My hand slowly crawled to my sword. Jillesha started to move towards us, taking his time in relishing the scene, but our eye contact did not break. He was fierce, scary, unsurmountable. But that did not mean I could keep sitting here. I had promised something to Hess just a few days ago.

I forced my legs to move, but they kept trembling. Then, Jillesha picked up pace as he started laughing. One by one, every step he took increased in its stride and speed. As soon as I completely unsheathed my sword and took it out, still sitting, his fist was right in front of my face. I instinctively pushed myself to the ground. At the same time, a dagger found its way to the place my face had been, and met the fist.

Jillesha opened his first and turned his hand around, letting it be sliced, and grabbed the dagger by the blade. I felt a hand on my sleeve, and was pulled back by Typhen, who had left the dagger hanging in the enemy’s hand. The handle of the dagger fell down the next second, and once Jillesha opened his fist, the remnants of the blade did too. They had almost been crumbled into dust, with only a few recognizable pieces left.

“We were here to negotiate peace.” Typhen hissed.

Jillesha laughed, “That’s what we are doing, child. Being free from all of that pompous acting is plenty peaceful.”

There was a lot I wanted to ask him, but my mouth did not open. I could not speak a single word in front of this man. All I managed to do was pull myself up and ready my sword to fight him.

“Not the sword.” Typhen whispered.

Jillesha clearly heard it, because his eyes moved between us for a second before resting on my weapon. I whirled it around and changed my position, hoping that he got a bit confused about what it meant. It had taken me a second to understand it, but I had. The time was right. I wasn’t bound to a weapon anymore. I could use magic.

The enemy kept staring at us with wild eyes. He did not intend to let us move a single inch anymore. But that was because he had no idea that I could use magic. I just needed to make sure that that element of surprise remained until I had made my move. Typhen could distract him, but one of his daggers was already broken, and the bow wouldn’t be any use. If he lost his second dagger too, then he would basically be unarmed for the rest of the fight.

I had an idea, a very simple one. But that would still require a little bit of time to set up. There must be a way to distract him for long enough. One that did not involve letting Typhen put his life on the line. We had already lost six people. Another one, especially one as important as him, would not end well. I almost immediately bit my tongue after thinking that. Hess would kill me for even considering it. Those six people had been important too. We had already lost a lot of good fighters.

“I’ll get him.” Typhen whispered as he took a few steps forward.

I, however, couldn’t allow that. He would die if he attacked right now. I could feel it. I put a hand in front of him, but he did not try to argue. He just pushed it aside, and kept walking with his hand slowly taking out the dagger from the belt.

If he reached Jillesha, the bandit would immediately crush his head, just like the others. Typhen was not worth playing around with. None of us were, not for him. I knew that, because it made sense. But the scene had already begun. This was not a distraction I wanted. And if that was the case, then I would have to do without it.

I took a few steps forward as my left hand readied itself, faintly glowing blue and gaining opaqueness over time. My right went straight for Typhen and pulled him back. Jillesha jumped forward too, going straight for the head. At that instant, I converted all of the magical element I could sense in that particular area to water, and it burst up in all of our faces.

My right hand tossed Typhen back and I jumped too, raising the hand again. It was already glowing red, ready for the attack. Before the water could hit the ground, I hit it with the fire once more. Jillesha stopped mid-attack, probably confused as planned. The fire and water touched, and the surrounding area started getting covered in the steam.

I pulled Typhen up, and we started running in the direction we had come from.

Jillesha roared behind us, and the echo of every single one of his forced, heavy steps rang through the caves, as if some ominous warning. My hands felt a bit limp, probably because I had just used that magic without wearing the gloves. Those made it easier to control and manipulate the element. Without them, all the pressure of that transformation went to the body itself, which caused one to get tired faster.

I led the two of us. Typhen definitely hadn’t forgotten the route, but he did stumble once or twice, which is when I stepped in and started to move in the right direction. We were almost halfway through the route in a matter of minutes, but even then, every single time that I took a quick look behind us, Jillesha was right there. He had kept us with us till now, which probably meant that the steam hadn’t worked much. I also didn’t know what his actual speed was, so there was the chance that he was just toying with us by moving slower than he normally would.

Something in my body hurt. I couldn’t quite understand what, but something did, as I picked up pace. There were no wounds on my body yet, so it wasn’t easy to pinpoint the location. It wasn’t much of a hassle to the running itself, so I decided not to focus on it. Slowly though, the pain kept growing, as if creeping up from the stomach to the heart, and then to the throat. But nothing ever actually happened. I could not feel any proper negative feedback from my muscles, so I kept running.

After a bit more running, the entrance came into sight. It was a straight sprint to it, and it did not seem like the bandit leader had closed in on us at all. We kept going, and he followed with the same distance. Through the entrance, I could see the scout preparing our cart to leave. I had no idea if he had figured out the situation yet, but he needed to be made aware of it. While running, I pulled out Typhen’s dagger, which startled him, but he kept up.

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Using just a little bit of my magic, I lit the dagger on fire, and threw it out of the entrance. I couldn’t see where it landed, but the scout changed where he was looking for some time, and then stopped. Then, he started running around while continuing to prepare the cart, and taking occasional looks towards the entrance. All the while, we kept getting closer.

The pain inside my throat grew. It was almost as if I was about to vomit, but it was obvious that there was nothing there. Tears started to flow from my eyes, unable to contain the rashness of the pain in the throat.

