Oliver wakes up to the smell of smoke and his Shadow weasel Loki slapping his face with its little paws. Having been trained from a young age he jumps up and immediately knows that something is wrong. Having lived in Shadow Glades his whole life he can already imagine what has happened.
Oliver stumbles to his feet and begins to wobble towards the door that leads to the rest of his family's mansion. He's still hungover from his party and finds it hard to keep his balance due to the pounding of his head. After finally making it to his door he opens it and is immediately greeted by a cloud of thick smoke. It's at this point that he realizes the mansion is on fire.
Oliver turns around to look for Loki, he sees Loki carrying one of his leather boots towards Oliver as if to tell him that no matter what is happening he at least needs to put his boots on.
Oliver scoops up Loki and his boot, he deposits Loki onto his shoulders. Loki is about three feet long with solid black fur and black intelligent eyes, he drapes himself perfectly across Olivers shoulders and nuzzles his ear in an attempt to calm Oliver down. At this point Oliver is almost hyperventilating because he knows that there can be only two reasons why the mansion would be on fire while no one came to check on him. Either they're being attacked by some human faction or that there's a beast tide. Living so close to the Great Forest a beast tide is always at the back of everyone's minds but its been years since there's been a beast tide. The Shadowmere family is on good terms with all of the Beast kings in the surrounding area so a beast tide of this size should not have been possible.
Loki nuzzling his ear has the desired affect and Olivers training begins to kick in. Every child in town is trained from a young age to know how to react in case of a beast tide. Oliver slips on his boots and straps on his belt which has two daggers sheathed on it. Every Shadowmere descendant is trained to use daggers from a young age, the dagger is actually the family's coat of arms. So even though Oliver hasn't gotten his class yet he can at least defend himself to some degree.
After strapping on his belt Oliver sprints out of the room and heads towards the mansions exit. The smoke is thick and makes it hard to see and breathe but Oliver has lived in the house his whole life and knows it like the back of his hand. His main priority is to make it out of the mansion and find out what's going on. Unfortunately he's still a bit drunk and is barely able to manage a slow jog as he maneuvers through the house.
He finally makes it out of the mansion and the sight before him nearly takes his breath away. Its still night time but there's several fires going on in town which lights up the night. He sees no living person in sight, all he sees are several large blood apes moving from house to house as if looking for something. Then suddenly he hears a loud roar. After the roar Oliver sees all the blood apes stop in their tracks before suddenly all bursting towards the east side of town as if their life depends on it.
After hearing the roar Loki jumps off Olivers shoulders and starts chirping. Through the soul pact Oliver understands that Loki is saying that that roar came from the Shadow Weasel King who is not only the Shadowmere family's greatest ally but is also the strongest beast king in the area. Loki also tells Oliver that the Shadow Weasel King is driving out all of the Blood Apes.
Sighing with relief Oliver begins to rush to the nearest underground shelter which is where his family should be. After maneuvering through the town for a few minutes Oliver makes it to the shelter, its a staircase that leads down into the ground and is right next to the towns reception hall which is where Olivers birthday party was being held.
Oliver climbs down the stairs where there's a thick metal door with a button next to it. Oliver presses the button and immediately a slot that's at eye level opens up to reveal two piercing blue eyes, those eyes seem to pierce into Olivers soul because he recognizes those eyes, when he sees them he almost collapses from relief. The door then opens and Oliver is quickly swept up into a hug that drives all of the air out of his body! Oliver hears crying and feels tears falling on his shoulders. The person hugging him is his mother Maria Shadowmere.
After what feels to Oliver like an eternity his mother releases him and holds him at arms length to inspect him, after seeing that he is not injured she hugs him again before pulling him into the shelter and locking the door behind them.
From behind his mother comes a fast moving shadow that practically tackles Oliver. In his half drunk state Oliver actually does fall to the ground only to see the curls of his little sisters long blond hair as she buries herself into his chest. She's also crying. "Brother I thought I was never going to see you again! Mom said that we didn't have time to find you and that we had to get to the shelter as soon as possible." Olivers sister wails as she clings tightly to him. It takes several minutes before he's able to calm her down and pry himself free from her surprisingly strong grasp.
After finally regaining his freedom Oliver sees Loki jump into his sister Sophies embrace as if to say that he was fine too. Sophie cuddles Loki and starts to cry again. Seeing this Oliver just shakes his head before turning to look at his mother. His mother is a beautiful woman with long curly blonde hair and eyes the color of the sky on a sunny day. "What happened mom? Why did the Blood Apes suddenly attack us?" Oliver asks his mom.
"I don't know my sweetheart. Everything happened so fast that we barely had any time to evacuate to the shelter. Your father went to contact the Shadow Weasel King to find out what was going on but I haven't seen him since he left. All I know is that the east wall of town was overwhelmed and that the Blood Apes were wreaking havoc in town." His mother said this with clear worry in her eyes. Arthur Shadowmere is the strongest person in town and to not hear from him after all this time clearly worries Maria greatly.
Suddenly the door Oliver recently came through began to ring again, which is what happens when someone presses the button outside. Maria rush's towards the door and opens the peep hole again. After seeing what's outside she immediately opens the door and rushes outside. Shortly after she comes back in but shes helping another man carry Olivers father Arthur into the shelter. The man helping Maria is the head of the city's guard Albert, who is the second strongest person in Shadow Glades.
"What happened Albert? Why is Arthur in such a state while not being wounded?" Maria exclaims, clearly panicked.
"He was attacked by an assassin while he was heading to contact the Shadow Weasel King. Luckily I followed him out of the reception hall shortly after he left or he'd be dead right now. The assassin shot a poisoned arrow at him while he was running, luckily he was able to dodge it while only getting scratched on the face. The poison acted fast though and left him immobilized after only a couple of seconds. Clearly the assassin wasn't looking for a fair fight because he fled when he saw me move to protect Arthur." Albert replied.
"I was able to feed him an antidote after the assassin fled but we had to take refuge inside the town hall to wait out the beast tide. Luckily I was able to get in touch with the Shadow Weasel King or I'm afraid that the whole town would be in ruins by the time daylight shined upon us. I brought Arthur to you as soon as I could so you could give Arthur a check up." Albert continued.
Maria Shadowmere has the Shaman healer class and is able to use her mana to heal people.
They lay Arthur on the ground and Maria begins to heal and detoxify the poison that's still in Arthurs blood system. Her hands press against his chest and glow green. Before too long Arthur begins to open his eyes and everyone lets out a sigh of relief. Arthur then sits up and takes a look around him.
"Thank you Albert for saving my life. Were you able to get in contact with the Shadow Weasel King via the array in my office?" Arthur says.
"Yes Arthur, everything is fine now. The Shadow Weasel king was able to get here after only a few hours after the beast tide started." Albert responded.