Chapter 17

We followed the guard downstairs and out of the Inn. We were nearly running through the town to get to the mayor's residence. She lived in a small one story house not far from her office. Her receptionist had been coming by after hours to drop off some paperwork. It had been sheer coincidence that she had gotten there and no one had been home. She had alerted the guards to the possible disappearance and had scoured the town in search of her but they turned up nothing. So they had come to find us because they had standing orders from the mayor to alert us if there was another abduction. Once we got there we were let right in. We needed to act fast so that we could see if there was any evidence left behind that we could use to help us find the culprit. We went through every room. We turned over everything trying to find even the smallest piece of evidence. We had almost given up hope that we could find something when Sora found a trap door under a rug in the kitchen. The guards hadn’t even known this room existed. This was an intriguing discovery. We made our way down the ladder and into the basement. It looked like the room was used mostly for storage except for a small desk at the far end of the room. We made our way over to the desk and on top of it was an open journal.

There was a pen lying on the ground next to the desk. I looked at the open page of the journal and read what it said. “I don’t like leaving the adventures out of the loop but they just wouldn’t understand the magnitude of the situation if I had tried to explain it to them. These disappearances aren’t a new thing in this town's history. My grandfather had told stories of people going missing when he was a child. If I remember the story correctly the disappearances of the past sound a lot like what the town is facing right now. People would periodically disappear with a couple of weeks in between the kidnappings. Grandfather had told strange stories of monsters that would take people in the night so that they could devour them. I knew that all monsters desired to kill humans. Though there was something strange about these monsters. They had apparently been human at one time. When they were humans they would be taken by a monster and turned. For the life of me I can’t remember what they are called. The other characteristic that these monsters have is that some humans worship them in hopes that they too can be made into a monster. Ah. I remember now what they are called ……” That was where the hand writing trailed off. I wish she had been able to tell us the name of the monster but this was a huge help in investigating these disappearances. We now knew that we could possibly be looking for a group of monster worshippers and some monster that's name we didn't know. We took the journal with us. It seemed obvious to me that whatever was doing this had noticed that she was onto them and had taken her just in time to hide their identity. We made our way back up the ladder and out of the house. Once we were back outside of the house we asked the guard if he had any knowledge of these monsters. He said he couldn’t recall ever hearing any stories about them.

We decided that we would go back to the mayor's office to check it and see if she had left any more information behind. The guard let us into the office with a spare key and we went to the mayor's desk and started searching. All we found was ledgers and other paperwork from running the town. Nothing here told us anything that would help us. With the office searched we were stuck with no real idea of where to go next. That was when Frank the guard told us we should go back to Robert's house and ask if we could use his wife’s extensive library. She had many volumes on the history of the town and could have some information on the monsters we were looking for. He led us back towards Robert's house. The sun was just starting to come up and people were moving around getting prepared for the day. It seems we had been searching the house for a while. We made our way back to Robert's house quickly. Frank knocked on the door. Robert was a little while answering the door. To be fair to him it was rather early in the morning and the business mogul probalany was used to sleeping in. He was nonplussed when he opened the door but brightened up quick enough when he saw Frank. “Frank, what brings you to my house so early in the morning? Most normal people are in bed this time of day.” Frank answered. “Sorry to bother you Rob but there has been another disappearance and we are hoping that Ambers library may hold some more information as to what may be causing this.” “If it will help with finding who's been doing this then of course you may come in and search the library. Please be careful with the books. They are my wife's treasures and they are all I have to remember her by.” We agreed that we would be careful when handling the books and we made our way to the library. The library was magnificent. There were thousands of books on sprawling cases. I looked at Sora and said. “This is going to take a lot of time. If you find anything even remotely close to what we need let's look at it together. We need any information we can get on the town's history and try to find information about these monsters.”

We spent hours looking through the books and had no luck. We even aske Robert if he knew where we could find the information on the town but he said he didn’t know. Books had always been his wife's passion and he had never shared that hobby with her. It was getting late enough in the day that we decided to head back to the Inn and get some lunch. We had told Frank to go home and get some rest while we searched the library. When he didn’t want to leave we assured him that as soon as we found something we would get a hold of him. We made our way back to the Inn and sat down at a table to have some lunch and talk about what had happened today. We knew this was going to be a contract that was going to take a while to figure out but with the mayor missing it was even more crucial for us to solve the mystery as quickly as possible. We ate our lunch rather quickly. While we ate we discussed what we had found out so far. We knew that people were going missing and were leaving behind no trace. We had also come across a disturbing revelation that there may be some monster involvement and even worse still that the monster may be being helped by humans wanting to join it and become a monster. For now that was all that we knew and even the monster part was a little bit of speculation. We needed to find more concrete evidence to prove the mayor's theory. With lunch done we headed back over to Roberts house. We knocked on the door and he let us right in. We went back into the library and settled into a long research session. It was a few hours before we found anything useful. Even just glancing through the books to see if they had what we needed took a very long time. What we found was a volume containing the history of the town over the last few hundred years.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

