Deatt smelled something fishy and for once it was not the sea-filled air of Jirfort. It was the group he was assigned with.

  Ten men, including the mage, were already waiting for him and Nido at the city gates. Deat recognized a few of them, namely the one they called Dancer and the other bodyguard he had seen in the arena prior. The other men were somewhat similar, all wearing leather armor with only a few iron plates here and there. Except for the mage and the Dancer, the men towered over Deatt. One was even bigger than Nido, a half-orc himself.

  They seemed like the kind of group you would meet in a dark alley, waiting for someone to cut down and rob. Maybe they even were those kinds of people, though Vael did not seem to be the kind to employ such crude methods.

  The mage on the other hand radiated with nobility. His clothes were luxurious, though they did seem sturdy enough to survive the journey. He had no bag with him, instead loading his books and trinkets into the half-orc's. Like Deatt did with Nido.

  Some of the stolen items they decided to keep happily resided in the bottom of the bag. Namely the iron bowl, the healing locket and the golden scarab. Deatt had no idea of the latter did, but he felt it might prove useful sometime.

  "Are we ready to set off?" Deatt asked as they reached the men.

  "Not yet. We are waiting for the girl." Answered the half-orc.

  "What girl?" Asked Deatt. Vael never told him about no girl. Maybe it would be another mage, or a shield maiden. Another warrior to rely on would not be bad, Deatt supposed.

  "You don't need to know. Just sit your asses down and wait." Dancer entered the conversation, eyeing Nido with disdain.

  Nido smiled at the half-elf with a mocking grin. Dancer shook his head and turned to the rest of the men. Complaining under his breath.

  "I am Deatt by the by." He reached with his hand to the half-orc.

  "Morek" the half-orc accepted the handshake.

  "Your men seem calm. I would have expected them to fear what might await out there."

  "Boss made sure to tell them exactly what would wait for them here would they fail. Let's just say they have enough motivation." Morek's slight smile revealed the tusks in his mouth. They must have been ground down, their tops flat and covered with iron fittings.

  "And you? You have enough motivation?"

  "I don't need motivation." Morek replied, turning to his side. "She is here. Boys! Grab the rations and get ready!" He walked to the group of men.

  Deatt's intuition was right, he is definitely the one he needed to be more wary of.

  While Dancer did not hide his hate for Nido at all, Morek didn't betray such sentiments. He was calm, collected, maybe even fairly nice in tone. Deatt would not believe that for one second.

  Turning to the direction where the 'girl' had been coming from, Deatt suddenly felt even more uncomfortable.

  Evelynn was wearing the same clothes as the ones from the manor. She wore a backpack and a circlet around her forehead. Her golden hair flowed behind her as she walked briskly towards the group.

  "Hey Evelynn!" Nido waved as she moved past them. She returned a smile to him, waving back. She made sure not to spare Deatt a glance.

  Walking to the group, she exchanged a few words with Morek, pointed at a place on the map, then nodded.

  Deatt's jaw clenched at the sight. Did he feel...jealous?

  He had wanted to lead the expedition, but Vael decided against it. For good reason too, Deatt would not hesitate to betray Vael if it came down to it. But he would not do such a thing mindlessly, Vael was a powerful man after all. Based on what Evelynn told him a week prior, he was probably the exact person one would want to avoid offending.

  That was why Deatt could not pry into the expedition too much, even though he was sure that Vael omitted quite a bit of information from him.

  They set off the gate and Deatt suddenly felt vulnerable outside the great black wall. Truth be told, he kept himself in blissful ignorance of the world outside of Zenwall. But now he was coming back to it.

  As they moved around a pile of rotting corpses. Deatt watched the dead turned with a somber expression. They were people. Normal, average, only just a bit unlucky. He did not want to join such a pile anytime soon.

  Motivation? That was what Morek had said.

  Well, Deatt would wager none of them had a better motivation then him.

  Nido bumped into his shoulder, taking him out of the dark thoughts.

  "We just got to get Gnenmo right?" He said, as if he was listening to Deatt's thoughts.

  "Simple as that." Deatt answered, although he feared that his luck would not keep it that way.

  Whatever sources Vael had, they seemed rather reliable. It had been a week and the whole group was managing to avoid any larger groups of the unfortunate turned. The few they had met had been dealt with rather quickly. The men acted as a very experienced unit, striking down the turned with grace almost matching that of the Zenwall knights. Especially Dancer and Morek proved themselves very capable.

  But even through the journey was successful thus far, Deatt could not shake the gnawing feeling of something being wrong.

  Whenever the man started a campfire, he and Nido made themselves a different one, situated only a short distance away from the main group. Vael's men drank and laughed throughout the night, completely ignoring the danger that might have been lurking around every corner. The only two of them that seemed careful were Morek and the mage.

  Meanwhile Nido and Deatt took turns guarding themselves in the dark.

  Evelynn was in a different part altogether. Having a tent for herself, she disappeared into it whenever the group decided to stop for the night, only to appear right at the moment they wanted to set off. The tent built and flattened itself, which seemed incredibly useful to Deatt whenever he had to pitch his own.

