A wicked and unnatural rain storm erupts over the village, flowing in a cascade from the far mountains.

Along the edges of the gathering storm dark misshapen figures, vaguely canine leaped and bayed causing tremendous thunder to echo and reverberate across the skies. Their shadowy claws rend the very air itself as they charged across the skies of Necropoli, the speed at which they traveled caused those who witnessed the maddening sight felt a rising fear in their very souls, draining the hope and will to resist as the baneful howls carried and intermingled with the thunder. 

The black hounds snarled and gnashed their teeth, lighting raced away from them as the roiling miasma of clouds gathered over the small village. A believer, a small girl stood in the center of the western style village, near a statue of a village founder, her eyes flared as she inhaled deeply, in her small fist a silver rod her grandmother, a wise woman had given her long ago. The child was told it was a ward against the night haunts, against the nightmares, against Ghoukas. Standing alone in the swirling winds and torrential down pour the child held forth her rod and shouted in defiance, [i]"I rebuke you evil of the abyss. I defy you and your powers, I send you back to the place you come from, spirits of the air come to my aid to defeat the evil that is Ghoukas."[/i]

The pack of slavering hounds paused as they listened to the words that rang upward, words that held conviction and belief, a belief in the Guardians. The leader of the pack rose up and snarled; great teeth gleamed in the flashes of lighting. Its howl that of thunder as it echoed and shook the thatched buildings of the village. A malevolent gaze locked on to the small child, wet and shivering from the cold, her silver rod held skyward, defying the might of He Who Should Not Be. As the shoulder hunched up and the shadowy fur roiled as the muscles tensed, the others of the hellish pack paced back and forth in the sky, their eyes never leaving the small child. 

With a snap of great jaws the leader leapt downward towards the child, the others in the pack yipped and snarled as they tore after the leader, straight towards the child and the village. Great flashes of lighting rippled across the skies as the pack charged the child, her eyes a glow with faith as she whispered, [i]"I am not afraid to die…."[/i]