The boar-kin's name was Grom. He led Echo behind the tavern to a fenced pit stained with dark patches.
"Fight the training beast," Grom grunted. "Let's see if you're worth selling."
From a wooden pen, he released a snarling creature — part hyena, part lizard, with too many teeth. It lunged.
Echo's Error-Sight fired. Glitching lines appeared around the beast's left foreleg — an old injury, poorly healed. He sidestepped, and the creature stumbled.
Grom laughed. "Not bad! But you'll need more than dancing."
He entered the pit himself, club in hand. "Let's make it interesting."
The first swing whistled past Echo's ear. The second clipped his shoulder — pain exploded. Echo's vision swam, but the Error-Sight zeroed in on Grom's stance: his right foot was placed on a wobbly stone. A glitch in the terrain.
Echo feinted left, then shoved Grom's chest. The boar-kin stepped back, his foot slipped on the stone, and he crashed down with a roar.
At that moment, shouts erupted from the cages. Leyla had somehow sparked a riot — captives rattling bars, throwing bowls, screaming.
Grom scrambled up, enraged, but Echo was already moving. He snatched the fallen club and swung hard at the cage lock Leyla was trapped in. The metal groaned, bent.
"Run!" Leyla hissed, slipping out.
They dashed into the dark alleyways of Stone Maw, feet pounding mud. Arrows whizzed past — one grazed Leyla's thigh. She stumbled but kept moving.
They didn't stop until the outpost lights were far behind, until the forest swallowed them whole.
Deep in a mossy cave, Echo finally let himself breathe. Leyla slumped against the wall, clutching her leg. An arrow had sliced deep, and the wound was darkening — poisoned.
"It's… bladevenom," she gasped. "Slows the blood. I need… yarrow and blackroot."
Echo remembered basic first aid from Earth. "Tell me what they look like."
Guided by her fading voice, he ventured out, found the plants by moonlight, and returned. He chewed the herbs into a poultice as she instructed, then pressed it to her wound.
Leyla shivered, her eyes half-closed.
"You're not like the others," she murmured.
"You see the cracks in the world."
Echo stayed with her as her breathing steadied.
Her fur was soft under his hand. Her tail brushed his arm gently.
[ Bond: Leyla reaches Lv. 1 Stable ]
[ Skill Unlocked: Feline Grace (Agility +5) ]
[ Bond Point Total: 2 ]
He watched her sleep, the twin moons casting silver through the cave entrance.
Beast World. Poison. Slavers.
But he'd made his first ally.
And for the first time since he'd arrived, he felt a flicker of something like hope.