Much to her surprise, Hood woke up in an unfamiliar yet comfortably warm and soft bed in a small room that smelled heavily of peculiar herbs. The early morning sun was streaming in through the window and gave a nice golden colour to the worn wood walls. Taking stock, Hood found she wasn’t even in that much pain. Sure, her head throbbed a little and a strange tingling pain shot up her spine whenever she moved, but all in all she had experienced many worse mornings… Then her eyes fell on the stump of her right arm and a few more memories of last night filtered into her consciousness. Where her dominant arm had once been was now a short, seared lump of flesh. With a grimace, she amended her last thought somewhat. She had experienced some worse mornings. Somewhat sobered by that thought, she got up and located her things. As she got dressed, she noted that the red colour on large patches of her cape was much fresher and brighter than the rest, but it seemed to be mostly her own blood, and didn’t feel any more tainted that the rest of the garment. It would settle into the cloth, given time. It always did. She left the small bedroom and found herself in a large room full of heavy wooden shelves. Given that the shelves were all full of strange herbs and vaguely distressing things floating in dark glass jars, she assumed this was an apothecary. It took her some time to find the proprietor among the forest of shelves, and when she did the wrinkly old woman in question seemed quite nervous at her approach, taking a step back and speaking in somewhat hurried tones. “Good. You’re up. The magistrate wants to see you.” “Thank you for lending me your bed to recover in.” “Don’t thank me, just go.” Her attitude brought Hood up short for a moment. Sure, she was no stranger to cold receptions, or even open fear, but something about how the woman looked at her felt off. “Have I offended you in some way?” She asked, half curious and half concerned. “Offended me? Hah! You’re an offence to nature itself. More demon than girl, is what you are. Now get out of my shop!” Deciding not to push the matter further, Hood left the shop in something of a hurry. But the apothecary’s words kept repeating over and over in her head. With a frown she pulled a mirror from her pack and brought it up to inspect her eyes, but what she saw almost made her drop the fragile object. The curling crimson script that had been slowly spreading throughout her irises for many decades had penetrated all the way to her pupils, and tiny golden flecks had appeared throughout her usually ice-blue eyes. “Why?” She whispered in disbelief. In a single night, the script had progressed further than it had in the last thirty or forty years. She cast about for an answer, thinking back to the night before… What had she…? And then it struck her. She had pulled on as much demonic energy as she could muster to fight the wolfman’s curse, and when her arm was chopped off she still had a huge concentration of that energy clustered inside the stump of her arm, but then Ulrik had brought his amulet to bear… Holy energy was repulsive and toxic to demonic energy, and with the holy power flowing in from outside the demonic energy she had gathered would have retreated inwards, towards her core… Cursing under her breath, Hood looked closer to study the newly formed script in her eyes. She wasn’t an expert in demon tongue, but she probably knew more about it than any other living human. Or, well, partly human, anyway. There was the Blood Moon, of course. That particular symbol featured heavily in the script curling its way through her irises, and drawing on its power had saved her more than once, distasteful though it was. Beyond that, she recognized a few scattered symbols. Destroyer, chaos, storm, death, demon, end, ruin… It didn’t exactly fill her with confidence… With a sigh, she continued on towards the magistrate’s office. She wasn’t sure how this increased corruption would affect her, and she rather feared the worst. She’d heard tales of practitioners of demonic magic losing their minds and turning into murderous beasts... She arrived at the magistrate’s office in a foul mood, rather matching the magistrate himself. The man fixed her with a baleful glare the moment she walked in the door. He pulled out a bag of coin from his desk and tossed it to her. “Here’s your bounty, take it and leave.” Hood weighed the purse in her hand thoughtfully. “There has to be far more than 400 crowns in here. Why…?” “Consider it an incentive to get out of town quickly” Hood winced at his tone, but didn’t leave just yet. There were things she had to know. “What happened to Mila?” The magistrates face darkened yet further. “When we told her we wouldn’t kill her, she threw herself onto the fire.” “Then she was a hero, and should be remembered as such. Her sacrifice might have saved dozens of lives.” “Just go. Your friend waiting out by the road, along with that strange horse.” Hood left then, her pace quick and her heart lighter. There was only one ‘strange horse’ he could possibly have meant. And when the road out of town came into view, she saw that she was right. “Lumpy!” She rushed up to the corpulent horse with a small smile on her face and immediately started fussing over him to see that he hadn’t gotten himself hurt on the way here. The horse submitted to her ministrations with an indulgent snort. “Should I leave the two of you alone for a moment?” Ulrik asked with a slightly ribbing tone. “Don’t you start.” Hood admonished, though her tone was lighter than usual. “Gather your things. We’re leaving.” “So now you want me along?” “I do. I have an important mission for you.” ”What’s that, then?” “The corruption in my blood is spreading. If I lose my mind, I need you to take my head off.” “Oh…” The mood dropped like a stone, and Ulrik suddenly turned serious. “I… I guess I will, if I have to.” “Good. Let us be off, then.” She set off down the road, Lumpy and Ulrik following behind. They walked for a good half-hour, each lost in their own sombre thoughts, before Ulrik realized she’d never mentioned their destination. “Where are we going, exactly?” “Northwards. Whatever Fenris is planning, it’s all coming to a head. I’m going to have to face him in battle, and soon. And I’m not going to win a battle against a beast like Fenris without my dominant arm.” “And what do you propose we do about it? Arms don’t exactly grow on trees, you know. And it’s not like you could just encourage it to grow back on its own.” “Not from this charred lump, no. There’s far too much holy energy lingering in the burn. That’s why we’re going to have a new one made.” “Have one made? How do you make an arm? And where are we going to find someone who can?” “To the north.” Ulrik considered asking for more information, but realized it wasn’t likely to do him much good. He cast a glance at the girl walking ahead of him and considered the mission he had been given. Hood was all he had left, after what had happened to his family and his home. The thought of having to kill her made his stomach churn. It wouldn’t happen, he decided. There had to be another way. There had to be.