Isak and his father were once again returning to their wasteland village of Inicios empty handed after a hunting trip. Clouds were gathering and crowding out the sun as it approached the horizon, and every so often a stray snowflake would drift down onto the coarse dirt and sparse grass broken up by jagged rocks that filled so much of the Western Wastes.
Most of the villagers, mostly human with several families of minotaur, were already either home for the evening or sharing a drink at the local tavern. Smoke rose from the chimneys of all the small, simple wood and stone buildings as the father and son pair were already longing for those cozy interiors after being on their expedition. Still, they had their final task to complete after a barren hunting trip.
They spied the lone lizardfolk villager and captain of the guard lingering around the rock and stone basin that had been dug out into the village’s amphitheater. This year saw more of a communal celebration of the village’s two main religious traditions out of a combination of an arising sense of community in the young village and overall improving fortunes. The wild celebration of The Harvestman’s Revelry shared a decorated communal space with the more reserved Dedication of Lights as the two almost week-long holidays overlapped, starting in only a few days.
Descending Rain was given a token representation for the Captain.
Captain Zolin’s tongue flicked out, smell tasting two familiar individuals and their now usual lack of fresh meat as his eyes wandered over the two empty handed hunters who nonetheless seemed to be carrying news of what he should really be worrying about. Despite the heavy gray and blue winter wear obscuring most of his face, sagging shoulders and tail conveyed his feelings well enough before he could speak.
“That bad, Amado?” The lizardfolk asked the older human in his accented but otherwise flawless Wastelander.
The father and son pair came to a stop before him, and somberly nodded their heads. Amado sighed as he gestured out to the distant forests and foothills sitting on the horizon with his free hand. “The first snow just hit out there to make finding footprints even harder because of course. But even other signs of activity all appear old.”
The Captain groaned, pulling his woolen face covering down to reveal vibrant yellow scales with bands of black all twisted into a frown as he spoke to the boy next. “And how about the traps you have out there?”
“Uhh…” Isak nudged at the dirt with his spear, trying to think of a better way to break the news than what he had been going over in his head. “Only if sticks count? They would only count if they had been intentionally used to set off the traps…”
Captain Zollin’s head tilted as one eye widened. “And…did that happen?”
“It probably didn’t.” The boy said as he leaned on his spear in defeat.
“Probably?” The lizardfolk asked the older human.
Amado looked down to the ground, stroking his thick black beard for only a few seconds before shaking his head. “I checked them myself because there was little else to check. And I wanted to be sure. It was either random sticks falling, or someone so skilled they could make it look like an accident. Why would they do this? I’m even less certain of that.”
A part of the guard wanted to believe that the seasoned hunter was mistaken and fooled, but in his hundred and seven years he had met precious few hunters of his skill. “Nothing else? Anything at all to explain why there’s no game to be had around here now? Less than a normal winter?”
“It’s not what I’m finding, it’s what I’m not finding.” The older hunter leaned in with a worried look. “Anything! No tracks, no scat, no carcasses. No old camps that other hunters didn’t tell me about. It’s like some new threat entered the area and all the beasts fled. It could be rival hunters from far out coming to our corner of the wasteland with nothing better to do but…”
“We did find one carcass!” Isak chimed in, desperate to help in any way. “Okay, it was old but…I dunno, maybe some ritual thing?”
The captain snorted. “Kazimir would be the one to ask about that but…oh go ahead, show me. I’ve seen plenty in my years.”
The boy cast a quick illusion spell to show the captain the old deer carcass in question. It did indeed look like it had possibly been arranged in a certain way before scavengers had picked at it. Only possibly.
“You’ll have to ask the old mage.” The lizardfolk confirmed with another sigh. “It might be the remains of some ritual, and that ritual might be some odd benign thing like what the weather was going to be. Nothing you recognized, Amado?”
Amado’s shrug was the only thing he could offer the Captain, who scrunched his eyes up in time with his hide and wool wrapped tail thrashing behind him in the dirt. “I can make a request for Regional to send someone out to investigate but…strange happenings that haven’t shown an immediate threat would make it a very low priority. Food reserves are fine enough to throw celebrations, livestock are in good health, and no one even has the sniffles. The only way that Regional sends someone is if this turns out to be part of something bigger, or they’re bored.”
Amado raised his finger to make a point before immediately shooting it down in his head, shaking the thought away as he readjusted the hunting bow over his shoulder. “Nothing to go and start canceling festivities over?”
“Might be nothing, might be everything.” The Captain nodded along with the recited fact of wasteland life. “Keep an eye out for both, and until then settle for killing me with all that festival food.”
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“Free food and you’re complaining, now you’re starting to sound like us!” Amado cracked a smile, going along with the conversational shift as there was nothing good to be had with the prior one. “And I know you can’t get enough of the stuff!”
“Exactly!” The Captain gestured with his axespear to the skies. “Previous years were bad enough with your people inviting me in to have ‘just a little to eat’, now you’re making a village celebration out of it! Bimuelos and cheese are going to lay me low where one hundred and seven years failed! And that’s before The Harvestman’s Revelry starts!”
