"Ahhhh!"

The leader screamed as Thundertail tinkered with his organs. He was nailed to a wooden table with four misshapen knives. His entrails were spilling out his chest as Thundertail studied his internals. Thundertail took the opportunity to not only punish the instigator of the raid but also to study the anatomy of people. Blood was dripping from the edges of the table. The leader cried as the Thundertail took careful measures to not instantly kill him.

"Please, just kill me already," the leader begged. His mind had not yet faded and he could feel the metal fingers mix around his organs. He was helpless. His limbs were weak and powerless as the power within them had been drained with the blood.

"No, not yet. I'm not yet finished," Thundertail answered. He was looking at the leader's liver. He tried to ascertain the functions of the organ, but he couldn't. He poked and sliced it, but he still hadn't figured out for sure what it does. Its functions were yet unknowable.

"Please end me," the leader pled in a weak voice.

Thundertail inwardly sighed. He was tired from the leader's words, and his curiosity was yet to be fully sated, but there was no more he could gather from his amateur vivisection. He was yet to be satisfied.

He stepped down from his stepping stool and washed the blood from his hands in a basin of water. He left the tortured man on the wooden table and began looking around at the changes that had happened since he's been busy with the leader. The fire that was eating the village had since died down, and only embers and charcoal had been left in their wake. The corpses of the villagers of the Thernburke were being piled by the surviving children and women. The corpses of the raiders were piled separately.

He looked at the pitiful states of the women and children who had exhausted their eyes of tears. They worked quietly. They regarded Thundertail with fear and distrust. He would normally bask in the glorious feeling of being feared and awed, but this time, he felt sorry to this folk. He stood and looked at them casually, not shedding his emotions or cultivating pride.

Lumber and charcoal were thrown over the corpses, to help fuel the funeral pyre until the flesh and bones of the dead were naught but ash. The survivors had awaited him to begin the funerary service. They had chosen him to lead it although he had never led something like this before. The crowd parted around him as approached the unlit pyre.

He raised a hand at the pile of wood and corpses and threw a lightning bolt. Thunder crashed and fire was born in a flash. The pyre was set ablaze; the flames licked up to the sky, wavering in the air. The air was filled with the smell of burning flesh. He turned to the villagers and began recounting a funerary rite.

"May the flames free their souls from the coils of their form. May the attendants of heaven receive their souls and bring them to paradise," Thundertail recited.

"Say it with me," he incited, and the crowd began to speak with him. Their voices chorused and filled the air. Their mourning and tears spilled out of their beings. "Let the souls find rest and satisfaction in the purifying flames. Attend their arrival to paradise, our friends." They repeated it seven times.

Soon, the flames died out, and only ashes were left. Thundertail scooped the ashes into a jug. He carried it to a hole dug beforehand and dumped the jug into the pit. Industrious women began throwing dirt into the hole, burying the jug one layer of dirt at a time. On the other side of the pit, they could see a large gravestone planted into the dirt like a monolith. The names of their fallen friends, families, and acquaintances were carved into the stone, and they were as of yet unfinished in carving all their names. As the ritual was ongoing, there were still those that were carving the names of their loved ones onto the stone. As it was going, they might need another slab so that there was enough space for everyone's names.

Thundertail's frown deepened as the next ritual was to be done. He looked onto the corpses of the raiders. He had tried hard to chase after and kill all the raiders, but he can't be completely sure that none of them had escaped.

He didn't want to conduct a funeral to them, but the villagers had convinced him that he should. The souls of the wicked shouldn't be left to rot on this earth. They must be released from their flesh to be given their just punishment in the afterlife. Lest he wants them getting away from a just punishment, he must do the ritual.

There he stood before the pile of corpses and fuel. The body of the leader had been placed above all the corpses and remains of the raiders. He was still, although barely, and his organs and limbs were still twitching atop the pile of wood. The pile of gore had elicited horror and disgust from the crowd, but Thundertail didn't care and wasn't affected. The ritual began as he threw a lightning bolt at the pile. The pile was set ablaze, and the bodies began to burn.

