I was still and we kept moving until we passed the gate. Once we made it past the rotted thing was when I felt ready to strike. But not before I adopted a new form.

I kept my height the same, but I gave myself the form of an imposing minotaur. I clad myself in silver fur, scarred it a bit to give myself the appearance of an experienced warrior, and like Danus clad my legs in iron armor but kept my upper body unencumbered by metal armor. I gave myself the distinct horns of a stag and thickened my muscles. My hands were still unoccupied by any sort of weapon, which was how I preferred it.

The second we stepped past the thin gate which was one of the few hints that this was a settlement at all, I spoke to my creations. "Ready yourselves my children." I told them, as I took careful aim with my illusionary flames, my hands adjusting themselves slightly so that my spell would produce the maximum noise as it rocketed towards the houses I was aiming at.

I heard my creations shuffle slightly as they more firmly planted their feet in the ground, and their muscles tighten as their grips on their weapons tightened. It brought a smile to my face. I released two bursts of illusionary flames, and the second I did an explosive sound roared out of my hands. Two large blue orbs of fake fire exploded out of my hands and rocketed towards two nearby houses.

One of the houses was on my left and it was made of wood. The blue orb I sent towards it wasn't aimed very high, it was aimed close to the door for the sake of inflicting maximum terror by making the harpies think they'd have to escape through an alternative exit. The other house I aimed at was to my right, and this time I did aim high. My fake fireball rocketed towards the house's roof, colliding with it with tremendous force causing the whole house to shake.

I grinned as I heard harpies awaken from their slumber, and immediately begin to investigate the cause of the commotions that awoke them. And not just harpies within the two houses that I had just targeted, but harpies everywhere.

[Spell type: Illusion

Spell Name: Illusionary Fire

Effect: This spell is intended for intimidation or for striking fear into the hearts of those who witness it and are clueless. The spell produces the illusion of blue flames, blue flames that are perfectly harmless but are loud and fast. This spell works by mimicking actual fire, and by being loud and fast and relying on fear and instinctual aversion to flames.

Spell cost: 400 magical energy per cast.]

[New Species Knowledge Notification: Harpy

Harpies are an all-female species of avian humanoids. They resemble female humans with wings instead of hands. They have a tendency towards neutral-evil in alignment and commonly behave sinfully. The most common sins they engage in are lustful behavior, wrathful conduct, and laziness.

Harpies are the result of an ancient mutation and curse inflicted upon the human women of a long-lost kingdom in a world with every little magic. The first harpies were arrogant women who tortured the holy animals of a god of birds and air. The god, angered by their hubris, took his revenge by turning them into hideous fusions of women and birds.

Communities built by them are nonexistent. They are scavengers and squatters who settle in communities made by other people, especially if they can also steal food from the original inhabitants of whatever places they take over.

They are much stronger than they look, and they are fast fliers with sharp claws. They can evolve into much stronger monsters, like flying sirens or even medusas if they possess poisonous mutations or somehow gained access to potent alteration magic.]

The fate of the first harpy to leave her home happened so fast that it was almost pitiful. The door leading into and out of the house to my left flew open, and a purple-plumed, plump in more ways than one, woman shot out of the house. I grinned at her as she managed to get out of the house and wasted no time aiming one of my newest powers at her. The next few events happened almost instantly.

She looked at my creations in confusion, even as one of them turned his gaze on her. His scarlet eyes stared at her green ones, and I heard his heartbeat quicken. And as other things happened to the brutal warrior. Oh? How curious. I thought, chuckling, as parts of him hardened at the sight of her.

With the first harpy in view, I carefully aimed my false-pain power and activated it with a thought. I watched as the confusion on her face immediately contorted and turned into something else, something far worse than confusion. She winced for a second, and then cried out, the sound foul and painful, as she fell to her knees and her eyes glazed over. She was now enduring an hour of sourceless, harmless, but agonizing pain.

I tapped the minotaur who gazed at her on the back and urged him to go retrieve her. He huffed and set about accomplishing his mission, ran over to the house and ungraciously placed his net around her before lifting her up.

[Now roar and charge into the house.] I commanded him, urging my bullheaded and white-furred Danus to spread fear. He obeyed me, heeding his natural desire to be obedient to his creator, and bellowed aggressively before throwing himself into the house.

"Good." I muttered, happy to see my commands obeyed. And it was at that moment that other harpies began to exit their homes, spurred on by both the agonized cries of one of their friends as well as the scary sound of one of my minotaurs bellowing an animalistic roar.

