"You met her! Lady Ceodwig herself!"

I grinned and nodded. "Hell yeah. We had a good, long talk. Nice lady, more or less."

"She sicced her personal assassin on Eron, who just narrowly made it out, seemingly unscathed. If it weren't for your wanderlust, we could have avoided the confrontation altogether."

"Once that mad mob had me in the throng, I was doomed to be wisped off into those woods. Against my own will, mind you!"

The team was back together. Me, Ruineth, and Orndir sat underneath a twisting ash, its branches providing shade against the beating sun. It was good to have the gang back together. Even though I'd just met these two, I considered them close friends, despite the racial and anatomical differences.

"So, what was the assassin like?" Orndir asked me, obviously fascinated in my earlier brush with death.

"Dude, she was a total nut! The girl was all like 'I am the musical instrument of your death and I will slay you, beast!"

Ruineth rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "That isn't what she said at all. Although it might have well been. Her words fell short in the end, and she sits asleep back at Crowned Rock."

"Good. So we won't have to worry about her returning to exact her vengeance, will we?"

"Shed that fearful attitude, Orndir. Fear can lead to panic, and from panic on to an early grave."

"Practicing caution can lead to a long life of future victories." He corrected.

 She blew off his comment and sighed."Nay, she won't awaken at least until the war game is concluded. By then I doubt she'd still be ordered to kill Eron. One as loyal as herself wouldn't dare act on their own volition. I almost feel pity for the girl." She stood up and put her hands on her hips. "But the other draum under Ceodwig will no doubt attack on sight, but that's great for us."

"How so?" Orndir muttered, displeased.

"This gives us the perfect opportunity to execute our plan. We just need a willing subject. That shouldn't be to hard." Ruineth paced back and forth, then pointed in the direction opposite of where we had gone. "Due to this particular war game taking place on our home battlegrounds, if we keep going north in that direction, we'll eventually reach the dividing walls. It's not rare for a draum to lose face once the battle has commenced, and when this happens, they'll most likely stick to the walls as to make a fleeting retreat back to their village if the battle goes in their disfavor. That's where we're most likely guaranteed to find the opponent. We shouldn't waste anymore time." She took off without a moment's hesitation. Orndir and I sprang to our feet and took off behind her.

"So, what's the plan? What're we going to do once we find a guy?"

"First, we need to confirm that your book is reliable. I read up on Ceodwig 'elves' and memorized what it had reported. If what it described matches what we see or at least resembles it, I'll be more inclined to take the test to the next level."

"The next level being?" Orndir cut in.

"The Orcneas of course. If we can totally read our enemies strategy and weaknesses before even encountering them, we'd have an immense advantage over those monsters. They wouldn't stand a chance!"

"I don't mean to be a Debbie downer, but shouldn't we fill Hest-- Lady Orrenbelle-- in on your plan."

Ruineth knitted her brow in annoyances at my suggestion. "She's preoccupied with other matters, such as validating the goddesses words. The Orcneas threat is the last thing on her mind as of now, whereas it's my top priority. This is something I have to take into my own hands."

"With our help." Orndir added in.

Ruineth's earlier annoyances dissolved into delight. "I couldn't very well do it alone, could I?" Although what Ruineth said could have been the truth, I knew deep down there was another reason she was reluctant to involve her teacher in her plan. It was because it was her quest. She wanted the glory to be hers and probably to gain her teachers praise. It was obvious. Anybody would crave being admired by someone that they look up to. That was probably why she was also adamant about holding onto Hestia's dagger. She did say that Ruineth was now capable of making her own decisions. Thinking back to Hestia's words, she had claimed that Ruineth had an Anima. I'd have to ask her about it at another time, because we'd finally arrived at the northern wall.

But what we found was not what I had been expecting, and by the look of utter terror on both the elves faces, they hadn't been expecting this either. Before us was the wall alright, slightly obscured by the tall trees, but it was the condition of the wall that sent a wave of terror through the three of us.

