The lever on the tree squeaked, and hidden mechanisms rumbled in the Bowl of Fur and Teeth. The hunting camp returned to hiding: tables and chairs retracted beneath the ground while the tent raveled up to the branches.

Adria and La’Var trekked along the wyrm trail.

“Gentlemen, which one of you do you reckon is tastier?” Martin held the two panicked rabbits in front of himself with the sharp tips of his claws. “Don’t, for even a second, think that you’ll survive my hunger—you won’t—but I’m trying to grant you some honor in death.”

Covering her mouth, Adria grit her teeth. The spirit’s words had a profoundly disgusting effect, even though, over the day, his company had started seeming less and less like a curse. But having to sacrifice something she could see the fear of while claws touched its soft fur…

Adria froze. Ahead, La’Var’s raised foot didn’t touch the ground.

The darkness of the Bowl that seemed to stretch into infinity in all directions had vanished along with the sense of still death in the air. The former was replaced with a far worse alternative. The unpredictable. Fear. As spirals of light shimmered around the woods, and hundreds of pairs of antlers came into view, and strange fur patterns shone, Adria’s hand dropped to her chest.

Adria and La’Var killed their torches and continued along the wyrm trail. Bright eyes turned their way, stared and contemplated. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind if the Verti deer could see them. Would they let them pass, was the only question.

Adria’s nerves rattled.

You’d think, after becoming acquaintances with near-death experiences, you’d stop getting scared, she thought, looking at shaking hands.

Then, the whisper of leaves silenced, and trees roared as a powerful wind slashed through the Bowl. Antlers and glowing fur patterns flickered. Bright eyes turned away, towards a great beam of light, whose brightness drowned the woods for a moment.

Adria and La’Var crouched, and Adria waved for Martin to morph and hide in her pocket. The spirit growled, its mouth widened and the two rabbits fell inside. Chewing, he shifted into a tiny ghost Adria snatched and pocketed. She could hear crunching and squishing the pockets, and goosebumps covered her skin.

The beam of light neared, and wide-eyed, the party retreated, although before they knew it, it was right in front of them.

An aura flowed. Around the Verti deer that now stood on the wyrm trail. And from its antlers, shifting into tentacles of white and blue light that held a mawed, crimson-soaked bear half a dozen meters in the sky. The patterns on the deer’s fur started to move. It released a deep grumble. Faster, the party retreated, hearts pounding. They had to stay silent. No way could they attract the deer’s attention.

This animalistic ritual reached its peak. Fear left Adria’s bones. And there wasn’t a drop of hatred at sorcery either. Just pure awe.

Through the light, Adria made out wounds and bloodstains on the deer: the beasts had had a battle, and this was the aftermath. The ritual of the winner.

The sight reminded her of the Auditorium of Sorcery and of the Liar, demonstrating the most powerful spells on the planet. At the same time, this nature’s spectacle was nothing like it. The happenings of Black Ice Bastion had wrongness to their core. And this was right. The way sorcery should be used. The way nature intended it.

The bear stopped struggling and went limp. Life snapped from its eyes. The tentacles of white and blue magic vanished, the creature plummeted and the deer’s antlers impaled it.

Blood splattered. Then flowed down the sides of the deer’s head and into its maw.

Bright eyes turned to the hunting party, piercing Adria with their stare. Her breath stopped and the ground vanished from under her feet. The short moment stretched on endlessly and… The deer strode into the depths of the woods.

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Heaving, Adria looked at La’Var, and the hunter stared back with the same awestruck look, then the party continued its hike along the uneven wyrm trail.

Half an hour passed before conversation mustered the strength to return.

“In the north, did they, by any chance, teach you how to hunt a wyrm?” La’Var murmured.

“Do they teach you, hunters, how to bake pies?” Adria shot back.

The hunter grinned.

“Three,” he said. “There are three ways to defeat a creature who’s got the edge on you.”

“Slay them in battle, challenge them to a duel or poison them during peace negotiations?” Martin peeked out of Adria’s pocket. His head expanded.

