After Aliss left, we took Sylvie with us out of town and toward the Goblin forest. Despite Sylvie’s best efforts, we never did figure out what Aliss had been doing this whole time, but she assured us up and down that there was nothing dangerous going on and that she was fine, so we reluctantly headed out. Plus, Sylvie was starting to get sleepy-drunk, so we didn’t have much of a choice if we wanted to teleport out tonight.

“So, where are we going?” she slurred as we made our way past the border checkpoint, informing the guard we were heading out.

“Precipice,” I replied. “Did you already forget?”

“No, no, like, how are we getting there?” she asked, stumbling along the cobblestone pathway with us. “You, uh, you said no teleport circle, right?”

“...Right,” I said, glancing around us. The town guard was still watching us leave. “Just follow us, I’ll explain when we get there.”

“Ugh, you always say that.”

“I’ve always been saying that today because I have always planned to explain when we get there. Be patient; shouldn’t take too long.”

“You’re an asshole,” she muttered, giving me a light shove that ironically almost made her topple over, rather than me. After regaining her balance, she gave a little ‘humph’ and grabbed a bottle from the side of her backpack, taking a swig from it.

“Did you seriously pack booze? I thought you were just bringing the essentials.”

“I am.”

I sighed. “Alright, I guess. Just please don’t cause trouble.”

“I won’t cause trouble. I don’t ever cause trouble,” she said, half-mumbling her words as she stumbled along. Then she turned to me, suddenly angry. “Don’t tell me what to do, by the way! You’re not my flamin’ puppet master, y’know! I can do whatever I want. Could drink fifteen more bottles and you can’t do anything about it.”

“No, you can’t do whatever you want,” I replied sternly. “I’m doing you a favor, alright? I’d like to help you. But if you put us in danger in any way, I will kick you out. You’re fine right now, but be careful with…”

I stopped, frowning as I recognized the trembling sniffles of someone crying. In the light of my armor shining through the night, I could just barely see Sylvie wiping her eyes, looking like she was about to collapse to the ground.

“Uh, I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of what to do. “I didn’t mean to threaten you or anything, just—”

“Why am I not good enough for them?!” she sobbed. “Throw me out of the house, then when I find some friends out here, they disown me. What could I have done for them to just be okay with me?”

“Oh. Uh…” I didn’t know what I could say to help.

“It—um, it’s okay,” Erani said, coming and wrapping her arm around Sylvie to keep her from toppling over as she stumbled down the road with us.

“Wait,” I said, “did you say they threw you out of the house? I thought you ran away from home.”

“I didn’t. They didn’t want me around anymore. And now they don’t even want me to have their last name.”

“That’s horrible,” Erani said.

“Yeah, shit, I’m sorry. Uh, we’ll definitely do what we can to help, alright?”

She threw her bottle of booze on the side of the road, liquid leaking onto the cobblestones, then sniffled and nodded. “Th-thanks.”

I nodded. “And then, when you’re a big famous hero, you can go rub it in their faces that they don’t get any of your limelight.”

Erani gave me a look that conveyed something along the lines of ‘maybe don’t stoke the flames of revenge this early?’ but I just smiled and winked at her, which I felt was a good response to anything she might have been trying to tell me.

She rolled her eyes at me, showing me that it was, in fact, a good response. After our short exchange, she turned to Sylvie. “We won’t kick you out or anything, I promise.”

Sylvie kept walking with us wordlessly, grabbing another bottle from her bag and starting to down it as well. Eventually, once she’d finished it and thrown it aside, she asked, “...So how are we getting there?”

“You’ll see,” I responded with a sigh. “There might be some pretty weird stuff going on, though. So…just don’t ask.”

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

Entismo rushed over to the guards standing by the town exit, gasping for breath. “H-have you seen a woman named Sylvie leave town this way? She may have been accompanied by a pair of people, one of them wearing glowing white armor.”

They frowned, and one of them said, “...Yes. They left through this gate ‘bout an hour ago. Were talking about going to Precipice, or something. Why do you—”

He sprinted ahead, down the path and out of town, not waiting for the guard to finish his question. They were leaving for the capital?! He had to find them before they got too far. He needed their help with this Demon. He had no idea how they planned to leave, but if they somehow disappeared before he could catch up to them, he’d…

He couldn’t let it happen. Facing this issue on his own would be impossible.

Entismo pushed his legs to move faster, glancing along the dark road he traveled. Discarded on the side of the path was an empty bottle of booze—the exact kind that was Sylvie’s favorite. He was on the right path.

Please, please, please…He thought as he ran. Please don’t be gone.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He had no idea how they were going to Precipice going in this direction, or why they were going there, or what was going on at all. Why did the Demon threaten him and then run right off? What were its plans? Why was it there in the first place? Entismo was utterly baffled.

But he did know one thing. He needed to find someone else who could solve the issue. Because if he was the one to create the problem, that meant he clearly hadn’t the capability to make it better. If killing the demon came down to him, he knew he would fail, because he’d already failed in preventing its escape from happening in the first place. It had to be someone else. He needed someone else.

Please. Just this one time, let me succeed in doing something. Let me succeed in getting help. Please.

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

Once we arrived in the forest, I just needed to charge up the Beacon, and then we’d be good to go. Since we’d used it once already, the cost had gone from 1k Mana to 10k, meaning I’d need about an hour and a half to prepare it. While I worked on that, Erani and Sylvie sat in the clearing. We were also waiting for Ainash to come meet up with us, so Erani had taken the job of letting her know she should come back from whatever she was doing with the Goblins to find us again.

“Hey…” Sylvie muttered, drunker now than she was before, “isn’t this where we fought that Young Dragon?”

“Mhm,” Erani responded with a nod. “It is. We’re in the Goblins’ forest right now.”

