Kayden didn’t stick around for long after they came to their decision to get their little investigation properly underway. As enamoured as he was by Mierin, as much a part of him weirdly wanted to remain by her side, doing nothing but bask in her radiant presence and perhaps chat a bit, he had to get his act together.

There was a mystery to solve. Truths to discover. Conspiracies to unearth. Kayden could be starstruck once he was a little free.

They couldn’t complete both their parts that night. Not after Kayden had scared off the ones trying to haunt the crop fields. Something Mierin took minor umbrage in, like he had haunted them away.

But Kayden could complete his side of the matter. He would be targeting the well to unearth whatever mysterious occurrences were happening there. Meanwhile, would try to find the strange lights that haunted the edge of the farmlands. She had promised not to terrify any culprits she caught too much. Her part would just need to wait till the next evening.

Kayden coughed as he reached the well under the cover of darkness. “Not now,” he muttered.

His investigation would go a lot smoother if his illness didn’t try to make its presence felt every other minute. For one, he needed to concentrate. For another, this was supposed to be a covert operation. Blowing his cover with an untimely cough would jeopardize the entire endeavour.

Kayden had made sure to take some of the tea that was supposed to relieve his symptoms a bit. It had been helping over the last couple of days. He hadn’t really coughed as much, and his skin didn’t feel like it was trying to peel itself off his flesh when he tried to cultivate.

But he was running out of the powder he had to mix into his tea that actually had the relieving properties. Good sign that he ought to try to get more.

Maybe the local apothecary had some.

He was thankful that at least his coughs restarted only after he had left Mierin’s presence. That concerned look of hers was hard to bear. Plus, she might have suspended their entire plan if she learned he was still ill. They couldn’t afford to delay it any longer than absolutely necessary.

Kayden focused on climbing down the well. The dusk had stuffed it with near-impenetrable darkness, but his spiritual sight helped. It was still quite slippery, though. Every muscles on his arms and legs were tensed.

His coughs were bad enough, but if he fell into the water deeper into the well’s depths, the splash would surely draw the attention of everyone who lived close by.

Focus on finding the truth!

Yes. Kayden needed to concentrate. From everything he had heard, there had to be something deeper in the well that was beyond the regular sight of most people. It took about half an hour of groping in the slippery gloom, occasionally threatening to fall, before he found it.

A trap door. Kayden smiled, shaking his head at the audacity and brilliance. Someone had built a trap door behind some loose bricks on the well’s curved wall. It was close to the water’s surface, deep enough that the well’s opening up above was a circle the size of his palm. Tucked away, out of sight of anyone who might peer within.

Kayden slowly pulled out the loose bricks one by one to see if he could find some sort of handle or hinge for the door. After another long while of feeling out in the darkness, he didn’t land on anything useful.

What he did find, however, was the exact spot where the door was latched and locked. Of course. It made sense the door would only be openable from the inside of whatever space it connected the well to.

“Now you’ve done it, you fools,” Kayden said, slightly annoyed. “I went to all this trouble to keep quiet, yet now I have to break down your trapped door. So much wasted effort.”

The door was locked tight. It wouldn’t be broken past so easily.

Kayden was a cultivator, though, which meant kicking open this little barrier was no big deal. He pushed in all the bricks into the space the door opened inwards on, swinging in after them.

When he tried to rise to a standing position, his head hit a ceiling at waist height.

“What is this, a tunnel for rats?” he muttered.

Grumbling under his breath, Kayden continued creeping forward. The tunnel was dark and lacking anything of note. It let his mind wonder what someone could be using this little passage for.

Clearly, whoever used this wanted access to the well out of sight from everyone else. But the well itself was public property. Anyone could come in at any time and draw out water whenever they wanted. Water was clearly not the goal. Could it be the users of this tunnel were dumping something into the water? But what could that be?

Kayden came to a bend in the tunnel that ended at another locked door similar to the one he’d had to break through. He waited a moment to ensure no one was on the other side of the door. No sound came, nor did any spiritual presence register on his spiritual sense.

