The plan had gone so well! Percival had got to New York with the help of a blood portal and had used illusion magic to sneak among the guards of Richard Pink’s transport plane, which was supposed to bring the shard of the holy cross to Great Kingston. The red box with the coveted contents, barely larger than a ring box, was already safely stowed in Percival’s 70s leather jacket and the guards were no longer a danger, but nothing was safe!


    Rain pelted against the torn front hull of the oversized transport plane, which carried even more of Pink’s luxuries, at an altitude of over ten kilometres. Winter snow and ice streaked through the interior and alarm rang out through the long pilotless aircraft. Between the clouds of the stormy midday sky, the lights of lightning flashed steadily before thundering violently and only the autopilot kept the plane on course for a little while longer, but it was already descending.


    Percival let new flames flare up around him and created a ball of fire as a protective shield around him, shielding him from an icy, freezing blizzard.


    The mist created by the molten ice storm made no impression on the source of the spell. "Your magic is weakening," a female voice remarked snappishly, and hidden in the mist, the words were followed by slow footsteps creaking in the snow. "But that’s all right. A ghoul’s apprentice. Her strength is fading, like the rotting flesh of the undead."


    "Not as fast as your Christmas ambience!" Percival countered superiorly. He had never met her before, but he knew exactly who he was dealing with and that she was right. That’s why he tried to make his way to the rear of the machine piece by piece. "But maybe it’s time for the real fire."


    "Or you could just give me the shard," Ivy sighed. She was a notorious magical mercenary and particularly skilled in anything to do with ice and water. That, and the unapologetic way she went about her tasks, had earned her the nickname Arctic Wind.


    "Not a chance!"


    "Seriously? Do I really have to put up with this now?" Ivy replied as she left the fog behind her like a curtain and stepped onto the stage. Arctic Wind was not just a name for the small, curvy woman, but a motto that was reflected in her sapphire eyes and her outfit. The finest tattoos of wafer-thin, crystalline ice adorned her pale, flawless skin and despite the frosty temperatures that she permanently spread before her and from which she seemed unaffected, she wore a combination of underwear, multi-part tunics, some of which were very revealing, with boots that went up to her knees. "Well, at least I’ll also collect the bounty on your bowling ball of a head."


    "Oh, confident women are so damn sexy," Percival admitted, but he had wasted enough time now. On his retreat, he had left behind various tiny symbols covered in frost, which he now filled with demonic energy.


    Several pentagrams glowed ominously under the frost and four armoured Black Orcs emerged from the symbols with drawn blades and axes.


    Ivy surprised them with her remarkable agility, however, and sent the first attacker stumbling past her left foot. As she did so, she conjured up a combat sword made of pure ice in her right hand, which increased her agility and offence. She refused to engage in a trial of strength with the physically stronger Black Orcs and parried the attacks before she cut the first throat and slit the belly of number two.


    For Percival, however, these lesser demons were merely a distraction that allowed him to further enrich the pentagrams, turning them from portals into spouts from which hellish flames shot out like fire from a dragon’s mouth.


    The Black Orcs and Ivy were engulfed by the glowing sea that turned the ice to water and the interior coal burned black and deformed metal.


    Percival gazed arrogantly at his handiwork as the flames fizzled out. "I really expected more from you."


    Those words were as much smoke and mirrors as the new vapour of molten ice, with one exception! Ivy had truly encased herself in a thick block of ice that not even the previously raging hellfire had been able to melt.


    "Oh shit..." Percival murmured meekly and ran off.


    Ivy blew up the block around her and hurled the chunks after the fleeing man. She missed the man by a hair’s breadth as he dived down a staircase at the last moment and Ivy picked up speed, sliding steadily across the newly cast ice in front of her.


    Percival was now in the plane’s vast cargo hold, which was mostly filled with huge crates of cargo and a few extremely rare vintage and expensive new cars. His destination was the locked tailgate, which he teleported to and unlocked in the blink of an eye. A menacing whistle in the air caused him to make a hasty turn, creating an arcane shield in front of him, on which half a dozen icicles shattered.


    After a loop on her frosty trajectory, Ivy landed gracefully between the cars, already guiding the next set of cone projectiles in a hover beside her. "Just FYI," she said matter-of-factly. "If you think you can get rid of me by jumping out into the open - no, I’m better."


    "Nobody’s better than me!" said Percival irritably, but he stuck to his plan. It hadn’t actually been intended for Ivy, but his preparations now worked in his favour and made his chest swell. "I’ll show you!"


    This statement seemed to amuse Ivy more than frighten her as she readied her cool tips. What she didn’t know was that Percival had prepared his escape from the theft by destroying the vulnerable fuel line in this hangar, faking a tragic plane crash.


