Fates of Grenora: Return of the Night

The wind howled and whipped Tanyth's robes around him as he stood at the lip of the crater that used to be Lor-Vold. He sneered down at the gaping hole, at his failure.

"Ahem," a gravelly voice broke the silence.

Tanyth turned around to see a black-furred, 8-foot minotaur with gold caps on its curved horns. "Thank you for coming, Bacchus," Tanyth greeted coldly.

Bacchus snorted, his breath coming out in hot plumes. "Not like we had a choice. The others should be here shortly."

Tanyth glanced at Bacchus, noting the Minotaur was a foot taller than the last they

"You've grown since we last met." Tanyth complimented, but Bacchus huffed.

"It's not like we have been tied to a leash like you have," Bacchus growled.

That incensed Tanyth as he threw his hands up, gold sigils forming around him. Bacchus responded by pulling out his twin battleaxes that could easily cleave through two men like butter. He bellowed his challenge, getting ready to charge as he bent his head down to charge.

"Gentlemen," a melodic voice said.

The two of them turned to see a tanned wood elf ascend from the crater. She wore her dusty blonde hair in a tight braid that rested over her shoulder. Soft, dark brown eyes rooted them in place. Frayed grey robes covered her, and she carried a gnarled wooden staff laden with runes running up and down the shaft. At the top of the staff, the branches formed a cage with a white crystal sitting inside. Outside around the cages gem, three spectral butterflies lazily fluttered around.

Tanyth grunted and cut his eyes away from her. "I apologize for antagonizing this brute, Yanadys," he sneered at the last part.

Bacchus bristled at the snide comment, his muscles rippling once more as he tightened his grip on his battle axes. "Say that again and I'll rip your spine through your ass."

Tanyth was about to retort, but a look from Yanadys silenced him. "Have you seen Creston yet?" She asked, changing the subject.

"He's supposed to be scouting for any leads along the out-" Bacchus said before he noticed a lupine shape in the distance rapidly heading towards them. "Nevermind. There he is," he said, pointing at the shape.

Creston still made Tanyth wary when he approached in his grey werewolf form. He had been afflicted by the disease early in their adventures together and had since learned to harness and control it. While Bacchus was muscle on top of muscle, Creston's form was lean muscle, standing at almost the same height as Bacchus when he stood on two legs. Worst of all, Tanyth noted the amber-yellow eyes that held promise of restrained savagery. He shuddered as he remembered the early years of Creston's transformations. Especially the first night when he massacred a whole merchant caravan.

When Creston got closer, he reverted to his human form, or at least as human as he could. He had shaggy brown hair, coal-black eyes, and a claw mark scar running diagonally across his face. Luckily, Creston had the forethought to enchant his clothes so he wouldn't shred them. Only his pronounced canines and slightly pointed ears hinted at the beast that lay beneath the surface. With those two features, he could pass as a Half-Elf, something they would often do in the early years too. Regardless, Tanyth knew he could always count on Creston to get the job done.

"Anything?" Yanadys asked Creston.

Creston shook his head. "Nothing but the stench of rotting zombies. However, I did smell something… particular." He said, eyeing the crater behind Yanadys. "What about on your end?"

Yanadys released a heavy sigh. "There are no traces of necromantic energy." She shook her head in disbelief. "It's like they all just-"

"Gathered together," Tanyth finished her thought as he stepped forward to observe the crater.

Bacchus snorted. "What did you smell, pup?" he asked, bringing the conversation back on track.

Creston's eyebrow twitched at the nickname but ignored it. "Do you remember when we were tasked with investigating that string of murders in Ravendale?" The group nodded, waiting for him to get his thoughts together. "And do you remember what was causing it?"

Tanyth's mind went into overdrive as he remembered the little details of the cellar of the mayor's house. The tattered pieces of bloodied clothing, the rents in the stone wall from the claw marks, and those hungry red eyes. "His wife…" he began as it all started coming back to him. "His wife turned out to be a Feral Vampire!" He snapped his fingers as it came back to him.

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Creston grinned. "And do you remember how it smelled down there?"

"Like death and flowers all rolled into one?" Bacchus answered.

"Like death and flowers," Creston echoed with a smile.

Yanadys leaned in. "Is that what you smell? A Feral Vampire?" She whispered as if saying it any louder would tempt fate.

Creston frowned. "Yes, and no. Whatever it is, it's making my instincts chomp at the bits." He tasted the air. "It's like it's an old vampire but also a young one at the same time."

