Winding hills and sprawling beast farms fell away behind them as Rykker’s group pushed toward Edgeland.
They arrived at dawn, cloaked in the dust of the road and wearing tattered clothes that had seen better days.
After dropping their packs at the local inn, the cohort split.
They spent the daylight hours weaving through the market bustle, eyes peeled for anything—or anyone—that didn’t fit.
Nightfall brought them to their meeting place, the Gilded Goblet, where they traded hard-won intel over some Silversong ale.
The tavern was rather homely.
The interior featured dark wood paneling, exposed brick, and a low ceiling anchored by wood beams.
The chairs were mismatched but sturdy and the tables were arranged to encourage comfort, not crowding.
The space felt lived-in, with low lighting, soft shadows, and a quiet, relaxed pace that invited long conversations.
In the center was a large, crackling hearth that provided both heat and a focal point for the room.
The establishment was bustling and noisy, the ambiance friendly and cheerful which catered to a mix of regulars and locals.
As Rykker’s team drank their warm ale, Feroz Ogwi1, himself, the leader of the Obsidian Hand, slogged into the bar followed by three of his fellow Hands, their presence a physical weight that pressed against the tavern’s jovial atmosphere.
At first glance, Feroz was all wrong for a necromancer.
Most of his kind were tall and lanky, silhouettes of bone and shadow, but he was abnormally short and stocky, looking more like a rogue hobgoblin or wingless gargoyle.
That misconception died the moment he spoke.
His booming, loud-mouthed attitude was hard and chaotic, a jagged edge that sliced through the room.
It was nothing like the ethereal, melodic personality of the Fae folk; it was the sound of shifting tectonic plates.
His blue-black hair was short and spiky in front, glistening like wet obsidian, while a long, thick braid trailed down his back like a dormant serpent.
His ebony tunic was less a garment and more a second skin, stretched so tight over his chest and arms that every muscular contraction seemed ready to rip the fabric.
He wore a heavy, eclectic collection of gem-shard necklaces that draped like tribal armor, the raw stones humming with a faint, sickly light that contrasted with the raw minimalism of his bare feet and knee-length trousers.
He was the perfect model for a slightly fashionable caveman—if that caveman held the keys to the grave.
Feroz and his men grabbed a table closest to the door, claiming the territory with the entitlement of conquerors.
They demanded the barmaid come take their order before they had even fully sat, their voices drowning out the crackle of the hearth.
The tavern’s warmth vanished the moment Feroz and his lackeys darkened the doorway, replaced by a sudden, unnatural chill.
They brought with them the choking reek of ash and copper—the scent of a battlefield hours after the fire had gone out.
Conversation withered as they barked and bellowed at the table, their laughter sounding like stones grinding together in a mill.
Feroz’s Hands scraped thick, black mud off their boots using the edges of the table legs, the wet thuds hitting the floor like clods of graveyard soil.
They punctuated their crude jokes with deep, rumbling belches that shook their heavy frames and sent ripples through the half-empty mugs of nearby patrons.
The air grew thick and stagnant, charged with the latent energy of the dead they served.
One of the men reached out, his thick, calloused fingers snagging the passing server’s rump with a grip that left no room for a polite “no,” his eyes reflecting a cold, predatory hunger that had nothing to do with food.
***
After sating their hunger and thirst, Feroz and his men spilled out of the bar and moved with purpose toward the derelict shack in the rear.
While Feroz and his strongest henchman, Maldalan1, slipped inside, two of the “Hands” took up defensive positions outside the front door.
From the looming forest behind the town, five lycanthropic wolves of the Skinwalker Clan materialized.
They stalked silently across the field, vanishing into the shadows of the ramshackle house.
Two of the lycans joined the Hands at the front entrance, while a third circled to the back.
Finally, Alpha Conri and his confidant, Marrok, entered the decrepit building to join the meeting.
Watching the scene unfold from the darkness, Rykker felt his pulse spike.
“Gorem,” he whispered, gesturing toward the back exit.
“We move now.
Serana—keep watch.”
***
Inside, the alliance was sealed.
“It is done,” Alpha Conri announced, his voice as smooth as polished bone.
“In three days, my strongest elites will meet yours beyond the Moon Temple ridge.
When their mate bond ritual reaches its peak, we strike.
Leave nothing breathing.
We purge them completely, and the spoils—all of them—are ours for the taking.”
The sheer savagery of the plan hung in the air, prompting Rykker to immediately dispatch Gorem back to Lejla.
“Assemble twenty of the guild’s finest,” he ordered, the urgency stark.
“We intercept Conri’s Skinwalkers and Feroz’s Hands before they turn that temple into a graveyard.”
