Ruby never imagined leaving the town like this. What she had in her head was the butcher to the soap maker waving her on her journey as she left on an adventure to... to... Well, the fact she would be on an adventure was good enough. However, she was instead forced out of the city like a host aggressively asking her to leave over something that escalated pointlessly.

It was a freezing cold night as Ruby trudged through the forest. A great push of wind ran through her body with a chill every couple of steps she took. She wrapped her cloak around her body to negate the cold, but cracks in the armor and cloth would smuggle through pockets of air to her skin. This was not the most ideal time to be a fugitive.

It is also not a good sign when snow starts to fall from the sky. The white crystal clusters hurried through the wind as they tried to meet their destination with the ground. It was no more fascinating to Ruby as the bustling streets of market square, a place where the flow of carridges, and horses seemed to work together in some weird form of harmony. However, it was twice as terrifying.

Winter was coming. The deadly cold, the hounding wolves, and relenting snow made for a recipe of near certain death. It is a season of bleak reminders of the mortality of the races of the land.

As she march further into the forest her stomach began to ache with the calling for food. "Again?" She pondered aloud.

She reached into her bag, and pulled out a pound of yak meat and took a bite out of it. She chewed and munched on the cooked food to attempt to her tame her stomach. She took a few more bites were into it, but her stomach was no less pleased than when she began to feed. In fact if anything, it was getting stronger, more aggressive. This feeling she could only describe as hunger, or perhaps as a sickness disguising itself as hunger was knawing at her. Not entirely out of the question based on her experience with very ill prepared cheese one late evening.

"Urgg... That did nothing," Ruby moaned as she held her stomach, "I hope I'm not coming down with something."

She took a sip from her water sack to wash down her meal. She swished it around in her mouth. It was fine, she guessed, but something about it was... off. In fact, her whole selection of food and drink was off. The taste was there, but dulled for some reason, bland.

"Of all the times to get sick," Ruby mumbled to herself, bitterly staring at her water sack.

Ruby put her hand to her head. It seemed to be the tell tale signs of a fever, warm and sweaty. With a headache as well, this was just perfect for her to get out her in the wilderness. Maybe it would be besst to lay down for a minute, it might do something for this headache.

The feeling was getting stronger. Both the "hunger's", and the headache's pain was becoming increasingly hard to ignore. Ruby held her head to no avail as her vision began to darken and blur as the things in her line of sight began to wobble. She felt herself falling sideways into the snow, then pure blackness.

When her vision came back, she found herself on the ground not to far away from where she passed out. As she began to get up she notice that her hunger was gone. No, no... not just that, something's off. She felt around the snow, grass and dirt, and yet it was as if there was nothing their, though her eyes could see her hand touching them.

She shoved her upper body off the ground with a jolt of fear, and looked around. The area looked the same, but somehow bleaker. Everything was in a washed out color of it's former tone.

"What the hell?" She mouthed at the world around her.

"Hello dear." A voice greeted her.

Ruby spun around to meet the look of a smiling lady in a long blue dress with details similar to vines curling around the edges. Her smile revealed fangs, and Ruby jumped back in fear. It was Ite, in her queenly masquerade without a hint of battle damage on her.

"Wait... wait. No no no no," Ruby muttered to herself, "y-you're dead! I watched you die at the keep by you're own men!"

"Well, you're not wrong," She told her. "You chopped off my leg, and my guard executed me. Rather gruesomely I might add."

"Then how are you here?"

The Queen smirked and made her way to the terrified dwarf, "because whether or not the gods are merciful enough for a life after our dangerous world, we live on in things like memories, and tales that are passed down for generations."

"I don't understand..."

"You will in time." She told the dwarf. "Just let it be known I've passed something on to you. Good bye."

Ruby clenched her fist in frustration, "That doesn't answer anyth- AAAAHHH!"

The vampire queen burst into the pieces she was in when Ruby left her, spread across the floor. As if they were freshly cut, the wounds leaked out her blood before rotting into a withered corpse.

