"You were reckless."
The words came out as a low rasp, but they still carried the sharp, accusatory edge I was so used to hearing from her. For the first time since arriving on Norrath, however, I was the one standing, and she was the one laid up in bed. The irony was so thick I could have cut it with a knife.
We were in Grob's former den, a large, circular hut that still smelled faintly of stale sweat, blood, and vanquished goblinoid ambition. Gnar's Hobgoblins had done their best to clean the place up, tossing the previous owner's collection of skulls and dirty furs into a bonfire, but you just couldn't scrub that kind of grime out of the packed-earth walls. Elara was propped up on a pile of our own cleaner furs, her face pale and beaded with a thin sheen of sweat. Her skin had a sickly, greenish tint to it, a lovely parting gift from the master-crafted poisoned blades Grob had favored in our final confrontation.
A small, wide-eyed goblin I recognized as Pip was nervously holding a crude wooden bowl, trying to spoon a lumpy, steaming, grey-green concoction into her mouth. It smelled absolutely atrocious, like boiled swamp-weeds and regret.
"The poison is nearly out of my system," Elara insisted, turning her head away from the offered spoon.
Pip looked at me with panicked eyes, as if begging for intervention. I had to give the little guy credit; he was braver than I was. I wouldn't want to be the one trying to force-feed a stubborn, poisoned Ranger.
"You also got injured," she shot back, her gaze locking onto mine. Her eyes, usually so sharp and full of predatory focus, were clouded with pain.
A small smile touched my lips. I couldn't help it. This was just so them. So Elara. Even while fighting off a potent neurotoxin, she was trying to win the argument. "Not with poison," I countered, my voice softer than I intended. "I lost more mana than blood, Elara. My stats are low, and my soul feels like it's been scraped with a rusty file, but the System isn't flashing a countdown timer on my life."
I had Gnar and five of his best Hobgoblins stationed outside the hut with strict orders. She was not to leave this bed until she was fully healed, nor was she to be left unattended. I knew her too well. If left to her own devices, she'd try to walk it off, probably collapse twenty feet from the door, and make things ten times worse.
Her eyes narrowed. "Don't treat me like I'm fragile, Kale."
"I'm treating you like you're stubborn," I corrected gently. "Now, drink the goo." I focused on the bowl in Pip's trembling hands, activating my skill.
[Analysis]
Item: Gutter-Guard Antitoxin (Crude)
Quality: Poor
Description: A goblin-made remedy for common poisons. Foul-smelling and vile-tasting, but surprisingly effective against most reptilian and insectoid venoms.
Active Ingredients: Crushed Bog-Lice, Fermented Grey-Moss, Gristle-Boar Bile, Trace amounts of powdered River Lurker scale.
Effect: Applies [Antitoxin (Minor)] to target. Neutralizes [Swamp Adder Venom] over a period of 6 hours.
Side Effects: Nausea, Dizziness, Unpleasant Aftertaste (Lingering).
I shuddered involuntarily. Gristle-Boar bile. That explained the smell. Still, it worked. "The analysis is good," I told her, making sure my voice was firm. "It's working, but you need the full dose. Pip, make sure she finishes it."
Pip nodded, newly emboldened by my command, and advanced on Elara with the spoon again. She let out a long-suffering sigh and finally relented, grimacing as she swallowed a mouthful of the goblin remedy. Her whole body tensed, and I could see the battle she was fighting—not just against the poison, but against the sheer indignity of being bedridden and cared for by a goblin.
She finally choked down the last of the lumpy, grey sludge, shuddering with a full-body revulsion that was comical even though I knew she felt miserable. Pip, seeing his mission accomplished, gave me a proud, gappy-toothed grin and scurried out of the hut, taking the foul-smelling bowl with him. The moment he was gone, Elara pinned me with a look that had lost none of its intensity despite the poison still dulling her senses.
I already knew the question coming, could see it forming behind her eyes, but I wasn't going to stop her from asking. It was part of the ritual between us.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, her voice still a low rasp.
I gave a slow, deliberate shrug, moving to a captured stool and sitting down. "Isn't it obvious? I'm going to either subjugate or kill Ufgak's tribe."
She absorbed that for a moment. "He's the western aggressor, the one who was already winning against Grob."
"Exactly," I said. "And I'm certain that when Corvus returns, he'll tell us that Ufgak's forces are already on the move. His most likely target is…" I pointed a finger toward the packed-earth floor, sighing to emphasize the point. "Here. Us. This was why we hit Grob's camp so fast and on a whim. It wasn't just about rescuing Rakka's people. From a strategic standpoint, we couldn't allow Ufgak to conquer this position and consolidate the two tribes. We would have had to deal with a much larger, better-organized army later. This way, we took a key asset off the board and denied it to the enemy."
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "The goblins we've… interviewed… all say the same thing. Ufgak has been fighting a campaign of raids and ambushes against Grob for weeks. He's cautious. But with Grob dead and his forces in disarray, Ufgak won't see caution as the winning play anymore. He'll see a power vacuum. It's not incorrect to assume he will mobilize his main force for a single, decisive attack to claim his father's legacy before we can fortify this position. The only real question is 'when' the battle happens, not 'if'."
"So if he attacks before I'm healed–" Elara began, already trying to push herself up on her elbows, a familiar fire re-igniting in her eyes.
"No." The word was flat and absolute. I cut her off before she could even finish the thought. "You will be nowhere near the fighting. You will be in this hut, recovering. You will only be allowed to participate in any future engagement if I personally approve it. And right now, the chances of that are zero. This is a command, Elara."
