Black clouds suddenly gathered in the sky, bombing the horizon with clogged thunders and making the sky seem so furious that even the inhabitants of the earth exited their dens and looked up while wondering what happened to nature to go berserk so suddenly.

The same happened to the Virgins of Siar People who had been left in the camp to take care of the children, cook, and wash the laundry because the rest of the people went to the edge of the forest to protect it because many of them had the same dream: the Rocu Forest in ardent flames that got to their camp and many of them fell prey to the slaughter of the same flames that protected them till then - Hestia’s fire.

Karina, a Virgin with green eyes like the grass on which her barefoot soles were stepping, raised her glance to the sky and stood like thunderstruck while watching the mad rush of the clouds on the limitless vault of the sky. „What’s going on?” she wondered, but nobody answered her.

Then, she left the basket with the washed laundry on the ground because that weird sunset found her while turning back to the camp from the river, and she looked around: the other girls and the children did the same - watching thunderstruck at the sky.

„Strange times we are living,” she heard a woman’s voice on her right that made her wince. Looking to the right, Karina saw a woman, much bent in front and supporting her body in a cane while heading toward her. At first, the girl has been amazed to see the old woman there because she wasn’t one of them, but she calmed down, thinking that Gaea again „disguised” herself to get there. So, Karina talked to the old lady without being afraid of something.

„Why do you think so, Mother Earth?”

Listening to the young girl’s words, the old lady stopped and stared at her, wondering what kind of trick was the one used by the girl to talk to her or if it was a kind of „to put to a proof” used by Siar People with the strangers. Then, she cunningly smiled, understanding what happened in fact: the girl had no idea who approached her, thinking that it was Gaea and this was a favorable thing for the „intruder”: she could give the titanide a dose of her own medicine.

„Because … only look at the sky - so furious, so mad with us, with Siar People who’ve been forced to wander the Earth for centuries, living like ghosts with no home, no future, no purpose and they must face now the hatred of the sky too,” the old lady said with a cunning voice.

„Hatred? But… why sky hates us?”

„Ah, Karina, what questions do you ask?! How, why? Of course, it’s because of Curse’s damnation who burnt us all and deserted our souls. But… are we guilty in fact? Why should we pay for a moment of… pleasure of the princess with God knows with whom?!”

„Well, you are also right, but…,” Karina stuttered. „I think that we only pay for the fact that we chased her out of the palace, with a newborn in her arms, and who died eventually in the devilish hug of Ahilar.”

The old lady fixed her eyes in those of the young lady, completely disarming her: „it was our right to do that. Punishment for punishment, no matter the social class because if one of you, one of the Virgins seen here would have given birth to a child without a father she would have been whipped, killed with thrown stones, or forced to drown in the river along with her newborn baby. However, I’m sure that none of you would have cursed her people for this, but she would have accepted her guilt. Or… am I wrong?”

The old lady’s words were so sweet, so rave for the innocent souls of the Virgins, forced to fight against something unseen and to pay for a sin that wasn’t theirs. So, the Virgins approached the old lady, one by one, as if charmed by those words, without making the difference between what’s true and what’s a lie because their minds, once being only one step from the old lady, had been submitted by Moirae’s black magic, who took one single body again, choosing this time the body of an old lady.

And… there was one more lie in Moirae’s words: the People of Siar never killed a woman, even if she gave birth to a child without a father. Per contra: if this happened, they helped her to grow up her son or daughter, being for that child a big family, loving him, teaching him, and treating him as a real citizen of their city. But the Virgins didn’t know that because nobody ever dared to tell them about past times and they also didn’t know about old traditions. The only thing they were aware of was that they must run and hide, but not how to make the difference between truth and lie.

„There’s always a way to save you and save others too,” the old lady added. „There must be a way to release you of that course, and that path is known as Revenge!” and Moirae practically whistled the words, making the young girls shudder while the hatred was sneaking in their souls, while fear was taking over them, allowing to the desire of revenge to be felt even more powerful than before, due to cruelty and … evil that was accompanying those words.

Seeing the feelings that took over those innocent souls, Moirae happily smiled because their trick finally worked - they’d been sent to Rocu Forest by Tenebre after she escape from Gaea’s prison: a big spiderweb and their mission was to convince the virgins to willingly drink from Ian Gyar’s magic potion because even if he managed to make it before being closed in Mortor Forest, he couldn’t use it to destroy the People of Siar. Now instead, when they were all free, their plan was about to be fulfilled.

