In and out. In and out. Like a machine, Sofie pushed the wooden needle through the cloth over and over, slowly assembling a shirt from an assortment of rags and half-ruined other clothes. Though she knew that the results of her efforts would be a lopsided, ugly thing that normally nobody in their right mind would willingly wear, she kept at it anyway. These were not normal times, after all, and besides, she needed something to take her mind off of the-

“Shit!” Sofie swore under her breath as the tip of the wooden needle snapped off. This was the third one she’d destroyed. She couldn’t help it; every centimeter of her body constantly pulsed with anxious tension. It took everything she had to keep from shaking.

The source of her anxiety could be found just beside her, lying still on one of the room’s cheap beds. After her friend hadn’t returned a few hours after the battle’s end, Sofie had ventured out into the night to search for her. Even with Pari’s nose, locating Arlette in the aftermath of the attack had taken many hours. In the end, they’d found her up on one of the cross-city bridges that served as pathways through the city.

Arlette had been through a lot since Sofie had first met her. She’d been hurt many times while fleeing to Stragma, followed by the long period of malnutrition while being chained to a cell wall or a wagon, and then there were the injuries suffered during their escape when she’d almost bled to death. All of that seemed like a mere scratch compared to how they’d found her two days ago. Given the amount of blood covering her body and the even larger amount pooled around where she lay, Sofie had thought her dead at first. Only after a close inspection had she realized that her friend still breathed, though it came halting and weak.

Due to the overwhelming number of casualties from the last attack, the doctors, or whatever sad excuse for healers passed for such in this reality, had sorted her into the “too much work to save” category—something about critical injuries and internal bleeding—and moved on to others they viewed as more likely to survive. That left Sofie and Pari with little to do but try their best to care for her on their own and hope against hope that she would live.

Sofie picked up her last needle and returned to her sewing. Though she’d kept Arlette fed, warm, dry, and clean, the mercenary still hadn’t done anything at all the whole time other than breathe, though the strength of said breathing had improved a bit. Still, Sofie didn’t know if that meant Arlette would live. Pari insisted that the Scyrian “smelled better” than before, and Sofie could only pray that this meant something good.

As if to answer her prayers, Sofie heard a small groan come from her side, followed by a cough. Sofie dropped the cloth and needle in her hands and turned to see Arlette’s eyes flutter open just a crack. The woman moaned in pain softly.

“Arly-sis!” Pari cried, running over with a wide, gleeful grin on her face.

Quickly Sofie interposed herself between the two, cutting off a potentially-lethal pounce-hug before it could start. “Pari, she's probably really thirsty. Get some clean water for her to drink, please.”

As the girl scampered out of the room, Sofie picked up a damp cloth and wiped away the crust from Arlette’s eyes. “You’re awake!” she said delicately.

“...how long?” Arlette rasped.

“More than two days,” she admitted.

The mercenary closed her eyes for a moment, seemingly processing the information. Just as she opened them again, Pari burst into the room with a cup of water. Gently, Sofie held Arlette’s head up and helped her slowly drink it. “Do you think you’re going to be okay?” she asked. She’d seen the Scyrian’s absurd healing abilities before, but never with injuries this bad.

“...eventually,” the older woman replied after another moment.

Sofie let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good! You were so battered when we finally found you, and you'd lost so much blood from all the cuts, that the doctors didn’t even think you’d live more than another day! There’s so much I have to talk with you about...”

The Earthling’s voice trailed off as she realized that her friend had drifted back to sleep. Sofie sighed and walked over to her own bed. They’d have to talk later. At least tonight she’d be able to sleep without crippling worry.

*     *     *

“You’re looking better,” Sofie said the next morning. “A little, at least.”

The mercenary grunted. “Everything hurts,” she griped.

“At least you have the energy to complain,” Sofie chuckled. Words could not describe just how freeing the relief coursing through her felt. Just a day ago, she’d thought her friend was going to die in front of her. With a grunt, she pulled Arlette’s upper body up and shoved a few pillows underneath to prop her patient up. “Do you need me to feed you or can you manage it yourself?”

“I can do it,” Arlette replied, strange anger in her tone.

“Okay.” Sofie placed a bowl of soup on the other woman’s lap.

Arlette’s hand moved slowly and shakily to pick up the spoon. Sofie could see how much effort it took Arlette to even move her arm, but she just sat and watched. Arlette seemed very insistent that she do it without her help.

The spoon trembled in Arlette’s hand as she brought it up towards her lips, the vibration sending drops of liquid falling onto the woman’s chest. Unfortunately, the rest of the soup quickly followed as the spoon slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor before reaching her mouth. Arlette seemed to deflate following her failure.

“I got it,” Sofie reassured her while picking the utensil off the floorboards. “It's fine, you just need a little more time and you’ll be good as new!”

“I’m weak,” Arlette sighed as she went limp against the cushions, her eyes lifeless.

“Of course you are, you were almost dead just a few days ago. What do you expect?”

“No... even if I were fully healthy, I’m weak. And because of that, everybody around me dies. I couldn’t stop Sebastian. He killed everyone, Sofie. He did it right in front of me and I couldn’t do a thing to stop him.”

Sofie’s spirit plummeted at the news. She’d suspected something along those lines after Arlette’s squadmates hadn’t shown up since that night, but she’d held out hope that they were still alive anyway. “That’s terrible... I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“I know that he did it to make me feel powerless. It’s what he wanted. It’s what he’s always wanted, I think, ever since I escaped back when I was a child. But...”

“You think he was right.”

“I never stood a chance against Sebastian. I gave it my all and even when I thought I’d finally won, it didn’t even matter. He was no match for that woman. That man terrified me my whole life. I was nothing compared to him. What does that make me compared to somebody who killed him without even trying?” She sighed again.

