Why couldn’t she get teleported to a fantasy world without him? And now she was going to have to apologize to everyone. Which was fair. She did endanger them and she was sorry for it. But she was so tired of having to say she was sorry. Normally she’d vent to Arden about Eric but if he found out she had endangered Alexis he’d be pissed, so she couldn’t even talk to her best friend about it.
After riding along for nearly two hours lost in thought Regina felt someone approaching and used her [blindsight] ability to view behind her and saw Alexis coming.
“What’s up Alexis?”
“Just wanted to check on you,” Alexis said. Seeing Regina stiffen, Alexis lead the conversation to a safe topic, “It was the first time we fought a real monster. Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Yeah… that was different. None of our training was against trolls. I wonder what else we’ll run into.”
“Hopefully not the giant worm thing that ate Dakota and Wendell. Even if we could survive, it doesn’t sound fun.”
The pair continued to talk as they rode. Soon Mira joined in, leaving Eric to ride lead and Ramiro as rear guard.
⚶
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In late-afternoon the party exited the forest and began to cross through farmland where corn stalks were already a few feet high. The farmers and their families paid little mind to the group as they road past, all busy with their work.
The party closed ranks and started to talk, getting ready for what lay ahead.
“So what’s the plan? Was there something we were suppose to do here in Arimel or are we just staying the night and going somewhere else tomorrow?” Alexis asked.
“We have one business here to investigate. And the family that owns it, of course,” Eric answered. “Also, our [quest] says we’re suppose to help people in every town we visit.”
“The backstory of us being raised in a dwarven clan is a bit thin,” stated Regina. “But I guess it does give us an excuse not to act elf enough.”
Mira nodded, “We’re going to be looking like tourists anyway. At least that explains why. Let's find an inn and plan to stay two nights. That will let us look around a bit tonight and all day tomorrow.”
While still discussing their plans they came around a curve in the road and saw the town of Arimel. It had a palisade surrounding it and through the open gates the party could see that, unlike in the capitol, not all the buildings were stone. A fair number were of wattle-and-daub construction but it looked like those closer to the center of town were stone. There was a single guard standing near the gate who just nodded as the party road into town. Eric stopped and asked him for a recommendation for an inn.
“There’s not much choice, we only have one inn in Arimel. Just stay on this road, you’ll see it up ahead on the right. Called the Lucky Solider.” The guard replied.
⚶
Mira, Ramiro, and Alexis exited the inn. Regina and Eric could be heard yelling still. They had been fighting for a bit now, and Mira didn’t like it. Regina had apologized for her mistake with the troll and it was obvious that she really was sorry. But Eric couldn’t just accept the apology. Mira didn’t like it when others fought. Eric was so difficult to deal with and Regina just looked for any excuse to yell at him it seemed.
“Where we heading?” asked Ramiro
“Away from those two,” answered Mira. “Was thinking we could just walk the town a bit. Maybe I could heal some folks if anyone needs it.”
“Works for me,” responded Alexis. “I’d go for just finding a place to get a drink and sit for a bit. Maybe do a little people watching and enjoy not hearing folks argue.”
“That doesn’t sound bad either. Let’s keep our eyes open for something as we roam around,” replied Mira. “While it’s just us, Alexis, I’ve been wanting to check on you. You seem to handling things surprisingly well but if you need to talk about anything, I’m here for you.”
Alexis smiled, “Yeah. I think I’ve just been trying to stay busy so I don’t have to think about everything. It’s been an insane few months, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah. I’ve spent a lot of time crying on Ramiro’s shoulder during it. And if you need a shoulder, I’m here for you.”
Alexis didn’t reply right away. This caught her off guard and she did not want to break down in public. After a few breaths she looked over to Mira, “Thank you so much. I’m sure I’ll take you up on that at some point. Right now the biggest thing is that I just miss my dad, you know.”
“You miss him?” said Ramiro in a sarcastic tone. “How do you think I feel, the only other guy I have to talk to is Eric.”