Suddenly a sense came to her. Her mouth oozed with a taste unfamiliar with her. It was that of something salty, and metallic. She could actually feel it drip down her mouth down to her neck. She wiped a bit of it off of her chin, and was shaken to fine what it was. Blood.

A loud abrasive roar echoed across the sky. Ruby covered her ears from the boom, and looked to the sky. That might of been the worse thing for her to do. For what she saw was that of nightmares.

It was a figure of a Creature, or at least she thought it was, that covered the sky in its vast presence. The Creature loomed over her, the trees, hills, the mountains, and even the clouds as it roared out across the land. The longer Ruby stared at it, the harder the details were to make out. Did it have several arms, or are those legs? Does is have twenty eyes, or just one? Did she just see a tentacle, or its beard? It was as if with each second, every blink of her eyes, Ruby would see the figure of The Creature change from one creepy figure to another.

The Creature looked down at Ruby, and she froze in fear. She now knew what an insect about to be terrorized by a child felt like. Small, insignificant, and a feeling of a crushing weight the inevitablity brings. The figure appeared to be descending down on her, and entrap her. She began to run away from the mass of undefinable traits when the surrounding area began to darken in a black mist, and red eyes popped up in front of her, staring.

Ruby screamed as the thing enclosed around her. The thought of whatever that thing crushing her was too much for her to bear.

When she opened her eyes she was staring at the parting clouds to reveal a white moon illuminating the sky. The Creature was gone, the darkness surrounding her was no more, and all of the color had returned to her.

Getting her bearings straight she noticed she was not far from where she passed out. Did she dreamt all of that from her illness? Well, she couldn't have. She remembered waking up after her odd pain, which she no longer felt. Wait, no longer felt?

Ruby felt her head, and her stomach. Her stomach was as if she had a full meal from a recent dining, and her head seemed normal. After a few more moments of feeling over her body, she felt something... wet. It was something fresh, and warm. Looking at her hand it was what she feared. Blood.

At her feet she saw a small brown rabbit laying on the ground. Ruby knelt down to her knees and inspected it. It was mostly unharmed, except for two puncture wounds on it's small stubby neck.

"No," Ruby whimpered not wanting to admit it. It couldn't have been her, she wasn't bitten by that manipulative guard killer. Right?

Ruby proceeded to open her mouth, and take off one of her gauntlets, so she could make sure her teeth were that off the mighty dwarves, or that of a back stabbing vampire. She felt around her teeth with her index finger, and thumb as how she would hold a pebble. There was the flatness of the dull incisor of the front, and her ridged molars at the back. Finally she made her way and wrapped her fingers around her canine. Pushing up the thumb, she felt the poke of the fang like tooth. It seemed thin like a pin, and-

"Ow..." Ruby reflectively pulled down her hand. Looking down at the now bleeding thumb, and her blooded finger from the stained tooth. The female dwarf began to weep "Oh, Mishar Foggydawned. Why have I been forsaken?"

Mishar Foggydawned is the dwarven deity of fate, mostly revered in the regions of The Shade of Pocketing. As the myth goes, Mishar is the distributor of all fate to the masses, be it good or bad. His followers believed it was to maintain some kind of greater good. Ruby, however, does not see how being turned into a vampire, which in the mythic age were to punish heritics, was for the greater good. She was an upstanding citizen. Selling her talents to those that needed protection on the dangerous roads, giving alternative forms of payment to those without coin, looked after the odd young one... Hell, She paid taxes! The only thing she could think of that was deserving of a punishment was the events leading up to here. Namely that damn spider, and her now deceased short term friend.

Laughter started to surround her. She looked up with her dampened face and looked around. The laughter quelled as she did.

"Who's there?" Ruby called out.

