Chapter 3: The horror begins

The fortress of the Ice Fang order loomed over the city like an eternal guardian. The walls were made in the shape of a cube and were made of reinforced stone and steel. According to her father, countless weapons were hidden within the walls, ready to be unleashed in times of need, but Aranea herself never saw them. The city was built around the fortress, with countless homes in which normies, normal-looking humans, lived. Right now, there were only a few people on the streets as everyone was going up to sleep. This suited Aranea just fine. She turned left from the gates of the fortress, moved down the road, and passed through the slums, the poorest district in the city. From the slums she walked toward an abandoned site where factories once were. No longer does the Ice Fang order need these outdated factories that pollute the air. Thanks to the technology that Wyrm Lord brought via trading with Iterna, new factories were clean and safe for the surrounding area. Or at least this was what Aranea’s father told her. Smiling, Aranea lifted her paw to the skies, "grabbing" the distant orb with her palm. There was so much new to see and learn in the world!

Pretty soon, Aranea came across a small group of white furred wolfkin cubs. The elders of the Ice Fang order did not like it when Aranea bothered older cubs, as the Elders considered Aranea to be too young. Thus, everyone had to meet in secret.

"What took you so long!?" One asked. Wide-eyed Keyl, wolfkin of Ice Fang order, snatched Aranea into a hug. He was older by five years and tried his best to impress her with his physical prowess, but no matter how much the boy tried, they were just built differently. Aranea was already taller and stronger than him, she barely felt his hug. The boy carried two wooden swords behind his back.

"So, uhm… about that last time," Keyl grabbed his head, "I understand if you do not want to fight me again…"

"Dummy!" Aranea laughed, hitting him across the head jokingly with her paw, "It was just a bruise! Who cares about it?"

"Oh…" The boy said, visibly relieved, He lowered on one knee and offered her a sword, as if he were some kind of knight, "Then, lady Aranea Wintersong, will you please accept this humble challenge of mine on this beautiful night?"

"Keyl, we want to play," One of the girls nearby said, throwing a black and white soccer ball in the air and catching the ball on her leg, "You will just lose again. Get over it and stop bothering Ari. We all lose sometimes."

Football was something of a new thing in the Ice Fang order. Keyl saw it on TV, on one of the recorded programs brought back from Iterna. He showed it to Aranea, and together they created a small stadium in an abandoned factory. Instead of proper gates, they used steel pipes, and instead of nets, they used ropes. Surprisingly, it was easy enough to buy a soccer ball on the market, although Keyl had to spend his entire birthday's savings on this toy. Eventually, other kids joined the duo. The original soccer ball was long gone, but now that their group was slowly growing in numbers, it was far easier to buy a new one.

"I gladly accept this challenge, good sir!" Aranea boastfully grabbed a wooden sword and jumped a few steps back. She took no stance. In combat, she never took a stance. Keyl showed her some tricks, of course, but against him, she saw no reason to be careful.

Keyl stood up, taking the wooden sword with both hands and raising it to the level of his head, acing directly at Aranea. Gripping the hilt tightly with both paws, he moved the sword slightly to the right of his head,and made a thrust. Aranea blinked in surprise. Usually, Keyl always stuck to the "slashing" hits. But this was a "piercing" motion, and he was wielding his weapon like a spear. In a single lunge, he covered most of the distance. His left paw released sword hilt, and his right paw moved back, holding only at the lower part of the hilt with three fingers and pushing his weapon forward.

Aranea was nearly caught off guard by this motion, having expected him to close the distance with a few steps, not in a single lunge. She leaned her body to the right, evading the wooden blade. It moved past her chest… And then Keyl grabbed his weapon with the full grip of his right paw and made a slash to the right. She had to admit that this was done perfectly. Aranea had never seen such movement from him before. She should have been hit.

And yet he was just so slow! Aranea let herself almost fall back, as Keyl’s sword flew above her head. In this same instance, while falling, she struck forward with her own weapon. Using her own wooden sword as a needle, she hit the boy in the wrist, and Keyl hissed in annoyance. Aranea arrested her own fall by pressing the muscles of her legs, her hair barely touched the ground.

"Touch! Ari wins again!" The wolfkin girl with the soccer ball laughed and clapped her paws in congratulations.

