Edited: Apr, 30, 2020

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After a few moments of walking, up ahead was a brick building with a lantern sticking out from the side. Yellow-gold light pooled out on the ground. Five silhouettes of cloaked figures stood under the light—two leaning against the wall. She sniffed. They were Human males. Her fur bristled a little, but Lai-ikolo gently touched her arm.

"Don't worry. They won't harm you with me around," she said with a smile. "Come, but we shall hurry." She took Pinti by the arm and pulled her along.

Although the Humans' eyes gleamed beneath their hoods, they did nothing as Lai-ikolo and Pinti walked by. Her heart thumped heavily against her chest. She glanced at Lai-ikolo and saw a smirk play on her lips.

"See?" she whispered, "Nothing to worr—"

"A rare specimen," said one of the males. "And a Lai-ikolo." His voice was still young, barely an adult, but she sensed immense power that made her fur tingle.

"Keep away!" Lai-ikolo shoved Pinti behind her. "She's mine."

Pinti blinked out of a daze at Lai-ikolo's harsh tone. The soft, warm blanket was swept away. A cold dread filled her body and fell like a rock in her stomach. Confusion clouded her mind and she stayed rooted where she was.

The young male chuckled. "Of course," He took a step forward into the light, "we will do this the Sorcerer way," he said and held out his hand. Lai-ikolo straightened her back and stalked up to the Sorcerer.

"Fine then. But is it not the Sorcerer way to remove your hood? Why must you conceal yourself?"

The male chuckled and said, "You want me to take off my hood?" He glanced at his friends and they joined in the laugh. "I heard you weren't all that bright."

He grabbed his hood and flicked it off. Just as his voice was, his face was also young. He had orange eyes and his dark brown skin contrasted his white hair with bright yellow streaks in it that glowed.

"I am Brevelord. I see no reason to state my last name to an imbecile like you."

Lai-ikolo sniffed. "I know about you, but a Junior? You have nothing against me." She shook his hand. "Are you working for someone?"

"Alsinda vin Miluandé," Brevelord sneered. Lai-ikolo gasped and her hair billowed in a breeze that Pinti couldn't feel. "Ah," He chuckled, "you have animosity towards her. She thought so." Brevelord looked behind her at Pinti. He released the handshake and snapped his fingers. Lai-ikolo sprang towards her. Pain zipped across her back and Pinti yowled just as she was lifted up from the ground.

Yowling and groaning, she twisted her body in the air, but invisible ropes tightened around her. A cloth appeared and covered her mouth, muffling her screams. Panic surged through her, but the more she struggled, the more the ropes dug into her fur.

"Let her go!" Lai-ikolo shrieked and a gust of cold air swished around the ground in a mist of white. "I will not let Alsinda take her away. She's mine! Mine! My Kathula. I must have her, I must. She's perfect for my collection!"

How could I have been so stupid? Pinti bit her lip hard to punish herself for succumbing for a Sorcerer's sweet words. Lai-ikolo was just like the many others who thought Kathula was a fine prize.

The Humans gathered around Lai-ikolo and brandished swords. White and blue sparkles surrounded Lai-ikolo in ribbon swirls. Around and around her body they went, and her hair billowed behind. The Humans' swords one by one began to glow a different color each until all five of them made up a gradation of yellow to green.

"Give it up, Lai-ikolo. We may be Juniors, but vin Miluandé taught us well," Brevelord, with the yellow sword, said.

"How long has it been since you were expelled? Where's your pathetic Faud?" another sneered. Lai-ikolo held out her arms and frozen water collected in her palms, shaping into shards. She poised to throw them, when a bolt of lightning struck her, and she fell to the ground. Quickly, she staggered up, glanced at Pinti, snarled, and vanished in a shimmer of sparkling white mist.

In that moment, Pinti jerked as Lai-ikolo's voice came into her head saying, "I will have you."

Suddenly, there was a holler below and a whoosh of wind whirled around her. Pinti began to float downwards until she could feel the cold stone ground gently returning beneath her feet. The Humans gathered around her, sneers on their lips and greed in their eyes. Brevelord leaned over her.

"Would make a wonderful pet," he said, and his friends chuckled. "Let's get her tied." A growl formed in her throat. Pinti was not going to put up with that.

She unsheathed her claws and caught on his sleeve. He shouted out in surprise as she pulled him towards her, and bit down as hard as she could, sinking her teeth in Sorcerer flesh, feeling thick blood gush in her mouth, and tasting it's bitterness.

