His name is Atremer.

  An old man at 44, he walks with an uncaring step. He might not seem old, but in this horrible world of death, 44 is older than most. He may seem clumsy, but his eyes are sharp, boosted with enchanted glasses.

  Atremer is a level 54 Hunter and he has killed many men and monsters alike to reach this level.

  Walking next to the tired giant is his daughter, Aubrey.

  A short girl with brown hair and at the age of 19 she had already reached level 46. This is incredibly impressive considering how young she is. From her fathers tutelage she was able to gain levels fast and will likely catch up to her father before she turns 21.

  Atremer has put his daughter through many dangerous situations and will put her through many more to make her stronger. He will do anything to make his Aubrey prepared for this world. Even if she decided to pick the class of Wizard and learn magic from any grimoires that they could find or buy, Atremer will guide his daughter to be careful.

  In Ydri, people die-

  Aubrey’s mother had died from the plague when she was just a baby, and just a few years ago her brother was kidnapped by Bandits, never to be seen again. This world is dangerous beyond what is reasonable and Atremer knows this. He needs Aubrey to be strong to survive in this place.

  That’s why they are here in the first place, in the cursed land of the ancient capital, DawnGuard.

  They are here on a request from a guild. Managing money is also an important facet of life, and unless they want to completely cut themselves off from civilization and live off the wildlife for the rest of their life, they need money.

  That’s not the kind of lifestyle Atremer wants for his daughter anyway and neither does she.

  He loves Aubrey and he will give her the best life possible-

  A swift kick to the shin interrupts his thoughts.

  “Pay attention! You old fool!”

  Atremer lifts his leg and grabs it as he sucks air through clenched teeth, “What was that for! You know my durability isn’t that high!”

  The rebellious daughter scoffs, “Cut the crap, your Pain Tolerance is at level 9!”

  Atremer grins as he drops his leg. “It still hurts, you know. What did you need anyway?”

  “Nothing but your attention. You are always on about ‘keeping my wits about me’ when outside the city walls. Yet you can’t go five minutes without getting lost in some daydream. If I’m honest, you need to set a better example!”

  His smile widens at Aubrey’s comment, this is the very reason she isn’t dead yet and Atremer couldn’t be more proud, “Good on ya, Aubrey! At this rate you’ll become the greatest Wizard in the entire kingdom! By the time you’re thirty, you’ll be on the same level as the progenitor.”

  “Pfft- Yeah right.”

  Maybe encouraging her to that degree is a little unrealistic, but it’s true that she will become great one day. Atremer knows it.

  Despite his swelling pride, he takes his daughter's advice and checks his peripherals and keeps moving, focusing on the task at hand. Making sure that they don’t die.

  After a few more minutes of walking, Atremer stops in his tracks. His class skill Blood Sense has just warned them that something had just died up ahead. A lot of somethings.

  He isn’t sure of the context of the deaths, but he can smell the blood that's been spilled. “Aubrey, danger ahead. Prepare yourself.”

  The young Wizard turns to her father and nods, producing a wand from under one of her baggy sleeves. “Ready, Dad.”

  With that, they continue walking forward towards a new potential enemy. It doesn’t take long for them to reach where he had sensed death, and there they found a pair of women waiting for them, surrounded by over a dozen Abominable Chimp carcasses.

  One of the women has a mask with a golden star on it, and she wears simple brown robes. The other’s mask has a blue square and her attire is like rocks twisted and bent into jagged red armour. She has one hand missing, but despite that she holds a large warhammer wrapped in bandages in front of her. Fresh blood is still dripping off of it.

  (Cleric / level 52)

  (Knight / level 49)

  The Cleric doesn’t seem that dangerous, but the Knight?

  Aubrey tries to step forward, but Atremer stops her. The Wizard may have come far, but there is still more for her to learn. Dangers that are unseen to the inexperienced and will lead to premature death.

  “Wait, remember where we are.” His daughter looks up at him with an inquisitive look. Atremer simply locks his eyes on the Knight. “They could be elves.”

