Mateo wakes to find Terror enjoying a simple breakfast with Jade and Jessica. Compliments of the seemingly loaded Dragon Knight who paid for not only their dinner, but their rooms. Something is worrying Mateo though. Everyone is their own person no matter what their title, but Dragon Knights still answer to the Order of the Dragon. Drakvania is a cult operating under this order, and they want to kill Natalia.


    “What you thinking about?” Natalia asks.


    “Just curious, Jessica gave us six of those tablets,” Mateo replies.


    “Parties consist of four to six members, anything more is usually considered an expedition,” Serenity says stepping up to Mateo, whom is leaning over a rail above the dining area.


    She’s in her very enticing undergarments. A dual string thin thong that covers none of her ass and bra that wraps around her neck crossing over her collar bone barely covering her breasts. It ties in a bow at her shoulder blades. Mateo quickly pulls off his robe wrapping it around her.


    “Oh, sorry, I’m used to meeting the team like this in my more conventional undergarments,” she says blushing.


    They both look down at Terror as he interacts with Jessica and Jade, not as a blood thirsty barbarian, but as a creature not devoid of compassion.


    “You’re right Mateo, you did the right thing, I haven’t seen Terror like this before, when we met him, he was just a massive pile of rage and hate after they slaughtered his wife and daughter,” she pauses, “maybe I should let him tell you this,” Serenity says rubbing his back.


    “I think we should all have a long discussion about each other later, I need to discuss some things with Natalia alone, if that’s ok, go for a walk if that translates.”


    “You’re feeling trapped in a world that isn’t yours, I’ll give you a little space, but don’t be long or I’ll get worried,” Serenity says pecking him on the cheek.


    “Thank you, Serenity, I won’t be long.”


    Sunlight shines through the golden leaves of Heroldin as a gentle breeze blows the sweet aroma of a flower Mateo knows as honey suckles about the air. Natalia appears above him, and he pats his shoulder with a smile. She perches herself on it, and he walks slowly taking in the world around him.


    “I want to apologize Natalia, when that Archon of Drakvania attacked us, you told me to run and I didn’t, even though I should have, I could have gotten us both killed.”


    “And it took you this long to figure that out,” Natalia replies angrily.


    “No, I knew when I did it, I just felt I needed to prove myself to you, to prove that I could protect you, I felt so helpless like I was hiding behind you and I just wanted to be that wall, that fortress of impenetrable walls that you could trust to hold up,” Mateo says with a quaint smile.


    “I know, I just didn’t expect you to be so stubborn,” Natalia replies kicking her feet.


    A loud blood curdling screech pierces the forest sending the native wildlife fleeing. Mateo draws his dagger heading in the direction of the disturbance.


    “Mateo, this is a bad idea,” Natalia says now floating above him as his strut turns to a sprint.


    More loud screeches pierce the air emanating the fury of a massive beast.


    “Mateo, didn’t you just apologize for not taking my advice!”


    “Sorry Natalia, I was apologizing because it was bad advice,” he replies.


    “You liar, you are infuriating!” She yells.


    Mateo steps into a battle ravaged clearing. Corpses shamble about broken trees and scorched earth, rotting flesh dripping from them. A short figure leans against an odd-looking staff of slightly greater height than its own panting. Mateo extends his dagger readying it to strike.


    “Wait, don’t hurt them,” the figure chokes out weakly.


    Mateo halts his assault noticing that the shambling corpses are making no attempt to advance on him. Peering around Mateo observes that something has pulled the very life force out of everything in the surrounding area. Broken trees made to rot while flowers and shrubs withered. Behind the figure and shambling corpses lies the gored corpse of a large wingless gryphon-like creature.


    “I’m going to pass out, please, retrieve their talons,” the figure says slumping into the dirt.


    The figure tumbles over and the shambling corpses collapse into mounds of rotting flesh. Mateo digs through the corpses retrieving five talon bands, one of which is adorned with six talons.


    He gently lifts her figure into his arms. She’s a young woman wearing a cloak with pointed ears rising above the hood. Stitching runs across her cheek and some of her extremities as if she has been sewn together.


