Evelyn Aldrich was living the worst of her nightmares. The voice of her husband, Marcus, trying to negotiate until the st moment while she held her daughter close. The screams and the smell of blood as Sarah trembled in her mother's grasp.

  The pain of being dragged by her hair by the bandits, trying to hug her daughter again so she wouldn't suffer the same fate. The macabre ughter, the terrible smell of her prison.

  The minutes seemed to turn into hours, and time lost all meaning as she tried to protect the only family she had left.

  It was in one of those moments that the little red-haired boy - Ryan - arrived. The fine, luxurious clothes he wore were stripped away, just like his long, fming hair, cut to draw less attention.

  Evelyn felt sorry for the boy, because unlike Sarah, at least she had her mother to rely on. That's why her motherly instinct led her to hug Ryan from the first moment they were in contact.

  The shining eyes full of fear and innocence were very different from the old, almost tired gaze of a war veteral... Or at least, the Ryan in front of her days ter had the same gaze as Evelyn's father.

  Their eyes had the same way of looking around almost nervously, and at the same time, the rest of their faces seemed calm. Evelyn still remembered when they told her that her father suffered mentally, as if he were constantly trapped in the war he had survived. Moments of tranquility and crity mixed with the sudden panic attacks, the moments of anxiety and fits of rage.

  Although Ryan's face remained serene, the the warm smile he gave them seemed fake to Evelyn. She could even see the child clenching his fists hard from time to time

  "Ma'am, please keep your arm still." The metallic voice of the tiny doctor pulled her out of her memories.

  Her eyes focused on the creatures the size of her thumb. She had never seen anything like them in her years of trading alongside her husband. She had witnessed clockwork automatons, magical puppets, even stone golems. But these... these were different. They moved with unmatched precision, their small hands maniputing invisible instruments while a greenish light emanated from their palms.

  "Sarah..." she murmured, searching for her daughter with her gaze.

  "The girl is being attended to by my partner," the doctor replied as he applied something cold to her bruised ribs. "Her wounds are superficial."

  The small creatures worked methodically, sometimes pronouncing words that she didn't understand. The greenish light intensified as she listened to Ryan's st words, making her felt a pleasant tingling where there had previously been pain. Her eyelids grew heavy, but it wasn't the accumuted fatigue, as this had almost instantly disappeared when the golems began their treatment. Her muscles felt light, as did her head.

  "What kind of magic...?" she tried to ask, but sleep cimed her gently for the first time in a long while.

  "And that's why we don't take orders from the nobles."

  In the dead of night, with bags under his eyes, Thalion couldn't do anything but compin while trying to comfort the ethereal mass in the shape of a woman that was Mira, the group's mage.

  It had been a week since he'd been searching for the kidnapped young man, from small to medium-sized bandit camps along one of the sectors they'd been assigned to investigate, given that they weren't the only group of adventurers dedicated to exploration and tracking.

  "If only we had some kind of elf who could use spiritual magic, or had some good senses…"

  Hearing the grumpy voice of his companion Brak never made him feel better, and although 80% of the time there was a bottle of alcohol in his mouth, now that they were low on rations…

  "My hearing works just fine, short legs... And I already told you that in this damned forest things work differently, we elves are both guests and jailers, unlike in other forests."

  The outer ring of Eldarwyn forest was mostly formed by trees without vegetation, the branches intertwined with each other, blocking at least 80% of the sunlight, and yet, life flourished even without the nourishment of the ball of fire in the sky. On the other hand, the elf Liora had to make her way to the top of any tree with her enchanted dagger, creating a hole rge enough in the shell of branches just to be able to investigate where the smell of smoke that had awakened them came from.

  "If only we had a dwarf who knew something about bcksmithing, I wouldn't have to spend countless coins to maintain my equipment, but here I am, ruining my dagger with the sap of these damned trees." The elf compined while adjusting her senses in the direction of the distant cloud of smoke.

  "We're still far away, but I think it's the next bandit camp, maybe they were attacked by someone? Did another group beat us to it?"

  Liora could only stroke her hair, as frustrated and tired as the others, and no one would bme her given that in these st few days they had been attacked by several magical animals that inhabited much deeper in the forest.

  "That" is there, I can feel it, weaker each second, but as intense as the first time." Mira's hair had never been so bck, with small white glows, as if it were trying to "breathe" with difficulty.

  The mystical race was one of the most attuned to magic, and that's why seeing the body of a Mystic vibrate nervously while their usually radiant body turned dark like the night sky… was not reassuring at all.

  Thalion watched her worriedly. "Can you identify anything else?"

  "I don't know what it is, I just know it's pure. Natural. And that terrifies me more than any dark magic. It's as if it's calling me, as if my body wants to join that energy, as if it wants to disappear in its embrace."

  Mira was having a hard time identifying what she felt, let alone expining it in words. It was like wanting to close her eyes forever and cease to exist, but thinking of dying that way only brought her peace… And it was that peace that terrified her, as if her survival instincts stopped working every time she felt that mass of energy.

  The group leader could only proceed with caution. What should have been a short trip turned into an hour of tension, with Mira growing increasingly restless until the energy she felt dissipated completely.

  That, of course, only increased the group's tension, especially when they arrived at what was left of the bandit camp. Bodies scattered everywhere, some with precise cuts, others with tiny holes in the forehead that no known weapon could cause. The only traces of magic were literally scattered in pieces of flesh from what was supposed to be a human being.

  "There's someone alive here!"

  In the midst of the chaos, they found a girl and her mother, astonishingly unharmed. While Liora and Brak inspected the bodies mainly in search of loot, Thalion and Mira interrogated Evelyn as kindly as possible.

  For their safety, they had to camp far away from the grotesque scene that was the bandit camp, taking turns to keep watch.

  Unfortunately, the only information they could get out of the adult woman was that Ryan had followed a complete stranger, someone dangerous enough to finish off most of the bandits without them being able to defend themselves.

  Exhausted by the constant bad luck that seemed to follow them, the group took turns keeping watch and trying to sleep.

  "Tharion, your boots!" Two hours ter, when the dwarf went to kick the foot of his best friend to to shift guard, the first thing that caught his attention were Tharion's boots, which seemed to have been carved with a long message, too tiny in size.

  "If possible, give part of the loot to the mother-daughter pair. The leader's name is Cayden, but my master was too intense with him; if there's any reward, it's better to look for his weapon or some part of his armor that serves to identify him. Cayden confirmed that someone from my family paid him to kidnap me and kill me or sell me as a sve, so I don't pn to return to the Valerius family. At least not until I can protect myself. Sincerely: Ryan Valerius."

  The four looked at each other in silence, aware that whoever was Ryan's master had completely surpassed them, leaving a message in Ryan's name without being discovered until that moment.

  The other sole of his boot contained instructions on the condition of the mother and daughter and the diet they should follow for the next week, demonstrating that at least this mysterious mage was not an antagonist against them.

  The group knew that the noble family would not react well to Ryan's decision, but none of the four had the inclination or the energy to do anything about it.

  "Brak, fix my boots when we return."

  "...I'm not that kind of dwarf..."

  The bounty they had acquired was sufficient for all of them, and a hot bath was far more appealing than needlessly endangering themselves.

  Nakusyer