  Every night, Deatt thought about Evelynn. Mainly about what he had said to her, but also what kind of deal she might have stricken with Carmilla. Especially since he learned that she obtained the magical tent. Magical items were expensive and giving them as a gift was a luxury most could not afford. But then again, who else but a magical items dealer's wife would have the means.

  Another day of staying in the woods, he could not bare his feelings on the matter anymore. Telling Nido to wait for him, he walked to the tent. Taking a deep breath and rehearsing what he wanted to say he reached out to knock.

  Realizing he had nowhere to knock at, he simply asked.

  "Hello, Evelynn. May I come in?"

  There was a moment of silence, with only his heartbeat and the drunken yelling of Vael's men to keep him company.

  "Come in." Evelynn said from inside.

  He gently pulled the sheets over the entrance aside and walked in.

  The tent was rather spacious, not by a magical spell, but by its very design. A central iron pole held the thick cloths above their heads, along with eight more on the sides. Furs were laid on the ground and a single candle was lit on the ground beside it.

  Evelynn was sitting on the furs, book in hand, looking at him.

  "I...you see..." Deatt struggled to find the words. His prepared speech disappeared the moment he entered the tent. Adamant on making things right, even if he failed to convey it properly, he straightened himself and focused his gaze directly at her sea blue eyes.

  "I am sorry, for what I said before. I didn't mean it. I didn't even want to say it. I was just so angry. I'm sorry I let it out on you."

  Evelynn looked at him, then sighed herself and closed her books. She gently put them back into her small satchel, before turning back to Deatt. Now gently smiling.

  "It's alright. You were right in a sense anyway. It was true that there is a lot I don't know much about. But, thank you for apologizing nonetheless." She patted the furs next to her. "Want to sit with me for a bit?"

  Deatt sat down on the furs. They were surprisingly comfortable, much better than when he used his leather bag as a pillow.

  "Honestly, I was more disappointed than anything. I...I don't know why and it wasn't exactly fair to you, but when you took me out of my home, I saw you as a hero. The kind I read about. Virtuous and all. I just felt a bit disappointed that you decided to forgo the chance to save the help."

  "I am here now aren't I?" Deatt replied, trying to lighten the mood.

  "Yes, that you are. But I am not as stupid as to think you changed your mind on the people." She giggled, then turned to him, her eyes gazing right into his soul. It almost made him blush again before he looked elsewhere. "Something happened right? The curse?"

  "I stabbed Nido." Deatt said.

  She blinked a couple of times, at a loss for words. Then her eyes softened with pity.

  "He is alright. But only because I realized early enough to stop. I wanted to kill him Evelynn. I wanted to kill him for getting in my way." Deatt watched his hands. He could almost feel the blood of his friend running through his fingers again.

  "You didn't. I'd say that's the important part. You just got to hold on before we find Gnenmo. He will know what to do, surely. Carmilla told me a lot about the man. Did you know that he used to be a priest? Was excommunicated for the exact research we want him for."

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  "Really? I would think the church would welcome men like him."

  "That's what worries me." she stood up and rummaged through her satchel, taking out her notes. "If he was doing any normal research, they would have no reason to do that. I was looking into history of curses, trying to find any similar to this, but it came out blank. All I noticed is most men that have ever found a source of specific curses were priests." She handed him the notes.

  They were scribbled down in a hurry, it took Deatt a little while before he got used to her handwriting enough to actually read parts of it.

  "Is this why you were so tired that one morning?"

  "One of the reasons, yes."

  "This is...a lot." he turned through the pages. There were some diagrams and drawings along with the words.

  "Not nearly enough I'm afraid."

  He examined the drawings, they had similar backgrounds, words written in the peaks of a hexagram, some combined, some left undone.

  "I can't understand any of this." he admitted.

  "Really? Those are basic magic formulae." She pointed at one that was made out of three hexagons, connected with bending lines. "Well except that one. That one isn't too simple. Took me a while to figure out."

  "Huh." Deatt said, moving his hands around the drawing. "And what is it?"

  "Fern's bane. A pretty potent curse, caused the bestowed to die with flesh rot."

  Deatt quickly took his finger from the page, turning to Evelynn with wide eyes.

  As she saw his expression, she burst into a laugh.

  "Don't worry! Just drawn like this, it won't do anything."

  Still suspicious of the drawing, Deatt slowly handed the book to Evelynn. Trying to avoid looking into it any further. She accepted with a smile, shaking her head.

  "Why would you do that though? Flesh rot seems a bit overkill. Why not just kill a person?" Deatt could not understand the idea of it. Why make someone suffer so greatly? There was no chance for someone to survive flesh rot, it would be easier to just let the poor fellow bleed out.

  "That's what curses are. Sadistic, evil, with only a single purpose, making someone suffer."

  Deatt became silent, watching the heel of his leg with a heavy heart. It was not like he thought any different of the thing inside him, but it worried him even further now. Fern's bane was just an overcomplicated and malevolent way to kill something. It really did not serve any higher purpose.

  Compared to that, his curse seemed much more complex. It turned people into wild killing machines. They saw to nothing but creating further discord. Causing more deaths, toppling cities and who knows what else. Plus, it did not work the same. Deatt was a great example of that. It might have almost gotten to him, but that was the thing. Curses should not 'almost get someone'. From Evelynn's notes and using his own common sense, curses should not fail out of nowhere.

