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Outside, all was madness.

The faithful knelt in prayer inside the grand, colorful, buttressed old church, dwarfed by its architecture, iconography, and worthless wealth, as the world collapsed. Their prayers were panicked, full of begging for salvation - Though theirs were no longer prayers of salvation in the next world, but salvation in this one.

The grand front double doors, covered in engravings that cost more money than these poor few saw in five years, were barred and barricaded with whatever could be spared - Mostly pews, for the comfort of sitting seemed a frivolous one now.

They knew the dead had come.

Rumors had persisted for years, traveling up and down the long muddy roads with the brick-a-brac travelers they often saw. Most had brushed it off as mere road-people silliness, or gypsy tales made to convince gullible villagers to buy 'magick amulets' for protection.

Protection from the walking dead - it was what they all wished for now. But no gypsy amulet could save them, they now knew. When the dead had come, in a wave of shambling, groaning slaughter, all the amulets and gypsy fate-craft had done nothing to slow them.

Their first sign of a true reason to fear had been when the neighboring town of Willow Waters had abruptly ceased sending traders up the river. Surely enough, the rafts had come, though they passed through the town without so much as waving hello or stopping, their crews only coming above deck to steer around the shoals beneath their two great bridges.

They had looked frightened, many rafts heavily laden or listing due to bad steering, and the furs aboard ignored all hails from the shore. The perplexity this caused had raised rumor, and a dozen town guards had been dispatched by the mayor's reeve to find out the nature of this mystery.

Of the dozen that went, only two returned, badly wounded and delirious, looking as if they had been gnawed and savaged by beasts. Within two days, the occasional groans of pain from the hospital had transformed into screams of horror and pain, and then the long, drawn, stretched-seeming and miserable moans of the hungry dead.

A week later, and the city burned. The sky, through the stained-glass windows, always looked colorful - but now, even through the plain windows lining the upper buttresses, the setting sun cast a scarlet bloody light upon the hysterical men, women, and children that knelt before the grand altar of their ancient hero.

Among the praying mass, nobles and peasants alike, the sole priest left alive in the city cried into his amulet as he held it against his face. It was a beautiful thing, crafted lovingly of silver, gold, and lapis, three concentric stars of seven, six, and five points respectively. A grand relic of their faith, a craft meant to reflect palely the glory of their hero. The young priest wept for the lost, wept for the doom of the world they had so foolishly ignored. He prayed to the Finder of the Lost to make them a way, find them a path...Save their souls from this hell unleashed upon the earth.

Or, at least, that when the dead found their pocket of survivors, that the end would be swift and painless for the children.

A tug at his sleeve drew the young preacher from his prayer, to lower his puffy eyes towards the elderly woman that lay at his side, too infirm to kneel on her twisted old legs. She gave him a sad smile and patted his thigh.

"Thank you for staying with us, father. When the other priests fled, I'd thought all hope was lost."

He forced a smile for the elderly woman's benefit, and kissed the amulet before touching it to her forehead so he could speak the traditional Prayer in Dark Times.

"Heavenly Finder, lead us from this darkness towards the light lands beyond. Find this child of heaven and bear her from pain to safety. Lend us your golden bladeyou're your courage, that we may Find you, and know you from the deceiving devils by your secret names."

The elderly woman smiled, and took his youthful paws in her ancient withered ones, squeezing them as her cloudy old eyes met his leaking blues. She felt cold, he realized, and when she released his paws he took off his ceremonial blue woolen cloak and laid it over her, tucking it around her sides to cushion her against the stone floor.

A whisper next to him, hushed in reverence despite the fear that cracked it, had him turning to the other side. The eyes he looked into were too wide...The elder fathers had taught him to look for such things, when reading the followers. This wasn't fear or reverence - It was terror. His heart sank, as he knew what the scrawny young rat was about to say.

