• If there were no sounds to be heard in this fine scenery, it would be quite peaceful. It was an ordinary visual of a run-down barn, abandoned, under-cared for, and depressingly gray. Its roof was caving in, its walls missing a few of its planks, window frames broken, and all of the animal food holders were either completely empty, or had tons of dirt and mildew living inside of them. The fields were quite dead, as their dried-up yellow corpses lay helpless to forever drift in the directions of the winds until one day, they will eventually meet their fate and disappear in the dust, just like everyone else after they’ve died and their souls have left their empty shells. Gloomy clouds sustained their positions in the air, obviating the sun’s rays from wrapping the land with their warmth, and bringing a sort of sadness to hang in the atmosphere.
    However, despite its unhappy state and seemingly serene position, this scene was nothing compared to peaceful once one heard what was going on within the barn.
    “Theron! DUCK!”
    “I hope you’re not pointing out another animal because of your stupid short attention span—”
    “NO!” she shouted, cutting him off. “I meant as in—”
    Thunk. An object went flying over Theron’s head and shattered against the wall. The frantic teenage girl jumped from one foot to the other, ready to dodge another object. A not-so-older man was next to her with his blue eye slightly squinted as he reloaded his gun and steadily aimed it towards the shadows. He held his shooting hand carefully to keep it balanced.
    “Ophelia, do that spell again,” he commanded.
    “Which one? The one with the explosion or the—”
    “The explosion! Do the explosion spell again!”
    “Alright!” Ophelia nodded, bringing her hands into the air. She bent her wrists in an upward motion as her fingers pointed down, and then she thrust her palms and under-wrists downward. Her shoulders suddenly hunched upward and her luminous emerald eyes seemed to flash. “Praemium!”
    FWOOSH—BOOM! Another object that came flying their way had blown up, causing sparks to fly in all directions and illuminating the darkened section of the barn for only a mere moment; this was the only moment Theron needed. He pulled down the trigger.
    A figure slumped forward and landed with a thump upon the dirty barn floor. The creature was breathing its last few breaths for the final moments of its life before it suddenly fell silent. Neither one of the persons left standing in the barn had said anything, not even the jumpy girl who had glued her two feet to the floor after the creature’s death. Both were panting.
    Ophelia, the jumpy girl, sighed in relief and wiped her brow. “Phew! I actually thought I was gonna get hit in the—”
    Suddenly, a blow from above nailed her in the head. She fell onto her rump and rubbed the top of her head irritably, glaring at the fallen piece of wooden roof with narrow eyes. Theron, the man next to her, smirked. “It’s what you get for being so cocky.”
    The magician girl leapt onto her heels and sprang up, her weight then leaning onto her toes as she hissed her words at Theron. “Cocky?! I’m not the one who just went ahead and barged right into the blasted barn, shouting out ‘who’s there’ and being completely stupid as to be out in the open in such a way!”
    “And what did you have in mind?” he argued.
    “A well thought-out and organized plan as how to approach the barn and be able to eliminate the target without having to cause as much ruckus as we just did! Well, not nearly enough, not certainly,” she added. She gave him a little shove. “Ugh! Why are you always so mean to me?”
    “You haven’t seen mean until you’ve stared it in the face, Ophelia.”
    Ophelia let out a “hmph!” and pivoted her heels and toes, turning herself halfway. She put her hands on her hips. “And you haven’t seen cockiness until you’ve stared it in the face.”
    Theron, rolling his eyes, pulled out a burlap sack from Ophelia’s pack that hung at her shoulders. He then proceeded to behead the dead human-like creature, pull on its hair and stuff the head into the sack. He tied the knot tightly to try to prevent the smell. “You nag me like you’re my mother,” he muttered. Ophelia turned and whacked him upside the head with an open palm.
    “I could have very well been your mother if I wanted to, if I was older than you, but I wouldn’t raise such an incompetent and intolerant child like you!”
    Theron stood up with the sack slung over his shoulder. He bent down slightly to Ophelia’s height and flicked her in the nose. “I could have very well been your son if I wanted to, not that I would if I was younger than you, but I would have rather run away and been raised by a pack of wolves than you.”
