Life And Death Decision

"Nice! Let"s go get some drinks." Our brawler"s eyes widened as he gazed into the bag. The gold glistened in the sunlight, sparkling as our other member reached inside to get a handful for herself.

"Be logical, Baz. Let"s get some supplies first. Health potions, arrows, and the like. What about you Sage?" She turned to me, handing me the coins she took; around five or six. "Don"t you need something for your magic?"

"Yeah. Can someone go with me to the jewelers?" I replied, pocketing the coins while surveying the village. At the mention of jewelers, her cheeks turned a light shade of pink as she dipped her head to hide her face with her blonde hair. "I"m out of resurrection materials since that lich took you down so many times." I turned my gaze to Baz, placing my finger on his chest; I saw our female member"s face return to normal, if not turn slightly disappointed, in my peripheral vision. "Next time, don"t run in without us!"

"My bad, my bad. Let"s go. You need diamonds, right?" The brawler raised his hands above his head. The three of us headed for the mercantile district of the town, I rode our cart and steered our horses in the right way. "Alright Tyme, you"re going to get some more arrows right?" He reached into the bag, handing a few coins over to our archer before she broke off from our group, leaving just the two of us.

"Hey Baz, about that lich," I spoke up after a few minutes, the serenity of this village sending chills up my spine. It was quiet, nearly a ghost town; it might"ve actually been a ghost town if we didn"t stop that lich. These people, as well as those from nearby villages, were threatened by that monster for weeks on end. "How long do you think he"s been doing that? You know, before we stopped him."

"Right, you"ve always hated undead..." He huffed, leaping onto the back of our cart to ride to our destination instead of walk. "I can"t say for sure, but it seemed to have been happening for a while. Why bring it up?"

"I just can"t keep it out of my mind. That whole crypt, all those corpses have been defiled! It"s unspeakable!" My blood began boiling, my brows furrowing as I remembered the scene of our fight from a few days ago.

A large room deep beneath the earth, underneath a cemetery. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, of bodies from the neighboring towns all collected and raised as zombies and ghouls. The smell of undeath seeped into the stone, rot, and decay became our foes until we had felled the monster. It was a tough battle, though that was because Baz ran out of range of my spells and got the life drained out of him instantly.

"I want to go back there, cleanse that place and purge that filth from the face of the continent!" I grumbled, gripping the reigns of our horses tighter as Baz placed his hand on my shoulder.

"If you want to, we can go back. We don"t really have a mission now, so we"re free to do whatever we want." He said before pointing to a nearby shop. "Go get your diamonds, just hurry it up so we can get some drinks." He rummaged through the supplies we already had in the back of the cart, pulling out a deck of cards to play with. I hopped off, taking the equivalent of a thousand gold coins with me as I bought the gems I needed for my spells. After that, we met up with Tyme, who had just filled her quiver with arrows and had multiple salves and potions strapped to her belt.

"I take it that everything is taken care of?" She asked us, hopping into the back with Baz. I gave her a quick nod. "Alright then, let"s celebrate with drinks." She leaned back, lying down and resting her head on one of our softer bags. We rode to one of the town"s inns, getting a round of drinks and rooms to stay the night. Before we went to our own rooms, we had a meeting in my room. "What? We"re really going back there?"

"It just doesn"t sit right with me, leaving all those undead there. It"s not right." I sipped on my whiskey, swirling the ice that chilled my drink. "Those freaks of nature."

"It"s a three-day journey, with a stop in Rennot. We have the supplies to make it. I"m down for it, maybe we"ll find something we missed or forgot in the crypt." Baz looked at our map, pointing at it using a piece of jerky he was eating.

"Well, we set off tomorrow. Let"s get to bed." Tyme said, sighing as she made her way to the door. "Ugh...undead again...so soon..." She muttered though it was still audible to me. Baz cleaned up his food and the map, bidding me goodnight while shutting the door behind him.

Alone in my room, I locked the door and lit up one of my insense candles to help me meditate before going to sleep. "Sage...what will you do?" A voice called out to me, though n.o.body else could hear it.

"What is it, your radiance?" I asked in reply, shutting my eyes as I knelt down before the candle. My patron, my diety, seldom spoke to me directly. The only times she called out to me like this were when times were dire. "Your radiance?"

"You will see for yourself. I trust you will make the right choice, Sage. Be wary, not only of your enemies, but also those you fight alongside." With the end of her message, the light on the candle flickered out, leaving only the delightful scent behind. To say that the message was ominous was an understatement.