"Bastard, get her off! Get her off!" He yowled in pain and sent sparks of lightning into her jaws and neck, but she held on. She wanted him to fear her. To never touch her again or any other Kathula for that matter. When a rope tightened around her neck, choking her, did she finally let go. Something wrapped around her mouth and it became hard to breathe.

Brevelord wheezed and rolled about the ground. "She deserves equal pain. Do it."

They pulled her bangs back, revealing her Lunar marking. The shortest Human of the five rolled up his sleeves and touched it, sending jolts of pain and shivers down her back. Instantly, fear overcame her as he began to mutter a spell. His hand was coming inside her Lunar marking, touching, feeling, and prodding the deepest part of her.

Trembling without control and she pleaded to him with her eyes to stop, but he only smirked. Her body went limp when he reached her core.

"I've got it."

"Let's see what it does," came a reply. Brevelord came over with his arm already healed. "Then we'll extract it. I heard a Kathula's magick is liquid gold."

"Beautiful!" one of the other breathed out. "Perfect for her aesthetic collection! Alsinda would love it."

No, please, no. Pinti whimpered, feeling very vulnerable. She felt him invading what felt like a very delicate, private place in her magick. One false move, and she knew, her magick could be gone forever.

The next moment, a different kind of pain shot through her, making her body spasm without control. The male's arm was yanked out of her marking. She fell forward to the ground, but something cushioned her fall—a soft material. As she shivered on it, shouts, groans, and foreign curse words flew around her and above her head.

"Get him, you bastards—ahh!" She heard Brevelord shout and turned her head to search for him.

Instead she saw another Sorcerer. A tall, middle-aged Human male with a brush of a black beard covering his chin, stood with white and purple lightning bolts traveling up and down his arms. In swift motion he created a sword from it and shouted in a strange language. The five Sorcerers each widened their eyes in horror and dashed away, but the lightning bolts from the sword turned into many little needles and chased the Sorcerers.

"Bastard, Junior bounty hunters," the male scoffed and the magical light around him faded. Pinti lifted herself up from the ground, pushing herself away, trying to put as much distance between herself and the Sorcerer. How was she to know this was a trustworthy Sorcerer? Lai-ikolo had also been a Sorcerer and she only pretended to help Pinti by putting her into a daze that numbed her thoughts.

I need to stop trusting Sorcerers. She decided when the Human Sorcerer came to bend down to pick up the cloth. As he patted the dirt from it, she studied his clothes hoping to get some clue about him. His casual suit with a dark blue necktie didn't tell her anything. The cloth she had laid on turned out to be a cloak he put over his shoulders. When it caught the light, it was a deep wine red with gold on the edges.

He turned to face her, and she scrambled up to stand.

"It's okay now. You're safe." He took a step towards her and she gave a short hiss. She wanted nothing more to do with Sorcerers. It was fine. She would find her own way to Deel or he would get some sense enough to look for her.

"I'm Galag Gorn," He continued, "friend of Deel's."

She bristled. "I don't believe that."

"And don't come any closer!" She shouted with bared fangs when he made a move to come nearer. Startled, he stepped away.

"I'm sorry." Galag held up both hands and took two steps back, but Pinti still didn't feel safe. Just because he saved her didn't mean he wanted to help her. Lai-ikolo made it out like she knew Deel, too. Why wouldn't this one be any different?

"You're a Sorcerer. Why should I believe you? Why should I trust you?" She flicked her tail irritated he wasn't turning away. Pinti couldn't leave until he did. Much too dangerous.

Under the yellow-gold light, she saw a smile play on his lips. "True, I am a Sorcerer, but an outcast among the normal ones. I live away from them. They believe legends are just legends, but I say they are wrong. I think the Scepter of Tamido is real."

The keyword echoed in her mind.

He just said, 'the Scepter of Tamido'. But anyone knows about that, right?

Just then, out of a wall that newly shifted into a path came a familiar shape, bringing with it a familiar smell—it was Deel. He hurled himself into Galag and laughed.

"There you are! I couldn't wait and I was looking all over for you." He stuck out his bottom lip in a Human pout. "I got worried you couldn't find Pinti. I forgot to get her at clock tower and then when I did go, she'd wondered off." He turned to her and squinted his eyes. "Why are you all the way over there?"

Bristling, she said, "I don't trust Sorcerers."

"He's not just any Sorcerer, Pinti. He's Galag Gorn, my friend. He's the one I wanted you to meet!" Deel grinned ear to ear and jumped up and down. "And we're all here and we can all go home."