"Damn it all!" Keyl shouted in frustration, helping Aranea stand up before she could fall and hit herself on the stones. He ensured that she was standing and broke his weapon on the knee. "I trained and trained to the point of cracking my bones, and this is the result?!"

"Don’t you worry, Keyli boy!" Aranea jokingly patted him on the head with her paw, "One day you will beat me up…"

"If only I too had the blood of a barbarian in me!" Keyl threw the broken remains of his weapon away.

"What?" Aranea asked in confusion. Barbarian? What could he mean?

"If only I had the same blood as you!" Keyl threw his arms up in anger, visibly furious. Aranea felt bad for him. He really trained hard all day long. But it wasn’t her fault that she was strong, right? "Or if you never had this accursed, tainted blood in you! Then I would never have lost to you! You filthy cheater, dammit all, you filthy cheater! The savage legacy of your mother is just too much for me to overcome! The cursed blood is the only reason why…"

"My mother is not a savage!" Aranea screamed, pushing him back. Keyl fell on his ass, blinking in surprise. Aranea blinked, just as surprised. She hurried to help him to stand up, unsure of what had come upon her, "Sorry, but my mom is! She is… she is caring, she is not cursed… she is a doctor!" Aranea felt tears running across her eyes. Was this what he always thought about her? That she was a savage girl? Someone with a cursed blood?

"Not cool, Keyl." One of the wolfkin boys said, "I never won against Ari myself either, and yet you don’t see me raving like a madman about it." The wolfkin girl threw the soccer ball away and moved to hug Aranea, yet the girl pushed her away, stepping backwards.

"I… I do not feel like playing today, sorry everyone." Aranea mumbled, ashamed of her behavior. She cried like a stupid fool, she will never live this one down.

"Ari…" Keyl stood up on his knees, "Please, I never intended… I do not know what came over me, I am sorry, so sor…"

Aranea could not listen anymore. She turned around and ran. She could hear Keyl and a few others try to catch up, but she was far faster than them. She ran into a building, almost leaped to the second floor across the broken stairs, jumped out of the second floor window, softly landed on her legs, and ran across the bushes to the slums.

"Cursed blood," She mumbled to herself angrily as she reached the slums. "I’ll show you cursed blood. My mother is not cursed, she's just… no longer a warrior, that’s it!" Aranea wiped tears from her eyes. She was unsure what caused such a reaction in her. The cubs always teased each other. Aranea teased Keyl as well, and he teased her right back… so why did she feel so hurt right now?

"I am stupid. There was no harm," She decided. She would apologize to Keyl tomorrow. The poor idiot probably blamed himself right now, "Maybe I should buy him something? But where will I get the tokens?"

She came to a halt near a small stone bridge after hearing a whining sound beneath it. It was the low sound of someone suffering great pain and yet trying their best not to let it out. Without thinking, Aranea jumped down. A small river ran under the bridge, the water was clean and reflected the light of the moon. Something… no, someone, was lying in the dark. It had an enormously big body and pale, almost white skin without any fur. Countless scars and cuts covered the misshaped figure, some were oozing blood, which produced a strange hiss upon hitting the ground, as if weak acid ran in the veins of this strange being. A small, fat-looking tail grew out, almost from the middle of the back. Strange-looking, three-fingered clawed hands grasped its head, covering short ears. The creature had a single blue eye and a single white eye, and tears were running from them. The shape of the skull resembles that of a wolfkin, but the creature was so much bigger! And the rest of its body was... strange.

"Are… are you alright, mister?" Aranea asked as the creature whined again. Aranea was unsure if this was a man, she just made an assumption based on the sound of whining, "Do you need me to call someone for help?"

The creature looked at her, and an unspeakable fear appeared in his eyes. A long slash in the form of a halfmoon was under his left eye. Removing his arms from his head, he whispered:

"Run. For the sake of everything, just run before he comes back…."

Aranea wanted to ask who "he" was, but suddenly she felt a prick in the back of her neck. She wanted to jump, but her body refused to obey. She had become a statue, numbness running down her limbs.

"Who comes back? Me?" A male voice behind Aranea asked cheerfully, and the creature grasped his head, whimpering in terror, "Grug, mind introducing me to your new friend?"

