A castle of shadows and madness erupted from tavern timber, pushing its walls aside and tossing the ceiling aside. Thatch and carved timber was now turned into ornate stone. It shifted like shadows in candlelight as Mirio stood to his feet, the world trembled and thunder echoed through the skies as he took a step forward. A glint of fire swirled in the back of his eyes, as though a demon had overtaken the domain of his previously tranquil soul.

His mana rippled like water in storming winds and rain, as dark purple magic bled out from the core of his bones and traced along his skin.

The three ilari women turned as to their eyes he stood now transformed in the same manner as their people. His skin was filled with the focus and ferocity of soul that bound their own flesh to magic. Yet for all the similarities it held with their own skin, and the flame within their eyes, there was something about the vulnerability of the transformation that compelled them to stare.

How was it possible that this human had tapped into the power of their kind?

Mirio stepped forwards again, ribbons of the violet energy flowing in his wake, and what was captivating became terrifying, as they could not move from the grasp of his eyes. As they witnessed his transformation, they were all at once both strangled by it… and freed to explore the wonder.

The dark stone surrounding them was an illusion to be sure, an inner world they were drawn into. The walls were alive with the thunderous power of his magic.

Mirio stepped once more and stood before the ilari women, casting his hand out openly in a gesture to dance.

The target of his gaze, had violet eyes, and auburn hair. Her lips quivered and her neck tightened, at first in fear, and then exhilaration.

She placed her hand into his, and was spun up into his arms as his gaze drove into her own. His magic thrived around her like a storm, yet as it spun, not a single thread touched her. She wanted it to…

Her eyes darted around him, wondering at how he could have become this powerful in only a moment. This magic around her, it called to her like her ancestral home, a place long lost to the cataclysm. She lifted her hand toward a ribbon of magic twirling near the locks of Mirio’s hair, transfixed by the beauty of it. Mirio’s fingers rose in parallel and wound into her own, locking her grasp from the ribbons bleeding from his bones.

The dark castle shifted around him, and churned like switchings of a maze, turning and changing until it resembled the tavern once more. Mirio’s breath was heavy and oh so close to her own, she felt as though if she only reached, she could grasp a kiss from him. Yet just as swiftly as the temptation came, with a flick of Mirio’s eyes to the churning castle around him, the magic turned into a mist, his grasp on her waist loosened, and the fire in his eyes extinguished.

“No!”

She said as she wrestled her hands free from his and grasped his face. With all her force, she chased the vanishing magic, and dived towards his lips, only to meet the firm grip of his hands at her waist and neck. His muscled body was immoveable, as she was caught in the most vulnerable instant of her desire.

Mirio dipped his head, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that”

A warmth filled his heart, and turned into a smile that carried its way into his eyes.

“But thankyou for showing me your world” he said as he released her under her own control.

The remaining ilari women stared silently at Mirio and their friend in shock at what they had just witnessed.

“B-but… You are human” a purple haired ilari said as she stroked Mirio’s arm, “How did you turn into one of us?”

The remaining ilari turned to both her friends, her light blue hair tied back in tight braids, “It is said that long before the cataclysm, the ilari lived alongside humans, that we were human. Yet we desired freedom and to be ourselves. Our change was only magical at first, like what we just saw, in our need to stay attuned to the change we warred for our world of beauty against those unwilling to change… And when we killed the last of their kind our transformation was permanent”

“Then he is ilari, just as our ancestors” the purple haired ilari said as moving her touch from his arm to his chest.

“Yes” the auburn haired ilari said as she grasped onto Mirio’s collar and pulled herself closer, “You are as we were so long ago, please, show us how it felt to be part of the change once more”

“Yes, the change, he commands it” the light blue haired ilari said as she pushed her breasts up against Mirio’s arm.

