After recovering enough to feed Simon, I learned that he had a preference for eating hearts. I learned this due to the fact that Simon almost gleefully devoured two whole hearts from the wolves.

The others in our merry group had hung the hearts and the flanks of the wolves we took down earlier on a rudimentary drying rack on the side of the wagon and when I returned, Simon had strongly insisted that he wanted the hearts.

It was a rather surreal sight, seeing my once tiny pet snake devouring two fist sized wolves' hearts with gusto. In just a few days, Simon had grown so much that I doubted he was still the same species. He had once been about the width of a large coin, but in the short time since coming to Savani he had grown to the width of my wrist and I had no idea how long he had gotten.

After Simon was done ‘wolfing down’ the wolves’ hearts he gave off a pleased emotion and slithered back into the sleeve of my armour and fell asleep. “I wonder where he goes?” I looked into my sleeve. I both wanted to know and at the same time I was more than a bit put off by the thought. I had ‘asked’ him once and the only thing he had sent back was ‘Inside’ so I was not entirely sure I wanted to know.

With that dealt with, I looked out into the perpetual twilight and shuddered at the thought of what was lurking in the shadows. “Let’s just not think about it shall we?” I thought, with forced indifference and climbed into the back of the wagon. There I found the wagon driver snoring under a blanket.

I just shook my head, retrieved the bedroll I had purchased in Elianor and made myself as comfortable as possible before doing my best to ignore both the snoring and the sense of having someone observing me.

***

Inside a well-appointed house Gilana sat sipping a rather terrible concoction as Kiyara presented a very strange crystal to the witch. The crystal was purple and hollow with a considerable amount of liquid essence sloshing around at the centre. The crystal was a core from a lesser wyrm known as a Cryask, but what made it an appropriate gift was that it was hollow and that it contained liquid essence.

The witch accepted the head sized crystal in her thin white hands and observed it with her terrifying black eyes. This was the gift that the three had agreed on and it looked like the witch approved and after a few moments of observation the crystal vanished. The three let their nervousness fade, after all, the witch would never go back on her word. Or rather it was impossible for her to do so due to her nature.

“A rather pleasing gift.” The witch said in a very melodious voice that was at complete odds with her appearance. “I would have preferred the man, but this is more than enough.” She sounded a bit regretful but it was hard to tell as her voice was almost as unchanging as her expression.

“That would be something we would be both unable, and unwilling to give you.” Gilana said in the strange language she and the others had learned the first time they had stumbled upon the witch’s domain. “As you well know Geish.” Gilana added. The witch just looked at her with what felt like amusement.

“How noble.” The witch said and took a sip of the vile concoction. “Still I had to ask.” There was the faintest of shrugs before she spoke again. “I’m sure that it would even prove beneficial to the man, he has already learned to perceive mana just from coming here after all.” The witch turned and looked straight at a wall in the direction of the wagon. “I cannot imagine what I’d be able to make out of one so blessed by the gods.” These words made the three shudder and Franz spoke hesitantly.

“I thought his presence bored you.” He was the only one who had finished the vile concoction.

“Hardly.” The witch said turning to Franz and making him very uncomfortable. “His face would be an annoyance for lively conversations such as this, but the man himself intrigues me. As for his appearance, that is hardly a difficult thing to correct.”

“Lively conversation indeed…” Gilana thought as she fought to keep her expression neutral. The three visitors mostly sat in silence as the witch spoke slowly with little to no inflection. Once again there was another uncomfortable lull in the conversation as the witch finished her drink.

“Now, as you have provided me with such an intriguing gift, I will offer you a word of advice.” The witch looked at them each in turn making them shudder, but they all still straightened and paid close attention. Advice from the witch was always worth heeding. “You’d do well to sow now, for seeds planted in fertile soil will yield far greater harvests than you could ever imagine.” It looked as if the witch was staring all three of the guild members in the eyes at the same time. And in those black eyes it seemed as if something was squirming around, it was revolting.

“We offer you our thanks for your wisdom.” Gilana said, and the three bowed unsure of the meaning behind the witch’s words. The witch stood her simple white dress fluttering.

“Now I must tend to mine, you are welcome to stay the night. Oh and do extend my invitation to stay to the man.” She added the last part with another look at the wall before she simply vanished.

“Well I’m dead tired.” Franz said after a beat and sigh wearily. “You think Goldie will be fine?”

