The wraith is the weakest of the ghostly apparitions. While unable to act in sunlight, they still exude an aura that drives natural creatures away from them. Their grasp draws away a living being’s vitality. Should you die to a wraith, you will rise as one to join its assault on the living. These creatures are driven mad by their hate for the living. – Common Monsters

Adrian

I land near where I was cooking a few hours ago. There are over a dozen people camped out around my house. It looked like they hadn’t gotten into the house yet, from the thick windows or something else? That doesn’t matter, too many people are there.

I don’t think I could take them on myself, I need my friends. Should I get everyone to travel straight there? No, they would be fatigued when we get there. If my family is still there then they are in the cellar. They should be safe for a few more hours.

There has to be something that I can do. I look around, it seems that everyone has gone into the buildings by now. Returning to human form I enter into the house that is closest to where I cooked food, as it seemed to be the sturdiest of the buildings.

My guess was right as I find my friends sleeping aside form one of the twins who was keeping watch. I must have been gone longer than I thought I was going to be. She walks up to me and we begin to talk.

“Is there anything that we need to be worried about?”

“There is, some people have stated squatting at my home. I didn’t see my family there either, I think that they are in the cellar, as you can’t get in there without a key.”

She nods, and seems worried for me. No, it is empathy. She must be able to see the unease I feel.

“They will be safe, don’t worry.”

“Will it? Everyone else we went looking for died. I feel like something terrible will happen tomorrow.”

“You were there for sister, Kythia and me. We will be there for you.”

I smile as she gives me a hug. They will comfort me should anything happen. It does not stop my thoughts but the stress is a bit lighter. It does however bring another thought to my mind. How am I going to introduce them to my siblings and mom?

“I don’t think that I’ll get to sleep tonight. I’ll take the rest of the watches, just make sure to get enough rest.”

She nods and walks away with a yawn. Now, I have several hours until they are ready to travel. I want to just wake them up and start walking but there are at least four hours’ worth of walking to do before arriving at my house.

We are going to end up fighting those people, if they are fatigued they’ll end up dead. Even if they are rested they could end up dead easily enough. I need to find some way to defend against bullets aside from hiding.

There are not any decently written books on abjuration that they could use to learn a magical method. I need to figure out a way to deal with them myself. They lack exposure to magic so overt effects will not be good. Something that cannot be seen, I also need to keep reading and studying anatomy so I can make sure to be able to heal everyone.

I need more time, too many things I need to learn and not enough time to pick them all up. I need to learn more healing, chaining spirits, protective anything, not to mention my lack of combat training. I got some at the Althaen camp, but it is not enough.

I walk outside into the light of the now waxing moon. Another reminder of a problem that I need to solve. How will K’s wolf act under the next full moon? Will she be mad that I have not turned? Or will she just accept it?

I pull out some of the tomes written by some dusk elf named Damû Rámaêri. While I certainly disagree that he should have been allowed to do the experiments he did, they offer detailed insight into some of the things I need.

No anatomy book on earth will tell me how various energies affect the body, or things to be careful of while altering the body. What is recorded in his books is horrid but they are detailed and have clear explanations and conjectures. Something that I found lacking in the few books I have looked at from the Althaen.

I need to understand why these things work as they do. I can try to do something through brute force but that is harder, it takes much more power to just force something into reality. Not to mention the aftereffects of whatever I did. The more I learn the more control I have over my surroundings.

Demon, formerly Jason

We smile as those fools around us are consumed by our kin. We must make sure that none of them grow stronger than us, but that is easy. They have bodies built of spilt blood, they grow weaker as time passes. They must spend their strength to keep a solid form on this plane. We do not. We have a mortal body warped to be filled by us.

The Ravnos boy is to the north. We sniff the air, something does not seem right in that direction. This young Ravnos is not pure, he is mixed with something else. Do those that run the dream know? Why have they not let others know?

They must want the Ravnos for themselves. They are greedy, just like all of our kin. There is something else to the north as well, another Ravnos? Something with an old and sickly soul, something that was once powerful. We lick our lips, whatever is there may not be as good as that young Ravnos but it will be something that should strengthen us.