“Either trap them, make them run in cowardice and chase them down to exhaustion, or simply fight with a high ground.”

High ground. Adria snickered.

“And which of these three ways will… kill our dear wyrm?”

“Wyrms don’t get tired quickly — we could only chase it if the Liar came later. That leaves two options. And I’m leaning towards trapping it,” the hunter explained himself. “You understand... facing one of those things head on, even if we have an advantage, doesn’t seem… all that attractive,”

“Great idea,” Martin said. “I trapped my enemy in every battle. It never failed once.”

“How’d you die in a great battle, then?” La’Var cleared his throat. After the spirit mumbled incoherently, the hunter continued. “First, we need a den of rabbits. Bait. I know turning such adorable things into corpses that lay in the open will be painful, but it has to be done. Then, we set up a system of ropes that trap the wyrm when it arrives for some free dinner. Then, we do what hunters do.”

Again, Martin jumbled some words. Adria and La’Var stopped in their tracks. They looked at him questioningly. The spirit gulped and burped, and a pigeon flew out of his shadowy head. His claws snatched it before it could get away. Chewing, enunciating every word clearly, he spoke.

“I… Said… Won’t… This… Work… As… Bait?”

With a feather hanging from it, one of the ghost’s claws pointed at a flock of pigeons hiding in the undergrowth. La’Var’s eyes landed on the birds and, twisting his hat, he thought the option through. At the same time, Adria’s head was empty. There was only disgust inside.

“They’re yummy… Maybe… The wyrm… Will you like them?”

An even more sickening feeling overcame Adria. To fight it, she kept reminding herself — there’s no other way. The saving of the inn needs a hunt and hunts spills blood. Instead of basking in the icky feeling any longer, she reminded herself of the Auditorium of Sorcery and what she did when there was no other option but to spill crimson.

She walked into the flock and crouched, and laid out her hands. First, the pigeons scuttled away. Then, they started hopping toward her and dropped into her hands. If the hunter decided to sacrifice the birds, Adria would console them, give them the softest rubs and make sure they wouldn’t be forgotten.

A single pigeon got stuck in the branches of a bush.

Adria slowly raised the flock gathered in her grip and stepped towards the struggling little thing. Yells came from behind her. Her feet didn’t touch the ground. She fell. Spikes and branches slashed her skin, then the rocky sides of a cliff bruised her, slammed her muscles and bones. Something cracked inside.

Adria reached the bottom of the fall. For a solid minute, Adria’s body refused to move or feel anything, but pain. After some of the aches subsided, she sat upright and flinched: the flock of terrified pigeons flew out of her hands.

There goes being sneaky and quiet, and one with the woods, she thought, clambering to her feet. Without light, she ended up tripping a pair of times.

Darkness and coldness, and lingering death thrived in the Bowl. It was like a halfway point to hell. And dark like no places should be. Of course, that darkness was nothing compared to the pitch-black oblivion of the hole Adria had fallen into. Blindly feeling her surroundings, she guessed it was a cave. But then the surrounding nothingness moved.

It’s… The pigeons trying to find a way out… Right???

Then growls seeped out of the crushing darkness. Her hopes vanished. The noises were all around Adria, who listened closely, and with fear pumping through her veins, started thinking of unrelated things: how La’Var would bring her corpse back to the inn, how her obituary would look and such.

These growls were easy to recognize. Winterwolves. On the other hand, the corpses of the unfortunate travelers who encountered them were, in fact, not so easy to distinguish.

And if that wasn’t enough, leaves rustled and footfalls neared.

Really? More of them? I can’t even face one!

Now the fear froze Adria and stopped her thoughts. There was a single way out. As she considered it, the atrocities of the Auditorium of Sorcery flashed in her memory, then gave way to the ritual of the Verti deer. She sighed. Adria's hands moved in strange patterns, and words left her lips that hadn’t been spoken by her outside of Black Ice Bastion.