In the small village of Mizotian the tavern was filled with the usual patrons drinking and having fun after days end which consisted mostly of farming or doing other back breaking labour. Mizotian only had around a couple hundred people and most everyone knew everyone else. Especially in places that were frequented so often such as the tavern.

“Manun and Anma ain’t ‘ere again?” The tavern keeper asked a couple of his regular patrons who replied that they hadn’t seen them out in the fields either that day, which was strange as they were both people who were dedicated to their crops.

They were the kind of people who took pride in what they did as they were one of the main sources of food for the village, an honorable job by most standards. Maybe they had caught the sickness; he’d have to go check up on them tomorrow. However, the last time that Manun had gotten the sickness he came straight to the bar for his hardest liquor in hopes to clean out his insides. He said it worked, however the sickness usually only lasted one to three days anyways.

“ ’nother round!” Some of his patrons, slurring, called out and snapped him out of his thoughts. He couldn’t doddle for there were thirsty and hungry people and money to be made. The tavern keeper kept serving drinks and food as the night teetered into early day were the majority of people already retired for the night with those remaining being people who were passed out or nearly passed out.

That’s why he so easily took notice to the creaking sound of his door being opened. It might have been one of his usual patrons relatives come to pick them up or someone who may have forgotten something, so he was surprised when he saw a boy who couldn’t be older than 14 walk through the door, and a boy he didn’t recognize at that.

Most people from around these parts had very tanned and hardened skin from the elements, however this boy's skin was beyond pale to the point where he could slightly see what looked to be red veins protruding from arms before they disappeared underneath his cloak. Mostly likely he was a traveler from a big city passing through or at the very least someone who didn’t have a lot of exposure to the sun. If he was a traveler, only his tavern would be open this late at night as even the small inn they had here would be closed until the morning, so it would be his duty to provide him with shelter and food if need be.

“What are ya doin’ here boy. Where ya from?” His gruff voiced sounded out over the guttural snoring of Toni, one of his top patrons.

The boy slowly sauntered over to the front of the bar while ignoring him. He looked at each of the patrons slowly, as if evaluating the each of them, before turning back to him and staring him straight in the eye. His eyes were a slightly faded pale blue and he had long light black hair, an unusual colour in the Antoss Kingdom. Maybe he was from the Kilian Empire as most people there usually had either really light hair or dark hair.

“Food and some water if you would.” The young boy said as he sat on the stool in front of him and put down five copper coins. Half a silver was definitely enough and he had enough leftover ingredients to make some half decent food for him. The tavern keeper fetched him a mug of water and some of the ingredients in the back. He fried up some thinly sliced potatoes, scrambled eggs, and their reputable sausages.

“Never answered me question. Where ya from?” He said while working on the food. The boy took a sip of his mug, seemingly contemplating his answer.

“I don’t know. I’m looking for someone.” The boy said in a nonchalant manner. Seeing that the boy didn’t want to give an answer, he just let it slide.. He had seen some people like this before, who were carefree and wandered from place to place without purpose in life. Most he usually never saw again, either dead or who knows where.

“Any details on who ya lookin’ for?” He asked offhandedly to keep the conversation going and to see what the deal with this mysterious boy was.

“She has long red hair and blue eyes like mine. If you’ve seen her you’ll know.”

“Can’t say I’ve ‘eard of anyone like that comin’ through ‘ere. Relative of yours?” Red hair was something that he had never heard of before, maybe it was from one of the kingdoms far away or the Great Tamari Desert. He had heard of some people having blue eyes before, but this was his first time ever seeing someone with them.

“Of sorts. She helped raise me when I was little.” A small sad smile creeped up on the boy’s face, disappearing after only a second.

The tavern keeper finished plating the food and served it to him. The boy was a weird one, yet he didn’t seem like a troublemaker, at the very least not from what he had seen. The kid ate quietly with a seeming grace to him. His wooden fork never once clanged the ceramic plate and his mouth never making overly obnoxious chewing sounds, like someone of the patrons that visited. After a couple minutes of silent eating the boy then asked an odd question.

“Have there been any sudden disappearances or people acting differently than normally?” His voice was the same tone that he had when saying he was lost. He took another bite of a sausage as if he had never asked something like that out of the blue.

“I...’eep ‘earing strange things when I be walkin’ ‘ome” Before the tavern keeper had a chance to answer, one of the few remaining patrons in the bar, Toni, spoke up in a drunken slurry of speech. 

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Just a single sentence was all he could muster before he fell back into his drunken stupor and flopped his head back onto the table, snoring sounds echoing out from him within seconds. The statement he made was concerning though. Although there were a lot of things out there that made sounds in the night such as roaming animals, Toni would never call them strange as everyone was already aware and used to the howls and caws that plagued the night.

 A couple of possibilities came to the tavern keepers mind, all of them concerning. The strange sounds could come from an animal that had wandered away from its territory or was kicked out from the pack, meaning that it was probably hungry, and a hungry animal was dangerous. The other possibility was the worst case scenario, a Horror.

“I ‘aven’t seen two of my regular patrons fer a couple of days now.” The tavern keeper muttered out loud. If it was animals there would have been remains of flesh and bone to be found, but nothing of the sorts had popped in the two days since he hadn’t seen them. Hopefully they decided to just take an unannounced vacation or something, otherwise the probability of the worst case scenario was increasing. 

The probability of their deaths greatly increased as he heard a very, very faint roaring sound in the distance, one that he didn’t recognize. 