The priest looked past the filth-ridden farmer, towards the one remaining pew that hadn't been smashed for use as clubs or lodged against the doors. Upon it, the source of the young rat's consternation sat, tall and shadowy despite its slouch.

He replaced the Finder's Star around his neck, and clenched his paw on its reassuring weight, noting that it still felt warm despite the cold that was driving him to shivers now that he'd given up the warm ceremonial cloak. Even with that warmth, the stranger gave him a chill that seemed to roll up his tail like a wave to leave his spine stiffened with shivers and his teeth feeling on the edge of breaking from consternated clenching.

"Father...Mam say he a necromancer mebbe. Should throw 'im out! In the Finder's name man, afore he turns us too!"

He couldn't tell what sort of fur this was, but he doubted the rat's words, and gave him a disappointed look for a moment before returning his gaze to the dark stranger. The male was clad so strangely - Black leather boots, ridged and weathered with buckles at the top told him the fur was well-traveled and probably a horsefur of some sort. The pants were tucked into his boots, made of hard-sewn black-dyed heavy cloth, strips of leather stitched to it with studs of blackened iron as light armoring. Above that, he wore a long leather jacket that looked hardened, perhaps boiled as armor, with steel rivets that looked worn and blade-bitten. The creature's face and features were hidden by scuffed black leather gloves and a wide-brimmed hat that drooped at the edges, leaving him swaddled in shadows, and bearing a cloud of dread that seemed to hover ever-present.

The father realized he hadn't even noticed the creature come in. How long he'd been here, watching, was a mystery. Then again, he mused, given the circumstances, not noticing one very odd fur among all these panicked people was a sign he was doing things right - Ignoring distractions from his duties.

As he looked on, the scabrous farmer hissed with fear and revulsion, and the dark figure shifted. Next to it on the pew, a long sword, thicker than the rapiers common to their city, lay wrapped in cloth to the hilt. Its paw guard was silvered but blackened as if by age or soot, and its wrappings looked well-used if the priest was any judge. On the fur's other hip, he noticed a curved wooden and silver handle, heavily engraved but worn by age and use - A firearm, he thought, likely some sort of matchlock pistol.

"He's no necromancer, Savarde. See his sword and gun? Those are the styles of the Svalich kingdoms. He's more likely a witch hunter than a witch, so calm yourself."

He placed a paw gently on the shaking rat's shoulder. The creature stank of fear, and of anger. The rat, understandably but foolishly, wanted someone to blame for this doom that had befallen them, and any outsider would do. When the rat glowered sullenly at the stranger, the priest sighed and stood, wincing as his knees popped. As the grand stone church whirled around him for a moment, he realized he'd not slept in...Well, he wasn't certain how long. Caring for the flock had come first.

"Brother Svalich, won't you join us?" He called out to the creature, his tenor coming out clear and with the slightest lilt of music in it. He smiled as welcomingly as he could, given their desperate situation.

The unknown fur didn't stir.

I wonder if they see you too, little Nastasia. They are looking at me now...So afraid, these ones. All but the priest. He's young, devoted, maybe even honestly faithful. I think you would like him.

It is too bad they are all going to die. Me too, this time, if my guess is right.

The dark traveler still hadn't moved, despite the long silence as parishioners had turned to watch the exchange, fearful that the odd newcomer might harm them now that their well-meaning but youthful priest had drawn attention to them. They huddled together around the base of the altar as the priest slowly, cautiously approached.

After his halting steps had brought him just beyond arm reach, the priest leaned forward and slowly extended a paw, open upward in a gesture of welcome. The Finder's Star slipped forward on its steel chain, as the priest started to speak.

"Please stranger. We are all brothers here. Join us to pray, you need not set yourself ap-erk!"

The stranger's paw shot out, grabbing the priest by the throat and yanking him close, as the other paw pulled its pistol. The priest's eyes went wide, as the octagonal barrel of the firearm came to rest against his chin. With a mad-fur's strength, the slender stranger stood, holding the priest up off the ground, his sandaled footpaws dangling, kicking slightly.

