The sun begins to die behind the hill.

“My my,” the Seeded woman says with another liberal lick of her skinny, swarthy lips. “So this is the valiant, noble Lightborn.”

I’d probably shit myself if I was sober.

Luckily, I ain’t scared of nothin’ right now.

And I tell this creepy girl as much:

“Hey! Back off!” I shout. “Me and my friends are drinking, here!”

Aethel snorts with laughter. Swiftrunner moves beside me, hackles raised, teeth chittering.

“Raziel,” he says. “This one is not like the other Seedlings.”

He’s right. I know he is. Even just looking into her swamp-green eyes, watching as the excitement builds in her thin frame and she sharpens her scythes, I know something for sure: this girl’s crazy.

“Such lovely friends I see you’ve made,” the grinning Seedling says. “The wolf I can understand – his mongrel kind are your distant cousins, yes? But this big oaf – now that is surprising.”

Aethel stiffens, keeping his hands in his pockets.

“Where I come fae, ‘oaf’ is a term of endearment, lass.”

Seneca bursts into laughter.

“A giant from the Steppes!” she exclaims. “Oh, how quaint. The remnant of a dying people meeting the last hope of this pathetic little world.”

Aethel snarls with such bestiality that I at first think the sound comes from Swiftunner.

“Watch it, girlie,” he warns. “We Steppes might be dying oot, but we ain’t any less quick ta anger.”

The Seedling ignores his taunts entirely, and as I draw my sword preemptively from its sheath, I see the wall of vines that twists behind her lithe, green form. As we ready ourselves for battle, more thorns join the organic battlements and before we know it, we’re totally surrounded. Hemmed in under the old birch.

“What he said!” I shout. “Whatever you are, we aren’t afraid!”

The Seedling licks her lips again.

“You are a bad liar, little hound,” she says.

She stretches out one scythe-arm and taps it once, and I watch as thin trickles of poison drip from the tips of her organic blades onto the dying grasses she trampled on.

For a moment, no one stirs. Then – a quake. A rumbling that shakes the earth.

“I’d git ready,” Aethel says beside me. “Looks like this spooky bitch has backup.”

Swiftrunner’s paws skittered to regain their balance on the shaking earth.

“H – how do you know of us?” he shouts to the sneering Seneca.

And as though she couldn’t get any creepier, she addresses only me in her answer:

“Oh, trust me, we know what you are and where you’re going,” she says. “And we know what you’re planning to do. I’m afraid Lady Gyko doesn’t like your plans. And when Lady Gyko doesn’t like someone, my sharp little hands get itchy.”

I narrow my eyes through the creeping haze all around us.

“Gyko…”

A flash: running through a living forest. Armored feet beneath me – all around me - not paws. People dying. Curses flying through the air. A name on the lips of the fallen. Someone – something – laughing as they all die. Laughing as we all die…

“Raziel!”

Swiftrunner’s cry brings me back to reality, where three vicious bark-covered spiders have risen from the ground where the Seedling planted her poison. Like plants taking root before us they rise, break free from their foundations, and roar their fury at our faces.

“Maim the Lightborn,” she says. “Kill the rest.”

The spiders charge as one towards us, pincers ready, fangs flashing in the darkness of approaching dusk.

I step forwards to meet them.

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“You two get back!” I say, surprising myself with my newly acquired confidence.

[Status: TIPSY]

Oh yeah. Liquid courage. Still, betcha I look brave right no-

Aethel’s massive hand finds my head, and Swiftrunner’s snout noses me in defiance.

“Not this time, Little-Brother,” the white wolf says. “This time we fight together. Even if I must share this battleground with a human, I will do it to see you succeed.”

“How nice of ye,” Aethel chuckles, cracking his neck and staring down the three charging insects. “But you boys might wanna take a few steps back.”

We stare up at him.

“Why wou-“

His eyes light up as I ask the question, one hand flying from his pocket to punch at the air with the bottle of [Salien Blood] he’s drawn from his coat.

“Because us Belchometrists have a wee problem with collateral damage.”

Without another word he downs the bottle of enchanted tree sap, swashes it around his cheeks and, when the first spider at the head of the triad lungs at us, he lets out a burp of power.

I feel the heat of his breath before I witness the torrent of fire that sails out from his throat like a blooming flower of death. It consumed the spider instantly, who is immediately thrown back into the dead ground and flails about as its limbs begin to crisp and burn.

“HARRAH!” the giant bellows through his flamethrowing belch. “TASTE THE POWAH O’ THE SUN, YE BARKFACED BUNGLERS!”

He roars his flaming breath into the downed spider and we – that is, the petrified Swiftrunner and I – watch the creature’s limbs start to melt away under the strength of the heat, until its nothing more than a molten pile of ash lying at the giant’s massive feet.

