It was so quiet Cody could hear the echo of his voice come back to him. He kept his pose for the entirety of it, hands firmly to his hips and a devious smile on his face. But no whisper came of the hero he sought, dozens of gazes fixed upon his form like paintings to a hall.

Not a blink or a flinch, no one even moved.

He held back a shudder as the silence ensued, tempted to make a casual leave and forget the village even existed. It was embarrassing at this point. He was close enough to the gate to politely excuse himself, but the magic wafting through the air had intrigued him beyond repair.

"Nevermind." He scoffed, snapping for Hord'anne to follow as he went for the sidewalk. But as his crisp boots clacked upon the paved stones, the magic lingering above his head spiked. He stopped, lifting his gaze to the red diamond illusion, pulsing with energy as it lit up like a lamp.

Then, the crowd moved.

From waddling children, to rickety elders, every villager within view shot up, slipping weapons from the folds of their clothing with shrieking cries as they charged him.

In a surge of adrenaline, Cody threw up a quick shield, the hoard pounding against its weakening walls as he snapped his head back to see Hord'anne, crouched to help Sariel pick flowers.

"Hord'anne!" Cody yelled, throwing up another shield as the old one began to crack. "Hord'anne you meathead help me!"

Hord'anne didn't even look, holding up a finger as he plucked a tiny daisy from the perfect grass. Sariel pulled her attention to Cody, lacking the proper panic for a bloodthirsty mob. "Say Cody, you don't suppose they just paved that do you?" she called, pointing at the paved stones with a smile. "I find steppin on a fresh trails really gets people riled up."

"They're under a spell Sariel!" Cody snapped, throwing a roaring fireball at the ground to force the crowd back a few feet as his second shield began to crack. "Hord'anne, help!"

The beast grunted, an irritated snort flaring his nostrils as he charged the crowd with a demonic howl. Cody looked to Sariel to make sure none of the villagers had slipped through to attack her, noticing her falling smile as she watched Hord'anne's charge.

"Hord'anne!" He shook his head when the beast halted his charge to shoot him a fiery glare. "Gentle!"

His snout scrunched, frustration clear upon his face as he turned back to the crowd that had reached him, scooping up handfuls of villagers and lightly tossing them back as if they were a horde of nosey kittens. Cody breathed a sigh of relief as the bulk of the weapon wielding villagers were distracted with his large friend.

"You're doing great!" Cody called, the ground around him licking with flames as the living embers slithered and bit at any attackers that closed in past the brute. "We can pick flowers after we kill the protagonist."

Hord'anne mocked his tone, flicking away a sneaky attacker that had poked his back with a paintbrush. The creature beat the ground as a another wave came at him, nearly clocking Cody as the man ducked under his swinging arms to grab a small knife wielding girl. He wrestled the blade out of her grip, his voice straining as the small child wrapped her arms around his neck instead. "And don't eat anyone unless they're already dead!" He choked out.

Sariel came into the fray, stood at the edge of the sidewalk as she lifted the small child from suffocating her friend. The villagers hadn't tried to lay a finger on her, her entire existence somehow immune to the magics working around her.

"I say Cody," she started, locking the girl's arms behind her back. "These villagers ain't that friendly to you an Hord'anne." She stared down at the struggling child, a warm smile bouncing right off her empty and bloodthirsty gaze. "Whatchya have against my friend Cody?"

"They are demons of the dark lord!" she shrieked, her voice carrying through the empty streets as doors began to open, and guards turned their attention. "Demon! The demons have come!"

"Oooh," Sariel replied, watching the flames around Cody twist into a snapping dragon and leaving a sour stench in its wake as they singed eyebrows and stray clothes. "Oh no, we're warlocks. We ain't demons."

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Cody slid under Hord'anne's legs, knocking another child over before they beat his friend with their ragedy doll. Like a huffing footballer, he scooped the toddler up, dodging a swinging sword from a guard as he dropped his loot off beside Sariel. "Hold them down, we need to keep them out of this!" he ordered, diving back into the flames of his own making to save the next child from Hord'anne's gentle blockade.

As he wrapped his cloak around the last fiesty child, a sound echoed through the sky. It was so loud it deafened him momentarily, despite being a distant and airborn beast. Cody had heard it before, its familiar ring draining the blood from his face. He had known better than to disturb it when its wails ripped through the night, a frenzied cry for help attached to a mind broken beyond repair.

