“You mean you'll put down your rock and I'll put down my sword, and we'll try and kill each other like civilized people?”

Westly, The Princess Bride film 1987

“So…. This is not what I was expecting…” Grey muttered more to himself than to Eli. Then in a moment of quick clarity.

“Eli, cover your eyes, you don’t need to see this now!” Grey barked. Hands immediately came up to cover her eyes, and as one would expect, fingers broke apart so that she could still see through her fingers.

In front of our intrepid duo, a lone woman was lifting and smashing, lifting and smashing, lifting and smashing what most likely had been a goblin into a large boulder again and again and again. Each smash was accompanied by a word that was half yelled and half shrieked out of her.

“What” smash “You” smash “Get” smash “For” smush “Attacking me again!” On the last phrase she hurled the broken pile of skin and fragmented bones off into the woods a good ten meters away. With that she brought herself up and let out a deep sigh bringing herself under control again. A half dozen paces behind her, the group of five armored beastkin were in various stages of disbelief and resignation. It was a few moments later when Eli let out a beep of an ‘Eep’ having decided to look around before realizing that the rest of the area was littered with corpses, mostly goblin, but a few beastkin here and there as well. It was most likely the dismembered body parts that were near the fallen corpses that were getting to her the most. While she was slowly getting used to seeing creatures, or as she thought of them, monsters, killed, when Grey killed them, it was always with a single quick strike. Most of the time, a mana filled throwing spike to the monster’s head, or a mana knife to the heart. While the mons… creature would die, it never really looked anything other than shocked or sleeping, nothing like the torn and mutilated bodies scattered about.

This time, Eli truly did completely cover her eyes, even burying her head onto the top of Greyson’s. For his part, Grey sighed to himself. While he wasn’t positive what had caused the situation above him, he had a fairly good idea at what it was.

“Didn’t I say to close your eyes and not look?” He admonished gently. While he was annoyed, he did understand curiosity. It was, after all, one of his driving forces these days. That being said, he decided that it was time to come out from the edge of the clearing before any unfortunate misunderstandings could occur. He thought he’d read about a number of those, but couldn’t quite be sure.

“Greetings the clearing! Can I offer assistance?” He called out. Apparently, it was a good thing he had too. The previously crazed woman had turned to face where he was in the clearing and he could already see one of the armored beastkin raising up a bow towards his direction.

“Who’s there? What business to do you have here?!” One of the largest beastkin called out. Grey focused in on him. It looked like he was a bear-kin, or what Grey assumed to be bear-kin. He must have been over two meters tall, approaching two hundred and ten centimeters. If that wasn’t bad enough, he also looked wide enough to pick up a fridge and chuck it like it was a rugby ball (so my wife play rugby in college, and this author was always too small to play American football…) clear across the entire field. His lips had also pulled back into a bit of a snarl with his words, leaving what had to be one of the more menacing appearances that Grey had even come across. Quickly Grey cast Observe on him.

Name: Seths Steppee

Level: 14

Class: Beast Warrior (Berserker)

Grey’s eyebrows rose a bit at the information before him. The man was stronger than the guard captain of the village, and he was mildly impressed based upon the others he had seen so far in this world. In fact, he was the same level as Greyson, who despite watching Eli level up until she reached level 4, had not so much as moved up another level with all the weaklings around. Something was telling him that this was going to be a bit more effort than he really wanted to do for helping them.

“So, we’re going to come out and introduce ourselves, don’t shoot!” He called back out to the group.

Not like it would really do you any good anyways…

Grey shook his head as he stepped out into the clearing, making sure to step around the loose body parts and avoiding as much of the blood as he could. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking those thoughts, but it really was hard not to sometimes.

Instead, as he made his way out he kept on hand on Eli’s ankle and the other came up in a wave. Apparently, the beast-kin culture didn’t have this gesture, and at once, Seths and the rest of the warriors all tensed up, hands/paws/claws reaching for the handles of weapons. One of the warriors, or he guessed ranger, had accidently let loose the arrow he had notched and ready to fly at Grey’s unexpected motion. Grey watched in a bit of morbid curiosity as the arrow flew towards him. If he was right, it was going to hit him square in the chest, honestly not too bad in terms of accuracy for close to thirty meters. As it flew at him, he briefly looked at the face of the man who had fired, and saw the look of surprise. It was clear to Grey that he hadn’t meant to actually shoot him. It was this fact alone that stopped Grey’s natural reaction to return actions in kind.

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In an almost lazy fashion, Grey let his wave drop, catching the arrow just behind the arrowhead a few hands width away from his chest. He turned the arrow up vertically and took a closer look at the arrowhead. Grey was slightly surprised to find that it looked very similar to some of the broadhead arrows he remembered from his times in various sporting good stores. Added to the shape, it also seemed to be made of a decent quality hardened steel. Apparently, the level of technology here wasn’t nearly as bad as he thought.