Pinti felt like crying out of frustration. Deel could have told her who this friend was and that he was a Sorcerer. He could have come get her at clock tower instead of forgetting her there. Did she still want to go with him to this Galag Sorcerer Gorn's house? What for another trap?

"Come on, Pinti. You'll be surprised how much we found out about the Scepter of Tamido." Deel said and Galag turned heel and walked off.

"You can keep a distance from me, but I promise I mean no harm." He called back.

Pinti was left standing in the street. The path behind her shifted into a wall which made her jump into action and run after the two of them. She didn't want to get lost in Syaraize. She sniffed the air and caught the scent of the Sorcerers that tried to capture her. They were staying away and so was Lai-ikolo. Maybe they were afraid of Galag?

After a few minutes, Galag finally stopped at the end of an alley that had a sewage tunnel with murky water trickling into it. The water looked disgusting, but it had no scent to it, and it came from a bubbling brook in between the cracks of the stone path.

Galag made gestures in front of it and the tunnel's murky water mouth changed into a wooden doorway with a metal loop handle. When he opened it, magick sparkles of red and orange twinkled around the water, changing it into a downward stone slope.

"Isn't that awesome?" Deel giggled and bounded ahead, leaving her with Galag. Uneasiness made her stomach flutter with nausea—or maybe it was just that she was hungry, she couldn't tell. It felt like she had been on the move for an entire day without rest. The last meal was breakfast, but in a place like Syaraize where time was all over the place, it was hard to tell how long ago breakfast actually was.

Inside the tunnel, the scent of sweet flowers and fresh herbs floated into her nose. Once they were all in, there was a quiet shloop overhead as the door closed and turned into a stone wall, cutting them off from the outside world. The slope snaked down, up, and down again like gentle ripples in a puddle. There was an occasional cobweb in front of them which Galag brushed away, breaking it up into pieces.

"Needs cleaning," he said, his whisper disrupting the quiet underground.

"Yeah." Deel ducked under a cobweb and Pinti followed suit.

Gradually the ground sloped upwards until they came to another wooden door. With a creak, Galag opened it and sunlight burst into her eyes temporarily blinding her. Shielding her face, she followed Galag's silhouette out into the open with Deel bouncing ahead of both of them. The freshness of nature filled her nostrils and she took a deep breath, feeling the almost cold air go in and out of her lungs.

Before her was a vast field sloping up into a hill. Orange groves flowed down the sides and ripe oranges hung heavily from the trees. Up the hill was a two-story log house with a chimney puffing smoke into the air letting the warm smell of freshly baked bread flow on the breeze. She caught familiar herbs like the ones used for potion making and spotted a well-kempt herb garden peeking out from behind the house.

"What is this place?" She sniffed the air again but couldn't find the putrid city scents of Syaraize anywhere or even the dusty desert of the First Ring.

Galag gestured at the beautiful sunset-lit scenery all around. "This is Ulk Pyne. Ulk Pyne is an ancient Human word mixed with ancient Sorcerer language no one uses anymore. It means, 'within another'. We are still within Syaraize however, we are also partially in the Fourth Ring."

She shook her head. "But that's impossible!" She touched the grass below. It felt like normal everyday grass and the air around her didn't feel off, but somehow, they had skipped over the Second and Third Rings?

"Well," Galag shrugged, "not entirely. Sorcerer magick, if tweaked just—"

"Let's go inside!" Deel squealed and ran up the hill, stumbling on his useless Human legs. Annoyed at him for not being Kathula, Pinti bounded up ahead of him with ease using her clawed feet—although not as sharp as her paw claws—to grip the soil and propel herself forward.

"How can you go so fast?" Deel finally made it to the top giving Pinti a heavy sense of déjà vu with his—hopefully—rhetorical question.

Before them sat the log house, smelling of cedar wood and pinewood. Galag huffed behind them, clearly out of breath, and went up to the door. He rested his hand on the doorknob, but before he could turn it, it opened on its own accord and there stood a dog-like Halfhuman female as tall as Pinti. She wore a black knitted hat, a black cloak, and little red-rimmed glasses that balanced on the tip of her snout.

She adjusted her glasses, blinked twice, looked at Pinti from head to toe and said, "By stars! Deel wasn't lying!"

At that moment, Pinti sensed magick. She growled deep in her throat and narrowed her eyes at the Halfhuman and a little orange elephant that peek out from under the hat. This Halfhuman was a Sorcerer, too. Pinti pursed her lips. Certainly not the ideal situation.