He turned to the crowd and recited, "May the flames lit here bring these folks to absolution. Cleanse their souls, scrub them clean of the crimes they've done. May the attendants of heaven dispense just punishment."

"Say it with me," Thundertail shouted. The folks around him joined in his speech, though they did not exhibit the same eagerness as he had. His voice rang over theirs, ringing like a thunderclap in a great rainstorm. They repeated the verse seven times until the fire before them had died to embers and ash. "Curst be the folk who now lay piled before us. Rip and tear their souls from their flesh and bone. May they suffer the misfortune of the actions they've done."

Thundertail scooped the ashes and put them in a bucket of chum. He thoroughly mixed the abominable ashes into the dubious muck. He carried the mixture to the river where he dumped the contents into the water. It's not customary to their beliefs to throw the ashes of their dead into a river, but as Thundertail was the emcee of the ritual, he got to decide what sort of burial was given.

"Take their essence away from this land, fishes. And bring them to where they may be judged and punished," Thundertail said.

All the rituals they needed to do had ended, and soon they had to leave. There was nothing there for them in the village anymore. They had to move somewhere else until they can come back and rebuild. This time too, Thundertail led their caravan. Behind him followed a bunch of women and children carrying all the belongings they could save. They had carts and wheelbarrows to carry their stuff.

They were travelling for the closest town, Yburn. There, they could accumulate capital to rebuild the village, but it's also just as likely for the village to stay abandoned. Thundertail grimaced at that thought. The village laying abandoned and dead in the wake of a raid felt distasteful, but considering that most of their company was weak and helpless, it was better for them to leave and gather strength somewhere else.

They prepared as well as they could for the days-long journey they're going to undertake. They had gathered all the things of value they could salvage. The food they could bring were scarce with a few preserved fruits and pickled fish hidden away. Thundertail was not very concerned with food; they could always hunt, gather, and fish for their meals.

~~==8==~~

It was late autumn that Bob had found himself in one of the tailor's shops in Yburn. He was dropping off a shipment of dyed cloth for the tailor. He had made a sideline of dyeing cloth for his expenses. His college had assigned them to find a familiar before they could be cleared to pass the first year of his course.

He had travelled far north in search of familiars, but so far he hadn't found himself a familiar that he could be comfortable to make himself comfortable with. The familiars that could be found in this part of the kingdom were more nature aligned than those that could be found further south, but alas, they were much shier than the typical city familiar. City familiars were typically seen as distasteful and dirty. Many of them of earth- and fire-aligned with vessels made of smoke and dust and mist.

He could always try constructing a familiar for himself, but that's a great undertaking. A familiar is really just an inanimate sculpture animated and given life by magic alone. That's going to burn a hole in his budget. The craftsmen specializing in making familiar vessels often charged a pretty penny on whoever dared to try making their own familiar. Without even mentioning reagents and rituals, his wallet would already be half its weight.

Finding a familiar was simply much more economical.

The tailor had given him 48 golden coins for the bolt of cloth he had dyed a lovely lavender. Magically dyed purple cloth was a cheap alternative to actual purple dye. While magically dyeing was generally more expensive than chemical means, it was cheaper when it comes to exotic rare colors. Thankfully, color changing enchantments were basic first-year mage stuff. His amateur colorizing enchantment should last a year or two.

Bob stepped out of the shop, now with a heavier wallet. While many, it wouldn't be helping him find a familiar. He's mostly been using it to spend on his personal needs: food, water, a place to sleep. Considering how scarce and skittish the wild familiars of these parts turned out to be, he's going to be spending a lot of time here.

He passed by the reeve's office and was rather puzzled to find a group of women and children standing close to each other just outside. They stayed close to each other and looked at any passers-by with fascination. They were definitely out-of-towners. Their clothes were drab and dirty and not in style with the general vibe of the town. He wasn't sure why a large number of them had gathered out here, but he decided to ignore that and be on his way.

However, his peaceful departure was interrupted when a small girl had approached him and asked, "Are you a wizard?" A posse of five children was standing not far from her, watching what would come to this.

Might as well indulge her curiosity. "Yes, I am, young girl," Bob answered. He had been asked by a number of young folk before. He already knew what she was going to ask next.