“I imagine so.” Gilana said stretching. She was a bit worried, there were a lot of things you could do wrong in the witch’s domain but there was only so much they could warn Victor about. “It looked like Goldie was unaffected by ‘her’ charms so I doubt he would be tricked like we were.” She stood and grabbed Kiyara’s hand.

“That hardly sounds fair.” Kiyara said unhappily.

“I wouldn’t call the price we paid unreasonable.” Gilana said with half-smile. “If I could do it all over I’d do it again after all.” She admitted honestly.

“If I was allowed to go back I’d avoid the entire thing entirely.” Kiyara said with a shudder. “Some things, you are better off not knowing.” She whispered as she left the sitting room and entered a small windowless bedroom.

“I think that lesson was inevitable for us.” Gilana said regretfully as she removed her boots and climbed into the tiny bed still fully dressed. Kiyara just made a face and joined Gilana after she too had removed her boots.

***

I woke up several times that night due to sensing that I was being watched. Most of the time it was nothing, at least nothing I could see. But on three different occasions I woke up and found the witch observing me. It was nerve-wracking and we ended up just looking at one another for an unknowable amount of time before the witch simply vanished before my very eyes. “Creepy as all fuck I tell you!”

On each of these occasions, I had felt an urge to speak to the witch, but the urge somehow felt foreign to me, and every time I felt an unfamiliar razor sharp focus coming from Simon. So I kept my mouth shut, forcing myself to remember that she had not spoken a language I could understand.

All in all, it was an absolutely terrible night. A night which I woke up from, feeling sore from the hard floorboards of the wagon and feeling exhausted from the lack of proper sleep. Also the unchanging twilight made it hard to feel like you had slept at all. Therefore it was without feeling rested at all, that I woke up to the gentle prodding and searching eyes of Gilana.

“Time to leave.” She said solemnly. “Unless you want to stay?” Ashe added with a teasing grin.

“N-no…” I said, shaking my head vehemently. “I-is it okey to talk now?”

“Avoid it if at all possible.” She then shot me a half-grin as she sat down on her usual spot. “Also try and not scream today, yeah?” She said teasingly. “As if I had a choice…” I thought with a glare. The other two soon joined us with very serious expressions and the wagon began rolling forward.

I looked at the wagon drive that had seemed a bit out of it since yesterday. “His eyes looked oddly vacant. I wonder if the witch did something to him…” I looked around at the gloomy forest and then at the horses. “More likely that it was the forest itself, after all even the horses acted strangely.” I with a shudder I remembered the oxen sized Spiders keeping pace with unnaturally placid horses.

The trip out of the forest was as nerve-wracking as a journey into the forest. “No, this is worse.” I thought, as my eyes darted between one dark shadow, to the next. Knowing about at least some of the things that were luring in this dark wood, made the perceived movements in the shadows all the more terrifying. “The term ‘Jumping at shadows’ is oddly apt here. Although, with there being ACTUAL monsters in the woods, I think the meaning of the proverb changes a bit.”

Having done my best to escape the reality around me I felt a pair of eyes on me that made the hairs on my arms rise. The air in the wagon grew tense, and I could hear the others draw sharp breaths. I would have liked nothing more than to ignore the sharp and penetrating gaze but, not only did I feel that would not work, also I felt an odd sort of compulsion, driving me to look back. So regretfully I did.

Standing behind us on the road, completely motionless was the witch. Her pristine white dress and impossibly dark hair fluttered in an unseen breeze and her bottomless black eyes seemed ready to devour me.

I froze, just looking at her. She was just standing there, bare feet with her arms to the side simply looking at me. However her presence was overwhelming, it was like the weight of the world was pressing in around me and the only way to escape was into those two bottomless black pits.

I started shaking, the world around me dimmed. I wanted to make it stop, I wanted to scream and beg for it all to be over but my lips did not move, no. I did not let them move. Something inside me was urging me to open my mouth and speak but it felt alien and wrong. I closed my eyes and balled my hands into fists, trying and failing to take deep calming breaths. But still it helped because when I opened my eyes the world around me looked just a fraction brighter.

The witch was still there, unmoving and with the same expression. But around her, I could see countless tiny strings extending from all around the witch into the forest around her. The same nauseating light that had filled the spider webs flowed from the witch out into the tree, the bushes and the ground itself. It looked like the witch was standing at the very centre of a massive intricate spider web that fed the nauseating light into the entire forest.

I drew a deep shuddering breath and clamped my mouth shut. This episode could not have lasted more than a few moments, but for me, it felt like hours.