A jagged whole had been punched through, leaving splintered wood on the grass. The hole was large enough for a full grown male to walk through and twice as wide. Orndir was frozen in place, his breaths becoming deeper and more and more terrified by the second. But as for me, I didn't know what to think. Since I had only been in this village a short time and had come from the outside world, the wall being broken wasn't one of my major fears, but for a civilization that relies on this barrier to protect themselves from the monsters within the woods, the threat towards their livelihood was real. Ruineth pushed pass me, almost within a daze, and staggered towards the hole. I swallowed hard and followed closely behind her. As we got nearer, I could see faint traces of red liquid staining the grass around the area of the breach. Ruineth bent down and dabbed her finger into it, testing the consistency and sniffing the substance before screwing up her face and wiping it off on her cloak.

"Blood. Dryas blood." She muttered to herself. She fingered the edges of the gaping hole and whispered to herself as if she was a forensic investigator. Eventually Orndir had broken free of the spell he was trapped in and joined us. He bit his bottom lip and stared wide eyed at the damage, but didn't say anything. No one spoke, so I broke the silence.

"You think the elves did that?" I asked.

"Nay, what elf would be capable of such destructive force? This doesn't look like the work of the Orcneas either. They may be large in number, but these walls have defended against them for time unmemorable. But that makes no sense!" She ran her hands through her hair in frustration. If the elves hadn't done this and the Orcneas monsters hadn't either, what else did that leave. I was the only one who might have some clue, being from the outside and all. I paced back and forth, trying to come up with some sort of conclusion, but it was hopeless. I didn't know anymore about the outside world than Ruineth.

"Maybe it was something from the outside. You know, like beyond the forest."

"That may very well be a possibility," Ruineth admitted, "but that still doesn't answer the question: what would be capable of breaching our wall in such a violent manner?"

"I'm sorry, but I got nothing." I sighed and continued pacing around. Orndir clenched his fist an swallowed so hard that he nearly choked.

"I need some air." He whined.

"Don't go to far, whatever did this may still be around." He ignored her and lumbered of into the forest.

"Hey, maybe it isn't as bad as it looks. You can probably fix that right up in a day or two." At saying that, Ruineth whipped around, her face livid.

"Not as bad as it looks? You could never be more incorrect. It's much, much worse than it looks. This breach threatens the integrity of the wall! It could collapse at any moment, our village will be like a flare to the Orcneas. There entire number will converge upon us if this wall were to fall! And that's not the worst of it. If something is able to do this much damage, it can very well cause similar damage to other parts of the wall, allowing Orcneas to invade our forests and stay hidden within the trees. This is possibly the worst crisis that has befallen this village in years, and you stand there and say it isn't as bad as it looks. Never have dafter words assailed my ears." She huffed and turned back to the hole.

"Err, sorry." I said sheepishly. Her words didn't hurt because I knew they were out of fear and frustration. What she said was true though. If something was able to break through the wall, who's to say it hasn't already done so in multiple areas. Whether or not the wall could be repaired, the threat of an invasion was imminent.

Orndir's scream echoed through the entire forest like a car alarm. Both Ruineth and I bolted in the direction he had gone. Ruineth was already drawing her long blade and I had my hand on Hestia's dagger, having left my sword back at Crowned Rock. His screams went on and on, making it easy to locate him, but on arriving, we immediately realized what had terrified him. Ruineth's sword slipped from her fingers, her expression a blank mask. Orndir's throat must have been shredded from the endless wailing. But his voice sounded distant. The only thing that existed now was the carnage laid out before us. After the Rift, I've seen some pretty sick shit, but this. . .everything I've seen up till this point was nothing compared to this horror scene. Blood, entrails, and mangled body parts were strewn across the earth. I couldn't exactly tell how many elves were massacred, but judging by the sheer amount of viscera, it had to be a lot. I saw a hand with three of the fingers missing attached by a mere sinew to a snapped up arm. But that wasn't the worst of it. Oh no, that wasn't even close to what was above.

In the trees, impaled upon sharpened branches like the sacrifices of a shrike bird, were the decapitated heads of the five elves that had been utterly destroyed. Their eyes stared wide open at me, the final moments of their deaths forever engraved upon terrified faces. I couldn't tell if their faces where pale from death or if they'd always been that color, but regardless, they had died recently because I couldn't smell the distinctive stench of death, only the metallic odor of blood and bodily fluids.