“What are you talking about?”

“The Monster. She took down the west gate all by herself, after all I’d done to stop Sebastian from opening it. Just knocked it in with three hits.”

“Three hits?!”

“She lost half her body and got up moments later as if it had never happened. I’m not even that strong for a Scyrian; all I have are some tricks, not real power like the Chos or General Astalaria. How am I supposed to do anything against that? I’m nothing... just a fool who thought she could make a difference.”

“But you did make a difference. You made a difference with me. And with Pari. That's not meaningless.”

“You don’t understand-”

“Really? Feeling useless and impotent, feeling like you have no control over your own life, having to rely on others stronger than you for everything all the time because you’re not good enough... what do you think my life has been like since I got here?”

“You’re an Earth person, though. All the other Earth people are strong, so maybe you will find yourself to be strong too, somehow. Me? This is as strong as I’ll ever be.”

“I don’t think it’s fair to say all Earthlings are strong just because of the Mother of Nightmares. That’s just one person.”

“The Monster is also from Earth.”

“Really?! How do you know?”

“I watched her lose more than half her body, and a moment later she was whole again like nothing had ever happened. No Scyrian could do that.”

“Are you sure? You all heal really fast...”

“Not like that. No Feeler could manage such a thing. It was absolutely terrifying to see. I guess it’s a good thing that she died.”

“Actually...” Sofie coughed. “She’s still alive. When I went out to get some water yesterday, I overheard somebody say that she’d attacked again.”

Arlette blinked for a moment before letting out another defeated sigh. “So, her head was completely destroyed and somehow she’s still alive? We really are nothing compared to Earth, aren’t we?”

“I mean...”

“You all have fantastic powers and you live in giant metal towers that touch the sky and can fly around the whole world in a single day and even harness lightning like it's nothing... how are we supposed to compare to that?”

“It’s not like Earth is a paradise or something. There are things that are worse about it.”

“Name one.”

“Well, the weather’s better here, for one. The summer didn’t get as hot, and the whole winter here it hasn’t once gone below freezing. That’s really nice.”

“Name one that isn’t about the fucking weather.”

“Uhhhh... well... Women are more equal here. That’s honestly really nice. In my world men have an advantage over women. They get treated better, they get paid better, sometimes they have more rights, stuff like that.”

“Seriously? Why?” Arlette looked genuinely confused at the idea.

“I think you got the wrong idea about Earth. Yeah, we have airplanes and cell phones and whatever, but those are just tools. The people themselves are much weaker than Scyrians. We don’t have powers. We can't run super fast or lift huge boulders or anything. Even our healing is worse. Remember how long it took me to heal that wound when we were running from bounty hunters in Kutrad? It took weeks, when you would have healed it in a day or two.

“So it’s different there. Men are larger and stronger. It’s not like here, where a small woman who’s a powerful Feeler can overpower a larger man even with the size difference. I mean, things are better now than they were even fifty years ago, but these things are built into cultures and traditions that have existed for thousands of years. It’s hard to change. Even a lot of women in the world grow up thinking that they’re beneath men because that’s what they were taught all their lives. So, yeah. That’s one thing.”

“Huh...”

“I mean really, you don’t understand how crazy everything you do is. Just making fire out of nothing, even a small flame like you do to light a fire... in the past on my world, that alone would be enough to either make others worship you or burn you alive for being a witch. You act like it’s nothing but it’s not. It’s magic. That’s amazing. And terrifying, honestly. Even this is freaking me out a bit. If you were in Earth right now, there’s no way you would be able to talk with me like this already after how bad you were just a few days ago.”

“Still... I can’t stand up against people with real power. No matter how amazing you find what I can do, it’s all worthless against the truly strong people in this world.”

Sofie scratched her head. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. Clapping her hands, she put on a wide smile and picked up the bowl from Arlette’s lap. “Let’s get you fed. If you’re going to be depressed, you might as well be depressed and full.”

Arlette grunted but didn’t put up a fuss as Sofie carefully spoon fed her.

“You know,” Sofie remarked a few minutes later, “I can’t help but realize that you’re stuck here for a while. Meaning, you’re a captive audience.” She grinned wickedly. “You ready to answer all my questions?”

“No.”

“What’s that? You don’t need my help next time you need to poop? You can clean it up all by yourself?”

Arlette shot her a piercing glare. “Since when did you turn evil?”

“Hee hee... well?”

“I’m at your mercy, you shameless woman. What do you want to know?”

“Hmmmm, let’s see... ummmm, why is everything here a lizard?”

“That’s your question?”

“I didn’t think you’d say yes! I wasn’t ready! And it’s weird that almost every animal is a reptile or insect!”

“What’s weird about it?”

“There are practically no mammals, or birds now that I think about it! It’s weird! There should be, like, rats and mice and squirrels and finches and sparrows but there are only lizards everywhere!”

“What the fuck is a ‘squirrel’?”

“You know what, never mind. Better question... I’ve been wondering about this ever since I got here: why do people speak different languages, and why do they still understand each other anyway?”

Arlette gave her a puzzled look. “By languages, you mean their speak? The sounds people make when talking?”

“Yeah.”

“What does your speak have to do with communication?”

“What? But language is literally how you communicate. It is the distillation of ideas into spoken word.”

Arlette grunted several times, and Sofie rocked back in shock. While the mercenary had done nothing more than release several nonverbal sounds, Sofie immediately understood them as “Where did you get that idea?” The reaction brought an amused smile to the older woman’s face.

“The noises people make have nothing to do with what they say. If I wanted to communicate with you entirely through sneezes, I could; it would just be much more taxing. People use their speak simply because it is easier on the mind. Scholars believe that this is because the mind associates ideas with certain sounds, and so verbalizing those sounds makes the conjuration of the idea easier.”

