“Hey, what ever happened to those yeti corpses? They were not around the cave when we went back up there.”

Cire asked over a pint of smooth brown ale as he and the others sat around their usual back corner table. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine it was a Newcastle, things felt right.

Stace grinned.

“Took you long enough 'Loving Slayer.' Your conquests are quick from your mind once you have come and gone it seems.”

“That would have been us.”

Andreas interrupted brusquely before things went wrong for the evening, then he jerked his thumb over to his brother to signal the two of them. “We wanted to level up our Skinning, and the yeti hide was just what we needed.”

Nicolas followed with the next piece of information. “We dropped them at the tanners over a week ago, they are probably ready now that you mention it.”

Both brothers shared a conspiratorial look, which made Cire suspicious in a good-natured way.

“What are you two up to?”

Nicolas waved a hand at him dismissively, and the other tipped his mug back and drank deeply.

With a sigh, Cire moved on.

“So, any plans for next week? Anyone want to explore the valley a bit?”

“I would like to examine the area around my farm. After what we found so close to Eugene's, I think that there may be a dangerous monster or clue to the valley's history somewhere close by. It is in all of our best interest to check it out and know for certain.”

Selene explained to the group, taking the momentum out from under Cire.

“Shall we plan to go out tomorrow, meet at my farm around mid-day? Be ready for anything we find.”

She raised her tankard in half cheer and half salute to the rest of the group. As per usual, once one of the party had made a solid plan, and possessed a desire to see it through, everyone else assented. It helped that Selene bought the entire group another round.

Surprisingly, Selene told Eugene to stop teasing Cire with the 'Loving Slayer' nickname for the rest of the evening. She insisted that it was because she had become tired and annoyed by the bad jokes. However, Cire was pretty sure that it was a small, but appreciated, olive branch.

He had actually hoped to go back to the area of his spawn point. Mainly he wanted to stash some equipment and, more importantly, clothes! If Selene wanted to look at the area around her farm and she had not been able to yet, though, it made sense to Cire. Those yeti had been no joke.

Cire’s mind wandered, enjoying the warm blanket of alcohol coating his brain, when his illusions regarding this world shattered. Loud barking carried over the laughing and loud conversation. Yowls and yips were soon replaced by screams. The gathered patrons grew silent as the stone.

“Gnolls! Run!!”

For several long heartbeats, no one in the tavern moved or breathed. Then panic set in as chairs fell backwards and tables toppled over. Scared voices mumbled, whispered, and screeched as people's fear reinforced itself.

The Hamlet of Sunset is under attack!!

Stout jumped up onto the top of his bar and shouted.

“NO ONE PANIC. ARM YOURSELVES AND FIGHT!!! Half out the front! Half out the back! Anyone who can't fight, get upstairs to me and Maisy's room. Now move, we have people to protect. DEFEND SUNSET!!”

Stout has mobilized the citizens of Sunset. As a leader of the hamlet he can issue edicts that affect those within it’s boundaries.

Buff granted – Rallied: immunity to fear and confusion for the duration of combat, +1 to all attacks.

Quest Title: Defend Sunset from the Attackers.

Condition(s): Engage the raiders in combat and fight for the hamlet. Live.

Rewards: Survival of you and/or other citizens of Sunset.

Penalty for failure of Quest: Trait Acquisition – Coward: -2 to Charisma, -100% to reputation gain, +2 to Chaotic Alignment, +1 to Dexterity.

Breathing eased and hands steadied as the edict’s effect swept through the room. A few seemed to be unaffected, still panicking, they were escorted to the lone stairwell by friends.

Cire and the rest of his group shared meaningful glances. Each tightened buckles and readied themselves.

Stace spoke in an even tone.

“We stick together and fight them like the yeti. Durg, you stay behind Cire, Andreas, and Nicolas this time. You have no armor. But you can follow up on their attacks. Selene and I will back you up.”

Pausing he looked to his love.

“Eugene, I know better than to give you direction, you going upstairs or coming with us?”