"Can you do magic?" She asked.

Without further ado, he pulled on to his mana veins. It filtered out his fingers, and with a little force of will, a spark of lightning was summoned from his fingers. The little humble spark jumped and arced in the air. He made it dance between his fingers. The children came near to see the spark closely. They oohed and aah-ed whenever the spark flew high in the air. He finished his act by closing his palm and trapping the spark. The spark was absorbed back into his body.

"Tada," he finished. He opened his palms and showed to them that they were empty. Showing off to impressionable youth was simply cathartic.

The girl was smiling widely at the show he made. "I told you guys. Uncle Thundertail is a wizard," she told her friends. Bob was rather rattled to hear them talking about someone other than him after his act.

Her friends retorted in turn, "Come on, Mara. Did you really think that was real magic?"

"He made lightning jump from his hands. So could Thundertail."

Bob made another spark jump from his hands. "Controlling the elements is a real magic as any other kind," he explained. It was already hot on the college hallways. He didn't need to have this debate with ignorants. Still, a wizard among them with a really pretentious name.

The children argued amongst themselves on whether or not their friend, Thundertail, was a wizard. He wanted to ask them about this Thundertail, but his pleas were unheard. While it's unlikely for someone personally known to children could be a master wizard, being apprentice to one was a boon to his scholarship. He's heard that this Thundertail was rather masterful in the lightning element, one of his favored elements.

It was then a woman had come in to quiet their argument before him. She was carrying a bag of vegetables and herbs when she came rushing to them. She hushed the children before apologizing to Bob, "We're very sorry, mister. I hope they haven't pestered you too much."

He politely replied, "No worries, madam. However, now I'm intrigued by this Thundertail fellow they kept talking about."

The woman chuckled with nervous humor. "Oh him. He's the one to get us out of a predicament."

"Oh, I'd like to know more. What kind of predicament?"

"There were these raiders that attacked our village and captured us. Thankfully, Thundertail was there to save us."

"Tell me more about Thundertail. I've heard awesome things about him," he inquired. He had spoken softly and seductively to coax answers from the woman, but there was little need.

"He was the most awesome," one of the children blurted out.

"He could shoot lightning from his hands," another added.

"He fought an army on his own and won," another uttered.

"He took a fireball to the face and went back to fighting right after," the last stated.

He raised his eyebrows high on his face. While they could be exaggerations of what he'd done, he was sure of it, Thundertail was at least a very skilled mage. He had to get tutored under him, even if he was a hedge mage.

He turned to the woman. "Do you know where he is? I need to talk with him."

The woman was hesitant to tell him where this wizard was, but the children held no such compunctions. Immediately, one of the children had said, "He's in the reeve's office."

As though fated to meet, a group of people was exiting the reeve's office. They wore the same kind of drab garb as the people waiting out here. Their exit was momentous enough for all of them to turn to their emergence. However, it wasn't the people that exited that had drawn him the most. It was the creature that had come out alongside them.

It was a dangerous creature made of dull black metal. It had eyes glowing red, and edges all over its body. Its mouth was armed with daggers, and it had blades instead of fingers. A bladed tail trailed behind him which gracefully sliced the air as it turned. Its arms and legs had been deformed by high heat, and it appears to be missing one finger on one of its hands. Despite many of its edges having been rendered harmless by partial melting, it still came as dangerous to his senses.

'This must be his familiar,' Bob thought. His thoughts of Thundertail were roiling in his head. Thundertail must be a member of the wealthy elite to afford something as well-made and powerful as the creature that now stands before him. Metal familiars this well-shaped weren't a natural occurrence.

"I wish to see your master," he told the familiar. Everyone turned to look at Bob. Their eyes pierced into his being as though deciphering what he just said. They were dumbfounded.

The familiar craned its head to look at him in the eye. Even it seemed to be surprised at his words.

The familiar's voice rang from its throat. Its voice rang tinny and electric. Its voice sounded like the lovechild of a dry thunderstorm and a violin. "What? I'm Thundertail, and I'm not beholden to any master."