LOCATION: THE CRUCIBLE, 50TH FLOOR
PLANET: LAPIS DIVINUS, ORION LUMINARY INSTITUTE
YEAR: 1 | DAY: ?? | TIME: ??
As the afternoon transitioned to evening in Greyhaven, Kaela stood on the doorstep of The Cracked Tankard. The blue sun descended beyond the trees, giving way to a rapidly approaching twilight.
She watched as people rushed along the streets, lighting torches and lanterns, surprised they hadn’t started any earlier.
Kaela stood in place, watching as the villagers retreated inside their homes. She could hear the latches one by one as they locked their doors.
Men patrolled the streets, one hand on a torch and another twitchy hand on the hilt of a sword or dagger.
She stayed there, listening.
Time stretched, and eventually even the birds and insects seemed to sense the unease and quieted down.
Kaela felt the hairs on her arms stand, and moments later a bunch of shouting erupted from the east.
She ran toward it, cutting between the silent homes in the straightest line she could find toward the sound, rather than following the winding streets.
As she pushed herself to respond as quickly as she could, she noticed the eyes of women, children, and the elderly watching her through the windows of the homes she blew past.
They all had one thing in common: fear.
“Yeah,” she thought, “I need to help these people. This is no way to live…”
Sounds of combat, punctuated by growling and barking, grew louder as she approached.
Kaela stormed out from between the houses. A giant wolf had knocked a young man onto his back, and was about to go for the boy’s throat.
He didn’t even put up a fight, just closed his eyes, trying to pull his head away from the beast’s jaws. And in doing so, the boy was making an easier target for the wolf.
Kaela grunted as she pushed herself to run faster. She leapt through the air and swung a hook into the side of the wolf’s head.
She got to him just in time to avoid serious injury, but the boy was still on the ground with blood trickling down his neck. He appeared alive, but wasn’t moving.
Kaela figured he had probably passed out from the fear.
The wolf had fallen to its side from Kaela’s blow, but was back up now, snarling at her.
She looked around. There were nine wolves and only six men, including the passed out one.
Three of the wolves had been staying back, allowing the others to engage one-on-one with the defenders.
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Strange behavior for predators, for sure. But she had no time to wonder about it now because the one she was tangling with was coming for her fast.
It ran forward, spittle hanging from its bloody teeth. The wolf jumped into the air, over the body of the boy, and straight for Kaela’s throat.
“Oh, I’m not going to make it that easy for you,” she said, smirking. At the very last moment before the beast’s powerful jaws closed onto her neck, Kaela disappeared from view.
In the gray aether space, she allowed the creature to continue its momentum past her. She phased back into reality immediately, grabbing a fist full of hair on the back of the wolf’s neck.
She squeezed it as tightly as she could, holding firm as she hammered it repeatedly in the head. The wolf yelped twice, then its body went limp.
Kaela dropped it to the dirt with a wet thud, and turned toward the three remaining.
She let out a battle cry and ran toward them.
Behind her, the Guard Captain had just arrived with four of his men. But instead of lending a hand in the foolish girl’s three-on-one deathmatch, he held his men back and watched.
Kaela engaged Phantom Step, phasing again into the aether. Everything turned gray, and she felt the world slow around her.
But as she was getting into position, she noticed that not everything was gray.
No, the glaring red eyes of those wolves, boring straight into her soul, stared back at her through the aether.
“Fuck,” she grumbled, reaching for her blade and phasing back into reality.
She swung it fast, but these wolves weren’t standing around waiting to be decapitated. They attacked Kaela in perfect coordination, as if sharing a single mind.
She slashed the Phantom Blade toward the nearest beast, but it dodged, taking a deep cut along its flank and howling in pain.
Ethereal Strike when used right after Phantom Step carried a lot of damage modifiers, but while blood flowed freely from the creature’s wound, it didn’t seem fazed by it.
Kaela knew most beasts would fight with all of their power until the very last instant of their lives, and it seemed these were no different.
Six red eyes kept their focus on Kaela as she allowed the sword to return for recharging. They circled, growling and snapping at her, trying to surround their prey.
But Kaela was not going down that easily. As she also circled to avoid letting any of them get behind her, she saw the Guard Captain and his men.
They had finished off the other two wolves, and were standing there watching her, arms folded and chatting as if nothing was going on.
It made her blood boil.
“I’ll show you fuckers…”
The wolves closed in at the same time. Kaela yelled out as she failed to keep them lined up, and one latched onto her right forearm, clamping down hard.
She kicked another in the side, sending it flying two feet in the air before landing and rushing back toward her.
She wrested her arm loose and unleashed an uppercut under the creature’s chin, quieting that one for just a moment while she focused on the third.
The third wolf lunged forward, its jaws wide open as it tried to take a bite out of her calf.
She spun to her side and grabbed the beast’s upper jaw in one hand and its lower jaw in the other. The amount of force the wolf exerted trying to close those jaws was tremendous.
But Kaela had more Strength, and she was angry as hell right now. She focused all of it and, instead of letting those jaws close on her, she pulled outward with everything she could muster, tearing the jaw apart.
Blood and wet fur flew everywhere, covering Kaela and the ground. The wolf gurgled as it choked on its own tongue.
She held it in her hands as its body went limp, glaring at the other two, who stood absolutely still in that moment.
Kaela’s breath was ragged as she dropped the wolf, phased into the aether again, and came back with her Phantom Blade.
While the last two wolves were still stunned by her grotesque display of brutality, she slashed her sword down. In one motion, she took one head off, then spun around and removed the other.
A few hundred feet away, standing by the torchlight, the Guard Captain shuddered. He’d never seen anything like that before.
And as he and his men stood by, not lending a hand to this fierce woman, he was relatively certain he had just made an enemy of her.