Mirio’s eyes darted to the side. He didn’t know that the ilari were human in times before the cataclysm, what a curious piece of knowledge this was. This change they spoke of, it must be valuable to them because they had forgotten what it felt like to wield the power as he just had. And yet this power was a force Akur wielded in their first meeting.

How could he forget walking down the halls of his dark castle.

Was the bard one of the ilari before the cataclysm?

Mirio shuffled out of the women’s grasp and stormed toward the door, to their despair.

He broke out into crisp air outside the tavern and looked up at the dual moons. His eyes narrowed as he struggled to figure out what had just happened to him. Why was it he had been so violently ambitious after failing Taby’s test. What kind of manipulation had he just been a part of. How much of this choice had been his own, and how much of it was of her design?

“Is Taby really one of the gods” he whispered to the stars, “Or is she just gifted in her deceptions?”

In either case, it didn’t really matter what the truth was, the result was that he now held knowledge of magic not taught in the schools descended from the Arcanum, and had a clue to what Akur truly was.

Had Akur been a human at the time of the change of the ilari?

Had his bardic knowledge come from that world before the cataclysm?

If it was true, could he afford to ignore and suppress this new power out of caution for what it might change in him, or must he explore it to free himself of THEIR influence.

He grit his teeth and sneered at the thought of Ladon and Akur, at their battle in the shadows of the world. His stomach turned at the knowledge of it, and that it demanded of him to walk a road more dangerous than he would ever take on his own.

“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” Mirio screamed out into the night sky as he dropped to his knees, “Now I know how to craft dark castles, I can’t… stop”

It wasn’t the promise of women, or wonder that chained him to this new power, it was the threat that without it he would be drawn into the quicksand of the ugly truths that truly ruled the world.

“Is it really true I have to chance becoming like him… To ever be free of him…”

…

Gid gnashed his teeth between garbled mouthfuls of snotweed he had pulled from his waist pouch.

He sighed in relief at the nourishment and stashed the rest of it away.

His eyes narrowed as light glimmered through a slit in a cavern wall.

“I didn’t expect you to listen to me” a deep voice boomed as it traveled deeper into the cavern system.

“When don’t I listen to you?!” a woman’s voice squeaked as her torch passed by a crack in the cavern walls.

“Will you two stop it already? You’ll give away our position to the trolls”

“Bahaha! You think I’m scarred of a few trolls Torval?”

“Yes yes, the mighty Grobnar has no fear, how could I forget, you only remind us every time you unsheath your axe. You really should tell us more often”

“But that is because it is true, I am mighty, and unlike you who whimpers and dances away from every monster we face, I stand forth to split them into pieces”

“Torval is right, we should be wary, we don’t know how many of them there are”

“But we do know Uliette” Torval said with a flick of his finger to her honey colored hair, “There are as many trolls as would trouble the ilari king”

“So… One?” she quipped back as she tossed aside Torval’s hand.

“No” Grobnar grumped “They know of my strength, there are at least a hundred and two”

“Why a hundred and two” Torval said as he twirled a dagger and looked at two of his raised fingers, truly puzzled.

“A hundred for the the trolls I will kill, and the two, you will just barely manage to flee from, bwahaha”

“Oh come on, Uliette and I can at least run from a dozen,” Torval said with a wink at Uliette.

“I guess it doesn’t matter” she whispered, “We’ll find out soon enough” as she clicked her fingers and put out the light of the torches, “They are ahead”.

“How can you tell?” Torval said with a raised eyebrow.

“The air just got warmer”

“Ah… So I’m guessing that means a lot of them” he continued

“What do you say Grobnar, you ready to split some skulls” Uliette said with a pat to his enormous muscled green thighs.

“I’m always ready” He sneered.

With a few swift strokes of her fingers she traced out sigils and held them in the palm of her hands and then hurried behind a stone that overlooked a wide open cavern that fell out below them.

