Rosas fell.

For a long time, King Magnifico ruled over the utopia of the Kingdom of Rosas, people were happy under his rule, and people from all over the world came to Rosas to live under his protection, but everything changed when a young girl, a born and raised in Rosas, decided that no more, and started a revolution.

Now, much context is needed to understand how the greatest kingdom in the Mediterranean fell in two days and why.

It all started when a young boy, born in a humble village somewhere in western Europe, saw his entire home razed to the ground by raiders and marauders. Such tragedy pushed him to study magic worldwide, and once he mastered magic, he sought out an inhabited island on the Mediterranean and built a kingdom there. He took the name of King Magnifico, and the Kingdom became the Kingdom of Rosas. Rosas was a pretty open nation, everyone was welcomed into the kingdom, the king did not tax people, there was no banditry, and no one dared to attack the kingdom in fear of the king's magic. Supported by the love of his life, Queen Amaya, Magnifico developed a simple system for citizenship. Once a citizen of Rosas becomes eighteen years old, or a new prospective citizen reaches the dock of the capital, they are offered the chance to give Magnfico their deepest wish, making them forget it. Magnifico will protect the wishes, and once a month, or maybe a bit more, Magnifico will fulfill one of the wishes under his care. And that was mostly it. There were other rules in place, like the one that said that magic was forbidden except for Magnifico and his apprentices, but to be honest, everyone was happy in the kingdom. The king did not put taxes on them, there was food, people lived long happy lives, and once a month, you had the chance to see your wish fulfilled, even if you don't remember it. All in all, it was one hell of a deal, especially taking into consideration how the rest of the world was still living in the medieval ages, and well, life conditions between a peasant of Rosas and a peasant of any other of the surrounding countries was like day and night. Proud of his achievements, perhaps to the point of narcissism, Magnifico continued to rule for decades to come, until a young girl suddenly had other ideas.

Asha was a teenager, seventeen years old, born and raised in Rosas, who doubled down as a tour guide for the newcomers and aspired to be one of Magnifico's apprentices to fulfill the wish of his grandfather, who was eighty years old. Asha had the advantage that King Magnifico knew her father, and due to that connection, the king gave her the chance to become his apprentice. Sadly, Asha was not prepared to be the apprentice of the king, sure, she had all the good intentions in the world, but she did not understand the consequences of her actions, and Magnifico reacted poorly to the teenager's words. Throwing a tantrum, Asha made a wish upon a star, and the sky answered.

One bright star fell upon Asha, carrying wish-granting magic, and with the personality of a helpful child. Armed with the star, Asha started a revolution. Two days later, Asha won, and that's when the downfall of Rosas began.

Asha, now the fairy godmother, although her more known and infamous name was the Wishmistress, used a wand provided by the star to grant wishes left, right, and center, much to the horror of Queen Amaya, who has betrayed her husband in a gambit for the throne, and now started to realize what a horrible mistake siding with the wishmistress was. You see, granting wishes may seen as sweet, fine, and good, and all that, especially for a naive and selfish lass like Asha, who has been living her entire seventeen years of life on Rosas, living a life of luxury and safety like very few other places on the world had ever seen. For her, the people of Rosas were good, their desires were good, and they would never harm anyone or Rosas. Of course, she could not be more wrong, but she was a teenager with phenomenal cosmic powers and was not afraid to use them. The wishes were like the pebbles in front of an avalanche, they were not much by themselves, but they compounded until they destroyed Rosas and doomed the kingdom, filling the worst fear of Magnifico, who has to listen from his magical prison how his home was ravaged for a second time.

