June 23, 1410
It’s been a month, and a few days since Ray arrived in Temes, and they decided it was finally time to head inside the village.
Ray, and Justin got up extra early, taking down their hammocks, and destroying any evidence that someone lived in the area.
“We should hide away the things we don't want anyone to find, we can’t risk the fact if the knight goes through our bags.” Ray suggested.
Justin put down his bag, and started taking out things, Ray did the same, Ray took out his mask, the letter he received from his master, and the newspaper detailing Eda, and what she had done.
“Where do you think we should place them, back on top of the tree?” Ray suggested.
Ray looks at the top of the trees.
“No, if they get blown over then we will have a difficult time finding them.”
“They were ok, when we left it in our backpacks.” Ray said.
“That was ok, because we had more stuff to make our bags heavy, the only thing I want to hide is my mask, I can hide the letter I was given for the mission, what about you” Justin said as he showed Ray the two pieces of papers, which had the backside facing him, and the mask which was oval shape like his, but the front of the mask was silver in color but had one black dot under the right eye.
“What up with your mask, why does it have a black dot under the eye hole?” Ray asked, as he squinted trying to get a better look of the mask.
“Oh it just some thing me and my friends did, we all have a black dot, you know as a way of telling each other mask apart, I have the one dot, Amy has two, and lastly Johnah has three, we always tease on him being the last one, he tends to always be late.”
“I see.”
{I didn’t actually think he would tell me, since our little argument, I’ll take what I can get.}
“I just want to hide my mask as well, the letter detailing my mission I can hide somewhere.” Ray showed Justin his mask, which still had the damage given to him by Sierra, the red lines that ran across the mask were fading a bit.
“What's up with the red lines?”
“Oh, she just gave it to me like that, she said it would help to paint something on the mask to tell me apart.” Ray explained.
“...”
“So should we hide under a bush maybe?” Ray suggested
Justin walked through the forest, Ray followed closely behind him, they kept looking around, Justin pointed one out towards Ray.
“There, that one would be good. Behind that rock, we could hold our stuff there.” Justin pointed, the both of them walked to the big gray rock, behind the rock was a green bush, Ray, and Justin left their mask there, making sure to remember where they left it.
They both walked silently, Justin led the way. Soon Justin started climbing a tree Ray followed him, they both started jumping from tree branch to tree branch, until Justin stopped Ray jumping near him, and saw the same pathway that Ray first saw that led to Temes.
“Alright let's make a pretend camp here, the knights who are guarding the entrance won’t be able to see us this far, we will wait until a group comes by and joins them. Sounds good?” Ray asked.
Justin just shrugged his shoulders, and headed down the tree, Ray sighed before he also jumped down. They both set a small camp, Ray sat in front of the camp while Justin laid against a tree.
“Ok, so what is going to be our story?” Ray asked, while keeping an eye out for other travelers.
“We are cousins, and we left the village Aris because of the attacks of the hybrids, we both lost our families to the attacks.” Justin explained, he was in the middle of putting on a new shirt.”
{Why does that village sound familiar?} “Why that village, what if we encounter someone from that village?”
“Apparently there was a huge attack that went down a month ago, the newspaper said that a hybrid destroyed the whole town, supposedly that everyone who was in the village was killed off.”
“What the? That sounds like it would be huge news, I never heard anything about that!” Ray stated.
“I barely read through it, I just remembered the important parts.
“Can you tell me what else you remembered about what happened?”
“I didn’t completely read it, but it just said how a single hybrid took out the village, she went after every knight, for some reason she really wanted to killed them, but that is all I know from what I remembered, I am pretty sure you will be able to find the newspaper I read about it, in the village.” Justin explained.
Ray looks back at the road, thinking about what Justin just said.
{A single female hybrid took out the whole village, no it can’t be Eda. The other mission I read said she only killed a few knights, she wouldn’t go out of her way to destroy a village, unless the person overseeing her mission might have forced her to do it. Like Vincent forced me to kill everyone who attacked me? I’ll be sure to keep an eye out when we enter the village.}
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“Do you know anything about that hybrid?” Justin suspiciously asked.
“What are you trying to say Jus-”
Soon Ray heard a conversation going on, it seemed to get near them, Ray silently alerted Justin, the both of them started packing their things, soon a group of travelers were coming down the path.
The group waved at them, Ray, and Justin finished putting away their things, and joined the group, everyone was an adult, there were four of them, all four of them were men.
“You boys want to join us in entering the village?” One of the men asked.
“Sure, we decided to enter the village in the morning, it seems a better idea to do that, than trying to enter it in the middle of the night.” Justin added.
All of them kept on walking until they finally reached the wooden wall that surrounded the village. They approached a knight that was posing as a guard in front of the entrance of the village.
The knight came up to them. “Hello everyone, what is your business today here in Temes?” He asked.
