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The village was nothing out of the ordinary with simple cottages spread out over an area surrounded by crop fields and a low fence, mainly for decoration than any form of defence, and all that surrounded by a sparse forest. Ulric was surprised to see crops growing under the misty circumstances, but they looked like hardier versions to him. 'You can still grow things here even with less light?'

Sinjin glanced over the fields. 'These crops are tougher and smaller than the usual ones and can even grow slowly during the cold season, but they're very invigorating.'

Elzbieta noticed an occasional villager hurrying from home to home. 'Everyone's staying inside?'

'Yes. We're only going outside if we really need to now.'

Sinjin stopped at the larger common house in the middle of the village and turned to Farok. 'Can you bring our village elder?'

The man hurried away without a word, and Sinjin led the party and the rest of his men inside. There were no other patrons, and the innkeeper appeared from the back to see who had come. 'Travellers?' the bald and bearded man in his sixties asked when he saw the strangers, thinking it had been a long time since he'd seen the rare dragon or harpy in his youth and early adventuring career.

'We have some explaining to do to them, Zarek. Bring out some drinks.'

'Sure.' Zarek said, and returned to the back.

Drinks were served and Farok returned with a woman around the same age as Zarek and similar hard features in her face. She needed a moment to overcome her disbelief at the presence of some of the members of the visiting party even after Farok had told her, then went up to them with more confidence. 'I'd say welcome to Ponpotr, were it not that it's not safe here now.' she said and sat down at the table with the party. 'I'm Tameta, the village elder.'

Iphigenia introduced everyone again, and asked the obvious question. 'What is happening here?'

Tameta leaned forward on the table. 'Some time ago, one of us disappeared. We went looking all over but the only thing we found were his footsteps going everywhere in a small area and what looked like marks of digging with fingers into the ground. No other sign of him anywhere, nor even tracks of a predator that might have killed him. Then a few days later, another one of us vanished, a young woman who went out to hunt, and we only found multiple cuts on a couple of trees and her dagger planted in one of them. It had been done with a lot of force because it stuck in deep.' She looked over everyone at the table. 'Then one day one of our boys heard screaming in terror at a short distance from here, and spotted a black shadow enveloping one of our men laying on the ground. He faded into the shadow and disappeared like the others. The boy ran home in shock and told us. Since then we went outside only in groups and a few of us have spotted the shadow briefly before it vanished out of view. We thought that would discourage the shadow from attacking us for long enough and leave, but it's still here, and now even people inside the village have begun disappearing.'

Valdys checked the library for information while the woman talked, but only came up with generic malicious spirits. 'You found no prints of strange animals, or heard or even smelled anything?'

Tameta shook her head. 'We've only seen it as a shadow in the mist.'

Zarek grumbled when he placed a full jar of wine on the table. 'I still say Tatum has something to do with it.'

Tameta sat back. 'Brother, just because he's a wizard doesn't mean he's involved in anything out of the ordinary. He even tried to trap it.'

'You have a wizard in the village?' asked Valdys.

'He lives outside of it to avoid mishaps from affecting us.' Tameta said, and threw Zarek a cold glance before he could make a remark.

Valdys looked at Ulric. 'I suggest we talk to him and have a look around the area. Maybe we'll spot something no one else has.'

Ulric gave a slow nod. 'I'm thinking the same.'

The party left the capri and their packs at the inn, and headed out to Tatum's place. It turned out to be a kind of log cabin, although one with several extensions, a second floor, a small tower, a small waterwheel powered by the stream running past the cabin, a mixed vegetable and flower garden, and a simple pole fence around it. All the things Ulric had expected from the wizard homes he'd seen so far, only with a weekend getaway feeling. 'Cosy.'

Iphigenia gestured at the smoke coming from the chimney. 'Looks like he's at home.'

'How about you knock on the door while we stay a little back, sweetie. I don't want to startle him with all of us standing on his doorstep.'

She chuckled. 'Indeed, Wolfie.'

Valdys stepped forward. 'I'll come with you though, just in case he still feels a need to discharge some spell against unannounced visitors or has some traps set up.'

'Thanks.' said Iphigenia, and together they went through the opening in the fence and up to the front door. Iphigenia knocked politely on the door. 'Mister Tatum?'

'Who are you?' came after a while from above. 'I don't recognise your voice.'

Iphigenia and Valdys stepped back and looked up at a partially open window. 'Elder Tameta told us we could find you here. We heard about the disappearance of the villagers and the mysterious shadow, and we're hoping you could tell us more about it.'

The window opened abruptly and a clearly peeved man is his early thirties appeared. 'If you also think I have something to do with it, then you can bugger off!'

Iphigenia held up her hands. 'No, no. Tameta already said you wouldn't have. We're just trying to gather as much information about it before we try to find it. We've been told you already tried to trap it.'

Tatum huffed. 'It'll take more than you two lasses to catch it, or even kill it.'

Valdys gestured towards the others. 'There's more than just the two of us.'