    “Natalia, grab that staff, this girl needs a healer immediately,” Mateo says rushing back to the tavern outside of Heroldin.


    He’s near out of breath when he bursts through the door. The Dragon Knight has left, and Terror has returned to his room. Okami stands seeing Mateo rush in, his face stricken with desperation. Mateo forces some patrons from a table laying the girl on it and pulls his dagger as Okami removes the girl’s hood revealing two catlike ears protruding from her head. They twitch uncontrollably as Mateo cuts open her clothes stripping her to her undergarments.


    Her body is a mass of battered and bruised body parts that have been sewn together. Okami steps back placing his paw over his snout as his cerulean eyes fill with tears.


    “Who would do this to a pour young Neko?” He says visibly distraught.


    “Okami, she’s fading fast, grab a fucking potion or something,” Mateo yells.


    Okami stands frozen in horror at the poorly constructed corpse lying before him.


    “Godsdamnit Okami!” Mateo yells.


    “What the hell is going on-,” Serenity gasps before hopping over the rail above them landing on the floor below.


    “What happened, who is this girl?” Serenity says pulling a potion from one of the strange new tablets Jessica gave them.


    Terror steps out of a room on the bottom floor sniffing the air angrily. Serenity pours a potion over her, unable to drink it she absorbs it through her skin. Terror approaches but stops behind Serenity with an angry scowl on his face.


    “Let it die,” he says.


    “If you’re not going to help then fuck off Terror,” Mateo replies.


    He shoves Serenity out of the way and raises his fist to crush the girl’s skull. Okami hits him with a swift and violent right hook forcing him away from the girl. He steps forward again ready to extinguish what little life remains in the girl when Jade wraps herself around his leg.


    “What’s wrong Tete, what happened to the girl?”Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    Terror lifts Jade into his arms and glares over at Okami.


    “Terror thinks, when you are shambling corpse waiting to die, you wish you had let Terror kill monster.”


    Terror turns carrying Jade back to his room. Okami returns to the girl and uses what little healing magic he knows on her. It’s a spell better used for cuts and bruises, like taking Tylenol for a stroke. It is enough to keep her until the healing potion takes effect.


    The tavern keeper closes the tavern for the day at Okami’s request. Mateo sits on the bench connected to the table the girl is lying on staring at the floor. An hour passes and Serenity sits beside him looking concerned.


    “Mateo, I don’t know what that thing is, but it’s veiled in evil, I think I might agree with Terror,” Serenity says rubbing his back.


    Mateo opens his hands, and a cluster of pendants adorned with talons clatter against the floor. He turns to Serenity, his hazel eyes stricken with sorrow and soaked with tears.


    “I think those were her friends, she watched, she watched them all die, and she couldn’t help them, then she, and she had to watch them all die again.”


    The girl’s voice echoes across the tavern and they turn to her.


    “Uzuki, don’t leave me,” the girl whimpers.


    Mateo rushes to the girl’s side leaning over her. Her entire body is shivering, near convulsing. Her two strangely colored eyes are wide with terror as she gazes at Mateo unsure if he’s a predator ready to devour her. Mateo reaches his hand over and it glows as he runs it across the stitches on her left cheek.


    “Uzuki?” She repeats.


    The girl stares up at him, one of her iris’s gold and the other a reptilian crimson, both filled with the fear of someone staring at a worse fate than death. Her hand, shaking with tremors, grips his wrist as she closes her eyes leaning into his palm.


    “Uzuki, I’m so sorry,” she sobs, tears streaming down her cheeks like rivers of sorrow.


    Okami returns to the room with a small box and some spare clothes. The box has a strong-smelling incense and dropper sized potion bottle.


    “Light the incense, wave it over her as I administer the Phoenix tear, we only have moments before her body breaks down,” Okami says breathing heavily.


    Mateo does as instructed, and the girl leans up staring at the wall as if it is a portal to another world. Mateo touches his hand to her cheek again.


    “My name is Mateo, what is your name?”


    The girl turns her eyes to his leaning into his palm.


    “Stitches.”