“But... like...” Sofie massaged her head with her hands, trying to wrap her head around the ideas Arlette had just dumped on her.

“Is this really such a big deal?” Arlette inquired.

“Yes! It goes against everything I’ve ever known! Look, in my world, the noises you make are the ideas. It’s a verbal code that you have to learn so that you know that when somebody says ‘chair’, you know they’re talking about a chair. Languages are incredibly complicated on their own, and that’s not even taking into account the differences between languages since there are so many! But this... this says that, at least in this world, there are not just subjective concepts but objective, hard truths that exist for any and all ideas, objects, concepts, everything! It’s just...” She faded off as the weight of these revelations continued to melt her brain into sludge.

“Hold on, so in your world, if you don’t know the sound for ‘sword’ and somebody said that sound to you, what would happen?”

“I just wouldn’t know what that person said. I wouldn’t understand it.”

“And you said there are lots of different speaks in your world? What would happen if two people who learned different speaks tried to talk to each other?”

“If two people who only knew different languages, like say English and Japanese, met each other, they wouldn’t be able to understand each other at all. They’d have to resort of pantomime to get anything across. Like..."

She paused for a second before turning and grabbing the ancient tome that she spent so much time slowly translating. Turning back, she opened the large book and held up its pages for her friend to inspect.

“Can you read this?” she asked, pointing to the unintelligible swirls inside.

“Of course not.”

“Exactly. Although you can read Eterian Common, you can’t read this. When someone speaks a different language it’s like reading a book written in a different code. It means something, but until you actively learn it you just can’t understand it.”

Arlette stared at her, bewildered. “Stars above, how did people on your world get anything done?!”

“It’s complicated. Luckily, there are a few languages that are so prevalent that a lot of people know them well enough to at least get basic information across. I speak several to some degree. It’s harder when it’s new concepts though. Actually, what’s that like for you? If somebody mentions, say, an animal that you’ve never encountered or heard about before, what do you experience?”

Arlette thought about her answer for a moment. “It’s kind of a base understanding I guess. Like, an old, fuzzy memory coming back to the surface. I would understand on a general level what the animal looks like, how big it is, that sort of thing. It matters how much understanding the speaker has of the subject.”

“That's really interesting. So, like, what if the person only knows of this animal from a book, or just heard about it from somebody else but never saw it on their own?”

“If he just learned of it in a book, I would receive a shadow of that understanding. If I saw the animal in the wild later, I would be recall it as if I had read that book a long time ago and could only remember the more general facts. If it was something they had learned from another person instead of a book, I would receive an understanding similar to what the speaker received from the other person, though perhaps a bit weaker.”

“So personal experience matters greatly in this.”

“Precisely. If, for example, the animal was something the person had dealt with before and feared, I would receive an understanding of that fear as well, and I would likely feel a similar fear if I ever saw that animal myself, even if it didn’t seem outwardly scary.”

“Weird, I don’t get anything close to that.”

“Oh yeah? So if I say ‘red-snouted crotiat’, what do you get?”

“Uhhhh, it’s an animal, I think. A lizard?”

“That’s all? What does it look like? How big is it?”

“No idea.”

“Well, at least you got that it was a lizard.”

“That was more of a guess, really. Everything in this place is a lizard. We covered that already.”

“They’re small reptiles that live in the forests of Gustil. They look harmless but they have a paralytic venom that can kill something thirty times their weight in a single bite. Other people should have felt the caution that I feel whenever I think about them.”

“Maybe it’s because we’re from different worlds. Maybe there’s some sort of translation problem.”

“Could be. Given what you’ve told me, you should just be happy that you can understand me at all.”

“Oh man, if I had appeared in this world without being able to understand anybody, I’d...”

“You’d be dead before the day was done.”

“Yeah...” Sofie shook her head. “This is getting too depressing. Next question! So this world has humans, elves, and beastpeople. Is that it? Any other kinds of people that I haven’t encountered yet?”

“No, that’s all there are.”

“No dwarves or halflings or hobbits or something?”

“No. All I got from that was a feeling of people but shorter. Why, you know something?”

“‘The little-people are all dead, slain by the something.’”

“What’s that? Something from that old book you always have your head stuck in?”

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to figure out what the something that did the slaying is yet, but by now I’ve run across several mentions of ‘little-people’ and I don’t think they’re referring to humans, elves, or beastpeople. I’m wondering if there really was another race that was wiped out somehow. Maybe the people that built that place in the Valley of the Mist?”

“No, I don’t think that’s likely,” Arlette replied with a dismissive frown. “Everything inside there seemed built for people our height. Unless ‘little-people’ wasn’t referring to their stature, I don’t think it was them. Maybe it means children?”

“Nah, that’s not how it’s used elsewhere. Hey, speaking of ruins, are there other places like that elsewhere in the world?”

“Not really. There are definitely some sites here and there, but they’re not intact like that building was. They’re all just rubble and metal. Anything that might be valuable was taken centuries ago.”

“How old are they?”

“Nobody knows. Thousands of years, surely. Who made them, what they are, how old they are, it’s all a mystery as far as I know”

“Hmmmmmm... you know what else is a mystery? The ultimate mystery?”

“What?”

“The reason behind the name ‘Ivory Tears’.”

“No.”

“Come on.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“I haven’t told anybody else and I’m not gonna start now.”

“Awwwwwwwww...”

“I’m getting tired, so if you have any more stupid questions ask them now. Otherwise, go bother Pari or something.”

Sofie paused, a shadow falling over her face as she thought for a moment about what she was going to say. She’d been avoiding the topic since Arlette had first woken up, but it needed to be brought up eventually.

“Now that Sebastian is dead, does that mean we are going to leave?” Sofie asked, her voice quiet and nervous.

Arlette blinked, then frowned. “Sorry, but my work here is not finished.”