It started slow, with little things that soon became real problems. Asha wandered all over Rosas, granting wishes without a second thought about whether they were good, bad, or directly harmful, the people of Rosas were good, right? Their wishes are the best part of them, right?. So everything will be alright, right?. She was young but she was right, and armoring herself with that idea, she went on her wish rampage. Truth be told, the wishes ranged from the innocuous to the dangerous, for themselves and for the people around them. Queen Amaya was savvy enough to manipulate Asha into staying in Rosas, the moment the wish mistress stepped out of the island, the world fell on her like sharks in a blood frenzy, and despite all her incredible powers, Asha was utterly unprepared for the harsh world that awaited her outside of the safe coasts of Rosas. Speaking of the world beyond Rosas, it did not take long for all the powers surrounding Rosas to be aware that Magnifico was no longer, especially when some of the shenanigans of the wish mistress had terrible consequences. For example, when she granted a wish to an old woman who just wished to steer a big caravel through a sea storm; dooming her and the entire crew, most likely; or how she granted the wish of a man who wanted to conquer a kingdom; meaning that somewhere a kingdom will be doomed to war, and to lose that war at the hands of a guy that has zero idea of what war and conquest entails. It was the aftermath of these two wishes and similar others that spread wide and far the tale of the fall of Magnifico and the ascension of the wish mistress, acting as the prelude of the funeral toll of Rosas.

Crisis after crisis, Rosas continued degrading, making the old saying about how revolution eats their children completely true. Queen Amaya, even if she was an exceptional stateswoman and politician, she was not prepared at all for the incoming crisis. From Asha's shenanigans with wishes to the continued attacks on the shores of Rosas, now that Magnifico was no longer there to protect the kingdom. From infamous pirates like Barbarossa or Algris or Sayyida Alhurra; this latter was particularly focused on enslaving Asha, to make her grant Sayyida's wish of reconquering Granada; to religious crusades; speaking animals are the work of the devil or something along those lines; to any and all avaricious sorcerer wanting a piece of the power that Magnifico held once. Magnifico not only warded the wishes, but he also contained one of the most powerful dark grimoires known, and now it was up for the taking to any and all dark wizards with strong enough brawn or brain to take it from Rosas. It did not help that the population of Rosas was not especially interested in putting in the effort, they never needed to put any effort, they were happy and content under Magnifico's rule, now it was just the same but better because the Wishmistress granted them wishes whenever they wanted instead of just once a month. In an ironic twist of fate, Amaya did exactly the same as Magnifico, recurring to the dark book to protect what's left of her kingdom. It took longer for her to be corrupted, as she had an oil that protected her from the influence of the book, and she was not a sorcerer so she was very out of his depth most of the time, but in the end, the book became a hammer, and all problems nails.

In a final confrontation between Asha and Amaya, Rosas was torn apart by the magic that they unleashed, turning the glorious kingdom into a magical wasteland, ravaged by dark magic, gold mutating winds, and the mind-broken corrupted remains of the people who refused to leave before everything fell down. Ironically enough, such accursed land became an impenetrable bulwark that protected the treasures of Rosas from any interloper. Mind you, such a statement was put to the test in several occasions, with all of those attempts failing miserably in all kinds of ways.

Such is the tragic tale of the Kingdom of Rosas, another sad tale of the fall of a glorious kingdom.

However, some learned about it and were assaulted by an interesting question.

From what exactly was Magnifico protecting the wishes?

Actually, why did Magnifico take such measures to protect wishes that did not really benefit him at all? Sure enough, a dark sorcerer can extract power from the hopes and dreams of people, but Magnifico did not use dark magic, at all, until he was pushed against the wall, in fact, he was the custodian of one of the darkest and most dangerous dark books ever, warding it from the hands of all kinds of dark arcane users that would have sold their mother's soul for a page of the book.

The answer to the question was provided by one of the last sons of Rosas, during his bittersweet return to a home lost to hypocrisy and hubris, sadly, only a broken ghost and Death were there to listen to it.

After so many unsuccessful attempts to plunder Rosas' treasures, only the most daring or insane individuals ever dared to challenge the haunted island, be it explorers aiming for the discovery of their lives, or sorcerers and magicians aiming for the legacy of one of the greatest sorcerers that the world has ever seen. One particular individual also dared to challenge the dark wasteland, after all, it was his home, even if no one would remember him any longer.

It was a particularly misty evening, at the hour when the last beams of sun vanish and let the moon and the stars claim the sky, the green, thick mist that surrounded the coasts of Rosas claimed the few beaches of the island, covering the sands with a pale green glow that was sickening to the senses. The eerie green light of the mist was just a warning for all who dared to challenge the island, however, for the first time in quite some time, those dark, haunting, mists were challenged indeed.