    “Hand me that robe Okami, we should cover her up, I don’t want some Terror coming in here and seeing her like this.”


    Serenity wraps the robe around her, and she stares at Mateo curiously.


    “Do you have them?” The girl asks.


    “What do you mean?”


    “Do you have them, my friends?”


    Mateo retrieves the leather amulets from the floor handing them to her. Stitches stares down at them in her hands with eyes full of mourning.


    “Uzuki, Kaelus, Yoru, Daedalus, Faetel, I’m sorry, I wasn’t strong enough, you died because of me, if I had just died instead of Faetel he could have saved you, but he died, and I could only make you shambling corpses.”


    Mateo runs his hand over one of the girl''s soft catlike ears and she tilts her head, her curiosity drawing her from her sorrow to his presence.


    “Stitches, my name is Mateo.”


    She gazes into his eyes and speaks as if compulsively narrating the scene of her comrade''s demise.


    It was a three-talon contract. Uzuki was a six-talon paladin. Gods I wanted to dig my claws into that sexy bunny so bad, but fucking Yoru had him by the tail, that sly vixen of a fox. Faetel was a skilled healer, no luck with the ladies. He could tell when women were dying, but not when they were dying for him. Poor bastard.


    Kaelus and Daedalus were like the hammer and anvil of destruction. Both rogues with complimenting skills and tank buffs that bolstered Uzuki’s powers.


    Then there was me, Stitches the Neko Necromancer. The Nekomancer they joked, and I would laugh. They weren’t trying to be mean, it was just funny. Then we took that bounty, and I found out just how useless I was.


    “Godsdamnit, this fucking chicken lion is relentless,” Uzuki yells raising his massive blade.


    “We can’t draw it away, it’s fixed on you Uzuki,” Daedalus yells.


    “Seems monsters are drawn to the ears too,” Kaelus says jokingly.


    “Faetel, hit me with a ward as it dives on me, if I can put my sword through its chest then it’ll ground it at the least,” Uzuki yells.


    “What should I do?” Stitches says eagerly.


    “Drain everything around us, and I mean everything,” Uzuki says raising his blade.


    The massive griffon dive bombs the group of adventurers. Uzuki’s sword slams against its chest shattering.


    “Shit,” Uzuki says as the griffon wraps its talons around him lifting him into the air.


    “Uzuki,” Stitches screams helplessly.


    “Godsdamnit, Uzuki has six talons, how the fuck did it shatter his storm breaker?” Kaelus yells.


    Stitches stares on in horror as the griffon releases him from its clutches. His blue eyes give her a glance before he becomes a mangled mass of flesh and steel pressed into the dirt.


    “Fuck! Daedalus, dump your mana into ranges, Faetel, shit, it’s headed for Yoru, Yoru!”


    Yoru raises her wand, but the griffon is already on her. Its massive claw cuts a gash in her chest as her void storm spell goes off. Her body slams into a tree nearby breaking her neck. She dies instantly, but her void storm spell still goes off. Dark clouds cover the sky sending out bolts of void lightning aimlessly no longer discriminating between friend and foe.


    “Daedalus!” Faetel shrieks as a bolt of lighting vaporizes his right arm.


    The griffon takes its opportunity shoving a piercing claw through the spine of Daedalus. Faetel throws himself at the beast in a futile rage. Only Stitches remains, terrified as the beast moves in on her. With nothing left to do she activates her most powerful spell. Something from the dark arts. Something forbidden.


    “Deathwalker.”


    Stitches passes out and Mateo carries her to his room laying her on his bed. Serenity steps up to him placing her hand on his shoulder.


    “I don’t suppose you’ll be coming to bed tonight?” She asks.


    “I’m going to watch the girl, if she comes around, I want to have a sensible conversation with her, she’s scared and alone, I know what that’s like.”


    Mateo turns to Serenity placing a hand on her cheek and kissing her gently.


    “Watch Terror for me, he doesn’t like the girl, and he doesn’t have a problem killing things he doesn’t like whether they need to be killed or not.”