He pants, heaving, and takes in a deep breath of fresh air.

“By the Makkar!” he exclaims. “Ah needed that. Better oot than in, eh?”

I look at him with pure horror. Swiftrunner, for once, is similarly stunned into silence.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU?!” I scream.

He double blinks. “Ah told ye, Razzy – I’m a bleedin’ Belchometrist, and a bloody good one, at that!”

I’ve got little time to question him further (what would be the point, right?) as another furious spider lunges towards me.

This time, I’m ready.

[Blade Art: Swallow Strike]

My blade slices through the creature’s left limbs with ease, and I roll out of the way of its retaliatory strike. It whirls, managing to strike Swiftrunner as he tries to bite off its remaining legs, and then propels its mangled form towards me.

My eyes shine with my own little tricks.

You aren’t the only one who has cool powers, Mr Belchometrist.

[Dig]

Though admittedly mine aren’t quite as…explosive.

I burrow into the ground with the speed of a drugged-up mole and before I know it the spider has fallen on top of me. As it thrashes around, caught in my trap, I sink my sword into its exposed abdomen, and it finally falls limp. Dead.

Above me I hear the roaring sounds of more flames pierce the air, and look up to see the world bathed in red-orange light.

Well, guess there’s nowhere to go but up.

[Tailcopter]

My tail starts helicoptering around till it takes me right out of my little hidey hole and, prospecting the dead world around me – full of grasses shriveled to nothing by Aethel’s pyromancy or the Seedlings vile aura – I plop back down just in time to meet an angry looking, flame-coated spider head on.

[Swallow Swipe]

Cooldown: 10 mins

I really have to stop forgetting about those pesky little cooldowns…

Before the creature can grip me with its flaming pincers it’s four eyes go wide, and I simply sidestep it as it goes flying down into my hole and crashes into the still sharpened pincers of its dead friend. When I return my gaze to the source of the creature’s demise, I see Swiftrunner panting with pride.

“I may not have your skills with the blade, Raziel,” he says. “But I do believe I have mastered the art of the headbutt.”

I smile up at him. “Maybe you can teach it to me one day.”

We all prospect the smoking remains of the battlefield and huddle up as one, facing down the watching Seedling who’s been silent through this whole fight.

“No bad fer a wee dug!” Aethel exclaims, giving me a playful kick in the ribs (which is just a little too hard for comfort.) “I take back any doubts ah had – yer the Lightborn alright! Never seen a dug wield a blade like that!”

“Have you met many dogs that wield such blades, Aethel?” asks Swiftrunner.

The giant ignores the quip and instead flashes a surprised face at the white wolf. “Cheers mate!”

“For what?”

“Fer calling me my name instead of ‘man’, harr harr!”

“We should probably be calling you ‘dragon’” I say, looking with incredulous eyes at them both before turning back to the mad Seedling, who has begun laughing manically at the foot of the hill.

It’s a sound that bears no joy at all. Harsh. Gravely. Tinged with just a littlebit of…psychosis.

“Ach, come on, girl,” Aethel shouts down at her. “Are ye really gonna do the whole ‘villainous -laugh-even-though-I’m-literally-losing-right-now’ thing?”

Seneca ends her laughter with an indignant snort.

“Oh, forgive me, forgive me!” she sneers, licking her poisoned scythe with a lithe, purple tongue. “I had to see your little tricks for myself. A hunter sends her dogs to tire out her prey, right? Does that sound familiar to you, little mutt?”

I cock my head at her.

“I’m a Corgi!” I shout, sword still in my mouth. “We aren’t made for hunting! Don’t have the legs for it, not to mention the -“

“You are made for nothing,” the Seedling snaps. “You are a thief. An accident. A freakish mutation that should not exist. A mistake of humanity, just like all aberrations in this world.”

I stagger back, feeling her sharp eyes start to penetrate me. Feeling like I was being – watched? No, that’s not it. More like she’s looking through me. Into me…

What…

“Don’t worry,” she says as the earth starts to quake again. “Accidents can be corrected. I am the solution.”

I watch her wink once before she disappears – seemingly blending right into the fog behind her.

“Oi!” Aethel gasps. “Where’d she-“

My eyes go wide as I feel something stab into my side.

Pain.

A twitching in my side that fills my entire bloodstream with pure, raw pain.

And, just behind my ears, a vicious whisper:

“Do you like the sting of my blade, dog?”

My companions seem to react in slow motion, and as I fall I feel her scything talons caress my face.

The feeling provides no warmth. No comfort.

Nothing but the cold embrace of death.

“You survived my last poison due to your oafish friends,” Seneca chuckles. “This time, let’s see if they can help you.”