As the stranger stood, his head rose, and beneath it what the priest saw nearly made him soil himself, even more so than the grip on his throat or the deadly implement scraping against his jaw.

The stranger was black-furred, just as dark as his trail-worn clothes, his face sunken around burning, blood-shot red eyes.

Fever and madness! Thought the priest.

The stranger waited a moment, drinking in the stunned silence, his unblinking eyes never leaving the preacher he held off the ground as his lips pulled back, showing his yellowed fangs to the squirming striped grey house cat.

Should I kill him, Nastasia? Is he one of them?

The house cat priest stared wide-eyed, trying not to thrash for fear of crushing his throat against the stranger's paw or inciting him to use the pistol. Then he noticed the wolf's eyes flick downward, and freeze, widening slightly, before he was roughly dropped, falling to his rear on the hard stones as the terrible stranger glared over his head at the parishioners, huddled around the base of their statue.

He sneered, hat tilted back just enough to show the crazed red eyes as they stared down his snout at the fools.

"Cowards! A stranger attacks your priest, and you do nothing! This is why you are doomed! This is why the dead rule your pathetic city! Bah!"

His voice was harsh, grating on the ear, and the father saw why - Across his throat, the wolf had a pair of awful, raised scars, not of blades but of burns. The father had never seen the signs of torture before, but they'd been described to him by older priests.

The amulet, Nastasia! He wears it! It is as you said, forgive me for doubting you!

Burned onto the wolf's inner eye, he saw the star, resplendent in his vision as the priest slowly stood, rubbing at his throat. He noted the cat's mouse-like fear, but as the cat gripped the precious Finder's Star, he seemed to draw strength, sticking his jaw out and looking reproachfully at the older, taller, more well-armed wolf.

"Stranger, they are terrified and unarmed. You will NOT judge my flock beneath my own roof, do you understand?"

A test you say? Very well.

The wolf leveled his pistol, and thunder crashed outside, as the cat looked down its barrel. He saw the fineness of the weapon - rifling! - and the beauty of its engraving, dragons long and sinuous wrapping around one another down both sides of the barrel. He also saw the powder stains, from long and repeated use, and what he suspected were the marks of blood having corroded the tip of its opening more than once.

The priest held the Star, and spread his feet, throwing his shoulders back and raising his head, the pistol keeping pace with his forehead, close enough that if it fired he would no doubt be burned in addition to killed instantly.

"Shoot me if you must, stranger. I offer you welcome and you offer me violence. Is this how Svalich witch hunters act?"

The wolf stared at him, every ounce of his bilious hatred and derision for the 'gentle' blazing in his fever-hot eyes. This priest stared back with eyes widened by fear but nostrils flared in anger. His posture spoke of righteousness, un-self-conscious, and forthrightness.

He's willing to die for them. Nastasia, I think we may have found him! And he has the Star!

The wolf lowered his pistol, and after another tense meeting of hot staring eyes, slid it hard into the holster inside his coat.

"Prepare yourself, father. I will pray with you, though I have no faith in the cruel gods that let this loose on us, as a courtesy. But soon, the dead will find us, and you will have to make a choice."

He gestured at the assembled herd, his upper lip curled back to show his yellowed fangs.

"These cowardly, lice-ridden fools...Or the very world they live in."

They? What does he mean 'they?' You live in this world too, wolf...

With that troubling statement hanging in his head like a funeral bell, the tolling of it drowning out his thoughts, the priest took the wolf's paw, and led the deadly creature to the altar for prayer.

In his dream, the young priest knelt at the misty foot of a forbidding mountain, its slopes glowing with hot thin lava that flowed like blood from a wound that refused to clot.

To his left, he saw a shape he recognized - The wide-brimmed hat, the sword...That had to be the wolf from the cathedral. The wolf was a baneful presence, kneeling and holding its own pistol to its head, and when he looked at the wolf, he heard and felt a strange warbling just on the edge of his senses, a terrible voice bearing horror and power, and the priest tasted ashes and blood.