The harpy community was made up of thirteen houses. The basic composition of the village was that there were two long lines of houses. These lines contained six houses each and they faced each other. The final house was located at the end of these lines of houses. That house was the biggest of all thirteen. Each house contained several different harpies and was in obvious disrepair.

Five separate doors opened at once, and I chuckled as a number of harpies peeked their heads out of their houses. A number of them gasped when they saw the warriors who had apparently set the houses at the edge of their community on fire.

Two of the harpies screeched indignantly, the sounds that escaped their houses sounding like it belonged to a bird of prey and not a humanoid. They were foolish, but brave harpies and a quick usage of identify told me something unsurprising. Their vice was wrath. They dashed out of their houses and then took to the skies so that they could approach us at maximum speed. Oh boy. I thought, as I focused my attention on them.

One of them had green feathers and thick wings. She was otherwise slim, and she was considerably faster than her compatriot was. Her compatriot had blue feathers and was of a medium build due to her visible abs.

I stepped in front of the other minotaurs and waited for the first harpy to be within striking distance. She and I locked eyes, and I smiled. She frowned, anger befouling her oval-shaped face and infecting her purple eyes with rage.

The harpy crossed a not inconsiderable distance within a matter of seconds, and when she was less than twelve meters away from me she took notice of my height and my closeness to the ground. She took aim at my neck and lowered herself to a dangerously low elevation.

The bird-creature spun around in mid-air so that the sharp talons on her feet were facing and flying towards me. She had made a mistake by attacking me, but I could admit and admire her bravery. That said, her feet had sharp talons and I watched them warily. I was grateful that her legs were stick-thin and that my hands were large enough that I could catch both legs in a single grip.

I grinned at her and when the sharp natural weapons drew dangerously close, just centimeters away from the tip of my nose, I grabbed her by her feet. A single hand of mine shot forth at a speed that couldn't be processed by the minds of most mortals, and I completely shut down her attempt to attack me.

My sudden movement caught her off guard and the explosive force I possessed immediately shut off her movement, taking the bird-person from a speed of several meters a second to an instant stop.

It took the harpy a second for her mind to catch up with her body and realize that she was caught, and during that time I studied her closely. She was a small thing, between the size of the average dwarf, so about a meter tall, and the size of the average human, roughly one and a half meters tall.

Her petite frame was well-suited to her kind's muscular flight that relied on them being tiny things with lightweight bones. She had a small, youthful-looking face with big eyes and pencil-like lips that were a glossy shade of pink. She had high cheekbones that pushed her face upwards and minimized the size of her forehead.

She wore the overlarge clothes of a human that were not properly tailored to either her unique body-shape or her diminutive size. Her shirt was baggy, making her look unkempt and lackadaisical. The pants she wore were large and puffy things, and the bottoms of both legs were awkwardly cut through by her talons.

She had a narrow waist and a small behind that I could see because of the strange way she tried to attack me instead of trying something smarter like a drive-by attack that leveraged her speed and kept her safe at the same time.

It was at this point that she realized that she had been stopped. She looked at me and focused, her eyes narrowing to thin slits in her rage. She opened her mouth to screech at me, but I immediately hit her with a mind-blast, a psionic power that stunned those hit by it, cutting off the sound before it could escape her lips. Her face slackened and her tongue lolled out of her open mouth.

"You tried and that matters. But that's not enough. Not against me." I told her, as I copied her memories into myself, storing them for inspection at a less distracting time. "And now you can rest. As a statue." I said, stoically, before aiming one of my favorite spells at her face: flesh-to-stone. I used the hand that wasn't holding her by her legs to fire a single beam of the petrification energy into the back of her head.

She looked shocked for a second, her mind recovering for an instant, as the hair and feathers on her head suddenly turned to stone before the spell affected the rest of her head, rendering her unconscious. I teleported her body as the suddenly unconscious thing was turning to stone to my lair, for safe-keeping until it was time to give Ariel, the harpy we were here to aid, the harpies we had taken. And a smile broke out on my face.

I heard the annoying cries of the one harpy who was close enough to me to do something: the other wrathful one who had taken off an instant after her friend I had just defeated. She was moderately fast, but the village was a few hundred meters across and the distances between people were surprisingly vast so there were still a few moments before she reached me. I gestured for Vizin, the black-furred minotaur to handle her and my thoughts were immediately interrupted and shattered by the reactions of the other, more distant harpies.

The other harpies, the ones who had watched while their friends flew at me, had watched this entire process, and a few of them screeched out in sorrow and anger at the way I had utterly humiliated and possibly killed one of their own flock.

