Rall hurriedly followed the bowman outside, and there he saw it. A massive wall of Fog, rolling over the Northern Sea, as wide on either side of the scenery as far as the eyes could see. It would hit land in half an hour and swallow the village soon after.

The A'Kaleera tribe was in an uproar, but not the kind Rall expected. Snow Elves knelt on the dry ground, their hands to the sky as they voiced sorrowful guttural songs towards the deadly mist. The children happily dashed around the village while their parents chased them with ceremonial dresses of some sort. Chieftain Watuu guided a group of several women as they threw the crimson petals of the freshest demonic roses around the village. All in all, it was like they were preparing for an impromptu festival.

Rall looked around. None of the elves had Fairylights following them, and yet they were so festive.

"What are they doing? Do they not know what's coming?" Screamed Tui in Rall's mind.

The young mage turned to a group of children in elegant cloaks of white and red. Most were still smiling and joking around. A few were clearly holding back tears. Their parents brought them to Watuu, who had just finished touring the perimeter of the village. A beautiful elf offered her a basket, and the elder accepted it with a solemn expression.

All eyes turned to the chieftain as silence conquered the scenery. A wild gust swept through the land, pulling away with most of the blood-colored petals. The light fabrics of the A'Kaleera people fluttered violently, yet no one moved. The joyful expressions became stern.

Many gazes landed on the fifty or so children lined up in front of the chieftain. They could not have been older than ten. Rall's cold eyes looked behind them at the many proud parents. Only one kid did not have anyone standing with them - she was the little girl he had met in Watuu's dwelling.

Watuu closed her eyes, then moved her hand in the basket. Soon after, she raised that same arm and showed her tribe a red petal with a peculiar ideogram written on it. A kid stepped forward, with trembling knees and teary eyes as he tried - and failed - to keep his back straight and his chin high. Behind him, a once-smiling mother wailed to the sky as she broke down on the cold ground.

Then Watuu repeated the process, and Rall could feel the tension between the scared children and the reluctant adults. The chief's wrinkled hand rose again, and this time the ideogram on the petal was different. There was a collective sigh of relief between the parents as the child who stepped forward was the little orphan girl. For a second, she stood still, frozen in time by the weight of her responsibility. Then, she clutched her soft hands, and a determined look appeared on her face. As for Watuu, she kept her calm bearing. However, Rall noticed that she was actively avoiding the girl with her gaze.

While he witnessed the strange ceremony, the mage heard the lookout shout from the edge of the village. He did not have to know the language to understand that the Fog had gotten a lot closer and would soon reach them. He looked around, and suddenly he recalled something from his past. There was a time when Lady Sharyah, a slaver famous for her young and well-trained snow elves, had told him about the customs of the snow elves. And as he remembered, a shiver ran down his spine.

"These people worship the Fog, and each time it comes, they sacrifice children chosen by lottery," Rall communicated to the mermaid.

"This is madness!" Tui shouted in realization.

"They think it will purify their souls. For that reason, they kill all light mages when they are born. They see us as an enemy..." continued Rall, as the conversation with Sharyah slowly replayed in his mind.

"You need to stop them! They are sending those children to their deaths!" She argued.

"I-" he started a hesitant pause. "Tui, do you think their behavior is evil?"

"YES! There's no doubt about it. Killing innocents is evil, even more so if they are just kids."

"Why?" He asked. It was not that he disagreed, but seven years of struggles had ingrained in him the need to discuss and plan before acting.

He felt her thoughts return to the image of her little sister. "Because it just is! What is the point of a sacrifice if you are not aware of what you are doing? You, more than most, should know how easy it is to manipulate a child. It is simply murder!" She answered. Her words took him back to Admiral Conrad, which made Rall's hands twitch and crackle with shallow sparks of white magic.

Still, he had to calm down, so he took a deep breath and forced his mind to think of Sharyah's words. "They believe they are doing good. Do you think it's right for us to impose our definition of right and wrong?"

She sighed, acknowledging his words. "I understand your concern, but we are not gods. In the end, we can only do what we think is right and leave judgment to the historians," she answered in a calm yet decisive tone.

