But only for a second. Ren shot up quickly, holding her side where Ed’s foot had collided with her.

“SHIT, that hurt,” she snapped.

“Ren, we have problems,” Ed said.

“You have problems,” Ren snapped. “You’re bleeding.”

Ed could feel the wet warmth of blood trickling down the side of his head. He was prone to this. Bleeding was common from surface head injuries, and he had no hair for protection. His mother constantly chastised him as a child for getting hurt all the time. You look ghastly, she would tell him.

Ed checked his stats quickly, curious how much health he lost from the blow to his head.

[Name: Eddarion Key

Netheryn Class: Netheryn

Rank: Initiate

Level: 1

Experience: 0 / 100

Faction: None

Stat Points Available: 0

Health: 76 / 80

Sanity: 63 / 90

Insight: 0/2

Strength: 1

Dexterity: 2

Resistance: 1

Wisdom: 3

Faith: 1

Perception: 2

Equipped Spells: Summon Dual Skeletons]

Not much loss to his health, which was reassuring. He also noticed he had regained three sanity points since summoning his skeletons. Maybe from resting in the grass, waiting for the drifters to fall asleep?

“Ed, snap out of it,” Ren barked at him.

Ed saw three torches in the distance, flames growing more prominent as they approached.

“Shit,” Ed said.

“Who are these guys? What did you do?” Ren asked, standing up and inspecting her equipment. She brushed dirt from her leather tunic where Ed had accidentally kicked her.

“I think they’re drifters,” Ed replied.

Ren was fidgeting around with her equipment, making frustrated noises as she did so. The lumie pounced from Ed’s shoulder to hers. It rubbed its face against her neck, and she visibly relaxed.

Ren raised her hand, drawing in a small amount of light like she had in the ossuary room—a long and slender scythe formed in her hand. The blade glinted under the moonlit sky.

“All of that was real then...” Ren trailed off.

Ed grinned for a split second as he watched Ren go through the same thought process he had. At least he hadn’t been woken up by Ren tripping over him. He’d be in much more pain than he already was.

“Let me talk with them first,” Ed insisted.

“And if they don’t want to talk?”

They probably didn’t want to talk, Ed thought. Given his experience with drifters and that he had gagged and kidnapped the girl… But they had seized his lumie. What Ed did was retaliation.

Right?

“Then we don’t talk,” Ed said under his breath.

Ren seemed to approve.

“Alright, lead the way, drifter whisperer. Flex those commoner muscles of yours,” Ren mocked.

Typical royal, Ed seethed. They didn’t have time for arguing, so he shrugged it off for now.

The trio of drifters approached with torches in hand. Ed spotted a weapon on the two men: one club and one shoddy dagger. The girl trailed behind them, looking angry.

They stopped about twenty feet away, eyeing Ren with great concern. Ed recognized that look.

One of the grey-bearded men spoke up first.

“Ay, what business is it you tyin’ up our girl here?” he said with an accent Ed couldn’t place.

The man looked as old as Ed’s father. His skin was leathery and dark from decades in the hot sun. The torchlight flickering on his face in the dark made him look more threatening than he probably was.

“What business do you have stealing our lumie?” Ed replied firmly.

The man chuckled. “Creature like that catches us a pretty penny back at the enclave. Figure we needed it more than you did.”

“Which enclave?” Red asked.

The men looked at each other in confusion.

“What enclave? Are you serious?”

Ren stared back at them.

The other man gulped, raising his hands defensively. “No offense, miss, but you don’t look like any woman I’ve ever seen. You lot ain’t from here, are you?”

“Call me miss again, and you’ll never speak another word,” Ren said matter-of-factly, as if she was describing the weather.

The men both tensed up, obviously frightened by Ren. Ed had a gut feeling this wasn’t going to end amicably. He had meant to keep his skeletons in hiding but brought them forward.

The two men yelled in fright, and the girl let out a shrill scream.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Are you playing tricks on us?” they asked.

“No tricks,” Ed said, walking forward with his staff. “I’d like to ask you a few questions. I’d prefer you answer them willingly, but I have a feeling I’ll get my answers either way.”

Ren glanced at Ed with one eyebrow raised. She looked impressed.

“Fine, and what questions would those be?” one of the men responded.

“How far are we from Silt?” Ed asked.

“Silt? Why in the hells would you want to go to that dirty place? A lady like this should go to the enclave.” The man eyed Ren up and down cautiously. “I can smell a royal from a mile away.”

Ren tensed her grip on the scythe but didn’t respond.

“Answer the question,” Ed said sternly. He ordered his skeletons to his side, trying to emphasize the command.

I am so not used to talking like this. But it seems to be working.

“Ye’, Silt is about half a day’s distance due east. What business do you have there? We’ve heard of bad things happening.”

Ed and Ren shared another knowing glance. Cursed place, bad things… that sounded like Somnia.

“That’s none of your business,” Ren said. “Which enclave is nearby?”

“The Vassar Obsidian Enclave,” both men replied in unison.

Ed knew little of the enclaves littered across Vaalem; even that was too much. His people viewed them as parasitic, greedy entities sucking life from the planet. Obsidian meant it was probably some kind of mining operation.

