Mocking noises of birdsong trilled from the feathered lizards outside. I blinked at the hazy sunrise, not recognizing the landscape, even after I'd already seen it. The crow was sitting on the mound near the cave entrance where we had buried the dead cultists we had found on the hillside and throughout the cave.

"This place feels like another world." I said to the crow.

"Has my wolf never seen another world? They are all the same, yet every world is different. In this place, the arcane magics that the Sons of Araek unleashed caused these changes, or perhaps it was the will of a daughter of Lilith. Perhaps it was the collision of both such terrible willpowers. In any case, I agree with my wolf. This is a strange landscape." Cory sounded amused. He ruffled his feathers as some kind of expression.

My stomach was growling with hunger. We hadn't eaten in days. I hoped the first order of business was to find food and replenish our canteens. I waited at the entrance of the cave as the rest of the pack came out, one by one.

"Listen up, our first order of business is to collect some supplies. I realize everyone is very hungry. Just because we are fighting a war doesn't mean we have to starve." Lieutenant Colonel Rose addressed the pack.

"Yes." I said simply.

We headed into the abandoned ruins of the town and searched for any food we could find. Our meager collection we took to the diner. We'd hooked up a power generator to the building and were able to use the electric stove for cooking. After we broke our fast the pack was a lot more talkative and friendly. We were telling jokes and smiling when Lieutenant Colonel Rose interrupted with our mission briefing.

"We are going to explore the Temple of Araek, the place we found yesterday. There are creatures guarding it, what appear to be skeletons that can walk around without flesh. We don't know how dangerous they are, but our mission is to find out what they are guarding. If necessary, we will destroy it." Lieutenant Colonel Rose told us.

As we approached the massive structure on foot, I saw it for the first time. It was some kind of replication of an ancient temple. I imagined somehow it was formed by telekinetic powers, crushing pieces of vehicles into building blocks, fitting chunks of concrete together with boulders and debris, and with dead bodies embedded in it as mortar. It was an eyesore that smelled of death.

"My wolves should be cautious. The lesser Sons of Araek are not to be trifled with. They command elemental magics as weapons, calling fire and ice - or lightning to destroy intruders. Even if their vessel is destroyed, they still pose a threat, for their final breath inhaled by another gives them life again in the body of a living enemy." Cory told us. "Although the soul can force their will from the mind, they will fight on for a time in the body of a comrade."

Lieutenant Colonel Rose hesitated to order our intrusion after Cory told us what the shuffling skeletons were capable of. One of the creatures was slowly walking, its body moving like a puppet without strings. It was made of old gray bones and wore a tattered black robe decorated with golden trim. Upon its head was a jeweled miter. Its face was just a skull, and its empty eye sockets stared at us, watching us.

The creature held up one hand as though warning us to stay away from the temple. Between the bones of its fingers, electricity crackled. I could hear a strange sound, but it was not a sound at all, instead, it was more like a feeling, a feeling that formed into words that caused dread in my mind.

I was staring into the empty eye sockets of the skull, and I knew the creature was somehow speaking a threat, warning us to turn back or face its wrath.

"Come here, lycans. I will put an end to your troubles. Step closer and trespass and Lythronaes will unleash such pain, that in your dying moments, you will worship this demigod of Hythe, the resurrected temple of Lemuria." Lythronaes whispered through the air into our minds, but its words were clear and more like a sound than a thought.

The skeletal mage turned to face us, and both of its bone hands crackled with visible electrical arcs. Between the two points bolts of lightning traveled back and forth, increasing in intensity. It waited for us to approach, evidently only interested in defending the temple.

"If we fight them one on one, and their power to possess their enemy is limited, then we need only face them alone." Adam said to the rest of us. "Let me take this one, I doubt Lythronaes can harm me with the very thing that gave me life."

Adam approached Lythronaes alone and the creature unleashed its lightning, pouring it into him as he walked towards it. As the electricity crackled and burned, Adam flinched and felt it coursing through him, but he pushed on through the pain. The creature took a step back and then another, but it was too late. The towering yellow-skinned giant pulled the skull from the body and crushed it.

The bones collapsed and crumbled into a fine powdery dust. It swirled around and around Adam and then it seemed to go into him. He stood there for a long time, doing nothing. It seemed as though a battle of willpower was inside him, as he stood with his back to us. We stayed away, waiting for the creature's possession to end.

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Then Adam fell to his knees and coughed and gagged and vomited the dust back out. It drifted away on the breeze, scattered and lost. When Adam got back to his feet he turned and faced us.

"I'm fine." Adam said hoarsely. We approached him and he smiled weakly, feeling the strain of forcing the creature back out of his body through sheer willpower. "Leave me here, I don't think I can be of any more help. But there are three more, when Lythronaes was in my mind, I learned of the others who are around here somewhere. They are Olytheran, Eraduheek and Druvekak. Be careful."

We advanced towards the temple, keeping our eyes open for the next of the skeletal mages. It was not long before our intrusion was met. Olytheran hovered towards us, giving us a similar warning and promising to burn us all to ashes for our sacrilege.

