Marc's heart didn't beat any faster as the spectres approached because it was already beating as fast as it could. The spectres stopped a few meters near the group and started circling around and over them, causing the crowd of villagers and Marc to close ranks even more.

Marc got a whiff of BO from an overweight guy but didn't care about it. The closeness and touching and smell would have offended his sensibilities any other time but the presence of creepy ghost analogs just made it, well, not comforting but easier to bear.

The spectres occasionally dived at the group, their outlines oscillating intensely as they did but no one got possessed.

Marc's nerves began to calm down when he saw the spectres couldn't directly hurt them. Being told that was one thing; seeing it for himself did more to convince him of that fact. He relaxed his grip on the bone knife as he stared up at the the spectres.

Then someone got possessed. The sudden shouting behind him made him turn, trying not to shove the people near him. The villagers were rapidly moving away from what was happening, which meant he didn't have to strain to look over someone's shoulders.

A robust woman, wearing a long, loose garment had suddenly leaped at another person in the crowd, a scrawny teenager. The boy tried to push her away but the closeness of the crowd hindered him here. He wasn't able to move his arms much and she pushed him onto the floor, bringing several others down with him.

The boy continued to try fighting back, hitting and kicking at her but the woman ignored him, scratching and clawing at him.

Marc was expecting someone to try to restrain her but it seemed they were all like him, frozen at the spectacle. They all stood there, leaving a wide space around the possessed woman and her victim.

Someone do something, Marc wanted to say but he couldn't because then he would also be expected to do something.

As he watched, the woman pushed the boy's face aside and got her teeth at his neck, gnawing and biting at it, opening up his throat. That seemed to be the trigger for the surrounding villagers to react and several people raced forward to pull her away, holding tightly onto her even as she fought back vigorously with more strength than her frame suggested. Her eyes were a pure black, expressing unspoken malice.

Marc stared at the face of the bleeding teenager, who was being futilely tended to by some of the villagers. It was Kerry, the boy who wanted to be an ascender. He grimaced and turned away.

As they tied her up with ropes, chaos once more broke out, with two more people getting possessed by spectres. This time, the villagers responded swiftly and grabbed the possessed, both younger children this time.

The spectres continued to dive at the villagers with renewed passion, flying back up into the air when they couldn't possess anyone. However, the fear of the spectres had clearly increased and several people got possessed in short succession, eliciting screams and cries from the villagers, especially those they attacked.

Marc tried to keep an eye on both the spectres and the villagers around him so he saw when a spectre disappeared into a ten-year old and was able to react when the controlled boy lunged at him.

He kicked out immediately with as much for as he could muster, sending the child staggering into an old man. Marc felt disgusted at the fact he hit a child and simultaneously relieved his instinctive reaction hadn't been to stab him with his dagger.

He didn't have time to examine his feelings as a spectre dived straight for him at that exact moment. He lashed out with the ivory dagger in his hand and, although he had expected it, he felt disappointed when the blade sliced through nothing. The spectre stopped suddenly just above him, so close that if he had an extra few inches of height, it would be touching his head. Its form trembled and wavered intensely and then it disappeared.

The overweight guy that had been standing near Marc jolted into action, wrapping his fleshy arms around Marc's and holding him into his chubby body. Marc knew he could easily break free of the man's hold, could distinctly feel he was stronger than the man, but he decided not to so he wouldn't be mistaken as possessed, opting to speak out.

"I'm not possessed!" he shouted. "It didn't possess me!"

The man immediately released him, his muted apologies erasing Marc's irritation at him. Marc nodded and continued staring up at the spectres. What had caused the spectre to disappear like that? It was almost as if it couldn't keep its form. He thought of the increased trembling before it disappeared.

Marc glanced around, hoping his Voidsight didn't visibly alter his eyes when he used it.

He activated the Talent and winced as his eyes were almost blinded by the concentration of energy around him. The air all around him was literally charged with dark energy, which was somehow blinding despite the fact that it was dark. How did darkness overwhelm one's vision? He guessed his Voidsight was more of an approximation of sight than actual sight.

The dark energy in the air, the truedark literally overpowered every other energy in the air. He could still see the other myriad colours but they were all washed-out and faded. There was an undercurrent of something he couldn't quite define through the energy but he ignored that to focus on the spectres. The spectres were hotspots of dark energy that he couldn't bear to look at for more than a few seconds. They radiated ill-intent and malice as he looked at them.

Marc quickly found what he was expecting to see and shut off his Voidsight. The rippling of the spectres wasn't inherent to them but was something caused by an external force. A constant wave of energy continually dispersed the dark energy and they had to constantly fight it off to maintain their form.

