The battlefield fell silent in the wake of the demon's dramatic entrance, even Modred stopped singing. The creature towered over the other warriors on either side of the conflict and warriors on both sides hoped that the creature's enemies were the other warriors.

The orcs who had met Althos had a few seconds to suspect the godling's hand in all of this, but couldn't be sure who was responsible for the seemingly random event until the godling itself appeared behind the demon. The battlefield was still absorbing the implications of the demon's appearance when the demon's new master appeared so very few people knew what to make of the dramatic entrance of the beast.

When the few orcs with knowledge of Althos's identity noticed it, even though the godling didn't want to be noticed, they cheered loudly, yelling out their master's name in an unusual display of eagerness and boasting. They realized that this meant the demon was one of them, and their peers also implicitly understood this, turning back to their distracted enemies and moving with renewed vigor. In time they each noticed the godling, due to a quiet move by Samyaza to reach out to them mentally and turn their heads in Althos's direction.

They were shocked by the human-like creature with the demon but knew better than to alert the actual humans to Althos's presence. There'd be time for questions later if they survived this.

This was odd for the humans, who had no idea why the orcs cheered. The humans were too busy defending themselves or marveling at the demon to notice the much smaller and physically less imposing human-like creature who was with the demon.

At this point, the godling hopped up to the demon's ear, its own body mostly hidden behind the abomination's mass and quietly whispered, tempting the demon with a specific target.

"The person who is singing is the human who is trying to back out of the conflict. The one in the robes way over there. Get him."

Upon hearing this the demon rose its hands in rage and in triumphant understanding, causing the creature to look even bigger. And then it charged forward, trampling the battlefield underneath its feet and moving closer and closer to the spell-singer, its eyes trained on the magician from far away.

In response to the terrible situation, the spell-singer turned and fled. This was an understandable response, as a lot of calamitous things had just happened all at once, and it made sense for the spell-singer to feel overwhelmed. But the demon didn't care for the wizard's circumstances, it only knew that it hated the spell-singer for singing so much.

"Don't run, puny human! I see you..."

The creature's voice was like the roaring flames of a forge. Those who heard it, especially the humans, felt their resolve being tested by the grisly creature. This was because the creature was using a fierce ability to try and shake their resolve.

That said, they all resisted the mind-altering ability of the demon to infuse its voice with fear itself. Lesser creatures would have mindlessly fled before the visceral terror of its form combined with its grating voice. Even Modred managed to resist the ability, and his decision to flee wasn't a mindless one but a logical choice that he made before the creature purposefully tried to scare him.

The creature had a goal in mind but it still wanted to have fun, so when it charged through the battlefield and passed by the trident using human it reached out with one of its thick hands and idly grabbed the man, who had tried to dodge the claw that came for him but failed.

It delighted in its successful capture of the man, dragging him painfully behind it for several meters before tossing him through the air. He flew through the air for a few seconds before landing in a heap on the ground.

The soul-trident user was unconscious but alive. The combat archer who had been harassing the soul-trident user when the demon captured him noticed that the trident user lived. He corrected that by leaping towards the unconscious soldier, and firing a trio of arrows at the armored man once the orc was standing over the warrior.

One of the arrows was aimed at his heart, another at his neck, and the final one was aimed where his helm was the least thick; where his eyes were. The three arrows successfully slew the man. Shortly after ensuring that he had successfully ended the man's life the archer spit on the man's body and uttered a single word summarizing his thoughts on the trident user.

"Dickhead."

Then the combat archer looked up and ran off in the direction of the rest of the battlefield. He hadn't bothered to check if his friend was still alive, if he had he would have noticed that the injured orc was still breathing.

Behind the demon, the godling wandered the battlefield. At first, it just stealthy contributed to the orcish victory by buffing their forces with recovery magic while nodding at the few orcs who detected it in the heat of battle. When arrows flew at it, it swiftly deflected them but otherwise didn't attack the creatures it knew were the allies of its minions. It suspected that its minions had forgotten to tell their peers about it.