Springing out from the stone she shot each sigil from her hands, sending them soaring through the cavern like shooting meteors. As they landed the cavern rumbled and exploded in blasts of light, revealing the den of trolls too numerous to count still gnawing on the remains of the hundred or so guardsmen that were sent to patrol the caverns before the monster hunters.

The green ears of the largest of the trolls twisted and turned toward the cavern entrance as other trolls let go of the guard corpses and turned to follow their leader. As flames licked up to the roof of the cavern with clouds of smoke, the trolls moved uneasily away from its cursed whips.

Torval smirked as he loaded enchanted arrows three at a time onto his bow.

FWIT FWIT FWIT

The glowing embers of the arrows spat through the air at blinding speed and engulfed three of the several hundred trolls in flames.

“Rwoar!” Grobnar cried as he beat his chest.

THUD THUD THUD

“No you idiot, wait!” Torval yelled, “Don’t give up the highground!”

“And give up the chance to kill them all, I don’t think so, bwahaha!”

THUD THUD THUD

Grobnar arced through the air and came down with a cleave of his axe, splitting a troll in half as the ground rumbled under his feet.

He laughed maniacally as he twisted and turned in sweeping cleaves through the hoard.

Uliette jumped up onto the stone and cast dozens of winding fiery whips from her hands, lashing at each of the trolls that Grobnar cleaved through, setting them ablaze as Torval quickly calculated the positioning of trolls in the battlefield and took out those who were thinking of charging the arcanist at his side.

FWOOSH FWOOSH

Walls of flame lit up all around Grobnar as he slashed and hacked through limb after limb, it was like he was in a maze of weeds, and the troll’s talons were just but thorns reaching out to catch in his armor. As he swept his axe in winding butterfly patterns he pushed through the sea of trolls to the giant amidst them.

“Bwahaha, this den was in need of me, for without Grobnar, how would you discover how weak you are!”

“GRRRR!”

The giant troll lunged forward and gripped onto Grobnar’s face, and drove him into the ground hard enough to crack the ground around him. It smashed wildly with its free hand, at his armor, denting and tearing it away from his flesh.

“Argh, I paid a horde of platinum for that” Grobnar grumbled as he swept his axe up using his knee and batted the troll’s hand off of his face and spun back up to his feet.

The trolls around him now lashed with their talons and found blood.

“Grah, bwahahaha!” Grobnar grit his teeth and stormed through the slashing hands of each of the trolls uncaring to the pain, solely focused on his prey.

And with a sweeping cleft of his axe he drove it across the giant’s jaw, tossing its toothy maw across the cavern. It screeched back in pain and Uliette turned all her whips of fire towards it, lashing it in chains of fire, as Grobnar slashed in contemptuous slings at the trolls clawing at him from each side of him. Clearing just enough room, he leapt through the air and planted his feet onto the giant’s chest and knee, before cleaving its chest open, and gripping onto the base of its three hearts, and twisting with inhuman force, tearing them from its chest as they still beat.

“Wroaaar!” he screamed with his tongue bared for all the remaining trolls to see, “Bwhahaha”

FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH

Flames lit through the cavern, as the remaining trolls screeched and burned to Uliette’s spells.

Gid picked his teeth as he was half way out of the crack in the cavern wall.

THUNK

As he hit the ground he managed to free a wad of snotweed from his teeth, and marvelled at it a moment before sucking it down. He stumbled up to his feet, and wandered up behind Torval and Uliette, and gazed down at the burning massacre below.

“Powerful you are?”

Uliette spun on a dime, and leapt back behind Torval for safety, and Torval in turn spun away his bow and drew dual daggers.

“And what are you? I’ve never heard of a goblin that talks?” Torval said with a twist of his head.

“Bwahaha” Grobnar cried out in the cavern below, as he continued to cleave through the remaining trolls, ignorant to the elderly goblin that had approached his comrades.

“I am not goblin, I am Gid”

“What’s a Gid?” Uliette said as she clutched at the back of Torval’s shirt with one hand and spun a glyph in the palm of the other.