Mira fussed at him for being mean but it did lighten the mood. As they followed the street around a bend they found a small area where several kids were playing. It didn’t look like it was an actual park, but rather just a field that wasn’t being used at the moment. Next to the field was a food cart. They all got some sort of meat pie and some juice to drink. The vendor asked if they had mugs or something to hold the juice and when they said they didn’t he pulled three wooden mugs out and sold them those as well.
They all grabbed a seat on a nearby bench and ate their food while watching the children play. Not much was said until the meat pies were gone, then Alexis broke the silence. “You know what really frustrates me about Regina and Eric?”
“Uh oh, she’s serious if she’s calling Regina by her name,” joked Ramiro.
Alexis just grinned and continued, “After they have a fight they both accuse everyone of siding with the other person. Regina says that Eric makes her seem crazy and that we all believe his lies. Eric says that we all side with Regina no matter what because we were her friends first. And honestly, I usually think they’re both in wrong. It’s just so frustrating!”
Mira laid a comforting hand on Alexis back, “Yeah. And it seems they fight over everything. Honestly I was surprised they got along as well as they did during the last few months while we were training. I had hoped that they were taking the lessons on controlling their emotions to heart and turning over a new leaf. I guess not.”
“I don’t want to be a pessimist, but I don’t see that happening. They’ve been like this for too long. I really don’t know why they’re even together. Eric keeps saying he loves her but then continually lies to her and makes each fight worse because he can’t let anything go. Regina admits that she’s not in love with him but still refuses to leave. Life’s too short to be this unhappy and to make everyone around you unhappy.”
Ramiro looked over at Alexis with appraising eyes, “That’s pretty smart for someone your age. When I was 12 I would have never been able to put that into words.”
Alexis laughed as she pushed him, “I’m 19, not 12!”
⚶
Ramiro waved at the waitress and held up two fingers for another round. Eric didn’t even notice as he continued to spill his heart out.
“You don’t get it. You and Mira have a great relationship. I love Regina but all she does is belittle me, insult me, mock me. I know she loves me but it hurts so much when she tells me that she doesn’t. I just don’t get it. And I know all of you laugh at me behind my back. You’re all her friends. I know you’re going to side with her.”
Ramiro just rolled his eyes as he finished his cup of ale. It was getting late and girls had all gone to bed already. Ramiro knew that Eric needed a chance to vent and he figured the sooner the better. But it had been two hours already and Eric was repeating himself. As the waitress brought two more cups to the table, Eric paused to thank her and Ramiro used that break to jump into the conversation.
“Dude, why do you let Regina treat you like this?”
“I know, you’re going to tell me to leave her just like everyone else.”
“No, I’m going to tell you to stand up to her. Stop letting her just start screaming at you for no reason.”
“But she’s bipolar, she can’t help that.”
“Bullshit. Do you see her screaming at anyone else?”
“No,” Eric admitted.
“Besides that, is she even bipolar here? Aren’t these new bodies healthy? And what about the healing spells that she and Mira both have? She’s had them cast on her plenty of times during our training.”
“Well, didn’t Arden say that the healing spells didn’t work for mental issues?”
“Maybe it does, maybe it don’t. But you gotta stand up for yourself.”
“When I do that it just makes the fights last longer and she gets so mean.”
“Standing up for yourself doesn’t mean stooping to her level and yelling. Just tell her that you’re not going to talk to her until she calms down. Then walk away. Or, hell, just walk away without saying anything. But don’t engage with her. When she’s calm, then you stay calm and work your shit out.”
“I don’t think it’ll work, Ramiro. I’ve tried it before.”
“Well getting your panties in a wad and yelling back isn’t working either. Try it again. Or try something else. But stop getting into screaming matches. We’re all sick of hearing it and we have to work together for quite a while.”
With that Ramiro drained his cup, tossed a silver on the table and then headed to his and Mira’s room.