Duskbound

"You're hurt," Sildra said, her voice almost accusatory.

"It's nothing," Velik said. He was surprised she'd even noticed.

"Doesn't look like nothing."

"It'll be healed up by tomorrow, and the cuts aren't that deep."

Giller, Torwin, and Jensen were questioning the bandits, having divided the group into thirds and pulled them far enough apart that they wouldn't overhear each other. That left Aria, whose hair was tousled and eyes still gritty from interrupted sleep, along in the camp with Sildra and Velik. They'd been given the task of straightening things up. Everything was in disarray from a dozen people fighting in a small space, and someone's bedroll had gotten kicked into the small campfire they'd been arrayed around. Velik idly wondered if whoever it was could convince Jensen to return to King's Crossroad for replacement supplies.

"Come here and sit down," Sildra ordered. "We'll get it cleaned up and then I'll see what I can do."

"You have healing magic?" Aria asked, surprised.

"A… bit. It's complicated."

Velik hadn't been aware of any such skill himself, though admittedly he hadn't talked to Sildra back at the frontier outside of their one meeting when he'd killed an elite that was going after her and her escort. Jensen would be the one who'd know, and he hadn't said anything. Either she hadn't had the ability for long, or he'd been keeping it secret for some reason.

His clothes were already starting to mend themselves and the blood had dried and sloughed off like old snakeskin, but his body had no [Mending] enchantment to clean it, so he was forced to strip down and splash a bit of water on himself, then scrub at the wounds with a scrap of cloth. It was barbarism, as far as any healer was concerned, more smearing the filth around than cleaning it up.

"Ugh. Good enough," Sildra pronounced. She reached toward Velik, her hands glowing softly in the night as they brushed up against the wound.

It didn't magically vanish, but something happened. The sensation was odd, almost like stretching stiff muscles after a long, cold night of inactivity, but it was the cut skin doing it instead of the muscles beneath. It strained and pulled, knitting itself back together over a few seconds and leaving pale, moonlight-colored scars in place of bloody injuries.

"Those should fade soon enough," Sildra told him as she healed the hundred or so cuts. Some places took more work than others, especially where he'd been raked in the same spot multiple times, but a few minutes later, he was patched up and able to put his clothes back on.

"Thanks," he said. It hadn't been critical or anything, but he appreciated the fact that she'd expended some of her time and energy to accomplish nothing more than easing his pain.

"We're a team now, right? You and me. The Black Fang himself and… the leatherworker's daughter who had a seamstress class until a few months ago."

"Don't overthink it," Velik advised her.

"Not that I haven't enjoyed the show," Aria said while eyeing Velik suggestively, "but perhaps the two of you could resume your actual assignments and help clean the camp up."

"Considering that I've yet to see you straighten a single thing outside your own little corner, it seems like you could be a bit more useful yourself," Velik said.

"That's a simple division of labor!"

"In that you take up half the camp by yourself, sure."

Everyone else was using bedrolls, or in the Velik's and Torwin's case, their cloaks and nothing else. Only Aria had an actual tent set up, something that she claimed was enchanted for safety and comfort. It had been knocked down when Giller had thrown a man through it using a skill she called [Ferrokinesis]. There'd been a brief argument over whether the action had been a deliberate act of vandalism.

Personally, Velik agreed with Aria that Giller had done it on purpose. He also agreed with Giller that, intentional or not, it was funny and that Aria had no need for the tent, regardless. Either way, while Velik and Sildra had been picking up the scattered cooking equipment, piling up the half-charred logs of the fire to relight, and dividing up whatever loose personal possessions were lying around to be reclaimed later, Aria had done nothing but get her tent back upright.

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She was saved from further scolding when Torwin returned to camp, his line of prisoners in tow. None of them were in good shape, but if they received medical attention, they'd live. Personally, Velik wouldn't bother with it, but he wasn't in charge and it wasn't his responsibility to do anything about it. So if Torwin or Jensen or whoever decided they wanted to turn the bandits over to the guards at King's Crossroad, that was fine by him.

"Good news and bad news," Torwin said. "Let's wait to get everyone back together before we get into it."

"Or you could just tell us instead of trying to be dramatic. I don't need the gory details of your interrogation session; just give me the broad overview of what you learned."

"Good news is that there won't be any more of them. They're a mercenary company and we got all of them. Bad news is that they're a hired mercenary company, which means someone paid them to try to kill us."

