“No,” he said quietly. “There’s another group on the other side of town.”

  “More werewolves? Are they lying in wait for us to get tired?” Malik asked, already tightening his grip on his spear.

  Nick shook his head. “It’s children, and one elderly woman. All of them are cursed, but I don’t think they are seeking a fight.”

  A complicated silence followed that.

  Raphael ran a hand across his face. “We don’t have the resources to—”

  “We’ll see what we’re dealing with first,” Nick cut in, his voice coming out harsher than he intended. “Then we can decide on their fate. Killing the adults was inevitable, but I might be able to do something about them.”

  Nobody argued. Death was a constant companion for adventurers, and monsters came in all shapes and sizes, which meant they had to get used to killing even humanoid beings. But if there were a possibility, however slim, that they could avoid killing children, they would gladly take it.

  They took their time before moving, wanting to ensure they were back in fighting shape. After all, while Raphael’s spatial distortion had let them fight the overwhelming numbers, it didn’t mean it hadn’t been exhausting.

  A quick patrol of the hamlet to make sure Nick hadn’t missed any adults was followed by the grim task of dragging the bodies into a loose pile in the center, where Joran’s green fire quickly turned them into ash now that the curse was no longer resisting its power.

  Only then did they cross the hamlet toward the house Nick had pointed out.

  It looked like all the others: low, with a sagging roof and a small porch. A line of laundry fluttered on a rope out front, oddly normal after the massacre they’d just carried out.

  Nick could feel the souls inside. They were tense, coiled, and deathly afraid, yet they hadn’t run, which showed they still had enough of a human mind to understand the foolishness of doing so, given the open fields around them.

  He knocked using an air construct, not wanting to get too close in case things went sour from the very start.

  There was a pause, then a low growl, and the door cracked open. An old woman peered out.

  At a quick look, she could have appeared human. She had grey hair pinned up in a bun, a face marked with lines, and a shawl draped over her slender shoulders.

  The poisonous yellow slitted eyes and the ears ruined the effect.

  They were long and furry, twitching atop her head. A tail of the same gray fur swayed slowly behind her, visible as it flicked past her ankle. Her fingers ended in sharp, yellowed nails, and when she instinctively bared her teeth at the sight of so many armed strangers, Nick saw her elongated canines.

  She wasn’t fully changed, meaning she still retained some control, and the curse’s pattern in her soul was old enough to have settled, yet it hadn’t completely overtaken her.

  She must have been resisting all this time. To think that an old woman would succeed where all her peers failed.

  She growled, a sound that vibrated in her chest more than her throat, and she shifted to block the doorway.

  Behind her, Nick glimpsed eyes.

  Small faces peek out from behind her legs and furniture. Children, twelve of them, each carrying that silver chain woven into their souls.

  He felt his hand tighten on the Shard instinctively. I could kill them now, and end this.

  It would be simple. One sweeping invocation, and a dozen cursed lives would never get the chance to rip out anyone’s throat under a full moon. It’s almost certain that they will end up as feral beasts. They might have been turned recently, so the madness hasn’t fully taken them yet, but it will.

  The old woman seemed to sense that thought, because her growl deepened, her chest swelling, and the muscles in her forearms thickened. She looked ready to hurl herself at them, frail form or not.

  “Nick,” Raphael began softly, and he grimaced. He didn’t think approaching now would lead to anything but an explosion of violence, and if he killed their guardian, the children would likely fall into a frenzy.

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  “Let me try first,” another voice said, and Terence stepped forward.

  He had mostly stayed in the back during the fight, flanking Yvonne and Monte, supporting where he could. Now, however, he moved past them, making sure to keep his hands visible and his posture non-threatening.

  He stopped just outside striking distance and inclined his head to greet the old woman.

  “I am Terence Rohm,” he said steadily. “Nephew of Lord Rohm of Long Reach.”

  Her eyes flicked to him, narrowing. Recognition flashed across her face, not of his face, but of the name and its importance in this area.

  “We know who your Lord is,” she rasped. Her voice had a strange double tone, human and not. “His men used to come by and protect us from monsters. Long ago.”

  Terence nodded. “Then you understand what it means if I swear by his name.” He drew a breath. “Your children—”

  “They are mine,” she snapped. “You will not harm them!”

  “Yes, we won’t harm them,” Terence said patiently. “But they are cursed, which means they won’t be able to remain themselves much longer.”

  His words hung heavily over them, and for a moment, Nick thought she’d reject his assertion. But her shoulders slumped just a bit, and she whispered, “I know.”

  She is truly resisting the curse. Her soul’s makeup doesn’t seem particularly unusual, so she must have a Trait that offers her some resistance, like [Blasphemy], even if it's too weak to reject it fully.

  She wasn’t an occultist, and her mana levels were low enough that he doubted her level was over forty, but Nick wasn’t ready to dismiss her yet. Witches came in wide varieties, and she might have received a class more attuned to the darker arts, providing her with resistance to all kinds of curses.

