"MAYABELLE!!!! Where are you?" Ember called loudly to the forest, a few small tears stinging her eyes. She tried to hide them from Idril, who was unhelpfully and frantically throwing camping equipment around as if Mayabelle would be hiding under a bedroll.  Ceaser sniffed the ground, running into the brush but coming back again, the scent lost.

A rustling in the trees made them glance quickly up. On a tall crooked branch sat the gnome, smiling faintly, eyes tinted black. Ember's hands glowed with a raging flame. The telltale sound of a swinging guitar came from behind Ember, strings twanging angrily. 

"What are you," growled Ember, "where is Mayabelle? Tell us, you evil shifter!" Ceaser's scales raised on his back, growling, smoke billowing from his mouth. The Mayabelle looking creature crawled a few branches down, softly chuckling an evil hissing laugh. 

"What concern is it of yours, mortals? Before I took her body, she said you wouldn't care if she had gone. Her last wish was to find you. You shall soon join her."

Ember started at the phrasing. What an odd way the thing had phrased its sentence. She heard Idril scream behind her.

 "Wait!" she yelled, lunging at the elf's feet. Idril fell with Ember, struggling in rage. "That's not a shifter, Idril! Stop, don't hurt it."

"You are a smart one, demonic one," hissed the creature, slithering further down the branches of the tree. "We should get along quite well."

"I'm nothing like you. You're hell-spawn. Get out of her now!" 

"Ah, but there's nothing you can do to me. You wouldn't want to hurt her." The unsettling smile widened, Idril gasped, Ceaser growled louder. Ember pounded her fist on the ground, thinking desperately of a way around the physical problem. 

Laughing, the creature jumped out of the tree, landing in a crouching position and started slowly creeping forward. 

Thinking quickly, Ember lunged at her possessed friend, trying to grab her and subdue her while thinking of something else to do. Mayabelle leaped out of her grasp, bounding toward the cooking fire, grabbing a coal and flinging it at Idril, who rolled startled out of the way. Ember could see her friend's skin burnt red. 

Suddenly surprising her, Idril spoke to her in elvish, and she could understand every word plainly. Looking around, she saw a golden ray, linking the two together, radiating from Idril's fingers. 

"What do we do?" she asked her.

"She's fast, plus possessed," Ember pondered, "But she's small. Perhaps if we trapped her, we could tie her up and get her to someone who could help."

They nodded in unison. Idril shot off to the left to grab whatever useful equipment she could, and Ember charged straight for her friend.