From the night sea, a new mist surged, a silvery one, quickly expanding and covering a good portion of the sea. Soon the mist followed the calm waves of the sea, lapping the border of the shores of Rosas, and when the silvery mist caressed the edges of the pale green fog, the fog vanished. Surprisingly quick, the silvery mist seemed to engulf a good chunk of the beach, overcoming the residual dark magic around like it was nothing. The haunted beach becomes covered in a white mist that either engulfs the pale green mist that stood before or rejected it, pushing it back into the island. For some minutes, nothing happened, just a good chunk of silvery mist connecting land and sea, suddenly, the cracking woods of a sea-faring vessel came from inside of the mist over the sea, and in seconds, the prow of a big caravel rammed the sands of the beach, parting both sands and mist in its hurry. Surging from the mist and the sea, the big caravel was a derelict ship that should not be able to navigate at all, the entire body of the vessel was broken, the bow was cracked, the sails torn, it was an impossibility floating over water and sand until it crashed on the beaches of Rosas. Akin to an elephant using their last breaths to reach the elephant graveyard, the caravel crashed against the shore, sending wreckage all over the sands and the nearby forest, before collapsing to the side, with a loud whine of cracking wood.

Shadows poured from the cracks on the ship, climbing to the top of the prow of the ship, right above the battered figurehead of the ship; a bull's head painted red; before they meld together and a male humanoid figure emerged from the shadow cocoon. The figure was covered head to toe in heavy clothes and donned a thick cape with black feathered shoulder pads. Extending the cape, the figure stretched his body, showing a strong musculature under the cloth that hid it. After stretching, the figure surrounded himself with his cape and walked down the figurehead. The silver mist acted as stairs, making it look as if the stranger was walking on air. After he reached the sands below, he turned around and put his gloved hand over the wood of the bow.

"Thank you for sharing with me your last voyage", thanked the man to the ship. "Welcome home, fair vessel, you can rest in peace now".

The voice of the heavily clothed figure was unmistakably male, a deep baritone that spoke of inner strength. As soon as he finished speaking, the ship collapsed entirely, leaving the beach covered with the remnants of the shipwreck. Not a single piece of the ship fell over the individual that the ship had carried back to Rosas, instead, the figure paid his respects to the derelict ship, and walked into the island, dragging the silver mist with him. It was a peculiar sight for the watchers inside of the island, those that were blessed first by the star, and that they were as cursed as the rest of the population of Rosas, when the final conflict between Asha and Amaya took place.

It was part of the tales of the shenanigans of the wishmistress, she had granted animals intellect and conscience, which, in the eyes of most of the surrounding countries was the work of the devil, to say the least. One of the major conundrums of the tenure of Amaya as queen was that the annoying goat of the wish mistress was a staunch defender of equal rights for animals and plants, which makes the husbandry and agriculture efforts quite the chore when those that you feed upon suddenly have the brains and means to screw you. Lots of animals and plants all over the island gain a humane level of intelligence and sentience, sometimes more, which work wonders with the birth ratio of rabbits for example, or fungus with human intelligence, all of them firmly in the belief that we are all one, we are stardust. Of course, everything went all the way back to hell when the country collapsed and the animals became more and more rabid defenders of whatever was left of their natural reducts. Dark magic was anathema for them, it corrupted and broke their minds, and whenever anyone tried to investigate how they came to be, well, they reacted pretty badly.

