They traveled slow, but with a goal. Querum was only a few minutes away from them and with it their families. Orwell and his hunters had managed to find and track down 20 'Damas' a find beyond anything they had ever dreamed of. This amount of meat could keep the entire population of the village fed for over 10 days! Not that Querum was suffering a famine or anything, but with that much meat to spare they could gain quite the nice sum of money, selling it to all the travelers and adventurers that tended to visit Querum for some days.

If there was one day Orwell was happy he took in that Mage into his group, it was today. Not only had she saved one of them from an dangerous infection, but her magic allowed her to carry multiple Damas at the same time, making it actually possible to bring the 20 Damas into the village in a single trip.

Damas weren’t the tallest of animals, but they were large enough that a single man couldn’t carry one alone, meaning under normal circumstances his band of 30 people would have had to leave at least 5 behind, but with the Mage, that was no problem at all. Normally he wasn’t fond of the idea that a city-dweller was this good at hunting, in his eyes that job belonged to the village-men and women, The city-dwellers should stick to their things.

'The city folk should let the actual hunters just do their job, it’s not like I‘m telling them how to actually go about and research the things I kill for them, so they shouldn’t tell me how to kill them.' He often had said.

Soon they came face to face with the entrance to Querum village, the village had a long palisades fence surrounding it, with four entrances one for each of the four cardinal directions. To the east of the village was a forrest of pine trees, there his hunter group had came from. As they walked towards the entrance the single guard stationed there gave them a smile and a wave. He was a god friend of Orwell. As there all inhabitants of the village.

Querum was bigger then most villages with at least 130 inhabitants, but it was no real city either. Because of the small scale, everyone knew each other by name at least and most would describe all inhabitants of the village as their friends, that was the view Orwell had as well for most of his life.

Sadly that view of his changed around 3 and a half weeks ago, when they showed up.

"Oh hey Orwell, that’s a good catch you have there. I see you finally accepted the Mage huh? I told ya she would be a good addition for you."

Orwell gritted his teeth for a moment, before smiling a fake smile at the source of the sound, it was a young looking girl by the name of Hanna, she and her two companions named Luisa and Adeline moved into the village 3 and a half weeks ago and they were the reason he had lost faith in his old view of everyone in the village was his friend or at least friendly acquaintances, because no matter how often he tried, how often Hanna spoke with him, his gut told him that these girls were trouble, a lot of trouble.

When they had first arrived everyone assumed the were simple travellers or adventurers, here to stock up on supply’s, but much to their surprise they asked to live in this village. There were some unoccupied houses, often used by adventurers or travellers if they stayed for more then a single day, so the housing wouldn’t be a problem, however they had no way to pay for the house, as they lacked any kind of money. What they had however, was meat. A lot of it.

Orwell was a seasoned hunter, but even he had never seen the meat these girls wanted to exchange for the house, they said it was meat of a beasts they had slain near the capital, which made Orwell very suspicious, as normally no beast, no matter the size would survive near the capital, it was simply to well guarded for that to happen, but the girls insisted.

After multiple examinations, and a demonstration, it was determined the meat was save to eat and the village elder decided to allow them to take the house, on the Same evening a welcome feast was held for the visitors, where most of the meat they had brought was used up. Everything seemed fine, but Orwell‘s suspicion only grew, as his gut told him that there was something wrong and he trusted his gut.

"Well even us old folk have to accept some change sooner or later. How are Adeline and Luisa holding up?"

After they got accepted into the community they declared they wanted to hunt for this village and of course, Orwell, as the villages hunters leader strongly objected, even more so after he learned they wouldn’t join his hunters, but rather become his competitors. Hanna only argued that it was hardly competition, he had a good 30 hunters under him, how could 3 lone girls compete with that? 

However she also claimed that this was truly the only profession they had any talent in, so the village, and Orwell but only after pressure from multiple people, accepted. And they were effective, of course not nearly as much as Orwell‘s hunters, but they brought meat and other useful monster parts back to the village.

Often times they brought back a certain type of meat no one could figure out where the meat came from, they claimed it was just the same as all the other, but neither the texture or taste ever seemed to line up, but it was a small detail so most just ignored, as long as it filled the belly it was good right?

"They’re doing well thank you. We’re gonna go and hunt ourselves soon, will probably not be back before nightfall." Hanna answered Orwell’s question with a grin on her lips, he hated that grin and she knew it.