To my surprise I didn't throw up and was able to pull my attention away from the gore. Orndir, as I expected was still screaming at the top of his lungs, but Ruineth. . .I couldn't read her. Her eyes darted around rapidly as if she were taking in the whole scene and computing it in her mind. Her face twitched and she ran her hands through her hair. Now I began to see the emotion set on her face.

She threw herself into my arms and began to whimper, muttering incoherently as she did. It was odd. As tough as Ruineth seemed, at the sight of the carnage she totally broke down. She was trembling violently and hiding her face in my chest.

"This. . .is. . .no. . ." I took another look at the gore and this time it had an affect on me. Forced the bile back down my throat and shook my head.

"I'm going to grab your sword, and we're going to get the hell out of here and tell Hestia." I walked her away from the scene and rested her down behind a tree. "Stay put, I'll get Orndir and we're out."

After retrieving Ruineth's sword and consoling Orndir. We made the long trek back to the village green. By now, Ruineth had managed to regain her composure and worked on calming down Orndir. He took it the worst. He had a blank expression on his face like Ruineth had. His voice was horse from the world record screaming he had done. He seemed to calm some after Ruineth's consolation, so I broke the silence once more.

"Any ideas what the hell could have done that?"

Ruineth didn't respond for a long while and I began to think she never was. But she eventually did.

"I've never actually witnessed carnage of that magnitude in my entire life. But I heard stories and came about it in the Bestiary. My guess is that those poor souls encountered a powrie and were taken by surprise. Either that or they were ambushed by a gang of powrie."

"Powrie? What's that, another type of Orcneas?"

She nodded. "They're known as Redcaps according to the Bestiary. One of the most deadly Orcneas, they usually take shelter within strongholds during the day, then once night falls they go out to hunt."

"Why are they call Redcaps? They fans of the Cincinnati Reds or something?" Whether Ruineth understood the reference or not, she didn't seem to acknowledge it.

"The name Redcap comes from the hats they wear atop they're heads. At night, they partake in a ritual where they tear their prey to pieces and soak their hats with their blood. And as a way to assert their territory, they remove the head from the victim--"

"I get the picture. They're freakin' evil."

"I agree. Goddess forbid we ever have the misfortune of encountering--" Ruineth's voice cut off abruptly. She stared wide eyed, ahead of us. I was terrified to follow her gaze and see what horror awaited us next, but on seeing it, I was more confused then terrified.

It was a man bent over, his back facing us. His skin was a clammy pale grey and his clothes were tattered and hung loosely on his thin frame. On his feet, he wore what looked like iron boots that were worn back in medieval times. But that wasn't the strangest thing about the man. What perplexed me the most about the guy was the way he seemed to be scrubbing an old, 'santa's elfs' hat. He moved vigorously and grunted as if the activity took a considerable amount of effort.

That's when I noticed that he wasn't scrubbing the hat. He was rubbing something into it. Something dark red.

It turned to us, and I could finally see the beast in all its menacing glory. It's face was slightly humanoid, with a grey beard stained with crimson, a hooked nose that nearly met its sharp chin. Sunken into its face were two big fiery eyes, staring at us with an animalistic hunger. That's pretty much where all human resemblance ended. From the neck down it had an abnormally muscular body of an old man, with wide shoulders and a stout stature. Instead of hands it had four talons that gripped its red cap in one hand and an indistinguishable glob of viscera in the other. As soon as it caught site of us, it shoved the glob into its mouth and viciously tore it to shreds with rows of razor edged teeth, making disgusting sounds as it did so. It placed it's cap atop its head and bent down low and retrieve a long, spear like weapon that had been hidden beneath the leaves.

"Mo. . .mo. . .mother. . ." Orndir whimpered.

"Orndir, go. Run back to the village and tell Lady Orrenbelle of the breach."

"B-but--"

"Now!" Ruineth commanded with authority in her voice. Orndir didn't say another word. He darted away into the forest, giving the monster a wide berth. The beast didn't pursue him though. It wanted us. It's thin lips stretched across its fangs in the most menacing grin I have ever seen. Around its mouth was painted with red and chunks of flesh caked in between its teeth. It began stamping its foot and let out a guttural howl. Was it signaling for others like it?

"Eron, focus. This is perfect."

