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After she had returned to Festid with her grandfather Erivere knew she was in serious trouble. In the past the old man had always been a little bit distant, but never cold to her. On the trip back not only had her grandfather never even looked at her, he had worn a grim expression. The last time she had seen that expression was when a passing merchant had tried to assault one of the younger village women, Eri had been young back then but she clearly remembered the punishment that man had endured before he had died. The elder had ordered him tied to a log, hamstrung, then burned alive in the hamlets fire pit. It had been winter and the log they had lashed him too had been soaked in sea water, it hadn't burned well at all; the merchant had lived, screaming in agony for nearly an hour before he finally succumbed to death. Briefly, his expression had changed once on the trip as he had spoken with the Traveler. Instead of the grim frown he had looked nervous, like a man confronting a calm, but potentially dangerous animal.

As the small detachment returned the elder ordered several of the older males into his home and had told her to wait outside. She had briefly considered fleeing Festid, but that idea was quickly discarded. To flee would be death for certain, the closest settlement was seven full days of travel away and without an escort or at least a mount she would have absolutely no chance of survival. Even her grandfather would not burn her alive, she expected the worst he would do would be to force her to marry, or perhaps restrict her to the immediate area around the village. They were family after all, and they had lived together for most of her life.

After perhaps an hour everyone but the elder exited the house and informed her that she was to enter and speak to her grandfather. She swallowed nervously and did as she was bidden. As she entered her grandfather spoke to her in a cold and emotionless voice, "Fool girl, do you even realize the calamity you have brought to us?"

Eri frowned, she had expected her grandfather to be angry. Compared to that this was much worse, he seemed weary and gloomy with little emotion at all being shown. "I know that entering the wood was a poor choice grandfather, I was angry with Vert and let it cloud my mind."

The old man slammed his open hand on the table making a loud slap. "Girl that is the least of the problems you have caused today and even that is serious enough to warrant banishment. But far worse you attacked a Traveler!" The old man closed his eyes and rubbed his temple with his index finger before continuing. "If a single Myrk could easily destroy our small hamlet consider a Traveler; a single Traveler can be devastating to the entire damned kingdom! It is an absolute miracle that any of us are still alive, if this is allowed to go unpunished..." The old man visibly shivers, then his face thaws and emotion returns to his features. Sadness, regret, but all overshadowed by a subtle shade of terror. "For what little consolation it offers, I am sorry Erivere." The emotion vanishes again, his face again a mask of apathy. "Your punishment has been decided; you are cast out. Before the sun rises in the sky tomorrow morning, you are to leave Festid and never return. You should prepare with the little time you have remaining."

Erivere stumbled numbly away from what had once been her home, walking about Festid in a daze. By the time she regained herself it was already nearly light, even while being totally out of sorts she had faithfully said her goodbyes gathered her things and repaid Gray as best she could for saving her life. If she was careful during the last hour of darkness and avoided danger she could travel hard all day and make the king's royal road before nightfall. With a bit of luck she could find and travel with a merchant caravan or at least other people moving to Harshe. Thinking this she began to trot Eastward toward the Royal Road.

After jogging for nearly an hour she arrived at standing rock and here she paused, Eri thought herself in pretty good shape, but jogging non-stop was tiring. It was nearly day break now, the horizon was beginning to show dark purple and pink so a brief breather should be alright. Looking around and finding no threat she leaned her weight against the large limestone outcrop and caught her breath. The quiet did not last though, as the sound of something heavy dragging through the dirt made her breath catch in her throat. Whatever had made that sound was just on the other side of the rock she was leaning on. She quickly pushed herself off the rock and spun around to see a bulbous pale white creature rise out of a dark hole near the base of the rock. Her heart hammered loudly in her chest as the she quickly identified the threat.

The creature was roughly four feet tall, its skin was an unhealthy looking pale white. It was vaguely humanoid, having two legs and two arms. That was where the similarity to a man ended though, as the creature had no neck. Instead an orange chitin sphere with tiny black beady eyes and a pair of mandibles rested directly on its shoulders. Further it was fat, so fat its limbs had the look of an overstuffed sausage. Its skin was stretched so thin it had taken on a hint of transparency, allowing its innards to be seen similar to looking through a frosted glass window.

