Eli panicked, blinking himself in front of her and taking the hit himself. It was death magic, some kind of long term vitality drain. It was a walking dead curse, he had seen them in video games, it doesn’t do a lot of damage but if it isn’t cured it will eventually kill you. Although it was weak, Eli guessed he could survive having this on him for weeks, so there wasn’t a hurry to get rid of it. He could learn more about that kind of magic if he kept it and studied it. By the time Eli looked up to see who did it, they were dead on the end of Bethany’s spear.

  She pulled her spear free, walked over to Gwen and grabbed her by the hair, dragging her away towards Eli. “I’m taking this one as payment for that.” Bethany said with a devious look on her face. No one even moved much less tried to stop her, even with her screaming for help.

  Adrian called out to Eli, “Does taking her mean we are even?”

  Eli just nodded yes and turned around, motioning for his group to follow him. Bethany was dragging Gwen by the hair so Umber copied her and was dragging Ghost by the hair. Umber was weak in the sun, but Eli was feeding her extra magic so she could endure it for a short time. They started walking south until it had been dark for a couple hours then stopped on the top of a small hill, Eli made a larger stone teepee with a smaller door and they went inside to sit down. Umber stayed outside and patrolled around them, looking for monsters or enemy scouts to eat.

  Once inside Ghost said, “Thanks for getting me out of that, Adrian had me in a sticky situation.”

  Bethany put her spear tip against his chest, “Your old news, I want to talk to her.” She moved her spear to Gwen who was laying on the floor groaning in pain as her legs were starting to heal. “Why should we keep you alive? I know you are the one who convinced that guy to attack Alora.”

  “There are worse things than death.” Alora said softly as she sat next to Eli inspecting him for damage.

  “I’m fine.” he told her, she didn’t stop rubbing her hands on him though so he turned to Gwen. “Alora is my apprentice, my family now, what was your goal when you were talking to her before?”

  Gwen was wincing in pain, but managed to steady herself to answer, “You know what it was, you countered it.”

  Eli put pressure on her with his will skill and took off his mask, allowing Gwen to see his eyes and feel his true presence. “You fail to answer a question again, Bethany is taking an arm.” He pulled back on the pressure, but kept his mask off and his eyes their real state of looking like windows into the universe.

  Gwen audibly swallowed before speaking again, “We were trying to paint you as a villain, that way, we could justify anything we did after and still come out looking like the heroes.”

  “How do you think it went for you?” Eli asked.

  “For me? Terribly.” Gwen sighed a long and deep sigh. “Look, there’s no need to kill me, we can work something out.”

  Eli looked to Alora who said, “You don’t have anything we want.”

  Gwen glared at Alora then looked back to Eli, “So you drag me by the hair for hours just to kill me?”

  Eli tapped his chin, “I will leave this for Alora to decide. Take her outside and figure it out.”

  Now Alora was glaring at Eli, she spoke to him telepathically, “This is a test isn’t it?”

  He responded out loud for everyone to hear with a twinge of anger in his voice. “Of course it’s a test, think about everything we have talked about and make a choice. Then live with the consequences.”

  Alora grabbed Gwen by the hair again and dragged her away far enough so the others couldn't hear them talk. “Alright Gwen, here is the deal, if you want to live you have to give me something that I can use to sell it to my master.”

  “Wow,” Gwen said, her usual arrogant haughtiness returning, “You really let some guy just fully brainwash you huh? You always were weak minded, so indecisive all the time, just following my lead instead of having your own opinion. I bet it took less than a day for him to wiggle his control into your brain.”

  Alora called out her staff, placed the lightning orb on Gwen’s chest and shocked her hard enough with it that her skin had burns. “I still have my own mind, I’ve seen the inside of it in fact. You need to understand something, I won’t let anything screw this up for me, so give me something to convince him to keep you alive, or I will sit here and shock you until you die.”

  Gwen was coughing and gasping, “You don't have the guts to kill.”

  “Maybe,” Alora said, “I certainly haven’t done it before, but I am willing to bet that you don’t have the guts to die a horribly painful death.”

  **********

  “Alright Ghost, spill, what's going on?” Bethany asked.

  He turned to Eli to respond but got another spear poke, so he turned to Bethany. “I was ousted, some of my strongest teamed up and were going to kill me, so I ran.” she made the ‘go on’ gesture with her hands. “I hid up in the safe zone to the north, which is when things got worse. My father is one of the three lords ruling there and we don’t get along, he told me that to maintain balance between the three of them, I had to work for Adrian. Since then he has been trying to get me killed, sending me on crazy missions.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “So you are homeless now?” Bethany asked.

  “Despite my title of lord, yes, I am homeless.” Ghost said.

  “Were do you go from here?” Eli said.

  “I don’t want to keep running.”

  “Well, you can go.” Eli said, shocking Ghost and Bethany.

  “What if I join you?” Ghost asked.

  Eli let out a long sigh, Most wouldn’t notice but Bethany felt his weariness, he was tired. The kind of tiredness that can’t be healed or regenerated away. “Tell you what,” Bethany said to Ghost, “Let’s take a walk, if you can convince me, I can convince him.” The two left as Eli laid down on the ground, closed his eyes and took a nap.