To his right, he looked and saw another presence, for that was all he could name it. It was swathed in torn cloth, like a leprous pauper, and one leg was oddly twisted and swollen. On his lips, he tasted the potent vinegar bitterness of strong spoiled wine.

Poor creature...

He noted it was armed, a tapered longsword that had seen better years laid on the ground before it in a posture he recognized as Atarasi ancestor worship - The handle would point eastward, towards the sunrise beyond which their ancestors slept, waiting to guide the blades of the living. The blade would point to the west, towards the retreating blackness, which their descendants would strive to drive back always.

Of its form or species, he could tell nothing - It did not even have a tail, though it clearly had, once, if the wrapped stump at the base of its spine was an indication.

A mad witch hunter, a leper knight...

A light shimmered before him, and he looked up to see a ghostly shape, limned with azure and solar light. For a moment, it blazed in front of him blinding-bright, and he shielded his eye with his arm. Reflexively, he grasped the Finder's Star in his left paw, as his right shielded him, reaching towards the glowing thing.

To either side, neither of those he realized were his companions seemed to see what he saw. As he clenched his paw on the Star, the glow in front of him dimmed, as if someone had put a shutter over the burning blinding light of the sun, bringing it to a more tolerable luminescence.

He raised his bright blue eyes, features he'd been complimented on many times, to gaze upon a color that made him feel like his own were the color of common mud.

Beautiful...Are you...Are you him? Are you Ta...

The priest bit his lip, refusing to speak the sacred secret name, lest the old legends be true. The legends that demons might use the name against him, if it were spoken without utter purpose and conviction.

Are you the Finder? Finder of the Lost?

The hazy, obscured, brilliant shape before him simply floated there a moment, unable or unwilling to respond to him. A shock came to him then - He looked down at the Finder's Star, the great relic of his faith, and he held it up to the light. If the light was his god, his great divinity, Finder of the Lost would know what to do!

This dream! Thank you, my lord! Please show me how to save them!

A sense of grave sadness flowed forth from the light, as two great gauntleted hands closed around his own. They were silvery-colored and bright like the moon on the blackest part of night.

On them, as they touched him, he saw swirling scenes of battle, animated as if he were looking into the past...The Finder resplendent in his glorious, articulated and winged plate armor, doing battle with hordes of demons, slaughtering them with his great and solar sword, as huddled wounded followers trailed in the path of his carnage as he led them towards safety.

He was brought out of the hypnotic dance of his god's great discovery myth, the time that his ancient ancestors had come to know the Finder when they were lost in the lands of demons, by a gauntlet touching his chin so gently that it might as well have been his mother's paw.

The priest looked up, tears streaming from his eyes, blurring his vision so that he could not make out the features of the great power before him. Truly, he hoped, this was no dream - But a vision from his god, a sign of salvation...That he would awake and find the great glowing winged savior slaughtering the dead to save them.

Then, he saw it shake its head, a great heavy sad movement of the all-concealing helm it wore. A voice spoke, filling his whole consciousness to the brim, leaving him feeling he was about to explode from the overflow of power and light and justice.

Listen, for I have not long to speak.

Your destiny comes and quickly.

Follow the dark, lost wolf.

He will teach and guide you;

Do now as he bids.

Though it hurt you so,

Find the slaughtered knight.

Bear her from the dark within.

Be to her solace and succor,

For you will need all her mightiness

He shall guide you towards destiny,

Though he hate and avoid it now.

She shall slay the darkened beasts;

Though she doubt her own might

Urge her on to fight.

Three shall you be then,

Three against the dead host.

Three to find the rotting heart,

Three to find the trail it knows well.

Three to plunge the star into Its heart.

The priest stared, mind so overwhelmed it felt blank, as the radiance before him faded. He screamed, reaching out, sobbing, calling.

"My lord no! Don't leave us! Please! We need you!"

