The streets of Lemonholm found themselves being flooded with the light of dawn. When that light shone through windows of the inn’s lower floor, the shady interior took on an unearthly feel, which, when paired with Grehn’s groggy state, caused an itch of discomfort that he couldn’t seem to scratch. He was typically fine with rising early, but sleeping in the same room as the Knights didn’t lend to a good night’s rest. Those Knights were eating and laughing alongside him, as if they had no care in the world. Vlugh was nearly falling asleep in his wooden bowl of lemon porridge, and only Elofan matched the Knight’s energy with her smile and swinging feet.
“Anything happen during your watch, Elofan?” Grehn asked. He had expected to wake up to a concise report from the bees, but oddly enough, all he heard was a faint buzzing. Elofan hadn’t mentioned anything either, so he had to assume the night was uneventful.
“No, not really. After that grump Herwen went to sleep, and Jey started her shift, she just talked the whole time. The Knights didn’t try anything,” she said with a whoop, in between bites of fruit. Lemon. She was just eating a lemon.
“Uh huh…. And our friends back home?”
Elofan shook her head. The bees hadn’t tried to alert her either, then. The relative silence from the otherwise chatty Ben and Beelzebub was putting Grehn even further on edge. He looked down at his own bowl. It was odd. He had missed fresh fruit almost as much as Vlugh, but the thought of tasting more lemon was already making his stomach rumble in discontent.
“The town is crumbling to ruin, I tell ya. People leaving trash in the street? What have we come to?”
Grehn, Elofan, and Greyan perked up. The innkeeper, a veritable stick of a man, had just entered from outside, grumbling while holding a collection of random objects. It did appear as if an assortment of trash had simply been dumped outside, but Grehn found his gaze drawn to the collection. Before he could say anything, Greyan stood and strode to the innkeeper.
“Excuse me. I find the careless littering strange, especially outside your cozy inn. Might I see those items?”
“What’s it to you, outsider?” the innkeeper spat. “This is why I hate running an inn. You outsider weirdos wanna dig through my trash? Fine. Take it. But if I find any of it strewn about my inn, you can bet I’m not gonna let you stay here another night.”
With that, the innkeeper dumped the trash onto the table, with one object falling beautifully into Herwen’s bowl. The Knight’s face turned red, and he stood, but Greyan put a hand on his shoulder, locking him in place.
“Thank you, sir. We promise to clean it up.”
The innkeeper grumbled and walked away. The otherwise empty inn was silent for a moment before the table was filled with chatter.
“Commander, how could you let that peon insult me this way?” Herwen growled, but Greyan ignored him as he pulled the piece of garbage from Herwen’s porridge.
“Forget that,” Jey said. “Why does he run an inn if he hates outsiders? How does that make any sense?”
Vlugh yawned. “Maybe he just likes cleaning?”
“Everyone.” Greyan said. “Look at this.”
Grehn’s eyes were drawn to the piece of wood in Greyan’s hand, as were everyone else’s. It seemed like nothing more than a polished piece of wood - not bark, but a slab that seemed cut from a larger plank, small enough for the man to hold with one hand. Otherwise nondescript, the only interesting feature was that both sides of the wood seemed to be carved with crude symbols and shapes. Rough as they were, Grehn recognized the symbols as the same that would be made when inscribing a scroll.
Greyan confirmed Grehn’s suspicions. His expression was grim. “It’s like a scroll. I’ll pass it around for everyone to read.”
Each of the Knights read it first, their expressions souring one by one. When it finally arrived at Grehn, he took a moment before reading it.
“FRIENDLESS. you killed HIM, he OFFED SELF. never REVEAL me. never SEE me. TRUST is EMPTY. ONLY ONE END.”
Without saying a word, Grehn passed the slab over to Vlugh. The words that appeared in his Mind, oddly emphasized and in a stilted cadence, stuck themselves there and wouldn’t let go. His thoughts raced to figure out what they meant, whether it was a message to the outsiders, and simply being unsettled by the words.
There were clear themes of mistrust. Friendless. Never reveal or see me. Trust is empty. Trust was hard to come by in Lemonholm, so that part of the note wasn’t shocking. Though, if the intent of those statements was meant to be talking about the Knights and mercenaries, the message became far too personal. It was evident from the talk of killing that the message had a direct connection to the murder of Lord Sawah. Though the phrase ‘he offed self’ was confusing. Plus, the note held a clear implication: the messenger was involved somehow. Whether they were the murderer, an accomplice, or even just someone upset at the whole situation, it was yet another cog to consider in the already scattered investigation.
Vlugh’s eyes glazed for a moment before he spoke. “That’s it? All these etchings for a couple words?”
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“Of course,” Grehn said. “Wood is no stead alloy. It could never retain anywhere near as much Mind. Just not efficient.”
“Which makes it all the more interesting that this message was conveyed this way,” Greyan said. The man was seated once again, staring intently at the wooden slab that had been passed on, now being inspected by Elofan.
“Was it meant for us? Or is it something else?” Grehn asked.
“I can only assume it’s a message for us. From the killer themselves, even. It’s clearly a coded message of some sort - if it weren’t, I might assume the whole thing a childish prank or someone asking to be framed as a murderer.” Greyan stroked his beard. He turned to Jey, whose face was stormy and her eyebrows knitted together.
“You didn’t notice anybody outside the inn last night, Jey? I didn’t notice anything during my watch.”
