Knights of Tezoth

— Thank you for covering me and then blowing up those creatures, — Stefania said with a slight smile.

In the past, she herself had covered Eugene more than once. But not in battle — on a completely different kind of front. Ever since her comrade began making overly active use of female attention, he occasionally ran into overly clingy partners. And to fend them off, the Knight of the Rusting Soul had more than once resorted to the help of the Knight of the Wind.

Naturally, there could be no talk of any romantic relationship. It was simply that in moments when he needed to get rid of someone unpleasant, he would start spending more time with Stefania or with other Gildaria warrior women, depending on the situation. On the one hand, it was convenient to cite business matters; on the other, being around colleagues — and in the case of Lady of House Valentine, around a girl from a fairly influential family — cooled the ardor of his lovers for however many nights, and they would back off on their own.

Stefania saw no problem in this, because Eugene never allowed himself inappropriate behavior toward her. Rather, it was Roderick who disliked it, but he kept his opinion to himself, knowing that his daughter was prudent enough not to tarnish her own honor. Besides, in the company of Adalard's nephew, no riffraff of any sort would dare pester the girl. On the other hand — wasn't her comrade's company one of the reasons Stefania still hadn't found herself a suitor?

— What do you think about these red-asses? — Stefania asked her colleague. — Planning to dissect these ones for something valuable too?

While the squad examined what the creatures that crawled out of the lava had left behind and caught their breath, Stefania wrote a short entry for the chronicles:

Ikazkan Expedition. Reconnaissance Mission. Day ???

Participants: Stefania Valentine, Knight of the Wind, Eugene Grimm, Knight of the Rusting Soul, Odliid, Rgoktex, Makarena, Manka

After leaving the zone where we had to sacrifice half the squad, we ran into a lava pool from which 5 redskin creatures crawled out. When we attempted to start a dialogue with them, they responded with only one answer: "Tsatsatsatsa." None of us understood what that might mean, but they certainly weren't planning to be friendly.

We had to act quickly. Having worked together more than once, I had long since learned to understand Eugene's commands — he had long proven himself one of the best generals I know. While Zephyr flew and I took my usual combat stance, the Knight of the Rusting Soul standing ahead pointed me toward the nearest imp (roughly how these red-faced creatures were perceived), which he had managed to wound with a spell from his charm. One shot — one corpse.

While the rest of the fighters gathered their wits and reacted in some way, the redskins managed to hurl 3 fireballs at Eugene. At first it seemed he hadn't taken much damage, but the burns proved extremely painful. A fourth fireball hit Makarena. The damage was worse, but at least no burns remained.

Before our fighters could take positions and do anything, a sixth redskin freak jumped out of the pool. In any case, this no longer posed a problem. The enemies were close enough that Eugene, despite the pain caused by the burns, used the prosthetic eye again and instantly blew up all the creatures.

Immediately after that, Manka healed Eugene's burns.

Can we only recharge healing flasks at camp? Because I need to think about how to most efficiently heal Eugene.