  The Cleric might not seem dangerous at first, but they are still level 52. The Knight? Well, they need to get better at controlling their bloodlust-

  ---

  Should we kill them?

  It would be a difficult fight for sure, but with Eva’s abilities to buff me, it should be doable. I should start by using Instant Position to get behind them and then activate Titanic Presence so they can’t go after Eva.

  I’ll attack the Wizard first. The Hunter might be more dangerous by being higher leveled, but if I can turn this into a 2v1 quickly, the odds of winning go up.

  The hooded Hunter with the round glasses raises his hand in front of the grey Wizard. “Wait, remember where we are. They could be elves.”

  My eye widens at that. The curiosity of the Wizards soul instantly turns into suspicion. How did they?-

  I furrow my brows. No, he said ‘they.’ So he doesn’t know for sure whether or not we’re elves. Eva hasn’t been found out yet.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Eva calls out to them, “We’re not elves!”

  I tilt my head as I look over at her. Are we not going to attack them?

  “We are explorers from the abandoned capital! We are going to Memphit to… Rest.”

  I raise an eyebrow. That’s technically true. The city we’re going to is called Memphit. Eva said we can get hired by a guild there to make some quick money and then we would figure out things from there. I still haven’t told her about my idea to find more Monks yet, but now isn’t the time.

  The Hunter graces us with a response, “Prove it! Take off your masks! Given our proximity to the border, forgive me for being a little less trusting!”

  Me and Eva share a look. She gives me a small nod and I sigh. I guess we aren’t going to kill them. I swing my soul-sledge to flick the blood off it and hoist it over my shoulder and onto my back. It doesn’t have a strap to it, but I simply use Magical Aura Manipulation to keep it in place.

  I take off my mask and give them a soft smile, “See, we were just hiding our classes because of their rarity!”

  I can feel his gaze trained on me, using whatever skill he has to identify me. He then turns to Eva, “And now you!”

  I frown, “I’m sorry, no can do! My class isn’t as… important as hers to keep hidden. But I assure you that we aren’t elves!”

  The Hunter goes silent for a moment, the tension getting more precarious between us. His soul is filled with a distinct lack of trust and the Wizard next to him is feeling kind of confused.

  “No! We have to know if she is an elf or not! Whatever class she has, be damned!”

  I turn back to Eva. She gives me a pleading look to do something and I accelerate my rate of thought. How can I convince him that she isn’t an elf without taking off her mask?

  I grin as I get an idea-

  “You think she might be an elf, right?!”

  I start walking over to the elf woman and she tilts her head at me. Clearly curious about what I’m trying to do. The other two keep their eyes trained on me as I reach her.

  As I get close, Eva leans in to say something, “Tiff, what is it-” But I cut her off by swinging my arms under her and pick her up in a princess carry. Shock and confusion explode from the two watching us. I hold onto Eva’s shoulder with my left hand and my right elbow barely hooks under her legs.

  Eva seems completely stunned, “If Eva here was an elf, do you think she would just let some human pick her up like this?!”

  The Hunter blinks at me with wide eyes and his glasses slide further off his nose. The silence becomes loud as they stare in awe at what I just did.

  The Wizard starts chuckling and the Hunter turns to her.

  “He-He- She has a point, dad. An elf would never let that happen!”

  He stammers, not even sure on what to say. The Wizard grins at me as she puts her wand away in her sleeve. “Alright, I think that was more than enough to prove yourselves!” The young woman walks towards me with a smile on her face, but intrigue in her soul. “My name is Aubrey and the old man behind me is my dad, Atremer.”

  She uses the tip of her finger to push the pointed wizards hat back, letting me get a good look at her face. Aubrey’s eyes are a sky blue color and she has pitch black hair. Freckles lightly sprinkled along her nose and cheeks.

  “So, who are you?”

  The Hunter then appears behind the girl almost instantly. I nearly jumped at the sudden movement, but I controlled myself.

