Carrying the boy with her in the darkened halls of the “Big inn”, Agatha navigated towards her room, her glowing bird spirit lighting the way forward, the silence allowing a minute for herself after the night’s rather upsetting turn of events.
A pleasant dinner with her daughter has been put off by the presence of Lanna emploring for a private conversation. Monica was sent back to her room, cheering for not needing to eat the uncooked vegetables, and Agatha got down to business with Lanna.
Said business was concluded rather quickly after Lanna narrated the events that followed Agatha and Monica’s departure from the guild. Thomas did not show up, even up to this point, and Lanna needed Agatha to go and search for him.
The proposal itself was rather unsound. Such a request cannot be issued unless official missing person report was released by the town hall or the adventurers fail to return their last received request after a set amount of time.
Another hole in the boat was the fact that the retrieval team was severely undermanned. The lack of man was obvious with the only member employed being an elf woman.
Yet Agatha could not reproach Lanna for her idea. The variables were all in order. Thomas was not someone who would leave Taryn alone so soon, contrary to his future machimations. His being late was a clear warning of complications. Agatha was also another game changer by her own rights. Her [blessing] made sure she was not lacking in numbers with the animal spirits from [spirit companion].
So it was with those extenuating circumstances that Agatha embarked upon her search of the wayward bastard.
She got into gear the moment she left the city and promptly summoned her animals, ten small ghostly foxes shimmered into existence.
After receiving instructions to locate the man via his scent, the spiritual scouts fanned out from their master while Agatha chose a direction of her own to start the search.
With the added reach offered by her companions, Agatha was able to narrow down the search direction and gathered her foxes for a more focused search after roughly two hours.
The following search should have only taken an hour at most, had they not run into a complication. Thomas’ earlier fight with the goblins left his scent far too jumbled to get a clear reading on.
This led to a fruitless endeavor of trying to reacquire a decent trail within the dark cave system teeming with the smell of monsters and their blood. It was through some luck as Agatha exited the cave for some fresh air that the foxes managed to find a whiff of Thomas that lead away from the cave entrance.
Yet the search was inhibited by another problem. About roughly ten minutes into the trail, the foxes smelled something else entirely, something rather worrying. Sporadically located on the track towards Thomas was older trails of adventurers intermingled with that of a chimera, a rather high priority threat to any party.
Erring on the side of caution, Agatha sent out a few of her foxes down those paths while spreading out a few others to ensure her own safety before continuing with the search.
Her worries were further exacerbated when Thomas’ smelled was mixed with that of the chimera. At that point, Agatha’s mind was already running through the worst case scenario. Thomas was most likely a mutilated corpse waiting for Agatha to stumble upon.
So the spark of hope that she gained at the sight of the headless chimera was rather large.
Hope proved to be an ephemeral thing, however, when she saw the burnt body by the side of the headless corpse.
Confirmation was quickly finished at that point. The intricate scimitar and round shield and the intact face was enough to pin a name to the cadaver.
Resigned to the grim reality, she picked up the shield and scimitar, adventurer protocol to pick those up for reclaiming family members or to resell if no one picks them up, dismissed the foxes and summoned three large badgers to start digging a small fire pit for the cremation.
Once finished with her services for the departed, Agatha began her trek home. From that point onwards, things were a blur.
Her mind was constantly on the beastkin boy, how devastated he would be and what she could do to help. Conclusions were never reach even as she arrived at the adventurer’s guild hall at sometime around midnight.
Her considerations were further swayed when she saw the kid just abandoning his timid behavior around her just to snatch a shield out of her grasp. The further crying and curling over the shield just cemented how she couldn’t just let the boy be. Lanna’s subtle urging was not even needed for her to jump in and take him.
So now she was carrying the fairly heavy kid up. Monica was much lighter every time she had to carry the stubborn child to bed when she fell asleep reading.
Letting her mind wander a bit after the amusing thought, Agatha smiled a little at the idea of Monica having an accomplice to her “sneaky” late night reading.