Among the trees obscuring her vision like a crowded street, the only sound that was heard was that of rustling branches in the wind. It was not unheard of for adventurers to be ambushed on the roads and in the wilderness between towns. Be it goblins, bandits, or those bloody Elves, many an adventurer would meet their untimely demise by this method. The thought dawned on Ruby, as no doubt that there was a chance she was followed by someone of the previous town.

She drew her sword again and shouted at the wilderness, with her tears still rolling down her face. "If you have come to end me, at least have the GAUL to face me! Show yourselves, cowards!"

The laughter returned, this time louder and seemingly closer. Listening in as she held her sword she recognized it as a distinct type. If she could describe it, it would be that of a bosaw ripping through a tree. No... this was cackling laughter, and as those laughing revealed themselves, she remembered why the races feared the night so.

Red eyes slowly moved towards her as the moonlight shined down on the creatures. They were that of short humanoid abominations to the walks of life that the races feared the most. It was as if the the worst part of disturbing bodily combinations were combined and mix matched to give their victims one hell of a thing to remember. The group included: one with wings on a warty and deceased body of pus, another was eyeless and skinless, exposing its bones and muscles that include a trunk that hung from its face like those murderous elephants, and one that had an external rib cage ripping from its waxy skin with tall antennae on its head. All of them cackling like crazed killers.

These were the bogeymen, creatures of the night that pray on lonely travelers. Lonely travelers, like our vampire dwarf.

Ruby just stood their as the horrors of the night zoned in on her, only stepping back in small intervuls in her shock. Bogeymen to her was a tale parents tell their kids to keep them from wandering out on their own at night. Now, that mere tale has now been proven to be fact.

She snapped out of her realization as one of them lunged at her, just dodging its long bone claws from its rotten flesh. She quickly took that moment to slash at the abomination. It hissed as her blade slid across its shoulder, and thew it off balance. The other creatures continue to march forward.

Ruby then ran into the forest as the claw boned bogeyman tried to find its footing. She was out numbered, and near to no chance of survival. Her best bet was to run until she either lasted the night, or got into a house.

From behind her she heard one of them, probably their leader, howl and screech into the darkness. "Get that worthless dwarf!" She could have sworn it hacked up.

The bogeymen followed her swiftly, their cackling not letting up. As Ruby whirled past dozens of trees, she saw the bogeymen keeping up to her. If not right next to her, just barely behind her. It was almost as if every time she looked over somewhere their was a bogeyman chasing her.

As Ruby past an oak, one appeared right in front of her. She tried to stop and get into a battle stance, but instead ended up running straight at the thing at that was flying in the air towards her. They collided and were forced to the ground. Ruby's sword flew out of her hand three feet behind her freaky flier.

"HA!HA! Got you friend killer!" It cackled while lying back flat onto the ground like Ruby.

Ruby coughed and began to roll over, "urg, you things really can talk?"

The bogeyman jumped on Ruby's torso as it began to answer, "Of course we can? What? Did a pick axe fall on you at birth?"

"Leave me alone!" Ruby screamed at her attacker as she grabbed whatever skin she could attach her hand to, and conjured her flamemancer magic.

The creature screamed and screeched in pain as it tried to get away from her grip. Clawing and biting in vain to make her let go, its wings started to catch fire, and then spread to the rest of its body. Ruby through the screaming mess at a tree, which it then proceeded to burst into ash.

Wait where'd it go? She thought as she stared for a moment at where that winged monster landed. All that was left was a gray dust that was eroding from the wind near the tree's roots. What were these things?

As she picked herself off the ground, the other bogeymen had made their way to her. Each throwing their own insult at her as they cackled during their approach.

"What were you expecting, hero?" One seemed to yell, but Ruby could here it as if she was thinking it.

"Heh heh Yeah!" Another bellowed. "Glory?"

More joined in,"Oh please, you're just a weak shopkeeper having your head in the clouds."

"Couldn't even face a spider!"

"We know, that you know you're dead."