By the time I could clearly tell that our surroundings were brightening the witch was just gone. She had not moved, she had not done anything. Despite this it had not felt like the distance between us had increased, even as the wagon kept rolling onwards. Yet, suddenly she was simply not there anymore.

I drew a deep breath and rested my head in my still shaking arms and I was not at all surprised to find my hair damp with sweat. I sat there and just breathed for quite some time as dawn turned to morning, and only when the last vestiges of night were gone, did the others relax.

“By the Holy Mother’s endless cup, that was THE worst!” Franz half groaned as he slumped on the bench.

“…” The rest of us just sat there in silence as if shell-shocked.

“What in the name of the Holy mother was that?” Franz continued when no one spoke. His voice was half exhausted and half angry. “It is never pleasant to visit ‘that’ place.” He almost spat the word. “But that. That was even worse than the first time! What in all the broken paths was that about?!” Franz swore tiredly.

“… that… that’s not how it normally goes?” I asked, still a bit nervous about speaking.

“Not even remotely.” Kiyara said from the lap of Gilana.

“Only the first time when we agreed to the curse was it anything like that…” Gilana said as she tried to bury herself in Kiyara’s hair. The three were clearly more shaken than I had expected.

“Fuck, if that was how it ‘normally’ goes I’d almost rather take my chances with camping out.” Franz spat while pushing himself to a seated position.

“I almost have to agree with that…” Gilana said with a shudder. “Even if we weren’t harmed, I feel like that took years of my life.” She admitted unhappily.

“A few more instances like that and I’d start to think that death would be preferable.” Kiyara said, squeezing Gilana’s hands.

There were a few minutes of the two women comforting one another, and Franz drinking something from an intricate metal flask he had pulled out of somewhere before some semblance of normalcy was restored.

“Soo… why was it so different this time?” I asked, pulling out a water skin and some rations from my storage.

“You, it was probably because of you.” Kiyara said tiredly. I was surprised by the lack of accusation in her voice. “She wanted you to stay.” Kiyara said with a derisive snort. “She even asked us to ‘give’ you to her.”

“Yes, you should be grateful, Goldie.” Gilana added jokingly. “For the cheap price of your soul we could have gotten rewards like you wouldn’t believe. But we refused.” She said with a wink and a laugh.

“Yeah, thanks for that.” I answered honestly. “That doesn’t at all horrify me.” I said, and we all chuckled. “So… what is it like normally?” I asked after quite a bit of hesitation.

“Except for the first time it is just a creep forest with some creepy monsters that might or might not attack you. Beyond the fact that you can’t hurt the monsters to defend yourself and the creepy landlady, it is not so bad.” Gilana answered. I took a deep breath.

“What about the first time?” I could feel that they were avoiding this but I felt it was important somehow. The three exchanged looks and it was a while before Franz groaned and gave me a hard look.

“I really don’t want to think about it, much less talk.” Franz let out a huff. He looked at the women who nodded reluctantly. “But I suppose that you are better off knowing.” He sighed and reached out his hand. “As payment you will give me that Sacred Water from yesterday.”

“You mean the vodka?” I asked hoping that I’d not have a repeat from yesterday. “Sure, also before you ask I can only tell you vaguely how it is made.” I warned and handed over the tiny bottle. I could see that Franz had a lot of questions but he restrained himself.

“But I will be needing beer if I am to talk about this.” Franz said, and I retrieved his mug and one of the smaller barrels of beer. Once Franz was ready he opened up the visor and I saw his wrinkled face with its bushy black eyebrows and moustache for the first time. Talking a deep swig of beer Franz sighed and looked at me with his dark brown eyes.

“To explain what happened that first time with me Grish, I must speak of one of the worst nights of our lives.” He looked at me and made sure he had my full attention. “The reason that we will go to just about any length to avoid being out in the night is because of what we experienced that night.” He took another swig of the beer and looked into the murky liquid. There was a bit of a pause and the air in the wagon was beyond heavy.

“First I will tell you why most people in this world find traveling at night to be a bad idea.” Franz sneered a bit at that. “You see, in this world, it is common knowledge that, an area of the world where iron ranked guild members can safely travel during the day, will be hard for copper rankers to survive at night. This is due to Alphas, the strongest individual monster or beast of an area. Alphas are almost always nocturnal for some reason.”

“So, you are saying that there is a nocturnal version of the grassland wolves that we fought before that is like, four times stronger than the ones we fought?” I asked in the lull.