The first truly dramatic thing it did aside from unleashing the demon on the humans happened when it came across the orcish rogue who had been defeated by the trident-user. The godling had actually been curious about the source of the thick scent of blood when it first emerged on the battlefield and quietly searched for it.

It found the source, in the form of the dying orc after searching for a few moments and wondered what it ought to do. The orc was gasping softly and clearly in pain, so the enterprising godling suspected there was an opportunity to be had here if it could heal it. But first, it wanted to confirm that there was a chance so it bent down close to the orc who was lying face-up, his eyes closed to block out the cruel light of the sun. There was a thin stab wound in the orc's chest, close to its heart, that leaked a constant stream of dark orcish blood.

The godling let loose a powerful and directed thought. A thought that should be audible to the orc, in the same way that Samyaza's mental voice was audible to the godling.

[Can you hear me?]

The orc had spent several moments, over a few minutes actually, quietly dying. He was laying on his back and blood was pouring out of an open wound. It had been pouring out of the wound from the soul-trident user for over an entire minute. At first the sensation was painful, but now the orc was beginning to lose the ability to feel even pain.

He had closed his eyes a while ago. He wanted to block out the sun's rays as it was directly overhead and he couldn't move enough to be able to turn away from it.

He was growing somewhat used to the idea of dying when a voice disturbed his somber thoughts.

[Can you hear me?]

The voice whispered, seemingly directly into his mind. The words were in the language of orcs, so the orc suspected that the source of the voice was one of his allies. But the voice didn't sound like anyone he knew.

His initial assessment of that was that he had just forgotten what one of his allies sounded like, perhaps due to bloodloss. But he could hear the voice and so he tried to respond.

"Y-y...e..."

His voice was soft and weak. Bloodloss had made it difficult for him to do anything really. But it was enough for his unlikely savior.

[Enough! Don't strain yourself. My name is Althos. I defeated a few of your allies in battle before these other enemies showed up. Though I healed them and they are fighting alongside your allies. I defeated a demon and unleashed it on your enemies. It is currently chasing down the enemy singer. I can heal you, but my power comes at a price.]

The voice made difficult to believe claims and in revealing its source also revealed that it wasn't another orc who was communicating with him. But the orc had nothing to lose since he would perish without outside aid, and he had heard the demon's initial promise to "shut the fuck up" whoever was singing so it wasn't impossible that the voice was telling the truth.

At this point, the voice resumed to "speak".

[If you agree to be healed, you are in essence agreeing to serve me. Is that acceptable? If you agree to these terms just think your acceptance. I know you can't speak. Oh, and I've no interest in hurting you or your allies. I want you as servants, not as enemies or as victims.]

The orc had little legitimate loyalty to its allies, but due to their having fought together for a few weeks during this and other raids he had no hatred of them either. He was a bit happy to hear that this creature wasn't intending to hurt them. He immediately knew what he'd say.

[Yes, I agree. If you can, please heal me.]

Sending a mental message was odd and surprisingly difficult, but the orc obeyed the command of its unlikely savior.

The godling nodded, though had anyone been observing the creature at that moment the sight of that would have been strange. It was standing over what many suspected was a corpse, hadn't said a word, and then nodded as if at a ghost.

Samyaza laid its mental eyes on the orc Althos was about to heal. The creature was well-built and well-trained as far as the angel could tell. He was one of the shorter orcs so far, coming in at around 1.7 meters tall but with discipline judging from the creature's muscles and calm demeanor even as he laid dying.

Samyaza assessed the wounds that were gradually robbing the orc of his life. They appeared to come from a single well-placed strike using a multi-bladed weapon. The wounds themselves were millimeters thick but due to their proximity to the orc's heart, they were shockingly effective at killing the creature.

