The girls are jolted awake to a cacophony of ringing bells and screaming voices.

11 springs from the bed, her scanners and radar on full alert. She instinctively looks around for anything to use as a weapon, but the room is bare, save for a bedside table and an empty bookshelf. She reaches for a table leg.

“Wha… What’s going on?” Aralyn asks, her voice thick with sleep and confusion. The elf struggles up from the bed, rubbing fists in her eyes and yawning widely. “Has the celebration still not ended?"

11 slides open the window and hefts herself onto the ledge. The sky is still dark, but the crashing and howling in the village below tells her that no one is still sleeping.

“My guess is, that wraith might be back,” she says, coming back down. And in an instant, Aralyn is out of bed and throwing on pants and belts and tunic.

“And I slept through it!?”

“Well, we did go to bed only an hour ago.”

Aralyn groans at that, but she shrugs into her leather armor nonetheless. “I’m going down there to have a look,” she announces, doing up the laces with clumsy fingers. “Stay here.” She fumbles with the knots, curses under her breath.

“Let me.” 11 goes over to help. The poor elf girl looks ready to collapse back into bed, and her eyes are bloodshot. 11 finishes up the laces. “Can I wear your clothes again?” she asks.

Aralyn gives 11’s shoulder a quick squeeze, and then reaches around to grab her shoulder pack and cloak. “Of course you can, but I’m serious about you not going outside the village. You need rest, more than me, even though it hurts to admit it.”

Standing at the top of the hill and looking down, the village seems to be in flames. The light of a hundred torches burns the sky bright, as their panicked owners scurry about in every direction. Thundering footsteps clash against cries of anguish and fear, and the noise rings so loudly in 11’s ears that she almost does not hear Aralyn’s gasp.

“We’re too late.”

The elf pulls her hood low over her head and starts jumping down the front steps of the doctor’s house. 11 follows. At the bottom, they see Lawheim, sitting on the last step with a bottle in hand. Aralyn barely stops. She leaps over the man’s head and charges down the dirt path towards the village square.

11 steps past the doctor, and stops for a second. From her vantage point and with her telescopic vision, 11 can clearly see the frenzied fear on the faces of the men and women dashing through the streets, clutching their children and belongings to their chests.

“I’m thinking this demon isn’t doing this because it likes children.”

The question is directed out into the open air, but there is no doubt what 11 is asking, and to whom.

Lawheim’s gaze is fixed on the town square, and there is not a trace of worry nor fear in his voice when he slurs, “The wine we drink will always end up as our piss, one day or the other.” He then brings the bottle to his lips, but finding it empty, tosses it into the bushes lining the sides of the path. Then with considerable effort, the doctor heaves himself up and begins the long journey stumbling back up the stairs.

“Wait, who are you talking about?” 11 calls after him, but the drunken man leans over the railing and pukes into the bushes below, leaving the God Gier no room for any more questions.

When 11 makes her way to the village center, it seems that the entire village has already gathered. They swarm outside one of the largest buildings bordering the square, waving their torches and crude weapons at a single man.

11 climbs onto a nearby crate leftover from the festival, to see who the crowd has gathered around for.

The man stands on the ground with his back towards the house, his long dreadlocks waving across his broad chest as he desperately tries to calm the terrified crowd. The flower-rings and other decorations still hang from the sills and railings of his house, juxtaposing with the madness and dread being lashed at him.

“This is the third child this month! Do something!”

“That thing is going to slaughter us all!”

“People, my people of Oakroot!” the man shouts with arms out, hands outstretched, “Please, calm yourselves!”

“My Johnathan, my baby!” a woman in the heart of the crowd screams, squirming to get out of her husband’s death grip. Jagged, raw gashes run down both sides of her cheeks, her blood running down across her husband's arms as he holds onto her.

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The crowd, spurred by the mother’s anguish, cries out with her.

“Coward!”

“Murderer!”

“You’re letting this happen! You’re letting that thing kill our young so that yours are spared!”

The dreadlocked man tries to make himself heard over the shouts, but the cries and wails wash over his words. Behind him, up on the balcony of the house, a young woman and a little boy stand clutching each other; too afraid to join the man on the ground, but more afraid to leave him.

Like a single organism, the crowd surges forward as one, threatening to consume the man in their blind rage. Their shouts grow wilder, more ferocious, more desperate. Someone throws a rock; it sails over the man to strike through a window. The woman on the balcony screams.

11 spots a familiar mint-green hood pushing through the crowd.

“People, please!” The man is now begging. “I’ve asked for the best monster hunters in the Heroes’ League! They’ll be here before the new moon!”

“It’s too late, Varnon!”

“We’ll all be dead by then!”

“What if the monster comes back tomorrow?! What if it’s still here?!”

A bulky, muscular man strides up to the man with his fists raised. “What that monster needs is a proper sacrifice,” he bellows, his voice ringing over the crowd’s chaos, “and I say we outta start with you!”

