Back in the village Lucell was recovering in a bed. The villagers had treated his wounds and put him in a bed at the inn so that he could rest. Downstairs in the inn Karl was drinking his sorrows away with the other villagers. "I lost another one." Karl said as he looked at the bottom of his mug. "If only she had ran away, she would still be here now."
"It's not your fault if she didn't listen!" Karl's friend chimed in. "You risked your life to save her and all she did was stand there! Don't lump this in with what happened to Pricilla."
"I couldn't save her and I couldn't save Pricilla!" Karl shouted back. "What kind of man am I that I cannot save someone who needs me? It doesn't matter if they listen to me or not. I should be able to save them!"
Karl's friend tries to calm Karl down. "I know you loved Pricilla, the whole village knew. You two love birds were the talk of the town. You can't put it all on yourself though. You have to know that not everyone can be saved, especially if they do not even try to save themselves."
Karl looked at his friend and then back to his mug. After guzzling the remainder of his alcohol he slammed the mug down on the counter. "You may be right Jeff!" He shouted out. "But I am not the kind of man that can lose someone and just not care. I was extremely worried about the big guy she had with her. How in the world am I going to break it to him."
"He probably won't take it well." Jeff replied. "Course I have never seen anyone with horns and red skin before. So who knows what that guy is thinking?"
Back at the wolf encampment Mia was starting to regain consciousness. "Ugh my head." She moaned as she woke up. "Oh right, I was captured by the wolf. Seems like I am still alive, and dressed?" She noticed she was now wearing a dress. "Oh I don't like this feeling!" Her tail was stuck under the dress and was being compressed. She ripped a hole small enough for her tail to fit through in the back of the dress. "Much better." She sighed. "Guess I should find out where I am and who has me." She looked around, she was completely unguarded. There was not even a door to the room she had been laying in. She decided to sneak out carefully. Her new ears could hear the faintest pin drop from across the cave. She could hear people talking, and walking. "They sound just like humans?" Mia was confused, she knew she had been captured by the wolf, but yet was surrounded by humans. She then saw someone down the corridor and decided to ask them what was going on. "Excuse me!" She yelled at them. "Could you answer a few questions for me?"
"Oh you're awake!" The woman was overjoyed. "The elder will be so glad that you survived. We were worried since you didn't transform all the way nor did you revert back to a human."
"Revert back?" Mia asked. "So you are the wolves?"
"Yes. My name is Pricilla. It is a pleasure to meet you." Pricilla said with a bow. "Oh, I am sure you have so many questions! The curse always takes getting used to, it can be quite disorienting at first. Speaking of the curse do you know why it affected you so?"
"It would be a long story, let's just say I had some help containing the curse." Mia answered with a smile.
"Damn right!" Aquir shouted in her head. "You should praise, go on, praise the great Aquir master of water, breaker of curses!"
"Woof, Woof!" Mia heard barking in her head. It sounded like a small puppy.
"Oh who's a good girl." Tolvash said to the puppy.
"Why is there a dog in my head?!" Mia shouted out, which stunned Pricilla.
"Oh, it's your curse." Tolvash answered. "We gave it form and it is just the best girl."
"Miss, are you feeling alright?" Pricilla asked.
"Uh-oh, she thinks your crazy." Aquir said. "See if you just would have praised me she would have thought it was some sort of religion or something."
"Pricilla, I am sorry about that." Mia explained. "I will go into more detail I promise, but for now just know that the help I mentioned earlier, lives in my head and sometimes can be very noisy."
"Well that would explain the ears and tail I suppose." Pricilla answered. "Come I will take you to the Elder, he wants to apologize to you. He was the one who took you last night." With that Pricilla led Mia down the corridor until they reached a large chamber. There were many people in the chamber, some were cooking over a fire, some were playing with children, and some were just chatting amongst themselves. In the center of the Chamber sat a man on a chair.
"Oh, you're awake!" The man shouted as he jumped out of his chair and rushed over to them. "I am so happy you survived!"
"I'm confused." Mia stated. "You all seem very nice, why would you attack a village, and why would you kidnap me?" She asked.
"It's the curse." The elder said. "When the light of a full moon fills the sky we transform into horrific wolf monsters. We cannot control ourselves, nor do we have any memory of what happens while we are transformed. When I saw you this morning I was filled with regret." He then prostrates himself before Mia. "Please forgive me for dragging you here and placing our curse upon you."
Mia Squatted down next to the elder. "It's ok, the curse for me isn't permanent so don't beat yourself up about it. Okay?" She told him.
"You have the means to break the curse?" The elder looked up with hope in his eyes. "Please you must help us!"
"Well if I had my magic I could do it, but this world seems to be lacking, or at least I have not figured out a way to access magic here." Mia explained. "Right now all I can do is reduce my own curse to only be eyes, ears, and a tail."
"My name is Lars, by the way." The elder spoke up. "I realized I never introduced myself before. That was incredibly rude of me." Lars then stood up and dusted himself off. "So you need magic. All we have are legends of the divine one, that is all the magic we know about. Well besides the curse and the assorted undead."
"Tell me more about the divine one." Mia said. "That might be the key to unlocking magic in this world."
"The divine one is the one who brought us all here." Lars explained. "We wanted to live peacefully with the other races, we just didn't know this world would be so full of hardships."
"That is what the village elder told me as well." Mia pondered for a moment. "The divine one has to be something other than an elemental, but what else could there be in the universe."
"It's interesting to think we are not on the top of the pecking order." Tolvash said.
"Very much so. Whatever this divine one is, they have disrupted the elementals power here." Aquir explained. "It is why we are so weak, because you draw directly from us, you should have infinite power anyway. It is very perplexing."
"I wonder what kind of magic the divine one has." Mia wondered to herself. "What kind of magic is the curse?" Mia asked the elementals inside of her.
"Is she talking to herself?" Lars asked Pricilla.
"Apparently she has help inside her head." Answered Pricilla.
"Besides being the best girl?" Tolvash asked. "It's an odd magic, it does not fit into any of the six elemental categories. If I were to call it anything I would consider it corruption magic. Since it only seems to be able to change other living things."
"We can probably extract some power from it." Aquir replied. "There would be risks, I mean there's a chance you could become a giant monster that destroys the world."
"What if the corruption magic is blocking the elemental magic somehow." Mia stated. She then focused to use magic sense and detect everything around her. She felt a dark and twisted world full of darkness and shadow. She could feel the curse that was lingering on all the people in the chamber, it was as if each of them had a beast upon their back. The shadow felt like it covered everything, leaving no surface untouched. "It is all over everything!" Mia shouted as she opened her eyes.
"So Miss, can you cure us?" Lars asked.
"I have a plan." Mia announced with a smile, causing Lars and everyone else in the chamber to cheer.