Alastair was driven from sleep by a large bang, he shot up to his feet and looked around the room in alarm whereupon his eyes came across Ash looking very guilty behind an upturned chair.

  ‘Sorry Alastair, I was practicing with the storage’

  ‘You were practicing all night! did you get any sleep?’ he sighed shoulders slumping

  ‘Are you kidding, I can see in the dark, I can glide and have a magical storage portal’ he beamed ‘I have no idea how you managed to sleep!’

  ‘You didn’t have to keep jumping and gliding all the way back from the temple’

  ‘I absolutely did’ Ash smiled ‘I need to get a handle on my new powers’

  ‘I in a sense agree but there are times and places to exercise your abilities’ Alastair sighed

  ‘Yes, at every given opportunity, your just upset that you stood in that puddle on the way back last night’

  ‘The state of my footwear has nothing to do with it, I can appreciate you are excited about magic as you came from a magicless world’ he said ‘How is this a conversation I’m having?, but you need to keep a low…, lower profile especially with the friends you’ve made of the keep guard’

  ‘Right, ok I get it.’ He resigned ‘So how do we practice?’

  ‘For one, not in the early hours when people are trying to sleep’ he cast a look over at Ash who looked down at the chair bringing it back to its feet sheepishly.

  ‘Second, I have been asked to go back to the goblin ruin’ Alastair said

  ‘What, why?, it’s a death trap’ Ash protested

  ‘Because it is my duty to safeguard the lands and its people, I have been instructed by Lord Renwick to return and rid the ruin of the goblin filth that took my comrades and I’

  ‘Well I’ll obviously come and help’ said Ash

  Alastair looked up gloomily.

  ‘You can’t come along’

  ‘That doesn’t make any sense’ gasped Ash

  ‘It’s ok, we were ambushed last time and we were unprepared, I’ll be fine this time around’

  ‘And what happens when you are hanging by your ankle surrounded by little green cannibals?’

  ‘Technically they aren’t cannibals’ Ash said matter of factly

  ‘Aside from the point, I had a little longer in that kitchen that you and I’m sure they were eating any meat they could get their hands on’

  ‘I’ll let you know when I come back’ Alastair said ‘please don’t fight me on this’

  Ash went to speak but stayed a moment his mouth agape when his shoulders slumped.

  ‘When do you leave?’ Ash asked

  ‘The day after next, I managed to argue for some time to prepare’

  ‘What do you need to get?’

  ‘Theres a few things, but really I wanted a day to make sure you are prepared’ said Alastair

  ‘Me?’ said Ash credulously

  ‘Yes, I know we have briefly sparred and you had a minor bout downstairs but you aren’t always going to be up against humans’ Alastair said ‘Today we take to the forest and hunt monsters’

  Ash’s eyes lit up with delight and his mouth agape.

  A few hours later the pair made their way into the nearby forest, Alastair explaining the difference in fighting Men and monsters, that people fight with hesitation and forethought whereas monsters are instinctual and require honing your instincts in turn and learning to base your reactions on their movements

  They came across a clearing where a familiar looking white ball of fur was hopping merrily along a glade, Ash’s eyebrows furled and he turned and started marching towards the beast.

  ‘Time for round two’ Ash said

  The rabbit hearing this declaration turned its head towards Ash and bolted into the grass between them, the blades swaying this way and that as the rabbit coursed its way through.

  It leapt from its hiding place and as met with the edge of an old sword drawn across its flank, the animal howled and spun in the air limb flailing. It landed with a thud, It howled a loud ear piercing screech as it resumed its desperate charge at its prey, leaping once more Ash brought his sword down on the rabbit, driving it down into the dirt, its body and head bouncing back up but its neck was pinned down by the weapon.

  The rabbit did not move, it lay there motionless as Ash looked into its unblinking red eye, he brought his arm across his nose and inhaled, he breathed out and hummed a victory fanfare from his favourite rpg game.

  He turned looking happy with himself at Alastair who in turn looked rather perplexed.

  ‘Why are you killing rabbits?’ Asked Alastair

  ‘Revenge’ Declared Ash

  ‘Ok, but shall we go and find some monsters?’

  ‘Is this not a monster?, It attacked me?’

  ‘Yes and no, it is technically a monster but we usually let children or old ladies take care of them’ Alastair smiled

  ‘Oh’ said Ash suddenly deflated

  ‘Don’t worry it was a fine kill and will make for a very nice lunch’ Alastair tried to reassure him.

  The Lycianthes padded along its trail sniffing at the odd scent left on a bush or tree, its wolf like body snaking its way through the foliage. Its silken fur glistening in the sunlight, dull grey entwined with green lichen-stained fur, the tangle of vines dangling down from its back spattered with red flowers and thorns.

  It was ambling along when a new scent met its keen olfactory sense, the smell filling its nose and inviting for inspection. It sniffed along the floor and followed the trail looking up every so often for the slightest sound, its ear pricked up flitting backwards and forwards.

  It proceeded with caution, careful not to misstep alerting any potential prey or worse, any competition. It moved gently into a bush, its vines blending in until all you could see was two golden donuts peering from between leaves.

  Its eyes focused in on a deer drinking from a nearby stream, its head lowered down to allow it to drink ever so cautiously from the water.

