In the mayor’s bedroom, I laid François on the ground in the hallway near the others and whispered in his ear, “Go back to sleep I’ll deal with this.”

Another round of knocks echoed from the front door, and I could hear Genève’s words. Getting up, I ran to the door yelling, “Help! Something’s happened.” And yanked the door open looking as distressed as I could.

Seeing this, Genève stepped back confused and reached for a dagger at her waist. I did my best to ignore it and look scared.

“Quick, I need your help, I just came back and… I don’t know, they’re not dead, but—”

“Ok, calm down, show me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know, it might be dangerous.” I ran out the house. “It might be magic or something, they’re all knocked out.”

“Knocked out! Who, what happened.” I think I’d convinced her as she let go of her blade and was now fully concentrated on whatever I had to say.

“Step, back.” I motioned, and she did, looking back at the door. “I just came back. I knocked but no one answered, so I just went in. I don’t know, he might have been out. But inside I saw François’s body in the hallway.”

“François?”

“My friend! He was on the ground. I ran over and checked. Thank God he was still breathing, but…”

“But?”

“But the mayor and an old woman was also knocked out in a bedroom. I quickly checked them too. They’re all breathing but knocked,” I said.

Her eyes went wide. “Shit. Here? Why would this happen here?”

“What do you mean by happened here?” I didn’t know what role to play anymore. I told the mayor I was here to solve the mystery near Fécamp, but I just acted as if I didn’t know anything about what was going on in Fécamp. If she questioned the mayor at all, she’d figure out I was lying and might suspect me.

Genève looked back to me. “Why were you going to the dungeon near Fécamp? Aren’t there many near Rouen?” She was sharp. Well, it was pretty obvious.

I looked to the side, acting embarrassed. “Did you not hear?”

“Hear what?”

I glanced to the side, embarrassed. “The dukedom is about to declare war on the count of Main. We decided to escape and Fécamp was the most distant dungeon from the border.”

“—Oh. Well,” She mulled over her thoughts. “I guess I can tell you. There’s a rogue mage who has been kidnapping villagers near Fécamp to sell them into slavery.”

“Really!” That was a bit over dramatic, but she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts.

“Yes, but seeing this, he may be here—”

“Then we’ll leave and go back to Rouen right away. I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“Are you sure? They may kidnap you once you leave. I’ll at least be able to keep you safe here.”

“It’s fine, I’ll manage.” I looked inside. “I don’t think it’s any safer here.”

“…Then take your friend and leave. Don’t come back.”

“Thank you.” Running back inside I took François, our bags, and ran back out. After a few more questions from Genève, I left as the villagers were returning from the fields for their bread.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

#

It had been two hours since we’d left the village, but François was still sleeping in my arms. His weight was about to snap the tendons in my elbows, so I laid him down in a small patch of grass below a tree. Sitting next to him, I took out my rations and snacked on some dried beef. The breeze was nice.

A little while later, perhaps because bugs had slowly started to congregate around us, François woke up with a sneeze. Batting away the bees, he realized that he wasn’t in a cool cellar anymore. “Where are we?”

“In a field southeast of Lillebone.”

“Why, what happened?” He rubbed his eyes.

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Not really, not since we got to the village.”

I guess he was too tired to remember being woken up. And so, I explained to him everything that had happened.

#

“What! There were adventurers from Paris you say!”

“Wait, I’m pretty sure the mayor told us that before you even fell asleep. That’s why we slept in his cellar and not the Inn.”

“Do you really think I was listening to anything he was saying? I was basically asleep then. But ignoring that, you said you met an adventurer dressed as richly as a knight?”

“Yep, I’m guessing she’s one and just disguised as to not stir up controversy—”

“I guess so. For then king to send someone is odd. It’s possible that she’s an actual knight but faking being a disguised knight.”

That sounded beyond complicated. “Then who would she be?”

“I don’t know, but we have to reach Fécamp before them. It’ll also tell us a lot about them.”

“What will?”

“Like I said, getting there before them will.”

“Yea, I got that but why?”

“Oh, well if they know less than us, they might be inclined to stay and investigate what happened, if they know something we don’t they’ll ignore it and leave right away. It is also odd that she let us go just like that. If she can afford that kind of equipment, her class isn’t any random one. What kind of weapons did she have?”

“I just saw a dagger nothing else.”

“Are 100% sure?” François pressed.

I tried to recall her appearance but, “No, other than she had a cat.”

“That’s odd, an adventurer with an animal and a dagger, she’s most definitely not a warrior class so confronting her might be tricky. We’ll have to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. Let’s go.”

I didn’t know why François seemed so invested in this matter, after all, the mage was supposedly only trafficking people, why would it be such a big issue if someone else took care of him. Not to mention François didn’t seem like he had a particularly deep relationship with the duke. Why would the estate affairs matter so much to him? I couldn’t come to trust him. Everything felt off since that day. Perhaps it would have been for the best to have stayed in the dead-ends. I haven’t even gained a great deal of strength or power since then and I was just as broke. I was just wearing slightly better armour. But I couldn’t leave now. If I wanted to do something of my life, to help others, then I’d have to keep trusting people until one of them showed me they were worthy of it.

“Then let’s go,” I repeated, and we left to Fécamp, this time we let the sun guide us through the local forests as to not cross paths with the adventurers from Paris.

#

We arrived outside the walls of Fécamp at night. The town was fortified with large wooden walls on which orange torches burned bright. The front gates were closed, and no guards could be seen.

It felt… odd.

“Do you feel it?” asked François.

My eyes were fixed on highest flame. It whispered something to me; it told me to come closer. “I do, we should get closer to see what’s going on.”

“What? Why would you do that, we might get caught in whatever’s going on!”

“Maybe, but we can’t stay out like this. Are you going to wait all night?”

“Well, we could have if you didn’t throw away the tent.”

“Really.” I looked over to him. “After that walk you’re going to cling to your tent.”

“The pans were too much, but the tent wasn’t a bad idea. We wouldn’t have had to deal with the whole Lillebonne incident if we had it.”

“We dealt with it—I dealt with it because you didn’t warn me.”

“What do you mean, you know what my class does?”

“But you should have reminded me, I’m not used to taking your class into account.”

“Whatever, it’s not like I was dead boy walking or something. Anyways, that doesn’t have anything to do with what you want to do now.”

He was right, I don’t know why I went on that tangent. “No, but I still feel like I need to check it out. We don’t even know where exactly the affected village is. We don’t have a choice right now.”

François didn’t agree, but he didn’t deny it either.

Sneaking closer to Fécamp, we got up to the wall without anything happening. It really seemed as if the city had been abandoned.

Getting to the city walls a notification popped up.

You are within range of 1 gargoyle.

Do you wish to take control of it.

Yes/No