Meanwhile, Watuu returned the petal basket to one of her attendants and beckoned the two children to move closer. As they hesitantly did, a sullen hum came from the rest of the villagers. Then the hum rose into a collective chant that made even the ground below rumble in resonance. The elder chief took the hands of the trembling children in hers, and all three walked towards the incoming mist. The chant rose again, becoming a song that inspired hope and courage in the hearts of those lost. Its tones vibrated in Rall's chest, filling him with a sense of purpose and ancient wisdom. There was something primal about that song. Was there magic in those words?

Alas, he only felt pity. He did not know when or how, but these people had been deceived. Someone had convinced them that they should let go of their youth and be content with it. He remembered Bellar Wallyben, the fat blacksmith from Korn that wanted to sacrifice a newborn to save his skin. They were different. The snow elves honestly believed that their actions were righteous.

The Fog came into view. Only a couple of minutes, and it would reach them. The song of the elves became stronger, giving energy to the two children, who had left Watuu at the edge of the village and were now moving forward willingly. They walked hand in hand, the voices of their people pushing them towards the unknown.

Suddenly, a pale light appeared in the middle of the village. Where once stood only the guest from the sea, now floated the ethereal figure of a beautiful woman. She was colorless, her ghostly form radiating an icy elegance and a cold gleam that was calming and frightening at the same time.

The guest's hand extended forward while the spectral arms of the woman moved to her heart. The air trembled as white sparks surrounded the two figures.

The song stopped, and so did the two children whose heads instinctively turned back to the source of the mysterious light.

"Yahm soulum!" Someone from the crowd screamed. There was panic, but they were too late.

"Lighthouse!" Rall declared.

A brilliant dome of white light extended from the mage, as powerful as he had ever cast it. The pale barrier of magical energy reached the children in a blink, right when the ghostly maws inside the Fog had almost gotten a hold on the little girl. The grey mist clashed against the dome only for a moment, then quickly dispersed around it to avoid its light and continue its path south.

"Yahm soulum. Tainted by light..." muttered chief Watuu, followed by some foreign words of command. Instantly, thirty bowmen from all around the village trained their arrows and pointed them to Rall's skull. They had him surrounded, and they would shoot as soon as word came. And yet, they did not scare him.

"Tui, you keep up the Lighthouse. I will take care of this," Rall said, stretching his shoulders and cracking his neck.

Watuu came closer, her arm raised, ready to signal the archers to let the arrows fly. "Guest from the sea, your disrespect is unforgivable." Now that she was angry, her Alcian had strangely become smoother.

"I meant no disrespect when I saved your children. You are welcome," said Rall.

His snarky response was received with anger and disgust by the elder. "You do not save them, you condemn them to life in Kaleera. The Fog comes to save. You are Tainted by light, Yahm soulum," she hissed in a poisonous tone.

"Kill me now, and the Fog will swallow the village whole," he shouted. His expression still held no fear.

"I, Watuu of A'Kaleera, shall gladly be the last chieftain of the tribe if it means that evil like you does not trample our land anymore." When her declaration was complete, she let go of her arm.

Instantly, thirty or so arrows whistled through the air, aimed accurately at Rall skull.

Time seemed to slow down for Rall, and the pages of Theodore's notes appeared in front of his mind's eye. There was one spell that his father had especially recommended that Rall learn, as it was in equal parts sentimentally and practically invaluable. He wrote that it was the first and only piece of magic he had ever created, which was already an incredible feat in itself. The incantation went something like this: Gatekeeper of the heavens be my guardian, lend your shield to me and my people, so that we may still complete our righteous quest.

It was a complex spell with a simple application, an effect deemed prerogative of Arcane and Martial masters that light mages had always struggled with replicating. Alas, Rall had already mastered that spell, so he had no reason to chant the entire incantation.

"Code Aegis!"

The air shook, and the Fog, which had surrounded the pale dome of light, parted on the top to let a bolt of white lightning hit Rall square. There was power in that flash of energy, yet he was unhurt. Still, the arrows flew powerful and precise, uncaring of the strange phenomenon. They never reached their target.

A translucid sphere of force surrounded the mage, and on were hundreds of circles formed of ancient symbols. His father had created the spell using his knowledge of the Ancient Code as a catalyst, knowing that its letters had the power to influence reality itself. Such was the power of the speech of Theorzean mages and elder dragons.

As their arrows cracked against the dazzling letters and geometrical formations of the Code, the elven archers looked at each other in disbelief. So far in the North, nobody had ever stopped their arrows. Well, almost nobody.

There was no time to lose, and soon they all had another arrow on the ready.

