By the crackling fire, the king's men watched their roast. A whole wolf thrown directly onto the flame, its fur now charred and its belly stuffed with dried herbs, then sealed with steel threads. A gathering of four hooded men who barely knew each other's names. Or at least that should've been the case, but a father and son duo had broken protocol and travelled together on this mission without telling anyone else.
The truth, however, has a way of finding its way out into the open, and when that happened, the quiet amidst the darkness quickly turned to the group's first disagreement.
"To think our group leader is the one breaking the rules…" Biting the insides of his lips, one of the men stared at the father. His face illuminated with the warm glow of the fire, neither remorse nor anger, but a look of pride as he glanced over at his son.
"Say what you want, I got us here, and my son helped us handle what needed to be handled." His chest puffed with pride, the man glanced at the faces of the other two with the warm campfire reflecting in his eyes. "I wanted to teach him myself; you two wouldn't understand until you have kids of your own."
"Let the king get a whiff of this and he'll teach us himself why protocols need to be followed," the only bald man of the group lowered his hood and stared at the father and son, "you better keep this quiet or else the king's gonna kick us out of those walls."
Firewood crumbled and cracked amidst the silence that followed. The father and son had little to say in their defense, while the only other man knew better than to prod at such a delicate situation.
"I'll keep watch, you three should get a wink in," he said, lifting himself from the ground.
Covering his face with a wooden mask with upwards arching tusks, he swiftly turned invisible. Taking heed of his advice, the men unfurled their blankets and laid them on the ground. Slipping right in with their eyes heavy and in desperate need of sleep, it didn't take long for them to slip away, leaving but one man to scout the area.
Wandering around as an invisible force, the scout wandered through the forest's edge. The beasts were drawn to the smell of the roasting wolf, but as it was meant to be a meal for early morning to fuel their charge, the scout couldn't let anyone come close to the camp, not even a rat. The legs had already been eaten, each man got one, and the leader even got to taste the liver and some other organs. But none envied him as wolves were known to be parasite ridden, especially on the inside.
'Those herbs should've killed the parasite, at least I hope so.' Keeping himself company with his thoughts, the man returned to the fireplace as the night continued to vain on. The animals had been chased off and were in such a secluded area by the beach that nobody, not even Helga's daughters, could stumble into them.
The blankets of invisibility, along with the mask, were great assurance just in case, but that very assurance could lead to carelessness, and that's exactly what happened for the man couldn't hold his eyelids from growing heavier by the minutes. Into the sweet arms of slumber he fell, but not for long, as the sound of rustling leaves jolted him and everyone back onto their feet.
Listening closely to the sound of footsteps circling them in an arch, the men drew their weapons and lifted their masks onto their faces. Invisible yet again, their eyes and ears followed the uniform sound of human footsteps. It was a person who was stalking them, bipedal and with the knowledge that they too were being watched by their prey.
"Who's there!" Yelled the leader.
The group quickly scattered in a circular formation with their backs turned to the ocean. Adhere to protocols, they did what they were meant to. Allow the leader to draw out the enemy and then attack once the person is close enough without alarming them too much. Being invisible to each other as well and their inability to use magic thanks to their place of origin, they were simply relying on their training to take out whatever monster charges their way.
But to their surprise, with a long, drawn whistle, the hero of Athenia walked out of the forest with his hands deep in his pockets. Casually looking around with his mana-fused eye, he stopped at each member of the group for just a moment to let them know that he could easily see through their invisibility.
Hawk-eyed, the leader was the first one to undo his mask. His expression had contorted through confusion, as, according to their knowledge, that eye should've been disabled the moment Raven walked close to them. But then, what was it that was powering it still? An eye made out of a keeper's core and fueled by mana…
"What do you want?" Asked the youngest of the bunch, the son of the group's leader.
His fingers were trembling from anxiety, for he was no stranger to the man that was standing in front of them all. But the hero didn't respond, instead he kept glancing around at their faces, almost as if to judge their very core from their demenaor.
"You here for the girl?" The leader asked.
Squeezing his murder knife tightly, he slowly began closing the distance between him and Raven, but a quick look in his direction by the hero was enough to make him stop in his tracks.
"What's the rush?" Taking his hands out of his pockets, Raven pulled his gloves back on his hands. Doing so one after the other with his attention drifting between the men and his hands, he gave them a slime. "I'll have enough time to take them from your cold, dead hands."
As soon as the smile on his face turned to a smirk, two of the guards charged at Raven, all the while the father and son, banded together to keep the bracelet holding Shamisha and June away from Raven's grasp. But that…was their mistake.