Now, those very same animals were stalking the newcomer, but contrary to what happened with other arrivals to the island, this time, they were wary of the stranger. Despite being a long time since they have dealt with newcomers; something that they did quite brutally whenever anyone was foolish enough to challenge their wild spots; none of the island animals and plants have lost their wrath for any interloper, but the silvery mist that protected the newcomer made their instincts blare with danger. There was something unusual about the intruder. Leaving apart that the silver mist was able to overpower the green haunt of dark magic that permeated the entire island landmass, there is also the resonance; and in a bad way; between the spark of gold that granted them conscience and the mist. For the first time in a long time, the animals felt that smothered instincts that told them they were in front of a superior predator. Still, some animals did not get that memo, and instead, they reveled in the worst traits that they have learned from humans. For example, the rabbits, now numbering in the hundreds, have tried to copy some of the tools of humanity, having entire warbands of vicious rabbits geared with badly patched-together weapons and armor. By the way, the same war bands were also trying to build a passable enough ship to get out of Rosas and bring the golden age of the rabbit kin to the rest of the world. His leader, Valentino the Fifth, still wears the sacred helmet made with the skull of the great prophet, Valentine the Goat, who fell in battle against the wicked queen Amaya.

About an hour of walking into the island, the stranger found one of those bands, running something that could be generously called military exercises, possibly the same training drills that they saw when some military explorations came to see what the heck happened.

The initial encounter was a bit awkward, the rabbits were trying to imitate spear drills against badly made human mannequins several times their size, and suddenly, a human appeared from the edges of the training ground bringing some mist with him. Confusion reigned for a couple of seconds, at least among the rabbits, by his part the newcomer was fascinated and amused by the rabbit's imitations, but soon the rabbits recovered and the two dozen ferocious animals jumped at the stranger, either to bite him to death, or carrying crude weapons adapted to their pawns.

The first three that were close to the stranger did not even realize that they were dead, before their minds could register anything, their skeletons fell to the floor, free from any flesh on them, flesh that splattered the trees and earth not too far from them. The next bunch died in short but intense agony when their brains melted down their noses. By that moment, the rest of the aggressors knew something was wrong, but their zealotry and the impulse of the remaining twelve or so just went with the flow, trying to overcome the trespasser with numbers. It was not a bad move, all things considered, however, the rabbits did not know that they were basically walking into a magic trap, the mist was not only a defense barrier against the dark magic, it was also an offense spell that would break anything that tried to harm its source, that source being the strange newcomer to Rosas. Broken bodies, spontaneous and lethal mutations of unholy biology, their own rudimentary weapons flying out of their hands and burying themselves into their bodies. In less than half a minute, the small training ground that the rabbits have been occupying turned into a slaughterhouse, with corpses of the armored rabbits all around, some of them in the most gruesome and horrific ways.

Sighing under his clothes, the stranger continued his walk.

He knew that his actions had not come unnoticed, leaving apart the warcries of the rabbits as they attacked him, the flora of Rosas was as sentient and intelligent as the fauna, and once the slaughter began, they instantly realized how utterly outmatched the angry rabbits were. Always on the side of caution, the flora gets out of the way of the silver spot of mist that walked in their midst, feeling the wrongness of the mist, and not eager to test how it could affect them. If the animals wanted to test their might against the new threat, by all means, the flora would eye the intruder and only intervene if it was a danger for the few natural spots left. Few other animals challenged the protection after the show, but some did, and all of them perished in quite a gruesome manner, with their bodies crushed like clay toys under a hammer, despite those occasional attacks, that the stranger did not even spare a glance on their direction, the stranger continued his walk into the entrance of the legendary caste of King Magnifico, now an utter ruin.

It was a sad spectacle, to see the beautiful kingdom of Magnifico, a product of several countries' architecture fused together beautifully, ruined into a wrecked ruin of broken statues, shattered columns, torn murals, and homes reduced to rubble that paved the way for the plaza where the King granted wishes once a month, more or less. To make the scene even more hellish, those citizens of the kingdom who were present during the last debacle between Asha and Amaya were still there, hundreds of shuffling, grotesque, parodies of humans. Neither alive nor dead, they were just...mirroring part of their desires when the blast of the mixture of dark and star magic washed over them. All of the population of the main city of Rosas were mutated into twisted parodies of themselves and the darkest form of their wishes, a consequence of having dark magic and star magic at the same time over the same wish. They were not organized, just a mob of monsters with some of the most clever among them or those with stronger wills being able to imitate what they did before they were turned into aberrations. One thing was for sure, is that they were very violent with anything that dared to come close to their turf. The dark magic all over the place turned their minds to their darker impulses, meaning that they were greedy to the extreme but able to know when someone or something that did not share their curse was among them.

