Clavius dreams were vivid and colorful, probably courtesy of the shroom beer. He was dancing with his wife Linda around a fire, laughing, the mission completed, Ulam and Sydor were bickering in the background, both claiming to have gotten the finishing blow on the River Drake. Everything seemed perfect, Lindas sparkling eyes, the smell of her hair, the warmth of the fire. Yet he could feel that something was out of place. The fire was burning a little too hot now, through the crackling of the flames he could hear faint screaming. He tried to tone it out, move away from the scalding heat and looked back at Linda. Blisters were forming all over her pretty face and the dress she wore had already caught fire. Clavius jolted awake and noticed he was drenched in sweat, his sight was blurry. Still, was the sun already rising? It shouldn't be that hot this early, of that he was sure. Still half asleep he noticed the crackling had continued, now noticeably louder. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Suddenly he froze. The screaming was back too, not so faint anymore. Without even putting on shoes, he rushed out the room, only to be met with a horrible sight.

A woman, he guessed her to be in her fifties, lay there pale in a pool of her own blood with tooth marks on her throat. He could sense no life in her, and a quick use of his skill Inspect showed him the result he expected, but dreaded.

Edda Redfin(dead)

No amount of healing magic could bring her back, he knew that.

Still a little wobbly on his feet, he stumbled towards the room Ulam had disappeared in last night. Blood splatters adorned the floor, the walls, even the ceiling, and two sets of bloody footprints led out of the room. There were clear signs of a struggle, but the attacking party seemed to have surprised him. He lay on the floor, an arm twisted in an unnatural angle, a deep piecing wound wound in his abdomen and a trickle of blood ran down from the corner of his mouth. Clavius knelt down next to his friend to put both hands on his chest. It felt hot to the touch, sweat and blood had drenched the thin top his friend was wearing. Sending his mana into the man to get a grasp of the injuries, Clavius paled. His friend was more dead than alive, only a soft and unsteady heartbeat could be felt, and multiple organs had been damaged, probably from a poisoned blade. He then slowly but surely worked his way up from the most life threatening injuries, while keeping the heart pulsing with steady nudges of mana. Generally, the more injured a person was, the harder it got to solve with a simple heal spell, bones could heal in the wrong way. Or worse, scar tissue would form inside the bodies, impeding organs from doing their work, or clogging blood vessels. The end result would be a cripple with full HP. He had learned this the hard way. This method took more time and mana, but was generally a safer bet when it came to restoring a person to working condition. First he stopped the blood loss, sealing torn blood vessels and soon a white patch of newly formed skin was closing the stomach wound. One injury after the other was taken care of, until the arm snapped straight and there were only a couple of cuts and scratches remaining. Blood was pooling on the floor, the flickering flames had melted a hole in the amber windows, but Clavius had done what he did best, and his tough friend would survive, he was sure of that. A minor water magic spell brought him back to the land of the waking, and a shiver ran through Ulam. He sat up in a strange machine-like fashion, like a puppet dangling on the strings of its puppeteer. Clavius eyes met those of his friend and he saw only rage and sadness. The hole his wife left in his heart would be filled with blood tonight. Ulam staggered towards the broken door, grabbing a logging axe on his way out, with Clavius following close behind. The healing had exhausted him, his blood and sweat soaked shirt clung to his chest, his head ached. Oh, how he despised this aging body.

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Next to the door lay a dead woman, her dress torn open, eyes wide open, her mouth screaming a silent scream into the night. Clavius remembered her from the night before, she had been one of the serving girls. A bitter taste had crawled into his mouth, but he forced himself to continue. Ulam had already reached one of the attackers and unceremoniously split his head from behind. Heads began to turn into their direction, and the bandits howled in anger when another of their troop got his chest smashed in. Clavius could see the unnatural size of their canines. Probably a local Vampire coven trying to bolster their ranks or looking to solve their daily blood needs long term in the form of blood slaves. A horrible fate, death would be a mercy for those poor souls. Shackled in the dark, treated worse than farm animals, drained of blood regularly, never to see the sun again.

Ulam was gaining momentum, a veritable whirlwind of death. Soon the area around Ulam had devolved into a sea of blood and body parts, an arrow had pieced his left thigh but such wounds were barely more than an annoyance for a berserker in the midst of combat. Still the cuts started to add up, even though Clavius kept closing up the more serious ones. Remote healing was something else entirely, he barely had a quarter of his mana left by now. All the while bending the light in little ways around his body, another neat little trick he picked up from the fae. Not quite invisible, but the flickering of the flames and the swirling smoke made his figure blur even further, and no one spared him more than a glance. This skill had saved him more than a couple times. Ulams eyes had regained some focus when he had spotted a row of horse carts with cages mounted on top of them, and he was already carving a path towards these, but his movements were already sluggish, he wouldn't last much longer, and the sun would not rise for a few hours.

A coldness suddenly spread from Clavius chest, as if he had fallen into an icy pool. Looking down, he saw the tip of an arrow poking out right where his heart was.

Strangely, there was hardly any pain, yet the cold was already spreading down his arms and legs. Healing a human heart with an arrow stuck in it was impossible, Clavius knew that well enough. He tried to tell his arms to pull it out, but they didn't even twitch. His mind started to wander, and the camouflage spell faded away. He could almost see his wife's face in the smoke. Even though he was aware that it was probably his brain starting to malfunction because of the blood loss, the old man casted an orb of light, it floated dimly above the battlefield. The glee of the snarling vampires was almost palpable, and Ulam let loose a pained scream, he was losing his second friend this night. Clavius felt a strange sense of calm when the light touched him, the cold was lessening somewhat. He poured the rest of his mana into the spell, and pained screeches could be heard from the vampires. Before his inner eye he heard his wife say: "My dear, I wish I could see the sun one more time."

And so the old light mage poured his very soul into the spell, and a sun rose on the battlefield.