Though that brought her back to a more distasteful prospect. She was not sure if Monica and the added adventurer work will take his mind off of things. She knew full well that him overcoming this was very, quoting said boy from Monica’s stories, “iffy”.
Sighing for another time that night, the elf finally let go of the stressful thoughts and just pray for the better.
Her entrance to their room was silent. Monica was already sleeping soundly in her own bed, a folding one that they had to buy and add in the room because Monica wanted a separate bed and Agatha could not say no.
Pulling out a pair of thick blankets, Agatha made a temporary bed for the child and tucked him in before resting herself.
Sleep played out very differently for all three of the room’s occupants. Monica dreamed of herself solving crimes and saving the day like the book she just finished. Agatha immediately entered deep sleep, mind too tired to construct any dreamscapes for her to wander in. Taryn was the only one to suffer within the room.
The traumatic outcome of the night compounding with the prior thoughts was ground for a terrible thing to take root in.
Upon his makeshift bed, Taryn clutched the shield tighter as his legs began to twitch in motions that alluded to running. And inside of the boy’s mind, he was indeed running.
He was putting his all into running. Behind him, he could hear the footfalls of his pursuer on the blackened ground slowly, yet steadily, gaining ground. Every louder step was a missed beat of the boy’s heart.
Eventually, the steps stopped after a loud stomp. Heart clenching, the boy dropped his leg and ducked under the leaping beast.
Its momentum overshot, the diving beast stumbled into a roll and showed itself in all of its hideous glory.
The thing was an amalgamation of every monsters the boy had knowledge of put together into a massive tangle of limbs and head. Turning towards the young wolf boy, it fixed it’s many eyes onto the boy and began to right itself.
The monster began to pull itself forward again with two massive arms, one draconian with pulsing veins and the other a tree trunk splitting with deep red cracks that sprayed blood and gore as it moved.
Already running ahead, the boy saw the thing split its head of twisting limbs and heads to make a massive maw filled with jagged teeth and roared. The roar itself was blood curdling, carrying the sounds that every head on the beast could make mashed together and overlaid with the massive rumble that was the main mouth.
Yet the roar was not as terrifying was what came next. The roar was a call.
A dense fog rolled in to cover the behemoth as more shadows of its size joined its side. Swallowing the lump in his throat as the fog that covered the beast started to advance, the boy could only pulled himself up hastily and put his trembling legs to use.
Now with the pursuers hidden from sight and sound, the chase was even more fraying on the mind.
The boy continued to run, feeling the beasts not so hot on his heels as before. It was only when he turned around that the boy knew why.
The fog was spreading around and was already surrounding him as the circle slowly closed. Panicking even more, the boy looked around frantically for an escape until he saw a small beacon of light, a warrior in armor with a glowing scimitar.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The man radiated a feeling of safety and invincibility, but felt lacking. Staring down at the shield clutched in his hands, the boy came to the conclusion and rushed forward to aid the possible savior.
From the fog, a gout of flame shot pass Taryn in his rush to salvation.
The warrior raised his blade to deflect. The projectile bounced back.
The second from another direction exploded and put out the boy’s hopes. The armor was melted, flesh was cooked from within and the weapon was dropped.
The boy, in his shock, turned around to the source of the attack. The monsters had sprouted something from within its maw, a head that he only saw once the first monster crawled out of the fog.
A dragon’s head, awe inspiring and great, was attached to a grotesque growth of muscles within the thing’s mouth. Said head then turned towards Taryn as it fired another shot.
Acting purely on instinct, he raised the shield and, shockingly absorbed the shot with the shield. Regret quickly superimposed upon shock as he realised his failure.
The warrior could have lived, could have fought back, could have saved him, if only he had made it.
And so the boy dropped his shield as all of the beasts came out of the fog, jaws ready to shred him, and then everything fell. The ground cracked into pieces, the monsters melted back into fog and Taryn fell down.
