Kelva sat on a stone seat in a temple. In clothes she didn’t own, in a temple she didn’t recognise.

Yet none of this was strange to her. She felt like she had been here before.
A dark cloaked figure opened the door to the temple room and approached the steps up to her throne like seat.

She felt joy as he approached and handed her something she didn’t see, and said something she didn’t hear. The figure was suddenly beside her. A huge creature smashed its way through the temple roof to her and she didn’t move. The serpent snapped at the walls of the temple to give it more room to manoeuvre through the skyline. Kelva felt herself lift into the air and a bolt of misty green electricity thundered from her hands. It crashed into the creature throwing it back, temporarily dazing it. Soon it bolted toward her so fast Kelva locked up with fear and bolted upright in bed, sweating.

She looked around to see Atlas asleep beside her. She lied back down and looked at him, not the slightest bit tired now. She needed to figure these dreams out. She lay there for a few minutes looking at her lover and listening to the rain on the windowsill. She looked at his soundless and peaceful expressions then smiled, kissed him on the forehead and got out of bed. She put on her robe, grabbed her journal and went to the kitchen.

The house was dark and quiet. After sparking up a light spell, she fixed a sandwich and went to sit in the study where it was warmer.

She tried to recall the dream, but she couldn’t remember most of it. These dreams were becoming more frequent. This was the third dream she had, had this week.  Each time she had it, it became a bit clearer.

At first she only saw the temple and now, she was getting attacked by Démoks.
But what was that power she had attacked it with. It’s not something she had seen before, never green electricity. She wondered if she was having precognitive dreams.

She opened her journal and began to write down her latest dream and what she thought about it, but soon noticed she was mainly writing questions.

*****

A bolt of thunder outside woke me. I felt Brox jump from the bed and run to the window. I sat up; owing the urgency I felt from him was just curiosity.
 ‘‘It’s okay Brox, its just thunder...'' I mumbled to him.
He looked from me to the window. Something was bothering him. He could see something.
 "What is it?" I asked him and he let out a low whine in reply. I got out of bed and walked to the window where he was stood. I looked out to the drive way and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I turned and considered going back to bed, but since Keaden was on the pack hunt tomorrow night, the bed was empty. So I didn’t see the point and decided to stretch my legs. I wasn’t sleeping well anyway, so I decided to go and get a drink of something and try again later.

I went down stairs and saw the study door was ajar and the light was on inside. I looked in to see Kelva writing in her journal.
 "Cant sleep either?" I said, and noticed her jump
 "Damn it! You shit me up" She said putting on a smile
 "Had another dream?" I asked
 "Yeah and there getting more vivid" we made eye contact... "Démoks!"
 "Shit, what type?"
 "I don't know, haven’t seen anything that big before. But I had a power over it; I could use a powerful spell, which again I haven’t seen before. But it nearly killed it" She said through a confused expression. "The problem is, I have no idea what the spell is. I’m going to ask mum again, see if she knows" She leaned back in thought, propping her legs up on the chair, and stroked the hair over her left shoulder "But I don’t know what that Démok is, or where these dreams are coming from?"
 "Yeah... do you want a drink?" I asked "I was going to go get one"
 "No I'm okay, think I'm going go back to bed. I won’t sleep, so I will just try to do a bit of studying, or sort out some lessons maybe... Are you going out tomorrow?"
 "Yeah, was going to check the ruins in the forest, you want to come?"
 "Yeah sure, if I can. It will get my mind of stuff, I will have to come back early then, I have a class at five"
 "Right, we will set off early then. What time is Atlas down at the docks? Ten?"
 "Yeah, we will walk down with him if you want?"
 "Okay then, I'll get our stuff together."
 "Cool" she got up, letting her long, dark hair fall from her shoulder. She laid her hand on my shoulder and gently tapped our fore-heads together "see you later".
She walked out and I saw her diary on the table left open. Knowing how inappropriate it is to read a lady's diary I closed it and took it out to her. I handed it her over the banister of the stairs and walked into the kitchen for a drink, before making my way back upstairs.