"Is that a good or bad thing?" Tanyth asked, turning around. "The Feral being something weird, I mean?"

Creston gave him a toothy grin to ease the tension. "Until we figure it out, I say it's a good thing because it's a distinct smell and I can follow it."

"Which direction?" Yanadys asked, her staff already glowing with the magic she was preparing to cast.

Creston closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He jerked his head left and right until finally it jerked hard to the left. "That way," he said, pointing back down the road at the intersection.

Yanadys spoke words of power, enveloping the group in a translucent bubble that carried them off the ground. The bubble with them inside zipped down the road towards the intersection that split between Dremetica and Folos. Creston sniffed once and pointed toward Folos.

"How sure are you?" Tanyth asked.

Creston sniffed again. "Pretty sure, but the scent changes."

Bacchus chortled, "Looks like your sniffer isn't good."

"I'd like to see you do better than me, Bacchus." Creston stepped aside with a grin of his own and hand raised to give him the front-row seat within the bubble.

Bacchus waved him off with a playful snort. "You're not fooling me again, Creston," he said, remembering the time Creston pushed him out of the bubble over a lake the last time he questioned his sense of smell.

Creston's grin widened. "Then shut up and let me focus," he said, facing forward again.

Yanadys rolled her eyes as she controlled the bubble to zip down the road that headed to the next major city, Folos. She could have teleported them there, but she figured this would be a better use of their time. Sadness tightened her heart as she remembered how the group used to be before everything happened between them all.

"Yanadys!" Bacchus bellowed, bringing her out of her thoughts and the attention of the other two.

"Yes, Bacchus?" She sweetly replied.

He shuffled his hoof in response. "How much danger are we in..?"

She raised her eyebrows since the bug Minotaur rarely cared about danger. "I'm sorry?" She asked, wondering what would cause the minotaur to ask the question.

"1 to 10. How much danger are we in? I've always trusted your danger instincts, so tell me how much danger are we in if we pursue this?" He emphasized.

She closed her eyes, feeling for the magic of the world that fed her the information she needed. The whispers of the magic always came in broken pieces, like a puzzle. Recently, though, one image kept returning to her even before she heeded the summons from Tanyth, as it did just now when she delved into the magic of the world. That image was her surrounded by the shattered and mangled bodies of her teammates ‌in a field of blood in front of a man cloaked in shadows with only his glowing green eyes rooting her in place. "Three," she lied.

Bacchus laughed uproariously. "You hear that, pup!" He slapped Creston on the back, making the man catch himself before he fell over. "Our first time back, and we aren't in any danger!"

"What did the scent change into Creston?" Tanyth asked, cutting short Bacchus' laughter.

Creston chewed his bottom lip. "The young smell of the vampire had vanished and evolved into something closer to the older one." Realization struck him as he put two and two together. "Oh, my gods…" he said with wide eyes. "There's two? One master and one newborn?" he said more to himself, but that didn't escape Tanyth's ears, nor did he assume it escaped anyone else's.

Tanyth clenched his jaw as he remembered the dark-haired man in the middle of the zombies. "Was he the vampire?" He mused to himself.

"Yanadys! How fast can you get us to Folos? I think we might be too late before they move on again," Creston asked, his body tensing and becoming jittery like a caged animal. "My instincts are telling me to hurry before it's too late!"

"2 weeks at most." She lied again, which earned a groan from Bacchus.

She smiled at Bacchus then looked away, but she caught Tanyth stoically looking at her. Guilt threatened to rise, but without concrete evidence, she couldn't be exactly sure if the whisper of magic from the world was true or not. While she knew her team was riding into danger, there wasn't much on this side of the continent that would warrant the preparation of Tier 5's and that scared her the most because the vision warranted at least an eight on Bacchus' danger rating.

She watched her old team revert to their old roles, Bacchus teasing Creston like an older brother and Tanyth standing away from the group with his usual frown adorning his face whenever he gazed out into the distance. Then she remembered what Tanyth did, and that feeling of nostalgia came crashing down around her. She would never let her guard down around Tanyth ever again. Not after he murdered Helena.

She refocused on the task at hand. They had a Feral Vampire to hunt down and bring back to the Queen of Dremetica for whatever reason. However, much like the vision, there was a niggling voice in the back of her mind that screamed at her to turn around and go home. Unfortunately, her curiosity got the better of her as she pushed it back down.

What she didn't know was that ignoring the voice would be the last mistake she would ever make.