Isak let out a laugh, also letting the change in subject push aside some nerves. “That’s all our holidays, either lots of eating or no eating. Honestly this one is kinda minor so-”
“Still enough that it’s all going right to my tail! Now go!” He waved them off with mock indignation. “If I keep you any longer, Ezter will kill me before I can take one bite of fattening dough!”
The father and son shared a nervous laugh while glancing between one another, bidding The Captain farewell before hurrying off home. Theirs was one of the more humble homes, not being attached to an orchard of olive trees, no crops all arranged in ritual patterns for maximum growth, nor having any number of livestock. In the fading light of day, they saw only their personal garden as befitting their trade as hunters and the lady of the house’s work in making cheese with other women in the community.
Smoke was rising from the chimney, and from the smell of things a stew was well under way. The pair managed to one whole knock at the door before it was flung open and Ezter was pulling them into a hug. “You’re both LATE and TRYING to make me worry myself to death!”
Amado chuckled as he hugged his wife tight, the worrying woman not quite coming up to his shoulders. His son hadn’t quite caught up to him yet, and was that much closer to her kisses as he tried to explain away the situation. Failing miserably.
“Mom!” The boy protested while also failing to escape her embrace. “There wasn’t even anything out there!”
“Nothing out there but the unknown!” She said as she dragged both of them inside as Amado pulled the door shut behind them. “If it was wolves or bears or even monsters, then your poor mother could rest easy knowing you’ve dealt with all of those! But now anything could be stalking those woods! Like monster bears!”
As she was dragging the boy over to the dinner table, all already set, she let go of him to rush back over to her husband with a question on her hazel eyes. “And why were you keeping him so long?”
“Well, we had to be sure.” He reassured the woman who managed an even more olive complexion than his despite spending less time in the sun. “Either find the source of this strangeness or find Isak a familiar. Maybe both! And Captain Zolin had so many questions-”
“So he was holding you two up again?” Ezter asked with crossed arms and a raised brow.
“We were just telling him what we found!” Isak defended as he shucked off his layers of winter wear, hanging them on iron hooks on the wall. That his mother was in her standard green and yellow dress with an off white apron and hands on her hips did little to detract from the threat of ‘finish that thought, young man’. Truly, it only had the boy wincing and hesitating onward. “...which was nothing. But the informative kind of nothing!”
Amado had already hung up his own leathers and wool before he put his hands on his wife’s shoulders to spin her around into an embrace. “Ezter, you can hardly blame the good Captain for doing his job. Or our son for being as determined as his mother.”
Though she rolled her eyes, her relaxing stance in her husband’s embrace was enough to tell Isak he was in the clear. However his father’s wink over to him assured him of that fact as he sat down at the table once he was down to a simple shirt and trousers.
“I just worry is all…” Ezter offered as she and her husband took a seat at the table with Isak.
None could really fault her, especially with the strangeness going on in the surrounding wilderness of the Western Wastes outside Inicios. The conversation lingered on that strangeness for only a short while before shifting towards finding Isak a suitable familiar. When once again none of them had any solutions, Ezter defaulted back to claiming that they would “figure it out”.
Theirs was an especially humble home, consisting only of a main room with a hearth and his parents’ small bedroom. His own quarters consisted of the former storage attic converted into something of a bedroom for a boy who had been unable to stand up straight in there for years now. Excusing himself up there after eating and brushing his teeth was a simple matter of promising to take his study books out to his treehouse tomorrow if he was going to watch the traps there, and ascending a ladder at the edge of the main room.
A small mage lantern stored on a hook by the ladder had been his main source of light up here ever since he had received it as a birthday gift from his extended family.
Taking the light in hand and switching it on, he crawled over to his bedding and pulled a book from the small wooden crate holding his entire collection. Sure, there was the schoolhouse library that had an entire room filled with books, but these were his. Gifts from family, things that he had bought for himself from the few village shops or traveling traders with what money he could spare from hunting, and a few he won at school.
Setting the lantern down by his bed, his hand traced over the spines of the books before settling on “A Young Mage’s Introduction to Magic”. He had already read it countless times, as with every other book here, but like the rest it was a source of comfort. The particular comfort this one brought was tales of how he had, in theory, made it now. That a mage of any level of accomplishment could still live comfortably and not be huddled in a small attic in the middle of nowhere.
Isak set the book down, dressing for bed and crawling in with the blanket pulled up before reading from his book again. About how magic school mixed in students from all over The Empire, and one could expect to make like minded friends and not have to deal with having your closest acquaintances be your fellow small village students who shared none of your interests. He heard the distant murmurs of his parents discussing their finances and if there was anything at all possible to raise enough money to go to the nearest, yet still distant, city to buy a proper beast for a familiar rather than the mysteriously barren lands out here. The thoughts conjured from that were shoved aside along with his book as he got to the part about selecting a suitable familiar.
He reached over to the small switch on his lantern, hesitating as he eyed the knob to extinguish the light and marveling at the subtle craftsmanship of the brass and glass. Only for a moment he wondered if he would be able to trade that for a familiar that wouldn’t have him labeled as the worst mage in all of history. Seeing a dark brown eye wavering in the glass and staring back at him, he cursed himself for the thought before turning the light off and rolling over in his bed.