„Man, I have no idea how to thank you for this“, I said, blushing.
„Just do a good job for us, boy“, he told me, patting my shoulder and sending me off, winking before he closed the door.
Shortly afterwards, I walked up to Roxel again, who glanced at me with contempt from afar already as I approached him. „What is it this time?“
„Uh, Boris sent me“, I answered and handed him the piece of paper. „He said you knew what to do.“
He took the paper, looked at it and and started dictating to the devilite: „Add the following to the objective of collection squad four: five corusts worth of scrap metal and two dozen bolts.“ The devilite start quickly scribbling onto the paper before Roxel gave me my piece back. „Give this to your team captain and tell him you'll be collecting this, too.“ He then turned back to the devilite. „Now, since we're already on the subject of changing objectives...“
I didn't hear any more since I already walked off to meet the rest of the team, squeezing myself through the dense crowd of gremlin soldiers, only noticing me as I passed by them. My troop was waiting for me on the same spot as yesterday, with only me missing.
„Ah, Ray, there you are!“, Tayla greeted me from afar, waving her hand and winking me towards her. „Where were you? We're about to go!“
„I met Boris again. Speaking of him...“, I said, drawing out the piece of paper and handing it to Heckler. „We'll be collecting a little more today.“
He took the piece, flying over it with his eyes before he put it away. „That's nothing. We can pick this up on a passage.“ He then walked off with no more words, with the rest of the team following. It still irked me that he kept himself so short, but it was no use to point that out since everybody already knew.

That day, we entered yet another zone yet to be discovered by the Order. It was a forest composed out of mushrooms or varying size, some as big as trees, others small enough to be carried on my little finger. The light here was rather dim, that being the reason why Piotr walked ahead and lit the way with his wand, everything around us being barely visible aside from the outlines.
„This makes Candlestick Keep look like Haven in broad daylight!“, I whispered, looking around as we marched on. Even my eyes didn't reveal too much with the light they emit, leaving me at the mercy of Piotr.
„There's no need to be quiet“, Katherine told me. „The area is basically dead. If you're trying to find anything living other than mushrooms, then you're out of luck.“
„Really?“, I wondered. „I don't know... it just feels odd to yell in a place like this.“
„Yelling is not a good idea either, though.“
„Why is that?“
Before she could answer, a loud bang was to be heard from the left, freezing everyone in place. As she gained her composure again, she said: „Partially because of that.“
„Piotr, you don't happen to know that any other gremlin troops are traversing this dome today?“, Heckler wanted to.
„No, sir“, he answered and shook his head, before looking onto the ground. „And it doesn't look like one decided to come here on its own either.“
„Whatever it is, it's better to take a closer look at it.“ He shouldered his cannon. „Get ready for combat.“
With a faster pace, we took a turn to the left while still cautiously avoiding mushrooms in our path as we moved on. As we got closer to what we believed to be the source of the bang, we heard a gremlin child weeping, getting louder as we progressed.
„A child? In this place?“, Heckler wondered. „He must have gotten himself really lost if he ended up here.“
As we approached the source, a slim line of light broke through the darkness that we were in, not strong enough to enlighten the entire place, but rather allowing us to get to the source quicker.
Just as we passed the last few mushrooms, the light blinded us with full force. Moving over the source with my hand revealed an older looking knight with an enormous mustache, ready to throw a bomb that he held in our direction. Glancing to the side, I also noticed a gremlin kid, crying and holding up his hands. Heckler probably noticed this too, as he rushed forward and held the gun directly to the knight's head. „One wrong step and it will be your last.“
„No!“
Heckler looked down to the child. „What was that, young lad?“
„Rigor didn't do anything wrong! Please, leave him alone!“
„You know him?“, Heckler wondered.
„Rigor?“, I thought, surprised.
The child only nodded, still crying. „We were only gathering some mushrooms, when one of them suddenly exploded in my hands...“
Heckler then took a closer look at the kid's hands, noticing that parts of his fur were slightly burned. Piotr, hearing that, moved forward to the child and lit up his hands. „Mmmh, nothing that I can't fix“, he said, before turning to the knight. „Do you mind if I help him?“
The knight shook his head and slowly put the bomb away. „Please do so.“
While Piotr was busy healing his hands, I moved closer to the knight calling himself Rigor since I wasn't sure if it was really him. He looked at me as well, not really sure what to think of what I was doing right now. Seeing the mustache, however, convinced me that it had to be him. „So that's what happened to the master demolitionist“, I said to him, to which he reacted surprised.
„You know me?“, he wondered.
„Well, kind of“, I responded, taking off my scarf. „Then again, a lot of knights do.“
Rigor, still a little surprise, smiled, which was still easy to notice despite his mustache. „Well, isn't that a surprise...“
Heckler then asked me: „May I ask you what you know about this guy?“
„Rigor here used to be one of the top bomb constructors for the knights“, I explained. „'Used to be' because he vanished after an attack on a gremlin outpost somewhere under Moorcroft Manor and nobody figured out what happened to him.“
„It's a small world, isn't it?“, Rigor exclaimed and started laughing. „But honestly, I'm glad I deserted. And it looks like others start to join in, too.“
„You mean that there are other knight escapees around, too?“, I asked.
„With you, that makes... two in total“, he responded. „Maybe there are hundreds and they just hide themselves very well.“
Suddenly, Hecker seemed to snap out of it and asked: „So, an attack on a gremlin outpost... does that mean what I think it does? That you-“
„I don't like to talk about it very much“, Rigor stopped him, hanging his head in shame. „It was supposed to be an attack like any other -  intimidate them, get them to run off and gain more control over the area. However, it turned out that what we've been attacking was largely composed out of civilians or at least gremlin soldiers that were not in combat attire. That was already bad enough as it was, but hearing the rest of my team glorify the things they were doing made me question my actions at first, before blowing up most of it with my bombs.“
It was then when Piotr finished mending the kid's hands. „So, that should do it“, he told him. „Though I'd ask you to not pick explosive mushrooms with your bare hands anymore. You never know what might happen.“
„Okay, mister!“
„And where comes the kid into play?“, Heckler asked.
„After getting rid of what I formerly knew as my team, I went back into the colony to check if I could find any gremlin survivors. There were a few, but they were too scared of me to even get close to me. Except Ranosh. He climbed out of the clutter of a destroyed house, ran towards me and bit me into my arm. Earlier, I would have slapped anyone for doing that, but... I just let him. The rest just watched, some of them probably thinking that I was only waiting to kill him, others admiring his courage. He definitely had some sharp teeth, and he kept them in my arm for a while, but after a short look into my face, he let go and even apologized. Glancing to the ruins that he crawled out of, I noticed an arm sticking out of them, and noticing that, Ranosh simply told me: „It's no use, they're gone“. After I asked him if he has any other relatives, he shook his head.  I reached out my hand to him and asked if he wanted to go with me. As he asked me where we'd end up, I responded with „Away from here“, and we walked away.“