Since the day she was changed, the Speaker had seen some strange things. She seen animals that could change into humans at will. She had seen rats who spoke. She had seen horses that could fly. She had seen a flying pig. She had even seen a grand mage brought low. She knew she had not seen it all but the Speaker thought she had seen enough that nothing else in the world could shock her. She was wrong.

She was very wrong.

The landscape in front of her was for lack of a better word; shocking! It should not be possible but her eyes were not deceiving her. Although she had never gone so far south, she had read maps of the area and knew all the major landmarks. The Homeless Plains was so huge most people divided it into 3 sections; the northern, middle, and southern sections. Situated just south of the Great Kar Forest should be the Invisible Stream and the plains south of the river was widely known as the Southern Homeless Plains. The southern section of the Homeless Plains was no more.

However the land in front of the Speaker was not a plain but a dark and fiery wasteland filled with dark razor-sharp rocks and black lifeless soil. It was empty except for some unnatural bonfires that were burning at various places. Strangely, the bonfires had different colors. The Speaker had only known fires to be red in color but some of the fires in the wasteland were burning blue and green. It was…impossible.

“At least we now know why we’re here!”

The Speaker couldn’t help but chuckled at that. The one who spoke was Kinshra, the female alpha of the Pack. Although the Speaker acted as a liaison between the Creator and the Kin, Kinshra was in-charge of all the females in the Werewolves Pack and she was charged by the Alpha as the leader of their small group of six.

“Yeah, guess it really was more than just an earthquake.”

The Speaker couldn’t help but shake her head in reply. When the Creator ordered the Speaker to go south and scout the area south of the Kar, she had been surprised. Several of the Kin thought that the order from the Creator meant that this earthquake was unnatural but to the Speaker, it was just an earthquake. A big one but what’s there to check on an earthquake. The wasteland in front of the Speaker was the answer to that question.

“Should I go back to report?”

The harpy Momo was with them and she was the one who asked the question. When the Creator ordered her to come south, the Speaker wasn’t expecting any trouble and had thought of coming alone but her mate was having none of that. He ordered Kinshra and a small team to come south with the Speaker. As the male Alpha, Treznor was the leader of the Werewolves and Kinshra had no choice but to obey even though she, like the Speaker, thought nothing of the earthquake.

“Not yet,” Kinshra said. “Let’s find out more first. At least Treznor wasn’t being overprotective this time.”

Everyone laughed at Kinshra’s joke. It was a well-known fact that the Alpha was very protective of his mate and the couple had endured some good natured ribbing from the rest of the Kin on the matter. Treznor couldn’t care less for “gossip” as he called it while the Speaker honestly liked the fact that her mate could be overprotective at times. It was a good change from her childhood. Seeing the sight in front however, the Speaker couldn’t help but wondered if her mate may have underestimated the problem at hand.

The Speaker also understood why Treznor ordered Kinshra to come with her. The Speaker and Kinshra were undoubtedly the most powerful females of the Kin and the duo had a good working understanding with each other. Laughter was a good thing so the Speaker let everyone have their fun as the small group began crossing the Invisible Stream.

The Invisible Stream wasn’t small but it wasn’t a difficult river to cross, much less for the group who were in their Werewolf forms. The group was going into unknown territory so Kinshra wanted everyone in their more powerful form before the crossing. They got to the other side with minimal problems and the moment the Speaker stepped on the charred black soil…nothing! The Speaker was keeping an open mind but she didn’t feel any different when she stepped on the wasteland. There was no feeling of unease; no sense of dread; no oppressive force of heaviness; it was just like setting foot on any other piece of land in the world. She was exactly a little disappointed.

The group did not have any specific location to check out but the Creator had said “south” so that was the direction the group opted to go. As they moved out, Kinshra sent Momo out to scout but warned her to keep within sight of the group. The harpy need no further invitation and immediately took to the air. The first thing Kinshra wanted to check was the various burning bonfires and she directed the group to them.

The group approached a few of them and found that the bonfires were burning without the need of any fuel. There was nothing for the fires to burn, there were no logs or dried leaves, but that didn’t stop the fires from burning fiercely. The fires were just burning off the land and the group strangely felt somewhat revitalized when they were near the fires. It was more than the heat of the fires; it was as if the bonfires were feeding them power and energy. The group went to a few bonfires and felt the same effects at all of them. As the group went further south, night soon fell. The lack of light meant little to the group. The group consists of 5 Werewolves and a harpy and none of them needed light to operate. However dusk did tell the group a few things.

The first was that the bonfires produced light as well as heat. Heat from fires was to be expected but the light that was produced depended on the color of the flames of the bonfires. The various bonfires were a distance apart from each other but the land used to be part of the Homeless Plains and the group could easily see blue, green and red lights illuminating the flat landscape. It gave the land an eerie but colorful feel.

