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Arthurs head was spinning, he nearly threw up and it took him some time to regain his focus. The teleportation spell worked, but he had no idea where he was, until his eyes fell on the mountains of gola voda, he snapped and started racing towards the mountains, that is he tried to take a step and he collapsed.

"How does that damn woman keep up with this?" He got on his knees, whipping mud off of his engraved black chest plate.

"These teleportation runes sure do explain a lot." He murmured to himself as he got up.

This time he was more cautious, he didn't try to run, he simply walked (and even that took great effort with his head spinning all around), it took him quite a while to figure out where he is, the sun showed that it was afternoon and that he was approximately somewhere on the kings road, he gathered his thoughts after a few minutes and started to walk a little faster towards the mountains. Even when his head cleared up completely, he decided not to run, for he was wearing heavy armor and if he needed to fight the enemy when he arrived, he preferred not to be exhausted. It took him half an hour to reach the base of the mountains and there he saw why the bandits decided that this was the perfect place to set up their base.

The defensive capabilities of the Gola Voda mountain range were nearly limitless, the slopes offered great protection against any oncoming enemy, cavalry was near useless in an attack on this field and the three paths themselves were made out of small rocks which slide down under pressure, making advancing uphill very difficult. One thing that amazed Arthur as he struggled up the hillside, was the fact that he did not hear any sound of battle, he did not smell the burning and rotting of corpses, perhaps Malion was wrong? Perhaps the scouting and spying divisions that were send here (and which failed to warn them on Mazzirog's coming on time) were safe and undetected after all? Still, he could not afford to go back now, he pressed on and after a while he reached the top of the stern lifeless sloops.

There was a field on the top of the mountain and in stark contrast to the lifeless rock bidden sloops, there was a thick forest spreading ahead of him, some of the trees grew on the very edge of the mountain, with their leafs falling down on the fields beneath the sharp mountain rock.

The most common of these trees were Krvave latice, which literally meant bloody petals, for the petals of their leafs were red like blood and their flowers beautifully red, they bloomed in late spring and Arthur noticed that they were just ready to do so, in fact, he was certain he would see them bloom tomorrow on the battlefield.

As he pressed on thru the forest, the spirit of the nature calmed his soul, the smell of plants and the sound of birds danced in his mind and eased his nervousness.

"Perhaps these cultists are not so evil and wicked after all." He whispered to himself hopefully, but his hopes were soon enough shattered as he pressed against the last line of trees.

There he saw the most disturbing sight in his life, there were no words to describe the evil that lay before his eyes.

All the trees here were dead, the fields around the small secluded city the bandits made were dead of strife and the city itself was transformed by the evil of the cults magic, I wish there were words for me to put down on this paper to describe you the abhorid sight he saw that day, but there are no words in any common, uncommon, known and unknown languages to me to describe the monstrosity that Stih made in that town. If I tried to describe you in one book of a thousand pages the despicability of the cults evil, I'd fail miserably, so I ask of you dear readers to forgive me for the vague description that I will give.

All the traditional symbols of a town was gone, in fact, no one would have ever guessed that it was ever a settlement at all, aside from the strange deformed people moving the former streets of the former city, there were no marks to it whatsoever, the makeshift villa that stood in the middle of a makeshift market was transformed by some evil magic or technology to a bright building filled with people who were dressed with clothes that emitted the evil light of all colors, no one could focus on them and remain sane, or so it seemed.

'Those must be the fencer Malion spoke of.' Arthur thought to himself as he stood there, frozen in evil amazement, awe and horror.

Across from it, there was obviously a former inn and the only reason someone would ever suspect that it was at one point an inn, was the ruined sign that was on top of it, the people that were coming out of it and were going into it were dressed in strange tattered clothes that are beyond my description, their teeth were sick and broken, their faces ugly and when someone looked at them, he clearly could see... there was no life in their eyes.

'And those must be the klosari.' Arthur thought as his arms shook as he grabbed his mace.

The people in the city had one feature in common, while their sizes, shapes, appearances were different, they all had what was in southern Slavic called Slina in their eyes, slina meant dribble that came out of ones nose and truthfully they all had slina in their eyes and they all could see clearly around themselves, but all were clearly blinded by it.

Arthur didn't know how long he stood there, it felt like hours and days for him, but when he finally broke loose of the hypnotic evil around him, he noticed that the air was stale and full of evil, birds did not sing here, the trees were dead, all forced to watch and witness the wicked evil of what Stih and Pozeri did. The mere sight of it made Arthurs eyes feel like someone sprayed them with acid. He looked around and saw the first royal scouting and spying division hiding behind two huge rocks near the entrance to the city, he thought that they had gone mad, why make a camp so close to the enemy with so little cower.