“But you said Sebastian is dead, right? Isn’t he the whole reason we came here in the first place?”

“As long as Ubrans stand on Nocend soil, I will not run. I ran away from them once. Never again.” She paused for a second. “You, however... I told you to get out of here before this whole thing started and you didn’t listen. I’d love if you could escape, but that’s not possible now. Even if it was, where would you go?”

“Otharia.”

“...what?”

“I need to go to Otharia.”

“Otharia?! What in the world would make you want to go to that forsaken place?”

“Because someone from my world lives there. I need to talk to them.”

“Of course...” Arlette grunted. “Why didn’t I realize it before? They said he conquered the country in a matter of days, and nobody knows where he came from.”

“You heard of this person before and you never told me?”

“I was told about it back in Begale but it was nothing more than rumors. Something about somebody going by the name ‘Ferros’ and taking over the country or something. I can’t remember much else. I never put much stock in it. Otharia is a place better ignored than anything else; nobody in their right mind would ever consider going there.”

“Ferros? Like the Latin word for steel?” Sofie muttered to herself.

“But how did you find out about this Earth person?”

Sofie shot her a disbelieving glance. “Zeppelins floating in the sky over your head are rather hard to miss, Arlette.”

“Wait... that was real?”

“Of course it’s real! It shows up every day to deliver more giant robots. What, did you think it was just a dream?”

“Well... yeah. I’d lost a lot of blood and was really out of it by the end there, and then when you never mentioned it I figured it must have been a hallucination just before I passed out. I thought that if it were real, it would have been the first thing you talked about.”

Sofie’s gaze fell to her feet. “I was afraid to bring it up because... because it means that I need to leave, and I’m...” Raw emotion that she’d bottled up for the past few days began to well up inside her, bringing tears to her eyes. Quickly she wiped them away. “I’m afraid that if I leave I’ll never see you again. You mean so much to me, you know, and I never...” She sniffed. “I never really tell you how much it means to me and how thankful I am that I found you back then. So thank you for... for being a friend even when everything would have been easier for you if you’d just dumped me in a ditch somewhere.”

“...I don’t really know what to say to that. You’re welcome, I guess.”

Sofie just sniffed and rubbed her leaking eyes some more.

“So, how do you plan to get out of here, now that you’ve finally decided what you need to do?” Arlette asked with a smirk.

“It won’t be too hard. The Otharians left somebody here to act as a diplomat. I’ll just talk to her and ride the airship back. This ‘Ferros’ person will surely want to see a fellow Earthling.”

“And Pari?”

“Well, that should be up to her, right? She’s old enough to make her own decisions. Well... some of them at least.”

“Will you leave today then?”

“No, I don’t want to leave until you’re well enough to take care of yourself again. I was just going to go talk with the Otharians later and let them know I’m here so they’ll be expecting me when it’s time.”

“Well... good luck. You should probably get moving on that while you can.”

Sofie grabbed Arlette’s nearby hand between her own two hands and squeezed. “I’m going to miss you,” she sniffed.

“I’ll miss you too.”

“I guess I’ll go talk to Pari about this,” Sofie said as she got up and headed for the door.

“It sounded cool,” Arlette said softly as Sofie opened the door.

“What?”

“I named it the Ivory Tears because it sounded cool.”

“That’s it? No deep lore, no poetic metaphors, just some words that when strung together sounded neat?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why didn’t you just say so in the first place, you idiot?”

“Because it was embarrassing, alright?! A mercenary band’s moniker is supposed to be more than just a name, it’s supposed to carry meaning and weight! It’s supposed to encompass the stories of the people who march under it! It’s supposed to... to matter! I was only fifteen and didn’t know anything about the world but noooooo, I was the leader so it was my job to name the stupid band, and so I just thought up a name that sounded impressive to me at the time and then it stuck and everyone assumed that there was some grand meaning to it and I didn’t know what to do so I just let them think that and then it became too late and we were stuck with it and everybody and-”

“AHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Sofie couldn’t hold her laughter in anymore, prompting her friend to harrumph and sullenly slouch against the cushions, sulking. Sofie couldn’t help but feel that, just this once, Arlette seemed the more childish of the two.

“I hope that, once I’m gone, you manage to open up a bit more to everybody,” she said with a satisfied grin. “This side of you is worth knowing too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arlette retorted, but Sofie was already out the door. The day was growing long, and she had important business to take care of in the citadel—business that she knew would change everything.

*     *     *

The slam of a door being violently thrown open echoed through the inn.

“That fucking BITCH!”

“Hmmmm,” Arlette observed, “that doesn’t sound like somebody on their way out of here any time soon.”

“I’m going to fucking strangle that woman, I swear to God!” snarled an irate Sofie. “I’m going to wring her fucking neck!”

“Conversation didn’t go as you expected?”

“I’ve never seen such an arrogant woman in my life!” Sofie fumed. “I have no doubt that she gets off from it. It’s like telling me ‘no’ was the highlight of her year!” She flopped down into the chair beside Arlette’s bed.

“You couldn’t convince her that you were from the same place as that ‘Ferros’ guy?”

“That’s the thing... I think I did! And I think all that accomplished was it gave her even more pleasure when she said, and I quote, ‘I don’t care who you are or where you’re from. You could be my Lord’s own mother and it wouldn’t matter. His orders are absolute. Nobody rides the airship, no matter what. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to let him know of your existence.’ And then she smiled this fake smile and had me thrown out. ‘I’ll let him know of your existence’ my ass. She won’t tell him shit and she knew it and she knew I knew it and she fucking loved every second of it.”

Sofie’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking, she was so angry. To have this change put in front of her and then denied by some random functionary with a sadistic streak and a stick up her ass threatened to drive her up the wall.

