3rd day of Ransalacue, 5571A Dromdal Manor, Swan Street

Talantier, The Divided Lands

Caffrine Esslos was a sixteen year-old half-elf who had never owned, let alone worn, any type of armor in her life. She carried a sling and a composite shortbow, neither one of which was in hand; only a dagger whose length was matched by the fangs of the giant canine, four times her size, that was bearing down on her.

She screamed and turned to run.

Then she heard the song.


The singer; her third cousin, Qidarchios Sunleaf. The language; elven. The lyrics; unknown, but undoubtedly from a battle hymn.

Written long, long before she was born.


When you turn to run, you find your wings

Find your strength as your leader sings

They say you're dead but here you are

Your quickness of limb will take you far

Look your enemy in his eye

His dying sound is your battlecry


Somehow, the words touched Caffrine's heart before they even reached her brain.


Caffrine whirled back around, launched herself directly at the death dog and tumbled, tucking and rolling into a tight ball directly underneath the creature. Both heads snapped at her, but the rogue was already beyond their reach. She came out on the hound's rear, by its left flank, dagger still in hand.


Illumenatta Duskwind moved into the space just vacated by her cousin; the moon elf's green eyes never leaving her enemy. Lumen dropped her sword- there was no time to resheathe it- and drew her own short composite bow, nocking an arrow and waiting for the perfect moment to release.

She'd never tell any of the others, but she'd been on the verge of fleeing herself when the tones of her cousin and fellow bard had strengthened her resolve.


Oliver Athraite's head snapped around at the sound of the samurai's unexpected shout.

"You two; get down there! Dark says they're under attack! A two-headed dog, larger than a horse!"

"Come on, Seb!" Oliver said, but the wizard's barbarian friend was already en route across the dining room, his muscular legs outdistancing his partner.

The samurai had already descended to the basement, heedless of the rope burns to his hands as he dropped more than climbed down. The samurai sprinted towards the death dog, drawing his katana on the way. He pulled up short about ten feet from the beast, however and tightened his grip on his weapon, giving himself a moment to let Dark's voice wash over him.

Takahashi could feel the bard's voice bolstering his courage, even if it did raise that embarrassing fact that he had not- and hopefully never would- have to share with his companions.

Saito Takahashi, a wood elf raised by humans, did not speak or understand elvish.


A thud announced to the samurai the landing of Sebastian Sanders coming up behind him. Drawing his greatsword from the strap behind his back, even the barbarian was not rushing into battle immediately, but seemed to be girding himself.

Grunts and exclamations from the shaft indicated that the transmuter Oliver Athraite, a virgin to rappelling, was still making his way down.


The death dog attacked.

It's twin necks seemed longer than the reddish-brown fur covering them like lions' manes might have indicated, because one head lunged at Saito and the other at Lumen, who was standing a good ten feet of the samurai. The slavering jaws barely missed Takahashi, spraying the samurai with froth, but the other closed in on the moon elf. A backwards leap saved Lumen at the last second, but the jaws clamped down on her bow and tore it out of her hand. The bard could only watch in frustration as the weapon was ground to splinters with a single bite.


Dark stopped singing. He knew the lingering aftereffects of his song would only last for about thirty seconds or so, but he figured he was needed in the thick of this fight. The bard took a step back, drew his longbow, nocked an arrow and fired, all in one smooth motion.

The arrow bounced harmlessly off the beast's flank.

Hmm. Dark grimaced. Maybe I should've stuck with the song.


Not seeing any sign of her, Saito thought for a moment that Caffrine had fled the fight in fear and was just beginning to choose in his head the exact swing he would use to slaughter the young thief when he caught up to her when he saw the half-elf at the death dog's rear, dagger in hand and clearly waiting for the best moment to strike.

I was mistaken, the samurai grudgingly admitted to himself. This child has both skill and bravery. As her companion in battle, I can show no less.

Even though he knew his odds of being able to close with this large beast to melee range within being bitten in half were slim, Saito Takahashi raised his katana high, filled the basement with his battlecry just as Dark had done earlier with his song, and lunged to the attack.

As he feared, one of the heads came around to intercept him. It's open mouth and fangs nearly filled the samurai's entire field of vision when he heard Illumenatta cry out a single musical note.

There was a brief silver flash, and the death dog was momentarily dazed.

And then it shrieked with pain as Saito's katana cut a deep slash in the creature's chest, right between the two heads. Blood spurted out and drenched the samurai, who ignored it.