But a large shadow filled the clearing, webbed wings so broad they stretched to either side of the town square well before the beast made its landing. He screamed for Sariel's attention, his order to run lost in the thundering crack as the beast crashed down on an outcropping of shops next to the manor. It was a flailing mass of scales and blood, and despite it's size, Cody could make out little besides its many injuries before a twisted inferno spewed from its mouth as it blindly ripped at anything in its path. He threw up a barrier in the nick of time, shielding as many as he could from the beast's molten breath. Despite the dragon being a long distance away, the flames still managed to crack the enchantment and nearly shatter it. But in the sanctuary he had created, Cody watched as the villagers twisted on their heels, a stampeding hoard headed straight for a fiery doom as the dragon carved through them.

Sariel gasped as she watched the massacre, only coaxed to move when Cody pushed her back to force her into a run. He had one of the children by the wrist, and Sariel, seeing this, snatched the two she had been trying to keep still. It was all they could manage, Cody didn't want to look at the dragon, fearful that he would see the rest. His lungs burned as he sprinted behind Sariel, down the path they had come from and straight for the doors that they had gone through great efforts to get into. He wasn't going to relent until they were out of Bervolt for good.

If there was a protagonist in this town, they were dead, or well on their way.

Cody heard Hord'anne's thudding steps as he took his side, a prompting nod directing the beast without a need of words. That gate was coming down. They were getting the hell out of Bervolt.

Hord'anne took the lead, the dragon's cries growing distant, and Cody's coming second to his heart that pounded from his run. The beast reached the gate, reaching to dig his nails into the gate and rip it open. But as soon as he touched the wood there was a blue flash, and Hord'anne was thrown back.

Sariel came to a skidding stop, wrestling the children down again to stop them from running back to the town square. Cody came up beside her, his expression falling to horror as he saw the surface of the gate ripple from where Hord'anne had tried to grab it.

"No..." He breathed, the echo of shattering buildings and bloodthirsty howls filling the space behind him.

He remembered the barrier that enveloped the walls, that shrouded Bervolt in a dome that blocked Crow from even flying into it.

The dragon had met no such resistance.

The sorcerer who made it had let the dragon in, and trapped everyone inside.

Cody eyed the clearing, jets of fire and smoke crowning the buildings they were by to show that the dragon had hardly moved from the town square. Still, he needed some place protected to get some ingredients in order. Without a moment to waste, he called Sariel to follow him, going for the closest house. He kicked open the door and tossed his hitchhiker inside, helping Sariel drag the two kids she had by the collar and slamming down every lock on the door. A heavy sigh escaped him as he collapsed against the barrier, watching the fleeting flash of purple as Hord'anne stomped away to sit behind the house.

The three children sat squirming in a beast of a bear hug Sariel was giving them, bound by the twisted spell to charge to their deaths so long as they had the will to move. Cody muttered under his breath, watching the sleeping curse take their conscious as they collapsed in Sariel's arms, a haunting thought twisting his gut.

Who would make such a spell?

"Aww, little buggers finally burnt out," Sariel said, oblivious to the morbid pun as she smiled sadly at Cody.

"We need to get the hells out of here" Cody replied, pulling himself past a stack of animal skins to peek through the curtains. "What skathead chained up a dragon and thought it was a good idea?"

"Old Man Maynard."

Cody flipped around at the voice, facing the slender man lingering in the doorframe to a kitchen. He had kept calm with their intrusion, watching them through a couple strands of rough brown hair with a set of leather armour already fitted perfectly to his build.

The man had clearly anticipated a fight, but it couldn't have been the massive dragon lighting up the rest of the town. And that aside, while Cody could clearly see the magic in his mind, it was far less pronounced. Unlike the guard at the door, he was cursed. But perhaps the strange deviation from the other villagers had kept his mind intact enough not to run headlong towards the dragon.

"My name's Tarson Grey," he continued, a chilling smile barely lit by the shadows of his house. "Are you two adventurers looking for a bounty?"

Cody opened his mouth to speak, the lie he had prepared cut short by Sariel's singing voice.

"Oh no Mr.Grey, we're warlocks, and we're lookin for the protagonist!"