********
There were many people around in that place, it was hard to say the exact amount but maybe around forty-ish...?.
No, they weren't exactly people - they couldn't be humans.
A strong majority of them were freakishly tall with weirdly lanky slender limbs and faces that resembled humans only slightly, and instead were more beastly than anything. The skin of those humanoids was dark purple and their hair and even teeth and nails were all black despite not being painted, making it easy for them to move in the shadows, and their pointy triangular wings were twitching as they registered the many more sounds form their surroundings than human ears could.
Since there was a majority, there must have been a minority too - that much, much smaller group of really short humanoids also could not be humans. The small humanoids all had golden skin so lustrous that it almost seemed to be spraypainted.
The golden ones all had long pointy ears – but not wide and triangular but thin and more knife-like. They all were short in stature – averaging about half of the height of the purple humanoids - and had more human-like faces, only more mysterious and captivating. Almost like elves, but not quite.
Although many of them were clearly adults, some of them were literally elderly, judging by the environment they were moving through none of them was more than four feet tall.
The purple ones were armed in all sorts of tribal weaponry - they had bows, swords, and hatchets, small shields made of wood, and leather. Each of them wore armor made of animal pelts designed for ease of movement.
The golden ones were all wearing clothes that wouldn't look out of place in a fantasy MMO game - only that not as a choice of wardrobe for the players but rather some remote village NPCs.
The purple ones were leading the golden ones somewhere, but they weren't escorting them with protection in mind...
By the few interactions they had which included shouting, pushing, and threatening with weapons – the tall purple ones were taking the short gold ones somewhere against the latters' will – either as hostages or captives.
The entire group was walking through some wilderness, that looked rather otherworldy – the plant life fit the appearance of the jungle but if you focused on it, you would soon realize that not a single plant was native to earth.
Well – that's because that place wasn't earth.
The purple and gold ones walked and walked.
The purple ones were talking amongst themselves and kept glancing at the golden ones with greed and hunger in their eyes as if they weren't treating them as enemies or rivals, but rather as goods or even food...
Golden ones were huddled together, and all of them looked terrified.
One of them, the shortest one, maybe a two feet tall girl with big brown eyes, clearly still a child, started sobbing.
Two older brown-eyed gold ones, maybe the child's parents, tried to cheer her up.
Even another gold one, a green-eyed girl in her late teens patted the little girl's head and said something.
Only that... the sounds coming from their mouths were not words of any language but rather static or the white noise on the radio.
The child seemed to calm down, but that was also the moment that the purple ones stopped and the golden ones became even more tense.
The golden ones were then pushed to the front and their faces twisted in horror upon the sight they were exposed to.
There was a giant stone bowl half-buried into the ground and right by it stood a purple humanoid wearing an intimidating outfit made of furs, skulls – of unknown origin - and decorated with colorful feathers.
The colorfully dressed one was larger and more threatening than the purple ones who brought the gold ones – but it wasn't his size that brought fear to the gold one's hearts.
The awaiting purple humanoid had a shining black blade in one hand and a wooden bowl in the other.
And right beside him swayed a corpse of a monster - hanging down on a rope tied up to the nearest tree.
It was a disgusting beast, while it was still alive its head must have looked like a wolf's head but now since it was dead and its muscles didn't hold any power it was gruesomely spread apart revealing that its jaws opened vertically and not horizontally and a long blue tongue was hanging out of it, dripping some pink liquid.
The monster might have a head similar to a wolf but its body was more like a gorilla's with massive front limbs and upper body in general, but instead of fur, it was covered in murky greenish-gray scales.
And it had a weird short tail just like a fish, but on such a bizarre body it was clearly completely useless...
The purple one in the scary outfit said something.
The purple ones who brought the golden ones cheered loudly and the golden ones huddled even closer, now even some of the adults amongst them started sobbing.
The intimidating purple one nodded in satisfaction and walked to the hanging carcass of the monster and made an incision on its neck.
Green blood started dripping from the wound and the purple one gathered it into the bowl until it was full to the brim, then he covered the incision with some leaves and put a rope around it so it wouldn't continue leaking.
He then turned around and pointed the blade at one of the golden ones.
A blue-eyed man with a short golden beard.
The man flinched and clenched his fists.
He gritted his teeth and looked at the others with great sorrow in his eyes.
He didn't want to go, but then one of the purple ones urged him with the tip of his short spear, and then the gold one had no other choice but to move towards the scary purple one.
He walked around the giant stone bowl and couldn't stop glancing at it.
The scary purple one smiled and offered him the bowl with the freakish monster's blood.
The golden one took it and stared at it.
His body was shaking.
His breath became uneven and hasty and his heart started beating so fast as if it wanted to jump from his chest.
He then glanced at the other golden ones surrounded by the armed purple ones...
And then he closed his eyes and started drinking the blood!