Falko moved towards the entrance of the cave. He remembered, one way in , enclosed space, use the bardiche as a short spear, use you reach. The bardiche is a polearm, however it is not a normal one. Most of the time you fight with it similar to a big two handed axe and cleave you way trough, but you can also use it as a not perfectly balanced short spear. As a short spear it has a longer reach and is mostly used against cavalry or to break through heavy armor. In a narrow cave you can first use the reach of the short spear stance and if the enemy got to close you can change to the two handed axe stance.

by now Falko also heard people outside. Falko and Ulf moved away from the fire and were hiding just outside of it's range of light. He could hear the people moving into the cave and getting closer. One of them began shouting.

"Half-breed dog we know you are hiding here, come out and die."

I moved, the light of the fire was in my back and i spoke.

"There is only me here and i don't know who you are, but i don't think we have any quarrel."

The sound of wet boots on the cave ground came close till we could see each other. They all had one thing in common, they all had a white tunic with a strange symbol on it. The symbol was a red lotus with a crown on each petal. The other party looked at me and then looked at the campfire.

One man from the party spoke.

"You are right i only see you here, but we have to make sure he is not here."

He turned to another man further back und said.

"Arian you go, maybe you can find him"

The man, apparently Arian, moved forward. As the light of the fire shone on him i could see that he was not human. His arms are full of fur and on his face you could almost see no skin. Arian began to sniff.

Ulf lunged from the shadows and one enemy died. Before they could react i pierced another on in the chest. Two dead, six left. I changed stance and cleaved right trough another. Ulf movwed towards me while cutting into the legs of two people. Five left, two are injured.Two are attacking me from which one is injured, Arian attacked Ulf and i saw that one of them was loading a crossbow. The one who spoke was staring at me and Ulf full of hate. The uninjnured one lunged at me, i sidesteped and hit his stomach with the shaft of the bardiche. I cleaved at the other one, he tried to block with his shield, the blade split the shield and his forearm from his body. I pierced his stomach and turned to the one lying on the ground holding his stomach. I felt something hitting my shoulder and throwing me to the ground. The guy with the crossbow hit me. The guy i hit in the stomach came into my sight, trying to finish what the cossbow started. I kicked his leg and while falling i pierced his head. I got up and looked around. Arian still fought with Ulf, crossbow guy was reloading and the guy who spoke was moving towards Ulf to help Arian. I picked up a sword and threw it towards that guy, it was enough to distract him for a little bit of time, then i began to sprint towards crossbow guy, before his end he looked up from reloading, shock in his face. The guy who spoke was not fast enough to intercept me and after he died i thought that he was maybe more of the tactician of the group. I turend to Arian and Ulf only to see something new. Both stepped back from each other and both began to change. Arians head turned into that of a wolf, his arms into claws and overall more fur grew. Ulfs head turned also into that of a wolf, but the rest didn't happen with him. It seems Arian was a full lupus. Both engaged each other again, moving faster than humanly possible.I moved in and with my help Ulf got the opening he needed to heavily injure Arian and shortly after that Arian died.

Ulf turned back, i could see he was exhausted. I looked around realizing the heavy smell of blood. The cave was painted red only disturbed by the fire, pink flesh and white bones.

Ulf said:

"OK i help you and you help me. Now we have to move we can't stay here any longer." He moved to his backpack and bedroll and packed his things. While doing so he said "Those were from the Purity Cult, the blood lotus is their symbol"

Outside the cave we saw somebody riding away in the rain. It seems one of them stayed outside. Ulf took one of their horsed and i whistled for Marush. Ulf was suprisied to see Marush, most likely because of the horse armor. It was better to just get away, it would be hard or them to find our tracks in the rain. We rode through the night and through the next day before we stopped. Both Ulf and the horses needed rest. We found a little cave, made a fire and ate some of my provisions.

After eating we began to talk.

"So Falko you are faster and stronger than humans, if you don`t want to, then don`t tell me what you are, but i have to say you are strong.

While saying that he looked at me an suddenly looked shocked.

"Falko ist that a crossbow bolt in your shoulder?"

I looked at my shoulder and sighed, it seems i forgot that. It seems i need to trust Ulf a bit more, i just hope he wont attack me after all it seems we will be together for a while.

Before ripping the bolt out i said to Ulf

"I'm not so sure what i am myself. I was once human, but it seems a black magician experimented on me and now i am something else."

I decided to tell Ulf all i knew about Cil and my death. By the end Ulf had a pale face, but he didn't try to kill me. It looks like Ulf has seen enough of the world to not judge a book by it's cover.

After my story Ulf thought for a while before saying:

"If what you say is true, maybe we can find out more about your body trough some experiments. I'm really tired now, but we can look into it tomorrow, how about it?"

I agreed. It seems i need to learn a lot more about my new body and this new world.

On the next day we started to do some experiments, i also showed Ulf my hand which was nearly all bones. Ulf was pale nearly the entire time, it seems my body is strange even for this world. The most important things we found out in the morning are as followed.

First i am really strong. Ulf is stronger than a normal human and i am a lot stornger than him.

Second i am faster than a normal human, but Ulf is faster, especially when he uses his lupus ability to changes more wolf like. He called that ability 'Blood Quickening' and most races with beast blood, like the lupus, can use that ability.

Third there is no blood flowing through me and my wounds don't heal. Ulf stitched the wound from the bolt and after some time the skin kind of melded together.

Fourth Marush seems like me, stronger, faster and no blood and natural healing.

Sometime in the Morning it stopped raining and the sky cleared up. For me it was the first time since i awoke in this world that i could see a clear sky. After those tests we decided to hunt some animals and do more tests later.