A few of them tried to dash out at me and I stopped them by lifting a hand to the sky and using my magical skills to cut the village in half with a single, thick and tall wall of illusionary fire. The harpies who had watched this were all on the other end of the wall, and I effectively ensured that that stayed the case by dramatically doing what I did next.

I reached within myself and mentally opened up my codex. It took me an instant to find the perfect spell for what I wanted to do. I can be a master of controlling the battlefield. All it takes is me using my magic intelligently. Like this. I thought as I cast the spell. And in doing so, for the first time, I cast an abjuration spell instead of using an effect to achieve my defensive goals.

Before I cast my spell I dramatically shot my hands up towards the sky as if calling down some massive force. I did it partially so they knew that I was responsible for this, after all they were bird-brains, I did need to telegraph everything, and so they were caught off guard and watching me rather than just sprinting in my direction.

[Spell type: Abjuration

Spell name: The Sphere Of Shielding

Effect: This spell creates a sphere of abjuration magic that keeps those within it trapped within it and keeps those out of it, out. This sphere's maximum range is 200 meters in every direction, but its size can be modified as the caster wishes.

Cast: 20 magical energy per meter.]

A sphere of milky white energy emerged from within me and it radiated outward in every direction. I pushed the sphere using my mind and when it touched someone or something in its current, unsolidified state, as it touched Vizin and the harpy who was diving at him, nothing happened to either of them.

The sphere was pushed and pushed in every direction for several moments. I pushed it until it was just beyond the houses in this row. That was when I willed the sphere to solidify. The sphere than became a solid, white wall of energy that separated any more harpies from approaching us.

I chuckled and knew that the raid was effectively over. I did two things at this point.

"Hey! Go get the harpies in that house." I shouted, ordering Aamlo, the oldest of the minotaurs, to invade one of the houses I had set fire too. No harpies had emerged from within it, and I knew they were there so it was weird that they had stayed still. And then I teleported myself out of the sphere and walked over to the harpies who were left.

As I left the sphere I heard Danus emerge from the house he had charged into. I turned to examine him and grinned at what I saw through the barrier. His net was packed with three harpies, all of whom were in various states of disarray. He himself had a few talon-marks on him, indicating that the harpies fought back, but he looked no worse for wear and had a confident smirk on his snout.

I turned my attention back to the harpies in front of me. There were a number of them, but they were paralyzed with fear, their bodies trembling before me. They had seen what I could do with my magic and even the bitter rage they felt in their hearts wasn't enough to compel them to attack me. Good. I thought, but not before I did something to ensure no surprises were about to occur.

[Spell type: Alteration

Spell name: Mass Paralysis

Effect: This spell affects as many nearby creatures as the caster wants it to affect. It paralyzes the people affected by it, terrifying them and preventing them from fighting back. If the caster wishes it can also shut down their minds, but that makes the spell more expensive.

Spell cost: 750 magical energy per unamplified target per cast. 1,000 magical energy per amplified target per cast]

I opted to cast the spell in an unamplified way because I wanted the harpies to remember what I was about to say, to focus on and memorize every word. My spell shot out of me in the form of a perfect sphere, much like the barrier had. It spread out in a 360-degree spread and hit all of the harpies who stared at me in a mixture of rage and fear. The harpies immediately succumbed to my spell and they fell limply to their knees.

Their eyes were wide open and stared at me, shooting daggers my way. I chuckled at them, audibly and loudly so they heard me. I posed dramatically, placing my powerful arms at my side and glaring down at them with the same scarlet eyes as my furred children. And then I began to speak.

"Memorize my face. Memorize my features. Know me and know despair. I and my children shall feast on your kind harpies. We shall invade and like locusts we shall destroy everything you've ever built. When we appear on the horizon I hope you make peace with each other and hold your sisters in your arms. Because we will take you." I said, deepening my voice, and making baleful eye contact with each of the dozen or so harpies before me.

"I am Duulo Silvermane and I am the author of your destruction. I embody sorrow and suffering. And I aspire to do nothing more than to inspire those things in you, in your last days." I told them, hatefully.

This is fun. I thought, enjoying myself.

"Remember me. Remember my children. We are your doom. We will take your sisters, in small groups, and feast on them. And there is nothing you can do to stop us." I said to them, before beginning to laugh scornfully. And then I targeted my children, the various harpies they captured, and myself, and teleported all of us away just to show the harpies that if we wanted too they couldn't even see us coming.

I wonder how they'll react, knowing that we've taken a number of them with us. I thought, as my children, our prisoners, and I were warped elsewhere.