My eyes open and I’m restrained against a wall, shortly after someone walks into the room with a bucket and a container. My vision blackens and when I come to the person is in front of me lathering something on my stomach. The person proceeds to pick up the bucket on the side and I get a glimpse of many beady red eyes. He brings it closer to my gut while turning it towards me. The person then presses it against me and as soon as he does I start to feel many pairs of teeth start ripping at me and I start to scream out.

I jolt up still screaming in pain but stop when I find myself in the carriage. I pant heavily as I feel around my stomach. “A-are you okay?” Chelsey asks in a worried voice. I turn to her and start calming my breath after realizing where I am.

A head pops in from behind Chelsey asking “Is everything okay in here? I heard a scream.”.

“It was just Crim, he’s okay now.” Chelsey answers him and he goes back to focusing on the road. Chelsey looks to me while mentioning “It was just like when you woke up in the inn. Do you have nightmares? Is that why you don’t like sleeping?”.

I think there's no reason to hide it and tell her “I… Everytime I sleep I have the most realistic dream of being tortured.”.

Chelsey looks at me worried while asking “If you don’t mind answering, what kind of torture?”.

I think back to the nightmare and grab my stomach as I felt pain there. “This time they put something on my stomach and put a bucket of beady red eyes against me and then I felt a bunch of sharp pains digging into me.” I say while still gripping my gut. After a short pause I add “Not every time is it the same torture as well.”.

Chelsey’s eyes widened a bit more before saying “When I was tending your wounds, your stomach had a bunch of small bite marks on it.”. She then claims “I have a hunch, I believe that you might have been tortured before losing your memories.” “If it’s true then it would make more sense with some of the wounds I treated, they didn’t seem like they would be from a monster.”.

I look down while thinking to myself “She might be right, I had a lingering feeling on what it might have been but it would make sense why if felt so realistic then”. Boom! While I was thinking to myself there was a loud crackle of thunder followed by the carriage being stopped and Vaero pokes in his head looking at me while saying “It looks like someone wants to settle a score with you and it brought friends.”.

Understanding what he ment, I put on the hood of my cloak and grabbed my blade before exiting the back of the carriage with Chelsey telling us to be careful. The rain was picking up with puddles already forming on the ground as I got out. I make my way to the front to find Vaero and beyond him, one big wolf and four more wolves smaller than it.

I stop beside Vaero and he turns to me while he readies himself “I still don’t like you but we have to protect Chelsey, I can take on the four smaller ones. The pack leader seems like it has some unfinished business with you.“.

I look towards the pack leader and it’s eyes are piercing me with it’s rage as it growls. It also had wild strains of electricity crackling off it’s horn. I ready myself while telling Vaero “Just don’t slip again.” and I propel myself towards the pack leader.

As I was closing ground it shot a bolt of lightning at me. I stop and quickly stick my blade into the ground to absorb the impact. As the lightning dances along my blade and soon after dispersing, I quickly recover and press on towards it. When I got close to the pack leader, a wolf from the side started to dart towards me. At the same time I heard footsteps from behind catching up to me and when the wolf lounged towards me, I saw Vaero’s back as he blocked it.

I continued towards the pack leader and when in reach, I swung my sword at it as it started howling. Boom! Lightning crashed down before my hit and created a shockwave pushing me back. After recovering I looked at the pack leader to find it having electricity forming around its forelegs. A short moment after it bolts towards me, faster than the last we fought. I quickly block the incoming attack. It’s claws locked up with my blade and it’s face was close enough to feel it’s breath. With every passing second, the electricity dancing around it’s claws started crawling towards me. The feeling of numbness started setting in as I quickly pushed it back.

I make space between us, letting the numbness subdue. The wolf doesn’t give me much time as it started to charge towards me. I hastley make pace towards the wolf and as we close in on each other, the wolf, with its claws still electrified, lunges towards me. I then tighten the grip on my hilt and challenge it and make a swing to the left with all my strength.

The crimson blade connects with the wolf first making it fly to the left. As the wolf tumbled around and recovered I ready myself for the next attack but as I grip the hilt my left hand drops. I look down to see electricity crawling around a claw mark in my left arm. I ready myself, with one hand left. As I look at the wolf I find it leaning forwards and starting to pant.

I look back to see Vaero, looking worn down in the midst of attacking one of the two wolves sluggishly and think I need to end this quickly. I looked back towards the wolf and just as I was about to move in the wolf started to howl. Lightning came crashing down towards the source of the howl. The wolf looks down with having more electricity crackling off its horn. I waste no time and quicken my pace towards it. The wolf stands limped forward as it shoots a bolt of electricity towards me.

