Winter winds blew through the wilderness, blasting snow across the sparse tracks that littered the woods and onto Sorin's position. The winds were cold, but the snow was colder. But that coldness was a small price to pay for safety from the winds that whispered mad words into Sorin's stubborn ears.

They spoke of strange spells and warped powers that exceeded human imagination.

They spoke of vengeance unclaimed and injustices unremedied—all easily addressed for the small price of your first-born child or possibly a few cousins you didn't like.

Every whisper caused the corruption in Sorin's body to stir and try to seize the dominant position. Sorin crushed it every time, but the frequency was increasing. That wasn't even considering the Divine Bone Rot that was slowly grinding away at him and would continue to do so until he found a cure that could survive its divine potency.

Sorin wanted nothing more than to find shelter and light a fire. Alas, he was on a mission, and his role in the mission was critical. Fortunately, Gareth's voice broke the monotony of the wait.

"The target has located the bait and is considering exiting his cave," Gareth transmitted through his evolved heroic ability. "Once it reaches the kickoff location, I'll start baiting it with arrows."

Two minutes later, a wind-covered arrow blasted through the treetops, provoking a horrifying confirmation that Gareth had the target's attention. This was further confirmed when Gareth transmitted an image of the abomination they were tracking, as well as the location of his cave relative to his position and its projected route should all things go smoothly.

"It's hurt, but not too badly," said Gareth a minute later. "It's heading towards Lawrence to investigate. Lawrence, it's far enough away from its cave. Do your thing."

Sorin saw another series of images through Gareth's ability as Lawrence barreled through the wood on a demonic wolf mount. He used his crossbow and poisoned bolts to shoot the abomination in one of its many eyes. The image was blurry, and Sorin had trouble making anything out of it.

"It's working," said Gareth. "Lawrence is strafing the creature while closing in on your position. Are you ready, Sorin?"

"Ready as I'll ever be," said Sorin, patting his mount. He summoned an acid spear in his right hand and squeezed with his legs to urge the mount forward. "Let's go!"

Sorin rode out of the trees and flung an acid spear at the creature as it entered his range. It let out an otherworldly hiss as his spell made contact and considered turning back. Ultimately, it chose to continue its chase, allowing Sorin and Lorimer to attack it with an endless supply of poison-coated magical crossbow bolts and an occasional spear of concentrated acitoxins.

"Daphne, you're up next," said Gareth after Sorin and Lawrence harassed the creature for a few minutes and drew it further away from its lair.

Daphne's wolf hopped out from behind a tree, stopping only briefly as the mage threw a fireball at the hulking creature, who was now fully committed to the chase.

"Guys?" said Lawrence, catching up with Sorin and Daphne. "I think it's getting faster."

"It's just learning our habits," said Sorin. "Same as the last one."

"This thing is nothing like the last one," said Lawrence.

"I can't seem to see it properly," said Daphne. "Do you have a description?"

"Eyes," said Lawrence. "Lots of them. By the way, I still can't get over your mount, Sorin. You lucked out with Lorimer in more ways than one."

"Bite me," said Sorin, kicking a furred rump to force his mount faster. In case it wasn't clear at this point, his mount was Lorimer, or a horse-sized version of him, thanks to one of the many 'minor' abilities Lorimer had forgotten to mention.

"You know, there's nothing wrong with having a giant rat as a mount," said Lawrence, firing off another bolt into the mishappen abomination. "It's quite cute, actually. A man and his mouse, braving certain death in order to avenge the poor villagers of Greenwich Village."

"Reee!" screeched Lorimer from beneath Sorin, agreeing with Lorimer.

Sorin rolled his eyes. "If only the wolves were willing to let me ride them."

The trio continued whittling away at the creature's defenses with crossbow bolts and spells while Gareth provided ranged support from roughly three kilometers away.

Eventually, Sorin realized something was amiss. How is the creature gaining on us? We're clearly much faster. Or are we? He suddenly realized that he was having trouble calculating distances. His timing was also off.

"Why are you guys slowing down?" came Gareth's voice on the wind.

"What do you mean, slowing down?" said Lawrence. "We're maintaining the same speed as always!"

"Confirmed," said Daphne.

"Oh, bother," said Gareth. "I can't hear you guys, but something is clearly going on. Try to break away from the abomination, you three. Stephan, move towards their position to provide support."

Sorin only realized how much trouble they were when the creature suddenly appeared fifty feet away from them. The blurred tangles on its body were revealed to be writhing tentacles tied up in a mass of eyes and bulging flesh. The sight of it caused Sorin to wretch and his mind to spin.

Then, an unearthly screech blasted their group of three. Their wolves and Lorimer halted in their tracks, and they, the riders, were nearly flung off. Sorin was the first to recover from the strange paralyzing ability thanks to the divinity in his blood, but he was unable to react in time to the tentacles reaching for Daphne and Lawrence from within a gaping hole that could only loosely be called a mouth.

An armored bear charged out from the side just in the nick of time, tackling the house-sized creature with enough force to knock it back a whole ten feet. The bear then mauled the creature furiously with metal-covered claws. It ignored the dark tentacles wrapping around its spiked silver fur and armor in favor of maximizing damage.