He woke, sweating, his fist clenched so tightly around the Star that he felt the sharp edges cutting into the flesh beneath his fur.

Someone next to him shrieked in terror, and he jolted, spinning as he rose to see the witch hunter drawing his sword. The parishioners were getting up, shouting in a cacophony of panic, some few grabbing the long iron candle holders still left unlit, others grabbing children or each other.

The source of their terror met him a moment later, as the witch hunter turned toward the door, gripping his sword in both paws. The great doors shuddered, shaking loose old masonry dust as something heavy slammed into the other side.

In his gravelly, painful voice, the witch hunter shouted out louder and in a fashion far more commanding than anything the young priest thought he could do with a throat so wrecked by fire.

"Priest! To me! Now!"

Do now as he bids...

Thinking quickly, and praying for forgiveness of his blasphemy, the cat snatched a curved, metal-topped shepherd's staff off the altar, and rushed to the wolf's side, sandals slapping against the stones in his haste.

The wolf shot out his free left paw, and the priest heard creaking in the armored leather as he was grabbed by the front of his robe and shoved immediately to the wolf's left. The witch hunter then listened, as another thunderous crash came from the door, several of its timbers splitting, obliterating decades of fine engraving in an instant.

"Your name!"

The command startled him from mourning the destroyed carvings.

"Timid! I was named Brother Timid when I joined!"

The wolf tilted his head, looking down at the shorter cat. He laughed, then, at the sight of this little cat priest, holding a ceremonial iron-headed staff like a pitch-fork, with no trace of training or armor but for the tiny glittering star bouncing on his fear-heaved chest.

"Timid! Hahaha!" The wolf, so somber and terrible before, was even more horrible now laughing, Timid thought. His fangs showed, along with the bloody-red of its gums and mouth, and those fear-inspiring eyes were wide now with glee and murderous intent.

"I am called Tomasj. Help me move the pew in front of the door!"

Timid blinked and bobbed his head, setting the staff aside as he grabbed one edge of the heavy wood and stone seat. It was long enough to hold ten adult furs with room for arms and children, and heavy enough to support them. In a moment, he was straining, grunting and sweating, as the wolf heaved his entire wiry frame into the weighty assembly.

"A few feet in front of the door, priest!"

"What? Why? We can use it as a barricade!"

The wolf spat, and snarled so loudly the cat's ears folded back and he flinched, nearly dropping the pew.

"Do as I say, fool! I have no time for explanations!"

The cracks had grown and multiplied in the seconds he took to move the pew, with the mad wolf's help. Tomasj dropped his end, and ran back to grab his sword from where he'd rested it against the wall. To Timid's curious stare, he raised the blade and kissed its pommel.

What a sword...

It was a fine, heavy blade, easily long enough for both paws if the wolf shifted his grip enough. Its wrappings were worn, as were the crosspiece and pommel. But the blade itself was razor-sharp, mirror-polished on its edges, and shot through with spider webbed layering all up its length. The tip gleamed wickedly, catching the scarlet light of torches and reflecting it as a bluish tint as if it were reflecting off a beach grotto's water at night.

"When the rot ogre comes through the door, keep the other undead off of me! Do not let them surround you, they will drag you down! Do not think to run, priest! There is nowhere to go!"

Timid nodded rapidly, head bobbing, as he gripped the staff convulsively, suddenly worried his sweating paws would drop it. Whimpers from the faithful steeled him, though. He would have to fight for them, he'd known that since he had chosen not to follow the other priests in fleeing towards the great cathedral and the king's army in Rohlberg.

"Wait...Ogre? Ogres are fairy tales!"

The wolf snorted and took a few quick swings of his sword, cutting the air with whistling sounds as he spread his footpaws and squatted down to limber his legs. Tomasj opened his jaws to speak some cutting remark. Instead of speaking, he spun and dove to the side, as the door abruptly shattered, hurling hunks of crushed engraving and lumber past them both.

