Taken by surprise, the mercenary fell back, grappled by a much weaker than him woman, who, surprisingly, was exerting a lot more strength than he could imagine.
The sword fell from his grasp and found refuge in between nearby rags, most likely remainder of her clothing, as its new owner did all he could to get this crazied woman off of him.
"Stop! Hey, stop! We need to run!" He kept his voice low as from the other side of this cavern, familiar, wet footsteps were echoing down.
She was close to strangling him, her long fingers were wrapped around his neck. They both looked into each other eyes and there, he saw it, a glint of consciousness, some part of hers was trying to control this lust and was slowly winning. Although this was not fast enough.
As if recognising the current situation she pleaded for assistance with her eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks, most likely from mental pressure she was experiencing, at that sight, the man, gathered his strength and broke free from her grasp, pushing his fingers in between hers and forcefully pulling them back.
Eventually his hand was free and it blindly, desperately, searched for its property. Feeling the familiar wooden handle, it grasped onto the sword and with the pommel, the mercenary struck womans head, knocking her out.
Limp, she fell ontop of him. Footsteps growing ever closer, mercenary swiftly gathered nearby clothes, wrapped the girl in them and run, as fast as his tired legs could go.
Hearing the commotion behind him, as the goblins were clearly unhappy that someone dared to invade and steal their sow, they gave chase.
With his free hand, merc took out one of his newly acquired oil flasks and threw it ahead of him, then next and one more, for good measure. Few sticks that he kept, just in case, also were used as fuel.
Unfastening one torch, he tilted it against the wall and two flints smashed against one another, creating a spark that lit said torch.
When the light of this torch landed on her face, the woman only mumbled as she was currently flung across his shoulder.
Turning towards his pursues, the man grinned, as he threw a lit torch into this haphazardly created, flammable pool of oil and wood.
Immediately it caught on fire and smoke started filling the tunnel, realising that it might have worked too well, merc turned around and ran towards the light.
Only squealing of goblins would echo throughout this tunnel as they were unable to push past the flames and smoke. Enraged but forced to fallback, they vowed vengeance in their hearts against this invader.
Safe, the man looked towards the edge of a camp he ran through earlier on. Feeling goosebumps he turned away from it and decided to venture into the dark forest itself.
She opened her eyes, feeling a throbbing pain in her head, she clutched her head and ran fingers through its sore spot, there was a slight bump.
Immediately she jumped up, ready to fight, remembering the goblins surrounding her inside the camp but this was different.
'Huff, Huff I only collected few flasks of liquid' She looked at the nearby wooden log, her bag and all the flasks were there, unbroken.
'Well that should be enough for few potions...'
Scanning this place, the woman noticed it was much smaller, with only few trees felled and a small campfire, someone was cooking something, grilled meat and some herbs? She questioned. 'It smells good'. She was salivating but kept her guard up.
Brief flashes of a unknown man with entrancing green eyes wavered her confidence.
Branches shook, signaling that someone or something was close. She lifted a nearby branch and pointed it towards the source of this sound.
To her surprise, it was that man, that man with these incredible green eyes.
"Relax, please. I won't hurt you. Here I don't know if you like it but I have grilled some deer. There is some basil and parsley too." He pensively sat on the edge of his campfire and cut a piece of meat.
Narrowing her eyes, she took the small plate and started eating, slowly at first but with each bite her eyes widened and after devouring the small portions, surprising herself, she sat closer to the man and handed him the plate.
"More... please." She quietly said, her eyes scanning the man in front of her.
He wore mercenarys armour, from the band that was hired but she could not remember ever seeing him. He clearly lacked the skill to wield that sword but he somehow managed to get her out of that cave, alive.
"I am Silva, alchemist of the Mirlum Forest, one of the elfs residing there but you humans simply call my kind: the witch." Her eyesight was suffocating him as she scanned his face for any sign of malice but to her surprise, there was none.
"I am... Alan." He slowly said, as if thinking about his own name, replied.
"Just Alan?" She questioned.
"Yes, just Alan will do for now. Alan from the Benevere trading company."
"Well that's funny, because I am part of Benevere organisation and the armour you are wearing belongs to Broken Wheel mercenary group." He visibly tensed, his hand slowly reaching for his blade.
"Calm down, I should be wary since you lied to me but I don't sense anything, you saved me and you are showing me kindness, which is rare, normally I would be sold to slave traders by now." She shrugged. His hand now, slowly, travelled back to his plate.
"You are full of abnormalities, but that's kind of attractive." She smiled, dangerously. "Clearly you don't know what alchemists are and use as a catalyst for alchemy, right?" He merely shrugged but felt danger radiating from her.
Tension was palpable but before anything could happen, a growl pierced the surrounding darkness, with the elf and fake merc, paralysed, the shadows were moving...