Chapter 8

Groaning Terrance rolled out of the wreckage of the bookcase he was lying in.

There were a few sharp points and splinters he pulled free of his skin, but thankfully none were in his face or eyes.

As he looked over at the ruined mess that was a side table he saw the light stirring of Rory.

"Hey, are you ok?" asked Terrence tiredly

"How can any one person have that much strength?" asked Rory as he finally opened his eyes and looked at Terrance.

"The way he threw us I think he only tapped part of it. He said he was uncommonly strong as a Battlemage. I guess we never really understood that," said Rory.

"I guess the ruins of the door say he went that way," said Terrance as he tried to avoid the sharper parts of the mess he was in as he was preparing to roll to his feet.

His body was aching all over, but Nathan needed help badly or he would not survive much longer.

"Yes we better..." started Rory before Kat raced back in what used to be the door.

"OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD!" screamed Kat as she frantically looked around between the two of them.

"What is wrong with you?" asked Terrance a bit sharply.

"Nathan is dead and Ariel just triggered and ran off after seeing him die! I couldn't catch her!" said Kat emphatically.

"What!" Rory and Terrance said at the same time.

Heedless of still lying in their respective messes, they both jumped up to confront her.

"What did you do?!" asked Terrance, right before he stopped himself from grabbing her.

He remembered that the last time that he was with her, he didn't far so well, and Rory told him about how quickly and easily she put Nathan down.

"I didn't do anything! Nathan ran off a cliff in his delirium and Ariel watched it all! She snapped, transformed in to that horror of hers, and ran off faster than I would have thought possible into the night! What do we do?" asked Kat scared.

"Are you sure Nathan is dead? Did you see the body?" asked Rory quietly.

"No, I'm not completely sure. I searched both sides of that stream for his body for a while once I climbed down the cliff, but I couldn't find it," said Kat quietly.

"I've seen him survive worse. He did survive you, remember? I'm sure we'll be able to find him, but we just need a way. Can you use that locator spell of yours that you used earlier?" asked Rory.

"We have enough of his stuff here that it should work, but there is a problem. I've used quite a bit of magic since I've started traveling with you all. From the various locator spells, helping a few different people here who needed help, and including all the healing spells that I cast on Nathan I'm about out of power to cast it.

"I shouldn't have lied when he asked about my using that spell earlier. I was already low on power then, but I wanted to prove myself to everyone and I shouldn't have used my magic as freely as I did. So now my power reserves are too low to do it. And as I'm sure you already know my magic is based on sex. I need to have sex to restock. Have either of you seen me with anyone since we started traveling almost a week ago?" asked Kat quietly as she looked down at he floor.

Both of them shook their heads as they thought about what she was saying. She felt so guilty to have lied to impress everyone, and now that she need power the most she was about out and that lie came back to bite her in the butt.

Even after she swore she wouldn't ever put herself in a position of being without power again, she did something stupid and now it happened again. But she did it because she didn't want to power up and cause anyone to remember what she did to them before while she was trying to build their trust.

"Without a new source I'll shortly be out of power. If I put all I had into it I would have just enough power to cast the spell once, but not defend myself well enough to follow it for very far or do anything else," said Kat sadly.

"So we need to let you kill some poor sap to save Nate. Is that what you're saying?" asked Terrance nastily. "What a choice we now have to make."

"I don't do that anymore. I can take just enough to leave them a sleep for a while. I try not to kill anyone using my power like that anymore if I can. I ... I ... I just can't. Not since Elliot found out," said Kat quietly.

"Sure you don't. Like we should just take your word for it," said Terrance with a sneer.

"I'll do it," said Rory softly.

"What?! Are you insane?!" exclaimed Terrance spinning Rory to face him.

Rory looked at him sadly before he spoke again.

"Nate and Ariel have saved us plenty of times. Remember when we first met them. Ariel and he could have killed us without a second thought and then taken what they wanted, but they wanted to talk to us first.

"They are two of the most decent people we know. I can't just give up without trying. Besides without Nate we can't stop her anyway. None of us can. If we don't find him first then none of what happens here will matter anyway," said Rory as he looked at his friend.

Terrance just stared at him coolly, but didn't say anything. Rory turned from his friend and looked at Kat.

"Will it hurt," Rory asked quietly.

"No. Since I'm not trying to kill you it will feel just like the first time I was with you both pretending to be Ariel. I will need more power than I took from you that night, but not enough to kill you and I can certainly ensure that you will enjoy it," said Kat quietly.

"Ok when do you want to do this?" asked Rory.

"We should do it the day after tomorrow. You need to be well rested so that I can safely get all I can from you and not harm you anymore than I need to. You'll be out for about three or four days. Hopefully that will be enough power for me to find both Nathan and Ariel," said Kat.

After looking around at each other in quiet everyone retired for the night.

Rory and Terrance went to there room and found Jarrod was sleeping with his back against the door, but he was still in the room.

Kat put up a blanket over the main door and over the doorway to the master bedroom and took the bed that Ariel and Nathan were sharing before this all went wrong.

Dawafal was a lonely woods fairy living a solitary life.

Unlike forest nymphs she wasn't tied to a tree and could freely travel through the woods.

But she was so lonely. She was used to having so many others around her as she grew up.

Her tribe had all died out due to various dangers in the woods; from deforestation leaving many homeless to being hunted to almost extinction by the various creatures of the forest, especially the Werewolves who seemed to be everywhere lately.

Though these wolves seemed to be more cunning than they expected, they eventually hunted all of her tribe until she was left alone.

But Dawafal was lonely and what was making it worse was the fact she was reaching the time of her fruition.

She would soon reach the time where she would be able to carry offspring. She knew from what her mother told her and her training that she would reach that point in a few months, and she had only seen the signs that it would start soon, but thankfully nothing showed that it had started early due to the stress of living alone.

Her mother was the Moon tribe's representative, a shaman, and it was her mother that everyone came to for advice and care giving. She was the leader of their tribe.

Dawafal was trained to eventually take her place when it was time and replace her, but that was now gone since the tribe was gone, and none of that seemed to matter.

Because of the wolves Dawafal only moved around during the day and hid high in the trees at night. She believed the wolves thought all of her people gone, but she didn't want to take the chance of any searching for survivors.

Normally her people moved around during the night and slept during the day, but drastic times called for drastic measures.

As such it was a good thing she was out at the opposite end of the valley's stream when she came up on a human man face down on the ground.

At first she didn't want to approach him, but soon her curiosity got the better of her and she approached him and lightly poked him.

When he didn't respond she was sure he was dead and she knew that she need to give him a good burial so that the land spirits weren't angered by his being left in the open.

She knew that when they were angered they caused death all around the body before they were appeased enough to bless the land once again.