=== POV Isaak

 

“Savon, you can stop.”

Savon was torturing a prisoner, but with the entry of Eris, this effort was no longer necessary.

“Why?”

He turned from the prisoner to me.

“We have someone inside, so any compulsive attempt to get in is void.”

Without replying to my answer, he pulled a dagger and cut the prisoner’s throat, then turned to me again.

“What’s Next?”

“Unfortunately, the gate closed again and sealed with a glyph. There is nothing else we can do but wait for now.”

He nodded and turned to the other shapeshifters who were caught.

“I’ll do this here.”

Savon has always been the man for these tasks. I respected and feared him at the same time.

“All right, I’ll go and talk to the others.”

 

===

 

“Go back, everyone!”

Sarna screamed that everyone should back away because Darwas appeared between our rows.

“ARGH!”

Darwas groaned, and his body began to dip in a strange black veil. I noticed how his body was changing, but it was not natural and looked forced.

“Something is wrong with him!”

I warned the people around me.

“ARGH!”

Darwas groaned again.

His shape grew and grew bigger and bigger until he exceeded the size of a three-story house. The veil disappeared and ultimately revealed its form.

The entire body was deformed, I could discover aspects of earthbound dragons, fire dragons, gigantic millipedes, aspidochelons and basilisks, and much more.

I looked around and saw Savon not far from me.

“Savon, can you gather up some people and launch attacks from the air?”

“Yes, no problem.”

He nodded and started to walk.

“Hey! What should we do?”

Miss Sarna and the other humans came to me.

“Get ready. I have sent a few shapeshifters to attack from the air. When it is distracted, you should try to attack the legs. You may also find weaknesses.”

“All right! So then you heard Isaak.”

Sarna turned to the others and got everyone to get ready.

 

===

 

“Damn it!”

I cursed loudly to myself that nothing worked. Each of our attacks was blocked with ease, and this something didn’t make it seem like it was getting tired.

We launched another attack. Savon and the others flew around IT and attacked from all sides. But no matter what kind of magic they used, it didn’t work. The human around Miss Sarna tried to attack the feet on the ground, but they didn’t even penetrate the scaled skin with their weapons. The other shapeshifters who were on the ground with me tried to do damage with magic from a distance.

Savon moved away from the others and came flying over to me. He changed back.

“I feel a strange presence from the edge of the crater. It has been there for some time and is not moving. I hope that our fight against the mutated Darwas didn’t bring unwanted attention towards us.”

I stroked my chin.

“Hmm... how long has it been there?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve been guessing since the last five attacks.”

Five attacks? If that were a monster, it would have intervened a long time ago. It has to be something with intelligence. Maybe an enemy? An ally?

“We continue to attack, as long as it doesn’t move, we ignore it.”

He nodded and then changed again.

“Come on! Get ready again!”

I ordered everyone to prepare. First, I started to shoot our magic on the face with the others around me. Then Savon attacked from the air with the other shapeshifters. The last attack came from humans on the ground. Miss Sarna and the others were rushing towards IT when a huge flame rushed straight out of the clouds towards IT.

“Back! Immediately, everyone back!”

Everyone turned and built distance. Savon flew to me again and turned back.

“These flames are this presence from just now. It was gone for a moment, but I guess it was because it was too high in the sky.”

“Then, we hope it’s not an enemy.”

We saw the flame in a small place on the back of the scalp skin and get inside.

“It got through!”

Savon had an astonished tone.

“We still have to be careful.”

I warned him.

But before I knew it, black flames appeared that didn’t just burn the body, it looked as if it would etching the body. There were real holes in the body, which continued to dissolve from the inside to the outside.

 

=== POV Eris

 

I opened my eyes again, and I saw the black flame swallow everything.

“I-Incredible! I never expected the black flames to do such devastating damage!?”

I gave air to my astonishment. Before I knew it, I could see the others between the burning pieces and they could see me too.

“Eris!?”

Sarna’s startled voice came from the other side of the flame.

The black flames had destroyed almost the entire body when the magical core caught my eye. I lifted it, but it crumbled into small pieces in my hand. I use (appraisal) on the core.

 

<Appraisal>

Type: Magic core

Status: Broken

Reason: magic overload

<========>

 

Wynonna overloaded his core! Could it be that she was responsible for this hideous mutation?

I looked up again, the flames were gone entirely, except for a few fires that danced in the air around me.

“Eris”

Daria wanted to see me, but I couldn’t let that happen.

“Do not come closer.”

The flames reacted unwillingly and flew towards them.

“Dodge!”

At the last moment, she avoided the flames, and they flew into space.

