I wake up to the saintess’s face over me, dirty and trembling. My mind flashes back to what happened before I got shot, back to the assassin who tried to kill us. I grab her and pull her down beside me. Confusion barely registers in her eyes before I have an arm pressed against her chest, forcing her against the ground.

“The assassin, did we get them? Any allies? What’s our status? Any deaths?” I shoot off a few important questions.

Facing the fire are the final three of our group. The monk and thief look like they have been rolling in the dirt as well. Our prince looks mildly disheveled, but his clothes aren’t covered in dirt.

“The assassin is dead. They had no allies, as we are safe for now. Nobody died, but you came fairly close.” The prince looked me in the eyes as he spoke. There was no disdain in his expression.

“I know the basics of sneaking around. I jumped the assassin the instant they fired their second shot at you. The thing about crossbows is that they are easier to learn than many bows, but you cannot reload them too easily when someone’s trying to stab you.”

I released the saintess at that point. The adrenaline that was keeping me focused left me again.

“Should we have an after meet review? Well, I guess it would be an after battle review. I mean. Um. Shall we say what we did right and wrong?” The saintess started to pick herself off the ground, white clothes now covered in dirt and grass, and muttered such that we could barely hear her. “Go over what we could do or get to improve our chances of survival? I feel like we should do that.”

The monk nods, whispering as well. “Agreed, we should also catch Louis up on what he missed when he was unconscious.” She turned to the thief. “Logan, you were great with taking her down. At the same time, I would prefer if you had a ranged option. We should look into getting you a bow at the next town.”

I nodded at her statement, as did the others. Being able to attack from a distance was always a tactical advantage. Although this did get me curious.

“If I may ask, where is the assassin? I don’t know what you guys did with her while I was out.”

“I searched her body after she bit a poison and killed herself. The saintess was still panicking and trying to heal you, so she couldn’t stop them. Nothing was on the body so we dumped it in the clearing by the fort. Eventually, it will smell and they will dispose of it. Actually, I’ll go back in the morning and grab the crossbow. No point buying something I can take for free.”

I glared at the final comment from him.

“Don’t do that, thief. Monk, I noticed you watching the prince’s back when I briefly regained consciousness. Good thought.”

She gave a small smile and pulled a leaf out of her hair bun.

“I couldn’t do much at the time. I need to feel out my place in the group. Maybe I could get some herbs for simple medicines or poisons.”

“As the prince. I will overlook any poisons you make in the effort to save our kingdom, ensuring guards look the other way when needed. You tried to help and didn’t falter, unlike a certain someone.”

He gave a seething glance at the saintess. Flames licked at his fingers again, briefly turning from a red to a pale blue, then extinguishing themselves. The thief nodded at his statement.

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I would rather not sound accusatory, as I don’t know her circumstances. I am sure they tried to keep her from problems and we know nothing of her life before becoming the saintess.

At the same time”, he glanced over to her with narrowed eyes, “we need a partner who doesn’t freeze up when fighting the evils we are meant to stop. You may have been given the path of a martyr, but that doesn’t mean I want you to die. If you need to leave, we will leave you at the next village to start a new life.”

The saintess’s face turned to panic, shaking her head furiously. She started walking backward away from us until she backed up to a tree.

“Nononononono. You can’t abandon me. They won’t help me if I don’t help stop the Great Evil. I, I need to be a part of your group.”

She started trembling partway through, crouching and trying to withdraw into herself.

The prince opened his mouth but stopped. None of us knew what would terrify her so much. The church kept itself fairly secretive when it came to saintesses. Nobody knew the full details of how they were made, the only details that everyone agreed upon were that they are a pure body and a pure soul put together when the time is right. We all looked at each other confused about how to continue. Eventually, it was the thief that broke the silence.

“We should finish the ‘after meet discussion’ we started. Louis, good job on protecting Alice. It’s nice to know you have our backs”, the thief said.

“You’re a credit to your family name”, the monk remarked.

“I’d definitely say you carried your weight in battle”, the prince declared.

All of them looked at the saintess, expecting her to say something about me saving her. It felt awkward to expect something from her, but not getting thanks from her still annoyed me.

The saintess looked around at us.

“Um, I’m still trying to block out the scene of him bleeding in front of me and the light leaving his eyes, twice. I’ll get back to you later. Thanks, though. For saving me, I mean.”

From there the conversation broke down to what we wanted to get from the next town. We wanted to get everything. Tents, fishing gear, hunting gear, spare weapons, enchanted weapons and armor, lockpicks, extra clothes, a pack animal, fire starter, herbs and spices, dried meats, armor polish, a whetstone, bandages, the list went on and on. We must have talked for over an hour as the fire began to die down again and needed more firewood added.

Then we talked more, about what things we would be able to carry, and how that would affect what we would buy. How we would buy everyone a traveling bag to carry some things in. How a pack animal would be very useful for carrying excess weight.

Then, as exhaustion began to hit all of us again, we decided to take another shot at taking shifts sleeping. The thief and monk were taking the next shift of watch. I was just beginning to fall asleep when I heard them ask each other a question we never asked until that point.

“Out of curiosity, how are we going to buy anything? I can steal a lot of it, but we have no money.”

“We’ll take a job or two in town. Take out wolves attacking a farmer’s sheep or collect medicinal grass for an herbalist. That will give us pocket money, right?