This time I'll take the shorter route, she thinks to herself. Really she just doesn't look forward to traversing the cold snow covered hills again, taking the long way around.

Besides, her map marks another altar on the route that she hasn't sacrificed to yet. Also unlike last time, she will travel at night, perhaps then the archers that killed her last time will be asleep.

It's dark in the dead forest. She can barely see anything, most of the moonlight doesn't make it through the canopies. Misa's sanity also begins to suffer, she's scared because she doesn't know if the archers will spot her again, and the lack of visibility has her constantly imagining that she saw something move. Perhaps something did move? It's impossible to tell. As daylight breaks she follows her routine and climbs up a tree to rest. She's barely got any food left, it's difficult to forage in the dark. But that's an issue for tomorrow.

She wakes every 3-4 hours out of fear, but she just waits in the tree and tries to continue sleeping. She has this recurring nightmare where a man chases her and when he catches her she wakes up. It's a little bit different each time. One time she trips, the other time she reaches a dead end, other times the man is just faster. It's unsettling. Why does this nightmare recur? It's difficult to sleep this way.

At dusk she resumes her path. At this pace she'll make it to the swamps by tomorrow. It won't be difficult to forage some food there. Hours pass and the daylight breaks through.

She is so close to an altar, she decides to push on, and makes a blood sacrifice to it, then she decides to rest not far away from the altar.

Barely any time has passed before she is awakened by voices. She can see them. Roughly 40 meters away there's 2 hooded figures, carrying large longbows. They must have spotted her tracks. Misa becomes paralysed with fear. There's only one way down from the trees and they'd surely spot her. She thinks about bribing her way out of this, but that probably wouldn't work. If she reveals she has anything of value they'd just take it all. She still has the sanguine potion left.

It's best to just hide and stay quiet. Maybe they'll pass through. They walk over to the altar and take note of the dried blood. This is really bad. Even if they killed her she'd revive right within their sight. This was incredibly stupid, she should've thought about this beforehand.

They follow her tracks to the base of the tree.

"weird, the tracks end here"

"well there is only one explanation then, it has to have climbed the tree"

They look up and spot part of Misa's clothing.

They quickly split ways and start firing arrows at her from different angles.

Die you death-worshipping heathen! One of the men yells.

Misa starts to cry, she is hopeless, there is nothing she can do now, and it's her own lack of foresight that led to this.

She tries to dodge the arrows by positioning the trunk between her and the archers, but with 2 of them it is impossible.

One of the arrows scathes her arm. She cries in pain.

Okay stop shooting at me! I surrender! Don't kill me please, I give up. She makes her way down the tree.

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It's a little demon girl. I didn't even know demons could be female.

Of course they can be, how else do you think they reproduce? A demonic stork bringing them?

I don't know, I just figured they'd spawn from portals or something.

Really? You believe that? You should've known about the birds and bees by now.

Is she really a girl? Maybe it's a boy with long hair. Wouldn't be the weirdest thing I saw today.

I'm not a guy you idiot! Now let me go! Why were you shooting at me, I haven't done anything wrong.

We're bounty hunters, we track down escaped miners and turn them in for a reward. Dead or alive.

Well I'm not a miner so can I go now?

Prove that you're a girl, lots of boys escape from there too. Show what's under your robe.

No! You're just a creep that wants to take advantage of the situation! Drop dead you asshole!

Wow, she's got a horrible attitude.

Come on, show me what you got. The man stretches his hand forward to grab her robe, right as his hand touches her robe Misa bites him in his hand. And she bites down hard.

I said no you prick! Fuck off! She's really mad now.

The man lets go instantly, and his hand starts to bleed. The other man starts laughing, he finds the whole thing rather amusing, the stupidity and perverseness of his friend and Misa's attitude.

But the other man isn't amused by it, and he punches Misa in the chest.

You're a feisty one. We'll take you to the mines, they give rewards for any escaped slave, dead or alive, and since you're a demon you probably escaped from somewhere. They'll punish you but then they'll put you back to work, and you can live with them again. It's much better than wandering around these forests, you'd likely die out here soon enough.

They start to walk north and head towards their camp.

While at their camp they pick up signals that there are other escapees nearby.

We should track them down, they can't be far from here.

But what about the girl? She's too slow, she'd be a liability. Forget about the girl, her reward is small anyway. Just tie her to a tree. If she escapes we'll track her down again, she can't move fast.

I'll break her foot just in case.

The man takes a large rock and smashes it on Misa's foot, breaking it in several places.

Aaah, that fucking hurts! I wasn't going to escape anyway! She sobs. Then they hastily tie her to a tree before running off.

As soon as they leave Misa frees herself. She takes her bag and knife, and puts a lot of their stuff in her bag. There's gold, some potions, there's a healing potion too, which she drinks.

It stops some of the pain but it doesn't remove the fractures. Then she drinks the Sanguine potion she had saved up until now. And finally she takes a branch from the campfire and sets everything alight.

As the potion kicks in, she runs off, torch in hand. She has little time, they will probably be back within minutes.

On her way she lights several trees on fire. This covers her tracks, if everything burns down there are no tracks to discover. After about half an hour of continues sprinting, her potion wears off. It makes her violently ill. She starts to vomit. A lot. It's gross but it's one of the potions' side effects.

Then she feels empty and tired. But she has to go on. She decides to just drink random potions she took from the bounty hunters, although these are nowhere near as potent. They're mostly agility and strength potions, but anything helps. She keeps walking onward and burning trees behind her. In many ways Misa is the worst thing to happen to the dead forest in a long time. Wouldn't it be so nice if those bounty hunters became trapped in the flames and burned to death. I hate them. I hope they die, horribly. They're terrible people. Realistically it won't happen though. The wind isn't strong enough to really spread her fires, and the wood too moist to completely burn. Misa doesn't sleep that night and continues to walk at a slow pace, her broken foot causing her immense pain at this point.

Her lack of sleep is causing her to occasionally hallucinate hooded figures chasing her at this point. Several times she mistakes moving bushes for hidden enemies, slashing at them in vain. She's barely had any sleep in the past 4 days. She walks through the swamps, tired but too afraid to sleep.

Eventually she collapses in a field, sleeping for nearly a full day.