Friendly competition?

The two of us make it to Matilda's shop with only one person stopping us to thank me for doing a job a month ago. They even gifted me jerky and a few biscuits they made that morning. Meaning I didn't have to stop at the butcher today.

The bell on the door tings very softly over head. The smells of multiple potions brewing fills the air along with burning candles. The shop is on the darker side with purple trimmed black drapes hanging on the black walls. Small stars are painted on the walls and ceiling to give off the dark night vibe. There are a few wooden shelves stocked with the cheaper potions, wands, staffs, and many ingredients for making potions. The cloaks and every everything else that's expensive or time consuming to make or get is behind the glass counter.

"Hazel, I finally get to rest my eyes on the new one." Matilda says coming out from behind her curtain dividing the store front from the back storage room.

"Hey, Matilda. Aba tell you about her?" I ask.

"No. She appeared in a vision." Matilda's crimson smile pops thanks to her pale skin. Her dark maroon cloak casts a dark shadow over her already dark eyes. Long black curly hair tumbles out from her cloak hood. 

"Come here child." Matilda says stepping out from behind the counter. Her long thin ring covered fingers are raised for Samantha to put her hands in hers.

Samantha doesn't go towards Matilda but takes a step back looking at me for guidance.

"It's alright. Matilda is a healer I trust with my life. Here watch." I pull out a throwing knife from my boot and make a slit on my arm.

Just to be showy, I held only a finger up to Matilda and she did the same. The moment our fingers touch my wound begins to rapidly close. Along with some aches from moving all those chests yesterday disappeared.

"Thanks for getting my shoulders and back too." I say standing a little taller rolling my shoulders around.

Matilda giggles. "Anything for a friend. Now young one." Her attention is back to Samantha with her hands outstretched.

Samantha glances back and forth before holding her hands out too. Gently she places them on Matilda's. There is a moment of silence before Matilda looks at the girl with wide black eyes.

"W-what?" Samantha asks looking at both of us scared.

"You have a long road a head of you." Matilda says patting the back of Samantha's left hand.

"Okay?" She looks at us both a little funny.

"Well now that you've had your fun, too." I set my bag of items on the counter. "I found somethings in some chests I forgot about."

"I have dreaded this day." Matilda sighs.

"What? Am I going to make you broke?" I giggle.

"Not one bit." Matilda's sounds almost depressed.

She begins going through the items on her counter. A few wands and two staffs where placed in a pile. The many potions got separated into 3 groups. And a few gems where placed into a separate pile.

"Soooo?" I ask a little excited for some extra coin.

Matilda sighs with her hands on the counter and her head down. Then she begins shaking her head disapprovingly.

"Oh no." I whimper.

Samantha looks back and forth with concern on her face.

"On your knees." Matilda whispers.

I plop right down on the floor. My butt resting on my heels. Daring not to speak. Samantha goes to also sit like me.

"Not you. You're good. It's this one that has been bad." Matilda waves for Samantha to stand before ripping into me. "First off. These staffs and wands were not stored properly so their value has been lowered. The gems could have fetched you a better price before the big vein in the mountain was found south of here. And yes I can tell you hung onto these for AWHILE before the vein was found." She moves onto the potions. "This group here are weak potions so I can't give you much for them. These ones," she grabs the air above them in frustration, "these ones could have been sold for 5,000 gold a piece. A PIECE! But no, they are rancid now."

"A-and those ones?" I ask hesitantly pointing to the third group.

"Colored water..."

"C-colored water?"

"Yes please tell me you picked these off a monster and didn't buy them from a street vendor."

"Yes." I didn't want to recall the one time I bought crappy potions from another town. All because I didn't want to spend 30 extra minutes coming back here before going on a hunt.

"For me to properly dispose of these potions and the money I will offer to buy these poor items. You owe me 1,000 gold." Matilda looks down at me with her big black eyes.

"F**k...." I mumble.

"Alright sweetheart, I'm sorry you had to witness that. Let me activate your translator." Matilda gestures for Samantha to come closer. "Please forgive me, I do need to prick your finger for a drop of blood."