I sat on my bed relaxing, stroking Brox and drank my brew, then went back to sleep.

Morning came and I could feel Brox' front paws standing on the side of the bed. I could feel his gaze boring into me. So I lazily lifted my hand to push him away. He was willing me awake and he knew I hated it. But as always he was doing it to wind me up. Eventually I gave in, with out moving I mustered up some sleeping energy and bolted upright shouting "I'M UP" scaring the poor wolf half to death.
He dived from the bed in shock and turned around on the carpet. Tongue out in a canine smile. I laughed and got up.

I got dressed and got my gear together, all of my everyday exploring essentials. I put my jacket on, picked up my sai's from the cabinet near the door and fixed them into the back of my coat from the inside, where I usually stash them for easy access. I put my belt on and grabbed my backpack and put everything else init. I left it on my bed and went to get Kelva’s stuff together. I listened intently to there door before looking at Brox for confirmation. His hearing is better than mine. You see experience has taught me that, it is not wise to walk into any bedroom occupied by raging hormones. Needless to say it can be a bit embarrassing. Fortunately it was quiet and with Brox' go ahead, safe to enter.

I was a little surprised to see Kelva not only wide awake but already, ready. She was doing up the lace of her left boot as I lightly knocked and entered.
 "I was about to get everything sorted for you, looks like you beat me to it" I said smiling.
 "Uh-huh, couldn’t sleep so I got everything sorted out an hour ago" She put her jacket on and looked at Atlas asleep. She leaned over kissed him on the head and whispered something in his ear, to which he half grunted his reply. She smiled and took a folded piece of paper, quickly wrote on it, and put it on his bedside table. It was only 8 o'clock so we let Atlas have the extra hours asleep.

She grabbed her jacket from the back of a chair and put it on. Then pulled her satchel over her head and let it hang by her side. We left, she pulled a pair of small fingerless gloves and put them on as we walked down the driveway talking, Brox in slow pursuit...
 "So, what are we looking for?" she asked
 "We will find that out when we find it" I replied
 "Are those completely necessary?" she gestured to my crossed swords in my dark jacket.
 "Not completely, but I feel more... Hu-Ra when I have them" I said making a manly expression.
 "HU-RA?" She laughed
 "Yeah, I feel more ready, you know I am man, hear me roar. And all that"
 "I don't know about roaring, meowing I can believe"
 "Ha-ha" I said mockingly

The village was always quiet at this hour. The few people around would offer a quiet hello as if afraid to smash the quiet sereneness of the atmosphere.
It took us ten minutes to get to the village outskirts and we walked down the shore line path to the forest south-west of the village.

We started walking thought the lush forest and I got a bottle from my backpack and found a path to the centre of the forest while drinking.
 "You know I have never seen these ruins before, I have read about them from the guild tomes but they never give any details, just hand drawings and a presumption of what the ruins were from. Keaden told me a bit about them, he goes there some times during a- Whoa!" She ducked down and I span to see her crouching looking north,
 "What’s up?" I asked
 "Something just brushed over my head, fast. Over there" She pointed her finger to the foot of a tree "Ah, its gone"
 "Oh, it will probably be a Forest Nymph, don’t worry there harmless. So long as you don’t piss one off, or else you will have the whole forest coming down on you" I giggled
 "Are you serious? Well...what do they look like?"
 "Calm down, there not going to kill you." I laughed "They take different forms, they are semi-spirit elementals. They take care of the habitat they represent, So if that was a Forest Nymph, it would take care of the forest, healing trees and looking after the environment. Probably why these forests around here are so well kept" I turned while walking "I'm surprised you haven’t read about them" I smiled and continued walking.
 "I have, I know allot about elementals. They can disappear into trees and jump out of other ones, right?"
 "Only tree nymphs, yeah. Were nearly there I think. Were going to have a look in the old shack first"
 "Why?"
 "There are loads of old papers there. Thought you might find them interesting, haven’t the foggiest what there are about, Couldn’t make heads or tails of them last time I saw them, I think they have something to do with magic though" I smiled.
 "Cool, might be worth a look, how far is it from here?"
 "Were nearly there," we turned of the main path and walked down a smaller pathway that led to a small open area, home to what was now called, 'The Old Shack'.

