They slept through the whole night, only rising around mid-morning. They were grumpy and bleary-eyed. The exception was Bee, who had gotten up early to make breakfast, waking the others with the smell of meat frying on the pan.

She was doing pull-ups from a tree when Will got up. How she had the energy for that kind of thing, he had no idea.

They ate mostly in silence. Nix was still wiped out from the ordeal she had suffered, and Mongrel brought her food to eat lying down, the very picture of a doting house husband.

Not long after came the moment Will had equally been dreading and looking forward to. Slapping her thigh, Pigeon jumped to her feet, her wooden clogs clacking off stone.

“Well, it’s been great fun, but I’d better get out of here. Got an employer of my own waiting back in Stormfort. You kids take care, okay?”

“Won’t you need a piece of the wretcher as proof of the kill?” Will asked, motioning to the conspicuously intact fellform that lay sprawled at the edge of their camp.

In response, Pigeon opened her Inventory and pulled a small, pale fetus out of that black void. “Already thought of that. Reckon this will do. I’ve got good rapport with Lady Winter either way, so I reckon she’d take my word for it.” She shoved it back inside.

“All right, then…” Will paused, puzzling over his words. He wanted to ask her about the goddess. He wanted to insist on speaking with her. There were so many questions on his lips. But none that he could voice without tipping the others off. “Happy trails, Pigeon.” He put extra emphasis on the name to underline the secret they now both shared.

Pigeon grinned, plucking her straw hat off the ground and pushing down that crazy straw hair with it. “And to you, Deathbed.” Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

Her hands made a flurry of signs, then she was gone. Vanished into thin air. Gone as quickly as she had appeared.

Now that she wasn’t there to look at anymore, the reality of the situation began to feel dubious, as though he had somehow hallucinated everything that had happened last night.

But it was real. That much he knew for a fact. Will had met the most famous lifer on Nifala, and he had learned that Era was not dead at all, but made prisoner by the system she herself had designed.

As if we needed more proof that she’s a shitty fucking designer.

He struggled to comprehend the meaning of it all. Would he ever get another chance to get this close to the goddess? Or was this his first and only brush with greatness?

Bee must have sensed his musings, because she kept looking at him strangely, wearing a growing frown.

Before she had the chance to say something ill-advised and ruin the whole thing, Will relayed what he had learned about Pigeon’s identity into her mind, and advised her to be discreet. He had promised Pigeon to keep her identity a secret, and he had no idea what she would do to him if he went back on his word.

Nothing pleasant, he imagined. Or nothing at all. She was a woman of extremes, oscillating between unnervingly cool and deadly intense.

They spent the day resting, packing, and organizing. Now that the wretcher was dead, they were in no real rush. Their only deadline was Will’s 90-day elixir delivery with Brimstone. But he had over two months left on that, and he already had an elixir to give depending on what it turned out to be, so that had ceased to be an issue in his mind.

He cut open the wretcher, harvested a few reagents. He figured the head would make for good enough proof, so he cut that off and placed it in a canvas bag for safekeeping, dumping the rest of the body where they wouldn’t have to look at it.

They called it quits early and sat around the fire, enjoying each other’s company and two bottles of spirits to commemorate a job well done. Mongrel told boastful stories about the good old days, so Nix had to one-up him and detail her good old days, centuries or millennia ago. They were a bloody affair, mostly filled with demons and monsters. Hardly uplifting, but no one was feeling picky.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Bee had gotten a bit too drunk, and followed up their tales by immediately sticking her foot in her mouth and revealing too much of what she knew about Pigeon and the goddess. The more observant members of the group pressed her for details, and she floundered, unable to think of any decent excuses.

Will was forced to spill the whole thing. Now they all knew, and he didn’t trust any of them to keep it to themselves. Mongrel was liable to boasting, Bee and Oatmeal were a pair of bumbling dumbasses, and Nix got an unabashedly hungry look on her face as soon as she heard about Era.He didn’t want to know what the demon would have done if she had learned the truth before Pigeon departed.

Will dragged Bee off and spent the better part of half an hour thoroughly dressing her down for her blunder. At least she had the good sense to look ashamed about it.

