----------------------------------------

When Calaf next came to his senses, he was looking up at a jagged and low-hanging stucco ceiling. He wasn’t in the cave anymore, for sure.

It still hurt to stretch and strain his neck. He hazarded a look down at his shoulder. The blade was gone. And there was hardly even a scar.

“You took quite the hit there. Worry not, you’re safe now, young faithful.”

This voice sounded… kind. Perhaps motherly. A figure was silhouetted by bright lights streaming through an open window. Calaf could make out a sisterly habit but little else.

“Did I die?” he asked.

His first impression was that he’d passed through the 0-HP threshold and crossed into the divine beyond. If his body didn’t decay, it could be possible to consecrate his remains and store them in the crypt for the blessed day when the Holy Menu’s Mass-Resurrection spell was ready. Then the fallen would rise and live eternally in a world that was united under the Menu, free of any chaotic outside variables not accounted for by the System and its Interface.

Could it be? Was this figure his beloved Charlotte, reunited with her martyred Stalwart after death?

“Of course not, my dear,” said the kindly nun. “You’re at a hospitaller mission on the edge of the desert. We found and brought you to the healers. You survived to fight another day. No thanks to those church hunters. They seemed quite intent to leave no survivors.”

Memories came flooding back to Calaf. Right, Baldr and Walter, and that new high-level scout/battlemage type, Klavier the Bard. They’d obliterated the thieves guild. But they’d shown no signs of stopping there. Why would these ranking hunters of the church be so quick to stab even a church-affiliate aspirant Paladin? And if three hyper-lethal hunters had turned their weapons on little old Calaf, why’d they leave him on death’s door rather than just finishing it?

Calaf’s eyes adjusted. The room came into view – a ward for those with exceptional injuries at the Church Hospitaller, a charitable institution. Not technically answering the main cathedral, as church hunters did. Who, though, brought him in?

The kindly nun came into view. A slightly older woman with an actually-kinda-cute shallow, wide nose gazed down upon him, hands clasped. She had a spattering of freckles put there by the harsh desert sun, still barely detectable against her darker complexion. And her habit was draped in such a way to perfectly mask an eyepatch over one eye.

“Rest well, my child,” the relic thief said in an exaggeratedly sympathetic tone.

“You.” Calaf scowled.

He tried to get up. To grab Jelena and yell for the guards. But while the healing spell had erased the near-fatal wound, his body still needed some time to recover from the shock.

“You’re welcome,” Jelena said with a sly grin. “And after all that effort to beat those church hunters off you, this is how you repay us? Enkidu nearly blew his back out carrying you here. That’s not very chivalrous, mister.”

Calaf groaned, too fatigued to make a fuss.

“Why did you? How did I?” he stammered.

“Relax, good sir patient.” Jelena put a finger up to her mouth. A cream-colored lip gloss gave away the lie of her Sisterly disguise. “You’ll need time to rest and recover. Just sit back and let me explain.”

“I suspect I have no other choice.” Calaf frowned.

“No, you do not. So, Metzger always wanted to put a hit out on me but found it hard to justify with a certain two-hundred-fifty-pound sword-wielding dire-elephant in the room. Sounds like he got on the church higher up’s bad side in a way he couldn’t bribe his way out of, so he went to ground and traveled to Firefield.”

“He put a bounty on you so that he could trade you for a pardon,” Calaf said.

“Oooh. Very perceptive.” Jelena giggled.

“Actually, I saw the bounty,” Calaf said. “But it seemed obvious based on what you were saying anyway.”

Jelena giggled some more, louder this time. She had a slight smile on her face.

“Anyway, the thieves guild came to try and abduct me. There was a fight. Then Enkidu and I got bored of getting attacked by random bands of bounty hunters all day and decided to go counter-whack them.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Metzger said he had you trapped.”

“Pfft. Metzger was full of himself. I was never in danger. ‘Sides, I had a bodyguard. Why, here he comes…”

A man in priest's robes with a thick and tangled beard – facial hair was unheard of among the clergy – walked past the cot, looking annoyed.

“I do not look like a priest, Jelena.”

“Oh, Father. Bless our patient, in your mercy,” Jelena said with a smile.

“I’m going to wait outside.”

“He warms on you,” Jelena said. “Anyway, we were halfway through wiping out the Firefield thieves' guild when the church sicced its hunters on everyone involved. They’re an unpredictable bunch. Enkidu’s had some run-ins with that Walter fellow. Enough to know he generally stabs first and asks questions later. They’re kinda similar like that…”

Calaf looked down at his hands. Neither Walter nor Baldr had seemed to recognize or particularly care about him at all. So far beneath the high-level hunters was Calaf that he hardly even registered as more than an annoyance.