We got to the old rundown house that looked like it hadn’t been lived in for centuries. This may be due to the fact that the previous owner died a few centuries ago.

Since he was seen as an outsider, He lived away from society and kept himself to himself, and only ventured into the village when it was necessary. This led people to leave his part of the forest alone and because of such nobody noticed the poor fellow had died.
 He was discovered all nice and decomposed about 6 decades ago by wondering travellers. They decided to bury him in his garden (regardless of it being overgrown and badly kept, a prime example of horticultural neglect...due to death). The people at the time tidied up the place and left it to which ever it belonged to, presumably his remaining family. Whoever that is, nobody knows or -quite frankly- cares.
The old shack was small and was a proper stone structured house, so the title of shack was really misplaced. Its garden went right around the house and wasn’t really big, just big enough to be able to be called a garden.

We approached the door and I found it half open, which didn’t surprise me; perhaps a wild animal had been snooping around.

It wasn’t until we went inside that we found that somebody had been snooping around.

We opened the door into what would have been the main room. A door to the bedroom was immediately left of the front door. The whole of the wall that separated the two rooms was covered by a big bookshelf attached to it. A fireplace occupied the wall to the far right And it had two arm chairs in front of it, one of which was taken from the desk, and as I went to put it back I noticed the rug in front of the fireplace was doubled over, ash in the fireplace and it didn’t look to have been put out long ago.
Books were off the shelf and having been here before, I had margin for comparison. Someone had been staying here, and recently.
 
 "Someone’s been here" I said looking to Brox who was trying to dig out a scent in the rug, but getting nothing but a nose full of dust, so he tried else where.
 "Who?" Kelva said in response, I looked at her with a mocking How-the-hell-am-I-supposed-to-know expression, catching it she half smiled and went back to sifting through some old yellowed papers she found in the drawer of the desk.
 "Hmm...These look interesting" she said picking out some from the middle of the pile.

I walked over and looked at some of the illustrations the old guy must have drawn, some were of stones, others places, and a few were objects such as rings and jewellery, daggers and miscellaneous weapons, and all of them were drawn with an expert hand and almost all looked antique.
 "The guy was an artist, ha, ironic"
 "What is?" she wondered
 "These pictures are pretty good, in his day people would pay mad cash for painted portraits and stuff to hang on there manor walls. He could have made a packet if he had made his talents known, instead of lounging around here for the rest of his days he could have been out there, making himself useful, maybe he could have been famous"
She smiled and hummed her agreement.
 "Wait look at this" She pointed to part of a paragraph he had written beneath a drawing of what looked like a styled athame. "I'm having trouble making it out. I don’t know what’s worse: my understanding of the olde language or his handwriting. But here, it says something about an old relic used for... Uh... I think it says channelling but I'm not sure."
 "Adell is good at that old language stuff; maybe you should let your mum look at it?"
 "Yeah I was going to do that anyway, after I saw them I mean," She looked back in the drawer, and saw nothing but an old key, so she closed the drawer and started to put the papers in her bag. I went into the bedroom to see what was in there, I was half way through wondering why someone would curl up in front of the fire to sleep, when there was a bed in here, then I saw how old and mangled the bed was and the rags were for bedding and saw the logic init. I walked across to the drawers and heard the floor board’s creek under foot, they had nothing in them but old clothes that threatened to fall to dust if I touched them so I closed it.