    There was also a surprise lurking in one of the cargo crates, a wildcard for emergencies, and as the icicles flew and the next ones were chased straight after, reinforcements were unleashed! The crate shattered and the demon Zal emerged with a deep rumble and outstretched wings.


    "So there you are!" Ivy reacted with foreboding and protected herself thanks to a semi-circular wall of ice that was torn up from the ground and slowed down the powerful demon’s blow. It didn’t stop Zal, however, and he lunged forwards, forcing her to retreat quickly to avoid further blows and his firebreathing. However, she was only able to dodge a massive fireball from Percival by teleporting back to the stairs. "Mages messing with demons... even sadder than preying on the dead. Weakling."


    "A weakling, that’s what he is," Zal bared his head, bristling with teeth as he widened all the folds of flesh and bit into the metal of the stairs to tear into the treads. "But I can’t eat him!"


    Percival puffed contemptuously at his disdain as he climbed into the perfectly maintained 1971 Chevrolet Camaro in front of him. "You’re not here to eat, you’re here to distract!" he said, starting the car with a pat of the steering wheel. "I’m really sorry about you, my beauty."


    "What?!" Zal replied and looked at the car as it drove off, from which a small fireball flew to the side. "Don’t you dare let me die here!"


    "You’ll be back in hell in a few days anyway."


    Ivy took advantage of this talk to impale the demon with ice spikes from the ground and freeze it completely so that she could burst it with a casual snap of her fingers.


    Unperturbed, Percival hurtled out of the plane into freefall before his little fireball hit the prepared fuel line and turned the transport plane into an inferno in the sky. He glanced back, sure that Ivy had taken care of that while he could concentrate fully on the fall. However, the van only served as a safe buffer for him, coming closer and closer to the ground. Hundreds of metres were covered in seconds and it was only when the mage was able to focus on a clear spot in a very wooded area thanks to the carriage’s high beams that he teleported out of the carriage seconds before impact. He landed very roughly and rolled down a muddy slope in the continuing rainstorm, at the end of which he lost consciousness.


    The rain didn’t stop, but at least it soon pattered down more gently and it was much warmer and drier than before when Percival dragged himself awake from his involuntary sleep. His feet dangled in the air and he hung like a piece of meat from a log with his upper body naked and both wrists tied together.


    A frame without glass allowed a view into the rainy night forest, out of this self-built hut of mud, branches and sticks, covered with reeds. A few stones served mainly as a foundation, furniture and surrounded the crackling fire in the hearth.


    Percival tried to break free of the restraints, with no chance and although he could move his fingers and his mouth was free, an attempt at magic failed as blue glowing grains crumbled from his fingers, like a bag from which the last biscuit crumbs crumbled. "Please no witch, please no witch," he muttered to himself uncertainly, always trying to get free.


    "You’ve woken up?" a voice from the side said happily. "Then I can finally start cooking."


    "As long as I don’t end up in the pot," Percival replied, casting a thoughtful glance to his right. An athletic female body clad in skimpy tribal costumes delighted him for a fleeting moment, but the realisation of what and who made the otherwise so composed mage tremble. "I would have preferred the witch."


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    The dark ashen grey of her skin and cursed symbols immediately revealed the white-haired stranger to be a wild elf. "But you’ll live much longer with us," the stranger smiled and closed her blood-red eyes. "At least for a while." Wild elf, however, was just another word for outcast, no matter which of the three rare species they were descended from, elves being a term of human stories. Elvar was the name given to this species, and over time the Vis Elvar, commonly called High Elves and said to have been the dominant civilisation on Earth tens of thousands of years ago, had split. From them emerged the Viridis Elvar, forest elves, and the Dotor Elvar, dark elves.


    "Yes, I was afraid of that," Percival nodded and made another fruitless attempt to free himself. "Where exactly am I?"


    "Humans call this the Cherokee National Forest," the elf explained. It was impossible to tell the age of elves, so she looked like a woman in her late twenties, without blemish or wrinkle. Only her voice made her seem a little na?ve, but that didn’t have to mean anything. "We saw your plane and followed it for a while before it was destroyed."


    "Too kind of you to pick me up afterwards. Now you can set me free."


    "Even freed, you wouldn’t stand a chance," the elf raised her shoulders and sharpened a finely crafted knife, next to a stone table full of vegetables, herbs and meat, before pointing the blade at the man’s arm. "Do you see?"


    "Yes, I see. Not very hospitable," Percival gritted as he spied the silver hoop full of glowing runes on his upper right arm. It suppressed all of the man’s magic, no matter how powerful he was or would be. He also became aware of his task again and searched for his jacket. "Where are my clothes?"


