[table][row][i][b][color=a0410d]Trace Retloth[/color][/b]
Mercenary Camp to Merchant Row en route to Plaza[/i][/row][cell]

The meal went about as well as Trace expected.  Neither of them divulged secrets or deeper truths but Artemisia did give him a valuable clue to hers.  She was looking for someone, a person with distinctive characteristics.  Pink eyes weren’t something he had seen but there were mercenaries who hid their faces.  Also, some who fought for money were saving up to purchase treatment for themselves or others who had more troubling diseases.  So, he extended an invitation to her to tour the mercenary camps and activities.  She could check if anyone had knowledge about such symptoms.

The trip proved to be a waste of time on that front.  There was no news and no sightings.  Still, it had given Trace a chance to check through his tent and confirm that the items there were all cheap and replaceable.  He also looked into the distance.  He still had that brooding feeling that this was the calm before the storm.

He was just thinking about this very feeling when Artemisia suddenly gave up on using him to help her search and said her brief and perfunctory farewell.  Unfortunately, she chose the moment after she successfully identified the artillery grade spell that had slammed into the town a moment before.  It might not be the last time that he would have this thought… but she seemed either too dedicated for her own good… or a complete fool.  A surprise attack could come from any direction at all and she abandoned the company of the one combat ready acquaintance she had in town.

Then again, she was a mage.

Confidence can become arrogance all too easily and confidence came quickly with magic.  Trace had learned that much pretty early in life.

He had also learned to not judge a person based on a short acquaintance.  What he did know was that she was a small woman who chose to get caught up in the stream of evacuees and was likely to be trampled and left behind.

He followed her but remained on the fringes of the crowd, holding a relative position that put him between the obvious guards and the people they were herding.  It made him look like a coward, less of a threat.  That was probably one of the reasons why the helpful guard that went to aid Artemisia after she was predictably, though accidentally, bludgeoned got shot by the bandit archer’s first shot rather than him.

Trace was about to move to assist when he saw the early stages of a spell in Artemisia’s hand.  If he hadn’t been trained in magic when he was young he would never have recognized it so quickly.  Or, rather, it was its unfamiliarity that gave it away.  Trace knew what the early stages of black magic and white magic spells looked like.  This… this was not any of them.  That reality left only one likely possibility.  Artemisia is a Dark Magic Witch.

For the first time in combat, Trace froze.  The shock didn’t last very long, a beat or two of the heart.  But, during that time he was able to piece together a few things.  She was seeking someone whose name she didn’t know.  She had refrained from telling him things rather than lying and giving him a false story.  There was a chance that she didn’t mean well for the person she was seeking.  Those who intend harm for specific strangers are frequently willing to lie, cheat, steal, and kill to get what they’re after.  However, Artemisia had helped at a clinic instead. 

He didn’t know what she was up to or why.  But, he didn’t think that she was a danger to him and he had no specific reason to turn on her that was worth spitting at.  Besides, being near a mage increased his chances of survival and escape.

He moved.

While Artemisia still held her spell and the gauntlet wielder was still getting over the initial shock of his injury Trace dashed along the side of the path between them and the archer.  He had a simple plan.  He had greater mobility than a man with a wounded leg.  He would make use of it by becoming a greater threat to the archer than Artemisia was.  If the second shot came his way then she would have a clear line of attack to the archer.  Personally, though he was charging, he kept his awareness high and his defenses up.  He didn’t know how many enemies were close enough to intervene and he was determined to evade any close combat first strike as well as the possible arrow.


[/cell]
[cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/QzyCrZx.jpg[/img]
[center]_________________________
Status: [color=lawngreen]Uninjured… And Unhappy[/color]
[/center][u]Class[/u]: Recruit
[u]Inventory[/u]:[list][*]Iron Lance
[*]Vulnerary[/list][/cell][/table]