The people of Thundercastle used a rather clumsy method of making torches, first, they would cut out a wooden stick about two feet long, cut a cone-shaped pit at the top of the stick, roll a wick and place it in the pit and fill it with dried pine resin, which could be added after the resin was burned - this kind of torch burned longer than those made of twigs and hastily, and if the tip of the torch was thick enough, it could last for one block (an hour) before the cone-shaped pit was burned.

It was also brighter than the loose branches, which could only illuminate one or two people, and the light cast by such torches could envelop three or four people at a time, but in any case, it could not compare to the true sunlight or moonlight, and beyond that it was a muddy, icy darkness.

The sound of people's footsteps and the light from the torches faded away, leaving only two people in the empty passageway—Grimmar the Spellcaster and Glenn the Thief.

Gülen didn't immediately answer the culprit's question, although he knew he was facing a spellcaster, his heart was filled with jealousy and despair, he didn't feel like he needed to be afraid, but what else could he do, it was going into darkness, and as a seasoned thief, even the slightest light or nothing at all didn't prevent him from stealing or assassinating.

"They're a good bunch of people. Gülen said, not without irony: "Mage, they didn't throw me into a cave anymore, they didn't tie me to a log anymore, and though I was still shackled, I had a room with a bed, and the knight who guarded me brought water, wine, barbecue, and bread, and I ate to my heart's content, and slept again." They talked outside my room, without shying away, perhaps because they thought I was dying, or maybe because what they were talking about was not a secret - Thundercastle might fall, so everyone inside would be evacuated. I heard it and thought it was a good opportunity......"

"But I didn't kill," Glenn said, "they may be dizzy for a while, but they won't die, if their lord hadn't thrown them to the orcs, respected mages, in a sense, they are extremely credulous and unvigilant, you know, they even feel guilty about me because I have been treated unjustly, even though I am a thief." He glanced at the mage's eyes with the last glimmer of light, dark eyes, like an abyss, hiding dangers and secrets that you can't imagine.

His instincts told him that if he killed someone on the run, it would lead him to two completely different endings - he did spare the two self-righteous little tin cans, he was not an assassin after all, murder was not his main business, and he was not sure if his escape would be successful, he would only be locked up until they could find their victims, but if one or two bloody corpses did come to accuse him, then Lord Baldwin, the owner of Thundercastle, would be happy to cut off his head with his broadsword.

"Even if I am a thief," he repeated, "but I have not been treated justly before the knights of Tyre, you see, if he is going to judge me for killing that little bastard, unfortunately you have already testified for me, that night I had a rope around your neck, and I had been busy all night trying to find you a comfortable place to ship and hollow out the guild's warehouse, and I knew that you had been watching me, and I could not have killed someone thousands of miles away, right?" Well, if he were to judge me for killing some priest of the god of death, dear mage, or something else, that was before I was escorted to Thundercastle, and as an innocent man, I, along with those unforgivable bastards, had been kicked out of the walls and thrown in front of thousands of orcs, ah, strong and hungry orcs, if I hadn't had a little bit of good luck, I would have been in their stomachs— But I didn't resent them, I even completed the task they had given me, even though I was innocent and could be redeemed, but I did it, for the sake of the victory of humanity, I killed the orcs, destroyed their equipment, and saved the life of an elf, I did so much, mage, what other crime could I not be pardoned- But the esteemed Lord Berdwin could not give me back the freedom I deserved, so I had to take it myself, but I did not take anyone's life, and I swore by my mother's grave that I took at most a set of clothes. ”

"And the identity of the owner of the clothes. The lich said, bowing his head slightly, his eyes glowing in the darkness, and Glenn was now a very different person from what he had been before, and could be said to be a different person. If it weren't the former immortal standing there, and Gülen wasn't the material he had predetermined, he should have been able to escape far away with this funny little trick: "Where did you throw him?"

"In his barrel. Gülen said he knew it was useless to deny.

"You must have hidden him very secretly," said the lich in an elusive tone, "the kind that the orcs may not be able to discover." ”

"I hid him in a stinky salted fish bucket," said Gülen, "but the orc's nose is very sensitive, and I can't guarantee that he'll be safe and sound, but I can guarantee that he'll be alive and well when I leave." ”

He was not prepared to leave with these men, it was too dangerous, and the fields and moors outside the city were better sheltered by a fleeing thief - but he was discovered, a group of knights instead of a knight, and fortunately he was familiar with the man he had replaced, one of the jailers of Thundercastle, who was frail, eccentric, unpleasant, and had no friends or relatives.

- If it were another soul using this body today, the lich thought, it would be very entangled - facing a ...... Well, a sinner in the truest sense of the word, it's certain that Glenn the Thief wasn't a chaste little girl with only a dinner knife as he portrayed, he wasn't just a thief, he was the head of a guild branch - but no one could produce any evidence or witnesses to prove what kind of crime he had actually committed, since he had been far away in Sharp Jaw Harbor, separated from Thundercastle by bay and land.

And the plane to which the other soul belongs, with its uncanny array of morals and decrees—all benevolently close to ridiculousness, and which it has spent nearly thirty years in this peaceful atmosphere of foolishness and paralysis, is, as you can imagine, sweet and soft—in the face of an orc, When a halfling or an ogre, it can only behave within the range of a lich, but if it is dealing with a human like him, or something similar to a human like him, such as an elf, its weakness and naivety can almost drive a former undead mad.

Without the curse of the god of death, the lich would be willing to leave Gülen to the souls of the other world - Gülen made it clear that according to the laws of the Norman Highlands, he had atonement for his previous sins, he was innocent, and he had the right to his life, but a thief, a thief abandoned by the guild, unnoticed and unchecked, could not imagine how much harm he could do in a village or town where mortals gathered.

What will it do?

The group had gone far away, and was surrounded by a muddy, quiet darkness, and Glenn's fingers caressed his hip, where there was a broken piece of obsidian, as thin as a sheet of ice—he stole and smashed an obsidian amulet, and picked out the sharpest piece from the shards, a small fragment that could not even be pierced by the palm of a hand, and in the hands of an ordinary man, it might not kill even a fish, but in Glenn's hands, it was no less lethal than a crossbow arrow or a short knife.

Now even he could only dimly see a shadow - a white robe, like a priest's spellcaster, he held his breath, sniffed and felt the smell and movement in the air with all his might, the thieves killed not a lot of spellcasters! no, wait, maybe he would have protective magic, Gülen had seen a mage in the guild cast this mage and transfer the damage he took to the fool who stabbed him with a sword and shot a crossbow arrow - would this mage do that? Did he prepare and learn this spell?

Gülen knew she had to make a decision.

Then he heard a scream.

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