I braced myself for what was to come. This man was not what I had expected. It was like two people lived in one body; one of them terrified and floundering and the other sure, determined, and perhaps a little wicked. The only way my brain could reconcile this abnormality was to name the personalities. I know that sounds crazy but hey I like to name things, alright? Hanley would be the name of the first and Twatasaur the name of the second. Yes, that would help me make sense of it all.

Twatasaur was staring at me with that wicked grin, just waiting for me to be the first to break the silence that was extending into ridiculous proportions. I refused to do as he wanted, no matter how desperately I wanted information on Nora and Stella’s disappearance. I folded my arms over my chest and leaned back against a supporting pole of the tent with one leg raised and braced on it. I glowered at Twatasaur, baring my teeth like an animal as I waited.

It didn’t take long for Twatasaur to break which had the added benefit of filling me with victorious energy.

“Don’t you want to hear the message?” he asked me.

I picked off a speck of lint from my shoulder and flicked it away. “When you’re ready.”

Twatasaur was unimpressed with my indifference. His forehead wrinkled as his brows dropped. I saw his hands pull into fists, dragging the blanket with them. It took everything I had not to smile at the impact I was having.

“The Lady will haunt your dreams and steal everything that matters to you,” Twatasaur snarled through his teeth.

I shrugged. “She’s already doing that. If you want to threaten me maybe try something new.”

“I have waited for you to arrive for so damn long and now you’re playing games with me?” Twatasaur barked.

“Come on man. This is getting a bit overdramatic, don’t you think?” I asked.

Twatasaur smiled. “She’s going chew you up and spit you out.”

“Ahh, she’s a spitter, not a swallower. Thanks for the heads up.”

Twatasaur howled and started punching the cot he was laying on. Cursing me out in an impressive stream of abuse even I couldn’t have strung together. It was hard not to laugh at that. It was like a kid throwing a tantrum albeit one with a serious potty mouth.

“Are you done yet?” I asked.

“I’m gonna tear you a new one,” he snarled.

I rolled my eyes and took off one of my gloves, inspecting my fingernails. I didn’t much care that they were dirty or uneven but I needed something to do with my hands while I waited for him to chill out a bit.

Twatasaur climbed up onto his knees, jabbing a finger in my direction. “Listen here, you little shit…”

Before he could say more a woman ducked under the flap of the tent. “How are you feeling today, Hanley?”

She looked up and paused in place, her mouth dropping open just a little as her eyes whipped from me to Twatasaur in the bed.

“What… what is going on here?” she asked.

Twatasaur vanished like he had never been, instantly replaced by his trembling counterpart. “This man is attacking me, Rochelle. Make him leave.”

Rochelle grew as she straightened her posture to glare at me. “Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“We were just in the middle of a conversation,” I said. “It won’t take long. We’re friends from long ago.”

“I don’t want to talk to him!” Hanley howled, diving back under his blanket. “He is one of them!”

Rochelle rushed past me, her hands ablaze with green fire. She threw back Hanley’s blanket just enough to place her hands on either side of the man’s head. Hanley began to glow the same green as Rochelle’s hands. His body went slack as he let out a sigh and closed his eyes.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

Rochelle looked at me with one brow lifted. “How exactly do you know Hanley?”

I swallowed, praying that my charisma ability would be high enough for this. “I’m a Crafter working under Tanya with the Outsiders. Hanley was helping me before he… well, I guess you know.”

Rochelle’s disposition changed. Done with whatever magic she was casting on Hanley she straightened and offered me a smile revealing a singular dimple. “I see. I’m sorry he is not in a good way right now. He needs rest and a chance to work through the trauma he experienced. It’s a bit hard to do that when he’s stuck on the front lines of a war.”

She turned away, blowing a stray thread of golden hair away from her face as she muttered unhappily to herself. She opened up a cabinet near the wall and began counting the bottles inside.

I slunk closer to Hanley’s cot and looked down at the sleeping man. He wouldn’t be much help to me while he was peacefully sleeping. Somehow, I didn’t think the Cleric would be too happy with me if I woke him up and started probing him for information in her presence.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“I hope he starts feeling more like himself again,” I said loudly enough for the woman to hear. “I’ll be on my way now. Sorry for the ruckus.”

“No problem. If you come across General Alex out there, let him know that Hanley needs to go back to the hideout. He doesn’t belong here,” Rochelle said.

“Will do. Thank you for taking such good care of him.”

She gave me a curt nod before turning back to what she was doing. I slipped out of the tent but I didn’t go far. Instead, I darted around the back end of it and into the shadows, sitting in the crevice between the large roots of a tree. It was surprisingly comfortable so long as I didn’t think too deeply about the amount of creepy crawlies that must be skulking around under my ass.

I reached into the deeper shadows again and pulled out another blob. At least I assumed it was a different one. They all looked the same and I’d only ever managed to pull one out at a time. Huh, maybe it was just the one. Should I name it? No, that would be weird. I needed to break away from this impulse to name everything.