"Well best of luck to you then, I will start to sell the Dama‘s now." Orwell wanted to finally get from this conversation and to his luck Hanna let him, as she waved a last time before walking back towards her home, presumably to fetch either her companions or equipment. Orwell released a sigh of relief.

"Who was that? She seems kinda like a bitch." It was then that Orwell was bluntly reminded that the Mage he hired had never been here before and didn’t know anything about this village. He started to explain, just who Hanna and her companions were, while also telling his feelings on her as well, it was no secret he was wary of her after all and he felt really good once he learned the Mage shared his concerns.

"I seem like a bitch to you huh? My plan was to kill Orwell first but congratulations little Mage, you managed to dethrone the top man on my list of who I will torture and kill."

Hanna‘s eyes flared a shade of scarlet as she entered her home. Inside she saw the usual scene, Luisa sitting in a corner of a room, reading her books, while Adeline was sitting dutifully on a chair in the kitchen, waiting for her return.

The items they had gathered from the capital had proven themselves extremely profitable, while Hanna herself didn’t get as much as she had hoped, it still was something and the main concern was getting Luisa a possibility to actually contribute in a meaningful way and that it did. Over the month they had been here she turned from a helpless elven beggar into quite the powerful Mage, specialising in Shadowmancy.

It wasn’t her only type of magic by any means, but it was what she was most sufficient at. Mastering most of the spells in under a month was an impressive feat all on its own, but Luisa credited that to her being an elf, having a better connection to magic and Mana as a result, since all elf’s, regardless if they trained or not, could see Spellcasting for example, as they see the condensed Mana with ease.

Besides her transformation into the elven churches biggest nightmare, Luisa changed rather little, she still was tall and thin and she tended to walk hunched over. She wore black clothes, not that anyone would ever see them, since she tended to wear an oversized black cloak on top, she also avoided sunlight like a plague, making her extremely pale, which Hanna thought to be rather funny, considering most of her magic relayed on light, since with no light were there no shadows for her to manipulate.

Adeline basically stayed exactly the same, she just got a sword after all her time being a bystander. It was a classic longsword, nothing fancy in anyway, although she also learned some earth and wind magic to add to her fighting style, since this was magic that wasn’t extremely restricted or outright banned, she could talk and use it openly.

Hanna got almost nothing, but didn’t complain since she thought her current arsenal and strength would be sufficient enough for the moment.

Something they all had gotten over the month however, was experience, they fought over the month many a monster and beast and trained in the art that was the ambush. It played right in her hands to as their cover was that of being hunters, so they could keep their disguise up, while also training themselves, a perfect win win.

"Alright Girls we are heading out today, I heard from some people a massive army was making their way here, looking for an unspecified monster, seems like the government is looking for us after all."

Luisa rolled her eyes at Hanna before engrossing herself in her book once more.

"More like they came for you, not for us…" She grumbled.

"Well I also heard that among that army was a force of elven paladins, looking for an escaped doomed-child that was supposed to be executed a month ago. So yes they are very much also looking for you."

A clank sounded around the room as Luisa dropped her book and she slowly looked upon Hanna, her eyes had a wrath and hatred, so intense behind them that even Hanna was impressed for a moment. Luisa‘s entire body was shacking as she slowly stood up, as her lips became a smirk of unnatural proportions.

"I think it’s time our village gets a fresh supply of our special meat, don’t you think?" Luisa‘s voice was laced with more potent venom then Hanna‘s claws at the moment.

Hanna grinned in return.

"Yes I think they do."

Their special meat, was something only they knew how to provide after all and it had the decent side effect, that whenever they got their special meat back to the village, the bandit population of the nearby forrest, also decreased, truly a win-win for both sides.

 

"Lady Kuntery, I know we were given the task to scout ahead, but considering we’re so close to a village, do you really expect to find something able to actually threaten our force?“ The young knight complained, but followed the young lady nonetheless through the thick underbrush of the forrest.

The young knight was part of the legendary Cloud Order, who was currently undergoing one of its greatest missions yet, to search the entire kingdom for the biggest threat the kingdom had seen since the war almost 100 years ago, a Dark Margenko.

Assisting them in their endeavour was a group of elven Paladins of the great elven church and a part of Lady Kathrin of Kuntery’s personal hunters, which included the young lady the knight was currently following, Julia of Kuntery, the heir to house Kuntery.

They have recently reached the little village of Querum and the two of them were ordered to scout ahead I to the nearby forrest, a task the young knight increasingly thought to be pointless, since they were so close to a village there was no way for anything noteworthy to be here, it definitely wasn’t because his winged shoulderpieces kept getting caught in the underbrush.