“Almost, but wolves are a bit out of the ordinary.” Gilana said, picking up the conversation. “A single grassland wolf is a very low bronze ranked beast. However since they always hunt in packs they are considered high bronze rank in terms of danger.” She could see that I wanted to ask a question and paused.

“What is the difference between beasts and monsters?”

“Well, it depends on who you ask.” Gilana chuckled. “But in The Guild we say that every being born from essence or mana is a monster and beasts are animals that have evolved naturally with either mana or essence.” She shook her head. “But the definition becomes a bit iffy due to dragons and other highly intelligent beings born from mana, as they too, would be considered ‘monsters’ by that definition.”

“So would elves and demons.” Kiyara said amused. “In the same vein humans and the lycanthropes would be considered beasts in that rather simplistic view.”

“I see… so, ‘naturally’ occurring beings are called beasts and ‘magically’ occurring are called monsters?” I asked and they nodded but I got the feeling I got from them, was that it was not even remotely as simple.

“So anyway for grassland wolves the alpha’s are not only significantly bigger, stronger and faster but their packs are far larger and their mate is almost as dangerous as the alpha.” Gilana grinned dangerously. “So a grassland wolf alpha is considered a low-mid silver ranked beast, making it far more than four times as dangerous. Also the power difference between ranks only increases the higher you go. As an example we are in the upper ranks of silver, but a gold ranked mercenary who is also in the upper rank, is far, far more than twice as powerful as us.” I swallowed hard. “And here I am sitting with a gold badge…”

“Anyway we are drifting off topic and I would like to get this over with.” Franz said, and eyed the other two who nodded unhappily. “Now that is why most people avoid the night.” He had to pause again even though he had just started speaking again. Then he started speaking in a rush. “A few years back we were hired into a large contingent of guards for a caravan that was rushing a large delivery of weapons and food to Eibar. Due to the time constraints we pushed through the night staving of alphas with sheer numbers and strength.” Franz paled a bit and his expression turned bitter, Gilana and Kiyara had practically stopped moving entirely. “On the second night when all was still going well, I was on watch when I saw something just appear out of the darkness of night. I can to this day still remember the horrid appearance of that abomination.” He gritted his teeth. “It was as tall as a three story building with nine tree-sized human legs that stuck out of a frame of twisted flesh like the legs of an insect. On top it had two bloated giant torsos with long grotesque arms that could reach the ground despite its immense size. And if that was not enough, it had an additional set of arms growing out of its gut. To top it all of it had four heads, two on each torso and those heads were a mockery of everything natural.” Franz shuddered and he was bawling his hands so tightly that I could hear the metal creek. “It came out of nowhere and before I could even raise the alarm it was on top of me. I was sent flying through the air like a pebble kicked by a giant.” He chuckled but it was a hollow thing. “Then, people were dying all around as I tried to shake off the cobwebs. Gilana somehow get to me and together with Kiyara they managed to run away with me still only half conscious.” Franz drew a shuddering breath and wiped sweat off his face with a rag. “The only reason we got away was because the thing kept fighting itself. Even as it was running me over, it was reaching out a hand to grab me, and as we ran I could see it sometimes stop dead in its tracks as it attempted to chase multiple people at once.” Franz drained his mug and poured another one. “It was like something that had slapped that thing together without any concern for how it should work. It was not like any other multi-headed being I have ever heard of. It was as if the four heads all had separate wills, instead of sharing a will, like any ‘natural’ being.”

All three looked ill, Franz drank his beer slowly, Gilana was hugging Kiyara closely and the elf was talking deep calming breaths with closed eyes. I had no idea what to say and so the silence stretched for quite a long time.

“Well, anyway.” Franz said after releasing a deep breath. “Anyway we ran and ran, but no matter how far we ran we could still hear the gut-wrenching screams of that abomination, no matter how far away we got. But as the very first light before dawn arrived we found a thicket of trees and without question, we ran into the trees to hide from that thing. We ran from the fire into the frying pan.” Franz chuckled. “It did not take long until the first spider attacked us. It was a horrible fight, I had nothing but my armour and Gilana had lost her sword. Only Kiyara had a handful of mostly ineffectual knives on her person. But, we won in the end and kept running from the screaming.” He shook his head.

“Then we met Grish and she cursed us for killing her kin.” Gilana abbreviated the story at that point.

“Kin?” That sounds very different from a pet.

“Uril. It can be translated into either kin or pet in the language of the witch.” Gilana clarified.

“I-I see…” That was a whole lot to take in.