In one of the largest caves below mountain Death, a strong, calm voice put an end to the dark silence.

“So my wolves were defeated”, it said.

“The Flood Bringer appears in our way again, brother. Let us not spare him a second time”, replied a similar voice from somewhere in the cave.

“The first time it is mercy, the second stupidity. You are right, he cannot be spared again. How should we kill him?”

“The Shepherd is on his way back from the trolls, but his mission was easy. I doubt he lost more than two sheep. He should have more than enough power to kill the humans.”

“We should have him kill the boy too, the one my wolves warned me about. If what they said is true, and they could not lie to me, he may pose an even greater danger than Ashter.”

A big head, much bigger than that of a human, nodded in agreement. “Raven”, he shouted. A black shadow fell from the top of the cave and landed in front and below the big head. As it bowed, a ray of light, coming from an opening hundreds of meters above, revealed its form. A creature with the head and body of a woman, but with the wings and claws of a raven, was waiting with her head lowered. Her human part was beautiful, her hair pure black.

“Go find the Shepherd. Tell him to kill Ashter and the boy that is with him, who are headed for the elven capital. Tell him not to fight in Laterna, if possible. Go.”

Without a single sound, Raven launched herself at a speed close to the speed of sound and, passing through an opening in the ceiling of the cave, disappeared among the stars.

As she was flying above the Dark Area, she puked. Being in the same place with both her master and his brother was too much for her body to handle. She had almost lost consciousness from the combined strength of their auras.

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The front right wheel of the wagon fell in a puddle and Vreil, who was sleeping inside, hit his head on the sides of the wagon. He looked at Sir Arnold who was sleeping next to him and saw that the knight hadn’t felt a thing. “Lucker”, he mumbled and went to the front of the wagon to find Heartilia driving.

“Heartilia?” he asked. “How come you are driving?”

Heartilia turned around and saw him, and then she immediately turned all red.

“I- I’m sorry Vreil, my father told me to try.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry. Have you done this before?”

“Just one time, back when we were considered nobles. We had many horses and servants, and my father tried to teach me. I only took one lesson because then we lost our status and had to leave the city.” She seemed to loosen up with the conversation, so Vreil sat next to her.

“You have to hold the reins tighter”, he said. She grabbed them tighter, following his advice. For a while, they just went in silence.

“I am scared”, said Heartilia suddenly. “One day we live in luxury and safety, the next we abandon everything we have to join the revolution, and now we are crossing the Dark Area, heading to the elven capital; just yesterday I saw a fight that changed my view of the world. I feel like I am walking right towards my death, in a place that means nothing to me. I am scared.” Her eyes were wet and Vreil could feel her cry for help.

“I believe that problems are opportunities to get stronger. By surpassing the obstacles in your way, you grow up and become a better person. The path you're walking will be full of obstacles so instead of fearing them, challenge them. Even if you fail, then at least you will know that you gave it your all, and that’s just how far you could go. Besides, you can’t win a battle if you think you are going to lose and yes, this is a battle.”

Heartilia ogled him with widened eyes, then she looked the other way and wiped her tears.

“Thank you, Vreil. I will go see my father now.” She gave him the reins and jumped off the wagon. At the slow speed they were moving, she could do that without any danger.

“The soul of humans is abyssal. And the soul of girls even more so”, said a voice behind Vreil’s ear. He turned around to see Sir Arnold. “Don’t ambush me like that”, he complained.

“Your reaction was nice, but you should have noticed me.”

“When did you wake up?”

“A little before she jumped off.”

“How little?”

Sir Arnold sighed. “I woke up at the same time as you did. It seems Ashter is not awake yet.”

“Heh”, Vreil chuckled. “How do you know?”

“If he was awake, he would be greeting us now.”

Vreil was ready to agree when he noticed something on the horizon. “Is that a forest? There are no more monsters like those wolves up ahead, are there?”

Sir Arnold’s face darkened. “No, that forest is completely safe; it would actually take some effort on your part to die there. But it is the most irritating place I know of.”

“Irritating? Why irritating?”

“Because in that forest lives the most notorious jokester of all times, a mysterious, immortal creature that has been pranking anyone and anything that goes near his forest for many centuries. I don’t remember its real name, but everyone now calls it the Joke. Hell, I wish I could kill the thing!”

“The Joke?” Vreil was startled. “But pranks can be fun sometimes, right?”

“Do you ever get tired of asking questions?" Sir Arnold raised his brow exasperated. "Not with the Joke. He pranks you constantly, all day and all night until you exit the forest.”

“I remember when we played pranking wars back at my village. I was the best of all the kids” Vreil smiled, only for his smile to darken immediately afterward. The scar on his soul was still bleeding.

“That won’t help you. You’ll know when you see it. Nobody can best the Joke.”

