***

Quest Completed: Lure More Sheep

Reward: For completing this quest and meeting bonus objectives, select two stats to increase by two.

* Physical

* Mental

* Spiritual

***

Grace couldn’t help but smile as she let the sounds around her fade away.

Two stats! Hell ya!

Covering her mouth with her hand again, she whispered, “Physical.”

Her body surged with energy, and she felt her wounds beginning to close. Not wanting to curse, Grace knew if she was found to not be bleeding, things would go sideways in a moment.

She prepared to stand up when another red window flashed before her eyes.

***

Physical Threshold Reached

Perk Option Acquired - Choose a Perk

* Regeneration

* Thick Skinned

* Evasion

***

A perk? That means ten must be the threshold for a stat…

Grace read the list of options a few times, trying to consider what might be her best choices. She had heard of regeneration from a story about a monster that always seemed to heal.

If I pick regeneration and I suddenly start healing, things will get even worse than I’m afraid they are now…

Thick skinned sounded weird, but she weighed what that might mean in her mind.

Possibly like armor, but would I look ugly?

She shuddered, imagining what she might look like if her skin took on some blotchy and horrible appearance.

There, at the bottom of the three options was Evasion.

I can only guess it is what the name means…

Knowing her choices and where she was left little room to decide.

Regeneration might be great in the end, but I might get killed right now if I have it… I don’t even have any idea how good it would work…

Putting her hand back over her mouth, Grace whispered once more, “Evasion.”

***

Evasion Ability Granted: This ability has a one-day cooldown after being used. The Evasion ability may be activated to dodge all attacks the user can see for five seconds. If used against an area-of-effect attack, it will provide reduced damage if possible. While the ability is available, the user will be able to read attacks against them better and defend accordingly.

***

Grace felt her eyes bulging as she read the description twice. The ability provided a fantastic opportunity to not get hurt, but what it offered while unused seemed too good to be true.

I will definitely have to practice with it against Max or someone else…

“Child, are you listening?”

The voice got her attention, and she looked up, seeing the Knight and six guards looking down at her. One held a couple of clean strips of cloth out toward her.

“Sorry, I was…”

She stopped talking as the man shook his head and looked away.

Quickly, she took the bandages from the soldier and set to work, grateful to be the one to tend to her own injuries. As she hurried through the process of changing out bandages, Grace could see that her wounds were almost completely healed. The one along her stomach was a pink line of new skin, and the hole in her shoulder was now less than a pinky in width.

Once done, she stood up, nodding, and pretended to wince.

“I’m ready, sir, if you all are.”

The blond-headed knight grunted and motioned to her to move out.

“Lead on, only you know where we are going.”

Grace gave a slight nod and turned around, making sure she limped slightly on her left leg.

After half a dozen yards, she realized that none of the guards were walking close to her. The nearest one was at least six feet behind her.

She had glanced back once and saw them motioning for her to continue, and so she did.

“It’s right there,” Grace informed the group as she stopped a few houses away, pointing at the two corpses outside the home.

The sun was four hours from setting and the shadows it was casting made all of the guards and the Knight a bit hesitant about what they saw and heard from her.

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“Seven of them?”

Grace nodded and then shrugged. “That I saw, sir. It happened so fast, and the one who stabbed… I… I didn’t realize at first I was so in shock.”

The knight nodded and began giving hand signals, groups splitting up in the usual two-at-a-time pattern.

“Come with me,” Michael said, his tone leaving no doubt she had no choice.

Two guards moved toward the pair of corpses, and Grace felt the man’s left hand against her back.

She almost winced, glad she no longer had a dagger stashed back there, as she was certain that would have been hard to explain.

As the group moved forward, Grace tried to devise a plan to deal with all these men if things went sideways.

Her mind delivered a possible solution at this moment.

Sighing, Grace muttered quietly, “This is mentally draining.”

Her head suddenly felt like ice, a cool sensation running through it, and she shivered, unable to hold it back.

Michael grunted silently and increased his pressure as he moved her forward, ignoring her body and her words. His head was moving left and right, scanning everything with his blue eyes.

Grace’s brain felt alive. It was as if most of what she had ever heard or seen was at her fingertips. If she closed her eyes, Grace knew that in her mind would be a story she had read years ago, word for word as it had been in the book.

Her mind started to put together different options for what might happen. When the men came inside and searched the house, they would see the fight.

She almost smiled, knowing that the missing dagger from the man outside would match the one in Miles’s back, and they might think someone had taken it from the one man's corpse and used it on him.

Lines began to connect, and all the trepidation she had felt for a moment was gone.

Michael stopped, grabbing her shirt with his fingers and pulling her to a halt as the two in the lead reached the first two she had killed.

