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The man, no monster stood over me, and in its hand, it held my blade still dripping with blood. His smile widened and twisted until its face was a cruel mockery of what it once was. It raised a hand up and I watched in horror as it slowly twisted and cracked until sharpened bones popped out of its fingertips.

“It's nothing personal,” It said in a voice that was all too familiar to me, my own, before plunging its new claws into my chest, I screamed in pain as I felt it tugging something within me.

Was it watching us the entire time? Was it the puppeteer of this horrid night? My mind was brought back to the present when, to my horror, I saw what it was tugging on… my heart. I screamed and screamed but I did not die despite my missing organ. The creature held my heart overhead and watched it beat for a while before walking over to the ash the fallen creature had become and grabbed its flaming heart from the pile. As darkness consumed me a thought suddenly struck… there was no Jack in my group.

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It was a good fight if I do say so myself, but it was useless in the end. Not for me though, this fight gave me a vague understanding of the limits and knowledge of the people of this world. Hopefully, this is near the standard, but I will need more observation to truly know. Interestingly the hunger seemed more aggressive and volatile here, the amount I transferred over to that lanky fellow should have taken days to transform into a fledgling, but it only took a few hours, which would explain why my hunger was so aggressive lately.

I looked at the heart that was emitting a blue flame, the hunger wasn’t just stronger, but it was also weaker, it's almost like every aspect was amplified. Unblessed traditional flame shouldn’t have harmed the fledgling at all, especially not when it only came into contact with a small area at a time. I looked back over the battle and watched the strands of curses slowly unwrap from the fallen bodies and drift listlessly in the air, it would be a shame to let these curses just to naturally disperse or latch onto the surrounding environment. I raised the regular heart up and invited the threads to inhabit it and that they did, with blinding speed hundreds of threads stabbed into the heart and began to rapidly disappear into it.

Many kinds of curses exist, and the two largest overarching families are the attached and loose. The attached are curses that still draw power from the curser and usually lose power over time as the caster slowly forgets. Loose usually come from those who have died or know what they are doing and want an untraceable curse, they usually are weak at first and slowly gain power over time. Now, most of the curses I see here flow loosely along with the current of magic which means their owners are more than likely dead. There are however a few that stretch up to the sky which means the owners are still among the living. Judging from this and the amount of sin corrupting their souls these were not good guys and not the politician kind.

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Interesting to say the least, the rest of the curses disappeared into the heart. It is a shame that the fledgling consumed many of the bodies, but it was in the name of learning so I’m not too disappointed. I began gathering ingredients from the remains before they lost their power, the hair is my main concern right now since it is the best at containing curses. Soon the caw of my guest echoed out before the wolf entered the clearing looking a bit worse for wear, she had left the battlefield just before the final fight. I was still in a human form, so I didn’t call upon the shadows to hide my general appearance.

I took the braided hairs I had set up and tossed it to her signaling the deed has been done, she dodged the item and let it fall to the snow before looking at me with a confused face, it seems something may have been lost in translation. Hopefully, it wasn’t a big mix-up, but she did indicate that the intention was to kill the group so, oh well. I place the hearts into my jacket along with the hair I had gathered before walking over to the last one left. With a hard kick, the man hiding under the snow was launched out, he had a claw mark ripping through his gut causing some of his intestine to hang out.

He looked up at me in horror, but he found no mercy, I struck down with bulky man’s sword with a bit of force. He raised his arms up in a futile attempt to stop the attack, but the blade cleanly passed through before splitting him down from his skull all the way through his sternum, a nice blade with a good edge if I do say so myself. I reached into his chest cavity and grabbed his heart as well, I needed three to do the thing I wanted. I dropped the blade and distance myself from the other person hiding in the snow, I don’t know who she was but telling from her magical control and the friendliness of the environment she was more than likely a shaman.

I left the wolf and the girl to do whatever they needed to do and headed to the campsite; I could go for some alcohol right now. As I slowly took a nice stroll and admired the views my guest slowly drifted down from the treetops and landed on my shoulder, from my interactions with him so far, he was probably hungry. I scratched his beak and gave him a sliver of jerky I had grabbed while everyone was asleep at the camp, and he greedily gobbled it down. I looked up at the moon and stars and admired the sight, it was a good night for a stroll.