As there is nothing else here to consume, we jump into the sky and release a primal yell to call our lesser kin to follow us. They will be the fodder that we need. The Ravnos is headed north, towards something else that while less palatable is another feast for us. We have some of the smallest of our kin follow him, we need to find a good opportunity to take the youth. Even a weak Ravnos is a terrible foe. They twist, weave and even rend the world around them. Our abyssal powers cannot stop him from acting as we stopped those foolish mages.

The imps track the Ravnos, what did the host body know him as? Adrian? It is hard to see past the hatred and greed of our mortal coil, such a good pawn he was. Near the rise of the fiery ball mortals call the sun we see our prey, or rather we see him through the eyes of our lesser kin.

The prey is very observant and readied to fight as he travels further north. This is not the time to strike, they are too ready to fight. Are they expecting us? They should not be, but maybe he is one of the Ravnos that see through time. No, if he was he would have killed our host when none were looking. There must be another hunter that he knows about nearby.

Where is it? Where is the being that would steal my prey? The mortals are talking as they travel. We do not know what they say. Taking the knowledge of their tongue would risk letting the host take back control, we will not allow it. We will have to follow and wait for a time of chaos to strike.

We smile as the young Ravnos continues northwards, he is not fleeing another predator. He is heading towards his kin. We can feel the aura of others of his blood living nearby. They must be the old and sickly souls that we can feel. Yes, lead us to a greater feast hapless boy. Your soul is strong, but also young and foolish. Your potential may be great but you have yet to truly walk into it.

The young Ravnos and his allies approach another group of mortals. These mortals share no blood with them, why are they at the dwelling of Ravnos? They do not seem to be any sort of followers as they lack any aura of a Ravnos on them. Only what has seeped onto them from the place where they are now. There is anger and aggression in the words they exchange. I can feel our kin become excited for the blood that will soon be shed. Just a bit longer. . .

One of our lesser kin reveals itself and attacks one of the mortals that was not following the Ravnos. We should have been more explicit in our orders, now we must all act. This was not the opportune moment to strike. There are screams as the small imp begins to eat a man. Enjoy the meal you waste of blood and life, you will not stay here under me after this.

We must act quickly, isolate the young Ravnos or go after the older sickly kin? We smile, this Ravnos should be able to stand up to our kin for a time. None of them should be strong enough to consume him. We will go after the older souls nearby, they are weaker than us. We will likely be hurt but so should the young Ravnos be when we return to consume him.

Adrian

Something has felt off the entire morning as we walked to my house. I do not feel fatigue from staying up the entire night. I am not sure if it is due to how my draconian powers absorb radiation to sustain me or just from my worry for my family.

At least I managed to make use of those hours, I should be able to keep the physical body alive should there be any injuries. So long as we do not suffer from a shot through the brain I think I will be able to repair the damage. At least enough to stay alive.

As soon as I open the gate at the bottom of the driveway we hear someone yelling. It is not someone that I heard last night. A daytime leader? Or maybe the leader was one of the two men that I shot. Did they die or are they just injured? Tactically I doubt that there is too much of a difference if a fight breaks out.

Before I respond to the shouting I feel something is off in the space around us. I signal everyone to get ready for a fight. None of those people should have the ability to do anything supernatural but I defiantly felt some sort of spatial anomaly.

A scream echoes out into the nearby hills and woods. Some reddish midget with bat like wings just tore the limb from one of the squatters. That is no goblin, it is something else. Several of the squatters begin to fire upon whatever it is as it begins to eat the arm it had taken.

It does not seem to be bothered by the bullets, rather it seems to be growing larger as it consumes the flesh of the man. I see a look of terror on one of the twins’ faces. More of the little creatures are tearing through something and entering our vicinity.

“Demons” I hear from K.

These should be imps then. But why are they eating flesh and growing from it? Do they require a blood sacrifice to grant physical form in our world? I should read what little Damû Rámaêri wrote on demonology. Perhaps there is an explanation there. Regardless they appear to be unaffected by firearms.

“Damage resistance or immunity” asks Bryan.

Good question, perhaps these creatures are closer to an earlier edition of the games we play together so much. I turn to K as I do not know the answer myself.

“They require magic to harm” she answers.

I frown. I do not have an enchanted weapon, neither does Abagail.