“I’m an enigma wrapped inside a riddle, all bundled in something quite wonderful.”

― Steve McHugh, Born of Hatred

Ashling’s almost chilling declaration at the end of her story ended the group’s conversations for the night. The delegation made their way over to their blankets, with Johan apparently getting the short straw for taking the first watch. That is until Grey saddled himself up next to Johann. A single ear of the Wolfkin twitched and faced the man now sitting next to him.

A small smirk formed on Grey’s face. In many ways, he was finding that he liked the beastkin more and more. If nothing else, it was always easy to determine what they were paying attention to at least. This caused him to snort briefly to himself and shake his head a bit in trying to collect himself. One of these days he might actually believe he was with actual people again and hadn’t knocked himself out and was suffering from a prolonged delusion based upon a concussion from doing something stupid.

While he was going back and forth to himself about his metal state, the noise from the snort caused the wolf to look over to him and stare. It only took about a minute before Grey realized that he was being watched. Once he did however, his eyes returned from the vacancy from the fog of memories and thoughts and he cleared his throat briefly before addressing Johan.

“So it looks like your first watch tonight?”

“Clearly” The wolfkin’s ears twitched in agitation. He ever so slowly turned to face back to the forest and keep his vigilance towards where the accursed forest could most easily hurt them from.

Grimacing to himself, Grey realized that not everyone was going to just go along with what he was used to or even to always be pleasant with him. While he already knew this intellectually, it was still a bit of a disappointment to have it actually happen to him.

“Alright, that was a bit obvious. So I’ll make it quick for you. Go to bed. We’re safe and nothing is going to be able to attack us tonight.”

Johan spun to face him, almost but refraining himself at the last minute from jumping up in annoyance and frustration.

Grey lifted a hand in a calming motion. “Don’t get your fur ruffled. Watch”

Flipping his hand over, Grey began to call up his mana. Tendrils of mana began to swarm up and then with a brief gesture, flew out from his hand and began to weave themselves into a large dome a dozen or so paces away from their current spot on the edge of camp. The tendrils flowed back and forth in an intricate dance as they formed the dome before flattening out and becoming a clear almost completely translucent barrier.

Johann went rigid at first and then didn’t quite entirely know how to feel or react to seeing the strange magic. After watching the barrier form around the camp, Johan finally looked away from the forest edge and back towards the odd stranger sitting next to him.

“Anything that could break that will have to make enough noise that either myself or someone else in the group should wake up to react. From what I’ve seen so far though, I would actually be fairly surprised if something from around here could break it.” Grey stated as he closed his hand bringing the rest of his arm down with the motion.

Part of Johan wanted to reject the words immediately. He didn’t like the new human. He was weird, even for a human, didn’t smell right and either had his instincts telling him he was completely harmless or a monster he could only tuck his tail and hope the monster didn’t notice him. It had to be one of if not the most aggravating feeling he’d ever suffered.

Grey began to become annoyed with the dead flat stare that Johan was giving him.

“What? Feel free to try and do something to the barrier, just don’t come crying to me when you hurt yourself.”

Stare….

Stare….

“Alright already, don’t thank for making it so you have to stay up all night staring into the creepy dark forest. Heaven forbid that someone help you. That’s it! I’m done for the night. Do what you want, but we’re perfectly safe here.” Grey frankly lost his temper. Talking still felt somehow wrong, or at least different enough that he didn’t like doing it too much.

Grey launched himself up from his spot on the ground and while slightly childish was about to huff and puff his way back towards where Eli was sleeping when a single word stopped him.

“Thanks” With his daily allotment for words spent, Johann turned back towards the forest. This time however, Johan leaned back against the tree he had been sitting next to and closed his eyes.

Grey paused for a moment taking it in before shaking his head and making his way towards his tent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~************~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Morning broke over the camp. Dimly filtered light catching a faint bluish white hue passing thought the protective dome that encircled the clearing. It was not any of these things that brought back Grey to the world of the living. No, the mild and mostly unintelligible noises and conversations with a group waking up in the morning were interrupted by one of the most dangerous creatures in existence. The moment that Grey perceived the noise, he knew that the end was nigh.

Quickly snapping his eyes open, he scanned the tent, verified Eli was safely still sleeping and then quickly vacated the small tent.

Stepping out into the brisk morning air, he quickly oriented himself to the oncoming storm.

