“What are we actually doing?”

“Shh, he could be listening. This town is done for, we need to teleport out of here.”

Her eyes widened, “like we did back then?”

“Yeah exactly… but we have to go through the main square. Look, I didn’t see any monsters in the street just now, it should be safe, and well, frankly, we need to take the risk.” My shaky voice betrayed any confidence.

“Okay.” She said. Okay? I take it that means she’s on board?

***

Loud thuds and clangs of steel were coming from up ahead.

Shit, has the fighting reached the main square already?

The closer we got to the main square, the more we could hear. We came to the mouth of the street and saw. The area was a mess of fallen guards and peasants.

“Kae Woo? Brutus? Torovir?” They were slashing and flailing wildly at three Toad-beast, a short sword stuck out of Kae Woo’s back, he was breathing heavily, caked with blood. He deflected a downwards swing of the axe, twisted away from sword thrust. Brutus caught one of the Toad-beast unprepared with a delicate upwards swing with his mace, momentarily stunning the beast.

“We have to help them!” Catherine cried out, and awkwardly tugged at my sword I gave her, only after a few tries released it from its sheath.

“No!!! Stop, wait, you’re making a mistake!” Indecision gripped me for a few seconds before I stubbornly chased after her and grabbed her hand. “We need to head for the inn.”

She looked pissed but came anyways.

As we neared North street, more beastmen poured out from the South alleyway that connected to the beach.

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Shit, they’ll catch us before we make it inside, think stupid…

“Wait here.” I commanded all the mercenaries. Then caught Matilda’s eyes. “Matilda, follow me!”

The giant toad creatures were twice the size of a human and towered over the mercenaries. When the beasts drew near, instead of the mercenaries attacking they…

“What the? They’re running?”

Messages were flooding in, letting me know that the mercenaries were dissatisfied and had left my services. It didn’t matter, they served their purpose.

We jogged up the street into the inn and closed the doors behind us. “Well, we’re lucky we survived… Catherine, you’ve got to be more careful, we could have all died.”

She walked up to me and slapped me.

Oww, what the hell?

“Mark, I know you’re probably very knowledgeable about the gaming aspects of this predicament we are in, but unless you can prove to me these NPCs are actually less than human, than their lives are precious!” She said with passion.

I know… I know… they can awaken, I’m pretty sure of that.

“Never. Ever. Do. Something like that again.”

“Yea…”

“Am I clear?”

“Yeah, sorry, you’re right, I’m sorry. And…” I turned to Matilda, “I’m sorry for letting your friends or colleagues down.”

There was suddenly a loud bang and the door shook on its hinges.

“Ahh, come on, the scroll is in my room!”

Catherine braced herself against the door.

“What are you doing?”

She looked me dead in the eye. “Take them with you.”

“W-what? They’re NPCs.”

“Mark. I know you’re probably very knowledgeable about the gaming aspects of this thing we are in, but unless you can prove to me these NPCs are actually less than human, than their lives are precious, okay?!” She said grunted against the door. “At least try!”

“But.”

Kalm the inn keeper came over. “Good afternoon, Miss Reicat.”

Catherine turned to her, “follow him!” she pleaded.

“Where are we going?” Kalm asked.

“Don’t worry Kalm everything is going to be okay.”

She turned back to me. “Stop thinking Zombie head and do it already! The monsters are coming!” She screamed.

Shit. “Hold on, I’ll get the scroll and come back!”

She smiled at me. “Okay, hurry.”

Damn she’s cute!

More bangs against the door, it was enough to shake the whole building.

I shot her a pained look and then ran up the stairs to my room, Matilda and Kalm following behind, thankfully the scroll was still hidden under the mattress, I quickly grabbed it and raced back to the stairs.

There was a loud crash and Catherine was sent sprawling to the floor.

Four giant toad creatures with boiled slimy skin surrounded her.

She caught my eyes as she stood weapon drawn, the weapon I gave to her. “Go Mark! Take them!”

Faaark! I unravelled the scroll and held in my mouth and grabbed both Kalm’s and Matilda’s hands.

Another toadmen was making his way to the stairs. I concentrated and felt at the energies in both Kalm and Matilda, reaching out for their souls. Bright galaxies of light and energy floated in their bodies, up and down their meridians, just like me. NPCs… with souls?

Well… we’re probably all going to die…

“Soul bind.” I said aloud and could instantly feel the energies resisting being bound into my own energy just like with the orb, but it didn’t need to bound permanently, it just need to intermingle for a few seconds. But the pain was back and worse than ever, as much as I was pulling on their souls, so too were they pulling on mine.

Scroll.

[Would you like to use the scroll?]

“Friggen ACCEPT!!!” I said through gritted teeth and teary eyes.

And everything disappeared from sight, the inn, the toadmen warriors, Kalm, Matilda… and… Catherine whom was standing in the middle of death.