Returning to the crate with the potions, L was sorting the colors. "There was also a purple color vial that was underneath the first layer of blue and green ones, I obviously can’t determine what they do." V nodded "For now we can place them in our storage, next time we are in a town or city we can try to get them examined." L nodded and handed V four vials filled with a watery purple liquid. As he took a few moments to put each one into his storage, L continued. "There are fifteen green vials, and five blue. I’m guessing they are weak, since he said we would have to give more than one of them to the girl to heal her. Although we will have to be careful so she does not choke." L stood up and began to walk out with the green potions, but V stopped her. "Wait, he might not have been telling the truth." V took his sword and cut his palm; he closed his eyes while doing so. "Really? closing your eyes is not going to make it hurt less." L spoke with a flat voice. V shook his head "It’s not about the pain, I just find it difficult to hurt myself willingly." After he was bleeding, he opened one of the green vials "If it's poison, it will not affect me. If it’s some sort of healing liquid it still should. So...." V drank the green fluid, it was a little thicker than he had hoped and tasted faintly of rotten vegetables. For a moment nothing happened, after fifteen seconds V opened his mouth "Well I don't think it's a hea-" he stopped as his cut started to itch and tingle, slowly closing up.

"Oh. Well. I suppose "healing potions" are not very effective in this world." L looked at him with her eyebrows raised "We did not even have "potions" in my world. So any magical healing juice is way better then what we had back home." V nodded "Sure but in the movies and books these things always worked instan.... You know what, it doesn't matter. Go help the girl, I’m going to try giving one of these blue ones to the drugged man. I'm not sure that whatever they have him on is considered "poison" but it can’t hurt." L and V went to heal their respective victims. V had to grab and rebind one of the prisoners who had managed to get their arms free and was trying to free their legs. After carefully getting the drugged-out man to drink the contents of the blue vial, he went back outside. Most everything else had been taken care of, there was one more tent to check but V would leave that to L. The fire was all ready to go and he was looking forward to this. "I sure hope one of you is willing to give me some information on who hired you to come after us. Or, if you don't know, at-least where to find your boss. Otherwise this is going to be extremely slow." V grabbed the man he had punched in the nose before. "This is the part you’re going to want to forget, remember the nose pain instead.”

L returned to V's side as he dragged the man kicking and screaming toward the fire. "If you’re planning on burning them to death, don't you normally start the fire after they are tied to the center of it?" V shook his head. "No, actually that is a terrible way to burn people to death. If the fire is started at their feet, there is a high likelihood they pass out from smoke inhalation or carbon monoxide poisoning before they really have a chance to burn. There are a number of great ways to use fire, but I don't really have the tools available, and to be honest, I don't want to spend more time on these guys than I need to." He gestured at the remaining unexplored tent. "Check that place for me, would you? Afterward, pack up the food, magical items and money we found in the crates, then burn everything to the ground. Leave nothing usable in the camp." L was unsure why that part mattered but she nodded, seeing no reason to argue. As L moved toward the tent, V tossed the man onto the fire. The screaming and smell were horrible. The man flailed and managed to drag himself off the fire, desperately rolling around. V watched and spoke to the rest. "He is not going to be helpful anymore, I doubt he can speak. However, he will be in horrible pain for actually quite some time. See how his burnt skin is sticking to the ground as he tries to roll?" V gestured to the wretched man as he walked over to the next person. "Hello, would you like to tell me who was after us? Or perhaps why? Or maybe who your boss is, or where they are? Or really anything you think I might like to hear at this point?" The woman, in a horrified voice stammered "I don't know anything, I’m new here I’ve only been on two jobs, I don't know anything I swear." V shrugged and in a loud voice, so that the rest could here. "Ignorance does not absolve you." He grabbed the prisoner and walked toward the fire.