He slowly approached the camp, going straight to the table where the captain Falcol was sitting, when he looked at him, he barely recognized the man he had known so well.

"Falcol? Is that you?" Arthur asked as all the soldiers around him paid him no notice, that was weird to Arthur, but he was also under the effect of Slina which was unkown to him at the time.

"Sir." Falcol stood up and saluted him, the way the man changed was stunning, his short (not buzzcut short but still short) hair was no longer smooth, but sticky with some strange material, his face looked aged (and he was a young man), his eyes looked encrusted with the first signs of slina.

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED HERE!?" Arthur burst, he looked around him, only to see that the same thing happened to the other soldiers, some had it better and some had it worse, some were even babbling and out of cover, for all enemies to see. This shocked Arthur, as he realized that Stih didn't even care about the enemy at their doorstep, they must have realized that such a small force can't do them harm and it is only a matter of time before they subcame to the effects of the slina.

"Sir... I." Falcols head went sideways, he was obviously not entirely there, not entirely conscious, Arthur realized that he couldn't get much out of him in this state. There was no time to act.

"SOLDIERS TO ME! RETREAT!" Only Falcol and a few of the soldiers who were still sane, seemed to listen to him. Out of the 100 men that came in, only 15 (himself and Falcol included) were sane enough to semi follow orders.

Arthur faced a difficult decision, to leave those that can't be saved, or risk the ones that are still sane for those who may never recover. He ground his teeth, as anger made veins on his head swell and show up.

"Sir." Falcol once again asked.

Arthur grabbed Falcol by the shoulder. "Falcol, if there is any hint of sanity in you, order your sane men to lead the weaker ones to safety, the ones that are too far gone need to be carried, you are scouts with light leather armor, you can do this." Falcol just stared at him while Arthur yelled at him, after a few moments of silence, Artur slapped him hard enough that he nearly took out the mans teeth.

Falcol winced before he gathered himself. "SOLDIERS, DO AS HE SAYS!"

Soon, the 15 men gathered the others, some had to be tied to the saner ones, so they would follow, however, each of them could convince a few to follow them, others needed to be tied. In the end, 12 men remained as all of the sanest men couldn't lead them, for it was too difficult to haul the ones they had already. The organization took nearly half an hour to complete.

Upon hearing that not all can be saved, Arthur went into a fist of rage, he took off the bracelet and transformed into his half giant self, his bones and muscles stretching as well as his magic armor, this caused many men to wince and Falcol to open his mouth. Without a word, Arthur started peeling the 12 crazy babbling men naked out of their armor, before throwing them on his back. When he was at the 8th man he fell to his knees, as he couldn't carry all of em.

"TIE THEM TO ME! DO IT NOW!" He yelled and Falcol immediately took the rope and started doing it, luckily, as scouts, each man had a lot of rope and there was no shortage of it.

"Now, for the rest of them." Arthur said as he proceeded to forcefully undress the 4 man and put 2 under one arm and 2 under the other, together with his armor he felt like he had a ton of weight on himself, which was true, his strength surprised even himself.

"WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR! RUN!" He screamed at the men, who summoned all their mental strength to walk, none of them could run, let alone sprint. Every once in a while, they had to call out to the weaker ones to follow them and to pull the crazy people so they would follow them.

Arthur had it particularly hard, each time he stepped into the mud, his foot would sting because of the weight and he had to pull it back out. He was sweating badly and his muscles hurt, he was under enormous pressure.

Once they reached the forest, he ordered a short break, he sat down/fell flat on his ass and breathed like there was no tomorrow.

The moment they were out of that place, soldiers began breathing more easily and slowly regaining their sanity, but they couldn't afford to wait, after only 5 minutes Arthur ordered them to move on. However, before that could happen, the men needed to help him up, he was carrying a ton and it took no less then 10 people to help him to his feet. Luckily, this time there was no mud, but he had to watch out for the roots of the trees.

After a couple of hours of dragging their feet, they reached the slopes, where they stopped and decided to rest before heading on, this time, they were more distanced from the enemy and took a bigger break.

Arthur was panting yet again, but he lowered the men he carried and untied the ones at his back, he thought of taking off his armor, but decided not to. He lay flat on his back and resisted falling asleep. His calm was shattered when a voice told him.