Determination, tinged with justified fear, shone on Eugene's face as he drew his commonly donned, but seldom used, short sword.

“No one will get up the stairs. I will stay here and defend them. You go help the others.”

Durg was not pleased being put behind the front line. But he wouldn’t argue with the big ranger when there were deadly consequences. He didn’t have time to put his armor on. Hence, only a few 'humph' and 'hurrumphs' emanated from the burly companion.

All at their table gripped their weapons with an onset of emotion and nodded with purpose to Eugene. They poured out of the back door to the house of merriment.

Cire took the lead. He jumped out of the doorway to the ground, skipping the three small steps that lead up to it. While his action had been unexpected by the attackers, it simply meant that an arrow which would have taken him in center mass struck his left shoulder. Burying itself into the crook where his shoulder pad met his breastplate, Cire staggered. He fell to his knees, hard.

Moving past him roughly in haste, the two brothers rushed to engage the long-ranged foes. The two archers of their party moved to either side of the doorway to provide cover fire. Cire gathered himself and stumbled in an off-balance run back to Stace's side.

He propped himself against the wall of the pub. That had not been the most auspicious start to a battle. He hoped it was not to be a harbinger of things to come. At least he had taken the first attack, likely a critical hit, and cleared a path for his companions. In the next brief moment of the fray, Cire focused on tearing the arrow out of his body. Hence, he missed most of the initial engagement.

When Cire looked up, he would have frozen if it had been two weeks ago. Before fighting with his friends against larger foes. Gnolls, who were head and shoulders taller than even Stace, were swinging vicious looking pole-arms, two-handed axes, and great swords with terrible ease against the defenders.

If it had not been for the constant barrage of arrows keeping the dogs at bay, the trio would have been overwhelmed. Cire silently prayed that his Regeneration was working overtime. He slammed his spare ability point into the ability to bring it up a level. Then he charged back into the fray.

Cire engaged one of the opponents that now faced him. Glowing steel flashed as he cut into the haunch of a canine attacker that was on the verge of flanking Durg. Cire did not stop, he slashed again as the creature turned on him. Slicing deep into the thing's arm. Thick, hot blood ran from animal's wounds through matted tan brown fur. This only seemed to fuel its battle lust.

With a large arcing swing, a halberd blade raced towards Cire's head. He stepped back and to the side to avoid the potentially fatal strike. Cire's next sword stroke moved from left to right across the beast's side. It was partially blocked by the handle of the gnoll's lengthy weapon.

Running his blade downwards, he severed his enemy's fingers. Then he spun and used the remaining momentum from his attack to stab his sword into now unguarded ribs. Cire received the butt end of the halberd in his gut in reaction. He lurched backwards a step, but was rewarded with the death gurgle of his opponent.

Two of the gnolls down. The one Cire had attacked from behind and one that had taken an arrow in each eye. Andreas had taken a spear to his gut and fallen back to the ranger for healing. Nicolas and Durg were both still fighting.

Durg had a long cut across his chest, but each of the gnolls he was holding off had wounds of equal size. Nicolas was not doing as well. He favored his left shoulder and was using his axe to keep the enemies with longer weapons from pinning him down. Selene was assisting the woodsmen and keeping his opponents off balance, but it was a losing fight.

Keeping himself low, Cire prowled around the periphery of the melee. He engaged a gnoll to Nicolas's flank. Wielding a clumsy, but deadly, scythe his new opponent turned on him and swung. Barely able to parry the heavy blow, Cire had to step back to absorb the impact.

In a battle of endurance, he was going to lose. He needed to use his mobility to his advantage. Cire growled and turned to slash at Nicolas's opponent. He left a long rent across the animal's body. Then he turned as quick as he could to block an expected incoming attack.

With no fear of counterattack, the gnoll took its opportunity to swing without regard to its own safety. It poured its strength into a reaping blow aimed at Cire's chest. Blocking with his sword did not afford him much protection, as his hands and arms overexerted from the single devastating attack.