“Thanks for the food. The sausages were pretty damn good.” The boy said as he finished off his plate and downed the rest of the water. He quickly got up out of the stool and made his way to the door in a rushed manner.

“Wait!” The tavern keeper called out in an attempt to stop him. “There might be a Horror. It’s too dangerous right now.” Yet the boy did not stop. He rushed out the door and ran towards the west which was a more isolated area of the village, close to some of the farm fields.

 The tavern keeper hesitated for not but a moment to grab the sword underneath his bar before rushing after the boy. He wasn’t in the best shape of his life, he had been crippled and the old injury on his left hand made it hard to properly use a sword, but he used to be a guard, and that instilled in him a sense of duty to protect. Especially those who had their whole future in front of them like the boy did.

The boy was fast, although he had taken a couple of extra seconds to grab his sword, the boy was already at the edge of vision and would be out of range shortly due to the stars providing so little light. 

How far he had fallen, a couple of minutes or running and he was already huffing and puffing, choking for breath from his ragged lungs. After a few moments the boy disappeared into the night, but the tavern keeper wouldn’t let that stop him. His iron will still lived on inside of him, for he couldn’t allow a Horror to potentially take another one from him. 

 His breathing became calmer as he ran, his mind focused, his grip on his sword tightened. He let his adrenaline fuel his rusty muscles as he sped up as much as he could, a second difference could mean the difference after all.

After a dozen or so seconds he managed to catch up and see the boy holding a whip that had a violet ethereal sheen to it in his right hand and a dagger in his left, facing two shadowy figures that he couldn’t fully make out at this distance. All he could tell was the shapes were vaguely humanoid with necks that extended far beyond what a normal human neck should. The tavern keeper ran a couple more paces before he stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened and the sword in his hand fell to the dirt with a thump that barely registered. For before him, standing in front of the young boy with the whip, were the distorted figures of the two frequent patrons of his bar.

Their necks had been elongated to a couple feet in length, the skin stretched to the utmost limit to the point that there were several small tears on it, like their spine had been torn up from their body. Their  arms and legs moved jerkily and in unnatural ways. Their eyes were rolled so far back that only the bloodshot sclera was visible which looked red with white cracks running through it. Their mouths opened and closed, making unintelligible sounds that were so deep that the tavern keeper was unable to hear a hint of their original voices.

“H....He...lp....h..lp”

“H..ur....Hur...ts”

The two kept murmuring over and over, their voices so deep, gravely, and distorted that the tavern keeper was unable to understand them. He watched as the two moved disjointedly towards the boy as he raised his whip, prepared to strike.

With a loud crack the whip moved so fast that his eyes could hardly keep track of it. The whip was aimed at the base of the neck of Manun on the left who seemed to against common sense get pulled towards the side, yet even that was not enough to fully avoid the whip as it struck against the shoulder of Manun. 

The tavern keeper expected the whip to cause some damage, however he was shocked as the whip tore through the shoulder. Sinews of muscle, bone, and crimson blood flew through the air as Manun’s right arm fell to the ground making a thumping sound that echoed in his ears. From the remains of his right shoulder blood pumped and squirted out, something that to the horror of the tavern keeper would not happen if they were two day old corpses. This meant that they were alive and from the horrible grating and guttural screams of pain coming from Manun, were conscious.

“He...aaaaaAAAAAAHHHH. HELP, HELP, I’M SORRY, PLEASE.” The tavern keeper was only just barely able to make out the screams of help amongst the agony. He had hardly taken all this in when his eyes flickered to the right and caught Anma rush forward with unnatural speed, his arms limply trailing behind him.

 He was so fast that had the tavern keeper been in the boy’s position he would have been able to only get his sword up at most. Blood spurted out of Anma’s legs as they weren’t able to handle the stress, but it did nothing except make him scream in pain. While the tavern keeper would have been unable to respond properly in time, the boy had no such trouble. He slinked to the right of Anma as his dagger shot up, cleaving four fingers from the trailing hand.

The whip cracked out again, its sound reverberating in the tavern keeper’s ears as he watched the left hip of Manun be obliterated. Flesh, blood, and bone exploding out in all directions as Manun toppled to the ground, his left leg falling with him. However, the tavern keeper’s already wide eyes expanded once more as he saw the falling Manun stabilize midair before being hoisted back up to a standing position on his one leg. Yet even then, Manun crouched down onto his left arm and right leg before bursting forward in blinding speed towards the boy. The left wrist and right shin of Manun snapped and bone pierced through his flesh as his body was unable to handle the power forcing him forward.

However, the boy had already reacted when Manun was crouching down. With a flick of his right wrist he brought the whip flying behind him, curling around the leg of Anma who had just passed him by. The whip shone with a slight violet glow as it seemed to clamp onto the leg of the disfigured being, dragging him forward as the boy flicked his wrist again, throwing Anma directly in the course that Manun was charging in from.

The resulting collision could only be described as a cascading firework show of human innards. The tavern keeper had seen some horrendous things in his lifetime during guard duty, he had even been there for the Massacre of the Armani in person. Yet, nothing had come close to what he had just witnessed. So he did the only thing he could do in that moment, he vomited the bits and pieces remaining from his Supper. He looked up, eyes watering and throat burning from bile to see the boy still in a combative stance, focusing on something in front of him. Something that was invisible to those who weren’t Shamans with Totemic energies or warriors with aura to amplify their eyes.

The Horror.