„Revenge?” Karina whizzed the words, forcing Moirae to awake from their daydream after immersing in thoughts and memories about their plan. „But… how will help us this?”

The old Moirae slowly turned toward Karina and deeply looked in her green eyes, poisoning them even more: „by stealing the souls of those who can fight against you. Be your own master! You are that strong, so smart, and you can lead your own people without being forced to listen to someone else’s command. Why be submissive when you can have everything? Why to allow men lead you, force you to stay in the camp, and work as slaves when you are so powerful?! You have the same rights as they have: be wise, be your own master!”

„Yes, yes, she’s right,” the other virgins murmured.

Karina’s eyes focused on the old lady’s clenched fist that slowly started to open. Then, when the fist was completely opened, Karina saw a small bottle illuminating in that palm. „The Elixir of Life!” Moirae told her with an alluring voice. „This little bottle can help you to bring to an end your curse, to have immortality, and… to have power!”

Looking at the other virgins that were watching as charmed at Moirae’s empty hands, the old witches grinned and, very soon, from all over around them showed up Yātrīkar, but none of those girls was capable to see those ghosts because when they were about to rise their glances and to look in the distance from where voices were heard calling their names, the virgins saw small bottles in their palms, similar to the one Moirae had in her palm and all to one, moved by a strange inner force, the virgins drank from that liquid.

A sudden terrifying growl pierced the forest, forcing Dike, Geran, and the others to stop, and that sound was heard at the moment Yātrīkar exited their hidden place and attacked the camp and, in one mad movement, they possessed the girls’bodies, chasing away the souls out of those bodies and everybody shuddered, seeing the result: the same long, black hair was seeing instead of the blond one of the virgins; black, long and sharp nails, as the beasts had; red eyes covered by a white peel in which was mirrored the limitless desire to get revenge.

„Moirae!” Dike screamed, forcing the old lady to split up into three: Klotho, Decuma, and Morta, who were standing in front of Yātrīkar, considering them perfect now because the ghosts Yātrīkar were afraid of the sun till that moment and of titans. Now instead because they had a human body, they were invincible and they weren’t afraid of anything.

„Attack!” Moirae shouted and Yātrīkar darted at the place where Dike and the rest of the Siar People were stopped, but they hit only the wall of Ionas' bubble and couldn’t pass through it, no matter what they did or how hard they didn’t try, and this made them scream, this made them go crazy, and this made them savage.

„The children!” Geran shouted, trying to get out of the bubble, but Dike grabbed him by the clothes, forcing him to stay inside of Ionas.

„They won’t touch the children because they are protected by Gaea’s power. But… the virgins are lost - forever.”

Geran stared thunderstruck at Dike: „lost? How?”

„Their souls are gone… are out of the bodies now, wandering the horizon with no purpose, looking for a place to hide. But… Maranam will come soon after them, to lead them toward the Gate of the Purgatorium and they’ll take the place Yātrīkar left, waiting for centuries in front of that Gate, but while Yātrīkar couldn’t pass those Gates ever, being evil and having no soul, the Virgins will, at that moment their bodies will finally have rest on this earth.”

Geran looked in front and shuddered, seeing Karina standing right in front of him and watching him with hatred: even if she’s been his beloved woman, even if she’s been the woman he swore to love forever and to marry her. Now instead, because of his own foolishness, he lost her because he opposed the idea that everybody should go to the edge of the forest and protect their home. But he was regretting that thought now as he hated himself for losing what he loved the most.

Then, he looked back, and saw those still alive from his people: they were only a few dozen while the rest of them traveled northward, where they planned to build their new home. And Geran saw his people inconsolably crying their loss because there were daughters, there were sisters, beloved women or granddaughters between the new Yātrīkar and they were all dead now.

But Geran also knew that they can’t give up: at least not be in vain their loss. So, he decided: „we’ll travel northward! We’ll leave today Rocu Forest behind us and well go northward, to Tenebre’s Forest and there, in the depts of her own home, we’ll attack Tenebre and we’ll leave her powerless, if necessary, but we won’t allow her to hurt nobody ever and to do others what she’s done us today.”