That last one started to turn into chant they said as they approached the dwarf. Those words cut harder than any sword would. And as far as Ruby knew, they were right. But, she was damned, if she's just going to give into the night like this. That is not the way of a dwarf, nevermind an adventurer.

"Oh yeah," Ruby yelled back at them as fire flew from her fingertips again, and her fangs began to be shown in a snarl like look on her face. "Let's just find out shall we?"

Ruby, finally just sick of this night, no this whole damn day, unleashed gizers of fire from her hands. The bogeymen moved out the way as the ground surrounding, and beneath them was set a blaze. The flames made a quick and easy path towards Ruby's sword, for now.

Ruby dashed across to her sword in between the rising flames, and grabbed her grounded sword. Clutching it firmly in her hands, she turned to the monsters behind the walls of flame. Most where trapped behind the flames, looking for a way to get around them. Others, however, did the classical headstrong move jumping through the fire and the flames.

It clung and wrapped around whatever skin they had as they broke through. The closest one that jumped through with three spiral horns was soon slashed in half at the might of Ruby's sword as if the beast was a plump helmet being chopped in the air. His parts flew back behind her in an arc before thudding to the ground, and puffed into ash.

Its friends had a slightly better idea. The landed a feet in front of her before lashing their arms about at her in a chaotic frenzy of claws, flames, and the odd elbow. In their act of recklessness, Ruby had a hard time predicting where the blows would land. One managed to set a bit of her beloved scarf a blaze. Ruby promptly kicked that no good fiend back through the flame wall as she patted out the flame in a panick.

The fiend's partner was the now vessel of which Ruby vented her frustration at with a clean decapitation. She looked down at her scarf which now was slightly darkened at its blue flamed tails, and then at the chaos around her. The fire was spreading faster and faster throughout the forest. Maybe fighting around fire in a highly flammable area wasn't the best idea, especially when wearing things that might make such a strategy backfire.

Ruby left to where the walls ended, the bogeymen following to meet her there. With in her anger she immediately ran in and stabbed the first one she saw in the chest. A few squeals, and whines from it, and then it was vaporized.

As she whipped around to face the other horrors, a small one with its external ribs and a damned trunk jumped and latched on to the back of her head. It screeched, and wrapped that damn trunk around her neck as it tried to hold on, and strangle her. Ruby clawed at the trunk monkey on her head, and swung her sword about as she tried to desperately get it off. Her breaths grew shorter, and shorter as the trunk constricted and constricted.

In an act of fear, and anger, she swung her head and bashed the sod into the trunk of a tree. The trunk of the monster loosened, and was soon cut off. With a few huffs to catch her breath, she flung the now trunk-less creature at the others. As it hit the group, and became dust, ruby rushed at the crowded monstrosities.

"Why? Don't? You? Just? All leave?!" She screamed enunciating each word as she cut them down beast by beast.

One after another each one jumped, snarled, or did whatever animalistic thing towards her. Each time being chopped, or stabbed in the blender that was Ruby's fury of strikes. With every deceased abomination, the dust began to rise and cloud the area. Soon, Ruby was slashing at the dust wildly and the bogeymen just seemed to a appear at the end of her blade.

Eventually, the cackling ceased, and the dust clouds cleared. From the clearing kicked up ash, Ruby could make out hint of cracks of light from the trees. Dawn was awakening, and the morning would soon be upon the land.

Ruby took in a few deep breaths as she closed her eyes. She had just spent the whole night in one big nightmare. A nightmare of revelations of the self, terrors of the dark, and fear for ones own life. Eventful, may just be an understatement for finding out for some gods known reason you're now a vampire, and realizing that what seemed to be a children story is now solid fact. However, she must push onward, she's come this far, and there was no sense in giving up now. She'll have to get used to being a night creature that sucks the blood from the living.

She opened her eyes again, and began to walk forward. Hopefully, her little adventure last night might have gotten her closer to a town on her way. At the moment, she needed a good wash in a river.