  The wolves tongue hung down as it let out an excited pant which startled the deer into raising its head, the wolves mouth shut immediately and the preys head turned its ears twitching like its life depended on it, which it very much did.

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  It moved through the bushes getting as close as it could to its meal, the vines on its back ready to ensnare its folly, thorns nice and sharp to grip with. It leant down into position crouched as low as possible before it burst into action, it leapt from its hiding place, its teeth sinking into the deers hindquarters, its vines flicking out and wrapping onto the beast, thorns piercing its hide and holding the wolf in place.

  The deer let out a pained yell and tried to bound away but it had become entangled in the painful restraints, it was brought to the floor.

  At once the wolf released its grip and made for the deers throat, lunging with bloodthirsty murderous intent, the deer rolled quickly and caught the wolf with a freed leg, hampered by the injury it wasn’t as effective as it should have been.

  The wolf hit the floor rolling and making it to its feet, faced the deer growling, the vines on its back raised up and outwards like a peacock ready for another round.

  The deer got to its feet stumbling as it did, it looked down at the wolf raised its head and threw it down in anger, shards of bone from its antlers flew forward with deadly precision, thudding into the ground and peppering the wolf which howled in pain.

  It raised a paw to its snout and rubbed out one of the bony protrusions and when it looked back up the deer had gone. It limped over to the area it had been and sniffed around trying to make sense of where the prey had fled to, all it could smell was its own blood, trickling down its nose and into its throat.

  It made its way to the water and swished its snout in the cool stream, lapping up the clear fluid with its rough purple tongue.

  A crack brought the wolf to attention, it whirred around and bared its teeth eyes dancing back and forth looking for this interloper.

  A thin mist like substance began to meld through the trees, rolling along the ground and enveloping the clearing, the wolf backed up until its paw hit the water and it stood still.

  The fog swept past the creature flowing upwards and around until it could barely make out the sunlight through the tree tops.

  A branch above lurched and drew it attention, a tension passed through its body like a wave its maw revealing its fangs.

  From nowhere the Lycanthes was struck full in the face knocking it back into the water, by the time it got back to its senses whatever had hit him had disappeared, no footsteps, no noise, just a faint scent caught on the wind.

  Again the great canine was struck on the back end, its leg giving out behind it splashing down into the water. It dragged itself onto the bank and looked around, its vines stretched out rigidly like the seeds on a dandelion. Something grazed by and the vine latched on, followed by its surrounding brethren bringing the attacker to the ground with an almighty crash.

  The air left Ash’s lungs as he hit the ground, he was brought round from his stupor by the local growling and the growing tightness around his ankle.

  The wolf in one motion pulled him forward with the vines and leapt upon him, its claws glistening and its mouth coated in deer blood.

  It landed with a sick wet sound of flesh being punctured the growling fading away.

  Alastair ran into the clearing as the fog was lowering, ‘Ash, are you ok?’ he called.

  He came to a stop as a figure emerged from the mist, rising up into the shape of a cowl the remaining smoke was drawn back into the cloak surrounding him.

  The body of the wolf lay on the floor the sword sticking up and out through the back of its neck, Ash reached down and pulled on the sword with one hand but it didn’t move.

  ‘Dammit that would have looked so cool’ he whined

  He held the hilt sword with both hands and with his foot on the corpse he pulled, the sword slowly sliding out the metal scraping along the teeth.

  ‘Did it at least look cool?’ Ash called out

  ‘I’m not sure what the cold has to do with it but it looked very heroic’ responded Alastair

  Ash fist pumped in celebration.

  ‘Right up until you couldn’t pull the sword out’ Alastair smiled

  Ash slowly lowered his hand in his head sunk

  ‘You should be more cautious, what if there had been a second one?’ said Alastair

  ‘I thought that’s what you were here for?’

  ‘Yes but I won’t always be here, remember’ scolded Alastair

  Ash’s shoulders slumped a black circle appeared at knee height and he dropped his sword into it silently.

  ‘The thing you did with the smoke was, cool though’ Alastair offered

  Ash looked up brightly his smile beaming ‘I know right, I was like whoosh, bang, smack Aghhh’

  Ash looked down at the sorry creature ‘Sorry fella’ he said ‘What should we do with it?’

  Alastair looked down at it and said ‘We could skin it, take the meat and the teeth, it might sell well back in town but we don’t have the time’

  ‘Seems a waste’ said Ash, he reached down and ruffled the head of the wolf.

  A screen appeared

  You have defeated Lycanthes.

  Would you like to loot Lycanthes?

  Yes/No

  Ash mentally clicked yes and the animal suddenly began to crumble to a fine grey dust.

  ‘Did you just do that?’ said Alastair

  ‘It was either me or a big purple guy with a shiny gauntlet’ Ash said

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think I looted it’ Ash said

  Checking his inventory there indeed was some new inventory

  Wolf pelt – common

  Wolf meat – common

  Thorny vines – common.

  ‘it looks like I can just look monsters and it puts it in my inventory’ chuckled Ash

  ‘Well that is going no make things easier, that gives us more time to move on and find another monster’ said Alastair patting Ash on the back and lead the way back through the dense brush.