Then the monster cried out a second time as Caffrine's dagger sank into the dog's backside at a critical spot. The creature spasmed and the rogue was barely able to pull the weapon out before she lost her grip on it.

Both heads whirled around to reach for the half-elf.

A tactical mistake the beast only realized at Sebastian leapt at the creature, greatsword raised and bellowing in rage. One head spun back around just in time for the barbarian to bury his blade deep inside its jaws, slicing its tongue and protruding an inch out the back of one of the death dog's two skulls before Seb yanked the blade clear.


Caffrine now stood firm, the echoes of Dark's song as clear in her head as if he were still singing, as the other head came at her.

The teenager tossed the dagger in the air, caught it by the blade as it came down and hurled it with deadly accuracy.

The small but keen blade buried itself in one of the head's eyes, bursting it like a grape.

Lumen, having retrieved her sword, came up and with all her might buried it deep in the death dog's right flank.

The monster roars and rage turned into whimpers. With a final spasm that sent froth and saliva spraying everywhere, it toppled over on its side and lay still just as Oliver Athraite, panting heavily, emerged into the basement.

The mage just stood there; his eyes wide with amazement as they took in the giant corpse lying in front of him.

"Sorry we did not save some for you, my friend," rumbled Sebastian with a sly smile, wiping the blood off his blade on the creature's fur as best he could. "If you are faster, next time you may get a piece of the battle."

Oliver tried to affect an indifferent demeanor as he caught his breath.

"I'll forgive you this time," he said.


The Light on the Darkness spread out around the body of the beast, examining it.

"He never mentioned they were that big," Dark said.

"Who?" asked Sebastian.

"My mentor," replied the elf. "A retired bard named Darren. He said that he and his former adventuring band, the Last Men Standing, had fought one of these things before, but…" he finished up by gesturing at the corpse and shaking his head in amazement.

"By the Halls of Valhalla…"

The others turned. Bjorn Sigmundson had just finished his rope descent and walked into the basement, staring in astonishment at the dead canine.

"Well, after this, " Caffrine said, her face screwed up in disgust as she extracted her dagger from one of their fallen foe's two faces, "the Swan Street Slicer should be a piece of cake."

Illumenatta abruptly whirled around, her attempt to clean the dog's blood off her own blade forgotten.

"We've got work to do!" she told the others.


About ten minutes had passed.

As it turned out, Vivi Knot was able to inform her rescuers that the stone dowel lying on the nearby table was actually a wand of stone shape; the means by which Auralana Dromdal had imprisoned her and her fellow captives in the wall, sealing them up completely as they died, one at a time, from starvation and neglect. Even more fortuitously, the half-elf had remembered the command word that Lady Dromdal had used to activate the wand.

Soon, the Lumen and Caffrine had Knot sitting in the lone chair by the table that Auralana had sat in while she conversed with her captives.

The male human was also alive, but only barely, and even that was only due to Bjorn using his last orison as a minor cure. Vivi identified him as Cole Chartsheim, the twenty-two year-old grandson of Auralana's first lover; an affair that had not ended well.

"We would talk; try to raise each other's spirits when Auralana wasn't around," the actress said, her eyes watering with tears. "All the others were already gone..."

She choked up, momentarily unable to continue as she watched Dark, Bjorn and Sebastian attend to the unconscious nobleman, currently propped up against the south wall.

"What did Lady Dromdal talk to you about when she came down here?" asked Lumen, laying a gentle hand on Vivi's bony shoulder.

"It was different for each of each, but it all boils down to the same thing," said Knot. "Auralana knows that the Dromdal family has been in decline for years and furthermore, that all the other noble families in Talantier know it as well. She has some sort of sick fixation on vengeance against them, or against anyone whose rising fame she thinks might eclipse her legend."

"But how did that old woman kidnap you in the first place?" asked Caffrine.

Vivi turned to regard her fellow half-elf.

"She didn't," Knot said, her face hard. "It was a halfling. He never spoke a word, but I heard Auralana call him Peck."

Without warning, the room was plunged into darkness, save only for the glowing coals in the firepit.

Vivi Knot cried out in alarm and surprise.

"It's all right," Lumen assured her, withdrawing a torch from her backpack. "Our magic is very rudimentary, I'm afraid, and not very long-lasting."

The moon elf knelt down and lit the torch from the coals, while glancing up at Caffrine, her expression troubled.