    "The clothes are no longer necessary," a new voice announced as he entered. Another wild elf, accompanied by a second, stepped up to the fireplace and immediately exuded a motherly aura, not to mention that her bare breasts were only covered by rose-red markings and she spoke more about than to the man. "In fact, I wonder why he’s wearing trousers again."


    "Could we have dinner first before we take that step?" Percival raised an eyebrow and looked down at himself. "And what do you mean again?"


    "I thought it would be better for him this way, mother," explained the elf at the cooking table, cutting salad. "The weather isn’t exactly agreeable for humans, even in our warm home."


    "Mhh, you’re right Orelia," nodded the motherly elf, casting a scrutinising glance at the mage as if she were inspecting an animal. "It’s the best specimen we’ve ever caught. We must nurture it until it has served its purpose before we gut, utilise and consume it."


    Oh yes, Percival had hit the jackpot and sighed inwardly. This was definitely the worst kind of textbook wild elf. "I’ve rarely been praised like this and I’m really embarrassed," he joked latently, but his tone was appropriate to the danger. "But you can talk about a lot of things - especially the last three points. I am truly disinclined to take part in it."


    "Mother, it’s so lively," said the elf standing next to said mother. She seemed reserved but curious and was about to approach the prisoner. "Matching his seed, which I have received."


    The mother stopped the approach with a gentle grip on the curious woman’s hand. "It will talk a lot, be on your guard, but you’re just as right. It’s very lively."


    Seed?" Percival thought to himself. He must have missed a good chunk of his sleep. "Could you please be so polite as to stop talking about me as if I wasn’t there?" he demanded, composed but disgruntled. "I’m Percival and what was that about my seed?"


    All the wild elves glanced briefly at him. "The value that keeps you alive," the mother said dismissively, stroking her daughter’s bare belly in circles. "Your seed, which my beautiful Irelia wrested from you in your sleep and I am hopeful that it will grow in her, as it will in all of us. We have made a good trade."


    "Trade? What was I traded for?"


    "We sensed powerful magic, the little shard in this box," the mother mentioned, stepping unabashedly close to the hanging man. "We found you in the dirt when a mage searched you."


    "Ivy survived?" asked Percival incredulously. All his trouble had been for nothing.


    "I don’t care about her name," the mother rebuffed, pushing the mage’s face away harshly. "We could have caught them too. Two magical creatures in one go, but I was aware of how strong she was and she didn’t want a fight either and said she just wanted that shard and we could have you."


    Percival tried to fix the issue on the point that was keeping him alive. "Because you ... want babies? All of you?"


    "More than anything," the mother confirmed, turning away. Her familiarity with the two daughters was questionable, but perhaps that was simply Elvar culture. "It took me seven hundred years to receive my treasures." As she said this, a difference between her and the two others became clear. They all had pointed ears, but hers were long and curved backwards in a half-moon, whereas her daughters had shorter, upturned ears.


    "With humans."


    "In the absence of choice. No matter what people of Elvar, none would even look at us," the mother seethed, but she was controlled, presenting her ash-skin and cursed Elvar symbols. "Death is a mercy with Elvar. This, here, is a true punishment. Deprived of magic, of connections to spirits, even our bodies are branded internally so that we are alone forever if possible. I always found and caught only moderate specimens of human men, but not only that they were rarely virile sources. Ordinary seed ... it is literally burnt by the curse and has almost no chance, but my patience was rewarded and now my daughters will also experience this luck, because you are not only healthy and strong in blood, but a being of bundled magic. Your seed, can resist the curse much better."


    "Listen," Percival began thoughtfully. The situation was extremely bizarre for him, without question. His worth flattered him, but the fact that he was being treated like an object, without anything approaching due respect, and even stolen from, infuriated him, though it wasn’t about potential children themselves. It was simply the fact that they were taking from him and he was powerless. . "You like to make a trade? Fine. I fu ... I’ll give you all what you want. One baby each, so you can use up the remaining vowels for their names. Arelia, Erlia and Urelia sound good, don’t they? And then you let me go. Agreed?"


    Orelia was skinning a rabbit. "Perhaps we should start the utilisation right away, mother," she said coldly and looked at the mage, pressing the bloody knife against her cheek. "Without a tongue, I’m sure he’ll be much more docile and we could finally taste some of that magic you’ve been raving about all these years."


    "It would be worth considering," the mother admitted, clearly toying with the idea, but her facial expressions and intentions spoke against it. "But no, be patient, you two. It will be worth the wait." This woman truly saw nothing more in her captive than a possession she would fully savour, in every way, and it made her seem spoiled. "The mage can certainly tell us a lot of secrets and for that he needs his tongue and ... if he does well, it’s good for something else too."