  He keeps his eyes locked onto me, “They could still be dangerous, Aubrey.”

  Was that teleportation?- No, I just didn’t notice him getting closer until the moment he spoke. I was keeping tabs on his soul, but I still didn’t sense him move.

  Aubrey looked back and up at the man, “Of course they’re dangerous, but so are we! If they were going to fight us, they would have done so the moment we approached.”

  “They could be waiting for us to drop our guard completely.”

  He squints at me and I tilt my head at him. His hair is a bright blonde and his eyes are a darker shade of blue compared to his daughter. Aubrey sighs, “Dad, look at them. They’re a cripple holding a damsel in her partial arms. They’re the ones who completely dropped their guard.”

  I get slightly annoyed at the comment, but almost drop Eva at what the Hunter says next.

  “The perfect bait.”

  I start snickering and Aubrey pinches the bridge of her nose. Atremer not realizing how dumb that sounded. Aubrey waves her hand dismissively. “Sorry about him.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m Tiffany, and this is Eva.”

  I look down at Eva and she slowly shakes her head. “You can put me down now, Tiffany.”

  I blink, “Oh, yeah. Sorry.” I place her back down on the ground and she takes a moment to straighten her robes.

  The Wizard girl nods her head, “Tiffany huh, can I ask what you two are doing here in the cursed lands?”

  I think for a moment, taking account of what Eva had already said. I expand on the story, “We were a part of an-” My voice is suddenly cut off as my mouth shuts. I furrow my brows. What just happened?

  Aubrey also seems to notice this and she tilts her head at me with curiosity. Eva cuts in before she could ask what just happened to me. “We could ask you the same thing.”

  Atremer finally breaks his staring contest with me and turns to Eva. He grimaces, “We’re here on a collection bounty from the Alchemist guild to collect ingredients.” He produces several brown bags from under his cloak. “Specifically, Abominable Chimp excrement.”

  He then passes the bags to Aubrey and her face scrunches at the gesture. She slowly takes the bags with a resigned expression and disgust fills her soul. I however raise an eyebrow and look around at the dead monkeys.

  “Is their poop valuable?”

  Atremer frowns as he looks me up and down. “It’s used in several medicines and they’ll pay good money given the danger of collecting it.” He quickly glances at the dead around us. “Although the dangerous part seems to be already taken care of.”

  I grin as I remember the fun I had obliterating the Abominable Chimps. That seems to put off the Hunter though as his wrinkled brows scrunch at me.

  Eva crosses her arms, “I see. I assume you are from Memphit then?”

  Atremer sighs, “Yes, and although you two did kill the Abominable Chimps, the bounty on the excrement is ours to collect. Just so I can make myself clear.”

  Eva nods, “That’s fair, but it is a fact that we were the one to dispatch these chimps, completely eliminating the danger for you. So can I ask for a little compensation?”

  I’m surprised by Eva’s attempts to get something from the Hunter. I tilt my head as I try to discern what she’s trying to get out of this.

  “What do you want?”

  “Well, after you're done collecting your ingredients, you’re going straight back to Memphit, yes?”

  Atremer pushes his glasses back up, “Yes.”

  “Then we will accompany you and you can pay for our entrance fee.”

  It clicks. Oh, it costs money to enter the city. Since we have literally nothing right now we wouldn’t be able to get in. Well, I could probably just teleport us in with Instant Position, but this works too.

  I smile as Atremer purses his lips, “To put it simply… We’re broke.”

  He turns to me. Apprehension fills his face as he scratches the back of his head. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but I have a feeling that he isn’t the one that’s going to make that decision.

  Aubrey stands up from collecting the scattered shit off the ground. “Sure! It’s only fair!”

  And there it is! All that’s left now is to see if Atremer is the kind of father that can say no to his daughter or not.

  Atremer stammers, “Eh- but- wha-”

  It’s music to my ears! As soon as I heard that, it was over! That's game! Thanks for playing Atremer, but it looks like we’re going to be traveling together!