    Ophelia winced and rubbed her nose. “Well, I would’ve let you go instead of calling for the authorities to find you and instead let you die in the wild.” Theron rolled his eyes again and turned to start heading out the door.
    “Oh, you’re such a woman, Ophelia,” he sassed. Ophelia tugged on the strap of her pack and followed after him.
    “Woman?! Are you being sexist now? What was that supposed to mean?!” she shouted after him. He didn’t even turn his head or slow down to let her catch up with his pace.

    &&

    The pair of people came down along the path, passing the tall trees and their thick trunks. The sun was high at the mid afternoon point, where its light finally broke through the clouds and released its warmth upon the land. Its light broke through the scattered leaves upon the branches, making oddly-shaped shadow patterns upon the dirt-paved path. Numerous little critters scampered this way and that, stopping to twitch their tiny noses and start scurrying off again. If you were some stranger to be standing aimlessly in the midst of the tangled branches of the forest, it is likely that you would hear the high-pitched nagging of a girl, ringing off at someone down in the path, her speech topped off with a sort of accent.
    The magician girl had her nose high in the air and her hand flicking this way and that, her fingers flinching in rhythm with her annunciated vowels and consonants while the other hand was bent at the wrist and kept against her waist. “You know, you shouldn’t be so disorganized when it comes to sneaking up on bounty like this! It would completely give away our position and give them the chance to notify them of our presence, and therefore they have the opportunity to strike back at any moment they please to defend themselves! You really ought to be ashamed of—”
    “Ophelia,” the tall hunter said, cutting her off, “Will you quit trying to act like you’re actually my mother? It’s pissing me off.”
    “Well!” Ophelia snapped at him. “Maybe if you’d do something right for once, then maybe I wouldn’t have to nag you so often!” she paused and sniffed the air. “Eww, that thing is starting to smell. It’s gross,” she said, pinching her nose and pointing to the sack slung over Theron’s shoulder.
    Theron didn’t even bother to turn his head. He kept walking forward. “We have to do this to prove that we got the bounty. You know that. Besides, would you rather pelt it?”
    Ophelia shivered. “No, thank you. I’d rather not. I remember just cutting off the finger and putting it in a jar, letting the customer find out themselves. Speaking of blood, what blood line is that one?”
    “Looked like an Impror,” Theron replied.
    “Hmm… he must be dangerous if we are getting a two hundred gold bounty. I wonder what he did.” Ophelia pondered.
    “Don’t care,” Theron responded. “As long as we’re getting paid.”
    Now, an Impror is just a level in a scale of blood purity according to a race called Cruercasts. Cruercasts were human-like creatures that sort of resemble vampires in the stories of earth, but are not too much like them. At the same time, sometimes they would interbreed with humans or even bite a few of them to have their venom convert them into a level lower than them. This was how the blood purity began. Some generations back, they decided to give these levels name, the lowest being the Soreden Cruercasts, or just the Soredens. Then there were the Imprors, then the Tiamats, which were the half-breeds, then the Praenus, or Praenii, and then the purest level would be the Castitans. The higher blood purity you had, the more abilities you had, but at the same time the more obviously dangerous you were. You would have fangs that would be constantly sharp and showing every time you spoke, and had these oddly bright, but almost hypnotizing yellow eyes. The lower blood purity you had, the duller your eyes were in the hue of yellow, and the lesser power you had. At the same time, you were not as obviously dangerous, but still dangerous enough to severely harm any regular human being. However, despite their appearances being similar to those of a human, most despised them more than anything. Some were friendly, some even fell in love with each other, but even the humans hated them once in a while. Sometimes the human even has to get a few bounty hunters to hunt down dangerous criminal Cruercasts to balance out the living harmony between the species. It happens so that our hero and heroine, supposedly, are bounty hunters. They hunt, they kill, and they earn the money they need to survive.