    "Something else?" Irelia asked naively. Judging by her demeanour, she was probably the youngest and least experienced. "What can tongues be other than talking and food or ingredients?"


    The mother patted her daughter’s cheek gently. "Pure joy, but enough of that now. Rest and let nature take its course." At her words, she received a silent nod and Irelia left the room.


    Percival stopped his attempts to break free of the bindings and realised that this was not a situation he could easily talk his way out of and without his magic, he could not fight his way free or even summon a demon pr be found by one, which was also true for Zal, who was bound to him. "So ... you want to use me to father children and then slaughter me like an animal to eat me and make ingredients for something else?"


    "That’s what will happen," the mother replied smugly, and although she treated him from above, he was like her, like the most valuable treasure she ever seemed to have possessed. "I promise myself children from you as soon as possible. Maybe we’ll cut off one of your arms first, because my daughters don’t know what magic is, what it feels like and unfortunately they never will, but with you ... they’ll be able to taste it."


    "Apparently you have a real longing for family," Percival remarked. He would have to give in and try everything he could to buy as much time as possible and find a way out, even if he didn’t want to spend months or years here. Death was not an option for him. "Why take me out after one child? There’s clearly room for more here. You’ll never get your hands on anything like me again."


    The mother’s eyes spoke volumes. She must have had half similar thoughts. "Speaking of which," she said, waving her daughter over. "Orelia, lighten his load a little. As long as he’s vital and fresh, we can fill our stores with his blood and semen."


    "Of course, Mother," Orelia said obediently and swapped places with her mother. "Pain or pleasure first?"


    Percival didn’t quite follow. "What?"


    "I’ll let you bleed first or...," Orelia indicated with her knife hand and then reached between his legs with her free hand. "Aren’t we being generous?"


    "If I told you what you are, you’d change your mind about the tongue."


    "You will learn to submit," said Orelia bossily, who had more of her mother than her sister. "So first the pleasure, which I will spoil for you with the pain."


    "Well done, my darling," praised her mother as her daughter went to her knees in front of the man. She didn’t watch the act begin, nor did the mage, but the sounds and movements left little to the imagination as the mother took out the man’s jacket. "Who do you serve, human?"


    Of course, it was hard for Percival to concentrate fully in this situation. "I have no master or lord. I’m a powerful mage and I don’t need anyone."


    "Liar," the mother smirked shrewdly, lifting out the blood eye that had been tucked into the jacket of the mage . It was a clear, shattered crystal ball that fit in her hand. "When I found this, I destroyed it immediately and the blood that came out of the eye wasn’t just yours. My tongue is so fine, I was able to pick out the vampire before my next breath."


    The wild elf was apparently extremely well educated, Percival had to admit. "A good friend, that’s all."


    Blood eyes were enchanted communication items, made by appropriate magic and always as a pair. They were bound to their creator by their essence and the person who received one of the eyes added their essence to it. As long as both parties held their blood eye in their hand, they could communicate with each other visually and mentally without an observer noticing, even if they were standing right next to it. For strangers, it was merely a transparent crystal ball and at the same time a means for the creator to track down the counter pair.


    That was probably why the mother had rendered the blood eye harmless. "Whoever has the counterpart won’t find you. No one will come," she announced darkly and simply threw the eye into a corner. "So get over it and try to enjoy your time, because aren’t all three of us beautiful and desirable? Wouldn’t every human dream of sleeping with an Elvar?"


    "If humans knew you existed, sure," Percival admitted distractedly, trying to suppress his irritation for as long as he could. It was easier said than done, but he didn’t want to just give the wild elves what they wanted. "Without dying afterwards. I don’t think anyone would want to pay that price."


    "Oh I think there would be more than enough willing to lay down their lives for it."


    "It’s being forced on me and I don’t want it."


    "Well, what did that magician say?" the mother amused herself. "There could be worse endings for men. He’ll smile more than he’ll suffer."


    It was becoming increasingly difficult for Percival to restrain himself. His tensing body didn’t want what his head was telling him to do and his tight lips were struggling to contain his panting. "Seriously now!" he lost his patience. "LEAVE IT ALONE YOU BEASTS! OUTCASTS! WILD PACK OF ELVES! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHO I AM? I AM PERCIVAL ZIVAI."


    This outburst of rage only seemed to excite the mother all the more. "What a splendid specimen. You will do us excellent service, in life and in death," she laughed darkly and left the mage and her daughter to the approaching end of the act.