    A day passes before the girl wakes in a condition that Mateo deems well. She sits up sliding out of bed into the floor on her hands and knees. He holds out his hand and she takes it. He pulls her to her feet and returns her strange staff.


    “I want you to walk with me, we need to talk.”


    The moon lights a dirt trail as golden leaves glisten around them in the moonlight. Crimson vines twist around the trees glowing in the moonlight as Mateo leads Stitches into a clearing in the woods where they can speak alone.


    Mateo stacks a few sticks in a bundle and lights them with void lighting forming a small fire. He rolls a log over to the fire and Stitches sits on it as he sits beside her, his eyes alight with moonlight and fire.


    “Do you know why I brought you here?” He asks.


    “I don’t,” she replies.


    “Our party needs a healer, the others want anyone who can cast a spell, but I know we have an unconventional party, and it needs an unconventional healer.”


    “My last two parties died because I was too weak to protect them,” she says lowering her head.


    “I understand your hesitance,” he replies standing.


    “So, you’re going to leave me here then?” She asks.


    Mateo turns his hazel eyes to hers with a smile.


    “Give up on you before we’ve even unlocked a tiny sliver of your potential, I’m weak, just a single talon rookie to your six talons, all of my companions are damn near their second talon and I just wrapped the fucking leather strap around my neck, but I’ve got a crazy story to tell you,” Mateo says with a smile.


    “A story?” She asks confused.


    “Keep an open mind for this because it gets wild,” he says with a smile.


    Stitches giggles loudly holding her hands above the warm fire.


    “An Archon, you want me to trust you and you’re telling me you killed not one, but two Archons with a single talon?”


    “No, I didn’t even have a single talon, it was crazy and stupid, but it was the right thing to do, then a Dragon Knight came to question me,” he replies.


    “You’re fucking with me,” she stops covering her mouth, “sorry, didn’t mean to use such language.”


    “It’s fine, and I am not fucking with you, a Dragon Knight appeared, hell, she even let Terror hit her with his best shot, which strangely seemed to make her aroused, according to Okami.”


    “Did she have a stoic beauty?” Stitches asks her eyes filled with a dazzling fantasy.


    “Yes, not unlike your own,” Mateo replies.


    Stitches leans in closing her eyes and Mateo turns away nervously. After realizing her intimacy is unwanted Stitches opens her eyes folding her ears down.


    “Sorry Stitches, I didn’t mean to, I’m seeing someone,” he replies.


    “No, I’m sorry, you just reminded me so much of Uzuki, I can smell the lavender and vanilla on you, that’s what she wears isn’t it, the elf girl?”


    “She has other perfumes, but she wears that one for me because she knows I like it,” Mateo says with a smile.


    “I’m glad you noticed,” Serenity says stepping from the shadows. “I had come here in mistrust of your loyalty only to be flattered by your observance of my efforts to seduce you,” Serenity says with a smile.


    She looks over at Stitches and her smile turns to a look of disgust.


    “I still don’t trust this, ‘thing’, though,” she says stepping away.


    Stitches lowers her eyes to the fire staring into the bright reds and yellows that fill it with life.


    “Don’t mind her, she’s like a diamond, harder than the other minerals and sharp enough to cut glass, beautiful, but still a gem like the others, now that I think of it, you’re a diamond too Stitches, just one that is undiscovered and unpolished,” Mateo says with a smile.


    “What about me Mateo?” Natalia says appearing above him.


    “You’re like a chunk of salt, good to spice things up but not really useful for anything else,” Mateo replies.


    “Salt! She’s a diamond and I’m salt! Well, you’re a common rock, a useless rock!”


    “Thank you, Natalia, even a rock has the potential to be a deadly weapon, but salt is just bitter,” Mateo replies.


    Stitches laughs and Mateo smiles. Natalia gives off an audible groan of anger and Mateo reaches his finger up running it against her soft caramel cheek.


    “Natalia, I love you.”


    She stares into his eyes with quivering lips.


    “Aeureillius told you that often, and I know why, no one gets out of life alive, we all die, everything has an end, for us adventurers, it might be tomorrow, it might be in the next hour, so he told you as often as her could incase he didn’t get another chance, that he loved you.”