“Open. It. Now.” the creature of wrath demanded. Her gaze not leaving Grey’s face as he quickly flicked a hand to the side to dispel the barrier around the camp. The barrier dissipated as a morning fog being caught by the wind and the natural sounds and colors of the forest came back to the group.

Apparently, a giant glowing dome in the middle of a forest filled with goblins is bound to attract more than just a few passing blighters. As the barrier dispersed, a loud cry arose from the group of goblins. Spears with crude rock heads and rusty blades clattered and tinged as the little fiends exuberantly got ready to make their way into that which they had been denied.

Within the camp, the group almost as one tensed as the sounds of the goblins preparing for battle permeated the clearing. Hands began dropping to hilts and from the corner of his eye Grey could see Seths and Johann were on the faster side and were already in the process of drawing their blades. For himself, Grey knew his life would become infinitely worse should he look away at this moment so kept his eyes locked on the threat currently standing before him.

The threat clicked her tongue and huffed out a breath blowing a few strands of hair that had fallen in front of her face. Closing her eyes in an almost pained expression, she took a deep breadth seemingly counting to some number that just kept increasing. After a few still moments, Ashling was back under control and ready to talk to Grey again.

“Can you please get rid of the goblins quickly?”

Not wanting to look a gift horse in the mouth, Grey quickly nodded his head and looked over to the group of goblins that had massed together as the barrier had been slowly dissipating. He figured it was about twenty or thirty of them and thankfully almost all of the ones from the barrier had moved into one group instead of spreading out around the whole perimeter. Quickly a tendril of mana formed and began to make itself into a ball over his hand before quickly fading back again. Grey tossed his head back to the tent to see that Eli was still sleeping, so his first reaction of just blowing them the fuck up was out.

He sighed and then took a few steps so that he was in front of the rest of the gathering group. Multiple small mana tendril rose up and coalesced into a number of shining white throwing spikes. As each spike slightly flashed showing it was now in the physical realm Grey would grab and throw it in a single motion.

Spike after spike tore threw the air leaving only a light trail behind leading directly before passing through the skull of a goblin and sending up a puff dirt somewhere past the goblin. In the matter of a handful of seconds the mob of gobs, Grey chuckled to himself slightly for that fleeting thought, were systematically eliminated with a disturbing clinical precision. With the last spike held in his hand, he quickly sent out a quick mana pulse with what he dubbed his mana sonar to verify that all of the goblins were dead.

Seths and the rest of the beastkin guards watched on is a macabre awe. Where the previous day, the fight with the goblins had been startling in both the magic displayed and the shear power that the stranger had demonstrated, there had been something they could relate to about his actions. This, however, was fundamentally different. It was cold, calculated and done with such indifference that it made Seths wonder if he was aware he wasn’t brushing a few stray hairs from his odd clothes. Raising his foot to take a step, Seths was about to head over to the Voice and Grey when Grey blurred a bit and was now on the other side of the group another trail of light coming from his hand as the spike passed by the group and out to the far side of the campsite before disappearing into one of the larger purple ferns at the edge of the clearing.

A shrill screech erupted from inside of the fern and at that a bit of emotion filtered back into Grey’s face. Chagrined, he sighed and quickly made a half dozen of the spikes appear, flinging them in one large grouping. The shriek abruptly cut off and Grey quickly looked over to the tent. There was a bit of movement, but he was crossing his fingers that Eli was still sleeping.

With one last verification from his sonar, he turned back to face Ashling. While the rest of the guards were now hitting the high point of their adrenaline boost, albeit with nothing to let it out on, Ashling had managed to keep her wrathful visage under control enough to be now categorized as determined.

“Is it done?”

“Should be safe now.”

“Good” With that Ashline turned on a heel and at a quick but not hurried pace quickly made her way out of the clearing. As she moved out, two of the female guards broke from their semi-frozen state to follow the Voice off into the woods.

Turning to face Seths, Grey slowly made is way over. For his parts, Seths was ruthlessly pushing down his instincts and getting himself back under full control. The man and bear stood silently looking off to the woods where the group of females had disappeared to.

“So, permissions?”

“For the barrier you created?”

“Yeah, I think I should be able to do that.”

“Please do so” The bear stated before meandering off himself in a different direction. Grey’s shoulder slumped a bit now that everything was over. He really should have remembered that…

“Oi, Seths. Can we do something about the bodies, I would really rather Eli not see them first thing in the morning.” With a wave from the bear, a few of the soldiers started moving away. Barely sunup, and he had a feeling this day was going to be long and painful.