Behind the exploded door, Timid glimpsed a horror from nightmare in the instant before he threw himself back against the wall and out of sight, his heart pounding like it was going to explode as a roar that shook the earth and sky blew masonry dust up all around them in a choking cloud.

The thunder he heard were foot falls, as an enormous, scabrous monster rushed through the shattered door that had tried so valiantly to protect them. His flock shrieked in horror and roared in fear-fueled rage at the sight of it, nearly fifteen feet high and at least a thousand pounds of rotting flesh, as it charged toward them.

Massive feet thudded to the ground, cracking flagstones as its leering, reaching, clawed club-hands went out towards them...Then down towards the ground, as the horrid beast tripped over the stone and wood pew, sundering it in half with a noise like breaking bone, its roar rising in pitch as if it were surprised that its face was now bouncing off the floor.

The moans of the dead drew him from the spectacle, as dozens of grasping, rotting peasants stumbled and staggered over fallen statuary and shattered door bits, trying to get in through the hole and slake their hunger on the living.

Timid grabbed his staff, and tried to roar out a battle-cry, but it came out as a choke-throated squeak. His crotch felt warm and damp, but he managed to ignore it, as the weight of the Star bounced against his breast bone. The first of the dead tumbled through the doorway, reaching towards his legs, and for a horrifying moment Timid couldn't move. He stared into the face of the monster, its maw open and full of broken shards of tooth, and realized he knew this fur - A baker, that lived not five minutes' walk from where he stood.

Then it lurched, lunging with surprising speed, and Timid screamed, suddenly enraged that this monster was hiding behind the face of his flock. The staff in his paws went up over his head as if it were utterly weightless, then came down on the thing's head with all the strength of a priest's long hours tending gardens and hauling stones for the older, infirm, or lazier clerics.

He didn't pause to look at his chunky handiwork - The thing's head exploded like an overripe melon kicked by a horse - before he stepped over the suddenly still creature and lashed out at the next, smashing it in the torso and crushing its rotting ribs. Still reaching towards him, the thing sagged and fell over, jointing in the middle of its chest as innards spilled out a split in its other side.

Timid reeled back as a third lunged for his face, jamming the staff into its gut. The sucking splatter sound nearly made him vomit, but the rage he felt carried him and he kicked forward, planting his sandaled footpaw on the thing's chest to kick it off the end of his crook-staff.

A terrible crash behind him was followed by maddened, high-pitched laughter, and the sound of a sword repeatedly striking flesh. The laughter was answered with roars, and wails of terror from those huddling by the altar, as the rot ogre repeatedly slammed with its fists, windmilling, trying to strike down the nimbly darting, dancing, slashing mad-wolf.

All this he saw in the corner of his eye as he struggled with the zombies at the door, striving with all his might and the fury he'd never known before to do as the guide he'd been provided had asked. The first few had been simple enough, if terrifying, but now they were pushing him back just by force of numbers. One at a time he could handle, but now four all flopped through the doorway at once, and only their clumsiness allowed him the chance to kill one with an overhead swing before hopping back, yowling and lashing his tail like a feral stray.

Behind those, a dozen more shambled into the doorway, and through the red fury, Timid realized they were done for. Behind the dozen shamblers, he could see the streets, and smell the smoke of the charnel city, and both were full of rot and fire. Beyond the steps that led to the cathedral, hundreds of the hungry dead swarmed, arms out-stretched, their moans merging like a thousand tiny streams to create a horrid wave of decay and death and grasping, seeping flesh.

"Finder of the Lost..." He swung, bracing his feet, and smashed the head of another zombie to pulp, "seek us in the dark places..." another lurched forward, lunging, and met the upswing under its chin, shattering its skull, "lead us from the claws of the damned..." he was backing, swinging, swiping, trying to ward the insensate things away as Tomasj strove against the ogre behind him, "save the lost children...hrk!" he staggered, struck by a fist that carried strength like a three-horse cart, and bounced off the broken remains of the pew they'd used to trip the ogre.