  I have to remember that this place was once perfectly peaceful until the dungeon appeared. It’s not quite the heartland, but we’re far from any external threat. It’s entirely possible she never had to fight monsters and only improved her skills by practicing in safe environments.

  Terence glanced back at Nick, then returned his gaze to the old woman. “My friend here,” he said, stumbling only briefly over the word, “was able to cleanse some of our soldiers of the same taint that affects you before the curse took hold completely. He might be able to do the same for your young ones, if you let him.”

  Honestly, Nick would rate the chances of success at thirty percent. The soldiers had just been turned, while these children had endured days under its grip. The only reason he believed it might be possible was that they were too young to have even received a class yet, meaning their souls were still flexible enough to withstand more drastic treatment than the soldiers.

  “You offer mercy after you've slaughtered their fathers and mothers,” she hissed. “What kind of life would that leave us, even if that were possible?”

  There was a lot of bitterness in her tone, enough to make Nick think she had tried and failed at that very same task. He wasn’t surprised, since even with his power, knowledge, and unfair advantages, the procedure would be very risky. For a local hedge-witch, it was an impossible task.

  Terence flinched but didn’t back down. “They attacked us,” he said. “They would have killed us, and then others. I won’t apologize for defending my people. But the children,” he paused for a moment as his jaw tightened, “they have not yet made that mistake. We can give them a future.”

  The woman seemed to sense he was actually being sincere, so her gaze slid past him to Nick.

  Nick met it. There was a kind of intimacy when two mages exchanged glances that, even without using specific spells, could reveal a lot about their abilities. If his suspicions about her class were correct, she would be attuned enough to exotic energies to sense that he was not an ordinary caster.

  For once, he didn’t try to hide and let his presence show just enough for her, and only her, to get a real glimpse.

  The woman instinctively stepped back, her eyes widening.

  “If they submit,” Terence said softly, “I swear no harm will come to them from us. Not today, not from anyone under my uncle’s banner.”

  Nick sensed a flicker of sincerity in the young noble’s words, bright and earnest compared to the echoes of pain in the ether. Whatever else Terence Rohm was, he truly meant it.

  The old woman’s ears twitched as she looked back into the shadowy room, where tiny hands clutched at the worn fabric of her skirt.

  She took a long, shuddering breath and slowly stepped aside.

  She didn’t kneel, bow, bare her throat, or perform any act of submission that might have been expected. She simply moved away from the doorway, her tail still lashing warily, arms half-spread as if she was ready to throw herself between them and the children anyway.

  “Do it,” she rasped.

  Nick could sense her reluctance to let a powerful mage into her den. It was an instinct she couldn’t completely suppress, but the fact that she could even reason that much gave him confidence she wouldn’t attack even if he was distracted.

  Of course, he wasn’t worried about himself. Raphael stood behind him, and the woman would be dead long before she reached him. But that would make it much harder to get the children to cooperate.

  He cast a simple light spell, illuminating the room, and, for the first time, he got a good look at the kids.

  They were all very young, ranging from a toddler barely able to stand on his own, yet already with twin fangs protruding from his mouth, to a boy who might have been seven or eight with slitted eyes, standing protectively over the others.

  “I will need to touch your heads to work, but I promise it won’t hurt,” he said. It probably would, and quite a bit at that, but he fully intended to anesthetize their souls with a good deal of spiritual magic, so hopefully there wouldn't be any screaming.

  There was a long moment of shuffling hesitation, but when it seemed like the old woman might bark something at them, the oldest boy stepped forward bravely. “Do it to me first!”

  Nick suppressed a smile and extended his hand, ignoring the flinch it caused. He wrapped the kid in an invisible bubble of wind, both to keep him steady and to prevent any noise from reaching the others and spooking them, then grasped the Shard tightly with his other hand and dove into his soul, using a surge of calming spiritual mana to enter.

  As his power spread through the body and did its job, Nick finally got a clearer look at the state of the boy’s soul.

  From a distance, the curse looked much like it did with the soldiers, still not fully wrapped around, but hooked in. Now, he could clearly see that wasn’t quite right.

  Its barbs had enough time to press deeply into the metaphysical construct, and he knew that even if he could remove them, they’d leave scars. Yet when he prodded at it, the curse was oddly compliant, not resisting nearly as much as the others.

  It feeds on the power of their emotions. That makes sense; it is a curse, after all.

  That changed things. With renewed determination, Nick gently pried the hooks out of the kid’s soul, ignoring the weak attacks it sent back as they shattered against [Blasphemy], until he removed the last one and emerged back into the material world, feeling the taint dissolve into the ether.

  The boy staggered, gasping for breath, but when he looked back up, his eyes had returned to their normal brown, and his nose twitched, probably getting used to the lower sensitivity.

  If his canines were still a bit sharper, and his hearing a little better than normal, there wasn’t much Nick could do about it.

  He’s probably going to get a unique class when it’s time, but at least he’s human again.

  45+ chapters: