The bolt wasn’t that big but it was still enough to slow down the dwarf, having been hit in his arm and dropping the hammer.

Everything started to move at once, people lifting their bows and aiming it at either Lucas and the girls or the dwarf. One person twirling a dagger in between his fingers as he moved a bit to the side to get a better angle in case that it was needed.

As the dwarf looked at the princesses, he would get mad again, lifting the hammer in the air. Before he could take another step, the centaur hit him with the side of the sword, knocking him down. Two other hooded figures coming closer to restrain him.

Lucas couldn’t help it, smirking and looking at the princesses. “So much for having a bow.” He was giving them a hard time seeing as both had a bow.

His gloating was cut short as the centaur started to talk again. “Imir the dwarf! You shall be executed and tortured in the name of treason against the freedom movement!”

Hearing that he was going to get tortured was surprising to Emma and Lilly, getting white as they saw the centaur lift up his sword with both hands. The hooded figured holding the hand with the mark pulled on the and pushed back the dwarfs sleeve. Everyone knew what was going to happen.

Seeing the sword, the dwarf started to beg. “Please no! I beg you, don’t do this. I didn’t want to do this, I had no choice!”

As the dwarf was begging, the centaur slowly lifted the sword higher and higher until it was above his head. With a fast and merciless swing, it came down onto the wrist of the dwarf. The sound of something being cut, the screaming of the dwarf as his hand was cut off. The smell of blood being spread through the air. Everything needed to make someone sick.

“What did you do that for!?” Emma took a step back as she put a hand over her mouth. She was shocked, even though he was about to kill them.

“He betrayed us ma’am. So we cut off the mark of the freedom fighters to show that he was a traitor. Now we shall take him away to be punished accordingly.” Explained the centaur as he walked back to his original place.

Now that everything was done, Lucas would sigh as he looked at his crossbow. It once again seemed to have failed as a piece was hanging of loosely. As he took it off, he looked at the centaur. “I have a request and something to trade for it. You endangered us and kept us from continuing on our journey. I request that you won’t hold us u any longer. And as you just noticed, we’re having some trouble with…” He stopped talking as he didn’t actually know who was after them. “Well, I don’t know who is after us but I request that you try to find out who it is and perhaps put a stop to it.”

The centaur nodded as he slowly put his sword in a sheath on his back. “I understand. What is your trade though. This… event isn’t enough to cover what you’re asking for.”

Lucas took off his crossbow and gave it to the centaur. “An almost fully functional hidden crossbow. You have cloaks so they’ll go well with your outfit. I just can’t seem to find the right strength of wood.”

As he gave the weapon to the centaur, another dwarf walked forwards, taking it instead and inspecting it. Weirdly enough, nobody had been able to make such a small yet powerful version. Mostly because the dwarves tried to build other more intricate weapons and tools and weren’t really interested in these hidden practices, rather using their hammers and pickaxes to fight their fights than ranged weapons and humans were too busy doing what they do best, destroying nature. Altogether, not a single gruge had ever made this item.

“Looks like a good deal Misk.” Said the dwarf to the centaur. “With this prototype, we could make multiple well functional weapons.”

As the dwarf hobbled off, both Lilly and Emma let out a sigh of relieve. They were obviously still shaken by the events. The centaur who apparently was named Misk would nod.

“A deal is made then. We will try to get information and let you be. If we get information then we will find you and reveal this information to you. Don’t worry, we’ll find you.” Before anyone could say anything else, he turned around and quickly ran off, all of his subjects quickly disappearing into the woods, using the bushes to quickly disappear.

Lucas shook her head as he found it scary, grabbing his bag as he started to continue on his path. “Why are there bushes everywhere in this land?”

“Because we’re in the Forest Gruge.” Said Lilly, using Emmas help to walk. “A king a while ago didn’t like that there were so many bushes, hiding enemies and bandits and all. So he had them all removed for the entire Human country. The Forest Gruge decided to keep them.”

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As Emma helped her, she would have some questions to Lucas. “Now how about you tell us about the freedom fighters, who you really are and who this Armenian Beast is. “

A loud sigh could be heard as Lucas knew that if he didn’t answer, they would keep bothering him. “The freedom fighters is a group or a cult, whatever you want to call it, who believe in the freedom of thought. That means that they free creatures from their group or gruge as you call them. Then they take them under their wing, being free of the political lies that your leader spill. And before you ask what they will do with the dwarf who betrayed them, let me tell you what they’ll do. They’ll string him to a tree with no food or water. They do that for two full days. After that they’ll start to cut him up, making sure that he’ll suffer. I know that it’s horrible but it’s to make sure that no other member decided to screw over the freedom fighters. Scare tactics… and a very effective one.” He shivered as he just thought about it. He might seem cold but he was still human. Partially human…

“And your question about who I am… My name is Zoi Thanatos. Name chosen by my God who isn’t Pan. Where I’m from, Pan is just a god from an older civilization. God of the nature. He wasn’t the only though. I’m not sure if he was real. I lied about my name because I’m free from my God and honestly? It’s more peaceful like this. He send me to this world since he was mad but that also meant that he kinda lost track of me. I’m trying to disappear by using another name.”

“Lastly The Armenian Beast. I’m not even sure where to started with him. He’s weird and… I don’t know. At first I was confused hearing the word gruge since his name is Gurgen. He came from my world as well but when I got send here, I was rather surprised to see that he was here as well although he doesn’t remember me for some reason. I was told that he survived a terrible explosion causing a big area to be unlivable. Last time I saw him, he had managed to befriend a chicken who laid special eggs that he could use to fashion into some kind of healing brew.”

All of this information was quite a lot and gave them enough to think about, walking further in silence. Lucas not having his crossbow anymore would grab his dagger. “I forgot to tell that centaur guy that the bolt was poisoned… guess he’ll find out sooner than later.”

As they kept walking, Emma and Lily ended up a bit behind, starting to talk quietly.

“He knows a lot of what is going on around here.” Said Emma as she looked at the back of his head.

“Perhaps when we reach our own gruge, we could offer him a job as a spy? You know… Gather secrets of other gruges.” Answered Lilly, grabbing her leg as she dug her nails into it to shift her attention from the infection to the nails.

“And perhaps Ninke can work for us too. She’s agile and has the wolves working for her. Who knows what else that we don’t know about.”

Lilly grabbed Emma’s hand, wanting to change the subject. “What do you think? Does the Dwarven Gruge want us dead as well? So we have the Forest Gruge and the dwarves after us?”

“I don’t know, you’re the smart one. Perhaps they put a prices on our head. Or perhaps he had a very compelling reason to try and kill us even though he knew how horrible his faith would be.”

“Perhaps…” said Lily as she pushed a branch away, letting it fly back into his original spot.

Emma wouldn’t reply to that anymore. She was focused on something else, namely her stomach. “He better stop soon, I’m starving.” As she said that, she felt her eyes get wet. She had started to think about her sister once more. With what she knew about infections is that in best case scenario she would be healed fully, worst case, it would spread and eventually infect her heart.

After hours more walking, Lucas decided to set up camp. He had checked the stand of the sun and just sat down in what was barely considered a clearing. “Here is where we’ll set up camp.” He grabbed the bag of food and took out of it some bread and jerky, the exact same food he had when Lilly and Emma had first found him. It was now obvious from where he had gotten the inspiration. He started to tear pieces off, giving it to both of the girls and himself. Emma ate them slowly and with a disgusted face.

“Disgusting pork… again…”

As Emma complained, Lilly was busy wanting to know more, unaware of her demised. “So this Gurgen, what explosion did he survive?”

Lucas swallowed his meat, taking a deep breath as he didn’t seem as annoyed that she asked a question. “Gurgen… I believe that non of you ever heard of a place called Chernobyl?”

Emma looked up, slowly shaking her head as Lilly did the same. They seemed to try and recall that name but to no avail.

“Okay, that was to be expected. Chernobyl is a spot that comes from another earth than mine. I mean, my world also had one but it never exploded. It’s a bit weird...”

He thought about what to say, starting to regret trying to explain it all as it wasn’t so easy.

“So where I came from I was a normal person. Then I had a dream of a special kid in a war between angels and demons. That world that I dreamed about did have a Chernobyl. Even though it had one, I never met a Gurgen in that world.”

He put his food away as he turned around, looking at the tent that Ninke got them, starting to untie it. He saw that both of them were very confused.

“When I woke up I had powers and was the kid I dreamed about. My brother and sister changed as well, brother into a demon and sister into an angel. Then we got split up and into the original world where I did meet a Gurgen. Then we got into a fight with the demon which is my brother and I got send away by my god who didn’t actually went with us to the real world… but still had enough power to look over us and deciding to punish me.”

He stopped talking seeing as both girls didn’t understand a bit of it.

“Nevermind… Gurgen came from yet another world with a Chernobyl”

Lucas turned back around as he looked back at the girls.

“I guess I still haven’t answered your question then.”

The girls looked at each other as they agreed with that statement. As Lilly was still hurt, it was Emma who got up and started to set up the second tent. After traveling with Lucas, they knew that demanding his help wasn’t going to work. But to their surprise, Lucas came over ad started to help with the tent.

“Don’t think this will become something regular.” He said as he looked at Lillys leg.