    The pair had come upon a village as they traveled further down the path. Of course, this was a very familiar village to them. It wasn’t too run-down like the ones they have been to before, but it was still somewhat ruddy nonetheless. Average people in very casual, plain, not-so-torn clothing did their daily business, scurrying this way and that upon the village streets with children running amuck. They laughed and tackled each other, shouting and screaming with joy and excitement. Indeed, this village is rich; they are rich in happiness.
    A few bystanders were off to the side of the road, watching the pair walking down it. An exchange of whispers went from ear to ear, but Theron’s sharp hearing had picked up their words;
    “There they go; the hunting couple of the town.”
    “I wonder how their relationship is going.”
    “I don’t know. They seem to quarrel a lot.”
    “Have they ever considered settling down?”
    “They look peculiar… even standing next to each other.”
    “The young man is quite handsome. Do you think he’s available although he travels with that girl?”
    “Psst. That girl’s a witch. She’s got a covenant with the devil. Whatever you do, do not ask her of any wishes to grant of greedy desire. She’ll sell your soul.”
    “Hey, that girl’s got a nice figure…”
    “Do they have kids?”
    Theron’s head whipped around and shot a look at the person they had just passed. He halted, but Ophelia’s stop was a little delayed. She glanced around at the person who had just made the last comment. It was a small little human child, her clothes very plain and her hair very long. Her chubby little face stared up at the oddly-colored eyes that glared down at her with a threatening glint in them. She shrank back, a little frightened. Another woman, seemingly her mother, as she too had the similar hair and appearance, pulled the girl away, muttering to probably herself and not the child, “… such frightening beings they are…”
    Theron turned his head back forward and began walking again, ignoring the woman’s remark. Ophelia caught up behind him. He muttered. “I hate it when they mistaken us to be a couple in a relationship.”
    Ophelia pouted at him in annoyance, her eyebrows slightly creased down. “Am I that bad of a person to be with?” she paused, changing her expression to a pondering one. “Then again, I don’t favor you either with that attitude you always give me…”
    “Maybe if you didn’t nag me so much,” Theron mumbled. Ophelia smacked him in the back, but not very hard.
    “I do not nag, I lecture,” she argued. Theron rolled his eyes.
    “Still acting like my mother, either way.”
    “Well, some of my lectures do work!” Ophelia spat out at him. “You’ve had somewhat of a better behavior since we first met. No longer are you some blasted fool who went off and completely ignored whatever was said, as if whatever was said went in one ear and out the other, but now you actually listen to me! And you weren’t as much of a jerk as you were before, but still a jerk nonetheless.”
    Theron couldn’t help but to chuckle a bit at that. “A fool? You thought I was a fool? I’m not the fool who makes it obvious that I am a witch by making fancy my attire and casting magic for almost every daily deed I do.”
    Theron was a tall young man with reddish-brown hair and sort of a long, handsome face structure. His haircut was not too long, but nor was it too short with some fair fringes hanging over his forehead. It was merely cut into several pieces, the pure handy-work of Ophelia herself. Before, it used to be somewhat longer than what it was now, and that was when Theron had knifed it himself. “It bothered me,” was Ophelia’s excuse to force him to a chair and knife his hair herself. He seemed to be a very mysterious figure, though. He wore a long trench coat along with a pair of plain trousers, but he still had a very plain attire. However, his most catching characteristic was the colors of his eyes. One was a pale, bright, sky-blue color, while the other was a very light brown, hazel-type of shade. Ophelia had wondered why his eyes were like this, but she never really bothered to ask in fear that it might somehow offend him. From then on, she just assumed it was some sort of accident that affected the colors of his eyes.
    Ophelia whacked him in the back again, but with a little enforced strength added to it. “I am NOT a witch! My ancestors were witches and wizards! My generations are considered the sorcerers and sorceresses!”
    “Then why do they call you a witch?”
    The hyped-up sorceress’ voice seemed to raise a few pitches, higher and louder. “Because they have little insight as to what I really am and have no common sense as to actually approach me and ask me, ‘are you a witch?’. But no, they decide to be a bloody lot of fools who need lecturing! …And a common sense! After all, what is a common sense if almost none have it?”