The orc's skin was a light shade of green, not unlike stereotypical depictions of goblins if the angel had to compare the orc to other living creatures. He wore a thin coat that was useful because of the chilly autumn air and was doubly useful because it was covered in pockets. Samyaza wondered if there were any items in those pockets, but for now, it knew that it was better to see if there was any way it could aid Althos rather than wonder about what might be hiding in the orcs many pockets.

After continuing to assess the warrior for a second the angel had a diagnosis ready. It was simple because the wounds that the godling itself could see were the only wounds. The soul-trident user was evidently an efficient fighter who struck the minimum required amount and then moved on. Samyaza could respect it.

[If you heal the wounds you can see through the orc's coat and replenish his strength he should be fine.]

The godling did the mental equivalent of a nod and began its treatment of the orc.

The short-sword using soldier was cautious and conservative in his movements. He was also scared out of his mind. He was facing down an orc, by himself, and the orc didn't even have any weapons, yet the creature was also powerfully built and his hands were themselves weapons. The orc was watching out for the human's blade, but also dancing around him using fluid movements and a graceful leaning technique to dodge his simple bronze blade the few times the human tried to slash him.

Though the other orcs were closing in, Ragnor wanted to end the fight he was in on his own. After all if he ended this fight on his own he'd feel comfortable dedicating it to his newfound and powerful master, Althos.

The orc had been easily dodging his enemy's attacks, but the solider came to life whenever the orc closed in. When the orc tried to get in range and actually attack the soldier would speedily slash at him and move at an incredible speed forcing the orc to retreat or risk a real strike seriously damaging him.

The two continued this game of unarmed cat and slash-happy mouse for another minute until the orc got annoyed by this display of cowardice by the human. The orc suddenly sped up, and moved in for the kill, leaning and swaying to narrowly dodge the human's attempts to punish the orc's impatience.

Ragnor punched the human once in the face, and then rammed his knee into the arm of the human, causing the creature to miserably cry out in pain as he dropped the thin sword he used. Ragnor wasn't cruel and killed the human by dropping to the human's legs, sweeping them out from under him and then moving in for a grapple after the human fell. While the human was in his clutches, the orc swiftly ended the human's life by breaking the man's neck in his vice-grip.

The orc got up quietly, and quietly said: "I'll tell you about this one soon, master." To no one in particular.

The orc went to go meet with his peers and was greeted with cheers by Bazur, his older brother. The two quickly joined forces to terrorize the man-catcher using specialist.

The godling placed its hands directly above the small wounds. It was careful not to touch the wound itself, fearing that that would cause the newest member of its crew to be in pain. It waited for a second, looking for the actual wounds, and when it spotted them through thin holes in the orc's coat it began to pour the healing magic into them.

The first part of its treatment of its newfound ally was simple. Closing the wounds took seconds and nothing more than a concentrated application of healing magic while the pierced flesh healed. It was the second part, replenishing the orc's strength, that was a bit harder.

[Excellent! You're a natural at magic that requires mystical brute force. Now comes something with a bit of finesse. Do you want to try and replenish the orc's strength without any instruction?]

Samyaza had a habit of saying things that at first seemed kind or complimentary but then turned out to be a bit like a compliment sandwich. Althos sighed at the angel, who seemed to be oblivious to the slightly insulting nature of its statements, and sent a mental message.

[I suspect I know what to do. Let me try it, and if I'm messing up you can step in and mentally guide my hand.]

At this, the orb angel mentally nodded and waited to see what the godling would do.

Low-level healing magic was simple. All it really took was someone with the needed magical reserves and who happened to have the force of will to direct magical energy towards a wound. That magical energy didn't really need much direction to bring the flesh together, and this primitive but effective form of healing magic often bolstered the recipient's magical reserves as well. But higher-level healing magic was another beast altogether.

In order to successfully restore a living creature's strength, the godling had to forcibly transform magical energy into stamina and strength. This process was a bit more involved than merely pumping a wound with magical energy until the energy brings torn flesh back together.

The godling took a deep breath and began the mental process of collecting the required amount of magical energy. It knew this would demand more magical energy than its past usages of healing magic had.

