It was dark by the time Devin made his way down the hill and into the town. There weren’t even any guards on the street, but he knew he couldn’t afford to make any noise. Milo did not accompany him.

  He stopped to rest in an alley across the street from the Town Hall. The disease was getting worse. His whole body felt like a raw nerve dragged across broken glass and set on fire. He plopped down in the alley and leaned against the wall of a building.

  Looking up into the night sky made Devin feel more adrift than he had since he’d arrived. A slivered crescent moon had risen over the trees outside of town. It provided barely enough light to cast shadows. The sun and moon seemed to be the same as Earth’s, but the stars were different. He recognized a few constellations, but they were in the wrong places. Others were unrecognizable, although he was pretty sure one of them was the Southern Cross.

  He guessed it was sometime in Autumn. The temperature was pleasant, and the trees were changing colors. It wasn’t quite the Earth he’d left, but more like Earth when he was a kid, before the climate had started to go haywire from all the crap people had pumped into the atmosphere.

  He pushed himself to his feet, stumbled, and caught himself on the side of a building. He staggered across the street to the iron-bound door.

  He spent a few seconds looking for a lock, then tried the handle. It moved. He turned it a millimeter at a time until it clicked.

  Devin stopped and listened. Nothing. He pushed the door open. A dim hallway led into the building, with an open area several meters down and to the left.

  Devin crept forward. He could barely make out a line of cots against the far wall with lumpy shapes on them. The sounds of breathing and snoring came from within. He moved as quietly as he could. Relief flooded him when he made it past the room, then pain flared up. He leaned against the wall and tried to breathe through it.

  He managed to stay on his feet until the weakness passed. He slipped down the hall. The walls were painted with elaborate scenes of battle, mostly involving armored knights slaying various monsters. The corridor ended in a set of huge wooden doors decorated with carvings of vultures flying above a battlefield. Devin put his ear to the door but heard only silence.

  On the right side of the hall was a smaller, bolted door painted with a green hand within a circle of orange. There was a bell hanging where the door could strike it, like those in old stores. He could hear soft snores coming from the other side.

  He removed the bell, slid out the bolt, and pushed the door open to see a clinic lit by a small glowing globe attached to a wall bracket.

  A large table dominated the center of the room. A couch sat against one wall and a few chairs and stools were scattered around. A cabinet on the wall held rows of vials and bottles.

  A small door on the other side of the room was bolted from his side, and a narrow closet door was closed with a large padlock. A full-faced mask like the ones people wore to fancy masquerade balls hung from a nail next to the closet.

  A bare-chested man wearing brown canvas pants was slumped on the couch. Neatly folded crimson-red robes sat atop an end table, chain-mail armor draped the back of the couch, and a mace leaned up next to it within the man’s reach.

  A message popped up in the bright red letters of a combat alert. Milo had warned him not to turn off the combat updates, so he’d restricted them to the bottom-left corner of his screen, where it’d been on his raid interface in his favorite computer game.

  Devin’s Ability ‘Identify Opponent’ identified Order Enforcer.

  Order Enforcer (Human, Copper, Asleep)

  An enhanced follower of the Order of the Caduceus.

  The word ‘Enforcer’ appeared above the man’s head in the same bright red script. Three tiny z’s floated above the word.

  Devin held his breath. He eased the door closed behind him and moved toward the couch, placing each foot down like a cartoon mouse sneaking past a sleeping cat.

  Scenarios played out in his mind. He could knock the guard out, maybe tie him up and gag him.

  This isn’t a movie, he thought. He remembered what Milo said about being willing to kill whoever got in his way. But this guy was taking a nap. He didn’t even have his weapon.

  Devin wanted to keep it that way. He leaned forward to pick up the mace. The agony in his gut flared and he knocked it over.

  The Enforcer’s eyes opened.

  There was no time for a moral crisis. Devin put a hand over the guard’s mouth to silence him. He clamped his other hand around the man's throat and leaned down with all his weight. He felt the muscles twitching, the trachea convulsing. He could hear things crushing inside the man’s neck.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Enforcer is dying of asphyxiation!

  Devin saw nothing but hate in the man’s eyes. He shoved down harder, putting his knee into the man’s gut to keep him from flopping off the couch. Their struggles made the couch bang against the wall. The noise seemed louder than a car crash.

  The man punched Devin’s side and pain ripped through him. Devin squeezed as hard as he could and felt flesh tear as his fingers sank in. He grasped around neck sinews and pulled. A spray of blood came out along with part of the Enforcer’s throat.

  The struggling stopped. Devin wiped his bloody hands on the man’s pants and froze, staring into the dead man’s eyes.

  He wasn’t sure how long he stood there staring at the dead man. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but his mind expanded the time into forever. The haptic buzz tickled his brain a few times, but he ignored it.

  He’d torn a man’s throat out with his bare hands. It wasn’t even self-defense. He’d done it because he was afraid the man would shout out. This man who’d never done anything to him was lying there dead. He stared at his murdering hands and tried to wipe them on his shirt, but when he touched the area of his wounds, it staggered him.

  The pain brought him back to himself. The agony had reached his lungs now. He rasped and tried not to cough.

  Sounds came from the other side of the smaller door. Devin heard movement and the rustling of cloth. He gathered his strength before pushing himself off the couch. He swayed, then stumbled to the door.