    Theron shrugged. “Who cares? If people are stupid, then they’re stupid. Their intelligence is none of my concern.”
    Ophelia folded her arms. “Maybe it’s because you don’t care about anybody much but yourself, now isn’t that right?” she said, irking an eyebrow. Theron shot a look back at her, but turned his head and kept walking. He said nothing in reply; his eyes held a grave stare in them as he and Ophelia continued down the village’s path.
    Ophelia was somewhat a shrimp compared to Theron, as the top of her head was about a foot below the height of his brow, maybe even a few inches shorter than a foot. She wasn’t too much younger than him, but she sure did seem like it. She had a crazily knifed haircut that was short. Its bottom layer was covering most of her neck and feathered her shoulders, while the other layers followed to be shorter and shorter as they almost made cute babyish curls at the ends. Even her bangs somewhat curled to the side. It was a very smooth, shiny, raven black color with randomly applied dyed streaks of violet. Her entire attire consisted of dark green and black; her thigh-high stockings, her ribbon-laced skirt over a puffy petticoat, her cincher corset, and the thin-strapped shirt. The only thing that was not in this consistency was her collared and cuffed white dress shirt, the red ribbon tied around her collar, and her brown, black-laced boots. A chain wrapped loosely around her hips while a small, golden crescent moon trinket hung from her ear by six stringed, yellow beads. Theron often questioned her choices to her appearances, such as, “Why do you have purple in your hair?” and her sweet little answer would be, with an innocent smile and that cutesy little leg twist she did when she was playing around. “I like the color purple!”
    Ophelia, it’s violet. It’s not purple.
    The pair came upon a sort of wide building, its decoration very plain with a sign hanging sideways above the door reading, “Grimmel Inn,” while another beside the door said, “Stay and eat as long as you’d like.” It was only three stories, and it had a flat rooftop unlike the homes of the village. Its bricks were a little worn and gray, its door and windows somewhat shabby, but they were still in good condition. The tall hunter swung open the door very casually, completely ignoring the customers of the inn in the lounge staring at him as he passed them by and approached the counter. Ophelia trotted behind him, her backpack somewhat bouncing along with her as she came along. She glanced a little at the people, but quickly turned back forward to the counter. At the counter stood a very stout and plump old man with a dark chocolate skin complexion. His beady eyes seemed to squint every time they turned in another direction, his fat pink lips puckering when he appeared to be pondering about something. A stained light blue apron covered his very dirty white uniform. Theron almost threw the sack at him as he let it fling from his hand and onto the countertop.
    “There you go, Gibby. Impror Cruercast worth two hundred gold pieces.”
    Ophelia peeped up from behind Theron, barely peeking around his arm since his shoulder was too high. “Gibby, I was wondering… why was this one worth so much?”
    The old man brought out a large sack from under the counter, where many pieces of money clanked together to make that chiming sound they always did. He took the sack with the head and put it under the counter. “Dunno. The customer said they wanted revenge or somethin’ like that… probably lost somebody to the damned creature. Must’ve been dear to ‘em too. Poor soul,” he said, his words somewhat slurred. Theron leaned his hand against the edge of the counter.
    “Got another one for us, Gibby?” Ophelia said, leaning an elbow against Theron. He harshly shoved her off, forcing her to stumble back on her own feet for support. She scowled at him, folding her arms. The old innkeeper cleared his throat, turning around and checking the large bulletin board behind him. Many tacks were stabbed into the cork material, hanging various posters and papers between their needles. He put a dry and dirty finger against one of them, tapping it a few times.
    “This one’s also ‘n Impror. But this one’s off at some sort o’ temple… whas it called? Can’t read the damn handwriting…” he squinted his eyes. “Ah! Here we go. Hajuka Temple. He gots a few lackeys by ‘im too, and they’re causin’ a bunch o’ trouble to them nearby villages. Most likely you’ll find ‘em inside of the temple.”