I groaned, which made me slow down, but Typhen kept going, taking just a quick look to make sure I was fine. I picked up speed once more, but then noticed that Jillesha wasn’t following us anymore. A look back confirmed that he had stopped in his tracks with a nasty smile on his face. Something in my head asked me to do it at that moment. So, I completely turned and readied my hands to blast him with a bit of fire magic. Behind me, Typhen shouted as he got out of the entrance.

As soon as my hand started to glow red just a bit, I felt the inside of my body burn. I let go off the magic, and fell to the ground. The pain in the throat grew, as if someone was scratching on the inside, tearing through all of the flesh. I shouted and coughed until the ground below me was covered with blood, along with my mouth. Then I remembered. This was from back then. The internal injury from when I had broken character in Ginzari’s tent.

I pushed myself back, but Jillesha kept standing there, smiling.

“Tell Ginzari about my offer. Sorry about your friends. I should have leashed and taught my pet better. I’m ready to pay any kind of fees as repayment for those unfortunate deaths!” He declared as he kept looking at me.

I got up once more, and got out of the caves.

My head shot up towards the sky to confirm my suspicions. We had gone back to being under watch for some time now. I suspected that it might have been back when my body started to pain. Running around in the caves had made me lose track of time. On top of that, I had no idea how long the deadlock with Jillesha had lasted. It felt short, but it could have been a sizeable amount of time.

Typhen and I got on the cart, and kept looking at the caves. Jillesha did not exit, but his laugher echoed for a second before fading out. The scout started driving at full speed, and the bandit hideout was soon out of sight.

Current Story – Jillesha

Character – Ryworn

Role – Major

Stage Directions (Day 30) –

Attend the Meeting

I woke up when we had almost gotten back to the camp. Typhen was already up, and sitting with a stern expression on his face. I had the same feeling. I suspected, however, that both of us felt it for completely different reasons. He probably felt angry and sad about what had happened. I, on the other hand, couldn’t get Jillesha’s face out of my mind.

It had been foolish to assume that everyone in this world was a good person who had been forced to do wrong things by God. There were always people who would rather do bad, but were being forced to do relatively good things. And there was no way that one would know before the unmonitored time started. And by then, it would be too late. The twenty-three minutes which had felt like moments of security and harmony until yesterday, scared me now. Maybe it was fine if I did not get to know the real versions of these people. After all, I still hadn’t met the real Typhen, or Hess, or Ginzari.

It was safe to assume that they were good people even then, but there was nothing to be confident about with strangers.

Especially when they could be like Jillesha. I pushed out all of the thoughts I had had earlier about him. It wasn’t necessary that he thought of things the same way I did. There was no possible connection between our personalities right now, and that’s what mattered. Even if he had given in to the fact that these people were meaningless to him, I would not. Every person I had met till now had taught me that. These were actual human beings in an actual world, that would be here even if I wasn’t. I had no right to trample on them, or not care about them. They weren’t one-dimensional tools for my satisfaction and happiness.

Even if Jillesha was someone I could become if I were on the wrong path, I knew that I hadn’t taken it. Once the mercenaries inevitably killed him, I would win. We would win.

The camp came into sight, one tent at a time. A huge crowd seemed to have gathered to wait for us. I pushed my head into my knees and took large breaths. I couldn’t bear to see these people. The dread that I had been avoiding till now began to set in. Once more, I was going to come back to them after an important task, and tell them that the people better than me had been killed. I did not even want to get out of the cart at this point.

“I see.” Were the first words I heard. Ginzari.

“I told you that he speaks no other language.” Hess growled before coming closer to the cart.

I raised my head and looked at her. Surprisingly, her eyes were kind, pitiful. She gestured for us to get down, and immediately hugged Typhen.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“No. We, uh, we got there on time. But…he was fast.” Typhen apologized.

“You couldn’t have defeated him. The fact that you both are even here is good enough for me.” She pulled her head away and looked at him, “Took me until last night to realize how stupid I had been.”

“When you all go to kill him, I want to be there.” He said with a calmer voice than before, “I want to see his head roll with my own eyes.”

“You will.” She locked eyes with him, “And I will do that myself.”

She let go of him and turned to me.

“Don’t worry. It’s alright.” She smiled before going back to Ginzari.

He huffed and sighed.

“Do you need any more proof, or are we preparing for battle?” She asked.

“I want everyone to gather at the table right now.” Ginzari turned and started to walk towards the training grounds.

Typhen looked at me and gestured towards the others. I got down after him and looked at all of the mercenaries. Their looks did not seem to be condescending. No, they were full of sadness. They knew that it hadn’t been my fault this time, and they did not intend to push it on me. It had been foolish to assume that they would.

All of them turned and started to walk after Ginzari. Kaisel and Sylvia were looking from a distance until he turned and started to walk, leaving her where she stood. Once we got a bit closer, she came to us, and without a word, started to walk beside Typhen. Other than the occasional glance that she gave him, neither of us shared a word.

Together, we reached the table. Ginzari had already taken his position, and the others were settling in too. Something about this view gave me a bit of hope. It made me slightly happy. Jillesha might have been strong, but I had also seen Hess and Ginzari fight. And there was no telling what kind of gems might be hiding amongst the normal soldiers. Their expressions had changed to ones of determination already. As I took a seat, I felt confident. Who cared about what had already happened? These guys…No. Us. We, were going to make him pay.