Marc knew exactly what was causing it.

He reached into the goblin bag at his side, rooting through it to quickly dig out two red stones. He had gotten the second one from another goblin bag.

The waves of energy he'd seen when he inspected the first red stones were wearing away at the spectres and even the truedark itself. Which kind of explained how the goblins had intended to survive the truedark.

But that couldn't be all the stones could do. Even if they warded away spectres, they didn't seem to stop possessed creatures. There had to be some other way to use them, some way the goblins had been aware of.

Still, even if they couldn't use them in the way the goblins had, their function of warding away spectres was what they needed right then. He was pretty sure there were other stones in the looted bags that hadn't been thrown away.

"Use the red goblin stones," Marc shouted out, his voice not traveling very far, partly because of the truedark and partly because he wasn't used to shouting.

The villagers his voice reached looked at him askance. At that moment, a spectre dived at someone near Marc and he stepped forward, waving one of the stones at the spectre and making it disappear.

At his demonstration, the villagers understood and started spreading the word. Soon, everyone except the restrained possessed villagers had closed ranks, with most of them holding red stones and using them to disperse any spectre that came near.

After several futile attempts at possessing the villagers, the spectres stopped moving around. They gathered as one above the villagers and then dispersed in unison.

Then the surrounding truedark started trembling.

|||

Caylon was instantly alarmed. He took a wide glance around. The truedark around them was trembling and deforming rapidly and, occasionally, large and small pockets of space empty of the miasma would appear

He had never heard of something like this happening during truedark. That was understandable since he had only spent a short time here so he couldn't be said to be knowledgeable about the region.

He needed to ask Al'Sherda about whatever this was.

He held his daggers in a reverse grip and mentally reached for the lifeforce in his body, carefully shaping it into a Technique Form. There. His muscles vibrated with power and he felt like he had overdosed on Verdant Fellbrew, his tongue tingling electrically. His skin crackled with discharged lifeforce and his clothes streamed out with the force.

He moved rapidly in short dashes, every stop he made reaping the life of an monster before it could react. Within a short time, his third of the defense circle was cleared of monsters.

That done, he ran over to Al'Sherda's position, ceasing his Enhancement Technique as he reached him.

"What's happening?" He asked the native Renardan.

The man's face was grim and he pulled his bloodied sword out of the chest of a dying fleetfoot. "I have no idea," he stated, looking around at the rippling truedark. "I've never heard of anything like this."

The man's eyes shimmered with lifeforce and a light orange glow trailed his eyes as he moved his head. He smoothly sheathed his sword and knelt to examine the fleetfoot, bringing up its head to look at its eyes.

"Did you notice?" he asked, raising his head to look at Caylon. "The monsters are no longer as aggressive. Whatever happened, the spectres stopped possessing the monsters."

"That could mean anything. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean anything good," Caylon said. "We have to leave. And fast."

Al'Sherda eyed him with an emotion he couldn't decipher. "The villagers wouldn't be able to keep up. They're exhausted right now. Pushing them any further..." Rezak shook his head. "We'll have to stay, whatever may happen."

Caylon spoke after a short pause. "I'm not going to be dying for any villagers."

"I don't expect you to."

With an understanding formed, Caylon left Rezak to return back to his previous position, allowing the Renardan to regroup with the villagers. He scouted out the area, making sure there were no monsters to be found before he sat on the sand and turned his attention to his Schema. His horns still twinged at the chaotic movement of energy around him but he tried his best to ignore it.

[Name: Caylon Vesborn

Tier: Tier 0

Age: 8

Race: Infernal (Demon)

Attributes:

- Physique [T0] - Level 8

- Psyche [T0] - Level 5

- Arcana [T0] - Level 3

Forces:

- Lifeforce {Rank 0.9}

- Spirit {Rank 0.3}

- Ether {Rank 0.1}]

He had enough essence to raise his Physique to level 9 and then some so he just dumped in all the essence he had into the attribute. He usually liked to reserve some of his essence for emergencies but this counted as one.

He sighed as the orgasmic bliss of leveling up hit him and he felt his body transform, becoming just that much closer to perfection. He exhaled when the essence stopped its modification of his body and glanced over his Schema once more before dismissing it.

He considered meditating and refining his lifeforce but didn't. The desert was too open and dangerous for that and whatever gains he would get weren't worth the risk.

He stood up and stretched before casting a glance back at the bonfire. Feeling uneasy about the continual anomaly, he decided to scout out the area. He considered informing Al'Sherda and Keton of his movements but dismissed the idea. They would be able to handle any emergencies that happened with him gone. If they couldn't, his presence probably wouldn't change much.