For the delegation’s part, they were a bit shocked and the casual manor in which the strangely dressed man carrying a small child on his shoulders caught the unexpected arrow had them all pause in their motions. While Seths wasn’t pleased that Johan had actually fired upon the newcomer, he also didn’t entirely fault him either. What did bother him was how nonchalantly the stranger had acted and how even now, he was merely studying the arrow as if it was something special. All of these things along with the continuous attacks they had been facing on this expedition had the fur along the back of his neck standing on end. He did not like to have his fur ruffled like this, especially when others around them could see it. It was the woman who had just been venting her displeasure at the situation on the most unfortunate goblin that finally snapped into action. Her tails twitched to the side and back as she took a step forward and smoothed out the front of her travel clothes, attempting and failing to get any of the stains off of it.

“Hello, I must apologize about that. As you can see, events here have been a bit chaotic in nature.” She opened up, attempting to downplay the accidental shooting seeing how easily it had been handled. Her voice also sounded nothing like the shouting that Grey had originally heard, while it was still a bit on the husky side, it was also very sweet and feminine. Her language was also much more formal and poised, as befitting of a career diplomat. The rest of the warriors took her opening to check themselves and to move into a flanking position behind her.

It was at this point that Grey looked up from his study of the arrow to look over the speaker. While he knew and understood that he was to be finding and meeting with beast-kin, Seths being the best example of what he expected, he had to say that he had not been anticipating meeting someone like this woman. She wavy almost curly chestnut brownish-red hair that hung down loosely to just past her shoulder-blades, framing a slightly round face with. A rather slender body, although appropriately curved in the right areas. What stood out to Greyson the most however were the two fox ears perched atop her head instead of traditional human ears. In addition to the ears, she didn’t just have one tail but bushy tails that matched her hair until the tips, which were an almost pure white. Well, they would have been pure white, if not for the flecks of red blood that seemed to speckle most of her. After a quick moment of looking her over normally, Grey wanted to see what Observe could tell him about her.

Name: Ashling Wälder

Level: 11

Class: Mage (Elemental)

Well, that didn’t entirely make sense with what he had witnessed a few moments ago, but then again, Grey’s level and stats didn’t really come even close to matching with his level. This is of course leaving aside the fact that he didn’t even have a class. Grey decided to stop this line of thought before it made him feel morose and instead brought himself into the conversation.

“Not a problem. Apparently, there are a few customs that are not universal” Grey answered while tossing the arrow back to the group. The arrow lodged itself into the ground about twenty centimeters away from the feet of the archer Johann, flying faster from Grey’s toss than the bow had shot it at him. The action didn’t go unnoticed by the assembled group, but for the moment they let the action go without comment.

“To whom do I have the honor of addressing?” Ashling politely requested.

“Well, I’m Greyson and the little one up here is Eloise. Commander Titus of Tenax village requested that we come out and make sure y’all make it to the village in one piece.” Grey tried to relate as much of the relevant information as he could to the delegation before any more hostilities could break out. Between looking around the clearing here and from their general demeanor, he could guess that it hadn’t been a pleasant journey to even get this far. He would feel a bit bad if he had to end up disposing of them at this point.

“I see. While we are greatful for your assistance, I can’t help but to wonder if you knew anything of the circumstances that we’ve found ourselves in. This is the fifth attack in as many days from the goblins, each growing larger and stronger as we progress towards Tenax.” While not directly accusatory, Ashling’s question hung out for both her delegation as well as for Grey.

“Ashling, I just got to this world yesterday. Up until we came to meet you, I didn’t even know goblins existed, so I can’t rightly say what the villiage does or doesn’t know. What I can tell you is that as long as you let me escort you, we’ll be able to make it the rest of the way in only a few days.” Grey said while scratching his neck. It was at this point that Eli, who had decided to uncover her eyes and take in the strangers decided that she should try to help too.

“Grey strong. You safe with Grey.” While not enchanted anymore with her nullification ring on, her words did have the effect of helping to relax the rest of the delegation so that hands came off of weapons.

“What she said” Grey followed up jerking a thumb up and back to point at Eli. He could see the gears turning in Ashling’s mind until they finally came to rest.

“Very well, do you know of a good spot to rest for the evening? While there may still be light left today, I believe that we could all do with a spot of rest.”

Greyson finally let himself smile and nodded to the delegation.

“There are a few more clearings not too far ahead. If I remember right, one of them should be near a stream so you can clean up as well.”

“That sounds lovely, please lead the way. I look forward to talking with you more.”

With this, the group formed up around Ashling and followed Grey deeper into the woods heading back in which the duo had come from.