The stranger did not want to waste time battling the horde, leaving apart how one can argue that this was the result of the inhabitant's own selfishness, they were victims as well. The mist twisted a bit around the stranger, taking a more solid form, and condensed into a set of stairs that allowed the stranger to walk over the plaza; around five meters of height; and bypass the shuffling grotesques under him. Once the stairs ended, and the stranger stepped into thin air, a small burst of silver mist allowed him to walk on air, well, mist, leaving the poor sods of Rosas to their misery in peace. Due to the size of the plaza, he needed a bit of time to cross and walk down to the stage where Magnifico and Amaya used to address the people, be it for a wishing ceremony or to make an announcement to the kingdom. On a side note, the stranger did take a couple of minutes to study the broken armor at the side of the door. Rosas had an army, but it also depended a lot on the magical armor that Magnifico had, and once Magnifico was out, so were the immortal protectors of Rosas. They were some fine constructs, not entirely like the classic Emeth golem, but these animated armors were effective peacekeepers, soldiers, and enforcers. With a hand gesture, one of the armors turned into mist and was absorbed by the gloved hand of the stranger.

Inside the castle of Magnifico, the scenery had changed a lot after his fall. Originally, the castle was surprisingly utilitarian, after all, Magnifico was a sorcerer, and his magic came from years and years of hard studying, which means a lot of space was needed for books, grimoires, alchemical tools, and all kinds of magical contraptions that one could image, with the worse of them being carefully shoved into the dungeons. Some magics can not be practiced all in the open, safety first, or so it was until the dark book hooked its tendrils onto the minds of Magnifico, and lately Amaya.

Broken mirrors, broken stairs, and several more structural damages spoke volumes of how brutal the final magic battle between Asha and Amaya was. Thanks to his silver mist trick, the stranger was more than capable of bypassing the broken pathways of the interior, and in case of necessity, he only had to wave the hands a bit and magically move things around. A basic telekinetic trick, but at the same time, one of the most useful tricks that existed. The ability to move multiple things with only one's will was a very versatile and useful trick. Indifferent to the noise he could make by dropping the rubble down the entrance, the stranger continued climbing the castle. Maybe squashing any curious shambler from outside. Being crushed like that would be a blessing, as it would free their souls from their bodies and finally allow them to reach peace. Ascending the tower was a bit of an annoyance, but slowly and carefully, the stranger reached the top of the castle.

Back in the day, the hall in front of the stranger was a clean circular room with some decorations that served as entrance to Magnifico's lab and wish vault, now, it was a throne room where the unnaturally preserved corpse of Queen Amaya stood on her throne, caught and frozen in an ugly grimace of agony and anger. There was little more around the room, just the corpse, and lots of smears on walls and floors; probably the witness of the battle; one, in particular, being on the opposite direction of the throne, with the form of a slim female. The only thing of interest for the stranger was the book that Queen Amaya held in her grasp. The infamous book that was the source of the dark magic invading Rosas. Walking to the corpse, the stranger twirled a sliver of the mist around him and tossed it to the hand of the queen. The mist melted the hand of the queen, devouring whatever curse or remnant that had left her corpse preserved, and before the book could touch the floor, it floated on the air, levitating due to the telekinetic trick of the stranger.

Commanding the book to his hand, the stranger picked up the book, whose front glowed green for a second, before the glow froze, and diminished slowly and discretely. Passing his free hand above the page, without touching them, the letters on the pages glow green for a second, before the pages flipped forward. For the stranger it was a fascinating lecture, there were so many curses, hexes, and an entire section dedicated to some of the nastiest potions he had ever read. Entertaining himself for a bit, the stranger read some recipes and formulas, before closing the book, making it disappear in the same blob of mist that took the enchanted armor before.

A short, melodic, whistle tune was all the warning that the stranger had before a sickle went for his head. The sickle beheaded the stranger, but the stranger just dissolved in a burst of mist, materializing two meters to the left. Nothing in the body language of the attacked spoke of fear or surprise, he knew the sickle, and more importantly, he knew the owner of such a weapon.