Eri quickly recalled all she could of the creatures, they were call Arsem. They were highly unusual creatures, completely lacking bones and joints. They supposedly moved by directly controlling the fluid that filled their bodies. The creatures had two main weapons; first it could spit a venom so caustic that it would burn through common metal in moments; and second it could secrete a second venom through its skin that acted as a healing agent as well as being a powerful anesthetic, completely numbing the body and making its prey totally unable to resist. For the second venom their bodies were highly valued in human society, but due to the power of their acid they were considered far too dangerous to keep live.

Arsem had a huge weakness though, sunlight would quickly weaken them, dry them out and eventually even kill them. Daybreak was not far off, if she could just hang on it would have to return underground. Thinking to avoid it she quickly circled the rock trying to keep the rock between herself and the slower moving Arsem.

The creature ponderously lumbered after her, chasing around the rock but failing to gain ground on her. Eri glanced quickly at the horizon again, it was already reddening. Daybreak was just minutes away. Relief flooded into her mind as hope floated up in her. She was faster than the Arsem, as long as she was vigilant she would survive. But hope was fleeting, as she had circled the rock another white bulbous appendage had swept out of the hole near the rock and clipped her foot causing her to stumble.

Her heart went cold as she quickly tried to stand and found her foot and most of her calf were already completely numb. She stumbled backward as quick as she could manage as the second Arsem exited the burrow near the rock and advanced towards her joined by the first that had rounded the rock again. She thrashed around the grass in a vain effort to gain distance but the creatures were quickly on her. One of them folding her in its appendages, smearing her with venom. In a moment the fight was over, and as the sun cleared the horizon the Arsem had retreated to their burrow at the base of the stone with the now paralyzed girl.

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Gray walked a circle around the large rock checking the ground carefully as he did. As he did he found what he was looking for, a man sized hole at the base of the rock loosely covered by grass and roots. Nature itself had hidden it to such a degree that it would be very simple to overlook. A closer inspection revealed nothing but darkness inside, it was impossible to tell even how deep it was. There were however several protruding rocks that appeared be left intentionally as a very crude ladder.

Heaving a quick sigh Gray grabbed a fist sized rock and began to descend. He disliked the idea of entering a totally black area, but he disliked the idea of the girl dying because some fool was scared of him less and he had an idea for light at least. His careful descent was stopped quickly though as the rock in his right hand abruptly came loose causing his boot to slip and ending with him falling unceremoniously into the dark hole.

Gray had fallen only seven or eight feet and landed totally flat footed still stupidly holding the rock that had come loose while pain lanced up from his leg muscles as they worked to successfully absorb the impact. As he oriented himself in the blackness a clicking sound was heard followed by a dragging sound. Then a peculiar sound like a bellows sucking air in.

Gray's mind shouted at him, warning him something was coming. He dove away from the wall and to his right, hoping he wouldn't slam into a wall. As he threw himself aside a warm wetness was felt on his trailing left arm and a wet splattering sound was heard from the wall behind where he had been standing. As he dodged out of the way he oriented on the sounds he had heard and launched the stone that had caused his fall as hard as he could at whatever had made the sounds. A split second later he heard a thud followed by a loud splash. Whatever had attacked him had definitely been hit.

He quickly worked his new spark magic as he had done in the elder's home. Magic was actually deceptively simple, he just had to envision combining the concept of warmth and the force of expel in his mind into the shape of a disc and focusing it into the palm of his hand while threading a tiny thread of power into it. Though the elder had said power, Gray thought of it more like liquid. Basically he visualized a small hose the size of a thread of yarn and forced this liquid power that existed in his mind into it and through the disc he had envisioned in his hand. It sounded complicated, but in practice it was very simple as it was essentially imagining an effect then imagining his own power flowing into the effect.

Magic was pretty useful he thought as sparks expelled from his hand showered the area in from of him. The sparks lit up the room briefly, long enough for Gray to see the first creature was already dead. It had caught the rock right in the torso and basically popped like a water balloon. There was however a second creature, and it was creepy as hell to look at. It was like a lawn grub with arms and legs. Quickly he confirmed Eri was dumped in the corner closest to him, along with what looked like a mostly eaten corpse. As the light faded the smell of burning flesh entered his nostrils and pain ignited in his left arm. Whatever that wetness was was seriously injuring his arm from the elbow down. With a frown he forcibly ignored the pain and concentrated on the imaginary disc in his hand. He needed light that would last longer than two or three seconds.