Tumbling over the top of it, he landed on his neck and shoulders, darkness exploding around the corner of his vision as he saw the ogre take another swing and slam its fist straight through one of the great supporting pillars of the cathedral. Overhead, he saw, the murals painted a century ago of the Finder's Journey began to crap and chip and lose stones, clattering and crashing down around them.

The wolf leapt, running up the ogre's arm as it used one to brace itself and try to pull free of the pillar. The crazed witch hunter leapt up from arm to shoulder, scrambling as the ogre turned to bite at him, and found purchase by grabbing onto the thing's rotten scalp, gloved paw ripping out chunks of flesh and filthy hair.

Grimy, bony paws grabbed Timid's ankles and, still stunned, he felt himself being dragged towards the hungry maws. As Tomasj drove his beautiful sword to the hilt into the rot ogre's skull and began to ride the re-dying creature to the ground, he saw the old woman he'd given his cloak to abruptly stand up and lunge with incredible power to grab and bite into the neck of another parishioner.

She wasn't sick...She'd been infected! No!

The wolf hit ground and rolled to his feet, left paw drawing the pistol off his belt. He turned, first pointing it towards the old woman as she tore into the crowd, screaming women and children tripping over one another and creating a jumble of limbs as the fur she'd bitten immediately started to retch and grab at his compatriots.

Then Tomasj turned towards him, aiming the gun at what was dragging him towards his death.

"Choose, Timid! Live to save others or die to protect these!"

He screamed in terror, the words chiming in his head.

I can't abandon them! I can't!

Though it hurt you so,

Find the slaughtered knight.

He gestured wildly, grabbing for anything that could keep the beasts off of him.

"Help me!"

He heard a click, and saw the flash reflected in the dead eyes and wet gore of his attackers. A thunderous report blasted a round into the creature clawing at him, as it was bringing its shard-toothed maw towards his leg for what would give him a long, painful death.

As the round hit, it exploded, sending Timid sliding and rolling across the floor away from his foes, the grasping dead behind it blasted to gory chunks and smoking cinders.

Coughing, choking on black smoke and wretched stench, Timid managed to roll his head and weakly look up at Tomasj, tears streaming down his muzzle as he saw the parishioners dying, fleeing, being chased by those who had been family moments before.

The hunter hadn't been hit by the ogre, or he'd likely be dead from the sheer impact. But there was blood coming from the corner of his eyes, and splattering on Timid's face from the barrel of his ornate pistol.

The gun is magic! That explosion! It's bleeding!

Tomasj lifted the smoking thing to his face, and kissed it, speaking harsh whispered words of thanks.

"Thank you, Nastasia, you saved us again. Now do it a few more times and we might yet survive..."

Noticing Timid staring at him, starting to sob as the last vestige of his life was being torn asunder by its own panic and dead flesh. He flipped his sword around and slid it under his elbow, holding it against his body by the flat and his arm, then reached and grabbed Timid with lunatic strength, heaving him to unsteady feet.

"No time for tears now! Your undercroft, does it lead to a graveyard outside?"

Timid nodded his head hysterically, and started pointing at one of the old, locked-up doors. The cathedral's graveyard had filled so long ago, the door hadn't been opened since before his adoption as a child.

"B-but the graveyard, i-its full of the dead! Its why we didn't flee!"

The wolf gave a savage, brutal, blood-slavered grin that made Timid cringe and almost fall down trying to get back from him. He looked too close, in that moment, to the very foe they fought. The glint in his eye though...Timid realized then that the dead's eyes didn't sparkle. They were dull, lifeless, cloudy...No soul behind them to sparkle madly as this fur's dead.

Tomasj's tail was wagging back and forth slowly, aggressively, as he grabbed the priest again with a lunge too quick to be dodged. He could smell the creature's fetid, bloody breath.

"We take our chances! Hahahaa!"