"What are you guys waiting for?" came Gareth's voice. "Stephan's got it on the ropes." A Shackle Shot stabbed through the forest's canopy and chained the creature to the ground with mana, stunning it for half a second.

Daphne recovered he senses shortly after the Shackle Shot and took out her staff. A ball of green fire shot out of the staff and blasted the abomination with flames that dealt damage through corrosion instead of raw explosive might.

Lawrence attempted to support Stephan with a few crossbow bolts to the creature's many eyes, but his efforts failed to achieve anything. Noticing the creature creeping closer to the Silver Spine Grizzly Bear, Sorin used Python Coil to summon a thirty-foot-long snake of acidic mana and had it coil around the tentacles, binding the armored bear and melting them in half.

Furious, the creature sent out several more tentacles, but shortly after they latched onto the armored bear, Lorimer came to the rescue. The rat, now down to its original size, avoided the enormous tentacles that tried to intercept him, stopping only to take brief bites of the creature's terribly corrupted flesh.

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As the python and Lorimer worked to free Stephan, Sorin used Adder Rush to approach the creature and rake its body with his dagger. A large quantity of acitoxins poured into the cut, melting away flesh and infecting a portion of the creature's bizarre anatomy.

Standard organs don't apply, analyzed Sorin as he repeatedly evaded tentacles and stabbed the creature to stack instances of poison. His trusty Dagger of Amplification worked wonders with his poison and made him one of the most reliable damage dealers in their party, hands down.

The acitoxins soon stacked to the point that the creature's outer shell could no longer be maintained. The creature let out another loud screech as its skin blasted open, revealing a tangle of maggot-like creatures.

"Incoming!" said Gareth as similar screeches echoed out from the woods. Lawrence sent them all an image, courtesy of his heroic ability. Hundreds of maggot-infested humans were rushing through the wilderness to assist their crazed overlord.

"They're already dead," said Lawrence, shooting one through the head with a crossbow bolt, then jumping off his wolf to defend Daphne.

"Cover fire is on its way," said Gareth. "Estimated time of arrival… now!" A rain of arrows pierced through the treetops, skewering a group of thirty one-star abominations. Seconds later, another wave of arrows brought down another group, buying them precious time to focus on their main target.

Sorin used Spear in a Haystack to melt away a small group of twenty abominations with a conic blast of needles, then used his Wraith Hare boots to hop atop the writhing mass of worms and continue stacking poison.

The short teleportation hop jolted his inner organs and caused lacerations to appear on his skin. Fortunately, this wasn't overly damaging to Sorin and instead served to fuel his blood drinker armor, increasing his strength and speed and, therefore, the rate at which he applied additional instances of poison.

Corrosive fireballs blasted the creature from the side, though with less frequency now that Daphne was forced to remain mobile and alternate Concussive Fire Blasts to incinerate any abominations that drew near.

"Um, guys?" said Lawrence. "I don't think we're dealing it much damage." One aspect of his ability was to gauge the relative health of his targets. "I mean, it's clearly very poisoned, but the parts you poisoned don't seem to matter all that much. Maybe it's one of those demons with a weakness? Or a decoy? An illusion, perhaps?"

"I'll take a look," said Sorin, stabbing his dagger into the creature to gain a better idea of its anatomy. "Although the worms seem independent and are dying rather quickly, they are joined together. They seem to be defending a core region. I can get to it, but I'll need support."

"I'll cover you with vision!" Lawrence volunteered. The nearest hundred feet of woodlands came into their shared view, including Daphne, who was spamming spells at the mindless horde of smaller abominations, and Stephan, who'd somehow lodged himself into the mass of worms and was currently ripping his way free with his claws and teeth.

Thanks to Lawrence's ability, Sorin had a much better idea of how to approach the core. He summoned another Python Coil to blaze a trail of acid, then used Adder Rush to squeeze his way inside.

Consecutive Crushing Storm Arrows hammered down on the creature, blasting away tentacles as they tried to prevent Sorin from digging deeper. And what tentacles Gareth failed to catch due to being too far away, Lawrence shot down with a crossbow. Simultaneously, Lorimer distracted the creature by adopting his flame form and burrowing into the creature from a different direction.

In the end, it was Stephan who made the difference. He first freed himself from the wriggling mass of worms before shifting to his Arctice Rune Form, increasing his size and filling the area with chilling cold. The cold invaded the abomination and froze its tentacles, buying Sorin precious time to press his hand against the creature's flesh and melt through it using Hand of the Medicine God.

"It's here somewhere," muttered Sorin. "There!" He grabbed hold of a solid object at the center of the mass and pulled. The creature let out a dying screech as its core was yanked out, which blasted Sorin's mind. Stephan was unharmed by the mental attack, but Lawrence and Daphne were knocked out cold.

With the creature's death, the remaining abominations could no longer continue to exist. They exploded into masses of dying worms that scattered into the cold winter winds. The only evidence remaining of their existence was the thousands of one-star cores of extremely low quality, barely worth three gold each if exchanged at a Temple of Hope.

