A sudden splash of water awoke Nogrly in the morning as the droplets poured down his face.

  "Wake up, Knight!“ The blonde village girl with freckled face yelled and poured a bit more of water on him from an old wooden bucket.

  "Stop it!“ He replied and sat up, and as he looked around, he saw Henry sleeping in the grass and Alwin brushing his long hair.

  "Damn it, my head still hurts; we fell asleep beside a road,“ he said and checked for Nuula, but she was nowhere to be found.

  Both of the men stood up and pushed Henry to awaken him, but he just rolled and sipped a wine from a wine skin.

  "Just leave him; he'll get up eventually." Alwin stated and walked towards the tavern, and so did Nogryl, and as they walked tired, on a hangover, and messy towards the village gate,

  they heard another splash of water behind them and a roar of Henry's enraged voice, followed by a giggle of a village girl.

  After a brief walk, when they entered the Sleeping Boar Inn, they saw Nuula sitting and playing a game of cards and dice with the drunk patrons with a large heap of coins in front of her, but before they could join her, they saw an angry Sir Victor standing up from his table to scold them:

  "Such Incompetence! Sir Nogryl, you were spotted drunk by the village guards, and your shift and the rest of your men were taken by another, more competent commander!“ He yelled in an enraged voice and bashed his armored fingertip against Nogry's chest and added,

  "I'll tell the garrison commander to assign your group to the task of keeping the ditch clear! The village will soon be visited by the Grand Paladin Aryon Smite! If he sees this, he'll make me regret moving from Yellowshire!" Hearing that, Nuula focused on the game in front of her, looking for ways to finish it fast and keep the money that she earned.

  After laying on the grass and looking at the stars the night before, the group fell asleep, and as soon as she heard them snoring, she got up and walked towards the city, and with the money that she earned during the first gambling session, she purchased two swords in the village square. It was a crowded morning in the village, and many curious looks focused on her, mostly because of her appearance and her clothing. Even in her human form, her skin was very pale, her hair white, and her stature was almost as tall as Nogryl's.

  Regardless, she managed to return to the tavern with two swords in a sack without any disturbances and entered Nogryl's room.

  "They must be here somewhere,“ she thought as she rummaged through his wardrobe, and then she found them—two swords made of valkrulnal, the ones that she owned for many long years. She could hear the faint whispers as her blades reuinted with her.

  "I thought I lost you.“ she whispered with relief in her voice and caressed the blades before quickly taking them out from the bandage that they were wrapped in and replacing them with the iron swords that she bought.

  "Damn“ The sudden realization broke her ease, as she realized the iron swords were significantly lighter and smaller than her swords, and they were different shapes, but it was the best decoy that she could find in the moment.

  "It will most likely suffice." She hoped and went out of Nogryl's room to get a room of her own and hide them there, after which she went downstairs to the tavern to gamble, with suspicious effectiveness, winning one game after another to pay for the room before Nogryl and his friends entered the tavern. After finishing a game, she stood up from the table and left towards the rooms upstairs, and as she entered her room, she laid on her bed and contemplated her next move.

  *Knock, knock, knock* Sounded the dry wooden boards, and just seconds later, the door quickly opened, and Lynda entered with an angry look on her face, slamming the door behind herself.

  "You took the blades, didn't you?“ The healer questioned in an angry tone.

  "I am going to tell the guards! I knew you were contemplating something! It was a mistake keeping you here!“ She yelled and turned around, but before she could open the door, Nuula pressed her against it's thick boards.

  "Oh and, how exactly are you going to do that?“ she asked and smiled with an evil grin before placing her hand over helpless Lynda's mouth to prevent her from calling for help.

  "Now that you know my true intention, I have no choice but to dispose of you.“ Lynda's face was filled with terror as she struggled to escape, but to no avail. Nuula was much more powerful than her.

  "It's such a waste that you'll have to die today; you'd be very useful otherwise." She stated and pulled her backwards before pinning her against the wall and lifting her by the neck. Lynda's legs were suspended in the air, desperately trying to take hold of something, while her eyes were on the same level as Nuula's eyes. Yet she managed to speak some strange words while gasping for air, and her green eyes started to glow. The spell that she has woven slowly formed in her hand like a faint green glow, and she cast it on the gorugolm, revealing her true form.

  Nuula's beautiful human face slowly morphed back into the beast that she originally was, her pearly white teeth into the monstrous maw, and her eyes back into the black spheres surrounded by the lingering darkness of her eye sockets.

  "Hahaha, do you think this will stop me?“ she laughed and dropped her victim. Lynda's neck bruised and bleeding, and her eyes full of anger and fear.

  "It will remind you who you are! A monster!“ She yelled through her tears as she sat on the ground next to the wall and trembled.

  "Shut it, witch!“ Nuula responded in an angry tone; her calm mood was quickly replaced with the anger as she slammed Lynda's head against the wall with her boot in a powerful kick, caving her face in and breaking her skull like a rotten tomato.