Jey took a moment to respond. “No. No, I didn’t notice anything odd. I was talking to Elofan the entire time, so I was definitely alert. She was alert too. She didn’t make any indication of noticing anything, either. Either it wasn’t dropped off during my shift, or the person who left it is skilled in being stealthy.”
Greyan nodded and looked at the other two Knights. They both shook their heads - they hadn’t noticed anything either. The light buzzing in the back of Grehn’s Mind stopped, and Ben’s voice appeared out of the blue.
“Finally! Grehn, Vlugh, Bub and I saw the human that left the wood thing. Gora told us not to tell you guys until you read the thing so you could have a ‘genuine reaction.’ But it was really weird! They were wearing a mask with x eyes and looked like they walked like someone in town and-“
“What Ben is trying to say,” Beelzebub said, “is that we were waiting for you guys to read it. It was too exposed for us to run in and read it, but like he said, we saw the human that left it. We can use those clues.”
Grehn and Vlugh fought to keep a neutral face at the outburst. They were already unsure of what to do with the words inscribed in the wooden slab, and now they were presented with this new information? Grehn wanted to tell the bees they should have waited a bit longer before revealing world-shattering revelations.
“So it wasn’t the Knights?” he asked in his Mind. Somehow, he felt Ben shaking his head.
“No way. They looked completely different from any of the Knights. The closest would be Jey, and Jey was talking with Elofan the whole time during her shift.”
“So does that prove once and for all that one of the townspeople was the murderer?” Vlugh asked out loud. Grehn wanted to smack him.
Greyan continued tugging at his beard long enough for Herwen to huff and speak up. “As much as I trust in Knight Meyara and Commander Greyan’s capabilities, it’s not impossible that one of you two has a powerful Ability that would allow you to sneak this slab of wood outside. Besides, who else but dwellers of the forest would know about inscribing on wood? If anything, I think I’ll count that as another point against us being the murderers. Not that there should ever have been a doubt.”
“The hell? I don’t know how to inscribe on freaking wood. I didn’t even know that was a thing!” Vlugh said. Herwen merely scoffed and looked away, and Vlugh got heated enough to stand, but a firm hand from Grehn kept him seated.
“It’s not impossible for someone who lives far from the forest to come across wood, or even use it for something like this. Back in Rikitan, I knew of an art form that involved burning pieces of wood with concentrated heat to create patterns. It was reserved for the supremely wealthy, but it’s not impossible for people far from the forest to use wood for unusual things.”
Herwen spun and glared at Grehn. He had detected the implication Grehn threw out, but Grehn kept his face blank. The exchange was probably just annoying to Herwen, but it allowed Grehn to cool down a bit before thinking about the information the bees revealed.
Assuming the person who left the slab of wood truly was the murderer, the chances of the Knights being responsible, while still not zero, fell a fair amount. There was also the matter of the person wearing a mask - not the most unusual choice of garb, but odd in this small town. There were a variety of clues sprinkled around the appearance of the mysterious person that apparently left the slab, but nothing truly substantial. But there was one massive, unavoidable obstacle the information presented: the Knights didn’t have the same information.
At the very least, there was no way of knowing if the Knights had the same information. As long as they had to assume the Knights were their enemy, there was no way for the group to reveal the knowledge without exposing themselves. They had to maneuver the entire investigation, knowing the detail about the mysterious person with the mask without revealing that they knew it. All they could operate on was the clue given by the note itself, and there was no telling how long it might take to solve the supposed riddle.
“Don’t worry about trying to solve what the note says,” Beelzebub said, interrupting his thoughts. “Mom will take care of it.”
Ah, Grehn thought. There wasn’t much else to say. He had no idea what tools or intelligence a bee might have that would allow them to solve an encoded message, but he found it difficult to doubt such a thing would be possible for the Mother. Though he did find time to be annoyed that Beelzebub of all bees was monitoring his thoughts.
“Greyan,” Grehn said, “what should we do? Should we continue with today’s original plan of interviewing people of the town, or focus on deciphering this message?”
Greyan sat, saying nothing while stroking his beard. He seemed to do that a lot. The other Knights cast ugly looks towards Grehn, presumably for his lack of decorum when referring to their commander. Grehn didn’t feel strongly about it, but he was still playing into the idea of a gruff, insolent mercenary, so antagonizing the Knights in this small way at least kept him in character. At least, that was what he tried to think - he certainly wasn’t thinking that annoying them would cause him to get on their bad side, which would lead to a situation that might expose the bees.
As he thought that, he realized that he thought of it, so it was now obvious to the bees.
“…We continue with the original plan. Everyone should try to think of what the note might mean, but it’s too sudden of a development. When we have a free moment, we should decode it, but there are still too many unknowns, both about the note and the Lord’s murder as a whole.” Greyan slapped the table as he stood. His brisk walk out of the inn was followed closely by the Knights, but the group of mercenaries held back for a moment.
“You know,” Vlugh said, “I was really sure the Knights did it at first. But the more I think about it, none of this makes any sense at all.”
Elofan nodded. “I agree. It all felt so premeditated at first. But now it feels more like we are true insects moving to a whistling tune.”
“I have no idea what that means, but yeah.” Vlugh pushed his bowl of porridge away, leaving it unfinished. “I’m not gonna lie, Grehn. I wish we never came here. The lemons aren’t even worth it like I thought they’d be.”