Seth
Luna was, in fact, able to compliment someone.
Seth had been stunned to learn this fact when he picked up the trail from the site of the massacre. He couldn’t take full credit for this achievement as he had relied primarily on Inkfang’s instincts. Still, it felt so good to have someone believe he might be a decent spellwarrior yet, he allowed himself to enjoy the praise. From what he was able to tell on his own, however, they were tracking six enemies with a highly unusual footprint. In the growing darkness, they could just make them out in the grass. Whatever these things ran on were three-clawed abominations.
Seth’s first guess had been massive birds, but Luna shot that theory down with, “Do you know of any birds that spit acid?” And since he did not, he simply resolved to continue following the tracks to find out what they were dealing with.
It was nearing midnight when Luna finally dismounted and motioned for Seth to do the same. By then, they had already ridden far to the west, near the border into the forest nation of Tanis. As the wolves vanished in their wake, Seth began to study the tracks. They seemed fresher and, now that he thought of it, he could hear deep, booming laughter in the distance--that was probably why Luna had dismounted. She pulled him close to her so he could hear her speak in a whisper:
“They’re close, but we don’t know how close yet. I want you to make yourself invisible and move slowly. I’ll mark this spot for a rendezvous point. Watch out for locals, and come straight back when you get eyes on these things. Don’t-- and I do mean don’t-- try anything reckless.”
Seth nodded his acknowledgment of these orders. At this point, he did not really need to be told to be careful. Inkfang had already done enough to make him nervous. As they drew nearer to the spot where they had to leave the wolves, she had balked several times, clearly unwilling to approach whatever was ahead of them.
With the plan clearly laid out, the two spellwarriors split up, traveling in opposite directions in an attempt to flank those who were the source of the noise. Seth crept from tree to towering tree; quite unnecessarily due to his invisibility spell. Regardless, he began to feel knots in his stomach that seemed to accompany a certainty that the enemy already knew of his presence.
In the end, it didn’t matter, because the sight of the creatures alone nearly sent him into a panic attack that nearly broke his concealment-- which required additional oxygen and was weakest when the caster hyperventilates. Their skin was the color of coal and was rippled with powerful muscles. Their hands and feet bore the three-clawed form that had been seen in their tracks and their grotesque faces were marked with three horns; two from each side of their foreheads and one curling outward from their chins. But what really caught his attention was their tails. They seemed to sway back and forth, never drooping or otherwise remaining still, and were each tipped with a bone spike the length of a knife.
As they had heard before, the creatures were laughing. A cursory scan of the area around their campsite was all Seth needed to understand why. Around the campfire, he could see several clumps of what could only be described as human meat. He could barely tell this much as he could see that some of them still had heads. Revelry filled this campsite as they sang about their kills and stoked the fire with clearly human bones.
Savages.
Though they were indeed savage, there was something more disturbing to them. Only as he saw a pair kicking a head between each other was he able to put his finger on it: these things were pure evil. The worst of his kind would be described as desensitized to violence, but these dark creatures actually seemed to revel in it. Nowhere in the darkest depths of his imagination could he ever form an image of so many simply playing with human remains as if they were toys and the indignity of it all brought out something unexpected in him.
He was angry.
Who were these repulsive things to drag off the innocent and mock them in death? Oh, they had certainly had an easy enough time picking off unscrupulous merchants, but Seth had decided then that they would test their savagery against someone who was actually strong enough to fight back. All thought of Luna’s orders forgotten, he went to work.
Even with a mind full of wrath, Seth was still a clever man. He didn’t seem able to say the same about the enemies he spied, but he could tell they were strong and anyone could tell that he was outnumbered. So it wasn’t enough to rush in with his sword blazing; he had to pick some of them off to even the odds. Seth quietly counted them all. Eleven. But as he considered how best to tackle this plan, he noticed one of them fainting. As he fell face first into the campfire, a deadly hush fell over the camp. Seth could tell that this was magic and was suddenly reassured. I guess she doesn’t like this either.
A second maulan began to roar in pain as boils erupted over his body, this time from a spell Seth had attempted. So, fire and disease are both on the table. Good. As the boils burst into a swarm of insects, the Dark Hunters wedged together around their violently acquired supplies of gore and stolen goods. Dark Hunters. Sounds like a good name to me. Seth found that their formation told him a great deal about what the spellwarriors were dealing with. They absolutely were stupid. Their phalanx was far too small to protect them from being flanked-- something they hadn‘t even considered based on the single direction in which they all faced. Even with the fire behind them, they were still vulnerable to projectiles and--as had just been demonstrated-- magic. These were just carnivorous buffoons pretending to be soldiers.
Luna had apparently gotten the same impression as Seth because she wasted no time in charging through the campsite like a tornado. Seth couldn’t help admiring her sword style as a pirouetting leap had allowed her to cut into one neck, but just as quickly, she had ducked underneath the swipe of the next one’s tail and responded by removing the spike with a rapid cut. He could only appreciate her form for a moment before his mind formed the words, help her, fool!
Not wanting to approach the path of carnage that Luna had made for the sake of his own safety, Seth had reverted to the casting position. As the magic in Luna’s blade had created so much wind and it had worked so well before, Seth cast a spell that caused the flames in the campfire to spike behind them. The extra flames grew intensely with the added air to encircle everyone else in a ten-foot tall inferno. Fortunately, Luna’s sword strokes repelled the fire long enough for Seth to protect her with a fireproof charm.