Modred had stopped running. The spell-singer wasn't defenseless and after being called out by the demon, abandoned by its pet, and forced to watch skilled allies perish at the hands of a tiny horde of orcs the magician had had enough.

He and the soldier who had protected him kept slowly backing out of the town until they were just past the gates but they were pursued the entire time. Both Modred and the soldier were tired of this and knew their enemies were just playing games with them. And it infuriated both of them, as proud humans and skilled professionals. Modred tapped into that anger and pride with the question he asked his ally and friend.

"Arthur... want to stop running?"

The spell-singer was a proud, ambitious sort and to continue fleeing like this was infuriating. He waited to see how the shield-user would respond and saw his stoic protector nod. The knight-like warrior lifted his shield, and the spell-singer smirked behind him. The two of them waited to face their destiny.

The demon had kept moving in their direction, an unstoppable force compelled by hate, fury, and the direction of an unknown and monstrous master. The demon ran over a few caltrops of its own and didn't react. It was driven by a destructive desire, to wreck and ruin what its master had given it permission to annihilate. And it would do so. It drew ever nearer to them with every passing nanosecond.

When it noticed that they had stopped running, it itself stopped and revealed its inner thoughts to them.

"Finally! It's time for an early afternoon snack!"

This time its voice was more like that of a bear, than the roaring fire of an active forge, complete with an ursine struggle to pronounce human words. Its voice was gruff and throaty, barely able to sound out the complex syllables in the human language. Not that it needed too, it was doing this for dramatic effect.

The demon then roared, it's voice exploding from its maw. Then it went down on all fours and began to charge at them. It wasn't unlike the sight of a feral hog lunging at an unfortunate victim.

The creature had the explosive power of more than a single feral hog in its speedy charge, though. If Arthur, who was actually the son of a swineherd and had seen feral hogs up close when they tried to mate with his father's livestock, had to guess how much explosive power the demon had... he'd give a rough estimate of somewhere in the range of 30-50 feral hogs.

The demon hadn't stopped moving since it had taunted them earlier. It paid no attention to the orcs, who leaped out of its way whenever they happened to be obstacles that stood between it and its destination. And when it was just beyond the gate, past Golorina's caltrop trap, and past the rest of the creatures fighting in the town, it was as close as ever to the spell-singer and the shield-user guarding him.

The two of them had stopped running and were waiting for the sentinel demon. They looked surprisingly bold doing that, but also incredibly foolish.

The demon smiled at them, a terrifying and ghoulish grin that revealed scores of blood-stained, needle-like teeth. It was almost on top of them.

The two of them readied themselves for the fight of their lives.

The godling felt that it had the required magical energy stored in its mind. Then it forcibly commanded the energy to change into strength and stamina.

The energy itself seemed to resist the god, not wanting to shift or bend to the whims of the one who called it into being. The godling focused, willing the energy to bend to its commands, and the energy resisted further. The godling's face strained in annoyance as it wasn't used to something putting up this much of a fight before it.

After experiencing a bout of annoyance, the godling remembered how much it liked gaining new servants. That knowledge fueled its ambitions to triumph over the natural stubbornness of the magical energy that was quietly resisting its commands. The deity sent a question to the angel who inhabited its body and occasionally provided it with snarky commentary.

[Is there a domain, or whatever you called those things earlier, of magic and magical energy?]

The angel immediately knew the answer and eagerly responded to the god's question.

[Actually, there is. It's a neat one too. Imagine how strong you'd be if you had control over the magic domain? That'd be amazing!]

The angel's response encouraged the deity, who now wanted to one day have control over the magic domain. It could only imagine the potential power that came with control over such a wide-ranging tool. The ambition it felt to utterly dominate further renewed its will and caused the creature to work harder to break the stubbornness of the magical energy that had till this point refused to transform into something that wasn't quite mystical energy.

But ultimately the energy relented and began to bend to the will of the creature who created it. The godling smiled when it felt the magical energy in its brain bend and mold itself into raw strength and stamina.