  “Alright Ghost, impress me.” Bethany said. They were walking around outside but Bethany was sure to keep the stone teepee in sight just in case.

  “Well what is it that you guys need? I have a lot of skills.”

  “We know you don’t have the ‘not get overthrown’ skill.” Bethany joked. “But you better come up with something or you end up a wanderer, jumping from one safe zone to another until you run out of ones to get kicked out of.” Originally she had been just giving him a hard time but what she said gave her an idea. However, she wanted to see what he would come up with first before she said anything to him about it.

  “Well, you guys seem to be able to do everything that I can do and probably better than I can. But one thing you can’t do is be in multiple places at once, just have me do the things that you guys are too busy to do.” Ghost suggested.

  “I have something in mind for that, and I think it might actually be a skill that you possess that we are lacking. Explain to me how you gathered such a large following so quickly before they betrayed you?”

  *************

  “Ok ok,” Gwen said, she had burns all over the front of her body since she was laying on back. Alora had been shocking her to test her resolve, she wasn’t sure if she would have been able to kill her. She knew she could kill if it meant saving her life or saving another's life, but to kill a helpless prisoner was another story.

  “Are you ready to answer? What can you offer us in exchange for your life?” Alora asked.

  Gwen groaned and twitched, “I’ll do anything, just stop this and let me live.”

  “Anything? That's not very creative. What if he wants me to use you as target practice?” Alora thought for a moment, “Or if he wants to sell you like a slave? Will you go along with it just because you said you would do anything?”

  “I’m sure I can talk to him and we can work it out.” Gwen said she was starting to catch her breath as she healed a bit.

  “No.” Alora said in sudden realization. “Talking to you is what he wants to avoid. That is my test, if I can handle this without him having to get involved. We need to work this out, you and me. I think I’ll keep you around for now, but you must follow these rules. Number one is that you never talk to my master again. Number two is that you follow my instructions at all times.” She paused and tapped her chin. “I’ll make up the rest later, let's get some sleep.”

  “You expect me to sleep?”

  “Oh I don’t care if you sleep, but Umber might. Umber! Come here girl!” Alora said with a raised voice and just like a faithful dog, Umber came running up and rubbed her cheek against Alora's with a loud purr growl. “Good girl,” Alora said while petting her. “Will you please watch her? If she tries to escape, you can eat her legs.” Umber looked over at Gwen and growled loud enough for the ground to shake a bit. She fainted, at least that's what it looked like to Alora, so she went back to the teepee and saw Eli asleep. Alora laid next to him without touching him and fell asleep herself.

  ***********

  “So you want me to be a talent scout?” Ghost asked.

  “Essentially, yes, that is what I would like you to do. Although first we would need you to recruit a partner, but then you would travel around looking for people that have rare skills and probably are outcasts like you. We won’t try and poach anyone, only looking for people who are looking for a place to belong, not people who have already found one.” Bethany explained.

  “Ok, I can see that, I take it you would have to approve of my partner?” Ghost asked and Bethany nodded yes. “Ok, I can make this work, what does this job pay?”

  “Pay?” Bethany asked, “I hadn’t thought of that, no one following Ash is paid. I guess you could get paid but then you would be freelance and not entitled to Ash’s backing or real membership among his followers.”

  “No one gets paid? I paid everyone, I had to work hard to make that money since we weren’t making anything in taxes. Come to think of it, I wonder how the people who took over are doing it?” Ghost explained, but stopped when he saw Bethany’s ‘get to the point’ glare she was shooting at him. “How does he keep everyone working for free? Why would someone work for him if they weren’t getting paid?”

  “Just listen to the words you choose versus the words I choose. You say things like ‘work for’ and I say things like ‘follow’.” Bethany explained, she was hoping he would get it without her spelling it out.

  “What is the difference?” Ghost asked.

  Bethany sighed and showed Ghost the title portion of her stat screen. “Does this explain it?”

  “Title: Bethany, High Acolyte of Ash, Demi-God of Ruin”

  Ghost read it, then read it again, then did it a third time. “So when you say follow, you mean religiously, as in a religion, and he is your god?”

  “More like a cult, than a religion if I’m being honest, but… kind of.” Bethany explained.

  “Great, now I’m going to be a recruiter for a cult, next you’ll tell me to only recruit blonde women between 22 and 28 to be sacrifices.”

  “Don't be silly, everyone knows that hair color doesn't matter in sacrifices, and we don’t do that.” Bethany said she was being cheeky since she loved the existential crisis look on his face, She was a bitch after all and Eli seemed to enjoy that side of her so there wasn’t any reason to keep it buried. Just another reason she loved him, with his backing she could let herself be who she was and not have to worry about the consequences.

  Ghost gave her a flat look, “You don’t get to drop heavy information on me and then make fun of me for it.” He sighed and took a deep breath. “Can we move on please, give me specifics, what is it that you are looking for me to find?”

  “Why don't you stick around us until the next monster horde event, get to know us and how we work, that should give you an idea of what we are looking for.” Bethany said.