One bent down and started inspecting the bodies while the other kept watch.

She heard the one looking at the corpses dry heave for a moment and turn to look at Michael, his eyes watering and his face turning a shade of green.

“New recruits,” the knight muttered so low that Grace was certain he hadn’t expected her to hear him.

He pressed his fingers against her back, guiding her along.

Grace started to resist a little, grimacing and shaking her head.

“It’s ok, we are here,” Michael said as he pushed against her back.

She nodded and resisted a little less.

Once they were within a few feet, he dropped his hand from her back and moved to see what the others had found.

“Impossible,” was muttered after a few seconds of inspecting the men. Michael turned and looked at Grace, who was biting her lip and watching him.

“What happened? How?!”

“I... I don’t know… I was looking the other way and heard a noise. When I spun around, there was… this massive shadow behind them, and their heads were pressed together.” Grace paused and pretended to want to retch as the other man had. “It… their heads… all over me…” She shook, closing her eyes for a moment. “Then another appeared next to him and yanked me toward him, sticking me with a knife or dagger… he let go, and I fell forward on them…”

Grace reached up and wiped an eye, pretending she was about to cry. She sniffed a few times.

“Then I lay there on top of them, in shock, and saw them enter the house. I heard shouting and screams and… I closed my eyes and tried to not breathe… I tried to not move… when they left, I barely kept an eye cracked and saw them leaving quickly, like shadows. I counted seven, but I only remember two outside… and… I’m sorry it’s all a blur.”

Grunting, the knight nodded and stood up. He motioned to the men still a few yards back.

“Three with me in the house, you three form a triangle. Shout if you see anything.”

The men nodded and quickly moved shoulder to shoulder so they could see each direction without exposing their backs.

The other four moved toward the door.

Right before they went in, Michael stopped suddenly and turned to look at her.

“You went in?”

She nodded as she sighed.

“Then you’re coming in with me now.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he didn’t wait, motioning to one of the guards with him, who came and grabbed her arm and jerked her toward the doorway, using more force than the knight had when he moved her around.

When she stood next to them, Michael motioned to the doorway. “Sorry, but you’re going in first. Take me straight to the bodies. Do this, and I’ll reward you for real.”

Grace let her face change from the timid expression she wore to surprise. Nodding quickly, she moved to the door and glanced both ways once she reached it, bending down low and moving through the corpses Miles and his crew had found on the ground.

When she got to the last guard she had killed, she stopped and pointed at it.

Michael motioned with two fingers, and two guards moved in quickly, staying along the walls and watching the windows, which were all broken out.

Once they gave a slight grunt, Michael and the last guard came in.

The blond-haired knight was about three feet away from the body of the guard she had punched so hard his face had caved in when he stopped.

Grace saw him tremble as his head snapped around the room.

“Quickly! Where are the other two!” he shouted.

Lifting a trembling finger, Grace pointed at the doorway just a few feet away, where a large pool of blood had formed.

“Everyone inside now!” the knight shouted, waiting for the three outside to come in, looking at him frantically.

“Man all windows and doors! Keep your backs to the walls!”

Each man had fear in their eyes. Grace could recognize it now from the look she had seen in every man she killed as they realized death was coming.

They all grunted, quickly moving to the walls and staying near the open windows and doors.

Michael took two steps toward the doorframe, and Grace could see the sword in his hand that he held before him shaking.

Does he have an idea of who might have done this? Could he know about someone like me?

Those thoughts and others fought for answers as her brain began to put everything she was seeing together.

Knight Michael didn’t have a helmet or neck protection on, and Grace could see the side of his throat was tense. His stance had changed as if he was willing his body forward while his mind told him to run.

He glanced quickly down the hallway, making sure no one was hidden in it, and then ran across the open space toward the closet with Miles in it.

Michael grabbed the Sergeant’s leg and dashed back into the room, dragging the corpse through the blood and over the halves of the body of the guard she had killed.

Frantically, the knight bent down, inspecting what had happened to Miles, and Grace saw the man flinch, shaking his head rapidly as he stood up.

He spun around and waved his sword at all of them. “We need to go now! Double time!”

Grace glanced at the Knight and then at the men moving toward the door. “What abou–”

“Run home and tell no one!” he ordered, grabbing a small pouch off his belt. Grace watched him stare at it for a moment before tossing it at her. “Return in two days! Ask for me!”

With that, the knight whistled and made three rapid hand signals, and all the soldiers moved to the door in a pack, jogging as they returned the way they had come.

Grace was stunned for a moment at how they had departed, but her mind solved the problem in seconds.

Shite… they know about people like me…

As that thought rang true, a red box appeared.

Groaning out loud, Grace ignored it as she darted out the door of the house, making sure to keep limping as she moved a few blocks.