“… so, Enkidu sliced the door down and we leaped out to fight Metz mere seconds after you were stabbed. Enkidu kept the hunters at bay – even level 90-somethings don’t like fighting someone so strong when they’re unbranded. His prodigious strength breaks down advantages that they’d have over an unbranded attacker. Your wounds were too extensive to heal without spells, so at my discretion, Enkidu dragged you here to the Tent of the Cleric’s Holy Hospitallers and fetched a healer.”

Calaf looked at Jelena, unsure what to say. She adjusted her habit. Impersonation of members of the church – yet another charge added to the long list of her many crimes!

“You stole a habit.” Calaf’s eyes narrowed.

Jelena shot him a piteous look. “You’re welcome. ‘Sides, I remember how this thing works. I pull it off quite well, says I.”

Calaf sighed. He was feeling much better but lacked the wherewithal to make a stink and call the guards on his apparent savior.

“So, you couldn’t heal me without the Holy Menu,” Calaf said. “You admit there are some things the Holy Menu can do that mortal man cannot do alone!”

“That’s the lesson you’re gleaming from today’s events!?” Jenela sighed. “By the -- look, it was my decision what saved your life. I don’t expect you to be madly in love with your savior or anything, but a modicum of gratitude would be appreciated.”

Calaf looked away. It was a while before he worked up the words to talk.

“For saving me… you have my thanks.” He exhaled, exhausted. “It was, dare I say, chivalrous. But, for killing Pryor Yordan. My foster father, I can’t…”

Now it was Jelena’s turn to look away.

“I’m sorry. Hardly justifies anything, yes, yes. You of all people are under no obligation to listen, but rest assured it saved more lives than not.”

Calaf’s frown deepened. “What’s that supposed to mean.”

The aspirant knight thought over that fateful day back at Riverglen once more. The casualties had been numerous. But no civilians. Plenty of city guards had been injured, but as far as deaths went it was only church battlemages, templars, and pryors of course. All high levels.

“Look, if you’d seen what I’ve seen…” the relic thief’s voice trailed off. “Nevermind. Just, making sure you’re okay. I trust you’ll find it somewhere in your code of chivalry that even the most villainous of damsels deserve a day or so’s head start in exchange for saving a life.”

Calaf nodded. That was… true.

“I’ll… I’ll let you go without a fuss,” he said.

“Oh, good.” Jelena got up out of her bedside chair. “Get well soon, good sir knight. We hardly know each other, but this cat-and-mouse game made it feel like we bonded. Good luck with that betrothal.”

“I’ve chased you halfway up the pilgrimage route. But know nothing about you or even what your plan is.”

“Is that so?” Jelena leaned over Calaf’s cot. “Well, how about another breadcrumb to follow? Name’s Turandot.”

The scrambled Menu, forsaken by the relic thief to the point where she took out her own eye, reassembled in the Interface:

Name:

Jelena Turandot

Rank:

???

Level:

XX

Status:

YYY/YYY

Huh. A simple change, but Calaf felt he knew the outlaw a bit more now.

She had to be level forty-something. In terms of age, probably pushing thirty at the youngest. So a bit older than Calaf. She had similar mannerisms to other Firefield dwellers. Certainly, had a dialect not unlike that old woman in Japella.

Jelena walked up into the aisle, then towards the same door that Enkidu had ducked through a few minutes ago.

“Why did you tell me? Your name, I mean.”

Jelena winked with her good eye. “You seemed nice.”

Calaf looked away, flustered.

She stopped at the door, then looked back. “You know how a knight’s word is his bond and all that?”

“Uh… yeah?” He couldn’t help but suspect he was missing something.

Jelena flashed the Holy Lockpick of the Scout in her hands.

“Hey! You thief. You honorless brigand!”

“One day’s head start! You promised!” Jelena waved as she threw her habit aside and rushed out the door. “Besides, you were babbling incoherently the entire time we were headed here. You technically traded it to us free of charge. Bye, bye, bye!”

----------------------------------------

Calaf couldn’t even manage to groan. He was kind of impressed. That Jelena sure was a relic hunter, alright. And the toothy smile as she threw her habit off and made her ‘escape’ such that it was… that smile could easily be the young Stalwart’s demise.

Now she’d run off with the holy lockpicks of the thief… scout… whoever! And he was the last person who’d had access to this holy artifact of unfathomable importance. Meaning he was responsible for it, obligated to pursue her once more to retrieve it.

But he was also honor-bound to let her go for at least a day. After which, she’d be long gone, with scarcely any leads to follow.

Calaf knew that Jelena Turandot was familiar with the workings of the church. She certainly knew how to put on a habit so professionally that it made for a perfect disguise. She was at home in the desert. So, a former clergy member from the deserts in or around Firefield turned apostate. Turandot… Turandot…

“Wait a minute…”

----------------------------------------