“Well my group, and I are just trying to head to one of the holy cities, with everything going on with those damn monsters it would be nice to live somewhere where we could be at peace.” One of the men said. The other men behind him were nodding their heads, agreeing with what the first men said.
“What about you two?” The knight directed his attention towards Justin, and Ray.
“We are cousins who had to leave the town of Aris due to the vicious attack of a hybrid sir, we are hoping to also reach one of the holy cities, so we can rebuild our life.” Justin stated while he put his arm over Ray's shoulder bringing Ray closer to him.
The knight looked at Ray who had his head hung low, Ray forced the words out of his mouth. “Yes, sir. We just want to live peacefully.”
“Aris huh, that the village that was recently razed to the ground, the paper made it seem like they were barely any survivors, you two are lucky to have escaped that bloodbath, every knight who was stationed there seems to have lost their lives.” The knight explained.
“Yes, we just want to put that behind us.” Justin let go of Ray's shoulder, and extended his hand towards the knight. “May we enter the village sir?”
The knight gave them one last look, before stepping aside. “Welcome in, I am sure you know if you cause any trouble you will be escorted out.” The knight left to go back to his usual place.
“Wow, didn't you know you kids had it rough.” One of the men in the group said.
“Yeah, we don’t really like bringing it up, sorry.” Justin apologized.
“No worries, well then my group, and I will be leaving, see you two around.” The group waved at them, Justin waved back, while Ray looked the other way.
“If we are going to be in this village I would suggest getting along with the people, if you keep being quiet people are going to be suspicious of you.” Justin whispers to Ray.
“We only have to wait about a week, I am pretty sure I can keep to myself until then Justin, come on let us just get this over with.” Ray whispered back, Ray passed the wooden gate, and finally entered Temes.
Ray and Justin had to walk to reach the first store, Justin lightly nudged him towards the store, as they got closer, the store owner greeted them. It was a bald man in a gray shirt, with black pants, in front of him stood a display of accessories.
“Hello there, anything catches your eye?” The man said.
“We are good, we had to get going, can you actually point us the way towards the inn?” Justin said, as he kept looking at the items.
“Sure the both of you will just keep on heading straight, you will turn right on the second path you come across, it should be in the middle of the pathway.” The man explained, while adjusting his items.
“Thank you very much, Sam, we should get going.” Justin thanked the man, and they both kept on walking.
“Let's find the place after that we can discuss what to do.” Justin whispered to Ray.
Ray, and Justin pass a couple of more stalls, when they reach the second route they have to turn too. They saw the inn which was made of brown wood, it had two stories, it reminded Ray of the cottage of Charles.
“Ready?” Justin asked, grabbing the money from his pocket.
Ray nodded his head, and walked towards the inn. Ray grabbed the money he was given, and they went through the wooden doors. A beady man greeted them.
“Hello there, boys looking for a place to stay?” The man got up from where he was sitting.
“Hello, my cousin and I are looking to stay a couple of nights before we have to head out again. We unfortunately lost our home, due to a recent attack because of a hybrid.” Justin explained.
Ray looked around the inn, there were stairs leading up to the next floor, as well as a hallway that led to a couple of rooms.
“I am sorry to hear that, how long are you guys planning on staying?” The man asked.
“Sam, a week should be enough, right?”
Ray nodded his head.
“Yeah, would it be ok to stay here for a week, I am sure we have the money to pay for it.” Justin explained, while going through his bag.
“A week huh, that would be two gold coins, what do you two think?” The man happily said.
“Two gold coins huh, ok here you go.” Justin quickly said, putting the coin in the man's hands.
“Wait, let me pay too, I am staying here as well.” Ray quickly said, getting money from his bag.
“Will you lead us to our room?” Justin interrupted Ray.
“Yes if you would please follow me, your room is on the top floor.” The man led them up the stairs, and passed a couple of the rooms, when they finally arrived at their room.
“Now then your room cleaning comes exactly at two in the afternoon, if you would like your room to be clean, we asked that you not be in the room in the meantime, now then if any of you have any other question please let me know, thank you.” The man gave Justin a key to the room, and headed back downstairs.
“Well then, I honestly can’t wait to sleep in bed again.” Justin remarked, he unlocked the door, and they both went in. The room had two separate beds next to each other, a window that was in front of the inn. A small kitchen with a dining table.
Ray, and Justin put down their things on the rug, Justin jumped on his bed laying on it stretching his body while he did so.
“Ahh, that feels better, now then do what do you want to go over first?” Justn rolled on the bed getting used to the fabric.
Ray started organizing the things in his bag, putting his clothes on the dresser, he walked to the window, opening the curtain, Ray could make out the building of the church, and the three bells scattered through the town.
Ray turned to Justin who was still lying around, Ray grabbed some of his gold coins and put them in Justin’s nightstand.
“Here is my part of the payment.” Justin was about to say something but Ray kept going, “We should head out, find out what we can, I want to see what I can find out about the town.” Ray started getting his other clothes to change.
“I think I'll head straight towards the church.” Justin stated.