Merchants Found!

They spent the next two weeks at her place, attacking the root and taking pointers from Rolas on how to do better. Zeeth noticed two spells in his purple slime, when the snake exploded it seems the slime acted on its own to grab as many of the exploded black snake bits and eat them, seeing them as delicious foods to feed upon. The snake bits were eventually disintegrated and allowed the slime to use a similar skill. Its body parts were able to become black ropes and attach to things. Of course, being a slime, it was already able to change its shape and contort parts into lines already, but never to this extent. It had a membrane that made it difficult to morph into anything too detailed or too different, but now it was able to change much more easily. It was even able to change its color anywhere from purple to black, a side effect from the skill. However, the parts were still unable to detach and any part that came off would become a separate entity and die soon after.

They would finish their daily lessons on how to attack with black magic and go into her private room to make potions. They still had an abundance of flowers and other materials, and now with four pairs of hands, Rolas found it much more fun creating basic potions and doing menial tasks. Page was using this time to teach her the three potions he told her about when they first started, the energy replenishing potion and the

She had moved a chained up Karkov into a separate sound and light proof room and locked him in. She fed him every now and then and kept him alive, still unsure if the soul-changing skill was activated upon death or not, and questioned him on his methods but he never said a word.

After two weeks, the root was ready to use but Rolas didn't allow them to make it, she said it was too dangerous for them to make it. They watched her make it, and Zeeth agreed. There were several moments when the potion burst into flames into her concentrated face or blasts of air nearly cut her face.

She gathered them all together and emptied a small vial onto his head and chucked the bottle away. "Thank goodness he didn't hiss and steam."

"Why?"

"If a body begins steaming after coming in contact with potions of this type it means it has a contract bound with a being from the Afterlife. The more the steaming, the stronger the being. If the creature from the afterlife is called, it could ruin my entire workshop, some of the stuff here is worth more than any of us here."

A tiny line formed on Karkov's palm where no one could notice. The line seemed to widen about an inch before a small bead of the potion trickled down and touched it, creating a tiny amount of steam and hissing in which the line shrunk and disappeared. At the same time, Karkov winced in pain and his entire hand jerked around in the cuffs, first curling in his fingers and then clenching it into a fist as hard as he could, turning his skin red and white but he stopped and calmed down when the line disappeared.

Rolas completed her interrogation about an hour after but she decided to keep Karkov around, he had too many interesting ideas for her to kill just yet.

Somewhere during the interrogation, he mentioned the use of kids and greedy adults to do his bidding, stealing, scouting, and hunting. He was talking about Fatso, Weller, and the kids that had stolen Gror's lightning sword. He was the boss they were talking about.

Upon remembering those kids, the three departed for the trading center again, looking for where the kids and the merchants could have possibly gone while Rolas stayed to keep an eye on Karkov and make more potions. The first place they checked was the remote area where they first found the kids. But none of the original inhabitants were there, it was now completely deserted, all the kids who were stationed outside were gone, and the trapdoor was no longer guarded. They went in to check it out and saw that most of the items they saw when they first came were still there, but the place was deserted.

Not even a single coin was left from the large pile. The withered tentacles and the damage they caused during the battle were still lying around.

'Who are you looking for?' the eye had made itself comfortable within Zeeth in what the eye called, "the pillowy pit".

'Just some kids we helped out a while ago.' Zeeth replied telepathically.

'Have they stayed here for a long time?'

'I think so.'

'Then I believe I can find them, this area is dense with the traces they left behind.'

"Guys." said Zeeth, "the eye says he can find them."

"He can do that too?" Gror asked. "He kinda creeps me out…"

A small slit opened up on Zeeth's forehead, where the skin parted to reveal a pitch black eyeball that looked like a black wrapping was wrapped around a normal eye. Zeeth could feel it moving around and could tell where it was looking but had no control over it. 'I ask you to remind him that I can still hear him even if he can't hear me. His insolence would've had him killed back in my days, no matter how close he was to the host.'

"He can hear you guys. Now, let's go."

'Allow me to speak.' the eye said.

'Just 30 seconds.'

Black veins stretched from the eye on his forehead to his jaws and vocal cords and from Zeeths mouth, a muffled, deep voice said, "Dwarf, your impertinence will kill you someday. Don't yap your tongue needlessly unless it is to chant spells. I would like to be referred to as Dark. No, that sounds strange."

"What did they call you before?"

"Commonly Dark Lord, The Only Sin, Death Bringer, Lord Black, and more. I liked Dark Lord but just Dark is just foolish."

"How about Black?"

"That sounds terrible too-" but just as he finished talking the veins crawled back and the thirty-second duration was up. Zeeth said in his normal voice, I guess his name is Black then. It matches his personality, I think it fits."

'Black? I'm not sure if I like it. But it's practical, I'll keep it. Leave through the door. Take a right. Head forward, speed it up.' they walked for a long time, nearly half an hour, before arriving at a shabby little tent full of rips and tears. Through the holes, they could see a single broken watering can.

'They are here.'

The eye on his forehead also retracted and the slit closed back up seamlessly as the eye promptly fell asleep. Apparently, the many years of hibernation have caused a lot of issues and he needs sleep to fix them. During this time, he couldn't talk but he was subconsciously aware of what was going on. He compared it to being slightly aware of your surroundings when reading a book.

"He says they are here."

"In this tent?" Gror asked, "how?"

"I dunno, he fell asleep."

"It's an illusion spell. Something many merchants have to learn." Page waved his hand around and called, "It's us, are you guys in there? The guys who you stole the big sword from!"

The watering can folded and shook a little before it split apart and the entire tent folded down like it was just a big picture. Three heads popped up, two little kids whose faces were darkened by the sun and a much paler merchant, though much healthier looking than they had been when they first found them, trapped and starved. The kids were clinging to the merchant's shoulders and riding like a hydra.

Upon recognizing the three of them, they were quickly invited in. Passing the illusion of the tent, he saw a long stretch of land where several carriages stood. There were broken wheels, holes, and burn marks on the tarps and injured people trying to repair everything.

"This was the damage we suffered when we were ambushed by all those people. We got out the information of all the other attackers from Weller and Fatso, names, occupation, and their favorite place to hang out together."

"Do you plan on fighting them?"

"No, we just want to leave as soon as we can. Are you all done with your tasks?"

"Yeah, we basically are. But what about all these kids? I want to leave them here but they're just kids, how can they even survive?" Zeeth asked.

"Yeah, we're not going to leave them here either." replied the hunter. "By the way, I'm Meta, I don't believe we've ever exchanged names, what are yours?"

"I'm Page, the dwarf is Gror and that one there is Zeeth," he said, pointing to each person as he went.

'And Black!' said the eye in Zeeth.