He tried to scream. No sounds came out. He tried to flail. No strength came from his arms and legs. He tried to breathe. And no breaths came to him.
Monica was startled awake by the sound of a sudden gasp. As she rubbed her eyes and yawned lazily, the screamed died down a bit to a second of silence.
Silence made way to quiet sniffles that sounded vaguely familiar.
Finished with getting her bearings, Monica scanned the room for the source of the disturbance. Taryn hugging a round disc thing with faint traces of tear highlighted by the dim candle light was not a sight she was used to or expected to see.
It just simply felt very wrong in her eyes to see her friend act that way through all of the faces of Taryn that she had seen. Taryn would either be really quiet around strangers and her mother or just kinda bored and quippy with people he knew well. There was also the overly enthusiastic side when he found something he liked too, the boy chasing her around when he found a new way to hit her was scarily persistent.
Yet this seemed a lot more scary for Monica. He didn’t get like this and it was very unsettling. So in typical Monica fashion, the girl voiced her opinion.
“Hey, Why are you crying?”
Realising that he was not alone, the boy quickly turned around to look at her.
“W..What?”
“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
Hearing the questions, Taryn closed his eyes and grimaced before turning them towards Monica and replying.
“T...Thomas.”
“What happened to him? Did he hit you or something? I know I saw bruises sometimes but you didn’t say anything and mom was not ok with him. You should have...”
Oblivious to her friend’s plight, Monica continued to ramble on before Taryn shouted and ground out.
“STOP. Thomas didn’t do that. He…,” Taryn choked up at that point and squeezed out, “He...He...He’s dead. He left me. And I’m all alone now.”
A brief silence followed the grim exclamation as reactions varied between the two. Taryn turned his eyes down towards the metallic memento and grit his teeth. Monica just silently looked at her friend, too shocked to say anything else. Eventually, Monica found her words and rasped out.
“I’m...I’m sorry. I...I...”
Sniffing and wiping some of his tears, the boy replied, “It’s ok. You didn’t know. I’ll be over there if you need me,” and moved over to a corner of the room.
Watching the boy lug himself slowly towards his destination, Monica simply decided to offer a bit of quiet support. She quietly got out of bed and began moving over to the crying boy. Gently, and a bit awkwardly, she laid her hand on the boy’s back and rubbed it a little.
“Hey, It’s going to be ok. You still have us right. Mom probably took you up here for that. She’s an adult. She’ll know what to do.”
“Will,” the boy sniffed, “she? But I can’t do anything for her. Just...Just like Thomas.”
“Hey. If you can’t do anything what does that make me. And if you really can’t do anything, mom will still help.”
“B..But what if she doesn’t.”
“She will. Are you going to doubt mom. I’ll go tell her now that you did. You know how scary she is,” the girl directed a faint smile at the boy after her mock threat, trying to lift the mood by just a small margin.
It seemed to work as Taryn’s mouth began to faintly twitch even as his tears kept flowing. Seeing the change, Monica pushed on.
“Now no more moping. I need some more sleep. You do that too. We got you. Ok.”
“Ok,” said the boy as he leaned back into the wall and closed his eyes. Once he opened them again, there was a little more life to them.
“Thanks Monica.”
“You’re welcome,” was the cheery reply as the elf bounced back onto her bed. Relaxing his body all the way, Taryn moved over to the blankets and rolled himself and his tail up to try and sleep again.
Hidden from either of the two children, the adult smiled to herself.
In the morning, a tired yet less sad Taryn woke up at his usual time, later than Agatha but far sooner than Monica. Shaking himself free of the comfy pile of cloth, the wolf stood up and moved to do his daily routine.
Only to stop short as he realised the water bowl was not where it’s supposed to be. Confusion coloring his expression, the boy opened his sleepy eyes further and beheld an unfamiliar room.
Brain fully connected, he remembered yesterday’s events and squeezed down on his hands and prepared for the waterworks. But before the tears could start flowing again he clamped down onto them and tried to recall what happened a few hours before.
