He lowers his voice to seem more entertaining to the girl, genuinely interested in his story. For a brief moment, the urgency of finding Alister became sidelined. But then it arose again, bringing a slight glint of worry to the man's eye before being hidden. "Well, once upon a time in a world not of this one were a group of... Monster hunters, you could say. There was a blight on that world - one that had spread across their home, turning people into monsters. These people sought to be rid of that blight. Tribals, they called themselves. Once they ruled the skies in their mighty airships before they were exiled to the earth. But an angel with clipped wings still has its holy glory, does it not? The Tribals saw it as their duty to cleanse the world of monsters. They were one of the first to figure out how to kill them, after all. They trained, they fought - but soon they realized that fighting monsters drained them too quickly. So they created their own breed of hallucinogenic - stuff that alters what you see - within herbs. These herbs also gave them incredible strength, speed, and quick enough reflexes to fight the monsters. And so they did. For generations they used this herb to keep away the beasts. There is a story behind it, you know. My mentor taught me this Tribal proverb - 'in order to fight monsters, one must become one.' The Tribals made masks that covered half of their face; mouths of animals like bears, eagles and even dragons! But they only covered half of their face, because the rest of them showed that they were still human. Humans that take upon the faces of monsters to keep them at bay. They used these herbs through these masks, thinking that what they saw through their trance was the true vision of the world." The man paused, hesitant to continue his story. "The next part of the story gets a little dark. Would you still like to hear it?"