He was sent backwards as his own blade connected with his chest piece. The energy had nowhere else to disperse besides directly into Cire’s body. Landing hard and unprepared, his head snapped back and collided with the ground violently. Cire’s helmet cushioned some of the blow, but not all of it. The jarring impact knocked him senseless.

Coming to in blinding pain, but finding out that he was still alive, Cire kept his eyes closed for a moment, savoring the respite. Then opened them too fast as he recalled he was in the midst of a battle. White dots filled his vision.

Once he could make out his surroundings he could see that most of the gnolls they had been fighting lay dead on the ground around the party. Running from the group, a single fighter fled through the trees. Cire must have not been out long. Radiating pain throbbed from the base of his skull. Andreas was next to him, groaning and clutching his stomach, but not bleeding too badly as far as Cire could tell.

Stacy gave him a quick welcome as he came to, but he moved onto directions hastily once he thought Cire could understand them.

“You are back with us, good. We need to get back into the tavern, something is happening over there and our fight brought us too deep into the woods. We cannot leave Andreas and he cannot be moved. Nicolas, stay with your brother, but try to stay hidden. Durg, can you still fight?”

Cire got his first good look at his burly friend since the beginning of the clash. His jaw dropped. Durg stood covered in cuts and gashes, his clothing hung in tatters, and one of his eyes was swollen shut.

“Your damn right I can still fight. Each n' every one of the mangy bitches is gunna pay.”

That was all the response needed to get them moving back towards Stouts. When they passed around the last large tree, gaining vision of the building once again, their hearts collectively sank.

The gnolls had waited for them to engage the smaller group in the woods as a distraction. The main body of the host had circled in behind them to stream into the tavern. A pitched battle held little interest for the pack. They had come for playthings and blood. Twenty strong had surged through the back doorway to breech the place of refuge.

Cire's group saw the last of them pull up to guard their rear around the entrance. With few seasoned fighters on the inside, they had to move fast. Arrows were loosed on their foes before the close-up fighters were even halfway from the trees to meet their challenge. By the time Durg and Cire reached the gnolls, two of them lay on the ground with arrows sprouting from vital locations. That left one a piece.

Durg and Cire each fought possessed with the grim need to protect the defenseless inside. The gnollish guards were no match for them. Durg's hatchet fell after he severed the thing's sword arm and then used the opening to swing his other hatchet deep into it’s gut.

Cire's opponent fared even worse, taking a sword stroke against its arms. It’s defensively held spear away was knocked away. His follow-through cleaved the beast's head clean off from its shoulders. Cire’s blade’s blessing shined bright as it parted gnoll flesh.

Stace and Selene joined them with an axe and daggers unsheathed respectively. There would be no use of bows in the close quarters fighting to come. Durg was the first through the doorway, armor or no, he would not let the others face what they would find inside without space to move. He needed precious little compared to his compatriots.

Whirling hatchets cut a path into the building and drove the gnolls back. Fully grasping the beast’s attention. The brave dwarf suffered a multitude of counter attacks.

Cire was right behind his friend and sliced a spear aimed at Durg’s head to the side. Stace appeared at Durg's other flank and pushed the gnolls back. Together they established a beachhead. Selene came up behind them and started to work in attacks of opportunity.

Filled with passion, loss, rage, and most of all unbridled fury, a scream wailed from Cire's side. He had no time to look. Focusing on his foe, he lunged and attempted a feint on a giant snarling slobbering dog monster. Blocking with it’s sword the gnoll parried the strike to the side. Then it countered with a gouging stab into Cire's thigh.

With his movement hampered, Cire had only one option. He lowered his own sword and stepped into the animal, stabbing it’s unprotected chest. As he pushed deeper, the blade lodged in his leg sliced through his outer muscle and tore free.

He dared not stop. Cire awkwardly jumped, using his good leg to push off with. He threw himself into his enemy with all the force he could summon. Growling through a mouthful of blood, the gnoll dropped its sword and grabbed Cire by both arms trying to push him off. Cire held on for all he was worth. His free hand found purchase in tangles of dirty brown fur and his other squeezed tightly to the pommel of his weapon. One more inch. The blade pushed through the back of the gnoll, running it through.