Three sun-scorched days later, as the late afternoon shadows began to stretch across the ridges of Edgeland, Rykker’s most seasoned veterans in the Arcanian Brotherhood finally arrived.
They moved with a silent, practiced unity toward the ritual site, their eyes scanning the rugged terrain for the perfect place to lay their snare.
On the horizon, a lone stage peeked through the heat haze, its awning draped in moonflowers that promised to glow with a pale, ghostly light as soon as the day faded.
Beneath the canopy of towering trees, the staff in charge of the bonding ceremony scrambled under the sharp, rhythmic commands of the planners, stringing lanterns that cast a flickering glow over the bleachers.
It promised to be a grand, hallowed event.
As the members of the Cerulean Moon Pack dutifully decorated the ritual site of the Moon Temple, the Brotherhood situated themselves into a protective shield of flesh and bone, ready to defend the site.
Several Arcanian Brotherhood members blended into the shadows of the rugged terrain, turning the natural landscape into a strategic vantage point against the approaching Skinwalker and the Obsidian Hand clans.
Others fanned out across the fertile soil, utilizing the dense brush and high ridges for concealment.
They carefully placed magical wards and physical restraints along the narrow paths leading to the bleachers, ensuring that any advance by Feroz’s or Alpha Conri’s forces would be funneled toward the center of the clearing.
Rykker, Gorem, and a few members of the Brotherhood took up positions behind the heavy timber of the bleachers and within the canopy of the towering trees nearest the stage.
They remained motionless, their presence masked by the flickering glow of the lanterns and the scent of the blooming moonflowers.
From their elevated vantage points, the Arcanian strategists established overlapping fields of observation to signal the enemy’s approach.
Respecting the legendary speed of the Skinwalkers and the raw power of the Obsidian Hand, they prioritized containment over direct confrontation.
To do so, they laid a network of magical snares and barriers at the treeline, designed to spring the moment the enemy reached the ridge.
Their goal was simple: neutralize the invaders’ mobility and bind them before they could disrupt the hallowed event at the lantern-lit stage.
As the sun dipped below the horizon and moonflowers began to emit a ghostly glow, the veterans checked their gear for the final time.
The sharp bark of commands soon faded into a tense, heavy silence.
Hidden within the brush, the Brotherhood became a silent extension of the treeline itself, poised to foil the coming assault.
***
Hours past sundown, the hillside bristled with hushed voices and the cold glint of steel.
Roughly fifty Skinwalkers, their silhouettes shifting and warping in the darkness, crept toward the clearing alongside dozens of Obsidian Hand mercenaries.
In the heart of the clearing, the couple onstage began to recite their sacred vows.
The Cerulean Moon Pack attendees watched in silence, while the golden flicker of stage lanterns cast jagged, dancing shadows against the trees where the enemy lurked.
Feroz Ogwi crouched at the forest’s edge, his staff—his most prized possession—resting at his side.
The weapon was far more than a tool; it was a sentient relic, containing an evil spirit, that hungered for souls to power his forbidden death magic.
Its shaft was carved from the polished, fossilized spine of an ancient dragon, and its crown held a massive beast crystal harvested from a legendary Tarrasque1.
Feroz raised his staff, ready to give the signal for the attack.
The massacre was heartbeats away—until the brush exploded.
More than two dozen Arcadian Brotherhood warriors charged from their hiding places, their sudden intervention shattering the ambush before the first drop of blood could hit the grass.
A sudden, cold silence fell over the attendees at the bonding ceremony, replaced immediately by the guests’ frantic, panicked movements.
Unknown to them, a violent, unseen war was unfolding in the shadows.
As the four full moons shined bright, the midnight sky over the Moon Temple ritual site turned the color of a bruised lung; dark purple and sickly green.
Multiple explosions of various elements saturated the air, the ridges and treelines lit up and trembled as the two sides clashed.
The Skinwalkers shifted into their beast forms and scampered towards members of the Cerulean Moon Pack, eager to go toe to toe with them.
Feroz’s Hands wielded their staffs, chanting curses and summoning corpses of creatures and the bones of defeated men from earlier battles.
Moments later, the night sky erupted.
Blinding streaks of lightning and molten fire tore through the darkness, illuminating the chaos below.
The air grew thick with remnants of elemental magic and the ashes of burnt trees and grasses.
The visceral shrieks and desperate, guttural groans of dying men echoed through the night.
It was a massacre, but not the one the Skinwalkers were hoping for.
Instead of the slaughter of the Cerulean Moon Pack, it was the decimation of Skinwalkers and Obsidian Hands.
Fair-Rose Oh-gweetar-askmall-da-lan