I have to get rid of these flames! Come on! Disappears!

I was able to suppress the flames a little, but the fires didn’t go away. I carried out my last idea. I focused the flames and bit into them.

“What do you do!”

Daria’s voice echoed.

I could eat the black flames like the normal flames. One by one disappeared in my mouth until there was nothing left of them.

*gulp*

“Woah! Finally, over.”

I sat on the floor, lazily from all the “food.” I looked up at the startled Daria.

“Oh! Hello Daria. Good to see you.”

She knelt in front of me.

“What are you talking about? Eris, what have you done?”

“Eating flames?”

I had the impression that she was missing the words.

“Don’t worry, Daria. Do you remember the cheese? I’m immune to any kind of fire.”

She clapped her fist in her open hand.

“Ah!”

Daria and I began to tell each other what had happened in the meantime while Isaak, Sarna, and Athem and Irono came to us.

Sarna started to speak first.

“The three of us thought about discussing something in a small group.”

Isaak continued to speak.

“And to allow this meeting to take place on “neutral ground, “the meeting will be held in the watchtower.”

Athem was next.

“Eris, I want you to attend the meeting because I think you are the best link between us.”

I looked at him in confusion.

“What are you talking about? You and Irono, as a couple, are much more a link between the two parties than I am!”

Both Athem and Irono turned bright red and turned their heads away from each other.

Was I wrong? So just in love with each other, but not together! Oops!

“And what are we doing now?”

I asked the group because the two of them were silent in embarrassment.

“Let’s go back to the tower. The meeting takes place tomorrow early noon so that everyone can rest until then.”

Sarna answered everything, and I nodded in response.

 

===

 

I entered the tower’s meeting room. Sarna, the Elven guard, named Noven, and Athem had already arrived. I saw the first time Athem without Irono because she decided yesterday to go back to the village with her grandfather, Andro.

“I am here.”

I moved my hands slightly away from me to present myself.

“Eris, good that you are here! Come sit down.”

Sarna pointed to the chair on her left. I came closer and sat nervously on the chair next to her.

“What is being discussed today? Yesterday you didn’t mention anything specific to me.”

Sarna looked at me and smiled.

“We want to negotiate a relationship between the shapeshifters and... at least, Astel.”

An interesting idea, but shouldn’t the Astel representative be at the table?

I asked what I thought.

“Shouldn’t the Astel representative be at the table?”

“He is.”

Athem replied instead of Sarna, pointing at himself with a big grin on his face.

“You?”

He nodded, and Sarna started to explain it to me.

“He is telling the truth. He is the new representative of Astel. The representative is a bit of an exemplary resident of the city or a receptionist for important visitors if you want to put it another way.”

“Did you just called me a recipient?”

Sarna interrupted Athem’s criticism of her.

“In addition to the representative, there is the mayor. The village chooses the major, and they are responsible for spending and managing the city. So you can say that Athem is the face and our mayor is the brain. Again, in cases like this, the representative may head the negotiations. The advantage of this constellation is that no drunken noblewoman can be placed in front of the cities and that he can arbitrarily enact laws. With this variant, some nobles pull out of focus. So there are advantages and disadvantages, but the nobleman over there should tell you that.”

She pointed over to Athem.

“She is right, this system helps people in some cities, but as long as these cities, like here, still belong to a larger house like the Count family Eltenant, there is still a noble sitting somewhere who prescribes the law for them.”

It gave me the impression that he was speaking of his own experience.

*clap*

“Enough of it.”

It was Noven, who had just been quiet.

“You know that my shift has been over since yesterday, and I was just stuck here because of you! I couldn’t even go with the others to contact the bereaved and to go to the funeral!”

He was right... Yesterday, there were many losses. Viktor, as well as his brother and the ax fighter, Marv, left with the others. Apart from the four of us, only Dario and Daria remained in the tower. Everyone else here was the guards from the new shift.

*knock* *knock*

“Come in.”

Sarna answered the knock, and a moment later, a guard's head appeared.

“A small commercial caravan has arrived, and they will move on to Astel in the early afternoon. If you decide to travel with them, I’ll be happy to let them know.”

It was one of the guards from the new shift.

“We know, thanks.”

Noven brushed the guard off.

“No problem, Sir.”

The guard nodded and disappeared again.

*Knock* *Knock*

A few minutes later, there was another knock.

“Irono, you can come in.”

This time Athem answered.

The door swung open, and Isaak, Andro, and Irono came in. After them came a fourth person in, unknown to me. They sat down on the chairs, and Sarna opened the negotiations.

“Then, let’s start!”