    He took the tack off of the board, rolling up the poster and handing it to Theron. “Sheesh, boy, why don’t ya settle down fer once?” he gestured a hand towards Ophelia. “Why dun ya screw yer wench once ‘n a while?”
    Ophelia stepped forward with a glare in her eye, ready to leap forward and smack Gibby straight in the face, but Theron pulled her back by the shoulder. She looked up at the hunter in objection. “He’s drunk, isn’t he?”
    Theron grunted some. He hated the idea of Ophelia and he—his thoughts cut off immediately. He looked at Gibby's dark brown eyes. He simply shook his head and looked at the wanted poster he had been handed. He studied it. It wasn't much of a bounty. Only twenty silver pieces. Theron grimaced and crumpled the paper into a ball, throwing it back at the dark-skinned man. "Child's work, Gibby," he said. "While you’re at it, get me ale."
    Ophelia picked up the crumpled paper ball that bounced off the drunken man and opened it, reading it over. “King Bellinus?”
    "Bellinus!" Gibby mused, handing a large mug to Theron. The strongly built man took it, instantly taking a large gulp. "Who's King Bellinus?"
    The innkeeper began to laugh, "Bellinus rules ye all," Gibby said, suddenly turning serious. "Stupid ol' king… doesn't even' know what danger lurkin' under his nose!" He began to laugh again. The sorceress irked an eyebrow. “Well, if that’s the case, then why would he want these Cruercasts taken care of?”
    "Listen 'ear girly. If 'yer were king, misser high-and-mighty… woul' 'ew wan' Cruercats runnin' aroun'?" The man grinned and turned to Theron. "Bess 'e wans' that medallion of 'is!" Theron's eyes darted to Ophelia. Medallion. Medallion meant money. Medallion from the king meant gold.
    Ophelia nodded. “Willing to do child’s work now, Theron?” Theron managed a small smile. "What's this medallion, Gibby?" He asked, turning to the man. "Medallion of Samil is wha 'e's lookin' fer."
    He thought about the origin of the name. "The venom of God?"
    "Been doin' yer reserch, eh, boy?"
    “What makes it so special?” Ophelia asked. Theron grinned. Gibby didn't normally give away information so easily. He let Theron and Ophelia figure it out on their own usually. Alcohol had many advantages. "That ol' thing's been jumpin' owners for centuries, my dear," Gibby began, taking a gulp of his lager. He wiped his chin. "A 'uman touches it an' POW! Drops dead in an instan'. Mr. Kingy wans' it fer destroyin'! If the Castitans get a 'old of that and yer basterd 'ere es all o'er!"
    Ophelia paused, thinking for a moment. She barely understood what he was saying from the lack of annunciation. “So… we should not even be touching this thing?”
    "What do you mean, it's all over?" Theron immediately interrupted. The drunken man opened his mouth to say something, but started to sway. He fell backwards and hit the floor. Theron seemed to think nothing of it. He looked down at his mug, deep in thought. This medallion killed people on contact, the king wanted to destroy it, if the purebloods got a hold of it and… Ophelia's ‘b*****d’, it was all over. Really, it wasn't very much information, but enough for Theron and Ophelia to charge a lot if they got a hold of it, and it seemed like this Impror had it. Or, so Gibby thought. Theron took a long gulp of his beer, completely downing it and looked at the girl with violet streaks in her hair. "Who's your b*****d?" the question suddenly came out of his mouth.
    Ophelia scowled, raising her arm and slapping him across the face. “You men!” she huffed before storming out the door. He felt a sudden sting in his left cheek. "Men? Women is more like it," he muttered. Theron sighed, figuring he should go after her. Then again… if she didn't come back he could go after the medallion himself. This Medallion of Samil sounded familiar to him somehow. Gibby must have spoken to him about it once, maybe twice.
    The drunken man was a father to him, with Theron never knowing his blood-related father, nor his mother. Apparently the man found him as a child out in a forest alone and surprisingly alive. Theron merely peered over the bar counter to make sure the man was alright; he seemed quite content on the floor. The hunter simply went up the stairs to his designated room.