Another thing the group discovered was the lack of smell. Although the land looked like it had been burned to a crisp, there was the distinct lack of any burning smell. Even when they were near a bonfire, there was no burning smell coming from the fires. In fact, there was no smell coming from anywhere. A Werewolves’ sense of smell was far superior to that of a human and every time she entered the forest, the Speaker would be assaulted by smells from everywhere. In this land however, there was nothing. It was as if everything, even the smell of the land, had been burned away. More than the charred landscape and strange bonfires, the lack of smell was what disturbed the group the most. It just wasn’t natural!

With all these new and unusual discoveries, Kinshra decided to call it a day and the group settled down for the night. It turned out to be a short rest as Momo returned later in the night with news that there was a camp of some sort in front of them. The break was over as Kinshra wanted to check out the camp immediately. Turned out the group wasn’t that far from the camp and they reached it well before dawn. It also turned out that the camp more than a camp. It was a homestead though the Speaker couldn’t really blame Momo for the mistake.

The house which must had been the dwelling of the owner had been razed to the ground and even up close, the Speaker could only see a few pieces of charred timber that were the foundation of the building. The charred timbers weren’t even what Momo had spotted. There was a campfire outside the remains of the building and this was what the harpy had originally spotted. As the Speaker went through the wreckage of the house, Kinshra ordered the rest of the group to scout the area. The Speaker thought it was a good idea. The campfire indicated to her that this homestead wasn’t abandoned so there should be at least some indication of people staying nearby. At the very least there would be some charred remains.

“What do you think?”

The Speaker looked up and saw that Kinshra had changed into her human form. She answered her question with a question.

“What do you think?”

“I asked first.”

“Well, I think it’s clear no earthquake caused this.” The Speaker pointed at the remains of the building and said. “Looks more like a flash fire swept through the area but...”

“Flash fire does not cause the ground to shake.” Kinshra nodded her agreement but like the Speaker, she was hoping there was some simple explanation for all the unknowns. “What about an earthquake that caused a flash fire?”

“If only it would be so simple…,” the Speaker said. “However the Creator probably wouldn’t have sent us here if that was all…”

The duo turned their heads sharply the moment the howl broke through the night. It was the howl of a werewolf and he was calling for help. The two female Werewolves looked at each other for a moment before going on all fours. Kinshra changed into her Werewolf form immediately and the duo began running towards danger. Even in the dark, the duo had no problem knowing where to go. They went in the direction of the howl and even before they could reach the location, the Speaker could hear the sound of battle. The duo ran faster and as they got nearer, the sound of the battle became louder and louder. They soon reached the area and saw it. Just when she thought the day couldn’t get any stranger, what she saw stopped the Speaker cold.

The other 3 Werewolves had reached the area already and they were currently in battle with a creature that was unlike anything the Speaker had seen before. The creature was red in color with a human body and two hands, but the lower half of it was that of a snake. The face looked almost human but there were two big horns sticking out from it’s forehead. To the Speaker, the horns looked like gigantic deer antlers. Even stranger for the Speaker was the fact that the creature was casting magic.

Slithering across the ground like a snake, the creature was keeping the trio of Werewolves at bay by shooting out blasts of fire from it’s two hands. However the creature was outnumbered and it was constantly in retreat as the Werewolves tried to use their superior speed and numbers to get close. It was only a matter of time before they overwhelmed the creature but…

“We need it alive.” The Speaker told Kinshra. “The creature may be able to give her some insight to what’s going on.”

Kinshra nodded in response and indicated to the Speaker to go to the left. She immediately took off to the right. Following the female Alpha’s instruction, the Speaker went to the creature’s left, hoping to flank the creature. The creature must also have some sort of ability to see in the dark because it immediately spotted her. The creature shot at her but the Speaker easily dodged the blast. The creature was retreating even faster now but the Speaker knew the battle was already over.

She was nothing but a distraction. As the red creature was concentrating on her, Kinshra managed to shadowstep behind it. Sometimes when they were changed, the Creator would give the Kin some special ability. For the Speaker, it was the ability to speak even when she was in Werewolf form. For Kinshra, it was the shadowstep.

Shadowstep was an ability that allowed the female Alpha to teleport herself over a short distance as long as the area she was going to was in darkness. When she underwent the change, the Creator gave Kinshra the ability and she now used it to get behind the creature. To it’s credit, the creature sensed that someone was behind it and tried to turn around to defend. Kinshra leapt and knocked it to the ground. The trio of Werwolves in front of the creature took advantage and charged forward. Fear leapt into the Speaker’s heart and she immediately shouted to the trio to back off.

“NO! Alive! We need it alive!”

Everyone stopped. Kinshra; the three Werewolves; even the creature; everyone stopped. Then shocking the group, the creature spoke.

“You speak? You…you can speak? What are you? What happened to me? What’s going on?”

The Speaker couldn’t help but rubbed her forehead with her hand as an aching headache suddenly just erupted in her brain. She had been hoping to ask those exact questions to the creature.

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