I choose not to block and swiftly leep to the side. The bolt passes by me as I press on. With a loud growl I see another bolt of electricity flying my way. I hastley jump to the side again, getting closer to the wolf. The wolf stands still as it shoots out one more bolt and shortly after starts darting towards me with a slight limp. With another bolt closing in, I jump to the side once more faster than the first few. As I land I leap with great force and speed towards the wolf who was trailing behind the bolt, not expecting the speed. Gripping hard with one hand left, I swing towards its exposed neck. I put as much force as I could with my right arm as the crimson blade carved through its neck, spilling little blood.

The head of the wolf pack leader drops to the ground and as it touches the ground the rain starts to ever so slightly lighten up. After seeing the body fly forwards from the momentum of it running, I take a moment before I see where it landed. As I turn around, I see Vaero with his cloak tattered up hunched forwards as he and the two lightly injured wolves that remained had their eyes fixed on the body that slid towards their fight.

Vaero looks up towards me with a slight frown in his face as he turns back to the remaining wolves and charges towards the left one with a renewed vigor. The wolves, seemingly not wanting to fight anymore after the pack leader died, turned around and ran off. Vaero halted as he didn’t want to chase into the forest and sheathed his blade as he turned around walking back to the carriage. As I watched the scene my arm started to regain feeling followed by a rush of pain from the wound but the pain wasn’t as sharp as I expected it to be.

With the rain almost gone, leaving the grey clouds, I put my blade away and started walking towards the carriage as well. Out came from the back was Chelsey as she rushed towards the two of us, first towards me. “Crim are you okay? While I was watching from within, I saw your arm go completely limp!” she asks as she grabs my left wrist with her soft fingers, expanding my arm out. What was shown was a smaller claw scar then what I saw before on my forearm. Chelsey looks up to me and says “It’s doing it again! You’re healing at a pretty fast rate.”.

She then proceeded to check to see if I had any more wounds on my arm. I pull my arm away while claiming “I’ll be fine.” Before asking “Why are you checking over to see if I have any more wounds.”.

With Chelsey taking her hands off me slowly she answered with “You’re hired under me so I have to make sure you are in your best condition!”. After she finished talking she told me before turning around “Just wrap some cloth around it and you’ll be fine.” and she starts to walk towards Vaero to check up on him.

Out of hearing range, I turn around towards the head of the wolf pack leader and walk towards it. When I got close I noticed a small ball laying on the ground beside the head. The ball was a light blue in color while having thick waves of blue energy floating around it. I leaned forward and with my right hand I grabbed a hold of it. After bringing it closer to me I notice the energy is more dense than what I saw in the shop. Wondering how much it would be and knowing that Chelsey is a merchant, I made a note to ask her about it later. While peering at the blue ball lost in thought I feel a presence walk towards me, turning my head to find the person I was thinking of.

Chelsey had a curious look, probably wondering what I was intently looking at, as she walked towards me. When she got close, she peered over my shoulder to get a look. As she looked at the essence, a smile crept on her face. Wondering what exactly was it, I asked “I take it this is a monster's essence? The stuff floating around it looks a lot thicker than the ones in the store.”.

“Yes it is! You’re lucky to get one from killing a monster like that since there's only a low chance that a monster will drop their essence. Can I look at it more closely?” Chelsey says as she has her hands out greedily waiting to inspect it.

I was hesitant for a moment before handing over the orb while thinking ‘There's no harm since she’ll tell me the price and I’ll sell it off quickly to have travel funds’.

After receiving the essence, Chelsey brought it close to her face as she inspected it. “Wow! The mana flowing around it is pretty thick and it has five rings! If I were to make a guess.”. She had her finger tapping her lower lip as she pondered for a moment “This would sell no less than twenty five Kings Coins but was brought to an auction and I could see it go up to fifty easily.”.

Before giving me room to speak Chelsey pushes it back towards me “Here, it’s yours anyways since you killed the wolf.”. As I take it from her and put it in my pocket her gaze shifts to the body of the wolf “Well let’s get the materials we can from these wolves and get going.”. Chelsey starts to run over to the carriage where Vaero rested.

After she got Vaero at least bandaged up she brought him out and they started to declaw the wolves and Vaero used a dagger as he skinned the wolves in decent time. After they gained what they wanted and threw the bodies to the side we then packed up what was needed and left on the road again.