“Who I am, what I am not matter, for Gid offer opportunity with greater glory and gold, than what you do today, that please you, yes?”

“What opportunity?” Thorval said between clenched teeth.

“What is greater than a monster?”

“Monster hunters? We don’t do that…” Uliette responded

“No no, not your own kind”

“Then what?” Torval growled

“When done, with these things, you come, I show you”

“Pffft, you are crazy if you think we are just going to take the word of a goblin and follow you” Uliette said as she came out from behind Torval’s back and discharged the spell in her free hand.

“Oh, is that so” Gid chuckled, “But I am not a goblin, I am Gid”

“What the hell is with this thing, we should just kill it, maybe its a baby troll or something?” Torval whispered to Uliette.

“Reveal yourself!” Uliette said with a whip of her fingers, “True Sight!”

Her eyes glowed gold as a holy aura surrounded her, cutting through layers of reality and illusion to reveal the truth of what being stood before her.

“Run!” she screeched as she sprinted deeper into the cavern where Grobnar was kicking the last of the dead trolls.

“Wait, what? What did you see?! WHAT IS IT!” Torval said as sprinting off behind her away from Gid.

Gid stepped into the opening of the cavern and looked down upon them as they gathered behind Grobnar, and pointed their burly orc comrade up toward him.

“It’s a fa fa..” Uliette stammered.

“It’s puny” Grobnar replied as he flicked of Uliettes grip from his tattered clothes and what remained of his armor. His wounds that were once bleeding were already clotting and sealing tight, courtesy of his royal orcish blood.

“She used true sight on it” Torval clarified

“You saying it bigger than it seem, and in the earth it a giant worm like before? You not worry, I carve it in two this time also”

“No, no” Uliette said shaking her head, “Its a phantom”

“A phantom? You mean… Like a ghost?” Torval swallowed.

“Ghost’s not real” Grobnar chuffed, “Your eye’s not working today”

“No, no, its a phantom, and its powerful, we don’t have the kinds of weapons or magic to kill it, nor can we escape it. It can kill us at any moment”

“Maybe it kill you, but Grobnar not so easy to kill”

Gid slowly clambered down through the stones and peeked his head just over the top of one of the troll corpses, and clambered over it before falling in between the legs of another corpse.

“Ugh, Gid not move as well these days, why you run so far?”

“What do you want phantom!” Uliette cried out from behind Grobnar, clutching a glyph in her spare hand.

“I tolds you. Gid come with opportunity. Big one like what I have to say, promise you I do!”

“What you offer puny but mighty thing?” Grobnar said as peering down at the little creature.

“I tell you after you follow, come come” Gid said with a wave of his hand as he grumbled and crawled over another of the troll corpses.

…

The cool night air shifted at the coming dawn, a thin grey line silhouetted a spire at the horizon, reaching up beyond the endless fields and the scatter of farmlands. The great wolf strode in even and rhythmic bounds as he curved out of a patch of woodland encircling the edge of the pasture.

A paw was replaced by a hand, and in the place of the great blue wolf stood a boy with sleek blue armor and a wolf shield slung at his side.

“I should travel by foot from here, it won’t be long until the workers tend their fields with the coming sun”

He wandered through a maze of thatch fences overgrown with vines until he found the main roads leading to the city. His fingers traced the back of his shoulders until he found his hood and hid his face from any of the rising farmers. Not that any would recognise him anyway, but he found it better to avoid entanglements with the residents of distant worlds. He could not after all defer his own mission for the sake of whatever plight might have befallen them.

As the sun rose and baked down on his hood, he made his way past stables to the stone roads that led directly to the city ahead. Now no longer on the horizon it stood in stark contrast to the fields that surrounded it. The spire at its center stood so tall it appeared to touch the sky. The outer city walls bowed outward and upon its trellises were carvings of fierce gargoyles, with spikes erupting from their hands and chests, both as a warning, and as a countermeasure from those who were unwelcome in the city.