"You know, when I saw you transform, I thought of it just as another hallucination..." Arthur looked to his right and saw Falcol sitting next to him, the man looked MUCH better than when he first saw him, but he was still obviously not the same man that left the palace a few weeks ago.

Arthur groaned and moved to his side, so he hadn't to face Falcol. He wasn't really in the mood for this!

"Go, count the men Falcol!" He just said, fighting sleep.

"Great... so you're a gaint an..."

"I'm a HALF giant." Arthur replied, not turning over.

"So the stories are true, you are the kings son, I'd have never bet he would knock up a..." Falcol started, he was intrigued, surprised and a bit angry this secret was being kept from him.

"My mother died at childbirth, I don't want to talk about it, now GO COUNT THE DAMN MEN!" Arthur said stubbornly, not turning around.

Falcol looked at him, but just said: "As you wish.... My lord." That made Arthtur snort at the words, Falcol smiled as he stood up and said: "My prince." He then bowed and left.

After half an hour, the man barely lined up, all being better than they were in there, but all still under some effect of it, slina clearly had some permanent effects.

Falcol coughed. "78 men sir..." He said, Arthur was unmoved, after some eying the men he said.

"We can't afford to camp here for the night, you have half an hour to gather yourself and then we move on, night will come soon and the slopes are treacherous, I count on it, that some of you have improved enough to help out others and not need any help, I don't plan carrying 12 men on me. That is all."

He turned around when he heard. "Permission to speak, sir?" He looked around and saw a young soldier stepping out of the line.

"What is it, soldier?" Arthur asked.

"I can see that being... you... is troubling you, I just wanted to say that... even if I... we didn't know what you are I and I do believe that all of us are glad for what you are, after all, you saved 12 men and you couldn't have done that if you were a human." The young man said and there were nods of approval.

Arthur smirked. "Thanks soldier, glad to hear it, dismissed!" He said as he went on to have a talk with Falcol.

As soon as they were away from the others, Arthur turned to Falcol and said:

"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!" He was angry.

"I'd ask what do you mean sir, but I'll start at the beginning." Falcol said and started having flash backs

"It all started when we left the palace, we were going to track the enemy position. We already had some indicators where they were and after a few days of scouting and traveling we decided to come here, it took us a week to settle here and begin the operations as ordered, I wanted to send back messengers to you and the king when we had enough info, however, we were scouting and slowly starting to loose track of time." The scout stopped and took out some plants to gnaw on, he just realized how hungry he was.

"Anyway, we noticed that definitely something odd was going on in the town, I can assure you we were VERY surprised to find it, we thought that the mountain was uninhabited. We saw that bandit Mazzirog, he seemed to be the one with the biggest authority there, not a direct ruler, but when it came to who had the most sway there, it was him. We also saw these cultists and their followers, a lot of people followed them and the ones that didn't, were afraid of them." Falcol spat the plant out.

"The followers slowly changed and Mazzirog saw a threat in the cultists, he tried to draw them away, but he failed, as many people were following them. At this point, the magic started affecting us, I'm not sure how Mazzirog was able to take it, but many of us lost the track of time, minutes turned to days and days seemed to drag on, we forgot our mission." He took a sip of water and then continued.

"At one point, I'm not sure which day was it. There was a riot, those who followed the cultists from the start, were turned to mindless creatures, but the ones they recently recruited started battling the 'non believers' and Mazzirog was forced to take the remaining people out of town. This is the last sane thing I remember, I tried to send a warning... but... I... I... forgot." He looked down, blushing, how could he forget.

"It's ok, the magic held you, go on." Arthur reassured him.

"Anyway, I wanted to pack up and leave, in fact we were ready to leave when it happened... HE came!" Falcol shivered.

"WHO came." Arthur asked.

Falcol then started to have a flashback, which he vividly depicted to Arthur.

"Sir, we are ready to leave at your behest... I'm not sure which day it is... why are we here again?" One of the lieutenants said to Falcol.

"I'm not sure myself soldier, I've noticed the men gone crazy... we must escape this wretched place." Falcol said.

At that moment, something rather big flew in the sky, it was a big green disc which was fluid like, and on top of it there were 4 men and a battalion of odd looking soldiers behind them. The main man of the 4 stood in front and gave the fluid to his flying disc.

"Is that a.... flying dribble, sir?" The soldier asked.

"It looks so soldier, lets observe, it could be something important."

