Duade lay motionless in the ditch he had dug, he eyes staring blindly up to the darkening sky. His grey eyes were as pale as death, and his skin seemed loose upon his body. The night had all but fallen when he took a deep and painful breath and his eyes suddenly burst into focus. Duade burst up a frightfully manic look upon his face, he looked about him self frantically several times before sniffing the air and on his hands and knees scurrying up the hillside, his satchel dragging across the wilderness floor behind him and flinging bits of food along the way.

Duade disappeared into the darkness long before his tortured moaning breaths faded into the saccades song. The song seemed somehow more mournful then any other night, and if you had followed the path that Duade had trod, there would not have been a sound, for as he passed, and far deeper into the night then when he had passed there was nothing that dared stir but to escape the frightful darkness that was born in his passing. Late in the night the air was filled with the terrifying moaning howl of wolves, howls so heart wrenching that even the saccades paused in silent terror.

"They took her" were the words uttered repeatedly, occasionally the creature that wormed its way up the dark slopes would interrupt itself with manic laughter, "Alone, ever alone!" it cried to the skies hissing as the red moons light shone in its eyes. Its eyes had gone from pale blue, to two angry yellow slits wreathed in flames the red of blood.

Duade's body stopped its crawl and his legs lurched forward his muscles rippling oddly, his skin was soon replaced with grey and brown scales. It sniffed about itself, saliva dripping from the twisted smile that infected its face, and after a few moments of hacking laughter the beast exclaimed aloud in a call very different from the call of the body's former master looking pleased with itself after it had paused for a few moments bringing it's two index fingers together, "I WILL DESTROY THEM! All of them. Hyahyacawhyacaw"

The satchel with Duade's belongings had long been left behind, and most of his clothing had been torn to shreds by the forest. He had begun to grow a tail, and his face had taken on a shape more recognizable as that of a lizard, or rodent then that of a human. Suddenly something stirred on the forest floor from the left of the beast, and before there had been time for it to stir again the source of the disturbance was ripped from hiding, and the large white rats head had been torn off by the beast whose sharp and jagged teeth now dripped blood on the wet leaves of the depths of the forest. Without warning as the creature began again to snake its way through the forest another pair of arms sprouted from its body, and it began to tear into the writhing rodent in its left hand, gaining speed as the foul being gathered its strength on its way deeper into the darkness.

"Only acawyahahaha fool would cawcabandon everyahahacawcawthing, even his will. Hyacayaha!" the demon cackled on his journey, "Even so. in an ordinary fool there is ner so much power as this one." It hesitantly uttered in a much quieter and less jovial voice. With its last words were mingled no laughter, no hacking of mucous and blood, the matter of power was one more serious then others to this being.

Suddenly the creature reared its head back its forked tongue sniffing the air about it, its arms and legs which had become sturdy talon bearing trunks stopped suddenly causing a cloud of dirt and rock as the demon slid to a stop. The beast craned its head its tongue probing the stale air about itself. Its hair was ragged and thin, but it grew long and grey black from its disquieting brow along its crown and down the arch of its back, its gaping nostrils flared, and its piercing eyes widened as it caught a sent. The fiend's whole body tensed from where its former master's ears had been replaced by a patch of what seemed the only exposed skin like tissue on its body to the bottom of its long outstretched tail.

"What is this vile smell that offends my tongue, and burns my nostrils!?" the Demon growled, its eyes reduced to red green glowing slits as its mouth closed and its entire body shook in anger, "Nooooo she must not live! But the time for action is not now." there was a pause where the creature seemed to be in frantic search for some answer, "She will do my bidding cawcawyahaha, yes that one will be no problem then. Hyahyacaw-caw. She cawcawnnot Hyaha-live." Blinking the beast quickly relaxed its muscles and again began its dark journey through the forest.

Soon in the distance, where the creature's attention had focused there was a small plume of smoke and what looked a flicker of flames deep in the darkness of the forests depths.

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