“Charming” he chuffed as he made his way to the iron gates which stood within the maw of an iron serpent.

The guards wore light armor that allowed their purple skin to bask in the sunlight, and while their stance was carefree, their eyes followed him like a hawk as he entered the city. The main streets were also adorned with terrifying ornamentation, no doubt serving to remind the visiting traders to the city that they should not get too comfortable.

He could hear the hustle and bustle of a market place ahead, but he was alone walking on the main road. It wasn’t for lack of visitors, it seemed they avoided the oppressive walkway and cut off into the side alleys almost immediately. Why did these people go to such lengths to intimidate if they ultimately were uncomfortable with such things themselves? He wondered.

As the great bazaar was released from the serpent’s tail, the sunlight glittered off of golden domed rooftops adorning the palisade towers that stood over the marketplace and it’s protection. Curious about the city’s construction he passed through the market crowds and climbed the stairs leading to the ramparts. The guards were again calm, yet their eyes keen.

They offered him no resistance as he made his way to a lookout.

He stood in awe at the vista of the city. Glittering rooftops, and ornamentation were not uncommon, nor were the towers that guarded the alleys and roads. He had traveled many places but never seen a city layout be painted in color and ornamental patterns before, even the roads and houses curved in a fashion that brought the local sweeping patterns of their construction into a larger whole.

It was as if the city was minted from a press, and perfectly fashioned to confuse intruders within its mazes, if they were to invade. It was clear from the vantage point, that this city was born of a great struggle in the distant past. Its scars were not visible in the well maintained and rich city structures, but in the fashion of them, and the almost religious adherence to keeping watch on every road and gathering place.

“What is this city’s name?” he asked, turning to one of the guards.

“Seun”

“Does it have a meaning?”

“The city of the sun, and protective charm of our people”

“Protective I get from the towers, but the charm, is that the maze pattern?”

“It is not just a maze, it is a great magic circle, to ward our city from the influence of invaders”

“Who are the invaders?”

“The world around us, and all its people, seek to invade our souls, to unchange us. But this city stands so that we might refuse their screams and cries, so we can lock our gates and send them back to their own hideous world, and so we might rest in the peace we have earned”

The boy nodded, it was unlikely the guard would say much more, his eyes never leaving search of the marketplace below.

“Thanks” the boy said as he made his way back down to the markets.

Winding his way through the maze of stalls he caught a glimpse of adventurers between the crowds and changed to follow their direction. Following their brown cloaks as they appeared and disappeared in the colorful crowd he wound his way to a plaza and at the end of it a great hall.

Unlike the curved buildings that made up the city, it was a four story tall stepped pyramid. As the brown cloaks entered its halls, the boy followed soon after. Unlike the colorfully dressed ilari in the market square, all manner of races and adventurers gathered in the hall. The insectids of the northeast kingdom, the orcs of the far eastern isles, the wandering nomads of the beast folk, elves of each color and race including desert elves from the far south and even a subterranean drow.

A dwarf let out a hearty laugh before smacking a small halfing on the shoulder.

“And what leads you to say that” he said as pulling himself in closer, “You ought to be happy with the share of spoils you have, after all it wasn’t you who brought down the Irax”

“But Thurndan, without me you wouldn’t have made it past the whiproot”

“Nonsense! I’d have just burned the blighted crop”

“And with toxic fumes filling the air, how then did you plan to breathe?”

“What does it matter now, the deed is done, and we are rich! Glory to the golems of Lustan”

“Glory!” “Glory” “Glory to the golems” three more dwarves rallied.

With another hearty slap on the shoulder the dwarf Thurndan pushed past the halfling and embraced the other cheering dwarves.

The halfling retreated with a single platinum coin firmly gripped in his lead hand, and a pouch gripped in the other. With a spin and a dip the halfling disappeared in the crowd.