“I don’t know what else to do, though. There’s no way out of here other than that, right? It’s not like I can just sneak over the wall or something.”

Sofie went silent as she noticed Arlette’s gaze staring off into the middle distance. She’d do that sometimes, and afterwards she often came up with a good idea. Perhaps she’d be able to figure out a solution?

“I think I know somebody who might be able to do just that,” Arlette said after a while. “Maybe. There’s just one problem.”

“What’s that?”

“They probably won’t want to do it. And they might just kill you instead.”

*     *     *

Sofie’s fist came to a halt, her knuckles just centimeters from the wooden door. Once again, she asked herself if she wanted to go through with this. If she stopped now, maybe she could still find another way out of this godforsaken city. Maybe she could sneak aboard the airship or something like that? But if she knocked on this door then she was likely locked into this path. Whether said path ended in freedom or death was unknown, and that was what kept her fist from moving forward. It felt like she was standing in a minefield, where each and every choice threatened lethal consequences.

“Well what do we have here?” a soft female voice said from behind her as the cold touch of metal graced her exposed neck.

“Eeeep!” Sofie squeaked. Her body froze in terror, her heart threatening to seize up from the fear. It seemed that not making a choice counted as a choice as well.

“Hey, open the door. We have a visitor!”

Just moments later, Sofie found herself bound to a chair with strong rope, her arms tied around the chair’s back. Two people stood around her, each armed to the teeth. After a moment, she couldn’t say if the various battle scars and damage made them more intimidating or less. The woman had a large gash through her left eye, which seemed to have healed in a way that left it cloudy and blind, along with several garish scars and a bloody bandage wrapped around her right forearm. The man, meanwhile, had his own battle scars, most notably the three missing fingers on his left hand, sliced off at the first knuckle. Sofie had to purposely will herself not to stare at the stubby remnants as they unconsciously wiggled slightly when he moved. On the other hand, much like everybody else in the city, herself included, their bodies were thin and quickly approaching “gaunt” territory, which cut slightly into the scary aura they each exuded.

“Did you have to be so rough??” she complained bitterly. “The rope is cutting off the circulation to my hands.”

“Oho, we got a funny one,” the woman observed with a smirk. Her eyes, however, remained hard. “What were you doing skulking outside our door?”

“I wasn’t skulking, I was... umm... preparing to visit.”

“Were you now? I counted to a hundred before I made a move. What happened, did you forget how to knock?”

“I was scared, alright?”

“Scared?” the woman snickered. “What are you doing in this city then? A coward would have run long ago when they had the chance.”

“Yeah, well, special circumstances alright?”

“Hold on,” the man chimed in, “isn’t this the woman who’s always with the Candle Kitten?”

The woman stared at her for a moment before recognition seemed to blink into existence in her mind. “Oh yeah, I knew she looked familiar for some reason.”

“Candle Kitten? You mean Pari?” Sofie inquired, puzzled by the unfamiliar nickname.

“What, never heard the title before?” the man replied. “Everybody calls her that now. She stands out amongst the rest, after all. Not many kids around, especially ones like her.”

“The point is,” interrupted the woman, “there shouldn’t be any reason for the Candle Kitten’s handler to be seeking us out, should there?”

Sofie swallowed. It was do-or-die time, and sadly the ‘die’ part was terrifyingly literal in this case. “I came because I need a favor, and the only people who can manage to do it are the Masked Battalion.”

Before Sofie could even blink, a foot slammed into her chest and sent her and the chair falling backwards. She let out a cry as both she and the chair’s weight landed on her bound wrists and hands. She and the chair now laid on their back. She would have stared at the ceiling, but her gaze quickly became preoccupied with the large dagger pressed up against her throat.

“You shouldn’t have said that,” the woman growled.

“Wait!” Sofie cried hurriedly. “I won’t tell anybody! I just need your help to get out of the city, that’s all!”

“Who sent you here? How did you find us?” the woman demanded. “You’re obviously too stupid to have figured it out on your own.”

“My friend sent me! She was the one who knew where you were! She said you probably wouldn’t help us but there isn’t anybody else left and-”

The knife dug into her neck just a little, drawing a grimace and a whimper from Sofie.

“What’s her name?” the woman ground out.

“A-Arlette!”

The elves blinked nearly simultaneously before glancing at each other for a split second, but not fast enough for Sofie to miss it. The name ‘Arlette’ held some sort of significance with these people, but why? Arlette was such a rare name, it could only mean her friend, but there was no reason that she should matter to them, right?

Quickly Sofie recalled everything Arlette had briefed her about before she’d left for this place. The mercenary had been able to remember much of what had happened that night weeks ago. They’d been looking for somebody, a woman, at the request of some elven prince.

No way! There was absolutely no way in hell that he of all people could be royalty... right? But it was the only thing that made sense! Sofie decided to go with it and play the hand she’d been dealt. If she was right, she had a way not just out of this mess but possibly out of the city itself.

“It’s good to know that Jaquet made it home safely,” she said as confidently as possible, putting on a calm smile to mask her fear as best she could. “After he left us, we never heard from him again so we never knew if he was still alive.”

The woman visibly flinched, and Sofie’s smile turned genuine. “Get me up and untie me, please. I have a proposition for you that I think will benefit you as much as it benefits me.”

The woman’s eyes hardened again. “No, let’s hear your little proposition first, and then I’ll consider it.”

“Fine,” Sofie grumbled, shifting her weight slightly to relieve some of the pressure off her aching wrists. “Here’s how I see it. You are not necessarily here because of Arlette. That would be stupid and a waste of resources. But, a certain prince, who may or may not have been a fellow member of your group, asked you to look for Arlette while you were here. Am I right so far?”

Neither of the disguised elves moved, and so she continued on.