[Now... go into my servant. Give him the energy to serve me.]

The godling mentally whispered to the transformed energy that was flowing through its own body. The energy, of its own accord, leaped from the godling to the creature it had promised to save.

The thing about Gallow's, the orc who had spent a few minutes bleeding on the ground, wounds was that they were very shallow. He had honestly just been pricked by the trident, yet the thing nearly killed him.

Part of the wound was psychological. Though that part wouldn't have killed him so the godling was right to focus on treating his wounded body and not his wounded pride.

The orc felt the pain softly fade away, and eventually began to feel what he thought was a facsimile of energy surge into his muscles. He feared that if he acted on this odd rush of energy he'd only hurt himself and accelerate his death.

This was because he was used to low-quality healing magic, much like the orcish brawlers and archers were. Healers who deigned to help orcs were often shady and untrustworthy people in healing for the pursuit of coin, not actual healers or those with the potential to be potent life-affirming magicians like the godling could be, if it so chose.

The orc's new master, the strange creature who called itself Althos, had successfully healed his physical wounds. The godling had even restored his stamina!

It took him a second to realize that though. At first, the orc just felt the pain vanish. It was unsure of the cause of that, due to the possibility that the strange creature who spoke into his brain was not responsible for the pain vanishing and the chance that this was death extending a chilly hand towards the orc, numbing him to pain.

The godling displayed a bit of patience and waited for the orc to get up on his own. Eventually, though, the deity clapped his hands in the face of the rogue, who suddenly opened his eyes for the first time since he had fallen to the trident's users stab.

"Are you going to get up anytime soon? I've healed you. You can stand up."

The orc slowly opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was his new master standing directly above him and looking down on him with an exasperated expression.

The orc immediately and childishly apologized, thoroughly embarrassed by the bad first impression he must have left on his savior.

"I've been set by my sisters to tell you about your son's... mischief."

The woman spoke softly but her voice inherently filled her sole listener with fear. She seemed delighted to watch as he tried to shrink and hide from her, leaning back against his chair and apparently feeling insignificant in her presence. She smiled at the person she was speaking too, a gesture that if done by many other women would have been reassuring. Instead, since it was done by her it was blood-curdling.

The baron, the only other person in the room, felt paralyzed in his own office. In front of him, blocking the only exit out of the office he normally considered a sanctuary, stood a woman who had long frightened him and whose words promised to break his heart.

The woman herself was a wizen old crone, but one who physically outmatched any human in the baron's territory. She was an ancient and eldritch creature, an alien to this world whose power laid in her brutal physicality. She wasn't like her more subtle or mysterious sisters, she was a creature of raw physical might.

The thing she called clothing was at most a disturbing imitation of other clothes, made up of dresses she stole from her victims and clumsily stitched together. It hid her leathery skin and tall but thin body from anyone who had the misfortunate to be forced to see her.

Her hair was matted, unkempt and every bit as grotesque as her wolfish facial expressions. It was the color of coal and went down to the top of her back.

Her attempt at stitching a dress only barely covered her more intimate places, preventing onlookers from the sight of breasts or the part of her she used to entice monstrous lovers back in her arboreal home. Just below the dress, someone could see her long legs, spindly and frail-looking. Despite their appearance, she was fast and perpetually in motion. If she wasn't pacing back and forth as she spoke she was at least swaying, perhaps even unconsciously as if she was distractedly listening to some inaudible music.

A silence had fallen in the room after she made her opening statement. She was a miserable creature who loved making others share in her misery, and the baron hadn't taken her bait. After this silence enveloped the room for a few minutes, she lost her patience and decided to talk unprompted.

"Your son... the brat came to my older sister, the head of our coven. He begged her for something. He wanted to know what it would take for us to curse someone for him."

At this remark, the part about cursing someone, the baron perked up. Shock and disappointment clouded his gaze as he looked at the foul hag in front of him. The hag noticed and smiled grimly at him.