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  Lynda’s dead body went limp and leaned against the wall under the large blood stain where her head used to be, and bits of the brain and skull scattered on the blood stained floor.

  “Weaklings.” Nuula whispered to her chin as she slowly morphed back into her human form and thorn a piece of cloth from dead Lynda’s sleeve to clear the bloodstains from her boot.

  During that time, Nogryl, Henry, and Alwin were walking with the shovels in their hands towards the ditch around the village walls, followed by Sir Victor, who was making sure that they would not leave their duty again.

  "The great hero of mankind, reduced to the job of a digger! Why can't you just learn the discipline? I am starting to think that we found the wrong baby that day when we departed from the Yellowshire to send the priest's message!"

  He yelled as all three of the men, dressed in simple linen clothing and with shovels in their hands, entered knee-deep in the ditch and started shoveling the mud away from it's rim to make it steeper.

  "Well, at least we do something useful for a change,“ Henry said as he pulled a large branch out of the water.

  "It smells like a swamp in here,“ Nogryl added and shoveled the mud away as the rain started slowly pouring and the skies slowly went gray.

  A couple seconds later, their work was interrupted by the sound of a bell from a nearby watch tower.

  "Incoming! Arm yourselves!“ One of the guards yelled, and all of the men ran out of the water and rushed towards the city gate together with Sir Victor as an army of ur'gluns appeared in the distance, emerging from the woodland.

  "Get your weapons in the barracks! My armor is in my room in the tavern!“ Nogryl yelled and separated from Alwin, Henry, and Sir Victor after they passed through the gate that quickly closed behind them.

  He continued running among the village houses as the bells rang and the people rushed to arm themselves with whatever they could find, barricade the houses, or reinforce the militia on the walls, grabbing the long spears from barracks prepared for such occurrences.

  And after a short while, he arrived at the Sleeping Boar Inn and rushed upstairs into his room. As he passed through the hallway, he saw Nuula carrying a blanket in her hands.

  "Nogryl! What is happening?“ She asked while Nogryl was still clueless about what she did earlier.

  "No time to explain!“ He yelled and opened his wardrobe, searching for Nuula's blades.

  "The ur'glun are attacking! Arm yourself and help us defend!“ He yelled as he found the blades inside the bandages, and as he unwrapped the bandages, he realized that those are the different blades.

  In that moment he felt a sudden sting and the coldness of the blade, right in the place where his old wound was, and the blade went out right trough the old wound on his chest.

  Nuula pulled out her sword from his flesh, which she had earlier hid inside the blanket that she carried. This wound was much deadlier than the one before, because there was no armor to protect him.

  "Surprise!“ she said through her evil laughter as ringing of bells and thunder rang outside, together with a sound of the horn, before she slowly walked out of the room.

  The man fell on his knees and grabbed the blades, feeling deceieved, he wanted to revenge himself, as he slowly dragged himself towards Nuula that walked through the hallway to her own room.

  And as he followed her through the door, he saw Lynda's dead body.

  "Traitor!... Fiend!... Monster!“ He yelled through his tears and clenched the swords tight, but as he tried to stand up with the last bit of energy that he had, Nuula pushed him back with her leg and he fell flat on the floor bleeding as his vision doubled.

  He could hear the heavy rainfall and the sounds of the battle coming from the outside, and as he looked to his left, he saw what once used to be Lynda, laying dead on the same floor. He was too tired to even fight, as Nuula approached and stood above him, looking him straight in his face.

  "Why?...“ His exhausted voice asked, as he looked her straight in the eyes through the fog and blur.

  "We were ready to accept you... To treat you like you belong here, to give you freedom that you wanted...“ He added, as he spoke through the tears and pain.

  It was quite obvious that not even the cold gorugolm was unshaken by his words, her vile smile grew into a frown. She sheathed her swords and laid beside Nogryl on the wooden boards and softly spoke:

  "You are nothing but one individual in the world's grand scheme, much like me, we do not matter. The entire populace was sealed in the underworld for centuries, banished from the world above, changed and deformed, turned into monsters in their dark prison,but the times of a great change are upon us, and for the change to happen, you had to die.“ After she finished speaking, she placed her cold hand on Nogry's face and closed his eyes, stood up and left through the window to the village that now became a battlefield.And as he laid, bleeding on the wooden floor, his grasp of reality slowly faded, and he descended into a delirium with vivid visions.

  He could see Xorael himself, and his rival, Aroseth. He could see the very moment when Xorael decided to crown himself the king of gods, to rule over the material world and beyond, he could see armies of Alofyr falling from the skies, banished for supporting Aroseth's uprising against his rule, and as his visions grew more vivid, a large abyss surrounded in darkness appeared in front of him, and the deep faint whispers whispered the name:

  "Nogryl"