The Beasts' Forest:

The sun had just risen on the ruins of the village where Adam and Susan found the evil spirit, Atalia the danupira, a light fog was still hovering over the scene and dew covered the short grass.

Suddenly, from the shade of a long tree, a figure stepped out, as if it was stepping out from water, leaving behind weird ripples from the shade he had just stepped out of.

The figure was a young man that appeared to be in his mid-twenties, he had black skin with dark purple lines covering it in random patterns, he was around 1.7 meters and had a normal but healthy built.

He was wearing a long black coat that reached down to just below his knees, a dark brown shirt underneath it and black pants too, he carried on his back a bow and a quiver full of arrows, while on his waist, there was a wide belt that had many different things, with a small pouch on the right side of his hip and he also had a normal bag strapped over his back.

At first, the man that was clearly a skugg gave the place a normal glance only, but then he froze as his eyebrows rose and his expression became serious: there was something different about the place he came to for hundreds of times in the last eight years, something was off about it.

The skugg looked around before he finally moved after a while, he took a step forward and fell into a shadow, disappearing again before he reappeared in a totally different location of the ruins, stepping out of another shadow.

Out of the shadow, the skugg looked around the place he was standing in as his black pupiled eyes turned completely black, they were like two black holes inside his head, then he studied the location carefully.

"Two people... They stopped here for a bit... Then headed to..." The skugg murmured to himself as he looked and moved around, but he didn't finish his words as he lifted his head and looked away to where the single wall of what was once a tower was standing.

Pooof!

The skugg scattered into a mess of pitch-black smoke that headed fast towards the location of the lone standing wall.

The smoke stopped a few meters away from the wall and reformed into the skugg who stood frozen with his unbelieving eyes wide open as he took in the scene in front of him.

"It... Disappeared..." He murmured to himself in shock.

After making sure that there was no traps or any of the like, the skugg moved slowly towards the tallest wall in the ruins, one that was just a little while back hidden by a runic glyphs array he couldn't recognize.

As he was studying the big wall in front of him, he noticed another thing, in what must have been one day the main hall of the tower, a big hole, that was clearly recent appeared.

The skugg slowly and carefully moved to the edge of the hole, till he finally got a better look at what was below, it was a big but empty hall, with a door that led to elsewhere.

Looking from one place to another in the hall, the skugg then closed his eyes, a bit later, it seemed as if the shadows in the hall got darker and blacker as if they were drawn by rich oil paint.

Things continued like that for a while before the skugg finally opened his eyes again and with that, the shadows below returned to their usual state. He then jumped down with not as much caution as he showed before.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, he looked right away at the door that led to the other hall, as if he knew that nothing important was in the first one.

Step! Step! Step!

The sound of his footsteps echoed down the empty hall as he moved slowly to the door, stopping in front of it for a while as he peered carefully inside with his fully black eyes. His sight fell on many different locations in the hall, noticing the small signs of battle that covered the floor before taking his eyes to the things that caught his attention the most, the recently made grave and its headstone.

"Danupira...?" He frowned.

***

"Argh..." Susan let out a low groan as she slowly woke up from her deep sleep with strong pain all over her body.

She tried to remember what had happened but her mind was suffering from a head-splitting headache, making her thoughts process slow and messy.

Opening her eyes slowly, the first thing that met her was the sunlight coming in from the opening of the cave, making her close her eyes again with another groan.

"What in the hell happened..." She murmured to herself in a tongue she was sure only she would understand as she laid down again, pulling the covers over her head, using every ounce of her seemingly missing power to do so.

Just as she was still trying to understand what happened from the messy soup of mixed memories in her mind, a sound echoed from the mouth of the cave.

"Oh, you've woke up," despite all the chaos her mind was in, she was still able to make out Adam's voice, "but... Hmm, it seems that you're not exactly alright, how do you feel?"

"Emmmghhh..." A long-suffering groan was all she could get out, not that he was going to misinterpret it anyway, she thought in a hazy part of her mind.

"Okay, okay, I get you," he answered with a hint of laughter, "it seems that my bet was on point, I was kind of worried that I'd wasted my time making this, but it seems that it's going to see some use after all."

His joking and bright tone made the already annoyed Susan even more irritated and she wished that she could at least frown at him.

"Calm down, calm down," Adam must have felt her annoyance because he hurried to say as he moved closer towards her, she also heard him sit down and put something next to her.

"Come on, try sitting up," he said as he removed the cover aside, exposing her head.

This time, even with all the pain, the headache and the sickness she was feeling, she still opened her eyes and endearing the stinging she felt from them, she gave him the strongest glare she could muster.

"I know, I know, but you have to drink this, it would help you a lot," seeing her glare, which she was sure was more pitiful than anything, Adam said as he helped her sit up, before adding in a tone that was much less sure, "or... At least I hope it would."

She gave him another groan that she was sure he wouldn't be able to misinterpret its meaning before letting him pull her up.

Adam pulled her and had her sit with her back against the wall, using the big bag he had as a pillow of some kind.

With her against the wall and her eyes tightly shut, Susan tried her best not to puke, not that she had much in her stomach anyway, a part of her suspected that the only reason she wasn't puking all over was that her stomach was empty.