In tears and protected by Ionas’bubble, the People of Siar went northward, leaving behind them the place that they considered their home for six centuries and where left a lot of memories were also.

Behind them, Maranam, the Spirit of Death, appeared on his pitch-black horse, called Vakkurti (covenant), and at one stroke of his right hand, in which he had a stick similar to Alabar, the one Lodur always had with him, but this one was of a black color, he gathered the innocent souls chased by Yātrīkar out of their bodies and, after demanding them to line up, each line having 9 souls, they hit the pike onto a long way, guarded on both sides by trees: on the right side were seen blooming trees beautifully illuminated by the sun while on the left side the trees were completely dried and sunken in shadows.

In tears, Karina’s transparent body, set on the other souls to listen to Maranam, and they started to walk at a slow step toward the huge wooden Gates seen in the distance while behind them was riding also at a slow step the black Spirit - Maranam.

Halfway, the landscape changed and instead of hard soil under their feet, the girls felt the hard material of a bridge that was crossing over a river with troubled waters, controlled by a mad underground force.

At first, the bridge seemed to be fixed and resistant, but, when Karina stepped onto it, the bridge started to move with such a force that seemed to be similar to strange command: to throw the girls into those troubled waters that were waiting to swallow them. But even if they were afraid and they wanted to turn back, the girls knew that this was already something forbidden for them and also because Maranam was only one step behind and even if they managed to escape from him, they could only live like mad souls on Earth because nobody would have accepted them, they wouldn’t have had a place to hide, and the more important - they would have lost forever the possibility to reborn, as the traditions of Siar People said: „those who are against to cross over the water of Styx will fall prey to their own madness, they’ll be always servants of hell and they won’t find ever peace,” that’s why the girls chose the right path to walk onto - to wait for an eternity at the Gates of Purgatorium to be let in, instead of crying and suffering forever.

***

The black tarantula entered again in Tenebre’s den, threaded through the same secret door open on the secular tree’s bark by Gaea’s power who followed the big wild spider at a slow step, but being ready to make Tenebre pay for her foolishness of joining Ian Gyar and Moirae’s plan who could eventually make disappear two great People - the People of Siar and the one of Noear.

When Gaea entered the den, Tenebre was next to the Palantir, preparing to see where Yātrīkar were going because even if she helped them to get a body, she also didn’t know how to make them submissive yet.

However, when she felt a strange cold gust of wind behind her, Tenebre sneezed. „God bless… you: no, the evil should do that!” Gaea told her with a mean voice because even if the titanide was known for her unselfishness and for her good thoughts for nature and people, for nobility, and that she was helping everybody who needed it, when someone crossed her bows Gaea came of damn mad and she was ready to break anyone into pieces if this one was hurting her children, and that day, when Tenebre and her accomplices killed two people and when Baradar, who was her beloved child, had been forced to wander the world forever, to lose everything and to live only in the depths of the forests, Gaea lost completely her mind.

„Sister, you always so kind … at talking! But what interests me is to know what brings you here?!” Tenebre mumbled unpleasantly surprised and she right away hid behind her throne when she saw the tarantula appearing behind Gaea because she knew that it won’t end well for her because she knew what Visam, the tarantula of the underworld, can do to those considered sinners, always feeding herself from their bodies which never vanished.

Now instead, seeing Visam’s fangs, Tenebre shuddered because she spotted a small green-purple stain on their top, a sign that Visam was ready to make Tenebre pay for another 600 hundred years, if not more, for what she’s done.

„You won’t dare do that, Gaea!” Tenebre hissed through the teeth.

„Do you think so? Well, I think you are wrong as I’ve been mistaken the last time when I thought that if you are caught for a while on Visam’s spider for a few centuries it will be enough to make you good. This time I intend to make you pay a little more for your deeds.”

„To pay? But I didn’t do anything to…”

„You are lying while watching me,” Gaea shouted. „I know very well your tricks and that you do that only to help Eris to escape from her prison. But… it’ll be necessary to wait an eternity and a lot of waters to cross the river Styx till you’ll succeed if this happens one day.”