“Why are we here?”

“We’re using that orb floating in the air to go back to town,” Erani said. She’d taken on a tone similar to that of how you’d speak to a lost child. “It should be ready pretty soon.”

“Okay…” Sylvie leaned her head on Erani’s shoulder, trapping her one good arm to the side of her body.

She looked up at me, and I could see the plea of ‘please hurry up’ in her eyes.

Eventually, I did get the Beacon fully charged. Its glow shone across the clearing, illuminating everything clearly. Ainash had arrived, along with a few Goblins who had come to see her off. They were all wearing some new robes that looked handcrafted—light green cloths that covered their heads and shoulders in a thick hood, with an insignia I couldn’t quite make out woven across the backs.

“Did you make them new clothes?” I asked her.

“Taught them how to make! To show they are most important believers.”

“...You really went all-in on the religion thing, huh?”

“Yes! Is travel ready?”

“It is. Just waiting on our companion to wake back up.”

Erani shook Sylvie for the fourth time, wiggling the shoulder she leaned on back and forth to try and unpin her arm from her body.

“Wuh…huh?” Sylvie muttered, groggily opening her eyes.

“We’re leaving,” I called over to her, standing with my hand around the Beacon.

“Oh…okay,” she said, slowly moving to get herself to her feet. She planted one foot on the ground, pushed up, and instantly lost balance, falling flat on her face.

“Good gods,” I muttered. “Aren’t you a Dexterity build?”

She didn’t seem to notice me, still lying in the dirt. She closed her eyes and grumbled, “Just go ahead without me. I’ll catch up.”

“That won’t work, unfortunately,” Erani said, getting to her feet herself and walking over to Sylvie to lend a hand. “We’ll be going there all at once.”

Sylvie muttered something unintelligible about needing just five more minutes, and Erani sighed, bending over and wrapping her arm around the woman to pick her up.

I’d have gone over to help, or at least asked Ainash to do so, but thanks to the Stats given to Erani by the Bond, Erani didn’t actually have much trouble at all in pulling Sylvie to her feet and providing something to steady herself on. She slowly guided Sylvie over to the Beacon.

As I watched her approach, I thought I heard a noise off in the distance, like something stepping through the leaves. Had Ainash brought more Goblins along that were watching from afar? Or maybe it was just some animal wandering around.

My attention was brought back to the Beacon when I felt Erani’s hand touch mine. She’d put her hand on the floating crystal ball, showing Sylvie how to do the same.

“Alright,” I said to her, “this is probably gonna be uncomfortable for you, especially in your…prone-to-nausea state, but you’ll be fine. Hopefully. Uh, if you’re gonna spew chunks, just try to do it away from our direction?”

She babbled noises in response, eyes still half-closed. Honestly, if it was revealed she was still unconscious at this moment and had just been sleep-walking the whole time, I’d have believed it.

“...So,” I continued, “I’m gonna count us down from ten, just so you can prepare yourself. Honestly, we’ll all probably need to prepare for the sensation. You all ready?”

Everyone nodded.

“Okay. Ten…”

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

Entismo dashed through the forest, searching frantically for any sign of the people he relied on. Arlan had saved his life against that Jon person, and Entismo had to hope he’d do it again now. Sylvie’s empty bottles had led him here, but now that he was out in the middle of this forest, it was suddenly much harder to follow a trail like that.

He wanted to shout out for help, but this was the Goblin forest. He’d heard the place had been cleared out for the most part, but screaming at the top of his lungs sounded like a great way to attract unwanted attention from any of the ones that had been left behind. Arlan wore that glowing armor, so all he needed to do was find the light.

Please, don’t be gone. Please…

That was when he heard it.

“You all ready?” The faintest voice came from his left.

He snapped his head over in that direction.

“Ten. Nine. Eight…”

Was that Arlan? Had he found them?

“Seven. Six. Five…”

Wait, what was he counting down to?

Entismo took off in that direction, hoping he could find them. Off in the distance—yes, he saw it! Light! It was even brighter than he remembered the man’s armor being, casting brilliant rays through the trees.

“Four. Okay, get ready to teleport. Three. Two…”

His eyes grew wide. Did Arlan just say ‘teleport’?!

“No,” Entismo muttered. Then, he shouted, “Wait!”

“One…”

“Wait! There’s a Demon! A Demon is attacking the town! Don’t go! Don’t—”

Entismo’s voice faded as he arrived in the clearing.

It was empty.

The light was still there, coming off of a strange floating stone in the middle of the forest. But just as he’d come into the clearing, he’d seen the figures of four people disappear before his very eyes.

“No. No, no, no.” Entismo fell to his knees, the sharp bark of fallen trees digging into his skin. Shaky breaths exited his lungs as his mind struggled to process what had just happened. He’d failed. He was alone.

“Who you?!” a scratchy voice came from beside him. Looking over, he found a blade pointing at his face.

“Ah!” he shouted, falling backward and scrambling away from the weapon.

“Why you here?” the voice continued.

He blinked and looked past the blade, to the figure wielding it. Holding him at knifepoint were two short, green figures, each wearing woven hoods.

“You worshiper of Great Ones? You worshiper of Great Lady?”

“Er…” He glanced between the two monsters, each of them holding a blade and ready to cut his throat out depending on his answer. “...Yes?”

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

When we arrived back in the sandy cave of Precipice’s surrounding deserts, I did, indeed, feel like complete shit. The nausea wasn’t as bad—maybe because I was expecting it, or maybe because I’d gotten a little used to the sensation—but ‘not as bad’ didn’t equal ‘not bad at all.’

That said, the world spinning around me was the least of my worries. Because just as I’d activated the Beacon, right as we were teleporting away, I’d caught a voice from outside the clearing.

What the fuck was Entismo saying about a Demon?