I woke up to a frantic conversation in a language I didn't recognize but could somehow understand perfectly.

"We're running out of time, Hilde. You're running out of time!" I recognized the angry tones of the archer from earlier. "It's night time already. If you don't start soon, you're dead."

"And don't you think I know that?" asked a tired sounding, yet still patient female voice. "I can feel it starting to wake, Jared."

"Then leave the dead weight, and let's go!" yelled the archer, Jared. "We can still find the bones and start the ritual in time."

"And what sort of Valkyrie would I be if I left a wounded man to fend for himself? And one, I might add, that wouldn't have been wounded if it wasn't for the unprovoked attack of my own team mate."

"I thought he was spellcasting. I thought he was a Necro!"

"Enough of that, Jared." A third voice, this one belonging to the woman in red from earlier. "You know perfectly well that Hilde won't leave a wounded man. It's up to the rest of us to find the skeleton in time."

"If the skeleton is even here, and we aren't chasing shadows." Muttered Jared.

By this time, I felt well enough to open my eyes and look around. I was lying on a padded piece of leather, probably a sleeping bag of some kind, and my shoulder hurt a lot less than I expected it to. There was a large campfire close enough to me that I could feel the heat, and beyond it sat the woman in red and the archer, Jared. The dwarf was sitting next to me, the plate armor piled up neatly next to her.

Yes, her. It was fairly obvious, now that she wasn't armored. The dwarf, which I now assumed was the Hilde who refused to just leave me and go, was still as short and as wide as she was while wearing the armor, but it was now obvious that she had an hourglass like figure. A very wide hourglass, but an hourglass nonetheless. What I earlier thought to be a horsehair crest was, in fact, her hair. It was long enough that it reached the ground when she was sitting, and as red as her braided beard, which I now saw was growing from her chin, leaving most of her surprisingly pretty face hairless.

The walking tree was nowhere to be seen, but I wasn't sure I'd even recognize it if it wasn't moving.

The dwarf, Hilde, must have felt me stir, because before I could even try to sit up, she placed one of her large hands on my shoulders to hold me down. "Easy there," she said, "I've placed painlifter paste on your shoulder, but you are still wounded, and shouldn't be moving yet."

"What is going on?" I asked. "Where am I?"

"I'm sorry," she answered me, "but I can't answer any of your questions right now. As my companion was quick to point out earlier, I am in fairly dire straits, and now that you are awake, we need to start working."

"If you are looking for the walking skeleton, it's dead," I told her.

"what?" yelled Jared, jumping to his feet. "Hush, Jared," said Hilde, and turned to me.

"Where is it?" she asked me. "Tell me, please!"

"In the forest," I answered. "I don't know if I can find it again."

"Jared!" Hilde turned to the archer, who was already on his way to the clearing's edge.

"I'm on it." He said, before vanishing from the light.

"Melissa, can you get the circle ready?" Hilde asked the woman in red.

"As if you even need to ask." Came the answer, and the woman, Melissa, took a pouch of something from her pack, and started tracing a circle in some sparkly white powder.

Hilde herself took a small pot from her own pack, filled it with water, and started to slowly stir in something viscous that gave off a metallic smell. "Now then, my friend," she asked me while she was working. "Can you tell me how you came to be here, with knowledge of a destroyed skeleton?"

I was thrown here through a portal that shouldn't have existed, chased by a walking skeleton through the forest, and shot by one of this woman's companions, but something still urged me to confide in her. I started hesitatingly telling her my tale, but her quite attention soon pulled the entire story out of me. "And then that asshole shot me, and a few minutes later the rest of you entered the clearing," I finished.

"That is the most otherworldly tale I've heard in a long time, Antoine. I wish I could help you get back to your home, but that kind of magic is not what I've chosen to study. And even if I had, the amount of power it would require to open a portal such as you've described in beyond the ability of mortal wizards." She worked in silence for a few more minutes, stirring her pot and occasionally adding a pinch of powder or a dried herb to whatever she was brewing inside. "Your best course of action, I believe, is to go to the city of Aegis and seek to talk to a Dragon who has studied transportation magic."

"A dragon?" I asked her. "But aren't they dangerous?"