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The Joke's forest seemed safe. They had spent the night near the edges of it and were now getting ready to enter the woods.

“No sign of incoming pranks”, Vreil declared jokingly.

“Don’t joke, kid. I once went through this forest and in the two days I was inside I cursed myself at least five hundred times”, answered Sir Arnold roughly.

“Come on, how bad could it be?”

“You can’t even sleep! If I wasn't under strict orders I would never go through here, even if I had to risk my life on an unsafe path.”

“I am with Vreil on this one”, Jeffrey spoke up. “I’ve heard of the Joke, but you said it yourself that the pranks are harmless.”

Sir Arnold’s face turned red. “To the body yes, but to the mind it is…” he looked at the sky. “Oh, you will see for yourselves. Just try not to cry too much. And remember, whatever you do, don’t tell the Joke that its sense of humor sucks.”

Then he took a big step and entered the forest, followed by the wagons.

They hadn’t walked ten meters when the ground beneath Sir Arnold’s feet disappeared and he fell into a pitch-black hole. “Not agaaaain”, came his voice, and he kept screaming until he was so far down that they could no longer hear him.

“Move on”, ordered Jeffrey. “He will reappear later in some lame way, I guarantee it.”

Following his words, the wagon followed the road, bypassing the hole. They all tried to look inside as they were passing through but it was too dark, even though the sun was shining right on top of it.

Five minutes later, they stopped again, at a much more visible danger. Big tigers with two long teeth each and many smaller ones were leisurely standing in the sun, in the middle of the road. Sting saw them in time and they managed to stop before alerting them.

“We should turn around reaaaally silently and find some other way”, whispered Jeffrey.

“There is no other way”, whispered Sting. Suddenly, all the tigers turned their heads in their direction and started howling. Linda tried to curse but the word she used was lost in all the howling. The tigers ran at them, even though they shouldn’t be able to see them from where they were before.

“Turn around and run!” shouted Vreil.

“There is no time, they are almost here!”

The tigers attacked, their teeth dripping saliva and their eyes bloodlust. Vreil, Sting, and the two guards who, as the rest had understood, were very shy, were waiting with their swords drawn. Not that they had any chance against almost a dozen bloodthirsty, big tigers but they weren’t going to go down without a fight.

The first tigers jumped at them and Vreil noticed there were boogers in the nose of one of the tigers. Just as they were ready to fall on them, the animals disappeared and small, fluffy cats appeared in their place. “What the…” said Sting as a cute cat fell in his arms. The same happened with the rest of the tigers and soon they had ten kitties wandering in and out of the wagons and smelling everyone. After the initial shock, Heartilia’s instincts took over.

“How cute!” she said before anyone else had the time to speak. She reached out to grab one of the kittens when it showed an evil smile. “Don’t go near it”, shouted her father but it was too late. The kittens exploded, showering them all with a pink, sticky substance, like rubber. It stuck to not only their clothes and bodies, but to the inside and outside of the wagons, and to the horses as well. Ignoring Heartilia’s screams, who was full of the pink substance since she was very close to one of the cats, they tried to remove it with their hands, only to find that it was stretchy. The only result of their effort was to get their hands full of it as well.

“It tastes good”, noted Linda and everyone looked at her disgusted. “You seriously tried to eat that thing?”

“I had a hunch.” When the others tasted it as well, they discovered that it had a sweet flavor but they couldn’t cut it into swallowable pieces. They just kept chewing and chewing, without it losing its flavor at all.

“This is disturbing”, complained Vreil.

Then he noticed that there was one more cat that hadn’t exploded. As soon as his sight landed on it, the cat grew back to the original tiger and even bigger, and opened its mouth as wide as its jaws allowed. Naturally, everyone was surprised to see Sir Arnold fly out of the tiger’s mouth and land in Vreil’s arms. He was clean, but his clothes were now full of exotic flowers and his eyes were spinning.

“Sir Arnold! What happened?” asked Vreil, but Sir Arnold was too busy holding back his puke to answer.

“He was spinning”, sounded a voice from behind them.

“Who’s there?” asked Sting as he turned around.

“And twisting”, added a similar voice, this time from in front of them.

“And revolving”, said a third voice from above.

“And falling and turning”, finished the fourth voice.

“Who are you?” asked Vreil.

“Who am I?” replied all four voices at the same time. “They call me…” the tiger suddenly began to deform and a new form appeared, spinning with its hands in the air.

“The Joke!” shouted the Joke and bowed. “Humbly at your service.”

Now that it was sitting still, they could take a better look at it. The first thing they all noticed was that its body color was yellow. The second was that it looked like a human. Then, in turn, they realized that it wasn’t a human, because it had tentacles where it should have arms, it was flying a meter above the ground, it had no ears or nose, just eyes and a mouth, and it had no legs. It wore a long, blue cloak that covered everything from its neck to its waist, only leaving two openings for its arm tentacles. Its voice was very high-pitched and one of the guards could barely hold back his laughter.