With the coast clear, Kayden kicked the door open and entered a proper room.

“About time,” he said as he was finally able to stand to his full height again.

He sniffed a little. The small room was filled with a musty smell, and a different odour he couldn’t quite place. His spiritual sight caught nothing, but there was obviously something here.

Kayden pulled out the Witherbloom from his waist and channelled some of his spiritual energy through his flower.

He smiled as it lit up. The fiery petals glowed as though a real flame had caught on the flower’s top. Its light spread out, holding steady and illuminating the whole room as though an ethereal candle had descended into the little chamber.

Letting Kayden finally see what his little discovery held.

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Crates. Small boxes were propped up all along the walls of the room. He could spot no doors or windows, though. Kayden rotated fully but found no entry or exit other than the one he himself had used. So strange.

He approached one of the crates. The strange, unidentified smell got stronger near the wooden boxes. It wasn’t too difficult to lift the cover.

He frowned. A powdery substance filled the entire crate. The odour intensified, and this time, it wasn’t just Kayden’s olfactory senses that were affected. He could sense the first hints of a headache begin massaging his temple. What in the seven heavens was this substance?

Kayden wasn’t foolish enough to find out himself. He could taste it, but that was akin to poisoning himself. The Weeping Shadows he was afflicted with was bad enough already, thank you very much.

He did take a small sample with him, however. Kayden had a good idea of who could help him identify what this was.

Now, the next step was figuring out the mystery of this room.

Kayden stepped all over the room. He pressed his foot down on every bit of the floor to see if there was another trap door or anything of the sort. No hollow sounds came up. The same was true for the walls. No knocks revealed some secret doorway anyone was supposed to use. So strange.

And then Kayden looked up. Ah, there it was. At the centre of the ceiling was a hole. It appeared to be covered up by some sort of door, but he was certain that those above could remove it and descend through the opening. Smart.

Kayden considered for a moment. When he tracked his steps, he found that he wended his way deeper into the village. But which building? He was certain the opening wasn’t out in public. That was going to need more investigating.

For now, Kayden returned the way he had come. No doubt, his forced entries were going to leave a telltale mark of infiltration. It couldn’t be helped. But it didn’t matter. He had discovered enough. If he moved fast enough, the culprits might not even have time to react.

It was actually surprising they hadn’t removed everything from this hideaway of theirs after they had spotted Kayden coming after them at the farms. Ah, well. All the better for him.

Kayden wanted to meet Mierin again, but he had to get back and rest. As evidenced by another series of coughs that wracked his lungs. She wasn’t going to be able to capture any of the would-be ghosts haunting Alderhelm—besides Mierin herself, of course—this night. Kayden had put them on high alert. At the farms, at least.

So, for now, Kayden went back home. The next day would bring better results. Both for him with his powder and for Mierin with her haunting.

***

“Is it too busy?” Kayden asked as Vaso led him to the apothecary.

“Not today,” the boy said. “Think they’re giving it some space. For Nyester, y’know?”

“Mm.”

The woman who ran it still had it open, just in case someone needed anything. But she had been close to old Nyester. He had purportedly treated her like a daughter of his own. As such, the villagers were giving her room to mourn.

Kayden, being no villager, was about to rudely interrupt her grief with his inquiry. He supposed it could have waited, but then, he was pretty certain Nyester wouldn’t want anyone following him to the afterlife for the same reason he had gone.

Because Kayden was pretty certain by now that Nyester’s death hadn’t been natural, no matter how old he had been.

The village itself looked like it was trying to return to its regular routine. Everyone was going about their regular business. Trying to, at least. The grief wasn’t gone. A pallor of sorrow still clung to Alderhelm and its residents. The death they had swept under a rug still had a conspicuous lump that couldn’t be ignored so easily.

“Greetings of the morning to you, madam,” Kayden said pleasantly as they reached the apothecary’s store. Vasco was right. It was still open, and the woman tending to it looked like she had buried Nyester with her own hands. “May I bother you for a little bit, if possible?”