"This could get dicey," she told the rogue. "Even if Peck isn't in the house at the moment, I suspect Lady Dromdal can summon him quickly if she needs to."

Caffrine looked at her quizzically.

"Remember, she's a bard just like myself or Dark," she said, indicating her cousin who, along with the barbarian, were now approaching them, leaving Bjorn with Cole. "She could have a message spell on him, just like Dark did with Saito."

"That old crone?" the arriving Sebastian gestured dismissingly. "I could break her in half with mean look."

Lumen shook her head at the barbarian.

"Never bet on youth over experience. That woman learned how to draw power from music decades before you were even born. We all saw that at dinner, didn't we?"

Sanders was silent as he considered that but before he could speak, the voice of his friend Oliver Athraite cut through the semi-darkness.

"We have a problem over here, people. A big problem."


The mage, currently standing with Saito by the western wall, had lit his own torch for light. He and the samurai regarded the others grimly as they approached.

Neither said a word, nor even had to. The tableau before them told its own story.

Beside the overturned water barrel and piles of fly-infested feces lay a body.


It was a horrid sight. The corpse had been gnawed at by the death dog; most of the abdomen and legs were gone; the remaining flesh was mostly black and green from decay and bloat. The white remnants of the eyes were barely visible, sunk in their sockets. Hairy white areas near the mouth and nose were the site of growing fungus. The corpse's clothing was nearly gone from mold and decay, but the party could still tell that once they had been high-quality.


Trying to breathe through her mouth, Caffrine slowly knelt down. The body's left arm lay about two feet from the left shoulder. Looking up at her fellows for affirmation, she reached out and slowly removed a ring from the hand's fingers. She stood up, brushing it off as best she could.

It was a signet ring; the tiny image of the same lions that adorned the front porch could still be seen.

"I don't think," said Qidarchios Sunleaf after a very long pause, "that Lord Dromdal is coming back from his business trip."


"I don't understand," Caffrine said.

Looking at the young rogue, the others could see that the half-elf was close to tears.

"How could anyone do this?" she exclaimed, the sorrow and anger evident in her expression. "Even that old woman? Her husband brought that thing for her, remember?" she asked Lumen, her voice rising.

The bard, remembering Lord Dromdal's letter to Ceseli, nodded.

"I suspect that Lord Dromdal was just as much cowed by his wife as his daughter still is," Lumen said. "Auralana clearly has a fondness for all kinds of dogs. We don't have all the pieces of this yet, but it's certainly possible that he may have found out about Peck and confronted Lady Dromdal about it."

"I find it hard to believe," Saito Takahashi said, his teeth gritting in anger, "that Ceseli did not see fit to tell us that a two-headed monster was dwelling in her basement."

"Then you're not thinking it through."


The other members of the Light in the Darkness turned around as Bjorn Sigmundson came up to join them.

His expression was as fierce as they had ever seen it. The cleric jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the dead beast behind them.

"Look at the size of that thing, and then look at that shaft," he told them. "That monster could never fit into that elevating room. It was clearly put down in this basement when it was younger and smaller, possibly even as a puppy. If Ceseli didn't know about Peck or her mother's hand in the murders, she wouldn't have made any connection."

The cleric's hazel eyes shot over to meet the samurai's gaze as if daring him to argue.

"Bjorn's right," said Oliver. "We've all seen how intimidated Ceseli is by her mother. She hardly speaks when she's around."

"Yes," agreed Caffrine. "But to feed her own husband to that thing…"

In response, the priest of Balder stepped forward, knelt down and examined the body of Lord Dromdal.

His fingers traced a thin line, caked with dried blood, on the corpse's neck.

"Jugular vein," he said. "cut by a blade, not fangs."

There was a long pause as Bjorn stood up and rejoined them.

"So," Sebastian eventually broke the silence, crossing his arms across his chest, "what is next move?"

"That depends," Lumen said, her mind racing, "on whether Lady Dromdal knows we're down here or not."

"I'm sure she does," Bjorn replied. "I heard those howls up clear up on the second floor."

"Yes," said Dark, tenting his fingers.

The others looked at him curiously. In response, he gave them a grim smile.

"Of course, since we aren't already breaking down her bedroom door, she's come to the logical conclusion that that beast killed us all."

"Ahh," said Lumen, following along, but her own smile turned into a frown.

"She won't wait long to come down and check, though."

"Then we move faster," Saito said, starting to walk back towards the two freed prisoners, "and quietly."