“Another round then brother?” “Aye another round!”

“Hang on a sec” Thurndan said as he patted his sides, “That bloody little… THEIF!”

Axes unsheathed, as Thurndan cast his mug to the ground, the ale spilling across the timber floor boards.

FWET FWET FWET

The tumble of axes, and the storming charge of four sturdy dwarves and their war cries split the crowd, revealing the halfling just long enough for an axe to sail past his braided locks.

The halfling spun and shot back through the crowd like a dart, springing between legs and darting out into the city’s mazed streets.

“Blast it!” Thurndan howled at the entrance to the guildhall as the halfling slipped away.

Grumbling Thurndan called to the rest of his brothers in the hall and all dozen of his fellow men followed his order to search the streets for the half man.

Our adventurer turned away from the commotion and made his way past the axe embedded in the wall to one of the quest boards. Scanning the boards contents quickly he still saw the stub for killing the Irax, it was marked with a C, and from a look around while there were still C grade quests outstanding, there was no grade higher.

“Is C grade the highest it goes?” he asked a foxman.

The foxman turned away.

“Don’t you know anything?” a serpent’s tongue flickered.

Appearing from over his shoulder, a slender lizardman cocked his head.

“Quests higher go to the monster hunters, or elite royal guard of the city”

“Monster hunters?”

“Yes, it is they who fight battles of a higher grade, for they do not care that it is a deathwish to do this”

“A deathwish?”

“To adventure is a profession riskier than any other, but what they do is suicide”

“Why do they do it then?”

“Why does a fool grasp for a coin at the bottom of a spiked barrel…” the lizardman said as waving his finger in a circle where his ear would have been, “because they are stupid enough to think they can do it, haha!”

“But they can do it? Right? Otherwise they’d all be dead?”

“There are mountains of the dead hunters under the earth, but it is true, it seems a few turn their madness into the stuff of legend, for we cannot know how they survive these impossible things”

“But then how are they fools if they see it done, aren’t they just that strong?”

“No one is that strong!” the lizardman hissed.

An ilari tapped the slender lizard on the shoulder, and nodded to him calmly.

“It would seem you are new to Seun? And perhaps adventuring as well?” the ilari smiled devilishly.

“I was just being curious”

“Well to answer your question, yes the hunters that survive ARE strong. But you won’t find many in guildhalls that think it possible, for if they believed that they too would have to test themselves against the graveyard of bones that separates them from us”

“I guess that makes sense, why let your pride kill you when you can remain ignorant instead” the boy said with a wink, “Though, isn’t ignorance, another kind of death…”

The ilari stared at the boy with eagle eyes, “I would warn you against such ambitions, for the other side of that graveyard is a place of blood and pain beyond imaginations of a boy”

“Hmph” the boy chortled, “I have no interest in being a hunter, but it seems you do?”

The ilari tsked the corner of his lips.

“I am strong enough, but I would not make such a leap, for it offers no reward worth it to me”

The boy chuckled, “Yet those words will forever ring hollow”

“How dare you!” the ilari said with his hand gripping his sword hilt.

“I only know they do because I feel the same way. Questions of what could be, ideas of greatness I could have had, other lives that might have been, had I been born a madman”

The ilari’s grip loosened, “What are you saying exactly?”

“I am saying, that you are wise not to envy them. Sometimes it is fiercer to stand in a place where doubts haunt you, than to leap towards death and promises of glory”

“Hmmm, well said” the ilari purred, his chin a little higher than it was before, “I am proud to be a C grade adventurer, and you it seems are no mere boy, are you a halfling then, perhaps tall for your race? Or a halfbreed?”

“What does it matter, my travels take me elsewhere, I just like to learn more about cultures as I pass through” the boy said before turning his shoulder away from the conversation.

“Wherever you travel then, do not let your words ring hollow, do not envy the glory of the hunters!”