"Not us," Giller said as she marched her group back in. "Or rather, not all of us. They're specifically looking for one person."

"Jensen?" Torwin guessed. He looked to where his former apprentice was still speaking with the last group of subdued mercenaries.

"No. Him."

"Me?" Velik asked when Giller pointed a finger his way. "What did I do?"

"You tell me, kid. What have you been getting yourself up to when no one's looking? Mercenary companies this strong don't come cheap, so someone was willing to part with a lot of coin to take you out."

The coliseum, maybe? I was pretty heavy-handed getting information out of Ned, but if that's the case, why wait so long? I've been around town for weeks since then. Maybe it's some enemy of Blendstin's who knows how big a fan he is of my fighting persona trying to strike at him through me. Or, I guess, it could be Pevril just being himself. Never could make sense of what his deal was.

Once he thought about it, it was kind of surprising just how many enemies he'd managed to make in such a short amount of time. Jensen might have been right about him applying himself harder in those social etiquette classes he'd tried out. Of course, it was also reasonable to say that trying to have him killed was an overreaction on the offended party's side, so maybe Velik wasn't the only one who needed to learn how to behave in polite society.

"I'm pretty sure I haven't done anything worthy of being assassinated," Velik said.

"The fact that you had to think about it for a while does not fill me with confidence," Aria told him dryly.

"Either way, this means more work and probably delaying this trip. We can't just ignore a threat on Velik's life," Torwin said.

Velik shrugged. "Why not? It's not like it was a particularly good one. Other than that monster, there were no real threats here."

"Maybe not to you or me, but what about Sildra? One of those arrows could have killed her. Jensen's only got a few levels on her, too. And Aria's stat spread doesn't lean into physical."

"I'll thank you not to lump me in with the irons," Aria said primly. "Those scrub mercenaries could never have touched me."

"Is Jensen part of the guild?" Velik asked. "I thought…"

"Not officially. She just means people around that level bracket," Torwin explained.

Usually iron-ranked monster hunters were around level 15 or 20, so the descriptor made sense once Velik understood that it didn't necessarily reflect any sort of affiliation with the guild. He'd been the anomaly, coming in over level 40. As a loose approximation, bronzes usually encompassed levels 20 to 30, with silvers taking 31 to 45, golds taking 46-60, and platinums sitting at the top of the heap past that.

As far as Velik was aware, there were only a handful of platinums in the country, and none of them hanging around Cravel's guild hall. Most of the senior administration staff were composed of retired silvers or golds, with maybe a bronze here and there who'd taken a non-combat class.

Maybe if they let the people with administrative classes actually run the guild, things would go a lot smoother. Then again, they probably tried that and found that no one would listen to some paper stacking clerk, especially over an unpopular decision.

"There's one other thing," Torwin said. "None of them will admit it, but a bonded monster means some sort of class like [Beast Tamer] or [Pack Runner], which none of these mercs have. There's someone else out there that we missed. I didn't sense that cat until it was already on Velik, so we know it's got some sort of powerful stealth skill, probably not something as basic as actual [Stealth] either. If it's bonded, its partner might be sharing skills with it and hiding nearby right now."

Involuntarily, everyone turned to look out into the darkness. Velik and Torwin could see just fine, and he suspected Sildra's class revolving around the moon probably lent itself some sort of night vision as well, but he wasn't sure what Giller or Aria were hoping to spot. Maybe she's looking for mana or something. That seems to fit with whatever her class is. And Giller is… I guess looking for metal?

"Well, that's a problem, but it's hardly insurmountable," Aria said. "I'm quite good at flushing out quarry for the hounds to run down."

"Aria," Torwin said, his voice strained. "Please do not destroy the countryside. People live around here."

"Ugh. You were a lot more fun ten years ago, you know that?"

"How have you not gotten kicked out of the guild yet?" Giller asked, flashing her a disgusted glance.

"Because I'm so damn good at what I do."

"Jensen's coming back," Velik told them, cutting off the argument before it could get started.

A minute later, he marched his group of prisoners into the camp. There were a few new arrows sticking out of some of them. At Torwin's questioning look, he shrugged and said, "A few of them tried to run."

The old [Ranger] just grunted thoughtfully and eyed the group up.

"So, what do we do with the prisoners?" Velik asked.