"Oh, that got your attention huh?"

Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard to the baron. It angered him and wanted to stop it. But he was no fool. For all of his faults he recognized his own weakness in front of this creature. She didn't recognize or at least didn't respect his authority, and wouldn't hesitate to kill him if crossed.

He was a brave man but his desire to stay alive triumphed over his momentary annoyance at the crone's voice. But now it was the crone's turn to relish in the silence. Eventually, the silence that had once again fallen over the room provoked an annoyed statement, this time from the baron.

"Are you gonna tell me about this blasted curse or what?"

His voice was deep and dark, much like the wood that made up the man's desk. This outburst provoked cold and cruel laughter from the hag, but her laughter wasn't like that of a human. Her laughter was like the frantic babbling of an insane person experiencing a mental break. It was an utterly baffling sound, with a chilling effect on the baron whose former rage and frustration was instantly replaced by intense concern for his son.

Whatever his son had wanted must have been something truly chilling for the mere thought of revealing it to his father to provoke such an amused outburst from the hag.

The sentinel demon towered over Arthur and Modred as it reared back from its quadrupedal stance to a bipedal one now that was close to the two. At last the demon and the creature it hated, the damn spell-singer, were face to face.

Arthur was boldly positioned between the two of them, and behind him Modred pulled out a thin knife. He readied himself for his one shot at overcoming this terrible situation.

The demon was focused entirely on Modred, and when Arthur charged at it, urging his horse in the monster's direction, the demon launched a single clawed hand at the horse who boldly ran towards it and ruthlessly decapitated it. This display of casual murder was the first the demon would show Modred but not the last. The horse's blood sprayed the claws that ended each of the creature's animalistic fingers.

The horse's now headless body continued forward a few more steps, driven by its forward momentum before tripping over a rock and collapsing onto the grass leading back in the direction of the town. Blood swiftly began to stain the grass near the hole where the horse's head had been.

The demon's other clawed hand cruelly extended toward's Arthur's face, saving the soldier from flying forward with the horse and ensuring he'd suffer a similar fate.

The demon efficiently captured the soldier's face in its thick hand. It had smoothly retracted the limb it used to decapitate the horse and in a single swift motion of its blade-like limb it effortlessly decapitated one of Modred's trusted allies.

Once severed from the rest of Arthur's body the head began to steadily drip scarlet blood. It rapidly soaked the ground and stained the grass beneath the head of the man who just seconds ago had been alive and healthy defending Modred. Once disconnected from his head, Arthur's body fell to the ground, landing with a soft noise that occurred right as the wind around them picked up which nearly muted the sound.

In a display of instinctual cruelty, the creature tossed the head of the human soldier into its mouth. It swallowed the extremity whole, without ever truly acknowledging Arthur, as not once had it paid the slightest amount of actual attention to the human. It treated the soldier like a human child might treat a lone ant, a thing that deserved to be destroyed out of bored malice and not at all a life to be respected.

After that shocking display of efficient and gory violence, the demon now had no other obstacles between it and the spell-singer. This final display of violence was what it took to break the mind of the spell-singer.

At that moment he felt all of his ambition drain away, and leave him a husk of a man. He knew he couldn't withstand such animalistic violence. He felt his desires fade away and the small part of him that resisted this dark change recognized that without his pride or his desire he couldn't spell-sing again.

Now all that awaited him was death. But he had a choice to make. Did he run from death, and in doing so take another life with him, that of his horse? Or did he accept death, walk towards it, and in doing so spoil a bit of the joy of the demon before him? He chose the latter.

The demon began to walk forward, a blood-soaked grin on its lips, as it took the slowest and most deliberate steps the human had seen it take.

Modred dismounted his horse and gave the creature permission to run away. It did so eagerly and galloped in the general direction of the baron's more fortified territory, terrified by the demon after it saw the ease with which it dispatched the other horse.

