Walter along with Quinn and the ever silent Trisha entered the portal as the burial grounds were covered in blood and gore.
The mess his group made was still there obviously, however, Walter without caring for how the rogue would react summoned Hairy since he wanted to end his curse as soon as possible.
The rogue reacted quickly with her bow drawn and arrow nocked but she was confused by the fallen shaman that seemed to have bowed to her new employer, thus made the baffled woman look towards Walter for answers which should be given asap or a few arrows will find themselves deep into his flesh.
Mostly due to the fact that she felt betrayed despite only knowing each other for almost half an hour, Rogues from the sisterhood are trained to be loyal to their employer as long as they weren't monsters or demons in human skin, but what really bothered her was if he was one...
Why didn't Lady Akara or even her captain react upon meeting him?
Or was there something she missed?
So now, to be safe than sorry she wanted answers or she will kill the man and return to the encampment!
Walter had a wry smile at the moment before stating these words flatly.
"he's one of my summons, just like the blood hawk on my head, with a few more stowed away-"
He explained the least important details while hiding the more delicate information hidden especially about two specific ones.
While it took some time Hairy went about to complete his task to deal with any survivors within the still damp crypt, and sure enough, when the shaman used another lightning spell again his level jumped a few times within a span of a few minutes but after that, until ten minutes went by it was a sign that there were no more monsters or the survivors were resistant to lightning.
When that was done, Hairy began summoning his small army to make the trip easier, but this put Trisha on edge nearly releasing her arrow into Walter's leg most likely intentionally, but thankfully she missed and it took more of his precious time to make her stop finally.
So Walter, after calming the rogue down with his words and story, made a mental note to return to this place after doing this current quest which was to head to the stony field mostly to find Silvia who had gone missing.
To which, by the way, he asked Trisha to guide him there, She was extremely reluctant to do so but quickly gave in for some extra gold, while Walter was mentally cursing her for her greed but he had little choice while he did receive her as a temporary follower from Kashya, there was no oath that bound her to follow his commands, unlike Silvia who had also chosen Walter for other reasons unknown to him...
well other than her punching bag probably?
He formed a slight smile on his face for this before returning his attention towards the rogue that was more than ready to abandon him thanks to his 'Demonic ability', then again he'd do the same to her thanks to how she's been looking at him and also learned that she may seem stoic and silent, but once she was stressed Trisha would grumble and complain...
A LOT!
She also muttered a few snarky comments about him being a weakling for relying on his summons, which obviously was loud enough for him to hear, but The thought of him possibly needing her help to find Silvia made Walter calm himself before putting his full attention on finding 'his' rogue.
This experience with Trisha made him realize just how much Silvia had been taking care of him, free information, constant methods to survive hammered into his head, and teaching him proper ways to use his weapons during the tor- training.
He gained a new appreciation for the girl, while Trisha's market value in his eyes were gradually dropping by the second as this woman's greed for more gold with every little question he asked her seemed insatiable!
They dealt with smaller numbers of monster groups thanks to the efforts of the wendigo from before kind of sad that it was never named so Walter christened it as 'Try hard' as it did try so hard to kill him after gaining a good-sized army only to die and a miserable way at the end.
The monsters were nothing the Fallen minions couldn't handle as there were literally like a moving wall that protected Walter and the grumbling Rogue as she was really uncomfortable with the number of monsters that are said to be under his summon's control all around her with no way to escape in case they decide to turn their blades on them.
So she was wondering to herself at this time.
"was he brave and confident? or was he naive and stupid?"
While this was an understandable thought process for regular people of this world, Walter, on the other hand, who lacked the common sense of this world thought that it was natural for these monsters to protect him as they were minions of Hairy who was under his control.
Fallen minions are disposable pawns of fallen shamans, so if there was another shaman of greater control and power these pawns would fall under the shaman that could control them better via overriding the spell that summoned them into existence.
