In the woods south of the capital, a man born of magic wakes after a long sleep to experience his first taste of tragedy. Broken by the loss of one who cared for him, he becomes a monster he's never transformed into before. When he wakes up, a small...
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Silas grappled with the creature, hands on shoulders and pushing. He'd fully transformed at this point. Every step he took shook the ground. The creature's tar tried to slide through his armor, but it dribbled out, rejected as soon as it found a hole.
Feri raced from behind, bounded up Silas's back, and threw darts at the creature before descending to slash at its throat. Its head tilted back. The tar-like tendons started growing back and then—stopped. Feri landed with a soft skid behind the creature. She turned, ready to attack. Sefu shot one of his nonmagic arrows. It found purchase in the creature's shoulder, forcing it, for the first time, to buckle forward. Silas looked down at it as it sunk to what would be knees on a bipedal creature. Then it lost its strength against Silas. Silas repositioned himself, punched one hand through its chest and gripped the shoulder he still held. Finding the right leverage, he picked it up and threw it over his head to smash it down into the ground. The impact jolted it so hard, blood and ooze glopped up out of its mouth, accompanied by the crunching of ribs. It gasped and then let out a wheezing breath. Silas hovered over it, not yet ready to relax. It lay motionless for one breath, two... Feri crept beside Silas on all fours and looked down at it.
"Is it—dead?" she asked, covered in bruises, scrapes, and tar residue.
Sefu marched toward them. Silas glanced at him gazing at it and then Sefu's two-colored eyes fell closed. "I do not sense its life any longer."
Feri let out a tiny cry of relief and fell back. She covered her face with her hands. "That was awful!" she wailed, voice cracking, so it sounded like she wasn't wearing Noarwin's voice-altering necklace.
Silas eased down beside Feri, letting go of his creature's form, and stroked her hair. "Thank you, Feri. Sir Sefu." He looked up at Sefu standing over them. "That would have been impossible without either of you."
Feri turned into Silas's side. He frowned at her shaking and pulled her into his arms. They didn't have much time to recover though, before the door their comrades had raced through burst open.
"Help!" Asinis cried. He ran toward the others poised in alarm as Dar ran in after him. Sefu whirled around, and Silas and Feri stood.
"What's happened?" Feri gasped when they saw Noarwin covered in blood and tar. One of his hands looked infected with black, yellow, purple, and green discoloration. It lay fixed in a claw and twitched as he clenched his jaw and groaned.
"Lay him down!" Sefu shouted. "Stag. Help me." Silas hurried to Noarwin's other side as Dar laid him down. Silas hadn't thought Dar could cry, but tears raced down his cheeks. Feri ran to Dar and held one of his fingers. Asinis, shoulders sagged, stared down.
"H-he ripped out her heart. Her heart was the manifest. It. It pierced him," Asinis said.
"He has two wounds to the chest also," Sefu said tearing his shirt open. "Stag, if you could—"