The boy nodded, and slipped back through a crowd of adventurers to ask questions at the main reception desks.

…

Mirio tapped his fingers at the reception desk of Tier’s guildhall.

“Who is the best craftsman for armor and weapons here?”

“In the guild?” the receptionist said as looking up at him.

“I suppose, in the northern kingdom”

“The best craftsmen are in Seun, the capital of the ilari and seat of the kingdom. The best craftsmen would be employed by the king”

“Then in Tier?”

“There are many good craftsmen, but the best might be Scraffy, though good luck convincing him to make you even a pauldron of armor” she replied before staring at the blue dragonscale gauntlet on Mirio’s left hand.

“Hmph, guess I’ll take three javelins, a shield, a shortsword, and a spear then”

“Normal arms or gilded with silver and cold iron?”

“Gilded”

“And any armor?”

“Not for now” he replied as sliding across the coin lended from the guild ahead of his quest.

Moving across to the quest board, he strapped the javelins to the back of his shield and slung the spear over his back.

Looking at the board the highest paid mission was either between rumors of a Golem in the mountain pass, and a roaming Irax that was threatening a quarry.

“Hmm, a Golem can’t be killed with blades, so I guess Irax it is”

He swiped the quest off the board, leaving only its stub, and headed out the door in hunt of his target. The girl at reception looked at his scuffed and dirty feet as he left barefoot.

“Why didn’t he buy some shoes?” she grumbled to a colleague behind her in the back.

“What?”

“Oh nothing, there was a guy who bought a bunch of gear but his only armor is a single gauntlet, and he hasn’t even got shoes”

“Sounds like something a hunter would do, maybe he’s taking the test? What quest did he take?”

“The Irax”

“How big was his group? A half dozen?”

“No group”

“I’ve heard of grade C adventurers taking on Irax’s alone to test their strength before trying a monster contract, maybe he’s doing that”

“How long does it take to get to and kill an Irax”

“Oh it won’t take long, but, if you are waiting on it to see if he comes back, don’t bother. Types like him don’t come back. You’ll see them now and then, I’ve only ever seen one return, but of course he died soon after taking a monster contract”

“Shouldn’t it be obvious he needs armor then? Isn’t it idiotic to go out barely armed?”

“Well, in a way it is smarter. If he gets a cut or two and runs, better than being crushed in a steel can and left to carry it and die”

“But then why no shoes?”

“Who knows, maybe he’s looking for the right pair?”

…

The stepped stone quarry glistened in the moonlight as Mirio followed the main track into the mine. With a flick of his finger the tip of his spear shined and he spun it off his back along with his rounded steel plated shield.

He let out a smooth and steady breath as his eyes flickered red with eagle sight.

He slowed his steps and headed into the dark caverns attuned to his every sense, especially his nose.

He could already smell the acrid stench of the Irax’s hovel. Made of rotting flesh and bone the Irax didn’t eat its human prey, but laid its eggs through the eye sockets. Six legged and capable of scaling vertical walls, he had to be wary.

His eyes settled upon a dark corner of the cavern, his eyes narrowing as he made out its broken silhouette in the shadows. Slinging his spear back he wrapped his arm around a javelin and stepped forwards.

FWOOSH

THUNK

The screech of the beast echoed through the cavern so loudly he was almost thrown off his feet. Stepping back he regained his balance and grabbed another javelin.

FWOOSH

TINK

The Irax appeared from the shadows weaving like a serpent, as its blood matted fur shook. With the horned head of a goat, it stood on its hind legs and bared its scythed forelimbs.

Mirio quickly spun another javelin in his hand.

FWOOSH

THUNK

The Irax screeched as the javelin sliced through its thigh, leaving a trail of blood.

Mirio then reached into his pouch and placed two pieces of coiled cloth up his nostrils.

“Come on then!” he taunted as he spun his spear and sunk into a ready stance.