Tatum now noticed the group standing farther to the side, and nearly fell forward when his hands slipped from the windowsill. 'You have a dragon!?'

'We don't have a dragon. Yingshien's a member of our party.'

His gaze was stuck on the group. 'And a harpy, and bloodwolves, and other demons? Just who are you people?'

'We call our party Quaint.' said Iphigenia. 'And perhaps together we can do something about the terrible situation.'

Tatum turned his attention to the two women below him, and the realisation hit him that one of them was an undead. 'Perhaps indeed.' he muttered, and went downstairs.

The inside of Tatum's home was more similar to what Ulric had seen before. Plenty of gadgets to brew and grind things with, books scattered all over the place, candles wherever there was a free spot to put them, and the customary layer of dust on everything. The wizard just stared at the visitors in his now cramped living space sitting wherever they could , or simply kept standing because a pile of books or the corner of a table didn't seem safe enough.

'So, the thing roaming through the mist? You tried to trap it how?' asked Elzbieta.

Tatum snapped out of his daze. 'Oh! Oh yeah. That thing.' He moved to a lecture filled with hastily scribbled notes and grabbed a couple. 'I tried various kinds of bait, like meat, vegetables, live prey like hares and a pig, potions affecting spirits, and even my own soup recipe, although the latter one seemed to repel all living beings around it. I also tried various spells to no avail.'

Ulric smelled a scent from the kitchen which, if it was the aforementioned soup, he agreed worked well as a pest repellent. 'Have you seen it?'

The notes slipped from Tatum's fingers. 'You speak!?'

Ulric tilted his head. 'Don't you?'

'Ah, well, I, ehm. I just thought.'

Iphigenia laid a hand on his shoulder. 'Don't assume anything about any of us. That's the easiest way to deal with it.'

'Okay.' he said, and cleared his throat. 'I only saw it once at a distance. The shape was mostly formless but it felt dangerous like a predator such as yourself, if you pardon me.'

'Aren't you afraid being all alone here?' asked Tipper. 'I'd think it would give me nightmares.'

Tatum turned to her. 'Well, I am nervous, but I think it would have already attacked me by now if it wanted to, which makes me think I have something that it doesn't like. Besides, I don't dream.'

'Knowing the reason why would be useful.' said Valdys.

'I'd like to find out why as well, but I can't ask any of the villagers to go out here with me to see if that thing will attack or not.'

Valdys hummed. 'Maybe it won't attack one or more of us either. I say we first see what happens when we search for it.'

Ulric rubbed his paws. 'Let's make a plan for the hunt.'

***

Muni looked around at the barren landscape of black rock and sludge and the scattered volcanoes spewing smoke. 'Please tell me we only came here because you know a good inn that serves excellent grilled meat.'

Tarrence kept silent.

Muni breathed out through his nose. 'Thought so. I'm not even going to bet about finding it somewhere in the middle of a big lake of lava and my tail catching fire at some point in time.'

Coëllo snorted. 'Are you that clumsy with your tail?'

Muni stared blankly at her. 'Do you want to compare tails now too?'

She grinned at him with a glint of deviousness in her eyes. 'Maybe. When we have the opportunity.'

Muni had heard similar inviting words before, and even acted on them for a short time of fun, but he wasn't sure if he could do the same when they'd be working together for some time. He decided to to just see where it was going like this and smirked at her. 'Don't chicken out.'

Elyta ignored their banter and peered at movement near the horizon around some rectangular shapes. 'Is that a settlement up ahead?'

Tarrence squinted with a technique to look farther away than usual, and noticed the same. 'The information mentioned the possibility of one.'

'Stone trolls.' said Elyta when they neared the blocky collection of hovels made from rocks and crude slabs of stone. She had heard of them before, but any knowledge about them was hearsay since no one was interested in coming to a place like this.

Muni looked at the stone-skinned creatures with large heads, hands, and feet. 'How can they even live here when nothing grows here?'

'They eat rock.' said Tarrence. 'It's their source of nutrition.'

Muni whistled. 'I knew a guy who'd eat anything for a well paid bet, no matter how hard, weird, or disgusting like the balls of defeated enemies while they were still alive, but these trolls have clearly even stronger stomachs.'

Elyta watched them with some distrust. 'Strong stomachs or not, my question is, are they friendly towards us?'

'They should show no hostility, but they are weary of every outsider.' said Tarrence. 'Be alert nevertheless.'

They rode into the middle of the scattered dwellings and dismounted. Gigacks pulled one of the artefacts from a pouch and held it up, and Tarrence pointed at it. 'Has anyone seen something like this?'

The trolls simply gazed at the artefact for a while, then continued with what they were doing.

'I'm just guessing, but I think that means they haven't.' said Coëllo.

'Look around for clues.' said Tarrence.

It was he himself who noticed trolls going in and out of a tunnel leading down into the ground. It went down on a shallow incline in a long bend, and the trolls who came out of it carried ragged chunks of cold lava. His intuition told him he was on to something, and he called for the others to follow him down.

