“Remember what I said and you might make it out,” Elero warned.

“Got it,” Olpi nodded.

The two returned to their original positions just as Owen descended into the shelter, dragging in the smoky stench of incense. He glanced both Elero and Olpi up and down, then grabbed his bag. He opened it and Olpi’s heart rate spiked. He deposited an empty bag of chalk, paused, then drew a small blade from under his shirt. “Olpi, was it?” He asked, staring at her through the reflection in his blade.

Olpi swallowed her saliva. “Yeah, why?”

Owen knelt in front of her, his imposing figure blocking the firelight, and reached out a hand filled with mana. Olpi flinched. The pain in her broken leg spiked as Owen’s hand wrapped around it. She felt bones snap back into place and she opened her eyes to find a radiant energy around her restored leg. “Try moving it now,”

Olpi moved her leg around. “It still hurts a bit.”

“Too much time in the kitchen,” Owen sighed. “It’ll have to do.” With his blade, he cut her loose.

Olpi rubbed at her wrists as she got to her feet. “Thanks?”

“You can show your thanks by walking,” Owen said, nudging her towards the ladder.

Olpi let out a dry chuckle. “I don’t suppose that you’ve had a change of heart and are letting us go, are you?”

“A tool has no use for a heart,” Owen said; The phrase was emotionlessly articulate, like a knee-jerk reaction spilled from his lips. “Now walk.” He prodded her forward again.

Olpi stood her ground: “What about Elero?”

Owen reached over, lifted her head off the ground, then let it drop with a dull thud. No reaction. “As long as you cooperate, you have nothing to worry about. She isn’t going anywhere.” He threw his knife into Elero’s spatial ring, which was next to Olpi’s around his pinky finger, then prodded Olpi forward, this time painfully.

Olpi sighed, took one last look at Elero, climbed up the ladder, shifted the shield to the side, then looked up in awe.

A blade stared her down, the dagger that marked the shelter’s location. She nearly cried as she pulled it out of the trunk. Testing it on the tip of her finger, she found it was sharp enough to draw blood. Maybe it could cut through rope, but she couldn’t throw it down or Owen would see.

Olpi slid the dagger under the shield, and stepped aside for Owen to climb up, who then slid the shield back into place. Her sensitive ears twitched to the sound of clattering metal, fading into silence. She held her breath. Owen didn’t seem to notice, so she let out a sigh of relief.

‘I can’t free myself,’ Olpi thought, holding the two needles tight under her sleeves. The needle mark in the palm of her hand was swelling. ‘The best I can do is help Elero and Frey out of this mess. Run Elero. I dug myself into Frey’s problems, not you. Even then…’ she turned around and her eyes widened. ‘It might not be enough.’

A dozen paces away from the shelter’s tree lay a ritual magic circle, a magic circle made up of crushed chalk and incense rather than mana. She didn’t have enough skill to use it, but she knew a teleportation spell when she saw one. Her stomach dropped. “Isn’t this overkill?” she asked.

Owen grabbed Olpi’s arm and pulled her towards Frey’s tracks: “And I suppose that everything up to this point hasn’t been overkill? I don’t blame you, who lacks the understanding I have, for seeing all of this as…stupid. For us, the teleport comes later, and for you, never. Walk, so I can finally get this over with.”

Olpi stumbled forward, and began leading the trudge through the snow. Owen’s constant, heavy steps kept her at a hurried pace, her gaze going left and right as she scanned the path ahead. ‘This is it,’ she thought. ‘As soon as we catch up to Frey, someone is dying.’

“And how do you plan to escape?” Elero’s words echoed in Olpi’s head as she followed after Frey.

Night crept into the forest. The gentle, evening breeze which subtly shifted branches with its touch, causing pine scents to drift within the fading rays of golden sunlight, rose to a low, demanding howl that stretched the lengthened shadows of barren branches around Olpi’s neck like the cold hand of death; The chill began to eat down to her bones.

The pair followed Frey’s tracks for half an hour until they discovered a strange fog. Only then did Owen allow Olpi to stop.

“Be quiet, and don’t catch their eye. They’re as vicious as they are stupid this time around,” Owen warned her, pointing at the shapes of large beasts within the mist. He shook his head and let out a sigh. “Shame. I could have made some nice, seasonal pork for the…for lord Virility.”

“Why be a chef of all things?” Olpi asked, picking up on his hesitation.

Owen pushed Olpi along the edges of the lava boars’ mating area. “You won’t buy much time asking questions of me,” he reasoned.

“I-It is just…” Olpi hesitated. “Why be a chef of all things? You could have been a healer, a fighter, maybe even a butler, but you chose to be a chef, didn’t you? Did the War Monks teach you that?”

Owen narrowed his eyes. “Why do you care?”

“Cause I never figured that out for myself,” Olpi reasoned. “I’ve only been trained to be a servant, and know nothing more than that. Can we consider it my last request? Aren’t War Monks at least that honorable?”

Owen shook his head and opened his mouth to say something, but as he looked at her, the edges of his lips twitched. He averted his gaze. “I became a chef because I had to cook for the rest of us.”

“Us?”

“The orphans.”