“Go in there and tell me when the Cleric lady leaves,” I told the blob.

It slipped away in silence, disappearing in half a second. I envied its ability to vanish. Boopzy squealed making me just about jump out of my skin. I’d forgotten the little Tentarat was even there. I scooped him out of my pocket and dumped him on my raised knee.

Far off a monster howled like a wolf might to the moon. Its song was joined by what must have been hundreds of others. I shuddered, pressing deeper into my little hollow. A bright speck of silvery light whizzed past my head but when I turned to follow it it was already gone.

With a shrug, I turned back to Boopzy and asked, “What do you think of all this craziness, little fella?”

The Tentarat started on a stream of chittering and squeaking that might have made sense if I had a Tentarat Tongue skill. I listened to him prattle while I waited for the shadow glob to return. I hate waiting. Half the time it felt like it was all I did.

The horrible sounds of the monster swarm should have broken up the monotony but all it did was make me want to run the other way. These people must be crazy. All of us should be loading our asses onto the carriage in Phlegm’s yard and hightailing it across the country. But no, we must be brave and protect this small pocket of the country, and for what? There was nothing here that we couldn’t get elsewhere. No specialized resources that we needed to protect. No main quests that relied on this place being monster free. People were seriously letting these fantastical powers we now had get to their heads. Like we all somehow had to be heroes instead of just trying to live.

The shadow glob smacking into my face broke me from my gloomy thoughts. I would have tried to pry him free if my fingers didn’t just pass right through him. Funny how the thing was corporeal when I summoned him but not when I wanted to stop him from being a dick.

Boopzy didn’t seem to like it either. The Tentarat began slapping at it with its tentacles. It took a lot of swearing and grabbing to make the little creature stop hitting me.

“You can go away now,” I growled to the shadow creature.

It slumped and slid off me, disappearing back into the darkness it had come from. I stood and stretched before slipping back around to the front of the tent and ducking inside.

It was empty inside aside from Hanley on his cot still dead to the world. I waltzed up to him and gave him a good jab.

“What… Hey, who’s there?” he grumbled as he rolled, swatting at me.

“Time to wake up Twatasaur. We didn’t finish our conversation from earlier.”

“What did you just call me?” Hanley howled, shooting upright from his prone position. The man’s eyes widened as he stared at me in the gloom, a look of horror contorting his face. “It’s you, you’re back! Get away from me!”

“I don’t need Hanley right now, I need the other guy. Tell me what happened the night you and the other Gunslingers were attacked.”

“No,” the man screamed, grabbing at his head and flinging it from side to side. “I can’t go back there. Don’t make the bad man come out again, please.”

I grabbed his shoulders, giving him a little shake. “We don’t have a choice. Tell me about Melumek’s Lady.”

Hanley froze, his lips opening wide as he bared his teeth in a sickening grin. “She is very mad at you.”

“There he is,” I said. “Twatasaur is back.”

The man lifted a brow and sneered at me. “Call me whatever you want. You’ll be long dead in the ground while I’m alive and prospering.”

“Yeah, you’ve been confined to a sick bed for months. I think she got to you a lot more than she’ll get to me.”

Twatasaur shoved me away and rose to his feet. I had expected him to be wearing one of those gowns that didn’t quite close in the back but instead he was decked out in jeans and a killer bomber jacket. Around his waist was a thick belt interspersed with pouches and at least four six-shooters. I couldn’t think of a single way that could have been a comfortable outfit to be laying in bed in.

“Melumek’s Lady wants to see you again. She knew you would come back. It’s why she’s been collecting your friends as trophies.”

“See me again?” I asked, sure he’d misspoken.

Twatasaur’s smile broadened. “Oh yes, you’ve met her before. Your friends are waiting for you at the abandoned Castle Fun Park in Halls Head. She dares you to come join them.”

“Challenge accepted, Twatasaur. I hope your Lady enjoys getting her ass whopped.”

Twatasaur laughed and dropped back onto the cot making the makeshift thing groan beneath his weight. “Good luck with that small fry. She has an entire army on her side, what do you have? A couple of swords and a Tentarat?”

Boopzy slid out of my pocket, clutching onto my throat as he hissed at Twatasaur. I smirked and turned my back on the man that should be Hanley but somehow wasn’t, not much caring what he thought. I heard him swear and the cot squeak as he shot back up again.

I Blinked to the side, bolting across the tent as a bullet shot through the space I had just been in. I rounded the man, drawing my sword and slamming the hilt of it against the man’s temple. Hanley’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as he crumpled like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

“Sorry, mate,” I said, sheathing my sword. “You know Twatasaur deserved it.”

I bent, gripping the unconscious man under the arms and hauling him up just high enough to dump him back on the cot. I yanked the blanket up to cover him then turned and marched out.

Boopzy began bruxing, his soft fuzzy head rubbing against my cheek as he showed me his approval. I reached up to tickle his chin. “Come on little fella, we have a Fun Park to visit.”