With a sigh and a gesture, the stranger made the sickle fly back from where it came from, the flying weapon was easily caught by a werewolf covered with a black cape, and some ragged pants.

"Lobo", saluted the stranger.

"Mago", smiled the wolf, twirling the sickle a couple of times before pointing it at his target. "Are we going to do it the easy way, or the fun way?".

"The polite way", chuckled the so-called Mago. "The chase has already ended, Wolf. I am just saying my goodbyes before exiting the stage".

"Excuse me if I am not very convinced", the predatory smile of the bipedal wolf widened. "But, okay, just for the sake of the decade of the fun hunt you brought me".

"Then walk with me, Wolf", the wizard invited Wolf to walk into the laboratory of Magnifico, "and let me tell you why I did what I did, and what I mean with the end of the hunt, but before that", the wizard pointed out to the progressively decaying corpse of Amaya, "she is about to kick the bucket, the curse that holds her in place is no longer there".

With a huff, Wolf extended the sickle and decapitated Amaya, once the sickle ended its cut, Amaya's corpse turned translucid, and with a soft whine, its soul flew into the sky.

"And act of mercy?", raised an eyebrow Wolf, walking to join the wizard at the lab's entrance.

With a hand gesture, the doors opened, allowing them to pass into the laboratory of Magnifico, where he protected the wishes.

"She was on the way", shrugged the wizard. "His curse was just an obstacle".

Once the doors opened, the two strange individuals witnessed how the place had changed. Back then, during the last day of his rule, Magnifico used the dungeons for his newfound dark arts, but since Amaya hated the dungeons, she moved all the necessities for her own dark magic to the previous laboratory of Magnifico. Of course, the crystal that held Magnifico was moved as well. As it has been said before, Amaya was an excellent politician and statesman, but she knew nothing of the arcane arts, however, she had Magnifico in a mirror, trapped, and with the help of the book and after lying to Asha a couple of times, she practically erased most of the personality of her husband, and instead she had a superb magical consultant.

The wizard walked into the middle of the room, and took out one glove, revealing a slightly pale human hand with a ring on the thumb, taking the ring out of the finger, it was soon dragged into the open space that the wishes occupied once, floating inside of a bubble of silver mist that emitted very soft glows each couple of seconds.

"I know that you are above mortal concerns", the wizard summoned an abandoned piece of cloth at the corner of the room. The last remnant of the mantle that showed the origins of Magnifico. "So, I take that a mortal's tale is not all that interesting for you".

"I am Death, mago", Wolf eyed one drawer with a very nice bottle of wine. "I collect, I do not mingle, well, unless I want to make my quarry understand how much screwed it is".

"Understandable", nodded the wizard. "But at the same time, if there is something that I have learned about you, is that you hate being cheated".

"Cierto", nodded Wolf.

"The entire kingdom of Rosas is trapped in a curse", pointed out the wizard, "they are trapped, forever frozen between life and death".

"Dark curses are not eternal", shrugged the wolf, biting out the cork of the wine. "In time, they will break down and the accursed will be free".

"Wrong", corrected the wizard, and the wolf stared at him very not amused, with an expression that demanded answers.

"The curse will wane, sure, but what trapped the island will not wane in time, it can not, time is a foreign concept to it", explained the wizard, extending his hand to summon the crystal prison of Magnifico at his hand.

With the crystal in his hands, the wizard smile under his robes widened, and started a chant in a language that has never been invented, yet it was older than humanity by a long margin. Neither a spell or a plea, perhaps an aria? It was difficult to even listen to the thing, much less categorize it. However, Wolf knew that language, and the moment the first verse was said, Wolf was already in battle more, the bottle fell to the ground and Wolf took distance, fused his two sickles in one staff, and took a combat stance.

