A Salamander, but Mighty

POV: Tamara

Fuck!

SYSTEM: DING! You went up [1] level! [+3] Traits points to place.

And fuck you too!

Tamara was standing next to the body of the enormous croconoid she had just killed; her heart was beating wildly in her chest and she had her mouth open so she could breathe more deeply and try to regain control over herself: it had all happened in a very spontaneous, natural way, the moment in which she had decided that she would not she could no longer stand back and watch, her body took over and the fight with the bandit leader occurred as if Tamara was in a state where she saw herself from the outside.

Fuck… oh, fuck.

Her head was overwhelmed with confusion. She had thought about how she would feel the day she was forced to kill someone and it must be said that at that moment she wasn't feeling anything like she had expected... she didn't feel horror or shame, rather, she was excited.

What the fuck is wrong with me??

A normal girl like she was before finding herself in that situation shouldn't have felt that feeling of absolute pleasure in ending the life of another sentient creature, and it didn't end there: Tamara felt like she wanted to fight again and she wanted to sink the teeth in the flesh and bones of the prey she had just killed.

I don't know what its level was, but it was strong, I should eat it.

Shut up.

I only have to feed on his flesh and drink his blood. I'm sure I could get another level up if I do it.

Tamara raised her hands to her head.

“Aradra!”

It wasn't so much the name that Luchael had given her that made her human half regain control of her actions as the fact that it was Helen who said it. Tamara turned her head, looking at the templar, who was trying to take a vial from her belt and uncork it with her teeth. Luchael was just five feet away, groaning in pain and with his hands covering his face.

“Oh no!” Tamara exclaimed in her language of sighs and hisses, “Luchael!”

She hastily approached what was becoming a sort of surrogate brother to her; compared to Helen he wasn't in such bad shape... I mean, his face was destroyed, but at least they hadn't nearly severed a hand.

“T-thank you, you s-saved us,” the leporan murmured in pain.

“I'm sorry, oh god, I'm so sorry…” she replied as if she hadn't even heard him and partially covering her mouth with her stubby hands, “I shouldn't have waited this long!”

“Everything will be fine,” said Helen, who had meanwhile drank the vial and had done what she could to get her hand back into position before wrapping it with some rags torn from the bodies of the slain bandits. The templar approached the salmadrer and the leporan and knelt down, offering a second vial to Tamara, “uncork this and give it to him. It's a potion of Accelerated Recovery, it won't heal him instantly like a potion of Mystic Healing, but it will make him heal faster.”

Tamara was still too shaken by everything that had happened - and by that bestial instinct which she had taken advantage of to fight the croconoid and which was still lurking in the dark corners of her mind - to notice the change in tone in the templar: not only did she not had called her 'Nightmare Tyrant' or 'monster', but her voice had softened and there was no longer that note of contempt that she had always heard. Not that Helen's voice was friendly now, but it leaned more towards neutrality. Tamara pointed to the other's injured hand.

Helen shook her head, “I already drank a potion for this, it won't be an instant miracle and it may not go back to the way it was before, but I won't lose it.” There was, however, a subtle hesitation in the tone during the last part of the sentence, “come on, hurry up with that concotion.”

Tamara uncorked the vial while Helen helped Luchael straighten his back into a semi-sitting position; Tamara then proceeded to bring the vial closer to the other's mouth and slowly poured out the contents. “Thank… you, girls…” he said trying to bring his pink eyes first to Tamara and then to Helen.

“Silly leporan, throwing yourself face first into a threat you don't know about,” Helen muttered, “where have you lost the paranoid caution typical of your race?” She asked trying to make fun of him but without really succeeding since they were both seriously injured, “thank you for coming to my aid without hesitation.”

“I couldn't leave you alone to face that croconoid,” Luchael said as he attempted to sit up on his own, blood still dripping down his face and onto his bard robes, “Aradra, go free the prisoners.”

"Are you joking? Aradra has to hide. Now that we've killed their leader, the dwarves will arrive by any minute,” Helen pointed out.

“The prisoners saw the fight, we have no way to hide her,” Luchael replied, “the only thing we can do is hope that the prisoners will testify that Aradra protected us and helped kill the brigand leader.”

Helen became thoughtful, “you're right. In any case, I will defend her if the dwarves want to harm her… she deserved at least this after saving our lives.”

Tamara nodded and went towards the prisoners' cages: the people inside looked at her with wide eyes as the small lizard-shaped monster approached their cages. Perhaps if the prisoners had been healthy - and had not witnessed the blind ferocity with which she had attacked and killed the bandit leader - they would have laughed at seeing such a monster in a green druid's dress full of floral motifs waddling towards them on stubby legs.

A few bland [Acid Spits] later and the old locks holding the cages closed were melted, allowing the prisoners to exit, even if they didn't: their apathetic expressions were replaced by terror, their bodies stiffened and they piled up on the opposite side of the cage.

“F-freedom!” A little girl shouted, overcoming the shock of being saved by a wild monster and hurrying to get out of the cage.

"We are safe! We are safe!"

“Out of here!”

“Out! Out!”

Tamara moved in time to let the prisoners - about fifteen - rush out, at the same moment, the dwarves arrived with their chests puffed out and weapons resting on one shoulder. Wide smiles could be seen breaking out from thick beards that had been splattered with the blood, intestines and brains of slain enemies.

"All done! How is the..." Volgrom raised his thick eyebrows, the hard gaze of the sons of the mountains stopped on Tamara.

“Wait! It's not what it looks like!" Helen shouted, “she is not an enemy!”

The dwarf took a deep breath through his massive nose, tightened his rough, calloused hand on the hilt of his axe. Helen glanced at the messer she had left on the ground after the fight.

“I see, young girl. I see!" Volgrom stated with a nod to both the dwarf on his right and the one on his left, “Take care of the prisoners, we can't let them wander into the forest and thwart the success of our rescue operation.”

Tamara remained near the open cages, she had stiffened like a tree trunk: her instinct as a salmadrer was already boiling, imagining the fight that would begin again shortly thereafter.

Volgrom returned Tamara's gaze, approached the croconoid's corpse and after having studied it summarily, took away a ring and mail armor which, despite the many battles he had seen, still seemed in order. “Here, take these things… it's your reward,” the dwarf said to Helen and Luchael, “now hide your little friend, we'll talk about it when we're on our way to the Cloudbreakers again.”