The flying dribble landed on the villa and the men stepped out of it, all the cultists and the followers bowed down to their leader, the short haired and short bearded man with black sunglasses (as said they didn't know what those were at the time).

"What are they doing?" Falcol wondered, they quickly tried to go near the villa so they could spy on them, but they could see clearly from afar what was going on.

The leader preached a short while, they could even from the distance make out he was saying odd things, for Falcol was trained in reading lips.

"Did he say Stih and Pozeri?" Arthur asked.

"Why yes, he did." Falcol confirmed.

"Go on."

"The leader, who was in a strange jacket which went only to his elbows and strange shorts and weird shoes then said something to his 3 generals." Falcol continued.

"After the short preaching, the crowd cheered at their leader. At the height of their applauses and cheers he said something like:

"LET THERE BE SLINA!" he slammed the bottom of his staff into the ground and the massive flood of green dribble came from the sky, it went thru everything, the houses, thru people, the ground, thru us and it shrank into the ground, we didn't feel it at all, as in, we didn't feel it touch us, but it did change us and affect us.

We all started to be more conformistic with each other, we stopped having our own opinions and minds, we stopped existing literally. We started feeling like we belonged with this pozeri and that they are our friends. The rest... that is before you came, is just a blur."

With that, Falcol came back from his flashback. Neither he, nor Arthur realized how important this is, for of all evil people, Kole came to their land. However, Arthur now understood a lot of things Malion said about Stih.

After that, Arhur ordered the men to pack up and leave, they struggled for hours in the dark to go down the sloops and once they reached the kings road, it was only in the little hours in the morning, when they returned to the village.

Meanwhile, in the former bandit hideout.

"O najgotivniji I najljepsi Kole, kako da ti zahvalim na ovom?" (Oh the awesomest and most beautiful Kole, how do I thank you for this?) A girl which was once the most beautiful girl in town sat in Kole's lap, her eyes now completely covered in dribble, she never knew southern Slavic, but Kole's evil magic changed that.

"Ahahhahah, stihuljo moja ti si samo jedna od mnogih koje su moje." (My stih, you are but one of many who are mine.)

At that moment, Aco Debeli entered the room. Debeli meant fat in southern Slavic and the man desperately tried over the years to become thin, he always failed in the end.

"O kole velicanstveni! Donosim vjesti o likovima koji nas spijuniraju ispred grada!" (Oh Kole the magnificent, I bring news about the men who are spying on us in front of the city.) He said, as he had trouble bowing down because of his stomach.

"Da sta je?" (Yes what is it?) Kole asked, uniterested. "Pricaj na njihovom jeziku da te svi razumiju." (Talk in their language so everyone can understand you.) As kole said that, he pointed at Aco and a dribble ray came out and hit Aco giving him knowledge of Glupni.

"A half giant came and organized them to leave, more than 20 of them remained, but they are under our control now." Aco said.

"A half giant? That halfbreed mutt from the palace?" Kole asked. "Haha, dear Aco, Slina is everywhere and has given me much knowledge, that hybrid will NEVER know of his true origins and the fall of his house.... Or perhaps you will tell them my dear?" He pointed to the ceiling and shot a bolt of Dribble, breaking one of the support beams, causing Liura to fall down.

She knew how to fall and fell on her feet, she threw a dagger at Kole's head, but he casually moved his head and dodged it. He rose his hand to prevent his guards from attacking the dark elf.

"You monster, you're going to pay!!!" She screamed.

"And who is going to make me? You? That boy, that child that you protect? You have much rage in you, but no means to show it and he has half the strength a normal giant has, I alone can send this country to the bottom of the slina ocean. Muhaa ha HAHAHHAH!"

Liura threw down a teleportation rune, she knew that Arthur went back home with the men, so she went straight to the village.

One of Kole's men picked up the rune left behind. "Boss, what is..." that is all he could say before the rune went BOOM! And a pile of ash was all that was left of the poor man.

After that, Kole went to the terrace of the villa and his 3 generals followed, he looked at the former hiding spot of the scouts. He grinned and held his staff.

His grin turned to a smile and the smile turned to laughter, manic laughter that is.

"All according to plan, all according to plan." His laughter didn't subside and it echoed all around the small, now ruined valley, as the night took hold of the ruined land and the babbling shells that once were humans turned their heads to their leader. His Laughter echoed and echoed, all the way down to the kings road, where it menacingly followed our hero, as he and his tortured scouts entered the village. Arthur put the bracelet back in in the dead of night, as he shivered from the cold of Kole's laughter.