  Deatt was not some special someone either. Although an orphan for most of his life, he did know his parents once and they were people of little interest. Fishermen.

  "Well that certainly made me think better about the whole situation." Deatt joked, laughing at his own luck.

  "Not much I can do about that."she looked at his heel as well. "I am sorry. For getting angry, for storming out like that, but most for getting you...infected. I know you only did because you wanted to save me and Nido."

  "Well, that is what a 'hero' would do, no?"

  She nodded with a smile.

  "I am going back to Nido. He must be stressed left alone for so long. Want to join me?" he stood up and reached a hand to her. She accepted it.

  Suddenly a loud crash followed by a commotion sounded outside, the men yelling.

  Deatt quickly ran out from the tent, reaching for his dagger as he did so, expecting a fight.

  And fight there was, just without any turned.

  Nido was getting bored watching the little flames dance over the burning wood. Deatt had long gone into the tent and had not come out yet. That was a good sign. His hopes of welcoming Evelynn into their ragtag group still burned in his heart. It felt right.

  Unfortunately, that also left him with nobody to converse with. At least on this side of the rough encampment.

  He really tried to stay put. He really did. He had gone far enough to start signing some song for the road he had heard. Only to roll his eyes at himself and groan.

  There was a completely alright group of men just a little away. Drinking, playing dice, simply having fun.

  But he did promise to wait for Deatt and Nido was not in the business of breaking those.

  Thankfully, the problem all but solved itself, as he heard footsteps approaching him from the side.

  As he turned to look. He saw Dancer and two of his companions move to him with the grace of a beheaded chicken. Tankards in their hands and spirits in their step, Nido already knew that his boredom would soon come to an end.

  "Hey! Yeah you, you green stupid oaf!" Dancer stopped as he burped. "You got lucky! Lucky! You understand?"

  Nido smiled back. He knew that if he started talking, he would have to annoy the man further. Deatt would not want that. But if Nido told him he did not say a word? Nido found a loophole.

  "What are you grinning about? I could ′have split you in two right then and there-" his words trailed off as he managed to stumble over himself. Spilling all three tankards in one swift - and somewhat elegant - motion.

  Nido could not keep holding the laugh inside. His wide chest puffed out and he heartily cackled, pointing at the idiot on the ground.

  Dancer stood up, his face furious. Even the fair and pale elven skin turned red at that moment.

  "You laugh? You laugh! I will kill you, you bastard!" he ran forward. As he made it close enough to hit Nido, he punched with his right hand, hitting Nido over his jaw.

  Nido did not dodge, receiving the hit with his jaw flexed. He ran his tongue around his teeth checking whether everything was fine. Once he made sure it was, he stood up.

  And punched the idiot straight to the chest, sending him into his friend's warm embrace. The trio toppled to the ground. Moving like worms in a panic, struggling to stand up.

  Nido found himself hoping that Deatt would stay in the tent for a bit longer.

  "Fucking hell! You mongrel! Fucking mudspawn!" he yelled as he managed to get on his knees.

  Nido took in a deep breath, but he still felt heat rising in his face.

  "I don't have your pointy ears. So I will give you the benefit of doubt. You did not really call me 'mudspawn' did you?" He asked, his tone even.

  "Of course I fucking did! You dirty piece of shit!"

  Nido cracked his knuckles against each other, then he jumped. He flew all the way to the Dancer, landing on chest, pushing the man back onto the ground.

  Without waiting for him to try to defend himself, Nido started punching. He felt Dancer twitch under him with every hit. The half-elf's arms flexed under Nido's weight, but there was no chance he was taking them out from under him.

  The two men finally gathered their wits, both trying to pry Nido from their friend. Each caught him by an arm, trying to keep them raised.

  As one of them kicked at Nido's face, he pulled with both his hands and threw both the man in front of himself. Then he continued his onslaught on the barely resisting half-elf.

  He saw nothing and nobody, his only goal to make the bastard under him bleed.

  "Nido! Stop!" sounded as Nido was about to land another punch. His hand stopped only a hair-length in front of the Dancer's face.

  It was Deatt, he was standing in front of him, along with Evelynn.

  Nido spat at the Dancer and stood up, cleaning his bloody fists against the half-elf's tunic.

  "What is this?" asked Morek as he came closer. His brow furrowed deep, his hand on the hilt of his longsword.

  "He just jumped us out of nowhere! We just wanted to talk!" One of the man started, while the other excitedly nodded.

  Dancer did not add anything, only groaning in pain. Blood running between his, now crooked, teeth.

  Nido saw Deatt reaching for the dagger by his hip, watching Morek intently.

  The group's captain eyed the two men with suspicion, then he turned to Nido.

  "What happened?"

  "Bastard called me a mudspawn." Nido summarized.

  Morek nodded a few times, his expression unreadable, then he raised his leg and firmly planted it right on the half-elf's chest.

  Dancer groaned under the weight and coughed out some more blood on the ground.

  "Got what he deserved then."