"You most certainly can not call me Entisse," Entisse said. Now that they'd sworn not to harm each other with an oath to the blood of the ancestors — whatever the hell that meant — she seemed less on edge, although he'd hardly call her relaxed. Even now, she eyed him warily, her clawed fingers twitching every time he moved. Despite her slightly alien appearance, he could tell her brave front was exactly that: a front.

"Too late," Symon responded. "I'm not calling you the Bloodfang Huntress every time I need to get your attention. I'll call you Vra'Entisse if you prefer."

"No, no, do not butcher more of my name with your foul tongue. Entisse, I shall be."

"Right then, Entisse it is. Any ideas on how we're going to get those chains off you? You wouldn't happen to know who has the keys?" he asked, looking at a keyhole on the side of the manacles.

"Yes, a grey-haired human," she replied, her creepy black eyes staring at him. "It wished to take me back to its soft people and put me on display."

"And where might this human be?" he asked, frowning. As strange as the elf was, there was a certain naive innocence to her, although not in a traditional sense. He believed that her vicious-sounding titles were well-earned, but he also suspected she hadn't had much interaction with other people that wasn't grounded in violence. Something about her reminded him of a tiger or similar predator — dangerous, but not deceitful. He doubted she was lying about being taken.

She shrugged. "On a ship somewhere in the ocean. I jumped overboard and swam to shore, and they did not turn back. Perhaps they thought me dead, but I am not one to fall to such a paltry attack."

Symon doubted that. She'd been very close to death when he'd found her, although he did have to admit it was impressive that she'd been able to make it to shore, then the manor, then crawl all the way in with the weapon lodged in her back. "Wait, how did you make it through the black pollen barrier? Do you have Poison Resistance?" He knew that was supposed to be a rude question to ask someone, especially a stranger you'd just met, but she didn't seem to mind. Perhaps elves were different in that regard.

"What?" she frowned. "No, why would I? I simply walked through. Crawled through," she amended.

"Hmm, odd. I have some friends outside that can't get through without it burning them, and I was pretty sure the only reason I could get through was the Poison Resistance. You don't have some secret technique?"

"No. These allies of yours, you will command them to stay their weapons against me?" she asked, her claws twitching rhythmically.

"I don't command them, but yes, I will tell them you are friendly. Err, well, that you're not going to attack them. You won't attack them, right?"

She sniffed. "Very well, I shall not harm your minions."

Symon sighed. As long as she listened, that was all that mattered. He'd get the manacles off, give her some food, and send her on her way. "So, I'm presuming if breaking the chain was as easy as hitting it with my club here, you would have already gotten free?"

"Correct," she said, the Common word and Elvish — or whatever the language was called — overlapping in a way that made it difficult to understand. The translation ring made it sound as if two voices were coming from her mouth at the same time.

"I have a really strong friend with a big axe, will that work?"

She gave him a long look, although he wasn't sure what it was supposed to mean. "Is this axe enchanted?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Then no, it would break before the chains did."

He considered whether Safiya would be able to help. She was a rogueish type, but that was no guarantee she could pick locks. He hadn't been given any indication she could, although they'd also never needed to break into a locked door in their travels together.

"Hmm, I'm not sure how much help they would be. Still, more heads would be better."

"Yes! That is the first reasonable thing you have said. More heads are always better," she said, nodding enthusiastically.

"You don't mean— no, never mind, I don't want to know. So you don't have any ideas on how to get those things off?"

She stared at him for a long moment, then at the irons around her legs. "Your healing, how powerful is it?" she asked, answering his question with another.

Symon debated how much he should share. He doubted she would go around telling everyone how valuable his magic was, but he still didn't have a very good read on her. Her dishevelled appearance made him pity her in the way he would a three-legged puppy, but he wasn't going to go spilling all his secrets just because he felt bad for her. "It's very good, as long as I have enough vitality. Why?" he answered vaguely.

"Can it reattach missing parts?"

Symon looked down at his left hand and flexed his fingers. "Even better," he said. Huh, I've never actually tried to reattach things. I guess it would work... wait, why is she asking that?

"Very well, cut my feet off for me then."

Symon coughed suddenly, his throat going dry at the same time. "Wha—, I, uh are you sure that's the best idea?"

She shrugged. "I would do it myself, but this cursed weakness means it would take too long to slice all the way through, and it's not going to go away until I get my mana back."

He understood the plan, of course. It wasn't even as bad as it sounded, not really. He could sever her leg at the calf, pull the foot out of the manacle, then reattach it. It would only take a few seconds, then she would be right as rain. Logically speaking, it was quite a convenient little solution.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

That didn't mean he was comfortable mutilating someone as what was essentially a first resort, even if they were willing and even if he knew that he could fix it. In fact, the ease with which she'd suggested it made him want to reject it even more than if it had been suggested out of immediate necessity. It was one thing if they'd exhausted their other options, but to rush straight into it?

"Quit staring at me like that with your weird little eyes. Surely even a humanling would know that sometimes the weak flesh must be removed to make room for the strong."

"You'd seriously trust me to do that? Didn't you think I was going to kill you just two minutes ago?" he asked, ignoring the fact that she was the one with the weird eyes.

Entisse shrugged. "You swore an oath by the blood of the ancestors, remember? I did not realise you people had such a poor memory. What's your Intelligence?"

Symon ignored her question. "And that's enough to make you put your life in my hands? I mean, I'm not going to hurt you, but still."

"Better to have mana and no feet than feet and no mana," she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Jesus, I can't believe I'm actually considering this..." he muttered to himself. It would be a quick solution.

"Hmm, who is this Jesus? Another minion of yours?"