“Now, I’m sure that just finding her made this person very happy—happy enough, perhaps, to use a little of his power and wealth to benefit perhaps you, the Masked Battalion, or both. That would work out well for you. Am I on the right track?”

“Keep talking,” the woman said tersely, her tone providing no hints but her knife backing off from Sofie’s neck telling Sofie what she needed to know.

“So it seems to me that there’s just a few problems with all of this, at least for you. Even now, with Otharia’s intervention, victory here is nowhere near assured. It seems clear that you’re doing your part on the wall. But what if you die up there? All that good will you earned back home means nothing then, does it not? Even worse, what if Arlette dies?”

“Why would that matter?” the man inquired. “We were just tasked with locating her.”

“Oh, didn’t you know? Jaquet is madly in love with Arlette.”

Something flashed in the woman’s eyes and the knife returned to Sofie’s throat. “Lies! The prince of the Esmae falling for a human barbarian? There’s no way that would be true!”

Sofie returned her gaze with steely confidence. “I traveled with both of them from Kutrad to Stragma and back. He hid it from the others well, but I would know: he was head over heels for her. Do you think he would bother asking you to locate a ‘human barbarian’, as you put it, if he wasn’t? Now that I think about it, it must have eaten him up inside knowing that he couldn’t act on his feelings for all those years. But that’s getting off topic. The point is, let’s say that the siege ends and it even ends in the Ubrans’ defeat, but Arlette dies in battle before it’s all over. Jaquet isn’t going to know what to do with all that anger and grief. He’ll start throwing blame around, and a whole lot of it is going to land on you because you were here when she died. I’ve seen that man do some really terrible things to people that made him angry. You don’t want to be in his crosshairs, rightly or wrongly.”

The two transformed elves shared another quick glance, and Sofie could see a hint of fear in their eyes. Her smile broadened slightly and the confidence in her voice increased as she saw that her words were hitting home.

“So basically, unless both you and Arlette survive, things probably won’t end well for you no matter what you do. But what can you do? You’re just two people, after all, and she doesn’t want to leave. Believe me, I tried to convince her but she refuses to go. And if you think that you can kidnap her and get her out of the city when she isn’t cooperating, good luck.

“Let’s be honest, we’re all mostly powerless to change our fates here. It’s not like we can just summon up more troops to man the walls, or more food to fill our stomachs. But the man who rules Otharia can. I’m willing to bet that if he wanted to, he could provide far more robots than he deigns to send every day. That’s where I come in. I happen to have an in with that man. If I can get to Otharia, I can talk to him and convince him to increase his help. The problem is, I need to get out of the city to do it. That’s where you come in.”

“You know the man who calls himself ‘Lord Ferros’, the tyrant conqueror of Otharia?” the woman asked in disbelief.

“We both come from the same place, you see, a far, far distant land. There are very few of us from that place here in Scyria, less than ten probably, which makes it sort of like a special club. There’s him, me, the Mother of Nightmares...”

She paused for a moment to let that last name sink in. Two of them took a step back, suddenly much more wary of her. She chuckled.

“Don’t worry, if I were as dangerous as they, the siege would have been over weeks ago,” she bluffed. Or at least she hoped it was a bluff. The idea of being capable of destroying armies like the Monster or the Mother of Nightmares terrified her, but that was a subject for another time.

“So what, we help you get out of here and you help end the siege? Is that all?” the man asked warily.

“More than that. I would be greatly indebted to you, and so I’d be sure to put in a good word with my former party member about just how invaluable you were to protecting his crush. I’m sure that the reward you’d receive would be far greater than what you’d get if things proceed as they are now. It’s a win-win for everybody. You have a better chance of surviving, so does my friend, and you walk away much better off than you would otherwise. What have you got to lose? That is... if you can even do the job.”

“Hey, I can smuggle anything anywhere anytime,” the man boasted.

“Quiet!” the woman barked. “I haven’t agreed to anything yet.”

“Look, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity I’m presenting you,” Sofie pressed, putting in every ounce of conviction she had. “Don’t waste it.”

The woman glared at her for a moment before motioning to the man to follow and walking behind Sofie. The man did as instructed, and Sofie heard the sound of a door opening and shutting. Muffled voices that she couldn’t make out followed. The conversation kept going and going, and the longer it went the more worried Sofie became. What if they decided to call her on her lies? After all, while she believed that her shared origin would help her in her quest to meet ‘Lord Ferros’, she was nowhere near as confident in her chances as she let on. Eventually, the door opened again and the two returned to stand in front of her, faces serious.

“If you have such a connection with the Otharian ruler, why not simply take their flying contraption back?” the woman asked skeptically.

“Because my connection is only with my fellow traveler, not Otharia. I have no sway with the Otharians themselves, meaning that if that fucking witch wants to go on a power trip and deny access to the zeppelin, there’s not much I can do but seek alternative means of escape.”

“Hmmmmm...” the woman replied. She stared Sofie in the eyes for a moment before speaking again. “I have decided that we will help you as you request, in exchange for the rewards you offered-”

“Oh great!” chirped Sofie.

“-under one condition.”

“Huh?”

“If we get you out of the city, how will you avoid the Ubrans without getting caught?”

“Uh-” Shit, that was a great point which she had no good answers for.

“If you avoid the Ubrans, how do we know you’ll do what you say you will do? How do we know you won’t just run?”

“Um-” Sofie started to sweat.

“And even if you fully intend to stick to your side of the bargain, it’s dangerous for a single person to travel alone, especially in a land where those who would normally protect the roads are either dead or stuck in here. There is no guarantee that you’d live to honor your commitments.”

“Well-” She had said they’d help, right?

“Which is why you will be accompanied on your journey by one of us.”

“Wha?”

The man reached around behind Sofie and tugged on some of the ropes. Suddenly the bindings holding her to the chair slackened, freeing her.