"That wasn't a normal two-star demon," said Sorin. "It must have had a high amplification in addition to its grade."

"Grade three, level two amplification," confirmed Stephan, shifting back into human form. "What a mess. Should we burn it down now or later? Also, I think I've been corrupted."

"Let me see," said Sorin, hopping off the mass of worms and placing his hand on Stephan. He quickly scanned through his bones, flesh, and blood and identified the problem. "Looks like I'm in luck. You've actually been poisoned."

"Poisoned?" asked Stephan, bewildered. "Then why is my flesh dying?"

"Because it's a necrotic poison," said Sorin, pulling a black glob out from Stephan's body. "It also happens to be something I was looking for. It's not a ten-poison, by any means, but with a few more ingredients, I might just be able to pull it off. Hey! Lawrence, hold off with the wish fire until I give the all clear."

"This thing stinks," said Lawrence, who'd awakened a few seconds after the concussive blast. He'd already lit up a white torch and was about to burn the remains. "Even Lorimer doesn't want anything to do with this thing."

"You know full well I need to retrieve my poisons after battle," said Sorin, walking over the creature. He placed his hand on it and pulled about 50% of the mana he'd spent back into his body. "Also, there's some good stuff in there." He pointed to a pustule on a tentacle. "See that? That's premium poison right there. I'll have to trouble you to fill these bottlers with it."

"Urgh," said Lawrence, accepting three clear bottles. "I hate harvesting poisons."

"Well, too bad," said Sorin. "I don't know about you, but I'm not willing to throw away thousands of gold worth of loot because of your squeamishness."

"Fine, fine," said Lawrence, stomping off. "Stupid poison users and their stupid poison."

"You literally fired like a hundred crossbow bolts coated in my poisonous blood," said Sorin. "Show some gratitude, will you?"

Sorin joined Lawrence in collecting the poison. As for the core, he tossed it to Stephan, who stowed it away in his Hero Emblem and fed a healing potion to the unconscious Daphne.

A short while later, Gareth rode over to their group on his wolf mount. "So that confirms it then," said the archer. "The missing villagers were corrupted and transformed into puppet-like demons. The abomination was the sole perpetrator, and according to the scene where it first emerged, its source was a bone-forging cultivator in Greenwich Village that succumbed to Madness and performed a forbidden ritual."

"I've got nothing else to add," said Stephan. "What about you, Daphne?"

"My head hurts," said Daphne. "Also, these missions are making me think about writing a mythos book."

"A mythos book?" asked Stephan.

"They're really popular," said Lawrence, hopping over to Sorin and tossing him three full bottles of poison. "One part horror, another part mystery. Lots of action. Madness is the primary villain, but it's heavily implied that it has a big boss that wants to consume all of reality."

"Oookay," whistled Stephan. "Whatever floats your boat, I guess. Are we going to be characters again? Because if we are, I want some warning and spoilers. I don't want a repeat of the last time a crowd ambushed us in a bookstore."

Gareth cleared his throat. "You're forgetting the royalties."

"Right," said Stephan. "We're going to need royalties."

"Why don't I get royalties?" asked Sorin. "I'm a character, aren't I?"

"You're a supporting character in my last book," clarified Daphne. "Though if you don't mind me adding some family and institutional drama—purely fictional, of course—I'll consider sending you a cut."

"I'll pass," said Sorin. "Keep me as a supporting character." He let out a loud sigh. "I'm not cut out for so much traveling. I need a bath."

"Ree!" added Lorimer.

"And a good meal," agreed Sorin.

"And a bed would certainly be nice," said Stephan. "And a smithy where I could borrow a furnace and an anvil to make some minor repairs. Gareth, you were saying there's a town not far away?"

"A small city, actually," said Gareth. "Twenty thousand people. Coincidentally, it's also the destination Haley said we're supposed to pick up our next set of missions at."

"What I wouldn't give for a proper cup of coffee," said Daphne.

"And cake," added Lawrence. "You never really realize how much you miss cake until you eat demons in the wilderness for two weeks straight."

"Did you mean cake or cake?" asked Stephan, giving Lawrence a side-long glance. "Because if it's cake, I'd very much appreciate it if you refrained. I don't want another city mayor destroying buildings to find you."

"He never found out it was me," said Lawrence. "Also, it's really his fault for losing his temper."

" Lawrence, if you cut our next stay short, I'm going to boil you alive," said Daphne. "My mage's oath on it."

"I'm done," said Sorin, harvesting the last of the poison. "Let's burn this thing up. I don't think there are any workable materials."

"Agreed," said Gareth. "Lawrence?"

"This is my favorite part!" said Lawrence, touching the white torch to a mutilated abomination. White fire spread out from the creature and spread out to engulf the one-star demon cores. Their essence then shrank down into a small wish fire orb that Stephan caught and put away in his hero emblem.

"Does anyone want to crack it open, or should we keep collecting for something better?" asked Stephan.

"Keep collecting," voted Sorin. The others echoed his words.

"Then let's get going," said Stephan. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting sick and tired of all this snow."

"It's only been a month and a half," said Gareth with a smirk. "Still two and a half months left to go."