"This is my last warning," growled Rall to the elves around him. "Lay down your weapons, or I will make you." Even in Alcian, his message was not lost on the rest of the village. The language barrier was not solid enough to stop such an obvious threat.

The bowmen looked at Watuu, their eyes begging for orders. They were simple hunters, effective enough to hit small and agile targets like rodents, but that was it. Their elven physiques were perfect for survival in the Tundra, but they had no knowledge of Martial techniques or Arcane powers. Most of them had never even fought another person, not to mention a caster.

The elder chief remained silent, never breaking eye contact with Rall for even an instant. Then she sighed, and her shoulders relaxed. The archers understood her body language and lowered their bows. Still, their arrows remained nocked on their bowstrings. Rall lowered his stance too, and yet the ancient symbols of his spell did not disappear, slowly circling him as if they had a life of their own.

Behind the chieftain, two incredulous children returned to the tribe. One of them, the boy, started running as soon as he saw his crying mother. They hugged tightly, uncaring of the tension in the center of the village. At that moment, there was no one in the world but them. Instead, the little girl moved to the side, curiously looking at Tui's dazzling figure.

Watuu turned to the boy who had once been chosen as a sacrifice and beckoned him close once more. At first, his mother held him back, unwilling to let her child go a second time, so the chief spoke once more, her tone graver than the one she had used before. With tears in her eyes and her partner on her side, she let the boy go.

With hesitant steps, the kid reached the elder while his eyes looked down at the pale soil. It was almost like he expected a punishment since he had failed to answer the call of the sacred mist and purify his soul. Instead, the chief's wrinkly hand moved to the top of his head, lovingly raffling through his hair as a grandmother might do with their grandson.

The boy let his emotions go as the kind caresses of the elder, and the tears he had held back flooded down his face. The tenderness of the moment spread through the village, and all the elves smiled at the sight.

Even Rall was about to smile when he felt Tui's mind become more alert.

"Something is wrong," Tui said in Rall's mind. "I feel a strange fluctuation of energy. It's not enough to disrupt the Lighthouse, but I don't like it."

Rall looked around frantically. His instincts screamed that something was about to happen. Since Tui had fused with his Fairylight, she had become extremely sensitive to magical energy and its sources. What did he miss?

Suddenly, the boy shrieked under Watuu's palm. It was a wail of pain so primal that it tugged at cords deep inside the subconscious of every creature. Everybody but the chief, Rall and the boy's mother, unconsciously took a step back. The mother screamed as the boy's body violently shook. His small arms and legs contorted in unnatural ways while the cracking sound of bones mixed with his screams of terror and pain. The boy's pale skin broke all over, spilling fountains of black blood, and from it slithered dark muscle fibers that quickly entangled around his body. Soon, there was nothing left of that sweet, trembling child.

When the screams stopped, a hulking creature of exposed muscle matter and inhuman ferocity stood beside Watuu. Its face was a wicked approximation of a humanoid's, with two beady black eyes, no nose, and a mouth of hundreds of sharp fangs contorted in a sadistic smile. The monster felt incomplete, blood spilled from its skinless heaving body, and it did stand straight as if its left side was weaker than the right. Still, the two meters of hunched-over height and the murderous aura emanating its abominable body left no doubt of its danger.

"She practices the dark arts... poor boy," muttered Tui as the surprise waned.

Rall looked at the monstrous creature, meeting its bloodthirsty eyes with icy coldness. Then his gaze turned to Watuu. She seemed older, and her legs now trembled under the measly weight of her skinny upper body. Her eyes had lost color, and now the black was grey, and the red was pale. The recoil from the dark arts had taken a costly toll on her and her work was incomplete, which meant she was not a master.

"Why?" Rall asked, unable to conceal the anger in his voice.

Watuu returned his look, and there the fires of fanatism burned within them. "He was chosen, but fate condemned him to remain impure. He shall defeat evil for redemption," her hoarse voice declared.

Then she turned to the heaving monster beside her, and her expression was full of contempt. She said one word, and even Rall understood its meaning but could not react in time. Swiftly, the creature put all its weight on the stone under its feet, which immediately collapsed as he flew twenty meters in an instant. Two heavy fists landed on Rall's barrier with terrifying force. The mage was unhurt, but half the symbols on the Code Aegis vanished, leaving many gaps in his defenses. Another good hit and his quest would be over before it even started.