From the sound she heard from her side, she knew that Adam had lifted the thing he had put next to her when he set down, opening her eye a slit, she saw one of the small iron pots they used for cooking and their daily meals

In it was what seemed to be some greenish soup with a few leaves and bits of plants floating on its surface, it wasn't really that appetizing and made her stomach that had calmed down a bit makes itself known as it tried to find something to throw out.

"I... Argh..." She started speaking but the pain and nausea caught up to her, but she still forced herself to speak, she wasn't going to let herself puke in front of him then and there because of this, "I don't think that... Argh. That I'll be able to eat anything..."

Even saying just that made her want nothing more than to lay down and fall to the embrace of sleep, she was in a horrible state and started wondering again just what had happened to put her in such a state, she felt as she did when she was a kid and would get a bad cold, and how her mom would take care of her.

"You have to, and don't worry, this will really help you, it's an old and known recipe in all of Tellor and people from most races tried it, even I did, you truly are going to improve when you drink it," answered Adam as he lifted the pot for her to drink of it.

He sounded honest enough so she decided to trust him, her giving up and wanting just to be done with this quickly so she could get back to sleep as fast as possible had nothing to do with that for sure.

The soup or whatever it was, didn't have any special smell at all, or that was at least what she felt, she didn't know if that was because it really didn't have any, or because she was simply ill.

"Come on now, just drink it," Adam urged her after waiting with the small pot in his hand for a while.

If she could, Susan would have sighed, but she couldn't so she imagined she did before opening her mouth a bit.

Adam lifted the small pot and tilted it a bit to her mouth, sensing the pot at her lips, then it moving and the soup entering her mouth, Susan felt, even before it reached her stomach the desire to puke getting stronger.

The soup was thick and had a weird taste she wasn't able to comprehend, it was a mix of bitterness, saltiness and some light sweetness and tens of other flavours she wasn't able to decipher, it was a chaotic mix of flavours.

Adam seemed to have expected this because he soon said in a gentle kind voice:

"You have to hold on, believe me, it will get much better after it reaches your stomach, you just have to hold on for now."

His voice made her trust him for some reason. So fighting the urge to puke with all her strength, she tried to force herself to swallow the thick gooey disgusting soup as she thought about how if this was a joke of some kind by Adam, she would make sure that she would throw up all over him by mistake.

She was essentially able to feel the soup as it went down her throat and to her stomach, and the more it went down, the stronger the notion to puke was. She had no idea how she managed to swallow it at the end, but she did.

The disgusting thick greenish soup finally made it down to her stomach and sat there calmly, calming down her stomach that just a moment ago wasn't shy on showing its refusal and trying to leave her body, but that was just the beginning of the improvements.

After her stomach calmed down, she felt some warmth move around and fill each and every part of her body. Starting from her stomach.

It was the comfortable kind of warmth you would feel when it's cold outside and you finally enter your warm bed and fall into a deep slumber.

As the warmth moved all around her body, Susan heard Adam say:

"Come on, there's still much more, you have to finish it for you to get better sooner."

This time, and knowing what was coming, Susan braced herself well for what was coming before taking another sip, and just as she expected, the taste was still just as horrible, and even with the first sip calming down her stomach, it still showed how annoyed it was again and tried to shower Adam with its new content, but she was able to control herself fast and stop the unfortunate accident from happening.

Finally, after numerous sips and a lot of struggling on her part and a lot of counselling from Adam, she was able to drink the whole pot, with the comforting warmth filling every part of her, she started feeling sleepy again and wanted nothing more than just to fall asleep.

With her thoughts getting blurry, Susan suddenly felt Adam as he moved her back down to her bed.

"You can sleep now, we will speak about the rest later," his voice was kind and gentle.

She felt relaxed as he covered her, that was the last memory going through her mind before she gave herself to sleep.

After who knows how much time had passed, Susan opened her eyes again, but this time she was much better, her stomach wasn't trying to relocate and the pain wasn't filling all her senses whenever she tried to move, and she felt as if some strength had returned to her.

With a little groan, Susan sat up in her bad and looked around her, not far from her, Adam was sitting with his back towards her, when she sat up, he finally turned her way:

"Welcome to the world of the living again," he said jokingly before adding, "how are you feeling."

"Mu... Much better," she answered, less grumpy now that she was not suffering, her voice was still hoarse from sleep and exhaustion though, "your soup helped a lot, thank you."

"No need for that," he waved his hand dismissively, "I know how that feels, it's horrible, and also, making that soup wasn't that troublesome."

"What was that anyway? What happened for me to end in that kind of state? Was... Was it the spiders? Did I get bitten?" She asked in confusion and fear.

Now that pain and exhaustion weren't taking up all her attention, her mind was able to do some of its simpler functions, and she was able to somehow remember some of what had happened. And then the first thing she remembered was a thread falling down from the sky before wrapping her and a monstrous face looking at her.

She probably was going to remember much more after a while, but at that moment her head was still foggy and slow.

"No, it wasn't any of that, those spiders weren't able to hurt you at all before going down," answered Adam, then he seemed to be studying if he should say the next part as he scratched his head:

"And as for what was wrong with you... Then that is a much more complicated matter somehow... What you suffered from is called mana poisoning, the one you suffered from was a minor one... It usually happens for many reasons and..."

Adam stopped at this point and gave her a complex gaze that made her throw what happened yesterday aside as a sense of anticipation filled her heart:

"...And in your case," he continued, "...That was because you cast a relatively strong spell for the first time..."