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    After a few minutes of travel, Melena and her two remaining minions finally reached the small village the Sorceress had talked about. It was a quiet hamlet that didn't attract attention to itself, with its denizens just moving along. There was no sign of the Wolf anywhere, but it's handiwork was beginning to make itself known.


    Little by little, the village grew quieter, but it was within minutes that the village was empty. The kicker: absolutely no evidence the Wolf even existed, nor of the people's existence. It was like the village population just upped and disappeared...

    Huh...Melena expected...A little more. More what? The guts, the gore, the screaming citizens. She stood there awkwardly, tilting her head in surprise. And then she shrugged. She now knew how powerful the Dire Wolf was. With the beast at her side, she would obliterate her descendants!


    "Now that is a Familiar! Why didn't I think of summoning one sooner?" Melena gestured to the empty village. Claiming the idea of bringing forth the Dire Wolf as her own.

    There was a certain sense of emptiness to the village as the Wolf slowly came forth from the shadows, unnerving the two fae by Melena from its quiet entrance. It certainly made no noise for something of its size; only the most well-trained could faintly hear the pawsteps. No survivors of the village, not even the animals...


    "M-Master? Are you sure it can be controlled?" One fae asked with uncertainty, creeped out by the unnatural stare the Wolf was giving her.

    (Thanks for reminding me!)


    Melena scoffed. Rolling her eyes at the fae who voiced their concerns. Did they forget who they were speaking to and about? The Sorceress could handle a amiliar. "I can certainly handle a Familiar." She did not like being doubted.


    After another moment of observation, Melena began to walk on. Gesturing for her faerie servants to follow. It was time to be updated.

    Melena's faeries quietly followed the Sorceress, having shut up completely from being rebuked. The Wolf was noiseless once again as it quietly stalked from behind, disappearing when it walked into Melena's shadow not to be seen. Quite peculiar behavior from the beast, but it wasn't doing harm to the wrong people...

    Miraculously, there was company other than the two fae or the Wolf that were tailing her: a lone Lycan hiding in the brush. Lycan were just one of the many Beastkin that inhabited the dense forest sitting at the foot of the mountain, and this one just served to be an example as he frantically ducked into the brush...


    Only for the Wolf to suddenly appear behind him, making the Beastkin back out right into the open. Now he was stuck between the demon, and the wicked Witch...

    Lycans

    Melena hooked her arms underneath the Lycan's. Lifting him up onto his feet. "Heel, Dire Wolf." The Sorceress commanded. Keeping her grip tight to demonstrate that he was not to harm the Beastkin. And then she turned the Lycan to face her directly. Appraising him for a moment.


    And then she got to the chase. "Tell me, Lycan: What has happened while I was away?"

    The Lycan was more than confused when he was questioned by Melena. "Um... Sorry Miss, but do I know you?" He tentatively asked, hopelessly lost in the situation.


    Right, two hundred years; none of the original Beastkin that served under her would be alive, meaning they all likely forgot who Melena was... And passed that lack of knowledge to their descendants. This was going to be odd to explain...

    Melena rolled her eyes and bit back her irritation. "Current events, wolf." she snapped. Why, back in her...Oh, dear, she was doing that kind of speech. The Sorceress never thought she would live to see that day. "Has anything of note happened in these past...200 years?" she had to get over the shock that came every time she realized this.

    After some more prying and some contextual reference on part thanks to the two fae by her side (with some "coercion" by the Wolf), Melena was finally getting bits and pieces of the two centuries she missed. Entire Kingdoms no longer existed, replaced by either smaller duchies and fiefdoms, or encompassed into a central realm fanatically bannered under the pantheon of the Old Gods: the most predominant religion in the world.


    To Melena's surprise, her dreaded family had fared so well without her, becoming a powerful dynasty reaching the edges of the world... Her troublesome niece and nephew (I think...) had left behind a dangerous lineage. One was a line of monarchs of a large nation to the direct south of the mountain, probably a week or so to get there right then. The nation was rich, innovative, and forward-thinking, but had developed many enemies as a result. The other line was even more dangerous. From it: a long and massive line of Archmages, the most powerful of Sorcerers that could very easily give Melena a run for her money. They were responsible for the great Arcane academy to the far north, supposedly prestigious to the highest degree in their lead-role in magic of all kinds.


