The three foot gremlins aren’t very scary when they are in small numbers but when there’s like thirty of them it’s very overwhelming.” Stay behind me Claire.” I draw the straight sword and ready for their attack. The first three gremlin I take care of with one swipe of the sword and then punt the fourth one straight into a tree. I hear Claire chant spells and then duck as she unleashes a wave of fire on ten of them. With half their numbers, their moral drops and some start to flee. As I turn to look at Claire one bites my leg and I yell.” You little shit!” and skewer it with my sword.

“We can’t chase, if we do then we’ll be ambushed by more of them.” I say to Claire as she tries to chase.

“But they’ll just come back with more numbers.” She says.

I nod and slice through another gremlin.” They will but if we warn the town they will definitely be ready for an attack.” I say to her. We finish off the remaining gremlins and then I make sure there’s no more with my senses.” Gotta love complacent humans who don’t post guards. It’s a wonder how these towns and cities don’t get attacked more often.”

“Yeah, I can see now how arrogant we as humans have become. Thinking since we halved the numbers of monsters in the last millennia that monsters won’t attack us.” She says.” If the Mad King is really returning, he’ll bring an influx of monsters with him. Or that’s what the story says.”

I extend my hand and she grabs it,” So I was thinking” I pause just because I can and then keep going.” Maybe a town like this wouldn’t be so bad to live in.”

Her face brightens up and she excitedly says,” I agree, the small town atmosphere is so much cozier than the city of Atwood. When I walk around there, it’s all unknown faces, but this town seems like they’re very close to one-another.”

I laugh and say,” Then it’s settled, we’ll live in a town very similar, if not, this one.”

She kisses my cheek and says,” We have to survive for that to happen.” Then she helps me back to the inn and to our room. I pause at the door and look at the lock. Should I lock it just in case? I decide not to since we might need to leave quickly and then I follow her in. She helps clean the bite and then bandages it. Had I been in my armor I would have been fine, but I assumed we’d be fine on our walk since we would stay in the town.

We fall asleep in eachothers arms and I sleep quietly. I never get night terrors when I’m sleep next to Claire. I also sleep like a log that cannot be woken up very lightly. I did however wake up when Claire kissed me in the morning. It reminded me of Sleeping Beauty and was a nice moment for the two of us.

“Oh my, I so sorry!” Beth says and I realise she was standing in the door.” I should have knocked.”

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“It’s alright, I was trying to wake him up, but nothing besides this worked.” She says.

I realise I’m on the floor and wonder how I got there. I lay my head back and think to myself,” I should have known to lock the door last night. I should have known this would happen to me.”

“Come on Kyle, our party is waiting for us at breakfast.” She says.

“But how did I end up on the floor?” I ask getting up.

“You didn’t wake up to me shouting your name so I pushed you off the bed. When you still didn’t wake up I tried the kiss and that seemed to work.” She says.

We make our way to the table and Thu’ane snorts and his coffee comes out his nose.” I completely forgot about your horrible bedhead.” He says laughing and wiping his nose.

I furiously straighten my hair and say to a chuckling Claire,” Why didn’t you tell me my hair was bad?”

“I thought it was cute.” She says still chuckling.

Mariana sighs and says under her breath,” Good times.” I look at her with confusion but decide not to pry. I was the only to hear her as the others were invested in their food. I grab a coffee and bread that was laid out by the innkeeper.

“Where’s Edward?” I ask.

“He decided to visit the local blacksmith and pick up a better rapier.” Ryan says.

“I’ll go help him. I never thought the rapier was a good fit for him anyways.” I say.

I find him checking out the straight one handed swords and swinging them a bit. He sets them down and shakes his head. I grab a curved cutlass and check its craftsmanship. I tap his shoulder and offer it to him,”Try this one, it’s made for naval combat, but I feel like it’ll fit your style as it’s kind of similar to a rapier.”

He swings it around and then sheaths it.” I should have thought to bring you in the first place. How do you know all this stuff?”

“I’ve seen many types of fighting style when traveling with the King’s Shadow. I figured out when a style and sword doesn’t match a swordsmen.” I say.” It helps that my perception is much better than any others. I can see smaller details most teachers don’t see in students.”

“You really are amazing. I could learn a great deal from you.” He says as he hands over the money to the Blacksmith.” You can have this Rapier as well, I won’t need it.”

I rub the back of my head, I really didn’t think of myself as a teacher.” Well, I never was that great at explaining things. I don’t know how much I’ll actually teach you.”

He puts his hand on my shoulder and says.” Just being around you opened my eyes to many things I was to ignorant to see.”

“Um, your welcome, I guess.” I say as I move out of his reach.” We should head back and pack. We have a long day’s ride ahead of us.”

He nods and we go back to the inn, the coffee and food were put away, and Thu’ane was chatting with the young innkeeper. I grab him and drag him away with his complaints being shouted in my ear. We didn’t have time for him to screw around. We grabbed our things and went to the stable to purchase horses and a carriage. Ryan, Mariana, Claire, Beth, and Smokey rode in the carriage, while Edward steered the horse. Thu’ane and I were on horseback, we acted as the carriage’s guard. My bow readied in my right hand and he had his guitar in hand ready to play us a melody.