Have the guard come with Tally

“Would anyone miss you if you suddenly disappeared?” Tally asked. The guard seemed a little taken aback by this question, but soon figured out what he meant. “Are you asking if I can come with you? Sure!” She opened the gate a little so she could slip through, pulling it closed behind her. “I do have friends here, but I say fuck’em. I’d much rather go with you, wherever that is.”

Unlike Mi Iau, this guard seemed to lack the self-awareness to realize she had just been brainwashed. Instead, she was under the delusion that immediately abandoning her post and her job to help some random prisoner was entirely reasonable. “What’s your name, human?” she asked.

“Tally.”

“I’m Prennel.”

“Nice to meet you, Prennel,” Tally replied. “Well, if you’re going to come with me, I’m going this way.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” said Brim, as the three of them began marching through the wild brush beyond the ransacked town. “You’d be a lot to explain,” whispered Tally. “I’ll introduce you later.”

Tally and Prennel walked side-by-side for a while, with Pennel taking in the scenery. It had been a while since she’d taken some time off work for a walk like this, she should do this more often. “Where are we going?” Prennel asked out of mild curiosity.

“I’m on a quest,” said Tally, “I’m here to overthrow the queen and vanquish monsters like you back to your own dimension.”

Pennel laughed. “Wow, that’s a big do-do list. Well, I agree on the overthrowing-the-queen part. She thinks she’s the boss of us. It's really annoying.” Prennel thought for a moment, then a brilliant idea came to her. “Hey, you know who would be a great leader to replace her? You would! You just have this charisma about you… it's hard to explain, it just feels good to do what you say.”

“And the bit about being vanquished back to your own dimension?” Tally asked, who had been expecting more of a reaction to that part.

“If that’s what we’re doing, I’m in,” said Prennel. Tally shrugged and dropped the subject.

Tally was very lucky to have Prennel with him, because all of his supplies, his food, water, weapons, were still with Mi Iau inside the town. While Prennel was able to help gather a few edible berries and knew the location of a freshwater spring to drink from, Tally was torn over whether he should turn back to reclaim his belongings or try to keep going without them.