In a world of magic and dragons, a red rover wandered the lands harvesting souls.

He wore a brown cloak and hood. A sword was by his side but he never needed it — his soul-draining magic was power enough for him.

No one ever saw his eyes. He kept his hood well down over his face.

He moved like an athlete, a cat, a panther. He was graceful as hell.

Then he spied his next victim, just cresting a hill in the distance. It was a male, that much was obvious (females rarely walked alone in the countryside, anyway) and it was a tall man. The red rover salivated as he thought of the energies he was going to get.

Changing course, the red rover moved to intercept. He kept his walk slow and stately, a sedate entrance into the stranger’s life.

The man looked up at him. He had ice-green eyes and a noble bearing. “Hello, stranger,” the man said to the red rover.

The rover couldn’t talk. He just nodded his head deeper toward his chest and waved a hand in greeting.

Then he lunged forward and gripped the human by the shoulders. He initiated the soul-draining procedure, a magical twist that connected two sentient beings at the most fundamental level and allowed energies to flow between them.

But something was wrong! There was a wall blocking his ethereal “teeth.” The wall grew greater and taller, stronger and more mighty, continuing to thwart the red rover’s attempts to latch on. The man only smiled.

Suddenly the wall fell and giant teeth latched onto the red rover. In an efficient instant, the teeth had drained all the energy from the rover, leaving the creature a desiccated mass of flesh, one-fifth its previous weight.

The man knelt down and took the sword.

“I’m a green rover,” the man whispered, looking around to make sure no one heard him. “The rarest of the rare. I prey on red rovers. Only on red rovers. You made a bad mistake, my friend.“