He was not alone, not completely. Agatha and Monica was nice enough to help him. So he pulled back the tears and wiped what managed to get out and made his way over to where he saw the water bowl for this room and washed his face of the dried tear stains.
Sufficiently cleaned, Taryn moved over to the sleeping form of Monica.
“Hey, wake up Monica.”
“Um. Five more minutes mom.”
“Come on Monica.”
“Alright alright. I’m up. Why are you waking me up so soon mom.”
“I’m not your mom. Where is she anyways?”
“What?” the girl paused at the weird response.
“You’re supposed to say ‘you just slept in’ not ‘I’m not your mom’.”
“No. I’m not your mom. I’m Taryn. Wake up more Monni.”
“Huh? You’re really Taryn huh,” the girl blinked some more before rounding on the boy.
“Wait, why are you…” she stretched out the sentence as she remembered and slowed her words down, “Right. How are feeling now then?”
“Better. But really, where is your mom? I’m hungry.”
“Oh. she is down in the dining hall already. We’ll go down when I am ready.”
Saying so, Monica moved over to do her own morning routine as Taryn settled down his own thoughts. The tears were held at bay, yet the sadness was still there. The helplessness he felt was still there. The self doubt following close behind.
But he swallowed them down. He could still try again. He could always be more, be better. Then the adults won’t die and leave him anymore. No more moping about Thomas anymore. He would be tough like Thomas wanted him to be in training.
Steeling his resolve one last time the boy turned his head up to see the elf ready to go. Standing up and going through the door, Taryn was about to head down by himself before Monica called out.
“Hey, where are you going? Wait for me.”
“Eh? Aren’t you going down with me?”
“Yes. But I need to lock the room. Don’t you do that?”
“Umm. I don’t.”
“Really. Do you know anything besides fighting?”
“I can…” the boy put a finger to his lips, ”Hmm. Maybe that is true. I need to work on that then.”
“You should. I’m done locking it now. Let’s go.”
Down in the dining hall, Taryn was reminded how large the “Big inn” actually was. The bustling of morning rush was something he was used to in his smaller inn. Yet the scale of this one was unrivaled by any others.
Every aspect of the hall was larger than the old inn by at least twice. The seats, the tables and the people, everything was more.
Next to him, Monica, in her natural state, was swiveling her head every spoonful of food. Taryn was very tempted to join her, though, but the presence of the rather serious looking Agatha was keeping him at bay.
And with the deterrence the boy managed to stay focused on his meal and the ones eating with him, even over all of the exuberant ambience. As the boy waited for the food to arrive and conversation to begin, he noticed the food by smell and prepared himself. Once the last plate was set down before Agatha, she began talking.
“I hope you are feeling better Taryn. I know it was hard. But you pulled through last night. That was really strong of you. But I am going to need a bit more from you. Is that ok?”
“Y..Yes. What do I need to do?”
“I just need you to start helping me with the adventurer work. And start...”
Monica decided to jump into the conversation at that point.
“Hey, what about me? I get to go too right? Me and Taryn can be a team like I said before.”
Agatha sighed before replying.
“Yes, you can go too. But you have to listen to me out there like before. Am I clear.”
“Crystal mom.”
“Good. Now where was I. Yes. I want Taryn to start taking some requests. You can do this too now that I think about it, Monica.”
“Yay,” the girl cheered.
“What kind of request is it?” the boy queried.
“Nothing much. Just some gathering jobs. It won’t be hard since you two don’t have any qualifications yet. We need to go slow and I can’t watch you both if we go for anything more dangerous.”
“Eh? That sounds boring mom.”
“Um. Then do we go today or do we go back to the training room.”
“You will deal with the boredom missy. And I think we could. You already have Thomas’ equipment and your [blessing] for armor. Monica does not need arrows and my other supplies are good enough. We just need two guild cards made for you two and we are good to go. ”
“Yeah.”
“Ok.”
And thus the trio left for the guild and left it too a few minutes later to embark on the two young ones’ career and adventure.