Fall of the Redcloaks

Faithful writhed on the ground, white hot pain burning behind her eyes. The Redcloaks, her friends and teammates, watched in dismay. Faithful was just another Redcloak who had to go through this nightmare. The first to go was Stead, leaving everyone confused and frightened. Then it had happened to more Redcloaks until there were only a handful left. They had all tried to fight it as it overcame them, since they all knew what happened at the end. Everyone knew that the Redcloaks' bond with the Bile had eventually made them merge with their spirit animals. What they didn't know was that now, Erdas seemed to be re-thinking. It was tearing the animals apart from the people. Faithful had seen it happen to many of her friends. They had all collapsed, letting out shrieks of pain as light flashed from them. Then when the harsh light had dissipated, it left the Redcloak's old spirit animal standing there, except that somehow along the way it had turned insane. The Redcloak was often laid out on the ground, dead.
Faithful's spirit animal had been a cottonmouth snake, and she shivered at the thought of it attacking her fellow Redcloaks. She screamed as light poured out of her body with a blinding flash, and then everything went dark.