What was I doing? There we were wondering around a dead guy’s house rooting through his stuff. Have we no respect for the deceased?
I looked and saw Brox raising his leg against one of the walls, Respect? Pfft
 "Don’t DARE, you filthy POOCH" he turned and glowered at me "Outside..." I pointed; he lowered his head in annoyance and walked out. Kelva called to me,
 "Are we going to the ruins then?"
 "Yeah let’s go." I said walking back into the main room, I saw Kelva writing something on a piece of paper then putting it into the drawer. "What’s that?"
 "Huh?" she mumbled putting the pen back into her bag, "Oh, just leaving a note!"
 "Who is it too? The guy is dead, or did you think house keeping should be fired?"
 "I know, people around here thought best to leave things as they were right, well I’m leaving a note to who ever comes here to reclaim"
 "Yeah" I said looking around the room "I can see why they would do that"
 "This stuff could be important you know, if he does have any family who comes looking for these papers or whatever they think they should take possession of, they know where to find these, I said that we are keeping them, to stop them getting more ruined, that we will try and maintain them."
 "Right... makes sense. Okay let’s scoot, c'mon Brox" I said as he poked his head round the door, we followed. 

 We got to the ruins roughly 10 minutes later. The ruins were next to a small river that led through the forest and came out at the ocean. The stone structure had a few steps that led into the remains of the Interior, It wasn’t a big structure, but what was left of the old forest temple was a marvel to look at.

A couple of dozen centuries ago, when we first learned the Nymphs role in the environment, the local town folk thought, "Awe, aren’t they good to us. I KNOW. Let’s build a shrine in honour of them..." So they did, the only thing is the Nymphs didn’t like the attention. So they moved away, and the area around the temple began to change. Plants and trees over grew so other smaller trees and plants died due to lack of sun light. Bugs and pests over populated and basically, the forest wasn’t that beautiful anymore.

The townsfolk realised what they had done and in a moment of panic burned the temple down in a plea to get them back. Of course, they didn’t realise burning the temple down wasn’t as effective as the people actually leaving it. Eventually the temple became a ruin and the Nymphs came back. We humans learned a lesson... If you got something good... don’t interfere with it. Or so this is the story of the temple we are told.

We approached the steps Kelva put her bag down and went to sit on a rock at the foot of the steps; she got out a bottle of water and drank it while taking in the architecture.