She made up for it later with an array of sexual favors. He wasn’t sure he would call it a good trade, considering the possibility of Pigeon violently murdering him if he ever saw her again, but it was a salve on the wound, at least.

*****

They set out on the road early the next day, bound for Timbryhall. They skipped out on Talltop entirely, despite their immediate proximity to the town. It would have been nice to pick up some fresh produce, but no one wanted to try their luck with the locals without Pigeon’s sheltering wing to hide under.

Compared to the way up, they had an easy time, spirits high from their recent successes.

They were a little over halfway to Timbryhall, walking through dusk, when they saw a man sitting alone by the side of the road, warming his hands by a humble fire. They had seen a fair number of travelers already, but almost no one traversed the interior alone.

“Hello there!” the man called out to them, uncharacteristically friendly for a stranger, and waved his hand over his head to get their attention. “Come! Sit! Join me by the fire!”

Will’s hackles rose. Even the normally oblivious Bee was suspicious, thumbing the axe at her waist. He used Detect Life, but there was no one else nearby. No bandits waiting in ambush.

“Come, come,” the man insisted, beckoning them close. He motioned to a pot on the fire. “Food is almost ready. There’s plenty to share.”

Oatmeal was already walking over there. Will smacked him on the back of the head, and Mongrel hauled him back in line, giving the sheepish young man a dark glare.

“We’re all right, thanks for offering,” Will said with a curt nod. “If you don’t mind, we’re just going to continue some down the road. Times being what they are. You understand.”

The man nodded. His friendly smile did not slip a hair. “Of course, of course. And I won’t stop you. Although, I do have something important to tell you. If you continue down that road, you’ll soon be wishing you heard me out instead.”

Will frowned at Mongrel. The shaggy man shrugged. “Free food is free food. What could it hurt?”

Will took too long answering. Everyone took that as agreement, dropping down by the stranger’s fire while he ladeled soup into mismatched bowls scrounged from his pack. Will eventually had a seat, too, making space between Bee and Oatmeal. He wanted to know what the man had to say that was so damned important.

He was an older fellow, maybe early sixties, bald and liver-spotted with deep crow’s feet around his eyes and a bushy gray beard with a few stubborn streaks of brown in it. He wore simple travel clothes and a dusty cloak gathered about him for warmth. His shoes were worn all the way through from walking. They showed signs of having been repaired more than once, and still they were worn enough that Will could spy the sole of his foot through a hole in one of them.

His sheet denoted him as a Level 13 Artisan. A traveling merchant, maybe? But he only had the one pack. Couldn’t be a lot of trade goods in that. Didn’t have any proper weapons on him, either, as far as Will could tell. Just a walking staff resting in the crook of his arm and a belt knife.

“Who are you?” Will asked as soon as he had given the man a proper once-over, finding nothing conclusive. “And what is it you want, exactly?”

“Shhh,” the man said, passing a bowl of soup to Oatmeal, who then passed it on to Will. “Let the food still your restless tongue.”

He refused to do any such thing. Downed the soup in two long slurps, keeping unbroken eye contact with the stranger the whole time. Then, setting the empty earthenware onto the ground, he said: “Now, then. No bullshit. What the fuck do you want?” His righteous indignation was somewhat ruined by the fact that the soup had actually been pretty good, and he wouldn’t have minded seconds if his pride had allowed him asking.

The stranger set down his own bowl, far from finished but realizing he couldn’t drag this out any longer. “My name is Fredrik of the Many Places, and all I want is to save your lives.” He spread his hands in a welcoming gesture.

Will quirked an eyebrow. “Meaning?”

“Meaning that there is still time to repent. Era shall soon return, and when she does, only those absolved of their sins will be spared the holy fire that shall cover the land.”

Will groaned inwardly. Mongrel groaned out loud. Nix just laughed.

A fucking missionary. Of course.

I’d rather have the bandits.

Oblivious, Oatmeal helped himself to some more soup. Eventually catching on to the others’ reactions, he glanced around, confusion writ large on his face. “What? What’s going on?”

“Shut up and eat your food,” Will snapped.