He wiped his daggers on the feathers of the dead desert stalker and walked out into the desert. The erratic movement of the truedark left his horns constantly alerting him to every change in the energy profile of the environment, blinding him to dimmer and steadier signatures and rendering his energy senses nigh useless in the situation.

He fed lifeforce into his eyes, carefully enhancing the organs so he could see better through the miasmal truedark. He didn't have a specialized Technique for just enhancing his senses but it worked as needed. He still couldn't see further than a few dozen meters but that was good enough. He kept a tight circuit of energy looping through his muscles just in case he needed a quick burst of speed.

He didn't encounter any monsters through the first stretch of desert he covered, which he had kind of expected. All monsters near them would have been spurred on to attack them. What was strange was that there were no other monsters around.

During truedark, spectre-possessed monsters roamed about the Velqav, mating with compatible species and killing non-compatible species. They refrained from killing any monster that could reproduce and also refrained from killing each other when there were unpossessed beings nearby, the spectres seeing them as higher priority. This was all common trivia in Renarda, or at least, common amongst ascenders.

The fact that there was not even one monster around was enough proof that the aberrant movements of the truedark was not inconsequential. It only remained to be seen if it was benign or not.

Caylon's eyes caught a deeper-shadowed area on the sand as the ever-present miasma momentarily parted and he moved cautiously over, only relaxing when he saw it wasn't a monster. It was only the trail of a monster.

He was standing at the edge of a wide pit, sand slowly slipping back in and filling it back up. He knelt down to inspect the pit, warily brushing his fingers along the edge. His fingers came up sticky and slimy and he hurriedly wiped off the slime on the sand.

He cursed softly in Fellspeak.

He'd heard of the sandswimmers almost as soon as he'd entered Renarda. The native Renardan sandworms, more commonly known as swimmers, were a creature of legend in the city, with even children being told of them in fables.

They were said to be able to grow to titanic proportions, digging deep into the planet's core the older they got, and also able to strangle dragons in their sedative grips. Those were obviously exaggerations but it showed how dangerous they were if they had that much of a reputation in a region where bloodthirsty monsters roamed the night.

Caylon quickly put together the threads of information he was aware of about the sandworms. The larva hatched from eggs buried beneath the sand and rapidly developed from hatchlings into juvenile sandworm, which, while large, didn't have the soporific slime the adults had. As they matured, however, they grew even larger and the slime, which they could eject in all directions, made them formidable creatures. However, as they grew, they were less prone to appearing near the surface, preferring to do whatever it was they did deeper underground.

Estimating the size of the pit, Caylon was very sure this particular sandworm was older than average. Which begged the question of why it had chosen now to ascend and whether the truedark was responsible. If the truedark was responsible, how? It was common knowledge that the miasma - and the spectres it contained - couldn't reach far underground. Maybe the swimmer had risen near enough to the surface to be possessed by a spectre or something like that. They laid eggs around this season, didn't they?

Where exactly was the swimmer, though? It couldn't have gone in the direction of the camp because he would have encountered it earlier if it had gone near him. His energy senses weren't quite so restricted that he would miss an energy signature that big - unless it had gone underground.

His ears captured a low hubbub in the distance and he stood up instantly, guiding lifeforce into his ears to hear better. The murmur sharpened into an array of different sounds, mixing and blending into a roaring cacophony he couldn't quite make sense of, the distortion of the truedark not helping in that regard.

He cast one last glance at the pit and decided to check out the origin of the noise, which seemed - which was getting closer.

He ran in the direction of the noise and then stopped to climb up a small dune, hoping the elevation would help him see better. The sounds gradually became clearer with time until Caylon was almost sure he could tell what it was. But he didn't want to believe it.

It had been several millenia since Nargavta's Integration. Beast waves were something that shouldn't be happening. Especially not in an underdeveloped area like this.

He poured more energy into his eyes, infusing every individual tissue and feeding lifeforce into the optical nerves that transmitted visuals. Messing with Enhancement without the aid of a Technique was a risky prospect but one he had to confirm what he was hearing.

The origin of the sounds came into his view and Caylon couldn't quite stop himself from cursing.

A horde of monsters moved through the desert, walking, sliding and flying and, yes, he could see a few adult swimmers amongst them, along with several juveniles. They moved in an orderly fashion; none of the smaller animals were trampled and occasionally stray monsters joined the horde, sliding neatly into formation. He couldn't clearly see their eyes but he knew all of them had to be possessed.

The fucking spectres could trigger beast waves at will. Why this wasn't known in Renarda was something Caylon didn't have time to ponder on.

He started running back to the camp, his legs flying over the sand in lifeforce-assisted strides.

It seemed most, if not all, of the commoners were not going to survive the night.