The fleshy crack of skin striking against skin reverberates in the air. The dreadlocked man stumbles backward into the stair railing behind him, clutching onto his face. The woman on the balcony screams louder. The little boy starts to wail.

Aralyn finally breaks through, and runs up between the muscular man and his victim. “Stop this madness!” she shouts, arms outstretched. “Why are you fighting amongst yourselves when the enemy is outside?”

“Out of the way, traveler,” the burly aggressor says calmly. “Bring me the head of that monster, and then we’ll talk.” He makes an advance towards Aralyn, but the elf stands her ground. Even though there is a head-and-a-half difference in their height, Aralyn’s eyes burn fearlessly, defiantly, as she stares into the aggressor’s face.

This just seems to anger the man even more. “I said: Out. Of. The. Way!” He swipes one tree trunk arm at Aralyn, who ducks under the blow just in time. Her hood falls back from the movement, revealing her crimson hair and pointy ears.

The crowd collectively gasps and takes a step back, nearly knocking 11 off her crate.

“Is that a yaojin?”

“No! It’s an elf! In Gandolin?!”

“What’s a non-human doing here?”

The big man takes a step back, shock and disgust written all over his face. Then he spits. “Should’ve guessed, how very fitting of a freak-of-nature to go spouting its shitty morality where it doesn’t belong.” He takes a menacing step forward. “I didn’t want to hit a woman, but now I see I’m dealing with a monster, there’s no need to hold back now, is there?”

He pulls back his enormous fist. Aralyn braces.

There is a loud thud, and the big man stumbles backward, the crowd dispersing so he hits the ground.

Aralyn opens her eyes.

“My friend, I do not appreciate you talking to our party leader like that,” says Allastair, standing tall under the moonlight like a true knight. Beside him, Fennald takes up position.

“If there’s a monster here, then it’s you.” The mage strikes the ground with the heel of his staff, and the red gem embedded in the staff’s head glows bright. A ball of fire sprouts to life in Fennald’s outstretched palm, hotter than any torch. “And if there is one thing we adventurers are not afraid to fight, it is a monster.”

The man struggles to his feet, and slinks away into the crowd with his head low.

As Aralyn looks at her party members, her eyes soften, and 11 thinks she sees tears. But the elf regains her composure quickly, and turns to the man behind her and asks, “Are you alright, Varnon?”

The man, Varnon, nods while holding onto his bleeding nose. He glances at Aralyn’s ears, her hair, her eyes.

Thank you, he mouths.

Aralyn nods. She walks past Varnon and climbs halfway up the stairs to his house, then turns back to the crowd. She reaches up towards the sky with her right hand, and shouts,

“Illustera!”

A bright ball of white light forms between the tips of her fingers, brilliant in the darkness.

The crowd stops moving. They stare at the spherical star like a nightmare-stricken child stares at a night light; all fears and desperations washing away with the promise of the sunrise.

Aralyn takes a big breath.

“People of Oakroot, here me out!” she shouts to the transfixed crowd. “My name is Aralyn Windborne of Overlake, an adventurer, and a healer. Despite my appearance, I am a lawful citizen of Gandolia. My father is of noble human blood, so I assure you, I am a Gandolian first, before all else!”

It is as if Aralyn has figured out exactly what to say, because the crowd explodes in applause. She continues, her voice loud and clear over the noise,

“And it is as a fellow Gandolian that I hereby make a promise to Oakroot! A promise that I, Aralyn Windborne, and my team of experienced adventurers, will hunt down the wraith plaguing this village, and put an end to its atrocities! We will make sure Oakroot will never be harassed by that disgusting monster ever again. That is the promise I make – a promise worthy of my father’s noble name!”

The crowd goes wild, yelling and cheering Aralyn’s name as she descends down the stairs. They part to let her through, their faces lit up with desperate hopes from the promises made by the only one brave enough to make it. Even the hunk of muscle, sulkily eyeing Aralyn from the edge of the crowd, does not dare approach.

When Aralyn and her party reach the end of the crowd to where 11 is, the God Gier hops off the crate to follow, but Aralyn stops her.

“You’re staying here,” the elf orders 11. “I don’t care what you are, or what you’re capable of. You’re unarmed, unarmored, and still recovering. The only adventure you’re going on is back to bed.” Her expression softens when she sees the worry in 11's eyes. “Hey, this isn’t my first monster hunt,” she says, reaching over to give the God Gier's hand an affectionate squeeze, “so don’t look at me like I’m going to fight at the border or something. We’ll be back before you know it.” Then with a cheeky wink, she adds, “Maybe with another non-human in Allastair’s arms, who knows?”

11 watches the girl with the flaming red hair stride confidently away, leading her party out of the village gates.

And then she is gone, before the God Gier can figure out whether she should’ve said goodbye, or good luck; before either of them has a chance to wonder if this may be the last they see of each other.

11 clutches her chest, bunching Aralyn’s shirt in her fists, feeling a tightness she cannot begin to describe gripping her metallic heart.