Falling to the side, Cire righted himself as quick as he could with bruised biceps and a bloody mess of a leg. Once he was 'standing', he pulled his sword free with a boot placed on his vanquished enemies corpse. Looking around through the chaos, he saw two things that broke him utterly.

Eugene's body lay crumpled and still at the top of the stairs. Stacy was fighting, alone, in the middle of the gnolls attempting to reach his lover. Stace’s swings were erratic and he had taken many blows progressing to the bottom of the staircase. Cire had to do something, but what could he do? He only had a sword, no bag of tricks or techniques to use as a solution.

Impotent and trapped behind seemingly insurmountable foes, Cire watched his second friend in this world fall. Stacy first took a massive hit to his back that rent armor and made him stumble. Then a sword stabbed into his side. The ranger fell to the bottom steps rolling onto his back.

His axe sliced a gnolls leg clean from its body in a useless attempt to fend them all off. Right after this final attack, as he lay on the floor, a spear sank into his exposed gut. He didn’t even have a chance to call out last words as his body went limp. Cire was bereft, shocked, and dumbstruck as the maelstrom swirled around him.

Cire's conscious thoughts retreated deep into his mind, forming a small glowing orb of semi-cohesive ideas. For the first time in this life he experienced traumatic emotional pain and loss in a raw instant. In some ways it was akin to the years long processes of his parents' deaths, but in many others it was nothing alike. Cire had no coping mechanisms for this kind of immediate trauma. He lost himself entirely.

Cire gave in to the darker side of his soul completely and freely. He begged the vampiric monster inside to wreak a terrible vengeance on those who had taken people dear to him.

He fed all of his seething hate into this new dark core. It erupted in black flames next to his conscious mind. Unleashing his rage, he poured every bit that he could conjure upon those who had dared hurt him.

Ears elongated, muscles bulged, Cire's sclera tinged red, fangs grew past his lower lip, and his fingernails grew into two-inch-long hardened talons. From the roots where they sprouted, thick blood quickly coated the nails and dripped to the floor. Primal growls tore from his throat.

Howling, the feral vampire tore parts of his armor away and flung them to the ground at his feet. Ramming both of his hands into his breastplate, he split it like a pistachio cracking in half.

In a truce the span of a heartbeat, the arrayed forces on each side shifted their focus to take account of the this new arrival. Cire dashed forward with far less grace than usual, but much more power, and struck at the closest gnoll in savage passion.

His talons ripped through fur, tore muscle, and brutalized anything that reeked of canine. Somewhere in the middle of the pack, a larger gnoll howled a challenge at the vampire. The new monster obliged and ran towards the other animal.

Flying through the air, a halberd strike almost took Cire's head in a massive downward chop. It would have caught him as an elf and cut him in twain. But not as a vampire. Before the blade had even sunk into the ground, his fangs sank into his prey's throat and his talons pierced deep. Fingers curled into the muscle of the gnoll's back as he hugged the beast in a bloody embrace.

He drank and drew in every ounce of life this thing could give. Squeezing and wrenching the gnoll's body upwards, he twisted it like a piece of fruit that could yield more juice if properly pulped. Pulling back with a squelching sound, a large chunk of flesh stuck to his teeth.

Cire tossed the lifeless body down and glared with hate for his rival. Then he spit the meat still clinging to his mouth onto its previous owner's face. Planting a foot on the corpse, he roared in triumph. He could not see the look of terror on all the other faces, gnoll and villager alike, but he would not have cared.

Opening behind him, with a screech that only shoddy construction can cause, the door at the top of the stairs revealed Maisy. The vampire, drunk on rage and blood, turned to face down this new prey. A look of courage and sadness played on Maisy’s features.

She raised both arms in front of her and began to chant. She did not waiver, even as she noticed Eugene's body at her feet. She focused in on Cire as he ran up the stairs with unnatural speed. Maisy released her spell and it coalesced into a bright stunning holy light before her. Cire was blasted up into the ceiling. Then he tumbled down the stairs, limp and unconscious.