“Follow me,” the woman commanded, leading Sofie into the room they’d gone into before to discuss her offer. The new room was smaller than she’d expected, with only two beds and a chair inside it. In the chair sat a figure wearing a hooded robe with a veil covering its face—a Many, Sofie realized, though not much more could be said from her limited view. Meanwhile, one of the beds was empty save a rough-looking pillow, while the other was occupied by another man.

Sofie held back a gasp as she noticed the state of this man. He looked far worse off than the first two Masked Battalion members. Half of his body was wrapped in bandages and, most significantly, almost the entirety of his right leg was missing.

“This man will be accompanying you on your journey,” the woman said.

“Call me Jerithim,” the grizzled man added.

“Uhhh...” Sofie began, “no offense, but... how is a one-legged person supposed to help?”

“It won’t be a problem once we are out of the city,” the woman said with a certainty that puzzled Sofie. “We will contact you soon once the preparations have been made and the time is right.”

Without further discussion, Sofie was marched back out of the room. “It’s time for you to leave,” the woman said.

“Alright, thank you for your help, uh...”

“Call me Embra,” the woman offered.

“Krotar,” said the first man.

“Are any of those your actual names?” Sofie wondered.

“No. Now get out.” Before Sofie could say another word, the woman opened the door to the street and Sofie found herself unceremoniously shoved out the doorway.

Well... all things considered, everything had gone about as well as could have been hoped. For the first time in her life, she found herself thankful for Jaquet being Jaquet. Now she’d found a way out of the city, and that was what mattered. The only question remaining was... should she let Arlette know?

*     *     *

Sofie, Pari, and ‘Jerithim’ slowly ascended the stairs towards the wall along the south side of the city. They were making very poor time, as was to be expected when asking a one-legged man with a crutch to climb tens of flights of stairs. To make matters worse, Sofie couldn’t tell how much left they had to go, as the fog so prevalent this season was back obscuring her view of the top of the wall.

It had only been two days since Sofie had first met with the members of the Masked Battalion, but apparently they worked quickly, as already they were making their move. She’d packed up her book and translating supplies in her Stragman waterproof bladder bag—still the only worthwhile thing to come out of her stay there—and put on an extra set of clothes under her normal ones. Anything more would look too suspicious. The point was for them to have an accident and vanish, and it wouldn’t look right for them to be loaded down with supplies when they “disappeared”.

Pari, meanwhile, had filled her large ratty sack with everything she had, all of it wrapped up in rags to silence the various metal bits, and lugged the almost comically large bag over her back. While normally such a thing would be suspicious, Pari carried the sack everywhere so for her the opposite would have been true. The girl would never have agreed to leave her stuff behind, anyway. It had been hard enough convincing her to leave Arlette. The mercenary had really grown in the catgirl’s eyes since the days of their first meeting. It made Sofie feel all warm inside watching how much they’d come to care for each other.

Speaking of Arlette, she was back at the inn, acting normal. After two more days of healing, her body had grown strong enough to let her walk around as long as she was slow and careful about it and didn’t do it for too long. Once more, Sofie considered just how formidable the Scyrian healing factor was.

In the end, Sofie had decided not to tell Arlette about Jaquet. While it happened rather rarely, there had been times when he had come up inadvertently in conversation and each time Arlette had reacted poorly to his mention. She still found his betrayal both painful and infuriating, and so Sofie had chosen to simply let it be.

“I’m going to say this now, and only once,” the man said, pausing on the stairs for a moment. “Once we’re out, you must follow me without question, and you must be completely silent. Are we clear?”

Sofie nodded. “You hear that, Pari? No talking once we leave the city, alright?”

“Okayyy!” a cheery Pari replied. While reluctant to leave her ‘sister’ behind, Pari seemed rather excited with the prospect of leaving Crirada. Sofie had been able to see how cooped up the energetic girl had started to feel after a while.

“So how are we getting out?” Sofie asked for the seventh time.

“I told you before, we’re not telling you,” the disguised elf stated with annoyance. “It’s important that your reaction is natural or your friend could get in trouble.”

“Right...” Sofie sighed. It was hard to go along with people she barely knew saying ‘just trust us’, but it was important that everybody believed that what happened to them was just an accident. While the Otharians were now the most important figures in the defense, Pari’s bombs still held value. If certain people, like the Supreme General Erizio Astalaria for example, were to realize that they’d left through some sort of plot, they’d be quite angry and the first person they’d focus in on would be Arlette. The general hated Arlette enough as it was. He didn’t need more reasons to make her miserable.

Soon enough, they’d reached the top. The light of the three moons filtered through the fog lit the entire scene in a ghostly pallor, making the whole thing feel like some sort of waking dream. Sofie could barely see ten meters in front of her. All she could make out were a squad of soldiers milling about and staring out into the clouds.

“Halt!” one of the soldiers called to them as they summited the stairs. “Turn around, this is no place for children and the injured.”

Jerithim coughed. “Please forgive my selfishness,” he replied. “I am Jerithim of the west fourteenth squad, and sadly I have little time left before the end. These children were kind enough to help an invalid such as myself to make it up here one last time so that I might gaze out from atop this great wall one last time before I go. Please, allow us this trespass, just for a little while.”

The soldier’s face softened as he looked over the older man, who, like the first time two days ago, was still half-covered in bandages. “You picked a bad night.”

Jerithim offered a wry smile. “One must accept that which he is given.”

The soldier gave a tired sigh. “Well, I guess we can allow it. Just don’t take too long.”

“Thank you,” the elf replied.

As the soldier walked off, the three of them slowly made their way across the top of the wall to the outer edge. There, a small wall, or crenelation, about one and a half meters tall emerged from the stone floor, serving both as protection from invaders and as a railing to keep people from falling off accidentally. Sofie couldn’t help but notice that at the top of the crenelation more stone jutted out at a perpendicular angle towards the three of them for about half a meter. Looking at it, Sofie assumed that it existed to give defenders a little more overhead protection. However, it also seemed wide enough that it would be possible for people to stand on top of it.