The horrible noises from outside the tent did not pull at L's heart in the least as she checked the tent. There were degrees of criminal activity, and in L's mind, this was about as awful as you can get. When one involves the lives of the common people in their depravity, they can sink no lower. L always believed that if you willingly place yourself in danger, a warrior, and assassin, a political figure, it was expected that someday you might run into a situation like being a captive to criminals like this, or assassinated, or face any number of troubles. However, involving those that want to lead simple lives with their families, was in her mind, the worst type of dishonorable act. As she deftly searched the tent, she found a few documents. The tent seemed to be clerical in nature, as she quickly glanced through them, they mostly were ledgers of people who purchased slaves from their camp, and how much they paid for it. The documents also noted how much of the money was sent to their boss as a type of tribute/tax. Not especially helpful, but L took them. Should they return to the capitol city, L would turn the documents over to the local authority. While slavery was legal, this group obviously operated outside of the law, and anyone who was buying slaves from them had to be aware of that fact. She continued to search for any hidden documents, but failed to find anything of real importance. She found a few higher quality weapons inside of a small chest however, so that was nice. She placed the bow and quiver, long sword, and a strangely designed dagger inside of her storage. She then began to tear the tent down. She was supposed to burn everything, but she would prefer to not take the forest down with the camp, and intended to simply throw everything onto the central fire V had created.

Further off in the forest, Eika awoke with a start. She remembered getting attacked... and then someone grabbed her. She only partially remembered getting forced into a silvery bag of some type, but anything after that she was unsure of. As her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself inside of a dead tree, she began to panic. Why was she hidden here? What happened to V, L, and Luna? This all felt very familiar to her, it was like when her mother had left her behind... She struggled out of the tree; it was a tight fit. As she tumbled out of the tree she fell into the grass. There was blood around the base of the tree, and all along the grass leading up to it. "No!" Eika cried out, they must have left her here because they were hurt! Eika scrambled to stand up, she had to find them, but she had no idea where they were, or what was going on. Maybe they were already dead?! Or maybe they were still fighting to protect her? As Eika's thoughts came to her faster and faster, tears started to roll down her cheeks.

Back in camp V had deftly threw about half of the prisoners into the fire, and was currently holding another. He had gotten a little bored of the fire bit, and had decided to have a little hands-on time with this one. As V broke the man's arm, the man cried out "Please... Please stop, she might know something..." the man weakly tried to indicate to one of the still remaining prisoners. V broke the man's legs and dropped him, walking over to the indicated woman. "Hello dear, you should be thankful I’m not as bad as you, otherwise you would have ended up like your captives. No, I’m not quite willing to go that far." The woman looked at him in defiance as she spoke, although she was clearly worried about the fire treatment. Multiple of their companions were now rolling, crawling, or dying with horribly burned bodies, it was hard to ignore. "Give me something and it will not be so bad for you." The woman spat at him and attempted a defiant look, but the fear was still evident in her eyes. "Well, I’ll give you credit for being brave, that much is true." V stabbed her eye with one of the weak daggers he had collected from the bodies. Pulling out her eye, he spoke "This is one of my favorites. You can see the damage with your other eye as your eye hangs down on your face, and it hurts a lot too. It also has a psychological effect on you because you can see one of your ruined sensory organs with your own eye, knowing it will never heal." The woman whimpered as he grabbed her and dragged her over to the fire. He placed her lower legs into the flames, holding her as she thrashed in pain. Withdrawing her, he spoke "Seriously though, what is the worst that happens if you give me a name? Your boss kills you?"

L had torn down all but two of the tents, and had gathered up all the food and useful items in her storage. She was now simply breaking the wooden shacks down and tossing them onto the fire, as well as the beds in the tents. She had moved Luna to the tent with the women. As she tossed another load of destroyed wood onto V's fire, she watched as he cut a woman's dangling eye off, and forced it into her own mouth. L sort of felt a little sick, it was a truly horrible display. However, as the woman choked on her own eye, L saw her defiant will shatter. V might be horrible, but apparently he was rather good at this. Between trying to spit out her own eye, and having it forced back in by V, she muttered "stop... please..." V stopped holding her mouth, as the woman gagged and cried, she muttered "The boss... Balthazar.... main.... camp.... far to the south.... don’t know where exactly...." V nodded and stood up from his crouching position. He looked at the woman, clearly trying to determine her fate. "Put her out of her misery, she has been through enough." L spoke, she had no pity for the woman really, but this was really quite horrid. V was going to simply let her slowly die of her wounds, but at L's request he killed her. "I think we have everything we are going to get out of this. Take the men and women and Luna out of here, go collect Eika and start heading back to our camp. I’ll finish up here. L nodded "Are you going to kill them?" V shook his head "I’m burning the rest of them as well. And then I will burn the remaining tents. They will languish here in their empty camp, unable to save themselves as they slowly die of un-treatable burns. Even if one or two of them are not burned enough to die right away, it will only be worse for them as they die slower of infection and dehydration.

