She found a pair of common level five rings.

They also only gave a bonus of one Speed point, which compared to my base Speed of three-eighty-one, it wasn’t adding anything noticeable. But we weren’t doing this for the stats.

The rest of the trip was spent with me listening to her grumble under her breath in syllables that I couldn’t hear. Despite my jokes, I wasn’t the most thrilled with our new ‘relationship’ either, but complaining was just going to make things drag out more. So instead of trying to make out what she was complaining about, I busied myself with reading reports about what Tres knew about Sipher.

Tine was mostly deserted, since its Desolation had destroyed almost everything. Usually after a Desolation, the Dispatchers would send some of their Anubians to secure the Dungeon, to repair the gate, if needed, and begin work on stabilizing the Dungeon. It didn’t matter if you had cleared all of the floors up to the fifties in all of the Dungeons in the city, after it was Desolated, you had to start at the first floor and work your way up again. It also had the joy of all of the maps to the floors being useless, so Minotaurs from the Mappers would come in to start making new ones.

The Cathedral Ward didn’t have many demihumans. The Grim ran the Authority and the Anubis made up most of the Dispatchers, who handled the Dungeon gates, even for Dungeons that were managed by other parties. We had two Kitsune Gods, Mive and Juel, but there were barely a handful of kitsune in either city. Wurn had been the Minotaur God in the Ward, but he’d been Desolated eight years before I’d been born and no one had tried to retake that chaotic place. Since Slece handled the Adventurer Games for the Cathedral Ward, there wasn’t a need for a Raijin presence, and the less people saw of the Rhastan, in my opinion, the better. The rat-looking race were six feet tall, slender, and dealt with anything that the other races were too disgusted with to openly handle. I realized that if Sipher was as connected as completely as he was, there were definitely going to be a few Rhastan on his payroll.

But no one came in to do their jobs when outlaws took over the Dungeon. It wasn’t considered safe, so progress ground to a halt. Eventually, the Nobility would learn what materials could be farmed there, but until then, no one wanted to front the expense that it would cost to root the criminals out.

Nyssa parked the Chaser in front of a partially collapsed building and started messaging on her CB. Before she was able to finish, our vehicle was surrounded by a dozen people that were covered completely in worn, dirty armor. It didn’t look like there was a smith with this group, so their equipment had fallen into a state of disrepair.

“What have we here?” One of them cackled.

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“I think they’re lost.” Another one pulled out a long blade.

“I think he’s pretty. I want him.” The feminine voice caught my attention. Considering that she looked like the only female in the group and had just made a demand, I had to assume that she was pretty high up on the chain of command.

“Twelve against two…” I shook my head as I swung my legs out of the Chaser. I stretched as I stood up, gripping my right hand over my CB.

“Don’t make this difficult.” The woman sneered. “I’m very nice to my pets.”

I didn’t bother making any threats or posturing. I’d been cooped up in a car for two days and roughing up some bandits felt like a great way to let out some frustrations while also introducing myself. I did have to hold myself back though. If I killed one of them, then a PK mark would corrupt my mantle and that would break the seal that Tres had put on me. If I did that, then I really would have to kill my way out. I made sure to activate my cursed strike, then pulled my new sword out of my CB and cut a black gash across the bandit closest to me. He got out half a scream, before he fell over. A good healer would be able to get rid of the curse, but until then, any fatal strikes would just render them unconscious.

I smiled as they tried to attack, but I was already stepping past the closest one to me. I reversed my grip on my sword and stabbed him through the back, letting him fall roughly on the ground.

I kicked sand into the face of the one on my left, sidestepped the wild swing that the one on my right tried to hit me with and punched him in the face while still holding my sword. It felt like all of them were Tier Three or maybe lower Tier Four. Either way, they weren’t trained in how to fight, just lots of experience with overwhelming targets with numbers.

Before the one I’d kicked sand at could recover, I took his swords out of his hand that threw it away, while stabbing him through the side. That was four down and I could hear Nyssa working on the ones on her side. There was only one left between me and their leader and instead of trying to fight me, he threw down his sword and ran. At least he seemed smart.

“You won!” The woman got down on her knees and acted like she was begging, but beggars wove their fingers together or at the very least pressed their palms together. She was covering her CB with her right hand.

I didn’t give her a chance to pull anything out. I made sure that my cursed strike was still active and stabbed her in the heart. I’d never been hit with a lethal-area cursed attack, but I’d heard that it was rather painful. I shrugged and turned around, but Nyssa had finished and she had been a lot more brutal than I had. Mine could be healed. There were at least two of hers that needed healing soon, or we’d need to bury them and find a way to fix her seal.

I pulled out two healing potions and threw one at her. “Just give them enough that they won’t die.” I shook my head. Something told me that once they figured out that we weren’t going to kill them, they’d try to get revenge. Once the one that I’d been pouring the potion on looked like they’d live, I stabbed them with my sword. A cursed strike would keep them down until we could figure out what to do about them.

Now I only had five more to heal and stab.