When the Joke got closer, they noticed more details. Its face and arms were made up of no curves; there were absolutely no curves, just a general roundness. It had no hair, and its eyes and mouth were two times as big as a human’s. When it laughed, its human teeth appeared.

“Yahahahaha, you look so funny covered in that gum, you should look at yourselves.”

“Are you the Joke?” Jeffrey asked angrily. What was this yellow piece of crap thinking?

“Yes, I am the Joke, as I said.”

“How could you do this to my daughter?” He pointed at his daughter who was frightened and covered in the pink substance the Joke had called ‘gum’. “Are you really serious?”

“No, I’m the Joke. I got you. Yahahahaha.” Everyone waited for the rest of his answer and only spoke when they realized it wasn’t coming.

“Are you crazy?” Linda inquired calmly.

“No, I’m the Joke. I got you again, yahahahaha.” Jeffrey was now getting really, really annoyed at this big clump of bad humor.

“Well then, mister Joke, let me tell you that I don’t like the way you are treating us. What's your purpose with all these stupid pranks?”

“But of course, to have fun. That’s what pranks are for, right?”

“Yeah, but yours suck”, commented Vreil.

“NO”, Sir Arnold shouted suddenly. “He didn’t mean it.”

The Joke ignored him.

“Did you just tell me that my humor is bad?”

“What if I did?”

“Then that means war”, the Joke declared angrily. Even though it sounded angry, its big smile had not faded at all since it first appeared. Instinctively, Vreil’s hand moved to his sword.

“A prank war!!! Yahahahaha”, screamed the Joke and flew away extremely quickly until they lost him among the trees.

“Oh shit”, exclaimed Sir Arnold who was laying at the feet of Vreil, and the next moment all the flowers that were on him spouted water with great pressure, making everyone wet. The only ones that held their composure were the horses, which didn’t seem to be affected at all by all the strange things that were going on around them.

“What did you do, Vreil?” shouted Sir Arnold when the flowers dried up and disappeared magically. “Didn’t I specifically tell you not to tell the Joke that its humor sucks? Didn’t I?”

“Well you did, but it really did suck. We asked serious questions and the answer was ‘No, I’m the Joke’.”

“Yes, and thanks to you now the Joke will try really bad to beat our spirit. We can expect double, no, triple pranks from here on out.”

“Beat? Are you saying this is some sort of competition?”

“Yes, the Joke is trying to break our spirits but… no, no no no. Don’t even think about that, Vreil.”

“What’s the point of entering a competition if you are not trying to win?”

“Let’s beat the Joke at its own game”, Sting agreed as he and Vreil shared a look. They really enjoyed watching Sir Arnold lose his shit.

“Great idea, but we can’t beat the Joke. Nobody can, and many have tried in the last centuries. The Joke is spreading rumors that there is a big treasure waiting for whoever can prank the Joke, but nobody can do it. In this forest, he controls everything.” Sir Arnold felt like he was talking to children. Strangely, smoke started coming out of his ears, making Sting, Vreil, and Heartilia laugh. Even Linda had to stifle a smile.

“That makes it all the more exciting”, replied Vreil. “You hear that, Joke?” he shouted as loudly as he could. “We will prank you!”

“Prank waaaaar”, sounded the Joke’s childish voice.

“Now all we have to do is win”, said Vreil, still covered in gum. Then it rained tomatoes.

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Somewhere near the edge of the Dark Area, an old man was slowly traveling on the road, dressed in baggy clothes and holding a crook. Many sheep were following him but, if one looked carefully, they could see something strange about them. From above, a big black bird landed gracefully in front of the man who, strangely, was not surprised.

“New orders from the mountain”, said Raven. “Master orders you to hunt down and kill Ashter and any humans accompanying him. They are heading to Laterna from the memory wolves’ forest.”

After that, she immediately took off, already on her way back to her nest. There was no need to wait for the man’s answer. Orders are absolute. As Raven was flying at supersonic speeds, the old man turned around and opened his mouth, showing a long row of teeth, small but numerous.

“The hunt is on”, he shouted at the sheep, with a huge smile splitting his face apart. “We have found good prey.”

The sheep opened their mouths, revealing teeth sharper than those of tigers, and howled. Then they ran, following after their master.

In a house some kilometers away from where the sheep and the old man were, in an isolated place next to an empty crop field, another old man heard the howling. “What was that, grandpa?” his grandson asked, scared by the terrifying sound. His grandfather took some time to regain his composure before answering. “That is the howl of the hunt”, he said, his voice shaking a little. “I have heard it once more in my life, but I will never forget it. It was the day when my hometown was burnt to the ground.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means that someone is going to die”. He gulped. “The Shepherd is hunting.”