"And that’s exactly why we will scout out the entire forrest dear knight, if there really is nothing noteworthy then it shouldn’t take to long."

The knight sighed silently as his attempt to convince the young lady to turn back, got completely turned on his head, she really was like a mother he mused for a bit.

Both had their iconic long fire red hair and amber eyes, both were tall and imposing, but soft and kindhearted underneath and one could think they were carbon copies of each other. Something else they had in common was their shared hatred for the Dark Margenko and on that front he completely agreed with them, they had lost family members to one and so did he. He lost them all to it, his parents and his sister…

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

The scream put both scouts on high alert, it sounded like a man in indescribable amounts of pain, after a short look they both nod and rushed towards the source of the scream, overtime more and more screams rang into the air, getting louder as they continued to approach the source.

As they ran a man suddenly burst through the underbrush and ran right into Julia, he seemed scared shitless and sweat ran down his entire body, multiple splashes of blood covered his face and torso. His cloths didn’t point to a very good rank in the social hierarchy, but that wasn’t a concern though, right now they needed answers.

They kept on trying to calm the man down, but he kept on insisting that he and they should flee, that they would be here soon and that they were about to die, they had to force the man to stay put via force, so they might get answers out of him.

"Just tell us what happened and we will help you." This was the seventh time they told him these exact words, but only now would he give real answers.

“We were doin nothin I say, nothin when all of a sudden these three… things showed up, they killed everyone of us, please I beg you just don‘t let them find me, I will even be arrested for it, just please don‘t-…"

The man would never end his plea for help, for his sentence was cut short as he was abruptly silenced by the a sharp pain in the chest, he looked down, horrified one last time, to see a spear that seemed to be made of the very darkness, came perturbing out of his chest, blood oozing out of the wound.

He gave one silent plea for help with his look, before another spear of darkness slammed into his head from behind, splashing blood onto Lady Julia‘s face, which also contorted into shock and surprise at the mans sudden death.

Alarmed both her and the knight drew their swords, getting into a battle ready position, standing back to back to each other and looking into the deep underbrush, from which the spear seemed to come from.

Yet nothing happened, they demanded the assailants shall reveal themselves, but they were only greeted by silence, nervousness began to take the place of the bravado from before, as they stood battle ready and tense, yet nothing happened, until laughter registered in their minds.

It was loud and frantic like a laughter of the truly insane, the young knight had heard it before on a mission, when he was tasked with defeating a Mage driven mad by dark secrets. What was different however, was the sound of the laughter, for this laughter clearly belong to a women.

His suspicions became reality once a voice rang into the forrest.

"Would You look at that, two very fine specimen walked right into the wolves den. Oh the opportunity this brings! Luisa if you would."

Before either of the two could fully comprehend what this was supposed to mean, multiple chains of darkness shot forth from the shadows of the underbrush and they were to fast for the two of them to dodge.

The chains wrapped them up and they were bound by solid darkness against one another, they screamed and struggled, but to no avail, the chains, though made of darkness, seemed harder then any steel imaginable.

As they struggled the laughter began anew, closer this time and it kept on getting closer and louder, before suddenly a young girl wearing a simple red shirt and a black skirt stood before them, her crimson eyes glowed brightly and her smirk made them shiver upon seeing it.

On top of her long blond hair were two cat like ears and her hands had claws long and sharp, while a black tail twitched from side to side. Never before had either seen one before and yet they both knew what was before them, fear and dread filled them both.

From one of a shadows nearby another girl suddenly emerged, tall, thin and completely hidden behind a large black cloak and hood, the girl released an exasperated sigh as she walked towards the Dark Margenko‘s left side.

"Honestly I love good screams of torture and dread, as much as the next guy, but honestly after a while it just starts to hurt the ears like hell…"

When there was another rustle of leaves, they both turned towards it and there emerged a third girl, a smile one her face and love in her eyes as she walked towards the Dark Margenko‘s right side, before grabbing on the beast arm.

Julia‘s mind raced a million miles per second, think of a way to escape the three, while the three discussed plans on how to proceed, however this all meant nothing to the young knight, for he thought his heart had stopped and his soul left his body, he thought the world and gods just wanted to prank him, play a unfunny and cruel joke, but that wasn’t the case and so he could do nothing and stare into the void, as his eyes lost all light in them, as he saw something he never dreamed of seeing.

Before him stood Adeline Strand.

His sister, who was presumed missing or dead for a whole month now.