    The last bits of information were... concerning though. Rumors had flung around the kingdoms about new Overlords that had risen after Melena's fall. They had amassed large armies, and were preparing for a massive land-grab, the reason why so many nations had banded under one title.


    A mighty Succubus and her legion of demons from a gate to the Underworld


    A Vampire Baroness, and her like minded kin from a castle nestled in the badlands


    A Necromancer deep in the swamps to the east, with undead at the slightest beck and call


    A Beastkin Lord set out to unite all species of Beastkin before conquering the world (the captive Lucan had to yap about it, so it was definite proof)


    A Fire Spirit, hiding in a volcano westward with Elementals serving to the last letter.


    An Elven Druid who had the support of the Elves (including Melena's other half of the family) and ruled from a vast Deepwood


    An ancient Siren, with all the merfolk and sentient aquatic life in the oceans to rout humanity.


    These... "Rivals" had to be dealt with somehow... Subjugation, Diplomacy, Straight-Up Annihilation; the options were endless...

    ...Melena utterly surprised herself by not (Literally) bursting into flames. She did, however, roughly slam the Lycan to the ground. Incoherently cussing underneath her breath. These changes, these...Revelations shook the Sorceress. She couldn't imagine the Kingdoms of her youth being gone. She couldn't bare the idea of her human bloodline being successful in anything. She...She needed to take out her anger. And...Send a message.


    Melena raised her hand to the wolf-kin. Enchanting him so that he would take on the form of a true, natural wolf and never be able to change back. Once this spell had taken hold, she kneeled down to the Beastkin's level. "Go to your precious lord. Let him see what will befall him and his ilk. Unless they bow to me." Yes...That's what she would due to her beastly rival. Turn him and his subjects into full animals.


    (His spell actually can be lifted. The Sorceress just doesn't have the foresight to realize that. In fact, one of the niece's descendants can be the one who not only lifts his enchantment, but finds out Melena is back.)

    The Lycan-turned-wolf turned and ran off without pause after it was let go, leaving Melena and her small entourage. The two fae hovering by her were terrified at what powers the Sorceress still remembered, but the Wolf was... disinterested to say the least. Nevertheless, it still remained obedient as it disappeared under her shadow.


    Unfortunately, the Lycan wouldn't get terribly far for reasons you could probably guess...

    "Alright...Our next destination is clear."


    Melena spoke as she watched the Lycan-turned-wolf flee. She wouldn't take these upstarts lying down. Oh...No! She'd show them. She'd prove that all these years gone hadn't changed a thing about the Sorceress! The woman's starting point...Melena gave it some thought. Despite her claim that she knew where they would go first.


    "We head for the northern Kingdom. There, I'll turn their 'attention' onto a few of these...So-called rulers."

    "E-Excuse the perceived foolishness Mistress, but..." One of the fae next to Melena struggled with her words, trying to strike a balance of getting the point across without getting burnt to a crisp out of anger. "... How can we achieve such a feat? We are only thr- four, and your repute had waned from two centuries. Your words would mean nothing..."

    "I thought of that...!" just now. It hit Melena that, as her actual self, her attempts at getting the people on her side would be...Difficult. Following her recent display of power, the Sorceress came up with disguising herself as a scared citizen. "Which is why we are going in disguise."

    The fae had looked to have been appeased by the decision to go under disguise, at least for Melena. They could easily hide themselves since they were fae, and the Wolf didn't need to be worried about. That meant they could finally be off in their travel- a very uneventful and boring one to be specific. The Northern Kingdom shouldn't suspect anything as long as nothing went wrong...

    To be fair for Melena, she almost had it perfect...


    The last guard slowly burned into shadows as the Wolf finished its handiwork. In her haste to get to he Northern Kingdom, Melena had missed a detail in her disguise for herself and her two servant fae, and it nearly came back to bite her in the rear once she had arrived to a large walled city belonging to said kingdom (the climate was definitely cold enough to tell they were where she wanted to be). The two guards outside the gate stopped her and had spotted that very painfully clear discrepancy in her appearance and nearly got away to sound the alarm had the Wolf not pounced.


    What did Melena forget? The ears of course, the most obvious detail that could've possibly given her away. Well, at least the disguise sort of worked... sort of.