I could feel a sense of caution emanating from Brox.  I looked at him staring up the steps, he could smell something, and in a split second he heard something move and bolted past me and ran up the steps into the front hall way room.
 "Brox chill" I shouted but too late, Brox was already in there I ran full tilt up the steps after him and ran in to the temple, I saw Brox pinning a guy down on the floor and growling with his ears pointed back. The guy had his hands around Brox’ throat, probably to stop him ripping his throat out, but I know Brox wouldn’t have done that, probably. Clearly the poor bloke on the deck didn’t. "Let him go Brox, Get down" Brox eased off him a little but wasn’t for letting him go. The guy pulled his knees up under Brox and kicked him hard. Brox flew across the room; Kelva had just appeared behind me and quickly threw out a halting spell, freezing Brox in mid air.
 "I’m so sorry about that, are you okay?" I walked over fast to help the guy up, wondering where the hell he pulled the strength from, to throw a wolf clear across a room, and in that position. He was roughly in his early 20's and had dark blond hair; he wore dark pants and a leather jacket over a dark blue shirt.
 "Yeah... I'm fine, just a bit shook, he came out of know where" he said.
 "I know, I'm so sorry about that, He has never attacked someone like that before"
 "Why did he do it?" Kelva asked
 "Don't know I can’t explain it?" I said frowning, trying to figure out Brox' feeling.
 "I had better go" he said, looking at Brox, still hovering motionlessly in mid air.
 "Can I let him go now, he's getting a bit heavy" Kelva said, fingers on her temples.
 "Sure, one sec. He will be okay, he won’t go for you." I said to him.
 "Are you sure? He wasn’t really listening to you before." He looked a little worried but didn’t look afraid, well let’s just say he didn’t have the same facial expression I would sport if I had a raging wolf trying to kill me, anyway.
 "No, he's fine seriously" I walked over and focused some mana over him, "Okay" Kelva released the spell and I held him in mid air and he quickly regained his posture, I lowered him to the ground, noting his awareness of the stranger. When he landed on the floor I didn’t release my grip. I came to eye level and firmly told him to calm down, He gave me a warning look, and after a few seconds I could feel his pressure loosen against my mana grip, I let go and he didn’t move, "Okay you, sit down and wait there." he stared at the guy and reluctantly did as he was told. I turned around to face Kelva and the guy.
 "So, who are you?" Kelva quizzed him
 "I’m Seph... look, I had better go" he picked up what he had dropped.
 "I’m sorry about him, you don’t have to leave" I said,
 "Were you staying at the old shack?" Kelva asked in an accusing tone. I gave her a tut and turned my attention to Seph for the answer, he had a half worried look on his face.
 "It's only temporary, while I'm here; I had nowhere else to go"
 "There's an inn, at the village" Kelva said
 Its okay" I said to him "I’m Leun, and ignorance over here is Kelva, as we have already established" I gave him a friendly smile, as I could tell he was feeling a bit cornered.
 "And she’s a witch? And you a warlock?" he asked
 "No, well yeah, she’s a Witch but I'm a Mage" He gave me a blank look, one I was used to seeing, now.
 "You’re a mage? I thought they were only rumours" The look still on his face, then it turned to a slight look of triumph.
 "Well I'm no rumour, there’s just so few of us now. We keep a low profile" I smiled "so what are you, I'm guessing you aren’t the average human, Brox wouldn’t have attacked you if he didn’t sense something...off"
 "Yeah I guess..." He looked away and stepped into a stream of sunlight coming from a broken piece of the wall. Then turned around "I'm a vampire" He said.
 "Wow, well that explains it" Kelva said putting her bag over her shoulder
 "Oh right... ha, wasn’t expecting that" I said scratching my head
 "You aren’t bothered?" he asked, a strong questioning look in his face.
 "Why would we, my brother and my dad are Werewolves" said Kelva, I let out a small laugh.
 "I'm confused. Ah never mind. I should get going" he made for the door and I didn’t see the sense in stopping him.
 "What are you here for?" Kelva said, obviously she did see the sense.
 "It doesn’t matter, it’s nice to meet you both." he turned and left.
Kelva turned to me after he was out of the temple clearing "He doesn’t seem your average vampire does him? They never travel alone" She said looking back to me, "So how do we get through that door?" She looked at the doorway directly across from where we came in.
 "We use a key" I said simply.
 "Gee...well I think I left it in my other pants..." She said mockingly, I shook my head.

I walked over to a pile of rocks that had fallen from the roof, in the left hand far corner of the room. I lifted a few rocks out of the way and climbed up on them.
 "Leun, what are you doing?"
I found a loose brick in the wall and pulled it out, it was only a small slab that just fit in the wall, and behind it I found a small ornate stone key used to unlock the temple door.

I put the brick back and jumped back down. I walked to the door and placed it into the recess in the centre of the door. I turned and I could feel as well as hear an old mechanism turning. Then the door split apart and I pulled the key back out. I pushed one door and it stopped half was open due to a fallen brick behind it. I put the key in my bag
 "Okay how the hell did you know that was there?" Kelva asked dumb struck.
 "I found it last time I came here. Come on, it’s really nice in here"
 "What and you found a lovely hiding place for it too?"
 "Well yeah, do you think I would just leave it on the front porch for anyone to find" I grinned at her, and she laughed back. Brox walked past and down the short corridor into the main hall.

The windows were all smashed and half of the roof was now on the floor, the opening letting in a beautiful ray of sunshine, and a tree had grown just over the opening, leaving branches leaning into the hall.

In the centre of the room was a small pedestal like stone structure that looked to have an opening to place something init: One in the top that had three holes in a triangular shape, and a flat opening in front. Who knows what that was for; I just thought this old room was nice. Almost every stone had light green moss on it, and with its round shape, it was a nice retreating spot. I walked over to one of the stones to sit down.

