In the dead of the night, when the clock was about to strike three, Ezra woke up with a start, feeling a searing pain in his right leg. As he parted his eyelids, in the dim glow of the night lamp he spotted something black and slimy squirming on his wooden door. “What the hell!” Ezra sat up straight and tried to pull his leg free, but something pulled it back. He quickly threw his quilt aside, and his eyes widened in horror as he discovered a writhing mass of tarry black tentacles wrapped around his leg like vines. “Let go of me!” Ezra kicked the squirming tentacles with his free leg, but a second pair of tentacles grabbed his left leg as well, binding him in place. The more Ezra struggled, the more the tentacles constricted. Soon, they cut off the blood flow to his thighs, and Ezra felt his legs going numb. The squirming mass of slimy black tentacles covering the keyhole, spread all across the door, blocking Ezra’s only exit. It slowly spread to the surrounding walls, growing new

Lord Sebastian still could not believe what his son had done. Capital punishment had been outlawed long ago, and this barbaric act of shooting a prisoner in the head was nothing short of brutal tyranny.“You took her life despite knowing she was at our mercy,” Lord Sebastian’s voice deepened as he spoke, and his eyes gleamed with suppressed rage. “Ramel Romanov! You have disgraced my name! It’s a crime to kill an unarmed woman.”“Lolita wasn’t innocent, father. She was a follower of the Lord of Decay. And she sealed her fate by betraying our family,” Ramel replied. “I do not regret my decision. In fact, I’d make the same choice a thousand times.”“So, you feel you can just take a life without any consequences?” Lord Sebastian reprimanded, raising his voice. His keen eyes seemed to peer into Ramel’s soul as he chastised him with his words. “We should have given her a fair trial. We are not barbarians! The Goddess does not support killing the unarmed.”“I think you have grown far too so

Ezra slowly clambered back to his feet and dusted his clothes, ignoring the threats from the bandits around him.“Are you deaf, pretty boy?” one of the rogues yelled. “Did you not hear what our boss just said?”“I heard him all right. I just don’t give a damn,” Ezra snapped back at him, his eyes gleaming with rage. “Get the hell out of my way unless you want to go back home in a wheelbarrow.”“You son of a gun!” One of the younger bandits corked his revolver and prepared to shoot Ezra in the leg when their leader stopped him.“Calm down, Willy. This one’s an angry young boy way over his head.” He chuckled, staring at Ezra from head to toe. “Judging by your clothes I’d say you are quite well off. Probably a noble, eh?”“I’m a Gunner,” Ezra replied curtly.“And which noble family do you belong to? I reckon your wealthy parents will pay good coin to see you alive again?” The bandit leader stepped forward and pulled back the bolt of his rifle. “My name’s Harwin. What’s yours?”“I don’t ha

Ezra found himself in a precarious situation. He had been poisoned by the barbed vines and was now being hunted by a group of Centaur Warriors who had already picked up his scent. The Centaurs were among the few non-humans who still hated mankind. Though their populations had dwindled over the years due to the extensive raids carried out by the royal knights and paladins, the survivors still remained a huge threat to all humans. Since Centaurs possessed the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse, this gave them the dual benefit of having binocular vision as well as strong hind limbs for chasing prey and fleeing from pursuers. Being humanoid hybrids also meant that Centaurs possessed an extremely high level of intelligence and excelled at working as a team and setting traps and ambushes. Hiding behind a tall woody tree, Ezra peered around the corner and observed the Centaur Hunters nearby. They were inspecting the corpses of their fallen brethren and trying to figure o

As the forest burned, the flames danced over the treetops and dense gray smoke spiraled upward, blanketing the undergrowth. Alarmed by the wildfire, the animals scurried away and the birds flew off to seek refuge in distant trees. The Centaur tribe quickly forgot all about the intruder and focused all their efforts on averting the disaster at hand. The women rushed back and forth, carrying pails of water to dump on the flames while the Centaur Brutes started chopping down the burning trees to prevent the fire from spreading. This calamity kept the Centaurs distracted for now, but Marlin knew once they were done dealing with the forest fire they would put together a hunting party to track and kill the intruder responsible for this. “Damn it! Why do you always need to put us both in danger?” Marlin was seething with anger but there was little he could do without his body. “I swear being bound to you is a greater punishment than being eaten by ghouls!” Despite Marlin’s taunts and insu