  He pulled it open and came face to face with a nightmare.

  It was standing right behind the door with its head turned as if listening. It stood about 30 cm shorter than Devin. It was bald, and empty sockets gaped where its eyes had been. Scar lines radiated out from around the eyes, and its mouth had been sewn shut, giving it a permanent grimace.

  Devin’s fist came up to smash the monster’s face in, but something made him pause. The figure was dressed in a worn but clean brown robe with a green hand encircled in orange embroidered onto the front.

  The figure hadn’t moved beyond turning its head to fix its empty eye sockets on him. There was no hostility in its stance.

  He took a closer look. The figure looked feminine. He remembered Milo saying the healer was a woman, and that she wouldn’t be what he expected.

  “Healer?” he croaked.

  The healer nodded. She reached out to touch the wound on his stomach. Devin flinched.

  She grabbed his arm and helped him to the couch. His eyes widened. She was stronger than the man he’d killed.

  She kicked the Enforcer’s body off the couch, then helped Devin sit. She motioned for him to stay and hurried over to rummage around in the cabinet.

  Devin slumped onto the couch like a puppet with his strings cut. He closed his eyes. He’d been running on adrenaline or magic or whatever for a day, but he had nothing left. She could heal him or kill him; he didn’t care which.

  The haptic alert went off again. He opened a new update window.

  Achievement Unlocked! Sneaky Snake – You snuck up on someone close enough to launch a melee attack. Sure, he was asleep, but we won’t tell anyone.

  Reward: 2 Matter shards.

  Achievement Unlocked! Murderer! - You killed your first human.

  Reward: 1 Life shard. Ironic, right?

  Achievement Unlocked! Red Right Hand – You killed an opponent with the Unarmed ability. That is to say, you ripped his throat out. Well done, I guess.

  Reward: 1 Life shard.

  Achievement Unlocked! Rehabilitating Debilitation – You can ride a donkey all night, fight off a band of mooks, and then assault a keep the next day, all while inflicted with an excruciating and debilitating disease.

  Reward: Boost ‘Call Me Rasputin.’ You won't be stopped by anything as insignificant as pain. You still feel it, but it's no longer debilitating. Did you notice I didn't go with something overused like "Pain is Just Weakness Leaving the Body?" You're welcome.

  Someone poked Devin. He opened his eyes. The healer held a jar filled with red liquid. She mimed drinking it, then pointed at his stomach and held her other hand, palm up.

  He stared at her for a minute, then blinked. “Are you asking me if I’ve ever drank one of those? The kid at the farm gave me something, but I don’t know what it was.”

  She nodded and set the potion down. He closed his eyes again as she touched his wound.

  Her touch was cool at first, then warmth spread through his stomach and into his chest. The pain relented and his breathing eased. His eyes popped open, and he lifted his bloody shirt. No trace of the wound remained, not even a scar.

  “That was amazing,” he said. “Thank you. My name is Devin, by the way.”

  The healer dabbed something on the side of his head, where he’d been cut during the fight with the tree. Then she moved to a nasty cut on his arm. Whatever she was using didn’t seem to have the same instant healing properties as when she’d touched his stomach, but it dulled the pain.

  “You don’t have to do that,” he said. “It’s not bad.”

  She put a finger to her lips and continued working on his forehead. After a few seconds, she stepped back and looked him over. She gave him a thumbs up.

  He forced himself to meet her eyes – or where her eyes would have been. “Thank you again,” he said.

  She nodded. Devin stood and stretched. The healer watched him.

  “I’d pay you, but I don’t have any money,” Devin said. “To be honest, I don’t have anything of value. Is there anything I can do for you?”

  She pointed at him, and then at herself.

  “You want to come with me?”

  A nod. Her empty eye sockets were still fixed on his face.

  “I don’t want to put you in even more danger,” he said.

  The healer pointed at the body on the floor, then drew her finger over her throat.

  “You’re telling me that they’ll kill you for this?”

  The healer nodded.

  “But you didn’t do anything!”

  She shrugged.

  “Is there somewhere I can take you? Do you have family you can stay with, or something?”

  She pointed at him, again.

  “You don’t want to saddle yourself with me,” Devin said. “I can barely take care of myself.”

  The corner of her lip twitched up. She pointed at herself, then at him.

  “You’ll take care of me?” he said. She nodded, and he smiled. At least she had a sense of humor.

  But maybe she wasn’t joking. She was a healer, and while she didn’t look like much, he knew she was strong. But she couldn’t talk. She couldn’t even see.

  Or could she? She hadn’t had any trouble tending to his wounds or sorting through the potion bottles. Maybe she was relying on other senses, but if she could function, did it really matter? As for talking, they were communicating fine so far.

  “I’m going to have to sneak out of here,” he said. “Do you think you can be quiet enough to make it?”

  She considered it for a moment, then shook her head.

  He thought about it. “OK,” he said. “I’ll do my best to get you out of here. Once we’re somewhere safe, we can talk about what to do next.

  She nodded, then held up a finger and turned back to the cabinet. Devin took a step to follow, then whirled around when he heard a slight sound from behind him.

  The outer door slammed open. A robed man with the word ‘Enforcer’ floating above his head charged in wielding a mace.