Not only of my enemies but those I fight alongside? Tyme and Baz were my closest comrades, the thought of them turning traitor was unimaginable. I pushed those thoughts aside for the night, resting and recovering my strength for our journey to Rennot.

"Good morning, shall we get going?" Tyme was sipping on some coffee to cure her hangover, gently blowing on it to cool it down. "Or do you want to eat breakfast first?" She looked to the seat across from her, a small smile inviting me to join her. Baz was seated beside her, swallowing whatever he was chewing before slamming his fist on the table.

"I already ate. I"ll get our horses ready." Baz stood up from the table. "You two eat up quickly, the moment I get them ready, I"ll call for you." All I could do was watch as he vacated the premises. Try as I might, those words from last night invaded my mind over and over again.

"I got another vision. Thalis had another warning for me." I muttered, digging into the remnants of Baz"s breakfast of toast and eggs. "Say, Tyme. Do you think there"s a traitor in our midst?"

"Between us three? I highly doubt it. Baz, though he"s not an idiot, doesn"t seem cunning enough to hide his ident.i.ty for as long as we"ve been traveling together. As for me, do you trust me?" Tyme turned, setting her mug down to stare at me across the table. She rested her elbow on the table, using her arm to prop up her head as she pulled the hood of her cloak down. Faint elven features, her golden hair unkempt and a mess, but still better than mine.

"I do. But...what could that mean?" I wondered aloud, finishing Baz"s plate and setting it aside. I trusted them with my life, quite literally, and they trusted me with theirs.

"Perhaps she wasn"t referring to one of us, but our allies from the other adventuring parties. It"s not like we"ve always worked as a team of three after all." She brought up a good point. We weren"t the only group of adventurers in the world. My G.o.ddess"s message was so vague that it could include the guards that fought the same types of evil we fought. "There"s no use in worrying about it now, I"m sure we"ll be able to push through it like we always have." She finished her coffee, standing up and walking out of the building to wait for Baz and the horses.

The three of us left town on our cart, the weather clear and sunny. It was a calm ride in the cart, with fields and gra.s.sland to our right and a forest a ways away on our left side. It was serene, a few travelers pa.s.sing us by on their way to the town we just left. We stopped around noon to tend to our horses and eat our lunch, Baz started a fire with his breath while Tyme foraged for mushrooms and berries in the forest. A few caravans and another adventuring party saw our camp, deciding to set up nearby to take a break as well. "I"m going to go see if they"re selling anything," I told the rest of my party my plan, leaving our camp to venture to the other camp.

Nothing was of note, though there was a nice tune from a bard with a flute in their camp, so the most I bought was a resupply of food and drinking water, as well as a more recent map since ours had some details missing. Though I did find their clothing slightly odd. Everyone, even the adventuring party acting as their escorts, had some sort of flower on their person. Pink, blue, red, white, they were everywhere. Some wore them in flower crowns, others pinned them to their clothes, the children often traded theirs between themselves. When I inquired, they told me that they were gifts from another band of traders they met in Rennot. They gave me one for my troubles, a rose with cyan petals, how nice of them.

"Get anything good?" Tyme asked, eating some skewered mushrooms while sitting by the fire. She handed me a skewer, noticing the flower in my hand. "..."

"Oh. This is a gift from one of the merchants. Everyone had one, and I mean everyone!" I said, hiding the plant behind my back while I handed her everything else I got. "And it looks like a new road is coming up, we can make it to town faster than we thought."
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"Right...well, eat up. Baz and I will get packing, so try not to take too long." She brushed her hair aside, her long and pointy ears were slightly redder than usual. Setting that misunderstanding aside, I ate and joined the others on the cart, using the new map to take a shorter road to town. "We"ll get to town, stay the night, then go to that crypt. Right guys...Everyone, get ready!" She pointed towards the direction of town, at the large plume of smoke that came from the side of the road. I got the horses into a full gallop, reaching one of my hands out to Baz as he handed me my mace and shield.

"Mom! Dad! Sis!" A voice shrieked out as we approached, accompanied by the rumbling of the ground as vines erupted from the earth. The three of us got out of the cart, running up to see a b.l.o.o.d.y girl riddled with cuts and crossbow bolts that came from the handful of bandits that seemed to have ambushed her, at least that"s how many bandits I could see.