Samantha nods presenting her left forearm carrying the new translator. Matilda gets to work. With a small chant and a drop of blood on the interface, the screen glows then dims. Then a protective metal cover slides from under the translator to ontop to protect the screen.

"Now that this is activated." She pats Samantha's hand again. "Don't hang onto everything. You bring it to me or Chelsea and we can help you out. Very rarely though we will send you to professor Garrik to translate old texts. Now, let Hazel here be an example of what not to do."

"Will do."

"Good girl." Matilda smiles. "Alright at this rate you two will be fighting Zombies in the dark. Take these. I was told you will need them." 

Matilda hands Samantha a bag.

"Stamina potions?" Samantha asks. "And a red and purple potion?"

"Yes, soon though you won't need to rely on stamina potions so much. The red is healing and the purple is both healing and mana recovery."

"How mu-"

"Those are on the house as a symphony gift for being paired with this one." Matilda looks back down at me.

"Hey." I try rebuttaling while standing. My legs though are wobbly from blood loss.

"But keep in mind that stamina potions are 5 silver a piece when you come back for more. The others are 15 silver." Matilda smiles at Samantha.

Matilda sends us on our way to the waypoints with a piece of paper in my hand stating I owe her money. I sigh and shake my head before sticking the paper in my leather pants pocket.

"So I was wondering." Samantha speaks up.

"Whacha thinking?" I reply.

"Is it stealing if we take the money and items off zombies because you know they were people?" Samantha's face is concerned.

"Aba compensates the families so don't worry about it. Sometimes we do get asked to retrieve and return a family treasured heirloom though. Only worry about putting them to rest. They don't want to be stuck like that so it's our duty to help them rest." I explain.

"Ahhh, I makes sense." She says looking up at the lightly cloudy sky.

"Sweet let's get these people the rest they need then." I say stepping into an empty waypoint activating the circle of flames. This time Samantha was not afraid of the fire and followed me in. "Rabbit trail town."

Now we are standing in the middle of Rabbit trail. The houses are made from thick wood and snow packed for extra insulation. The cold breeze lets me know I never did the warming incantation, again. After the longest 60 seconds, Samantha and I are warm.

"Lets get to work. Supposedly they are in the area here." I say heading for the gate.

"Alright." Samantha says following with her spear in hand.

"We got quite a few zombies and less than half the day to take them out. I reckon we have 4 hours of daylight left." I say looking up. "I should be able to cover 300 if you think you could take out 50 again today."

"Alright." Samantha shrugs with a sly look in her eyes.

"What's that look for?" I question.

"That would be my face?" 

"No you made a face. You don't think you can take care of 50 or the fact that I can take out 300?"

"If I go at yesterday's pace I can easily take out 150 or more." She shrugs.

"Alright let's make this a friendly competition then since these people need to be put to rest anyways. You hit that 150 mark and I will buy you an expensive meal from Rosie's."

"You remember you are broke right?" She asks with some spunk.

"I'm broke for now. But with you around we will be going on so many jobs. No starving for us!" I cheer.

"Alright then what will happen if I put over half of them to rest?" A competitive smile dances on her lips.

"You think you can get over half? Ha! IF you can hit 176 or more, I will teach you how to channel your mana tomorrow. Not in a few months. AND I will buy you that expensive meal. Deal?" I smirk knowing this girl won't be able to out due me.

"Deal." Samantha smirks back.

We make it just outside the gate into the clearing. There a horde of 50 some zombies are groaning and shuffling around in ankle deep snow. Samantha is crouching to get closer to grab the attention of only a few. Meanwhile I pull a strand of hair out to check which way the wind is going. Lucky me, I'm up wind. Knocking an arrow I pull back the bow string, point up and loose it into the air. The arrow falls into the middle of the horde engulfing them all in fire and smoke.

"Ha!" I yell, "looks like I'm in the lead."

"Did you think this through?!" Samantha shouts running back to me.

A few flaming zombies come running for us out of the black smoke. Their skin melting and slipping off them. Loud cries of anger surge toward us.

With both of us swearing, we run the opposite way of them while Samantha downs a stamina potion.