“Urg! Walking bores me. At the next town let's stop and get some raptors.” complained Alice as a group of five people warily stopped to take a break at the side of a cobblestone road and she flopped on the floor to rub her feet. "At this point I would even settle for horses."

“It's getting pretty late, we should probably look for a suitable camp site.“ Handing Alice a water pouch, Bruce warmly looked down at the pouting girl. “We have another two days of travelling in Flatner forest and then three days travel to the nearest large town where we might be able to buy some means of transportation.”

Sighing Alice lay down on the grass. “I signed up to fight, not walk the length of the continent carrying my own body weight in supplies and weapons.”

“Why don't you change back to your snake form? I hear it is much easier to travel in and you won't be inconvenienced by the weight of your gear. The only reason you transformed was to travel in the dense forest, wasn't it? We should be on the road until we hit the plains.” enquired Bruce with a strange glint in his eye.

Chuckling Alice threw him a flirtatious look. “Any excuse to see my beautiful body huh?... shame for you there are few perverts about.”

Alice rolled her eyes and looked over to the two elves who has been standing around in silence. “Jane back at headquarters warned me about you two. It's best to stop trying to be mysterious in the hopes of ‘bedding a snake girl’.”

“I don….” replied Aron raising his hands as if to ward off the accusation.

“Don't deny it, every female Pathfinders has heard your drunken boasting when on leave in the city. That and always being found in the central brothel.”

“Tsk” tutted Alic visibly relaxing and revealing a dismissive, uncaring smile. “Looks like this is a bit of a bust, but then again little red is already taken by Bruce and after that water demon nearly killed me in Silstein, I think I'll pass on Claire.”

“I can hear you, you know?” snarled Alice as she got to her feet. “Don't talk about my sister and I like pieces of meat! Also call me by my name! Its Alice got it!”

“Ahh sorry, it's just we have sensitive hearing and when you snuck out of Bruce's room in the middle of the night in Flatnor and he called you Little Red, it was really cute and has kind of got stuck in my head.” said Aron before both elfs fell to the ground in fits of laughter.

“I..I I do have to say. The hissing you make is exquisite… I didn't..I didn't have any real interest in snake girls before but now...” stuttered Alec in between fits of laughter.

Alice and Bruce’s faces turned a deep red and they both opened and closed their mouths in a vain attempt at finding a suitable retort or at least some way to defend themselves.

Alice made a loud huffing noise and turned her attention back towards the flushed Bruce. “Fucking perverts, I preferred it when they didn't speak.”

As the laughter and subsequent bickering died down, Claire who had been enjoying the show from the sidelines, started to scan the edges of the woods.

“Don't bother, although we haven't seen him for two days he is still close.” shouted Bruce so anyone in the immediate area could hear. “I can smell his rancid, demon stench a mile off.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Just as he finished a spear like branch flew past his head, barely missing, embedded its tip deep into the ground causing Bruce let out a triumphant roar. “HA! I knew you would eventually react!”

Mors had returned to his silent, uninterested ways the moment Verz had left the the adepts to their trial however he was not given a moment's peace as the twins bombarded him with questions about his heritage and abilities. After managing to ignore them for an entire day, Mors finally snapped when Alice decided to threaten him with a fire lance and had distanced himself from the group.

“Why don't you command him to come out? You're the party leader” said Alice with disdain for Mors heavy in her voice.

“Although he sucks at it, he has been keeping watch every night and is regularly scouting our path ahead… if anything he is being more useful than if he was with us and as a bonus we don't need to be near that demon.” muttered Bruce in a voice so low, only she could hear it.

Alice’s red reptilian eyes slightly contracted. “He has too many secrets and the way the senior Pathfinders treat him is too weird, there is something strange about the whole thing. I don't trust him.”

“I feel the same way but after cooling my head a bit, I realised the reason or at least a positive for why he replaced Dakkan as our team member.” replied Bruce in a somewhat cheery voice.

“Pathfinder trials are assigned by draw and we got this crappy, high risk mission. Although Rock said it was a A- mission, the places we have to pass through could easily be considered A to A+.” Bruce folded his arms and stared out into the trees. “If things go south and knowing our luck it will, with his impulsive temperament and strength he will be the ideal person to draw the enemy's attention long enough for us to get the upper hand or escape.”

“He hates us and is a demon to boot, why would he help? Especially if we are sacrificing him to save our own skin.” snapped Alice trying to remain quiet.

Bruce was quiet for a moment. “He wouldn't know he was sacrificing himself and we wouldn't exactly publicise the fact to him, he would probably see it as an insult to himself if we were killed by others and dive in without thinking of the consequences anyway. Demons are crazy like that and I g...”

“He doesn't hate us!” Claire had stomped over after hearing some of the heated conversation. “I think he just has major trust issues and a fear of being hurt. Think about it, his drastic personality change towards the Captain after a single night just because she said she would adopt him. Plus after asking the other teams I found out that he never abandoned anyone during his training, no matter the task or danger.”

“That's true, I heard he stood up to the captain, taking a brutal beating for one of the cooks just because they gave him some extra food .” Interjected Alic as the elfs joined in the conversation causing everyone's brows to raise in surprise.

Alice looked at the two with disgust. “What do you two want?”

“We need to come together as a team and work out how we can complete this mission while keeping everyone alive.” Claire folder her arms and huffed loudly, glaring at her sister.

“Urg sister, I can probably get along with these two perverts as long as they don't get any funny ideas but that demon ... you're saying that grumpy, aggressive, hate filled fool who is constantly starting fights and distancing himself is doing it because he can't trust us and doesn't want to get hurt?” snorted Alice while taking a quick look around the clearing. “I cant believe that and what's more, every-time I look into his eyes my instincts scream at me that he is dangerous and I need to get as far away as possible.”

"I know what you mean." added Bruce. "When he looks at me its as if I am standing in front of a monstrous creatures who wants to rip me to pieces. Although he wouldn't dare." Bruce puffed up his chest in an attempt to seem bigger and more intimidating while repressing the shudder he felt when he remembered the few times he saw Mors looking at him. -"Demons... even if they have no reason to dislike you, you still get that feeling of doom just from a glance. Disgusting things."

“... If anyone mentions what I am about to say… it could get us all in serious trouble.” said Claire in a cold voice and glaring at the elfs who, due to their extraordinary senses had naturally overheard the entire conversation. Once the elves had nodded their agreement and she had scanned the woods to make sure Mors wasn't close by she continued.