"I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry…" The creature mumbled over and over again, trying not to look at the person behind Aranea.

Something slithered. Aranea's eyes widened as she noticed a long metallic tendril moving on the ground. The thing reached Grug and a thin blade appeared out of it, slicing through the flesh of the beast on his skin and burrowing underneath it, causing Grug to cry out in pain as his skin was peeled away.

"I asked a question, pet," The voice said angrily this time, "And your power prevents me from easily extracting information from your thick skull, so speak up."

"I just saw her. She is just a child, please let her go, please, please…" Grug made no attempt to defend himself, while the tendril was busy opening his arm now. He only whimpered once more, continuing to beg the strange man behind Aranea to let her go.

"Well, let us look at her," Someone grabbed Aranea by her shoulder and made her look up. The smiling face of a normie appeared above her. He had black hair and wore a sand-colored cloak over his shoulders, with a crimson-colored shirt visible beneath it. The whites of his eyes were pitch black, while his pupils gleamed with green, "Lookie here! A half-breed! You must be this Aranea girl I heard so much about. Such curious eyes indeed," Another mechanical tendril appeared above the head of the man, "Can’t wait to see how you react when I take them out."

Take them out? Aranea thought in horror. This has to be a joke, right? She tried to move, but all she could do was look at the smiling face before her.

"Hands off, Academician," A lazy voice said, "You already got what you wanted to. This cub is mine, I have a need for her."

"Oh, come on, Tilden!" Academician turned away from Aranea, looking back at someone, "It's just one more kid. You already gave me six tonight, let me take seven back to the lab. You no longer even need her, the fool will charge into the trap on his own now…"

"I need her to deal with her bitch of a mother," The voice yawned, "The deaths of my dear allies will be in vain, if Kalaisa gets her paws on me. I just want to ensure that their noble sacrifice won’t be in vain, don’t you want the same? So kindly fuck off before we make you. I am taking her with me."

"Make me?" Academician whispered, as if in disbelief. One more mechanical tendril rose in the air, and, with horror, Aranea saw several cubs, children of the Ice Fang order, sleeping in a glass cage currently held by the tendril. "Am I sensing an iota of threat here, friend?" The tentacle carelessly threw the cage away for someone to catch. The voice of Academician had changed, unmistakable aggression was once more heard in the previously cheerful voice.

"Sir, we really ought to leave." A woman’s voice said. She sounded tired, as if she were dealing with a petulant child, "You got what you wanted, Tilden will get what he wants, and hopefully we can all continue our productive cooperation…"

"Be silent, please, dear," Academician told the unknown woman and looked down at Aranea, "Sorry, but I will have to leave you as a human. But do not worry, I will give you a nudge toward ascension," He lifted the girl and whispered into her ear, "Everything that will happen to your family from this moment onward is your and only your fault. It only happens because you are weak. Live with it." He threw Aranea in the air like a doll.

Her body was spinning when someone caught her by the neck. The white-furred wolfkin of the Ice Fang order was holding her. On his neck he carried a long golden chain, he was dressed in blue-colored power armor. His helmet was missing, revealing a boring-looking face with a single scar over his left eye. He was holding Aranea in one paw and pointing a wrist gun at Academician with the other. Several other wolfkins were standing behind him, their paws on the hilts of their swords.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Academician. The deaths of my dear comrades now won’t be in vain." The wolfkin smiled arrogantly.

Academician stood in front of the wolfkins, smiling with barely contained rage. Several mechanical tendrils were visible from underneath his cloak, one was currently slicing open the back of the Grug, causing the large being to cry from pain. A green-haired young woman in strict green clothes was standing next to the man, holding the glass cage with sleeping cubs in her arms.

"Well, if this is it, we will leave now," Academician smiled thinly, and a large black oval appeared in the air behind Grug with a soft hiss. After a second, Aranea could see a large white room inside, filled with light and medical equipment. "A word of advice. Don’t lose your head, Tilden, you are not half as smart as you think you are." Academician chuckled, turning around and walking through the portal with Grug and the woman.

"Sack of shit." Tilden said calmly, as the portal closed. He threw Aranea's body up, and she felt a blow to the back of her neck. Everything became black afterwards.