"Are you crazy? That things a Redcap, right? Are you forgetting what it did to those guys back there?" Remembering the carnage made my stomach turn.

"I know what the wretch is capable of. But unlike those that had met their demise, we know it's weakness."

"We do?" I asked.

Ruineth nodded. "For as long as I can remember, we have been slaying Powrie with steel and stone, which proved ineffective. According to your book, when Redcaps come in contact with silver alloy, it causes a chemical reaction in the skin and blood that results in spontaneous combustion."

I blinked. "In English?"

"If I can land a clean blow on it with my long blade, we may have a shot at victory. Assuming the Bestiary had been accurate." A smile formed on her face. I didn't really have any idea what she was going on about, but she knew more about these creatures than me. Deep down I believed we'd make it out of here in one piece.

Then all at once my heart skipped a beat in my chest and every inch of my body tensed violently. My eyes dilated and my vision tinged red like blood. I thought I was having another seizure, but this was something entirely different. I was hungry. Hungry for the Redcap's life. The urge to kill was almost irresistible. It felt like a primal instinct; an extension of my feral self trying desperately to take hold of me. I was scared but at the same time excited. I felt the power coursing through my veins. My fangs ached, eager to tear into flesh. If I allowed myself to be taken, I'd be numb to pain. I'd be able to annihilate the puny being. It stood no chance against whatever was trying to take hold of me. Then on impulse I looked to my left. The girl there. I forgot what her name was, but I'd no doubt despite her skills in combat, she'd fair no better than the Redcap against this power. All I had to do was let go. . .

To her, I wasn't a person.

But a dull animal incapable of feeling human emotions.

That's how Tariya and the elder of Ceodwig felt towards me. To them, I was a monster. If I allowed this murderous temptation to control me, I would have proved them right. I'd be no better than the enemy we now faced. For an instant I had forgotten who Ruineth was. I had considered her nothing more than an obstacle. If I let myself be taken, she'd be in danger too. No, we were going to defeat this monster.

But I was going to do it as a human. Not a fanged beast.

The episode ceased and I was back to normal. This was right. This world may be a survival game, but if surviving meant throwing away my humanity, I'd gladly die with my heart in the right place.

Ruineth was the one who initiated the first attack. With lightning quick reflexes, she drew three throwing knives from the straps crisscrossing her body and sent them soaring towards the Redcap. It was a perfect throw, and all three should've hit their mark. But at the very last second, a cackle escaped the Redcap's mouth and it moved in a black blur in exactly the same manner as the water nymph, Kurri. It materialized a couple feet from where it had originally been and the three throwing knives thumped into a tree.

"Okay. Okay. To prevent a Redcap from Shadow Slipping, you have to anchor it to this plain of existence using earth iron." Ruineth turned to me as quick as possible.

"The dagger! It's made of iron! Cut the monster deep!" As I drew Hestia's dagger, the Redcap set its fiery eyes on me, let out a cackle and vanished in a blur that flowed towards me like a murderous shadow. Reacting on pure impulse, I slashed blindly in front of me, hoping upon hope that some how I'd get lucky and damage the black blur that was the Redcap. For a fraction of a second I felt resistance, then a high pitch shriek sounded right inside my head. The monster reappeared where it was originally. It was cupping its right eye and stamping thunderously on the ground, gurgling and roaring in pain. I looked at the blade of Hestia's dagger. It was painted with sticky black blood. I had done my part and had blinded the bastard in one eye!

"Ha! Hahaha! Suck it! Ruineth it's all you now. I did it! Hell yeah!" I felt pumped. Even though my heart was beating a mile a minute, I was elated to have succeeded. Now Ruineth could slay the creature.

"I thank you, Eron. Now there is nothing preventing this beast to slip away from my blades." She grinned ferociously and drew three more throwing knives. The Redcap wasn't grinning anymore. It's hideous face contorted into a furious grimace directed at me. It removed it's hand to reveal the ruined eye that now sat uselessly in its head. I flipped it off and backed up so that Ruineth could go to work. Now that Ruineth began advancing, the Redcap focused it's attention on her, brandishing it's spear menacingly. Without missing a beat, Ruineth tossed three knives at once just as she had before, only this time the beast couldn't vanish to safety. It tried twisting out of the way, but the moment they left Ruineth's hand is was already to late. The three knives found home in a separate part of its body. One in the right shoulder, one in the left knee, and the last found right in the socket of the already destroyed eyeball. A feral cry sounded within my head with greater intensity than the first, jarring my teeth and giving me a slight headache. The Redcap dropped to the ground and writhed violently. Ruineth watch attentively, taking mental notes. Then something else happened. In the three areas where the knives struck, the flesh began to sizzle and bubble. With it's right hand it reach down to pull knife free of its leg, but as it's talons wrapped around the handle of the knife, something happened that scent me skittering back on my ass.

The Redcaps entire arm blackened, then exploded off it's body entirely in a shower of black blood and flesh. The screaming intensified greater and now aware of the danger it was in, it sacrificed its left leg in order to pull the silver alloy knife from it's ruined eye socket. Immediately it's left talon started sizzling and dropped the dagger on the grass, but no sooner did it's left leg detonate and blow clean off it's body. This time it didn't react to this and balance on it's one remaining leg and spear. In it's face wasn't pain or fear.

The only emotion discernable was pure and utter hatred. This was a creature that brutally murdered those elves for fun. This wasn't a person, but a true monster. Watching it die wouldn't effect me in the slightest.

Ruineth had a maximum of nine throwing knives, plus the two daggers she confiscated from Tariya. The first three she tossed had missed and the second three all hit their marks. But although she had three more and could have easily ended it, she chose to use her long blade instead; two and a half feet of pure silver, and wielded it at her side.

"Listen beast and listen well! No longer shall you torment my people! No longer shall we live in fear of the day these walls fail! Today, we welcome that day, so that all of you godless demons can come charging to your inexorable deaths! We will take back our land! Let it be known that your days of terror are numbered, and in death, pass on my message to your filthy orc ruler! For your monstrous crimes against my kind I commend you to an eternity of darkness!" Her speech was powerful and gave me goosebumps. Her voice rivalled that of Hestia's and I could tell she meant every word of it. The Redcap bayed like a hungry wolf and pushed of with its one leg, it's wicked spear hurdling towards her face.

That was the last movement that the Redcap would ever make.

The spear was only an inch from skewering her, but at the last possible microsecond she tilted her head ever so slightly to the right. The spearhead missed her face by the width of a fingernail. This is when she launched her deadly counter attack. Now within the Redcap's guard, she stepped in landed the final blow to his body. Her blade sank into it's chest all the way up to it's hilt. I saw the sword blade penetrate through the creature's back; dark life blood spilling from it by the seconds. It's eyes were wide; staring into space. The deep red was now milky and faraway.

Ruineth bowed her head so that it was level with the Redcap's pointed ear.

"May the souls of those you've murdered forever torment you. Begone, monster." She withdrew the blade from his body. Blood spewed out like a broken faucet, painting her face and clothes black. The beast was finished. All that was left for it to do now was topple over. But Ruineth wasn't finished. She held her blade high above her head, staring at the doomed monster with the fierce eyes of a huntress.

In one, fluid motion, she brought the blade in a diagonal arc of death

and struck the Redcap's head clean from it's body.

The head rolled on the floor a couple of feet, then stopped by a tree stump. It's body toppled over in a pool of its own blood. Ruineth dropped her sword and walked over to the monsters cap. Picking it up, she strode back to it's body. She bent low and rolled the corpse away, then oddly enough, soaked the hat in the black puddle until it was no longer red.

"Is it over?" I asked softly.

"It is over." I watched her hold the hat up to eye level, checking it for any missed spots.

"What're you doing that for?"

"I'm making sure the powrie won't return as a dunter. Lesser Orcneas such as goblins and boggarts when killed are able to live on as phantasms; harmless apparitions of their old selves. But stronger creatures like this powrie can come back as a powerful dunter if not taken care of properly."

"So by soaking it's hat in it's blood it prevents it from coming back?"

"Precisely. By doing this, the spirit can't draw upon the lifeforce in the blood of those it's killed. Without sufficient power, it'll be reduced to that of a harmless phantasm." She smiled at me. "This is a victory, Eron! Despite the earlier casualties and the damage to the wall, we now know the weakness of a powerful foe. The advantage we now have is immense!"

"I'm glad it worked out for you. But, um, hey, you might wanna take a shower. You are literally covered from head to toe in that shit." She patted me on the shoulder and stood up.

"Let's count our blessings and head back. Now that we know that your book is filled with only truth, my mind feels clearer. I feel a much greater sense of understanding now, and in a way, safety. But I'm still not to keen on encountering a gang of these. I want to research and learn more of the Orcneas as a whole. This knowledge can win us back our forest!" She grabbed my hand and pulled me along, retrieving her sword as she went. She ran at a fast pace, holding my hand and pulling me through the forest.

"Aren't you going to bury the body?" I asked as we moved.

"After being exposed to silver, it'll naturally decompose."

"How come you're taking the hat with you?"

"You ask a lot of questions! It's hat is my trophy! My spoil of the hunt. It's proof that I slew my prey; and a powrie at that! Not many can say they defeated one and lived to tell."

"You're going to be freaking famous! That was insane though! That speech you did, it was so deep! And the way you finished it off!"

She held her chin high and grinned. "You flatter me, Eron. But I couldn't have done it without your aid. You bound it, allowing me to deal the finishing blow. And I wouldn't have ever known how to defeat it if you hadn't appeared from the Beyond with that book. Hey, you never finished telling about the woman who wrote the book. Mikoto was it?"

Hearing her name from somebody else felt weird, since it was mostly just the two of us.

"Yeah, she doesn't remember writing it, but it was apparently in her handwriting."

"Was she like you?"

"From the outside or the fangs."

"Both."

"Yes to being from the outside, but I don't know to the fangs."

"You don't know if she had fangs or not?"

I scratched my head. "No, it's not that. She had fangs, hers were cooler than mine, but she had a tail. Which is weird because she said that we were the same species, but I don't have a tail."

Ruineth rubbed her chin in thought. "Maybe yours has yet to develop. You look fairly young, around my age actually. Do you know Mikoto's age?"

I shook my head. "Not sure, but she definitely looked older than me. Maybe eighteen or nineteen."

"Have you felt any different than you did a few days ago?"

"Not really. I mean--" I had felt different. During the first encounter with the Redcap, I had seemed to enter a sort of feral state. I was able to resist the urge, but now that I think about it, this has happened on two other occasions. The first was when I had stepped into the pond by Ruineth's home yesterday. The second was right before I arrived at Crowned Rock a few hours ago. Was there some reason for these episodes? My gut told me it had nothing to do with the seizures.

"Eron, are you alright?"

"Huh, oh yeah! It's nothing." I lied. Ruineth gave me a concerned look, but didn't question me further.

Soon we past by Crowned Rock, and to our surprise, Tariya was nowhere to be found. Had the toxin worn off? Ruineth shrugged this off and urged me to keep moving. By now Hestia would be in battle with the elder of the Ceodwig village and assuming that she's winning, we wouldn't have to worry much about our opponents.

We cut through the thick shrubs and backtracked up the steep fell. Upon closing in on the village green, something seemed wrong. I could here shouts coming from a little bit farther, but they weren't shouts of morale. They were shouts of anger. Something was definitely not right. Ruineth seemed to pick up on this at the same time I did, and we both picked up our pace. The shouts grew louder as we closed in and now I was certain they were shouts of outrage and challenge.

All the elves--including some from the opposing side--were tightly pact in a fight circle surrounding what I assumed to be the duel between Hestia and Ceodwig. But something was definitely terribly wrong.

"Come on! Let's push through! See what's what!" Ruineth stuffed the blood soaked hat between her straps and plowed through the throng of armored elves. They didn't pay her any mind as they were so preoccupied on what was going on in the center. I followed behind her and pushed through until finally reaching the center. I had been correct. Hestia and Ceodwig's duel had already commenced, but that wasn't all to it. Something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.

As I looked closer, I could see what had enraged the elves.

Ceodwig was holding a sword to a young elves throat, his back to her and her hand clamped down on his shoulder to prevent movement.

Hestia was frozen in place, not daring to move and inch in fear of the young elves life.

Ruineth's face twisted into an intense fury that I never imagined she was capable of.

The young elf being held with a blade to his throat whimpered and trembled.

The young elf being held with a blade to his throat,

was Orndir.