The last time he had forced as much liquid into the thread as would fit and had created far more sparks than he had the first few times he had practiced, but it wasn't going to be enough. He needed the sparks to either be hot enough to persist awhile or enough of them to light some of the clutter in the room ablaze. Since he couldn't force more power into the tiny thread he decided to enlarge the thread, in his mind it quickly became the size of his thumb. He oriented his hand towards the last place he had seen the creature and once again he forced power into it.

An orange flame had sputtered into life as he began to feed it power, as he forced more into it the flame roared outward blasting out across the twenty feet between him and the creature bathing it in fire before hitting the back wall and spreading wildly. Gray's concentration was broken by the shock of seeing what appeared to be a long gout of flame right out of a flamethrower spray across the room and splash against the back wall. Several pieces of who knows what had caught fire and were merrily burning now, light wasn't going to be an issue anymore.

An ear piercing high pitched screech drew his attention back to the creature and snapped him out of his stupor. Apparently grubs were highly flammable, as this grub man was flailing wildly as it was rapidly consumed by the flames. In seconds it stop moving and collapsed to the floor still burning and sputtering like a torch. Gray quickly scanned the area for any other threats and finding none looked down at his arm. The wetness he had felt was some kind of acid and it had already consumed most of his skin, the muscle and tendon were clearly visible. Even the pain was somewhat muted now, suggesting that many of his nerves had already been destroyed.

"Your pardon master mage." A male voice spoke up, hoarsely and very quietly.

Grays eyes snapped up looking for the source, and settled on what he had earlier mistaken as the corpse of a middle aged man. The man was seated against the wall near Erivere. As Gray drew closer to him he sucked in a breath in revulsion. These creatures had obviously been eating this man alive, his legs were gone gnawed off to the hip, one arm was stripped of flesh clear to the shoulder, and the other was clean to the bone just about his elbow. Even his face was in bad shape, missing a large mass of flesh that should have been his left cheek and eye. However fresh skin was grown across the horrific wounds, like he had been healed as he was eaten. It was grotesque.

"Jesus man. How are you even alive?" Gray hissed.

The man responded simply and without emotion, "Its their venom. It paralyzes and numbs but it also heals, I guess they like to keep their meals alive as long as possible. If your willing to help me out you can probably still save your arm."

A frown played across Gray's face as he replied, "I'm willing friend, but there isn't much I can do for you. Take you back to Festid perhaps?"

The man's eye flicked about for a moment before he replied. "No, I have family in Harshe."

Gray nodded slowly and replied, "I'm headed there myself, as is Eri there I think. We can" The man cut him off before he could finish, saying, "No. Gods no. It would break my wife to see me like this, even worse for our daughter. I...I just want you to take something to them for me and let them know I died quickly. Then...then I would ask for your mercy before you depart."

Gray looked the man over slowly, and nodded slowly. "If that is what you want I will see it done."

A small smile came to the mans face as he said, "There is a pack next to me with some coin and a letter of remittance. The letter is in our families name and worthless to you. But it is enough that they should be able to live. Her name is on the letter, please just give it to her and you can keep the coin for your trouble. "

Gray dug through the small pack and found the letter to one Sher or Marcus Mercats stating that the king's royal bank would pay the sum of seven hundred and fifty gold coins to the aforementioned in exchange for the letter. It seemed a lot like a check from his old world, which made sense considering how difficult it would be to actually carry seven hundred odd gold coins around. Also in the sack were several loose coins a quick look revealed three gold coins and a dozen silver ones. Gray placed the whole pack into his own and nodded at the man called Marcus. "I will see this delivered then."

Marcus nods once and says "Thank you master mage, once you have given me your mercy take my clothing and wrap it around your arm. It is coated in their venom and though it will paralyze the area it will also stop the acid and even help heal the damage. If you are lucky your arm may be saved. Now please. I'm so very tired, let me rest. My entire body is numb for the venom, you needn't worry about the pain, please just do it."

With a nod Gray drew his long dagger and pressed it to the man's chest saying "Good journey Marcus." as he pierced the heart.

Withdrawing his dagger he quickly cut a leg off Marcus's pants and pulled it over his burning arm, within seconds the pain disappeared along with the smell of burning flesh. Placing his dagger back in its sheathe he stooped down to pickup the immobile Eri and tossed her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. With a deep sigh he climbed out of the hole, leaving it to burn.

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Hey folks, I'm back. Work has settled back into a (relatively) comfortable 50 or so hour workweek. So, as promised here is an update. As always likes and ratings are highly appreciated, also feel free to comment and/or point out errors or grammar mistakes. As this was not really PR'ed at all there are likely more than usual.