"Dangerous? I suppose so. But I see no reason why a dragon would wish to hurt you. Dragons are the most noble of us all, else they would never have survived."

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At that point, Jared came running back into the circle of firelight, a pile of bones held in his hand.

"We will have to continue this discussion later," Hilde said, as she started to rummage through the pile of bones. "Time grows short, and we now have everything we need."

She chose one of the bones from the pile, and set it on a small anvil she took from her pack. Then she raised her hammer, and smashed the bone to powder, which she quickly added to the boiling pot. "How are things on your end, Melissa?" she asked while she poured the foul smelling liquid into a ceramic jug.

"All done here, Hilde." Came the answer.

"Very well then." Said Hilde, and strode determinedly towards the center of Melissa's circle. "Remember, everyone. If I turn, it will be up to you to destroy me." And with those words, she drank the liquid from the jug, grimacing at the taste, and started to chant in a language I couldn't understand.

I watched, mesmerized, as Hilde began to dance inside the circle. It was something between a ballet and a martial arts kata, graceful and precise, matching the rhythm of her chant, and carefully confined within the inscribed circle. Jared and Melissa both sat down on my side of the fire, and all three of us watched Hilde's motions. "What did she mean?" I asked them. "Why would she want you to destroy her?"

"Hilde has been infected with the Curse of Blood." Said Melissa, and I could hear the sadness in her voice. "If she can't Subvert the curse…" Her words trailed off into nothing.

"What is this Curse of Blood?" I asked.

"How could you possibly not know about it?" snarled Jared. "Every child over the age of five knows about the Seven Great Curses."

"Ease up, Jared." Melissa came to my defense. "You weren't here while they were talking, but Antoine here is from another world. A world, apparently, where Curses are considered nothing but a tale.

"The Curse of Blood", she continued, "is one of seven incurable curses. It is the curse of the vampire, and those infected with it turn into vampires at the third midnight after being infected. For Hilde, that's tonight, and tonight is her one and only chance to overcome it."

"Didn't you say that the curse is incurable?" I asked her.

"Yes. The Seven Great Curses cannot be cured. Once infected, you will carry them with you forever. However, it is possible for a wizard with enough will and knowledge to Subvert the curse and gain control of it. It's never an easy task though. There are requirements to fulfil before one can even try the ritual."

"Is that why you needed the skeleton?"

"Yes." Answered Melissa. "You may well have saved Hilde's soul by killing that skeleton."

Hearing that, Jared snorted in disgust and moved away from us, leaving the light again.

"Don't mind him," said Melissa. "He's angry at himself for failing to track the skeleton sooner, and for causing Hilde to almost give away her chance to Subvert the curse."

Hilde was still dancing and chanting, and my vision shifted again as I was watching her. The fire changed very little, turning redder than it was before, but it wasn't lighting the clearing any more, just itself. Not that I needed it to. I could clearly see the ropes of light that marked the trees surrounding the clearing.

The circle inscribed by Melissa earlier was visible as a wall of blue light, opaque enough to see but still transparent enough that I could clearly see Hilde inside it. Hilde herself became a strong pool of light again, moving gracefully and leaving lines of white light in her wake. The streaks of black inside her were larger than before, and I could see them growing even stronger. She was dancing around and around, tracing the same pattern on the ground again and again, strengthening it with every repetition, but I could see that she was starting to falter, as the black streaks started to block the white light circulating inside her.

"Will she make it?" I asked Melissa.

"I don't know. We have everything necessary for the ritual. The vampire who cursed her is dead, and she has consumed his purified blood. You gave us a token of the Curse of Bones, which will inhibit the Curse of Blood and make the Subversion easier. The rest is all up to her. But she's a stubborn one. All dwarves are, and the Valkyrie even more so. I think her chances are good."

It was hard to look at Hilde and see her struggling. See the black streaks, which I now knew to be the Curse, grow stronger inside her with each passing minute. "Tell me more of the Great Curses," I asked Melissa, hoping for a distraction.

"Maybe I should start at the beginning." She answered, and settled down into a more comfortable position.

"The first Curse, the Curse of Bones, was created by a mage who was searching for immortality…