As we read through the book there appeared to be a pattern going back centuries. Every once in a while there would be a string of disappearances that would last for a few years at a time and then suddenly stop. Only to start again in a few more years. It seems though that there had been a big gap between the last disappearance and this set. Because the last case of this happening was over fifty years ago. In the time of the mayor's grandfather. Though the circumstances were exactly the same. People would just turn up missing in the middle of the night. With no sign of where they went or what had taken them. They had discovered the rumors of the monster a century ago but no one took it seriously at the time. There had been others that had tried to look into it over time but they hadn’t found out much. They had discovered people they thought were in a cult that worshiped the monster. They had subsequently executed all of them but that didn’t stop the killing. It was a horrible mess at the time but it had nearly been forgotten except for this book. We still hadn’t found out what sort of monster we were looking for. All we knew was that it needed all of these people for something. Everyone assumed it was just killing and eating all of the victims but I really hoped that was not the case. If they were still alive even if they were in bad shape we could save them. At least I hoped we could.

Adventuring was more than just killing monsters. It was also about saving people who were in need. Doing the things other people couldn’t or wouldn’t do. We had a duty to protect people and these people really needed our help. We read through the rest of the book but didn’t come up with any other information. Most of the book was about normal town history. About notable people that had lived here and the general goings on around the town through the ages. Really very little of it covered such a huge topic. It was almost as if that information was being deliberately left out. We went through more books but still came up with nothing. We had made our way through hundreds of books but there was still so much to cover. It was getting late and the words on the page were starting to swirl together. We decided to return to the Inn and have a quick supper and then go to bed. We walked out of the house and made our way back to the Inn. It was abuzz with the knowledge of the disappearance of the mayor. Most of the patrons were used to it by now. It had become an almost weekly occurrence. We walked over to an empty table and tried to just blend in. We didn’t want the locals questioning us about our investigation.

The maid brought us bowls of stew and a loaf of bread and we dug in with gusto. Reading as it turned out was hard work and we really needed a break. It seemed that studying might be a bigger part of this job then we had originally thought. We had just started eating when a drunken man came over to the table and started in on us about the missing people. “Why haven’t you great adventurers found out who's taking all of these people? You were brought in to help the mayor solve this and now even she's gone missing. What have you got to say about that?” I just looked at the man. I didn’t have time to deal with some drunken idiot but I had to say something. The room had grown silent and everyone was waiting to see how I would reply. “We’ve only been here a few days. We are currently tracking down a lead to possibly find out who the culprit is. We have also searched all of the peoples houses involved for any evidence we could find. We are trying our best to find out who did this and hope to have more information soon. That’s all I'll say on the subject for now.” The man didn’t look happy with my answer but what could he do? I had answered him honestly and he knew there was nothing the two of us could have done to stop it so he walked away and we finished our meal. After our meal we headed upstairs and took turns taking a bath. We needed some relaxation after a taxing day searching for information.

We headed off to bed because we needed to be up early the next morning to continue our search. I laid down in my bed and drifted off to sleep. I was greeted by a sight that had become all too familiar to me. Kalastrovax appeared before me out of the void. “Well now human you seem to have stumbled into something much bigger than you can comprehend. I happen to know what it is that has been taking all of these humans. They have been around for eons and much like myself are a creation of one of the gods. I could possibly be persuaded to give up this information to you if you're willing to pay the price.” I knew that this had to be a set up of some kind. Whatever he wanted must not be very pleasant for me because if it was he wouldn’t have even mentioned anything about it. Though I didn’t have much of a choice. There was no guarantee that the information we were looking for was even in the library. He may well be our best bet in solving this case. So I asked him what he wanted. I could hear a smile in his voice. “Oh it’s nothing too terrible and at any rate you were going to do it anyway. I need something that this monster has. It is something that we will need to help me escape this prison. If you agree to bring this thing back to me I will agree to tell you what monster you are dealing with. Trust me when I say you will find no information on this monster in any of those books. They have made sure that every mention of them has been stricken from the history books.” I thought for a moment and replied. “If it is something that I will need to collect either way then I agree to help acquire this unknown item.” This time I could see the giant dragon smile and it wasn't a pleasant sight. The startlingly white razor sharp teeth stood out in the vast darkness. His grin reminded me of cats that had cornered a mouse and I felt a shiver run down my spine. This might not have been my wisest choice but I really needed this information. I had also told him that I would help to free him and I would stick to my word. He looked at me and said. “The monsters you are looking for are called Vampires and they have been the enemy of humans since the dawn of time.”