"Ugh, no, forget I said anything." Considering the possibility that the Gods of this world were active — at least enough to grant him blessings, apparently — he wasn't interested in getting smote. Best to give that whole field a wide margin, he thought.

"If you refuse to help me, I will just have to do it myself." She sat up a little straighter in the bed, her long neck bending sinuously as she stared unblinkingly at her manacled legs. "Hmm, I could gnaw one off myself, but I am not sure I would be able to regenerate enough mana in time to stop the bleeding. Only one way to find out," she hissed softly, almost folding herself in half in an impressive display of flexibility.

"Fine, fine, I'll do it!" Symon shouted. He wasn't sure if she really was about to chew through her own leg, but part of him believed her. A fox caught in a trap would tear its own leg off to escape, or at least that's what he'd heard, and her teeth certainly looked sharp enough to do so. Every one of them was fanged like a shark, and there were too many of them in her slightly too wide mouth. It wasn't something a normal person would do as their Plan A, but she'd given him no indication she was anywhere close to normal. Then again, she wasn't even a person, depending on your definition of the word.

He hadn't heard much about Elves, but he hoped they weren't all like this. They were supposed to be beautiful and graceful, so in touch with nature that they lived in giant treehouses or something similar. He could admit that Entisse possessed a certain predatory grace, clear even in her muted state, but that was about the only comparison they had to the Tolkeinesque Elves he'd been imagining.

Well, at least she has the pointy ears. Earth got something right after all.

For a woman — or at least a human one — she was tall and slender, something he gained a more accurate assessment of as she stood up. By chance, she appeared almost exactly as tall as Symon was, once you factored in his shoes and her bare feet save for the manacles around her ankles. Her ragged and torn clothing provided an overly revealing view, but there was nothing erotic about her skeletal and battered form.

"Hang on, there should be some proper clothes around here," Symon said as he turned to a large dresser set next to the bedroom's door. Its surface had a coating of regular dust on it, the room being blessedly free of the pollen, but the insides of the shelves revealed undirtied clothes. They were simple but well-made servant's clothes, the three-quarter pants dyed a dark grey while the shirt was a sky blue. Someone wearing it would stand out in the village of unassuming drab brown tunics. He took an extra shirt for himself as well, as his old one had been mostly destroyed by an emberwolf and then finished off by his torch's flaming pitch when he'd tried to evolve his skills.

When he turned back, her head was tilted, and her overly large eyes were staring at him in confusion. "Why must I garb myself so? Is it a necessity of the healing?" she asked. He was beginning to question how literal the translation ring was, and if it took any liberties to, say, try and make a noblewoman's speech sound more refined. It reminded him a little of how Aslan tended to be overly formal with him, although he'd toned it down recently. It was odd to experience that same feeling from someone who looked like a dishevelled escaped genetic experiment.

"Uh, no, but... don't you want some proper clothes? I think these were for a man, but it's got to be better than those rags," he offered, holding the clothing in question out against his body to check the size. It was fairly close.

"Does a mighty harag need to plate itself in a fake shell?" she hissed condescendingly.

I never knew you could pack so much tone into those...

"No?" he guessed. He'd never heard of a harag, even in passing. He figured it was some type of monster, though.

"Then you have your answer."

"Not really, but you can do what you want. Still, don't you think it would be smart to disguise yourself a little if you're on the run?"

"Greater beasts than you have failed to detect my prowl before it was too late," she huffed.

"I'm sure you're a great huntress, but you do kind of stand out," he said, once more considering her odd appearance. The pale grey skin, the overly large eyes and mouth, the slightly too long arms, fingers, and ears all gave her an unnerving, not quite human appearance. "You'd draw attention from the other humans, at least. Don't you want to make it back to your people?"

"They are no more," she said without much obvious emotion. It could have happened so long ago that it no longer hurt, but it was equally likely she just had a different view of death than Symon did, much like how the Dumosans had acted when Serik had died.

Or maybe Cathar is such a horrible place that all your friends and family dying is a common occurrence.

"I'm sorry to hear that. You've been on your own ever since?"

"No, their strength is always within me," she said with a savage grin. Well, it was the normal level of animalistic savagery that she always expressed.

"I see..." Symon responded, though he didn't really. He could ask her about Elvish beliefs later. "Anyway, please put some clothes first, and then we can go outside and, well, cut you out," he said, the words more confident than he felt. The idea made sense, but it still felt wrong to him, even knowing there would be no lasting harm.

Realising that proper clothing was non-optional, she eventually gave in and put on the servant's clothes. Coming back into the room after giving her some privacy, Symon noted that they were sized for a human and not the much broader gharzoth. It must have been a multispecies serving staff, back when they were all alive. He wondered what happened to all the bodies, as the mayor had said there were no survivors.

The oversized shirt dwarfed her thin frame, but it was certainly better than the dirty, blood-soaked rags she'd been wearing. "Now, are you finally ready to vashkaar drassh?" she asked.

The two frowned in unison, their gazes going to the ring on her finger. It no longer shined slightly, having returned to its usual lusterless dirty turquoise. "I guess what we got out of that tiny fish core was pretty good, hey?" he said, to which she predictably said nothing comprehensible. "Yeah, yeah, I've got more." He reached back into his pack, but she once more hissed and shook her head.

He was intially confused why she didn't want a recharge, but her enthusiastic pointing at the manacles and equally emphatic hissing got the point across.

"Ah, straight to the feet cutting off? Then you can use your own mana once the shackles are off," he said with a nod.

Suddenly, he felt a shift in his vessel. A large chunk of the remaining impure vitality had evaporated all at once.

<Symon...> Keelgrave's faintly echoing voice intruded into his mind. <Mind telling me what the fuck is going on?>

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