Lavishly laying on a king sized bed, an underdressed woman whose skin was as pale as snow suddenly rose her head.
Seemingly out of habit, she rose up in a swift action and walked up to a mirror, admiring her own reflection, her expression hidden by the veil of darkness which covered the room.
After staring at herself for a while, she turned her head to what had caused her to stand up in the first place, she walked over to a piece of paper that had suddenly appeared on the dresser across the bed.
She stepped on a few things that crunched hauntingly as she casually walked up to it.
Her pale white hair were only barely less so than her skin and tied up in the same kind of ponytail a noblewoman would have.
She grabbed one of the corners on the papers, lifting it up to her face as she read the few words written on its front.
'An envelope' she thought as cut it open with one her fingernails after it had sharpened up suddenly.
With what had been written on the envelope, the things inside weren't surprising to her, detailed images of four women, three of whom she could recognise.
"Vengeance, how cute..." she spoke in a low tone before dropping the images back onto the dresser, she had a small but vicious smile on her face, revealing two pointy fangs amongst her teeth.
Without her having to speak a word, the door to the room she was in opened and a man with patches of hair missing entered, immediately kneeling.
"The pictures, have them take care of the four in them" she ordered as she walked up to a window which curtains were fully drawn.
"Of course" he responded before swiftly grabbing the images and scuttering away.
"Also, get rid of the leftovers, will you?" she added has he stood in the doorframe.
He looked at what she commonly referred to as leftovers, dried up corpses of men she had lured here, all of the blood drained from their bodies and unreadable expressions stuck on their feeble faces, one could only guess that it had been terror.
After easily dragging out the practically weightless bodies out and dumping them with all of the others, he walked away as the sound of biting and chomping resonated from behind his back.
He walked with his back bent and his arms drooped down, his fingernails were reminiscent of claws, his teeth however, were perfectly normal.
He went around the spacious interior of the place his master had chosen as her residence, he was more agile than his bad posture would suggest.
He made sure that the order was relayed thoroughly, he wasn't certain why his master wanted those women dead but if it was her will then it was his own as well.
_____________________
"Why is that colorful bird following us?" asked Molbas, pointing at the bird that had just landed on her head as if it owned the place.
"Molarine saved it against the beast earlier, maybe it has grown attached?" suggested Layo.
"It's a parrot, try making it talk" spoke Molarine.
"You know that kind of bird?"
"Speak bird! Talk! Say something!" the swordswoman tried to do as she had been told to no effect, the bird only stared at her with its empty, unfeeling eyes.
"Are you sure it talks?" Molbas started to think that it was a joke.
Molarine only put her arm as if she was expecting a falcon to land on it and the parrot immediately flew over to her.
"What's your name?" she asked in her usual tone.
"Ipiti!" responded the parrot.
"Ipiti?"
"Ipiti!"
"I see, that is a good name"
Watching Molarine conversing with a parrot was quite attention taking, the two other women could only observe the interaction until Laura came back from what she had been doing.
"Stop playing with the parrot for a moment and look at this" she said with an opened book in her hands, pointing at a certain depiction of a spider.
"In Laparadi? We are already here but this country is quite vast..." sighed Layo.
"It says that it tends to live near mountainous areas though, meaning that Dea is near the border of Laparadi" pointed Laura out before closing the book with a loud thump.
As the, now five of them, were about to get on their way with a carriage they had just acquired, they noticed a man leaning against one of its wheels.
Before anyone could even say anything or point out the fact that this guy looked slightly off, Layo had already restrained him with her strands.
"I hope it isn't just a sick guy" muttered Molbas as she was the first to advance toward him.
Layo noticed something off as Molbas got closer to the suspicious individual.
There was no need to say anything though as some sort of worm-like creature with a strangely humanoid face bursted out of the sickly man's face and lunged at the closest target.
Only to get sliced up through its whole length, leaving to pieces of the same sizes drop to the ground as the swordswoman swung her sword some more to avoid having its stinky blood touch her.
Only a second after the worm was cleaved in half, more sickly looking people emerged from just about every corner imaginable, they seemed completely out of it.
Laura even recognised the man she had bought the book from just a few moments ago, he had looked perfectly normal and had been able to converse normally.
It appeared that the whole town they had stopped at had been infested by a worm.
"I don't want to get ahead of myself but I think someone wants us dead" spoke Layo as she extended her strands around everyone in a defensive manner.
"Very astute observation green girl!" responded Molbas.
"I would have said to just make a run for the carriage but that seems compromised" remarked Laura as she noticed a few of them emerging from inside and underneath the carriage, thankfully, they seemed to be uninterested in the horses, even when one kicked one of their brains in.
A few of them were even placing their bodies in the wheels of the carriages, acting as meat wheel clamps.
"From the looks of it, the worms aren't very smart at all or the one responsible for them isn't but they aren't very strong either and need an host on top of that, the user of those worms could be very far" remarked Molarine, making use of basic reasoning.
When it came to magic and other abilities, they tended to be restricted to a few parameters to determine the strength of the abiltility or spell in question, while the user themselves was a big part, cutting certain corners to enhance others was a common practice.
Such as for example, limiting the strength of your worms to make them more intelligent by themselves but considering how pathetic they were in both regards, she could only assume the user had decided to be able to use it from far away.
That or they were just not very good to begin with or maybe they were using a technique they just didn't understand much.