Painfully, resisting at each step, a small yellow creature exited from the mirror, despite it trying to present a facade of adorableness and innocence, the truth is that its mere presence was like a pickaxe to the brain for those that can perceive beyond the veil of the mundane. Wolf was a psychopomp, and the wizard had long ago shed his humanity to become something else. Any attempt of the small creature to look like a poor innocent victim fell on deaf ears, which would have been a blessing considering how the creature started to cry like a scared child and the resulting wail made the less resistant crystals around shatter, along creating several cracks over floor and walls.

"Silence, yellow spawn", commanded the wizard and the small creature wailed for the last time before it ejected out of the mirror.

Once outside of the crystal, the wizard freed a hand from the mirror and gestured at the yellow entity as if the wizard were squeezing it. As soon as the gesture was done, the creature folded itself into a yellow marble that flew at the hand of the wizard and vanished into another poof of silver mist.

"El Rey Amarillo", spitted the name Wolf, not hiding his distaste and disgust.

"A spawn", huffed the wizard, catching his breath, his body was still humane enough to recognize exertion, even if it all happened in seconds. "The wish upon a star of a young girl opened the door, and the Yellow King saw the perfect opportunity, after all, its name is chorused alongside the fall of civilizations, and Rosas was a utopia on Earth, no matter what people believed".

"Accursed things", grumbled Wolf, picking back the wine bottle, even for the psychopomp, the Outer Gods and their shenanigans are always a headache. "The Yellow King knows that he is not welcome here".

"The King, nay", nodded the wizard, "but its surrogate would have had all the rights of any other people on Earth".

"Oh, venga ya!", cursed Wolf. "Another cuckoo gambit?, was it not more than enough with the Vilebloods?".

"Not that straightforwardly", shrugged the wizard, scratching a symbol on the back of the crystal prison, there was another poor soul trapped there. "But essentially yes, mind you that this is just my conjecture, but I would say that in time that little thing would have used the womb of that poor lass", the wizard pointed to the soot mark on the wall with the form of Asha, "to birth itself into this world, and by doing so, gaining all the rights of any other living being on this planet, but at the same time, being another of the many spawns of the Yellow King, another civilization ready to be harvested".

"Okay, crisis averted", huffed Wolf, "it has been quite the surprise, I grant you that, but I still want to know why are you doing all this, and what has to do with your…", Death stopped mid-sentence and chuckled without any real humor. "You recognized the Vilebloods, you are one of Gehrman's".

"Guilty", admitted the wizard. With one hand holding the crystal head staff, the wizard summoned a blade to his free hand. A blade that Wolf knew very well.

"The Blade of Mercy", recognized the blade Wolf in a second, and with a very intense stare, and firmly griping the handle of his sickle, Wolf made a very important question.

"Eileen?".

"Finding herself free in the waking world", Wolf could see the smile under the clothes.

"Buena chica!", laughed the Wolf raising the bottle of wine and taking a long gulp, celebrating the release of the heavy burden that Eileen the Crow carried on her shoulders for a long time. "So you are the new Blade of Mercy, well, that explains why you say that you are going to leave the stage, the Dream calls you, however, there is a thing that I do not get yet, say your goodbyes?".

The wizard showed Wolf the crystal in his other hand, and with a grunt of effort, the wizard crushed the crystal into dust. As if it were sand, the crystal dust slipped past the glove of the wizard and fell to the ground, but before everything fell, the unmistakable energy of a soul was freed from the broken crystal. As a psychopomp, Wolf felt the poor state of the soul, there was little left there, but enough to be free and get to the destined afterlife.

"Goodbye, father", said the wizard, making Wolf whistle-

"I did not see that one coming", Wolf raised an eyebrow and offered the bottle to the Wizard, "that must be one hell of a tale".

"In more way than one", laughed the wizard grabbing the bottle that Wolf offered and taking a big gulp of it before offering it back, "you see, it all started when mom dropped me at the door of the orphanage, without realizing that it was a Templar house, and to make it even more asinine, one of the actual few that professed faith to Baphomet…."

The incredulous stare of Wolf only made the wizard laugh harder.

Lobo= Wolf

Mago= Wizard

Cierto= That's true

El Rey Amarillo= The Yellow King

Oh, venga ya= Oh, come on

Buena chica= Good girl