Eventually, the path came to an end. Yet he still had a long way to go. The overgrown grass here was nearly impassable to anyone wearing proper armor, or even slightly heavy armor, lucky for him he didn't have any, but it was still going to be a pain with his own gear weighing him down.

But he kept going, the faint light of fire towards where his previous abode was keeping him moving. If he was lucky they would assume he ran to one of his holes and wouldn't come out, if he wasn't they would be catching up with him soon. So he picked up his pace, pushing through the tree's and various foliage until he came upon a clearing. The moon was shining bright tonight, no rain and no hail of any sort came down, nor any wind. In fact it was almost like nature herself was holding her breath now, as if in anticipation of something.

That anticipation was soon revealed to him, as Ridged could see a figure standing in the middle of the clearing. Whoever it was seemed to be wearing a sort of cloak with commoner clothes underneath. If anything it looked almost too plain, like someone had made every effort to take any semblance of recognizability away.

Quickly drawing his rifle Ridged began to move into the clearing, keeping it shouldered as he aimed down towards the figure, "Vampire if this is one of your tricks I swear to the dark gods that I will kill you", he shouted to the figure, his eyes darting around as he slowly moved towards it.

"Lower your rifle Ridged, you came this far so do not try to shoot me now", it was the voice of her once again, and he lowered the rifle but not before casting a spell to detect the local magic. None was emanating from around them only from himself and her, so this was the real deal but her clothing was so….plain. He had gotten used to her coming in grand outfits that benefited her status as lady of the lands, so seeing her in such plain clothes was confusing to say the least.

"What are you staring at, do you believe me to look better in such clothing?", she laughed as he groaned at the jab, he did not understand what it was with the other species that made them so enamoured with how others looked. He did not understand it when she first tried to seduce the party, and neither did he now or ever he suspected.

"No, you just look so plain that you become noticeable"

"Well we cannot win them all, can we?", she laughed once more at her own joke before turning away from him, "come now, we haven't much time until our ride leaves without us" she said as she began to walk into the woods.

"What ride are you even talking about?"Ridged called out as he began to jog to run up with her, staying a distance away from her, his rifle still out.

"You still have the ring with you, correct?", she said, ignoring his question.

"What? Yes I still do, in my pocket", he patted the side of his coat and felt its shape there, letting out a small sigh of relief that it was still there.

"Good, do not put it on before I tell you so", Ridged raised an eyebrow, yet again this ring thing came up. What was her plan with this? The rings were not magical, nor special. Just very plain silver rings with nothing much else to distinguish them.

Suddenly, groans emerged from behind him, and she turned around to face him, a scowl on her face, "You fool, you lead them right here. Hurry if we are lucky we may yet be able to escape!", she cried out and began to run, Ridged soon following her afterwards.

Despite all the odds they had followed him, what a fool he was to assume they wouldn't be able to track him well, they had a damn spell caster with them, "What is your bleeding plan woman", he cried out, similarly running from the seemingly ever present groans and moans of the dead.

"Just keep running and do what I say", she shouted back, still running through the forest.

Eventually after another few moments they came close to another clearing, but something was different about this one. It had a building of some sort in the middle, like a…..by the dark gods was that a Tavern?

It must have been, especially now as they got closer and he could see figures mulling around the interior. It was almost like life itself was radiating off of the building compared to the dread and death that surrounded it.

But besides it, he could see dark skeletal figures draped in cloaks, like a deathly specter. As they moved around a seeming circle around the building the grass beneath it seemed to rot and die, creating patches of dry ground where nothing could grow or likely would for years.

As they continued to run the creatures seemed to all look towards them at the same time, and began to move towards them faster than he thought possible. The first one passed by both him and the vampire, but they seemed to move through her, causing her to stumble to the ground.

30 feet.

Ridged pulled himself to a stop, and knelt down to the woman. Her face was whiter than he thought possible even for a vampire, but she was still alive if hurt somehow. But as he inspected her the specters began to surround them, slowly closing in as the groans of the undead became closer.

25 feet.

"You….", she groaned, as she pushed herself up to her feet, "you have no more power over me", she said to the specters shaking as she pushed herself up.

20 feet.

"You have no room to argue Dark Baroness", one of the creatures said, its voice sounding like a thousand voices condensed into one, "you have made a deal and cannot escape", another said, its voice imitating what Ridged could only describe as madness, "As did you construct", yet another one said its voice like nails on a chalkboard.

15 feet.

"Woman you had better got a plan to get out of this with", Ridged said, pointing his rifle at the figures as he looked around and tried to see if they could slip past.

10 feet.

"I do, Ridged put the ring on", she said, continuing to push herself up into a standing position

5 feet.

He could almost feel the pure malice, hatred, and madness radiating off of them now as he fumbled to push the ring onto his finger. But as he did they stopped, and they slowly began to turn to smoke, and soon faded from existence leaving naught but the memories of what happened. It was almost like a dispellment magic of some kind but what did that have to do with the rings?

"As expected it worked", she said, standing up fully and turned towards the tavern, "come now we have things to be done", she began as she strided towards it.

"Wait a minute, what in the dark gods name just happened there?", He leveled his rifle and stared at her, not taking his eyes off of her.

She sighed and turned to face him, "I owe you an explanation but only once we are out of danger, afterwards we are going to part ways", the groans behind him only accentuated that point and with a sigh ridged followed her, both of them walking into the tavern.

As they walked in he could see the place was lively, dozens of patrons and waiters wandered the area serving drinks to every kind of creature. A group of dragon-like creatures sat in the corner, while what looked to be floating eyes played a game of cards with magical hands in another. It overwhelmed Ridged, the noise, the views, and just the life exuding from inside. It wiped away the worries for the dark gods outside and left him full of joy like he had been injected with liquid happiness.

"Ridged, keep focused", she snapped towards Ridged, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him through the small crowd towards the bar. It was manned by a large jovial man who was talking with several customers, all of them seemed to be incredibly drunk and the half-empty drinks beneath them.

"And so I said, Now that ain't a cannon, THIS", the man held his hands out to emphasize it, "Is a cannon", and the men nearby laughed, their faces tinted red from their alcohol, and then the large man seemed to spot them. His smile kept on his face but it fell from his eyes and was replaced with a mixture of pity and disgust. "Well well, seems I have some new guests, my name is Mitchifer the owner of this fine establishment, and who may you be madam and sir?"

"My name is Angela Ravnica, and this is my husband Ridged Ravnica, we wish for passage away from this infernal place"

At those words, the very gears in Ridges's head stopped. He knew that saying exactly who she was would cause a fight, but was this her plan? Try to convince the owner they were married and ride off of that to get out? Dark gods, what the fuck had he thrown his luck into?

End chapter.