“It truly is a wonderful night,” Jerithim muttered several minutes later as they gazed out into the fog.

Before Sofie could ask what he meant by that, a cacophony of furious roars from their right broke the stillness of the moment. Sofie involuntarily shuddered in fear. She’d heard that rage-filled roar before when they’d been chased through the Kutrad forest by the irate jaglioth mother, only this time, it wasn’t just the roar of a single jaglioth. It was the sound of a dozen... and the roars were quickly getting closer.

“Oh no! We won’t make it back to the stairs in time!” Jerithim cried out. “Quick, climb up! It’s our only chance!” With one hand, the man lifted Pari and her sack of goodies up onto the crenelation before throwing his crutch up and pushing himself up after. Sofie, in the meantime, practically teleported herself up atop the thin platform. While not normally the most athletic girl, the sound of tens of tons of enraged muscle, claws, and teeth barreling towards her gave her ample motivation. Once atop the crenelation, she accidentally looked down and nearly teetered off the edge as her vision spun. It was a long way down.

A strong hand grabbed her shoulder and steadied her. “Don’t go falling off now,” Jerithim said with a wry smile.

“Is this your plan? Please tell me this is your plan somehow,” Sofie begged. “The roars are fake, right? Just something to scare everybody away?”

The man only smiled and shook his head as the first massive beast plunged through the fog and into view, its eyes wild and out of blood, followed by several more. Sofie went white as the predator closed in like a runaway freight train. Then, just as it came within reach and reared up on its hind legs, its massive clawed paws swiping out at her, she felt Jerithim pull her backward and she, Pari, and the elf tumbled off the side.

Sofie’s shrill shriek pierced through the billowing whiteness as she fell. The top of the wall quickly faded into the mist as she plummeted towards the earth down below. Unable to see the ground beneath her through the fog as well, and not knowing when her fall would end, she squeezed her eyes shut and waited for a sudden impact. To think that she’d trusted these crazy people!

Her screams were interrupted by a hard tug on her waist, and suddenly her descent slowed. Confused, she looked down to find a small metal wire attached to the waist of her pants. When had that gotten there? She followed the wire up to find it merging with a second wire attached to Pari and a third that supported the lunatic who’d thrown them all off. All three of the wires merged into a small, squat metal cylinder with another wire emerging from the other side and stretching up into the fog above, so far that she couldn’t see where it was anchored. It seemed they were nearly at the ground already.

“This is a secret ancient relic, salvaged from a ruin thousands of years ago,” Jerithim said in response to her quizzical gaze. “We brought it with us so we could escape if it came down to it, but this works too. Now remember, silence from now on.”

A minute later, the three of them had their feet back on solid ground. With a push of a button, the wire reaching up into the sky detached from whatever it had grabbed onto up above and quickly retracted into the case.

As it did so, Sofie looked around into the fog nervously. Ever since the arrival of the Otharian robots and their guns, the Ubrans had moved their camps much farther away from Crirada. This meant that they would have a much harder time covering the entire circumference around the city than before, and there would likely be gaps in their perimeter. That didn’t stop her from expecting to find Ubran forces waiting for them in the gloom.

As quickly as two girls and a single-legged man could move, the three of them made their way south and away from the city. After a few hundred meters, Jerithim held up his hand to signal for them to stop. He crawled over to a nearby depression that would hide the three of them rather well and pulled out some clothes from beneath his outfit. Sofie stared at the new clothing for a second, puzzled by the fact that they were too small to fit him. Then she realized what was going down just as the man began to shrink.

Unlike the first time she’d witnessed the undoing of a transformation, this time Sofie was in the right mind for it and had an up-close view. At first, she watched the entire process with fascination, as ‘Jerithim’ writhed in what appeared to be incredible pain, his bone structure rearranging, his muscles and tendons growing, shrinking, and realigning, and his skin resizing itself to properly encompass the being he was becoming.

Soon, however, her gaze was stolen by one single realization: his missing leg was growing back. She couldn’t help but stare in fascination as the flesh at the stub of his missing leg suddenly bulged out, growing longer and longer as it reformed into a fully-functioning appendage. There was a time when she would have found the whole thing disgusting, but now it only brought her wonder.

Several minutes later, Sofie found herself watching a completely different person silently dress in the clothes that he’d laid out for himself before. Anybody who hadn’t seen the transformation would have never believed that the two beings were one and the same. The former soldier had been about two meters tall, with wide shoulders, thick muscles, scars all across his visible body, and, of course, a missing leg. The elf that she saw now, on the other hand, was a good twenty centimeters shorter, his body still well-defined but sleek instead of bulky. While the hair color remained a soft brownish-red the entire time, the eyes had changed from a brown to a green and the skin had lightened considerably. But most of all, the new version was smoking hot.

Sofie let out an irritated sigh in her mind. This was getting worse than when she’d watched those Lord of the Rings movies. Why was every elf in this damned world impossibly sexy? Jaquet had ended up sexy, the elves during their short “stay” in Drayhadal had been pure eye candy, and now this dude was equally gorgeous. It wasn’t fair! Why couldn’t there have been hot elves on Earth too? And why didn’t the Scyrians, like Arlette, find these perfect specimens to be the studs that they were?

As the elf stood up with two legs for the first time since they’d met, Sofie decided it didn’t matter. What mattered was that this man was their best chance of making it to Otharia in one piece. The fact that he was a super-hot hunk was just a bonus.

With a simple wave of his hand, the elf once known as ‘Jerithim’ told them to follow him, and together they strode off into the mist.