Elyta flapped her wings once after descending for a while. 'It's becoming warmer the farther we descend, so I guess we're heading to a magma source.'

Muni watched the troll they passed by carry the black pieces they used for food. 'That would explain why they go down with empty hands and return with full ones. Fresh food, so to speak.'

The large, domed chamber they entered, lit by the glow of the planet's liquid inner works confirmed it. A small group of trolls gathered closer to a creeping flow of magma leading into a large lake, where they broke off chunks from the barely hardened sides. Muni smelled the air carefully. 'There must be an airflow pulling the hot air and fumes out of here.'

Coëllo pointed at large tunnels on one side of the chamber. 'There. I think that's the place.'

Tarrence squinted at an island in the middle of the lake with an unnatural flat surface, and a group of large, evenly spaced boulders obscuring something in the middle. 'We need to find a way onto that island there.'

Coëllo stroked her ears back. 'Finding your way on solid ground surrounded by killer creatures is easier than finding your way across hot, molten ground surrounded by peaceful creatures.'

Muni surveyed the lake. 'Especially when no one bothered to build a bridge.'

'So, how do we cross over?' asked Elyta and looked at Tarrence. She followed his pondering gaze up to the ceiling of the chamber and a sense of unease came over her when she saw the craggy structure of the dome. 'Seriously?'

He looked at her. 'Do you prefer to risk what they'll do when you refuse to do what it takes as they ordered?'

Elyta knew well enough what the higher demons did to those who they didn't think risked their lives enough in the line of duty, and her tail quivered. 'No thanks.' she said, and dropped whatever she didn't urgently need to the side.

***

His species' innate ability to climb earned Muni the honour to be the one leading the climb along the jagged surface of the chamber's ceiling, seeking out good holds for their hands, feet, and the hooks of the safety ropes wound around their waists. He grumbled while testing one of the many ragged protrusions of stone, mostly because he expected to be blamed when one of the others failed to hold on and fall down into the hottest bath they'd ever experience. He glanced back between his legs while they were still hanging from an incline less than halfway up the highest point of the ceiling. Coëllo seemed to have fun at the challenge and looked around. 'Don't lose focus on what you're doing. One mistake and you're dead.'

She grinned playfully at him. 'So sweet, to care that much about me.'

He huffed. 'I only care about not receiving the blame for you becoming distracted and ending up roasted to the bones.'

'Don't worry. I plan to stick around to compete with you for a long time.'

He let out a silent sigh, unsure whether to like that bratty side of her or not, and continued the climb as it seemed the others were taking it as seriously as he did.

After a while, he arrived at a long crack which had been hidden from view and ran diagonally across the direction to the centre of the ceiling. 'Wait up.' he said. 'I don't know if this is safe.' The light seeping into the crack was barely enough to see that he might be able to stand upright in it with feet and hands pressed a little more than shoulder width apart against the sides. It wasn't much better than the current climb, but at least they could proceed for a while on their feet instead of hanging from the ceiling. He found enough hold to climb into the crack and stand, but there was nothing to hook his line on to.

He regretted it the instance the rock shook at a tremor through the area. Dozens of eyes glowed suddenly in the darkness above him, and the creatures they belonged to flew down on him as he lost his foothold.

***

Yaros surveyed the battlefield just over the border with Mawan with satisfaction. Even when his army confronted the enemy much sooner than expected, they gained more ground as they pressed on against the Mawan forces, while they clearly became more and more outnumbered as the fight continued. 'Parthan, don't show any mercy. I want the victory to crush their spirits.'

The commander, who sat on his mount next to Yaros, displayed a slight but unmistakable cruel smile. 'As you wish, my liege.' he said, and relayed orders to the messenger for his second in command fighting on the field with his elite troops.

***

Millias watched the inevitable defeat from a distance when his commander would not allow his king to join and stand in harm's way. 'He really came down with everything on us.' he said with a sinking heart. 'Even with the number of troops we can still muster around the capital, we'll have to be very lucky to win.'

Gerod, who accompanied Millias as an impromptu assistant, leaned on his saddle, the uncomfortable image of his beloved country and city covered under the Tosk flag growing in the back of his mind. 'We'll still fight to the last man and woman, your majesty.'

Millias looked for a moment at him, and knew it to be true. The Mawan people would not give up their way of life to a worse ruler easily. A few of his predecessors had found out how fast they lost their seat on the throne when they thought they could take advantage of their position. 'We need everyone's strength to raise our chances. Send word out for the whole family to come home. This is an emergency summoning.'

'As you command.' said Gerod, and turned his nasr around to ride to the castle, then stopped. 'Excuse me, your majesty?'

Millias kept his gaze on the bloody and merciless fight. 'Yes?'

'With whole family, do you also mean your youngest, son?'

The king's gaze hardened for a moment. 'Yes, that includes Caylais.'