„On Styx? You know pretty well that the water of Styx doesn’t flow, but it boils, Gaea, and if someone falls into those waters is condemned to eternal pain. So…”

„That’s why I said that,” Gaea cunningly said. „Maybe Eris will make it in her plan when the water of Styx will start to calmly flow. It means: never. Visam, my sweety, please take care of my sister in my place! Not the other, but… I have better things to do than this and one of those important things is to cry for my loss,” Gaea said while gnashing her teeth and she suddenly vanished.

Being alone with Visam, Tenebre stared at the tarantula that wasn’t rushing to approach her, but Visam was standing in place, rhythmically moving her front, black and pilose legs, and this was a bad sign for the back of the titanide of shadows because each time Visam was moving her legs this way, it meant that the prey she saw was a sure one and she’ll have soon a real feast for dinner.

„She won’t dare!” Tenebre slowly growled, staring at the tarantula while trying to take one step toward the Palantir that was floating above the table because she knew that the red sphere was her only salvation: using the power of the Palantir she could have set fire to Visam and escape. But she suddenly stopped when the tarantula started to advance toward her, right when Tenebre took that step. So, the titanide saw herself forced to withdraw and to hide again behind the throne.

But that throne was a place to hide only for the sake of appearance because Visam suddenly threw a sticky white thread toward the throne, the thread stuck on one of the front legs and, with a sudden move, she threw the throne against the wall breaking it into pieces. Thus, Tenebre saw herself completely exposed to the view of her enemy.

Anyway, Tenebre had decided that it wasn’t that good idea to stay and to wait. So, using black magic, she created around Visam a lot of shadows that started to slowly advance toward the tarantula, then they threw off the spider.

But Visam wasn’t stupid at all. Even if she was a simple animal, she had enough force to fight. So, right away the ghosts threw off her, the sticky web from inside of the tarantula suddenly was thrown over them, wrapping them into a white cerecloth as if Visam was covering a mummy and so fast that Tenebre couldn’t even breathe in when she understood that she’d been unarmed.

Thus, Tenebre understood that creating other ghosts wasn’t a sure success and she had tried to use the fire: she threw against the tarantula a ball made from lava that was fiercely boiling, but the ball was suddenly caught into a flock of a wet web, spit from Visam’s mouth. However, even if the lava of the burning sphere managed to burn in places the web that surrounded it, it couldn’t melt it yet because the liquid used for that web was fireproof, due to the fact that the tarantula was the beloved child of the underworld and that many considered that Visam had been in fact created from flames.

„You… bastard,” Tenebre furiously hissed. „How dare you to stand against me? Me, the one considered the Queen of the Shadows that…,” but her words were only a way of onset because while Tenebre was insulting Visam she was in fact trying to crawl unnoticed by the tarantula toward the exit door while touching the wooden walls with her back.

However, even if Visam didn’t move from her place and she seemed to be blind and not notice the titanide’s move, she wasn’t asleep yet: when Tenebre was only one step from the door, happily grinning and thinking that she was saved, Visam threw a sticky thread from her rear back leg… the thread quickly wrapped around Tenebre’s right leg, and after this, the tarantula threw the titanide against the wall and when she hit the wall a clear moan of the tree, that served the titanide as a den, was heard and it suddenly started to shake and another painful moan was heard, coming this time from the depths of the earth because some of the roots of the tree had been broken because of the used strength by the tarantula.

Then, on the walls of the tree started to flow a green serum, a sign that the tree had been really hurt, and that serum, leaked on the threads that were continuously exiting Visam’s body, colored that sticky material into a beryl green and, the more the threads clung to Tenebre's body the more they made her look more like the Forest Mum: green and sticky.

When she decided that she threw enough threads over Tenebre, who was laying on the ground and immobilized from everywhere, Visam started to slowly walk toward the titanide. Arriving above Tenebre, Visam started to swallow those threads, but without unsticking them off Tenebre’s body: only if the thread was stuck on the wall of the tree or on the ground, it was surprisingly easy to unstick as if the tarantula used magic to do this, but the thread wasn’t floating in the air after being unstuck off a hard material, but it was right away sticking on Tenebre’s body, who had been raised in the air, eventually, as if caught in a web.

Then, a strange sound was heard, like a laugh coming out of something very deep, and this made Tenebre shudder: she heard that laughter before when she tried to enter the underworld and to try to steal the power of the Cerberus, but she met Visam then, for the first time and, while she was running away along the wiggly tunnels of the underground, chased by the tarantula, Tenebre heard behind her the tarantula’s devilish laughter and that scary sound was resounding in her ears and at that moment, while she was captive in the tarantula’s web of hatred.