She looked at him through eyes that had deep shadows of the sleepless beneath them. “What’s ailing you?” She paused, then sniffed. “You’ve… got something bad, haven’t you?”

Kayden tugged at his collar a little. Vasco was looking at him with sharp interest. Leave to an apothecary to sniff out that he was afflicted with the Weeping Shadows.

“That isn’t my main concern,” he said. “I’d like to—”

“What is it? The rot that afflicts you. I know it looks serious, but if you explain what it is, I might be able to help.”

Kayden was a little taken aback by the woman’s earnestness. He offered a grateful little bow. “Thank you, but I urgently need something else, so if we could focus on that, that would be great.”

The woman was clearly dissatisfied by Kayden’s answer, but she stopped arguing. “Go on, then. What do you want?”

Kayden decided to brush aside her brusqueness. That she was working while still dealing with her grief was already quite a lot. “I have something I need identified. If you could kindly tell me what it is, what it does, how it’s made and all that, I’d be in your debt.”

He handed her the little sample of the white powder he had collected. The woman took the proffered packet with a little frown, like she was already suspicious of the contents.

“Give me a moment,” she said.

What followed was about five minutes of poking and probing, but of a medicinal kind. The woman inspected the powder under a strange device, like a telescope condensed to a small stand. She burned a small pinch of the powder and sniffed at the ensuing vapour, boiled another pinch, then tried mixing with some chemicals she lugged out from under her table.

All the while, Kayden couldn’t help but look around. He didn’t want to scare off the woman’s business but maybe it was naturally slow. Certainly, no one tried to come inside, though there were a handful who threw odd looks as they passed by.

“Where did you find this?” the woman asked.

“Hmm, I don’t know if I’m at liberty to say just yet,” Kayden said. The answer was no doubt disappointing, but he smiled to take the edge off it. “But I’ll be happy to let you know once I’ve taken care of some business with it. Now, mind telling me everything you’ve found out about it?”

“It’s a drug.” She twisted her mouth distastefully at the powder on her table. “A powerful hallucinogen. Capable of making people dream the wildest possible things.”

“Like a sodden ghost haunting the village…” Vasco muttered. He was looking down, twisting the hat in his hands like he wanted to strangle the life out of it.

The boy was on the right track. After all, Kayden had found that tunnel besides the well. It would be a simple matter to drop a pinch into the water supply and taint the minds of the entire village.

But no. The lights at the end of the village had been a real thing. There was no hallucinating going on there. He had seen it, and he was pretty certain he wasn’t drugged.

“Could be,” the woman said. She had a thoughtful look on her face. “You don’t need a strong dose to see the effects. It would be easy to slip it into regular food and drink without the victim noticing. It’s mostly tasteless, you see.”

“How is it made?” Kayden asked.

“The ingredients are rather simple.” That made her frown grow deeper. “Rice husks, water and salt, and an underwater plant called remyscyla.”

“Remyscyla… I’ve heard of it. It grows only in the dark, right?”

She nodded, her eyes proving that she was thinking the same thing he was. The woman was sharp. Sure, the well might be a way to infect the entire village with this strange drug, but there was the other part it had to play. The bottom of the well would present the perfect conditions to grow remyscyla plants. That tunnel he had found wasn’t just to slip the drug into the water.

It was also to cultivate those plants when no one was looking.

“It’s all coming together,” Kayden muttered. “Thank you for this.”

He bowed his head in gratitude.

“I’m not doing this out of charity,” the woman said. “I know who you are.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“You’re the cultivator poking at what’s going on here, aren’t you?” Her eyes grew a little intense. Almost scary. “In return for helping you, I want to know what’s going on. When you’ve found out the whole truth, that is.”

“Deal. It’s the least I can do.”

Thanking the woman one last time, Kayden retrieved the sample he had given her and headed out. He also made Vasco promise not to blab about anything he had heard to anyone. The boy was pretty serious with his salute.

Satisfied with the outcome for the day, Kayden decided to take a break until night fell. His side was done. The next part rested on Mierin.