“Do you really not know of the enclave?” the girl asked incredulously, speaking up for the first time.

Ren ignored the question and turned to Ed.

“So, what do we do with them?” Ren said under her breath. “Do you think the girl’s a hostage?”

Ed’s brow furrowed with concern. He hadn’t considered it, but it was an odd pairing. The girl’s accent was different than the men also.

But she kidnapped their lumie and tossed it aside carelessly. Was she worth the effort, especially now that they had answers?

“I don’t know,” Ed admitted.

Ren sighed with a disappointed look. She walked towards the men a strut, puffing up her shoulders. She was obviously trying to physically intimidate them.

It worked. They cowered as she approached, towering over them.

“Enough about us. Tell me about the girl. What are you doing with her?”

“Nothing at all. She’s just a friend,” the one man squeaked out.

“Ye, we’re escorting her to the enclave, is all,” the other said meekly.

Ren looked at the girl momentarily, then back at the two men.

“I’m going to ask you both a question, and I want you to answer at the same time. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” they gulped nervously.

“If she’s your friend, tell me… what’s her name?” Ren asked.

A tension filled the air as the men stared at Ren, mouths agape. They quickly glanced at each other.

The scene broke into action suddenly. The club-wielding man swung at Ren, slow and sluggish.

She deflected it effortlessly with her scythe, twisting the blade around the man’s arm before bringing it down sharply.

A scream rang out in the darkness. The man held his bloody, spurting stump of an arm in front of his face.

“YOU CRAZY BITCH!” the other man shouted. He turned and sprinted full tilt away from them.

He was even slower than his friend.

Ed commanded his skeletons to restrain him.

Ren approached the injured man, who was crying and holding his devastated arm in shock. He had fallen to his knees.

Ren placed a boot on his shoulder and kicked him backward. Blood spattered from his open wound as he fell hard to the ground.

“What are you doing with this girl?” Ren demanded, her voice deep and serious.

Ed shivered. Ren was honestly terrifying. The lumie crawled away and hid in the nearby grass.

The man didn’t answer. His screams subsided as life faded from his eyes.

Ed felt a sickness churning in his stomach, but he persevered. He commanded his skeletons to bring the other man over to them, dropping him to his knees beside his wounded friend.

His eyes were wide with terror.

“I’ll tell you anything, alright. Just don’t hurt me,” he pleaded.

Ed ordered his thralls to hold the man in place, tightening their grip. He winced in pain.

“Your buddy doesn’t feel like talking, so I am going to ask you. What are you doing with the girl?” Ren asked again.

“Taking her to the mines,” the man exclaimed.

The girl gasped as if this was news to her.

“Why?”

“For money.”

Ren waved at the girl to approach. She hurried over obediently.

“Where did you think you were going?” Ren asked her.

“My father told me then were taking me to my aunt and uncle’s place in East Bay…”. Her bottom lip trembled as she spoke.

“Yer daddy sold you out, girl.”

Ren slapped the man across the face so forcibly that Ed thought he heard something break.

The man spat out a broken tooth.

Ed glanced at the other man. He had completely stopped moving. It had been a minute or two since Ren had brutally chopped his arm off.

Ed looked over at the man. His eyes were wide open, locked in an eternal state of fear and shock.

She chopped his goddamn arm off. He’s dead, Ed thought to himself. He had just witnessed a murder. He had been complicit in it.

Even if these men were garbage, Ed was not accustomed to this type of justice. Nomads exiled their prisoners and never executed them.

The System pinged in his mind, confirming his thought.

[You have defeated an enemy!]

[Name: Drifter Arik Dustwallow

Experienced gained: 2

Loot: Decrepit dagger]

The system seemed to congratulate him, but he didn’t share the sentiment. Seeing the man’s name somehow just made him feel worse.

Ren must have had the same notification. Ed watched her eyes lose focus for a moment.

Why did I get credit when Ren killed the man?

[You are linked to Renodet Farrowsteel by your thralldom to Mortem. If you stay close, you will be granted experience points as a party.]

The girl had fallen to the ground, tears streaking down her face. Ed felt an immense wave of guilt wash over him. The poor girl had been kidnapped and didn’t even know it… and then Ed had kidnapped her again.

He felt like a massive asshole.

Ren laid down her scythe and wrung her hands together in thought. She approached the remaining man and patted him down, taking his dagger. His torch had been snuffed out when he tried to flee.

“He has nothing. No money or identification. What a waste,” Ren muttered.

Ren’s callousness bothered Ed.

“You just killed someone,” he said.

Ren looked at him with genuine confusion.

“Would you prefer we let them kidnap this poor girl and send her to be a slave in the mines?” Ren asked.

“No, but –”

“But what? You can’t be that dense not to know how the situation was going to play out,” Ren said brusquely. “What do we do with him?”

The remaining man looked up at Ed and Ren, face stricken with fear. He was sobbing, and a thick line of snot dripped from his nose.

Ed turned to the girl, extending his arm to help her up. She looked at him with suspicion for a moment. Then she stood up herself, rejecting Ed’s offer.

“Why don’t we let her decide?” Ed suggested.

“I like that idea,” Ren said. “Girl, what’s your name?”