"We need to get out of here now, can you walk?" L asked the catkin who she had given seven of the green vials to before she had healed enough to awaken. The catkin slowly nodded; her fellow victims had explained the situation to her. "Will you be ok if the two men who were with you follow us?" The women looked at each other and nodded, save the youngest who was still in a daze. "They were just the same as us. One of them tried to stop them from taking the girl once, but they killed him..." One of the elven ladies spoke to L. "Can the man who was drugged walk? They did the same thing to me once, and I did not even know what was going on for hours and hours." L shrugged "If not I’ll carry him. You will have to follow me exactly until we are safely out of the region. The area all around the camp is trapped. The women nodded; L went off to collect the men. Together the group wandered off into the forest.

As Eika panicked and ran through the forest, desperately looking for the group a small green ball of fluffy fur landed in front of her, falling from the trees. Wiping away the tears in her eyes, Eika sniffed "huh? A green fairy?" Another green fairy appeared as well, making strange "boowp" noises to the one in front of Eika. The first fairy gently bumped against Eika's leg a few times before heading off in the direction that Eika had ran away from. "Mr. Fairy! Do you want me to follow you? Can you take me to my family? please...?" Eika's voice was soft and quiet, fear and sadness had sapped her energy. The green fairy turned and bounced up and down a few times as it waited for Eika.

L stood in front of the hollowed-out tree with a look of concern on her face "That's not good." Was all she could say. She had expected that Eika would be asleep longer. Although she had no real reason to think that, she had just assumed the slavers would have had a stronger sleeping spell or something. One of the women, a human, spoke up "What's wrong?" L shook her head "One of my companions was supposed to be here. A rabbitkin. She seems to be gone though." The rabbitkin woman's remaining ear flicked "Are you going to enslave us?" The rabbitkin asked L with a worried look on her face. "No? Why would you think that?" As L spoke, she was glad that they had apparently passed through some form of sound barrier, she now no longer had to listen to the sounds of the dying and damned. "Well, I never knew a rabbitkin traveling with humans who was free." L shrugged "Well, she is not free exactly, but she follows us of her own free will. I think? I never really asked her. Point is, we did not enslave her. It's a long story. The... eight of you will be free to do as you wish after we get out of here. I suppose you can do as you wish now, but I don't think you will survive out in the wild alone currently. One of you cannot even walk correctly." She pointed at the drugged man who was being aided by his friend. A strange set of noises drew L's attention, she gripped her sword and prepared to fight.

Eika stumbled out in front of the group "Wait! I can't see you anymore!" The fairy had disappeared into some bushes in front of her a few seconds ago. "Eh?" Eika rubbed her eyes again as she saw L and the people behind her. L relaxed her stance as Eika ran up to her and cried into her legs, hugging her. "Eika was so worried! I thought everyone was dead again..." She looked around "What happened to Luna?!" she cried as she spotted her being carried by one of the women. "It's a long story. Let's get back to camp. V will follow us shortly." Eika sniffled as she wiped her eyes again. "V? He is not very good at navigating the forests... I’ll go help him; you guys can get back to camp without me, right?" L shrugged "V said camp was due west, and since the sun is rising, ya I think I can manage. However, you should probably just come with us. V is... uh... busy." Eika hesitated, she was not confident that V could find his way back, but L probably had a good reason for stopping her. "If you say so..." L nodded "If he gets lost, I can find him, remember?"