Modred had accepted his fate. He now knew that the most he could do was try to damage this creature and fight to be free of this odd menace. There was no hope for him to leave this situation alive if he fled and he had the realism to accept that. A perk of that realism was that he could make one more sane decision, and it was an unconscious one. He'd die, but not without trying to inflict pain on his killer if nothing else.

He didn't know it, at least not consciously, but it was his desire for glory and a desire to get revenge for his friends that gave him the ability to walk towards the demon in his final moments. He felt the need to speak to the hideous creature, speaking bravely as he readied himself for the final fight of his life.

"Vile demon! I am not alone. Others will be here... hopefully soon. With soldiers! I may die, but I won't be alone!"

Then he threw himself forward, sprinting at an unexpectedly fast speed at the nightmare in front of him. The demon closed its fist and once again gathered its otherworldly ki, its hands up and in position to defend itself even as it concentrated hard on calling its power towards it. Hearing the voice of the spell-singer again annoyed it, so it felt like using some real force in its blow.

The spell-singer was within arms reach of the demon when it suddenly reeled back and then almost immediately hurled a punch at a blazing speed that nailed the magician in the chest. The force of the blow was like getting hit by a massive cannonball square in the chest.

The blow shattered the ribs of the human, pulverizing them into dusk, and decimated one of the lungs of the wizard. The blow lifted the wizard off of his feet, and when he landed he landed on his back. The demon casually strolled over to where the wizard laid dying and then snickered as it said one final thing to the dying magician.

"Now you'll never annoy anyone else with your shitty singing ever again."

It lifted one of its thick hoofs over the magician's head and immediately brought it down on the face of the magician. Modred's skull was instantly crushed by the several kilogram demon. Blood and bone bits got stuck underneath the hoof of the creature.

Behind it, back at the town, an orcish arrow fired by one of the combat archers slew the final soldier, piercing the man's helm and destroying his brain. He had been the final soldier to die of the squad and was the soldier using the man-catcher. He had survived the demon by avoiding it altogether.

The demon turned and began to walk back towards where its master was waiting for it.

"Your son is creative. I'll give him that. Fifteen years ago, he came to us and asked us to turn someone, curse someone actually, into becoming a vampire. Isn't that delicious?"

The hag once again laughed at the information she was telling the baron. But this bit of information was truly incredible, in the very worst of ways.

The baron stared at her, the shock of what she said had stunned him to his core. His son, who had once been his baby boy and was now a man he previously believed deserved respect, did something unthinkably cruel. The baron knew of no criminal who deserved that heinous fate.

His next question was filled with fury and with righteous indignation. He had to know the answer to what he had asked, he had to know who might have been a victim of his son's cruelty.

"Who did you turn?"

The hag went silent for a moment and examined the baron's face. She looked at his dour expression and delighted in the scorn in his gaze as his eyes met hers. When she spoke her voice was as cold as ice.

"We turned a woman. A woman named Cynthia. Your son had an infatuation with her. He wanted her. He would do anything for her, but she didn't feel the same way. So he did this to her out of cruelty and as a way to blackmail her. But the price he paid was... well you see, hag curses, especially ones this powerful weren't cheap."

The baron slammed his fists onto the desk beneath him in outrage and exhaustion. The sound shocked the hag, but she quickly regained her composure.

"Cut to the chase, you damn she-devil! What did my son give you that justified such a powerful and permanent curse?"

The baron's words were harsh, inaccurate, and showed just how this was getting under her skin. It was like he was reading a story arc that had gone on too long and wanted to know how it ended.

"Well, he offered nobility. A child whose veins contained noble blood. Which, as I'm sure you've guessed, is a compelling gift. And just because he's gone from this world doesn't mean that the deal he made is rendered void, you see."

This revelation was doubly devastating. Not only did the hag's words indicate that the baron's son was dead, they also revealed that his son had offered something truly horrible to the power-hungry hags. And they intended to collect, with or without his son.

"So you and I need to have a chat. Because my sisters and I want our payment. You see we've done our waiting... over a decade of it in fact. And frankly we're tired of waiting."