"I will take this one." McRaze volunteered. She approached the floating demigod and it unleashed a jet of flames that swirled around her, causing her no harm. "I was ready for that. Is it all you got?"

Olytheran tried again with a greater flame. A pillar of fire danced around McRaze who stood in the middle of it, somehow channeling all the heat away from her skin and clothes. When Olytheran paused, she pushed the flames back towards the skeleton, surprising it. Olytheran was unprepared to shield itself from the full force of its own flames, returned with McRaze's full pyrokinetic powers.

Its ashes rained down on her and she burned those too, completely cremating the ancient thing. When it was over she remained unpossessed by it and laughed triumphantly before she collapsed from the strain of using all of her psionic energy. We went to her and Bruna said she would stay with her. McRaze lay in Bruna's arms on her lap, unconscious and helpless.

"Let us continue. There are only two left." Lieutenant Colonel Rose led the way.

"Now you face Eraduheek. Such tricks and cunning mean nothing against the greatest of these Sons of Araek. You shall all die, your bodies bursting from the inside with shards of ice, brittle and shattered." Eraduheek floated upon the air, its robes fluttering and the jewels of its miter sparkling. It landed in front of us and a beam of freezing magical energy emanated from its bony fingertips.

Frosty got in its way, protecting all of us. The white fur of his shoulders was somehow absorbing the cold, dissipating it as gentle snowflakes all around. The yeti groaned under the strain of the continued blast of cold, but advanced until it reached Eraduheek. The skeletal mage let out an audible shriek like the break of a blizzard in the muffled snow-covered landscape of a winter wonderland. Frosty struck it sideways with a backhand of the yeti's mighty fist, breaking every bone and scattering them like ice across the cobbled pavement.

The flakes of it tried to envelop Frosty, but the mind of the yeti was too strong and wise, and the snowflake storm of Eraduheek could not enter. Frosty exhaled and we could see his warm breath melting the snowflakes until there was nothing left of Eraduheek. The battle had cost Frosty his strength and he sat down calmly, crossing his yeti legs over each other and he closed his eyes, calmly meditating.

We found the altar in the Temple of Araek, and upon it was an orb of some kind of blue crystal. When we got closer we could see images in it, many confusing shapes always changing, like smoke or the mixture of milk in coffee. It danced and reformed, seeming to see everything all at once, while showing the reflection in split seconds, too quick for the eye to see.

"You've overcome the Sons of Araek who were too weak to destroy you. They were nothing compared to Druvekak, guardian of the Eye of Araek." Druvekak emerged from between two of the pillars. "My poisons will stop your blood. Nothing can withstand the presence of Druvekak and live."

Dreich wasn't certain he could withstand Druvekak's presence and live, but he bravely volunteered and approached the last of the Sons of Araek. Druvekak splashed his liquid magic onto Dreich, soaking him and then the poisonous magic seeped into Dreich, bringing him to his knees. Dreich struggled with it, groaning sickly from the magic venom.

"Is that really all you got?" Dreich climbed to his feet feebly, his legs wobbling. He began to plod towards the creature, who cast the spell again and this time Dreich fell flat. We all gasped in horror, worried for the vampire. Dreich laughed weakly and got on his hands and knees. He slowly climbed back to his feet and began to take steps toward the skeletal mage.

"It is impossible. No human can resist their blood so contaminated with my deadly magic. Stop where you are, or I shall end you!" Druvekak was taking steps backward, trying to keep a distance from Dreich. As Dreich neared it, the creature began to float in the air, intent on hovering out of reach.

Dreich summoned his strength, shifting oddly through the shadows, up the pillar, as though he were just his dark robes fluttering batlike, leaping through the air to tackle the creature to the ground. He punched it repeatedly in its skull face while it tried to inject him with more of its poison. When Druvekak was slain, an ill-colored green vapor arose, making Dreich's eyes glow the same color.

Possessed by Druvekak, Dreich tried to get to his feet, but his body was so weakened from trying to expel the poisons from his vampiric blood that he fell back down, moaning in misery. He vomited a bubbling mess onto the floor and lay there in torpor, unmoving.

We went to him and I touched his face. His eyes opened and he said weakly:

"Tasted awful. I don't feel so good." coughing weakly. He slipped back into a comatose state, sleeping off the toxic effects.

"He'll be alright." I guessed.

"What is this Eye of Araek we have captured?" Doctor Imbrium wondered.

Cory swooped into the temple and landed on a broken pillar near the altar. "My wolf should not touch that. It sees, and it can be seen through, yes. But it is not of the world of the living or the mortal. To touch it would feed it with death, it would claim the soul in the instant of contact. To the Eye of Araek these skeletons paid sacrifice. Look, but don't touch." Cory warned us.

"I appreciate all of your help, Cory. You have proven to be the best spy we could have." Lieutenant Colonel Rose thanked the crow.

Cory gave us one of his laughs, something like a car's engine that wouldn't turn over, and then agreed:

"Well, I am very helpful, and certainly I am the best."