I put the coin purse in a pouch and rush off. My legs pounding the dusty ground as I move as fast as possible. I weave through passers by and the unaware. Morgan gives a scream from beyond sight, thankfully it seems she’s still alive. I impact with an elderly-looking soft-skin; it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I don’t get someone killed for helping me. That I don’t lose an ally… she is an ally?

I turn into a back alley, moving under crossbeams as I catch sight of the manhunter’s cloak just before it’s gone. I make the same turn after it and I can see that morgan won’t succeed on her own; she tips a box over but the manhunter just smashes through it with its next step, the wood splintering. I look up and focusing my power into my hands blast out a ray of destructive power. The beam breaks on the side I hit and falls down, impacting the manhunter. It slams morgan’s pursuer against the wall for a moment as she turns left. The threat set back a couple of paces I run to intersect morgan’s new path. I nearly impact with the manhunter as I make it to my immediate goal. The dread pursuers cloak hitting my face before sliding away, the sound of fabric moving against fabric momentarily filling my hearing. I follow behind him, losing ground. Morgan gets closer and closer to his blades as we run, the various soft-skins part to let the manhunter have and unobstructed path to it’s target. We run into alley’s again and I see clothing strung up to dry, it’s a small target but I fire a shot at one line. I miss and fire again, hitting the attachment point rather than the line itself. I get the effect I wanted; the line swings down like the beam; clothes rippling to obscure and-

its blade flashes out suddenly, cutting the line and my effort into uselessness in one motion. I see it sheath one blade then grab a loose brick and in one side turn it launches the brick at me. The impact right on my head and for a second stopping me. I look ahead and see morgan coming up to an intersection… I’ve got moments, my blasts launch out. The building breaking then crumbling as morgan screams out as she runs underneath the falling pile of brick dirt and dust. The manhunter follows, sliding along the ground as the dust kicks up into a cloud and obscures everything within. I move up and hear scrabbling sounds as the dust clears.

The dark form of the manhunter is stuck underneath, moving, escaping. I turn, and after rounding another turn to go parallel with morgans direction, I focus my energy onto my feet and run up the side of the building till I’m able to run and jump from roof to roof. I catch sight of her quickly and bound after her, jumping to land in front of her. She cries out then pauses.

[morgan] “m-moon?! Damn, you scared, me, oohhh, I need, to breath”

she pant’s hard and I do likewise as the effort of running is catching up with us. I start to walk waving her to follow. We walk to a hidden little spot and finish catching our breath.

“I can walk us up walls as needed so lets stick together getting out of here”

[morgan] “y-yeah, surprised you came back”

“because the manhunter’s of no concern, after all it would be foolish to get all worried about it right?”

[morgan] “oh shut it, it’s not like you expected it to go after me”

“true, so lets both get out as quick as possible”

[morgan] “yeah but where too?”

“anywhere it isn’t for now, we’ll figure it out”

[morgan] nods “alright then I’ll point the way, now that we can do stealth for this”

I nod and we move out, using alleys and roofs to move in a way that should be hard for the manhuhnter to follow. An hour later we move to an outer gate, taking up our usual disguises. Morgan quickly gets us in a caravan about to leave south. Heading into a country called Azgorad. I supply the coin purse and about half of it is taken out for our sudden joining of the caravan. Forty seven gold coins, that would last us a while but not as long as I’d like, seeing how quickly it could just evaporate with expenses. At least we were getting out, safely leaving this dry place with entirely too much water next to it in what they called a lake. I had made sure to avoid it, I still remembered the first time I saw the ocean, it’s swelling waves like malformed claws looking to grab and pull someone down into a cold watery death. I sat on the back of the last wagon with morgan as we headed off, looking at the city and it’s walls shrinking with spin of the wheels.

[morgan] “well, it isn’t exactly what we planned but we made it work right?”

I nod, another crisis averted and we are alive. I have someone I can trust… well at least somewhat trust.

With the sun setting and a purple hue entering at the edges I spot something on the road behind us, a dark speck and point it out to morgan.

[morgan] “what, I… that speck? It could be some rocks or something”

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I shake my head.

[morgan] “you’re certain it’s moving?”

I nod.

She stares at it, some color draining from her skin. Then she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

[morgan] “it’s probably nothing, just some traveler moving on the same road as us, no need to get worked up about it”

I stared at her taking each change of her face and body trying to decide if she was that foolish… after much consideration I came to the conclusion that she was denying it being a potential problem because her weaker will couldn’t handle it yet. She was more resilient than the rest of her kind so I figured she’d come around to facing the problem.