While Hairy's troops were considered fallen minions they also couldn't be considered as such thanks to a little something from Walter who has no idea about such things~
Along the way, they came across a bunch of ransacked houses with the majority of them burned to the ground.
What was pretty interesting about this journey was a square-shaped stone on the ground with four unlit torches one on each corner was strange and blue carvings at the center, Walter approached it while a certain rogue was looking at him as if waiting for a good show.
Much to his annoyance, when his foot touched the square the torches suddenly lit up before the circle at the center gained a mysterious glow.
Out of pure curiosity, Walter unsummoned hairy as its troops followed the wispy form it gained before entering his chest, then he walked to the center then touched the circle sliding a finger along the lines of the strange carvings, but then suddenly his body disappeared from the area along with Trisha.
They appeared at the encampment which was now being rebuilt mostly due to how easy it was to defend terrain wise, Trisha began laughing out loud so obnoxiously as those that use a waypoint for the first time tend to feel extremely nauseous so Walter was on the ground hurling.
The rogue That was laughing so loud had attracted her sisters that were there trying to repair the place to where they were, they had a few kinds of reactions, some joined in at laughing at his expense, some disgusted by his display, some remained stoic, and the rest just went back to work.
Regardless of this, Walter now really disliked the woman, almost wished to spank that ass of hers for constantly nitpicking at his gold and himself, as the constant snarky words of hers were truly pushing their neutral relationship, As he could only tolerate so much, for Kashya's and Silvia's sake before doing something that might break his kind relationship with the sisterhood.
Walter got to his feet while wiping his mouth gave Trisha a glare since she was still laughing so obnoxiously, to which she returned the look his with a taunting smile.
So he asked while controlling himself.
"Why are you trying to pick a fight with me?"
Her answer was this as her face morphed with so many mixed emotions it was hard to tell whether she was smiling or frowning or even angry but her words sort of helped him to understand what she was trying to portray...
Well mostly.
"because you aren't worthy of Silvia and I will keep on reminding you of that!"
Walter couldn't understand why the hell was she being so hostile but he made sure to say this before following it with a serious question.
"Look you may hate me and all, but all I did was hire her so that I can survive, I too believe that I am not worthy of her, but keep this shit up and we may never find her!"
Hearing these words, caused Trisha to have a frustrated look on her face while biting her lower lip enough to draw some blood before she gave a strange reaction to his question that soon followed.
"I only hired her to help me nothing more, So what is your relationship with Silvia that made you hate me so much?"
her eyes blinked furiously, as Trisha's mouth opened and closed repeatedly as if trying hard to 'hide' something only to fail so hard at doing so but her stuttering words were something.
"It-it's not that I hate you fo-for taking her from me or anything like that!"
To which made him squint at her with a 'really now?' look.
She cleared her throat before trying to divert his attention elsewhere.
"Well, are we going to return to the cold plains or not!?"
Her rushed words didn't really help to distract him but one thought came to mind before a Packed ration landed on his head to which really didn't hurt him but seemed to further make this thought seem true.
"she prefers women?"
He said it out loud unintentionally which made the girl fume a bit before releasing her belly full of mixed emotions on the unfortunate monsters that entered her range!
Luckily for Walter, the rogue was assigned to be his follower so that helped prevent her from being able to harm him physically or he would've been an arrow cushion since they reached the crypt, one of the reasons why she was verbally abusing him the whole time earlier.
Things seemed to be going along easy for them, but that all changed when they entered the Stony field as three ELITE shamans with an army of a hundred each decide to attack them only a minute of their arrival.
Hairy and his troops helped but these three shamans were different from the others that attacked from afar.
Quinn on the other hand started going crazy as if trying to pull Walter away from the area, however, its efforts were in vain as he reacted too slow before receiving a couple of large firebombs that suddenly formed under him then exploded right then and there, while Trisha was sent flying by one into the air as well!
Walter remained unseen, while Trisha's body flailed unnaturally into the air before her body began to descend to the ground.