It was a perfect victory as far as Seth could tell when the flames died down. Only one Dark Hunter remained standing, his entire head aflame, and within moments, he had sprawled to the ground with a rattling gasp. Seth rushed into the clearing with a grin and when he caught Luna’s gaze, she smiled. “You did well, Seth.”
“I disobeyed your orders,” Seth said with a failed attempt at false modesty etched into his face.
“Funny, so did I. Seriously, you were--”
Seth never got to found out what he was, because one of the Dark Hunters was still alive. Faster than the human eye could possibly track, a tail spike plunged deep into the small of Luna’s back and she gasped. Even so, it had all appeared to happen in slow-motion for Seth, who felt his chest leap as he watched the satisfaction drain from her face only to be suddenly replaced with horror. He could hear the wound sizzling, but tears came when her stomach had melted away, revealing that damned spike. With a wailing roar, Seth wrenched the tail out of his dying mentor. He ignored the sudden stinging pain he felt in his hand when he grabbed the exposed bone and labored desperately in an attempt heal the wound with his magic. But the hole only continued to grow with a series of crackling pops.
Eventually, the venom the Hunter’s tail emitted had begun to dribble from within and he was forced to let go lest he be dissolved as well. For no other reason than to avoid watching any longer, Seth drew his sword and began to hack at every piece of Dark Hunter within reach. His weapon seared with magical flames, only reminding him further of the triumph that had turned so quickly into tragedy, but he was trained to turn pain into a weapon. When there was nothing left of them to cut and burn, he collapsed. He was drained and battered with the resistance the Hunters managed to put up, but also dizzy. His right hand began to burn as his vision faded to white. Damn. It got me too.
He was rescued by a search party hours later who had followed their trail from Luna’s emergency beacon, but he barely took any notice of their presence. The physical pain that had built up in his hand and his grief were so intense that Seth thought he remembered hallucinating. He could not see anything but darkness as a dark, female voice assailed his ears. “Hello, can you hear me?”
Seth did hear. As he thought this, the voice said in a boastful tone, “Ha! Talking to mortals is easy! How do the others have such… difficulty?”
Seth didn’t understand, but as his hand continued to burn, he felt the rest of his body go cold with dread.
“You have made the biggest mistake of your life!” The voice declared with venom in her words.
Seth tried to look around, but he could not see. Could not move. Who are you?
“I can feel the petty questions rolling through your empty head,” the woman declared with a trace of mirth in her voice. “How very like my father you are, always cleaving through anything that offends you when things don’t go your way! What would you say if I told you the fate that awaits your precious mentor? She should feel honored! She’s been chosen for the Soul Forge!”
Luna in the Soul Forge? Seth’s dread deepened as he struggled to recall the significance of the term.
“That’s right! I said the Forge! There, she will burn in the embers of our grand machine for the sin of defiling my beautiful creations!” She laughed before adding. “Oh, but YOU! YOU had to survive! This is surely the work of my father, but he won’t protect you forever! Oh no! Someday, I will claim your soul as well and, when I do, you’ll see how SWIFT and HARSH my judgment can be!”
Seth wanted to scream at the woman. He wanted her to know that he didn’t regret what he’d done. As his heart filled with rage, he felt a spike of pain in his hand.
“You will regret crossing me some day, spellwarrior!” The presence hissed waspishly as she spoke, adding, “Until then, I will show you that there are far worse things in this world than death. For destroying the love I have put into my art, I will destroy all that you love! From now until the day you die, all that you touch will turn to ash! You will never again know a day without terror! One day, you will beg for the sweet mercy of eternal damnation! Sweet dreams.”
That made no sense to Seth until he woke up in a bed at Palon’s infirmary. The comfort of something close to home did not even compare to the shock of seeing a male nurse sprawled on the ground beside him. He wordlessly slid to the ground for a closer look only to confirm his suspicion; this man was dead. His hand began to burn again, prompting him to glance down; it looked fine, but still hurt. Focus!
From what little he could tell from examining the body, there didn’t seem to be any external cause of his death. It was possible that he had died from an internal cause that he wasn’t qualified to determine, but the last words he heard before then were fresh in his mind. It didn’t seem likely someone could suddenly die while giving medicine to someone else, no matter how he thought of it. Another problem occurred to him as well; he was alone with a man whose last act in life had probably been to touch him. Faced with the trauma of everything in his recent history and brutal present, Seth did the only sensible thing he could have done -- he began to panic.
He started by overturning the bed and clawing through every surface, nook, and cranny. Find a weapon. Clothes! Gotta find out what happened! Alexis!
His sister had just rushed into the room with a groggy Dr. Clark in tow. When the doctor saw the corpse at the foot of Seth’s upended bed, his shock was noticed only by Alexis; Seth had already been plotting his escape. He got his chance when Dr. Clark knelt to check the body. He bounded past the open doorway and sprinted out into the morning sunlight. He squinted as he tried to figure out his next move, despite his hysteria. He had attended enough seminars in school to know the signs of what he suspected.
Sudden onset pain with no visible cause.
Random death.
And, last but not least, hallucinations.
Seth had no doubt in his mind that he was cursed. Whoever he had heard was no hallucination, but a magic user who was linked to the Dark Hunters. She was angry at him for surviving the same battle that they did not and was exacting a toll. But the seminars had served a purpose; he calmed down and assessed his situation. His first priority, bar none, would be to find a curse breaker. He sprinted home and gathered what he needed. Sword, combat chain, clothes, money. When he was fully prepared, he left the village, trotting north before anyone could stop him.
He needed to find Professor Marzett.
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