Brox lay by my feet and Kelva sat by the old pedestal, she took out the notes she
acquired earlier to have a better look. I looked around. I was sitting opposite the corridor we just came through, to my left was a sealed stone door.
We sat for a while before Kelva called out to me; I stood up disturbing Brox who was dozing by my feet. I walked over and she pointed to a passage in the text.
 "What’s that?"
 "It talks about this temple. Something about relics, maybe I should get these back to my mum, sounds interesting" She stood "Your right, it is nice here, might come here more often, chill out space or something" she smiled "well I’m going to get going, let mum see these and see what I can arrange for classes later." Kelva was teaching basic witchcraft to the village Neophytes, although the class made up 7 including Kelva, and the students were only between the ages of 10 and 15, they were a good group and Kelva liked her job. Adell thought other lessons and higher craft to other and older magicians of the village. Sometimes Adell would have me help out teaching defensive spells and offensive ones, by me using my mana abilities.

I threw a pebble at Brox to wake him up and he growled in response, "Come on you, were off."

I resealed the door and re-hid the key and we set of home. The walk had been shorter than I had hoped but I was planning on a walk up to Koruk's cove later anyway.

We were nearing the exit of the forest Brox stopped. Following his sense I said "Oh its probably a Nymph, Brox leave it" but I sensed a churning in his gut, his ears pinned back and he curled his lips he faced south, he let out a small growl and slowly edged south, I turned to Kelva "He has smelled something. Shit, I hope it’s not what he thinks it is" I whispered to her.
 "What?" she asked curiously...
 "Only a Démok" I said, I crouched a little while walking to quieten my movement, Kelva followed suit. As we walked further we started to hear a commotion and when we got to it, Brox stood crouched, peering behind a tree. Kelva and I looked past to see what it was. Hurokun Démok chasing and cackling a sickening growl at a scared Forrest Nymph, The Nymph ran from Tree to tree disappearing and reappearing from different parts, trying desperately to get away, we could tell the Hurokun was wearing it out and it was definitely slowing down. I remembered some research on Nymphs, Fear and negativity makes them unable to focus there abilities, Which is why it wasn’t hiding in one tree, its lack of concentration was throwing it out of the trees it was jumping into.

Brox let out a growl and burst into the clearing, barking at it. I let out a yell at Brox’ hastiness and I jumped into the clearing after him.
The Démok let out a screech of laughter as it lunged from the side of a tree to hit him. Brox jumped out of its way at the last minute and the Hurokun hit the ground hard, it turned and saw me. I instantly un-hooked my sai's and held them ready. It swung an arm round to swat me and I Lunged the blade of my right sai into its hand. It shrieked and I ripped it out, and turned to slash my left into its gut, it howled and jumped back.

I dropped my sai’s to the ground and focused a ball of fire between my hands. It got up slowly hunched over at its gashed abdomen, clutching its hand. It came at me; I had fused enough fire and energy into my attack to nearly kill it. But it wasn’t stupid; it was going to jump before it hit me. I stepped forward, and then rolled right as it jumped to a tree to my left. I hurled the ball into it, and caught it square in the side; it howled in agony as the embers burned through its body, it fell from the tree into a heap on the ground, its body on fire but not dead. It writhed tormented, yelping.

Brox came to my side, the hilt of one of my sai's in his mouth; he dropped it at my feet and walked over to Kelva who was watching from beside the tree.
I levitated up the sai in my right hand and walked over the dying Démok; I blew some wind over to extinguish the dwindling fire then in a quick movement flipped the sword over in my hand and put the living demon out of its misery. I turned and looked to Kelva who was messing with the fringe of her hair...
 "Have you finished?"
 "See... HU-RA" I motioned as I collected my other sword. I hooked them back into my jacket. I spotted a few Nymphs huddled into a group on a branch; they looked both scared and thankful. A few of them turned there backs, which I learned to be a sign of trust not ignorance. I smiled and walked away.