Days passed, we kept lookout on the rear cart as it rolled along. Though we’d hop off to jog beside it fairly often through the day if for no other reason than we grew tired of sitting. The whole way that black speck kept following us, just at the limit of what we could see, dipping in and out of view with the landscape.

The final night we pressed on longer than usual as the leader wanted to get into the city walls. Once we got past the outer gate we were cast off from the caravan. They’d done their job and we went off on our own in this wooden city. While it was all timber construction aside from the walls nothing seemed to be low quality. All of the exposed wood was coated, painted, treated and made to withstand the weather. Beyond that everything fit well, carved with patterns, icons, and generally made… beautiful. I hated to admit it but these soft-skins had definitely added a great amount of beauty to their city.

[morgan] wipes a tear away “wish they could’ve seen this.”

I nod and after a moment motion.

[morgan] “y-yeah, we should be moving. No need for us to chat tonight since I feel ready to drop and I bet you feel the same.”

I alternate my arms up and down.

[morgan] “really? How’d that take less out of you than me? Well it doesn’t matter cause I’m ready to pass out, now lets find a spot for tonight.”

we searching in the dark, wandering and walking in the unfamiliar city. One thing I note of it in comparison to the last is how much less space there seems to be. Almost all passages are an alley of some sort, the buildings hang over and sometimes connect above where the walkways are. It feels as tangled and bunched up as any forest I’ve been to. Eventually we find a building that looks like what we want, the wood carved cleanly but unadorned. We go inside and it’s a bar with a table nearby and a sitting alcove. Morgan talks with the bartender and he gets us a couple cups with soup in them and then two rolls of bedding. For the sleeping room through the side door. After gulping down the almost flavorless soup that would have been better if it actually was flavorless we go into the already packed room. Benches stacked against one wall and four tables sanding with people sleeping on top of them.

[morgan] “oh, we just uh go wherever I guess”

I nod and sigh. Soon we find a space to put down for the night.

I wake to the sound of a bell and then an annoyingly loud mans voice.

[innkeeper] “Alright! Wake up you louts! It’s time to clear out! Anyone with bedding needs to turn it back in and if you want brekfas then it’ll cost yah!”

both morgan and I groan as we roll over and get up onto our feet. Picking up the bedding and taking it back to the bartender, or innkeeper. Whichever he was. After that morgan decided that we should go somewhere else for food and I nodded my agreement.

We eventually found a good breakfast, one where I could get meat. The soups barely did anything for me. After breakfast we wandered about the town looking at potion selling shops as well as inns and general knowledge. It was a long day and by the end we were making our way back to an inn where we’d be able to have a room and then I saw it. The white skull on a bird-like helm. I pulled morgan back immediately and brought her close to whisper.

“it followed us, the manhunter is here”

[mogan] sighs and nods “hoped he didn’t. Shall we go up the buildings then?”

I nod and she hops onto me when we’re in position. The dense nature of the buildings here actually make it easier to be stealthy as we walk up the buildings side. The angled roof of this humid place give us barriers for the manhunters sight. It takes a while longer than we thought but we manage to sneak our way to the inn.

Inside I sit down exhausted, morgan isn’t the heaviest soft-skin but she isn’t exactly a light pack to carry either.

[morgan] “damn, this really changes things. I was hoping that we could do some more potion brewing here but”

“it’ll just hunt us down and kill us there”

[morgan] “him, not it! This guy isn’t anything more than flesh and blood”

“never said he wasn’t. Anyways we need to find a way to sneak out and not be followed.”

[morgan] “any suggestions? Or just stating the obvious. Damn it why is he after me?!”

“that I have no idea, I doubt the ingredients for a good potion are cheap. Possibly out of our price”

[morgan] “you know a potion that could help us?”

“sort of, potion to breathe in water… I’d rather not use that and the critical ingredient is rare”

[morgan] “how rare?”

“our armies don’t cross rivers, that’s how rare”

[morgan] “damn, wait… couldn’t you just use boats or swim?”

“we’re not good at boats and… well we don’t swim, we just sink”

[morgan] “o-oh, wait do you great freaked out being near a lot of water? Is that why you never went near the king lake?”

“yes, water is bad for my kind now can we please get on solving our manhunter problem?”

[morgan] “can’t we kill him?”

“would the rest of his… clan come after us?”

[morgan] “organization I think, and yeah probably.”

we did not come up with any solid plan that night before lapsing into sleep.