„Visam! My beautiful girl, I think we can reach an agreement, because…,” Tenebre murmured, but Visam didn’t care about agreements at all: she stretched her front pilose legs toward the titanide, and with a vertiginous movement she made the white thread wrap on Tenebre’s body till it was forming a white cerecloth.

Then, the light withdrew and the darkness took over that place when a thread thrown by the tarantula threw the Palantir out of the hollow and it so quickly bowled on the ground, making the nature around shake.

Eventually, while the Palantir was bowling down the valley, from inside of the hollow Tenebre’s cry of horror was heard, a sign that Visam tasted for the first time from the sweet-bitter meat of the titanide.

***

Tenebre’s Palantir of fire practically faded off completely the light from inside it while it was crossing the forest through bushes, between the trees, jumping over stones, or on the bumpy ride. But even so, there were also seen blind sparks of light through the Palantir’s glass wall because those rays were part of the power of the sphere: while bowling, the Palantir made the magma from inside it be mixed more and more, and this made it boil and threat it with its own destruction.

To defend itself, the black power of the Palantir threw enough black ashes over the magma, ashes meant to repress the volcano. But the power of the volcano from inside the Palantir was enough strong and that’s why from time to time it was cracking the thick peel of ashes, illuminating the darkness of the forest.

And those ashes were serving for something more: to camouflage the Palantir and if necessary to make it seem a usual stone. But: what kind of stone has soul or power to move alone along the forest, and this set the old trees’curiosity agog - at first on their bark appeared eyebrows that knit, then appeared green eyes, noses, lips, and … arms.

Slowly leaning in front, standing tea pot fashion, and grimacing, the trees followed with their glances that cheerful movement of the stone that was passing by them. „What kind of devilish thing is this?” one of the trees asked and he leaned more and stretched his hand in front of the Palantir, intending to catch it when it will pass by him.

But the Palantir had still enough power to feel the danger. So, when it was near the tree’s hand, it jerked up and passed over the hand. The tree desperately tried to catch up with the sphere, as long as his hand could be stretched. But when he saw that it was useless, he shouted to his brothers and friends: „Get hold of that sphere! This is not a simple stone! It’s something damn suspicious!” So, all over the forest appeared hands stretched in front to grab the Palantir when it will pass by. But the Palantir wasn’t also stupid to allow others to catch him and that’s why he was jumping up and it low where it should have jumped, in some places, it was crossing under something when it was too high to jump, and then it fell prey to its own trick and it entered a hollow.

But that hollow wasn’t a usual one - inside of it, a wild boar was living, controlled by Coallar’s dark power.

Feeling that a strange power entered the hollow of his pet, Coallar, who was sweetly sleeping, climbed on a thick branch of a secular tree, suddenly opened his eyes, and sniffed the horizon. Then he jumped on the ground, grinning: „I got hold of something damn powerful that can serve for my plans!” So, he quickly headed toward the hollow and when the Palantir came out of it, looking for its salvation, it entered right into Coallar’s bag, who showed up there from nowhere, and then it closed it by tightening the mouth of the bag and thus making the Palantir his captive.

The Palantir tried to release itself by struggling inside the bag and turning back to its master, but the power of the bag created by Coallar’s dark magic was something that the sphere never faced before. So, the light of the Palantir suddenly completely faded off and it tried this way to camouflage itself till new „commands.”

After he got the Palantir, Coallar quickly turned back to his grotto and tried to „read” the power of the Palantir, but it was something impossible for him too, because that Palantir, also known as the Sphere of the Shadows, could be read by others only if Tenebre allowed it, and while she wasn’t there and Coallar didn’t know whose Palantir it was, he saw himself forced only to have it in his power till he’ll find the master of that big power.

But yet, Coallar saw something in the Portal made from coals created by his power: the Virgins Yātrīkar crossing the Rocu Forest and he unhappily grimaced because he knew very well what those Virgins of Evil can do and how big is their power. That’s why, since that day, Coallar had decided to stay away from that forest because he wasn’t that powerful to confront the evil power of the Virgins of Shadows.