Her jaw tightened, and a flash of anger—raw and potent—crossed her face. It was the look she got right before she did something incredibly violent. But I didn't back down. I couldn't.
"Don't you dare pull rank on me, Kale."
"I'm not pulling rank, I'm being a leader," I shot back, keeping my voice level. "You're my field commander and my single most powerful warrior, especially when you tap into that…
Primal Fury of yours. But you're also recovering from a potent neurotoxin. You are a compromised asset. Rushing you back into the field before you're at one hundred percent isn't just a risk to you; it's a risk to everyone. Your job, right now, is to heal. My job is to handle Ufgak."
For a long, tense moment, the only sounds in the hut were the crackle of the small fire and Elara's strained breathing. I held her furious gaze, refusing to back down. This wasn't a negotiation. I saw the storm in her eyes, the familiar tempest of pride and warrior's instinct warring with the cold, hard logic of my command. Her hands, resting on the furs, clenched into white-knuckled fists. I half expected her to try and launch herself out of the bed just to prove she could, poison be damned.
But then, something shifted. The rigid tension in her shoulders sagged, and the anger in her eyes didn't so much vanish as it did retreat, banked like the embers of a fire sinking into ash. It was replaced by a profound, weary frustration. She knew I was right. I could see the bitter acknowledgment in the slight tightening of her jaw. With a final, shuddering sigh that seemed to carry all the weight of the battle and the poison with it, she leaned back against the furs, breaking eye contact to stare at the hut's ceiling.
I counted it as a victory, but it didn't feel like one. There was no triumph in forcing my friend to admit her own vulnerability, only a grim, quiet relief.
Pushing the stool closer to the bedside, I leaned forward, my own exhaustion settling deep into my bones. The fight with Grob's forces, the psychological warfare, the constant use of Subtle Influence and Phantom Visage, and finally, that terrifying Rune of Shatter I'd used on Zog… it had left a mark. It was more than just low mana; it was a deep, penetrating exhaustion that settled in my bones, a kind of magical burnout that made every movement feel heavy.
Hesitantly, I reached out and gently placed the back of my hand against her forehead. Her skin was hot, damp with fever. A stray lock of dark hair, plastered to her temple with sweat, was surprisingly soft against my knuckles. The System, ever helpful, helpfully flashed a small notification in the corner of my vision: [Target Status: Feverish]. I mentally swatted it away. I didn't need a status window to tell me what my own senses could.
Up close, with her warrior's mask finally lowered, she looked younger. The faint lines of strain around her eyes were more pronounced, and for the first time, I could see the pure, unadulterated exhaustion she was hiding behind her anger. The thought of how close I'd come to losing her—to seeing her overwhelmed by Grob's poisoned blades—sent a cold spike of fear through my chest, one that had nothing to do with losing a valuable military asset. This was personal. This was the terror of watching someone you cared about almost die.
My eyes looked directly into hers, which had drifted back to meet my gaze, questioning and wary. My voice came out lower than I expected, thick with an emotion I rarely allowed myself to show.
"Know that this is the last time something like this will happen, Elara," I said, the words feeling less like a statement and more like a vow. "You will always be by my side. I promise."
Her expression didn't change, but I saw a flicker deep within her eyes—surprise, maybe, or something else I couldn't quite name. She didn't speak, didn't pull away.
For a long moment, she just held my gaze, her expression unreadable. The silence in the hut stretched, thick and heavy, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire. I kept my hand on her forehead, the heat of her fever a stark contrast to the chill in the air. I should have pulled away. It was the logical, leaderly thing to do. But I was anchored there by the raw intensity in her eyes and the terrifying memory of her near-death.
Then, she did something that completely short-circuited my brain.
She leaned into my touch.
It was a small movement, almost imperceptible, but I felt it instantly. The slight pressure of her skin against my palm, the way her body relaxed into the contact. Her eyes, which had been so sharp and defiant just moments before, softened and fluttered shut for a second. In that single, simple gesture, the unbreachable fortress that was Elara, the Ranger, showed a crack. It was a silent admission of trust, of comfort, of a vulnerability I'd never seen in her before.
A warmth spread through my chest that had nothing to do with the fire. It was a feeling so potent it almost made me dizzy. My strategic mind, the one that was constantly calculating odds and managing resources, just went… silent. It was completely overwhelmed. All that was left was me, Kale, sitting in a dirt-floored hut, terrified for the woman in front of me. I thought back to our first meeting in that forest, when she'd been hostile and wounded, and I'd been a naked, terrified fool with a flint knife. We had formed an alliance back then based on nothing more than mutual need. Now, looking at her leaning into my hand, I realized it had become something so much more.
My thumb moved of its own accord, gently stroking her temple. Her skin was so hot. I could feel the poison's lingering effects, the battle her body was still waging. I was her leader, yes, but in that moment, all I wanted was to absorb the pain and fever myself, to take it away from her.
Her eyes opened again, locking with mine. The defensiveness was gone, replaced by a deep, weary clarity. Her voice, when she spoke, was barely a whisper.
"I'm sorry," she breathed, the words seeming to cost her a great deal of effort.
I just looked at her, my own throat suddenly tight. The apology wasn't just for arguing. It was for the recklessness, for getting poisoned fighting Grob, for making me worry. It was an acknowledgment of everything that had happened, a concession offered in this quiet, unguarded moment.
I didn't say, "it's okay," or "don't worry about it." The words would have felt cheap, hollow. Instead, I let my hand slide from her forehead to rest on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. It was an acceptance, an answer without words.