Teal moved the massive pair of antlers off the red mush that was left of Farcie the Younger’s upper body to have a better look at the remains. “Fairly straightforward case, his arms were held up as if he was trying to protect his head – means that he was alive at that point and there’s no foul play there.” He reported while reconstructing the crushed arm bones to show Lady Helia where they had broken and what could be deduced from it.
Anastacia had zero intent to even glance at the elf paste, instead she went looking for the rope that was supposed to hold up the chandelier. Normally it ran through a series of pulleys that allowed the antlers to be lowered and lifted with reasonable ease by just a couple of servants, but as the chandelier had fallen, the rope had gone through most of them and was now dangling from the ceiling, out of reach for anyone that wasn’t over five meters tall. It didn’t look like it had been cut, and there were no pieces of it laying anywhere, so by all accounts it looked like the knot holding it down had come loose or was loosened.
The iron loop the rope was supposed to be anchored to was in no way hidden, and Farcie should have seen someone messing with it as well, which made the situation make even less sense.
“Heck of a time for an accident…” The adventurer mumbled and tried touching the dangling rope with her staff, but still couldn’t quite reach it.
“Does human adventurer Anastacia truly believe this to be an accident?” Lady Helia asked and turned away from the inquisitor, who had moved on to scraping the corpse off the floor onto a tablecloth he had found. “Could we at least suggest that human adventurer Anastacia considers interrogating the menials responsible for the upkeep of this chandelier?”
“I don’t really know what to consider this. In my experience, accidents happen at the worst possible moment and this would definitely qualify.” Anastacia pointed out. “But I still have some time before I need to get back to the high magister, so going through the servants’ quarters wouldn’t be a bad idea. Who knows, maybe we’ll find a vial of chiroptera there?”
Suddenly both necromancers picked up on something – or rather, someone running to the great hall.
“Uh, Anastacia, looks like the vice commander is heading this way.” Teal said to keep the adventurer’s cover intact.
“Really?” Anastacia acted her part. “Wonder who she’ll try to assault now, maybe she’ll punch the antlers?”
Everyone had grown to expect Lumira to act on her fiery nature and jump to conclusions the second something happened, but strangely, there was no anger in the dark elf’s eyes when she reached the bottom of the staircase, only utter confusion.
“What… what happened? I heard a crash.” She asked and stared at the massive bloodstain the inquisitor had yet to clean.
The adventurer stopped her by putting her staff in the dark elf’s way. “The antlers fell on Farcie, looks to be an accident as far as we can tell.” She explained. “Is everything okay? You seem, I don’t know, less angry? And more importantly, extremely out of your room.”
“No… I just, I mean… what happened?” The vice commander repeated.
Anastacia frowned and started to direct Lumira back into the staircase. Something was definitely off, and she was going to figure out what it was. “How about this, we’ll have a bit of a chat while you show me to the staff’s rooms?” She suggested and pushed the vice commander up the stairs.
Her first instinct was that Lumira and Farcie were actually closer to each other than she had originally let on, after all, they did eat dinner together the night before. It was also possible that the loss of her superior was finally hitting the vice commander.
On their way to the top floor, Anastacia kept throwing easy questions at Lumira, but only got back some barely understandable mumbles. By the time they reached the little corridor where all four of the lodge’s staff’s rooms were, she had gained absolutely nothing of value from her attempts and decided to change tactics to distraction.
“Only four rooms for seven servants? You’d think there was enough space for everyone here.” She wondered out loud. “Anything you can tell me about them?”
It took a few seconds for the vice commander to react to the question. “What? Oh… Well, three of the rooms house two servants each, this is the way they themselves arranged it. The fourth one is just for Stel; apparently no one wants to be her roommate. Something about her things taking up too much room and her keeping a lantern on well past midnight almost every night.” She finally gave a proper response to a question.
“Bet she wouldn’t shut up about a certain huntress either…” Anastacia commented.
“So you’ve gotten caught up in that as well? Yes, her obsession with local history is a thing to behold. Originally, she came to work for us after some scholar from the nearby town was defunded and she lost her position as his assistant. Nikolai always considered her a hard worker and I found her easy to keep in line, so her eccentricities were accepted. In fact, in the last three years, we’ve changed most of the staff here for various reasons, but she’s the one who has stayed – looks like she doesn’t have much in the way of aspirations beyond her ‘research’” Lumira explained and opened the first of the four doors, which belonged to two of the chefs working downstairs and was empty at the time.
As far as servant’s quarters went, the lodge’s were definitely up there. Almost as large as the quest rooms and equipped with a small stove, the room was cozy and warm. Tossed here and there were some clothes and cookbooks, but overall, everything appeared to be in order.
Anastacia randomly went through some drawers but found nothing that suggested anything suspicious and in general, the staff had obeyed her rulings without an issue or complaint, so the adventurer never really considered them to be good candidates for being the culprit. From her quick chat with the chefs while they were cooking, she could also tell that Nikolai was well-liked by everyone working in the lodge. The amount of work was reasonable, and no one had any serious complaints about their working conditions – apparently Lumira being present as well, freed them from much of the burden when it came to looking after the aging commander.
The next room offered much the same, though in it, the two beds had been moved together and the atmosphere was much more intimate. One of the room’s residents was resting her nerves by knitting in the warmth of the stove while the other was busy in the kitchen as well.
Apparently the residents fancied each other and were in the talks of leaving the lodge once the winter ended to start a family somewhere, so risking that by taking up diplomatic assassination seemed unlikely, especially given the more than fair compensation Nikolai paid to his servants.
Moving on to the third room provided the adventurer with very little new information. The residents were two girls, barely a year older than her, and the room definitely had more than a few things in common with her own. Finding a place to stand without stepping on some dirty clothing was difficult to say the least, several dirty dishes lined many of the table surfaces and every drawer and cabined Anastacia peeked into was bursting with random assortment of stuff.
Lumira was starting to finally return to her usual self and stared at the maids extremely disapprovingly. Intimidated by this, the girls started to discreetly move things to their proper places and pick up the laundry to a basket.
Next up was Stel’s room. Anastacia wasn’t sure what to expect from it, as the maid had always appeared tidy, but Lumira had mentioned her things taking up too much room. As the door slowly creaked open, both the adventurer and Lumira’s jaws dropped.
Every square centimeter of the room’s walls was covered in maps, notes, sketches, pages torn from books and the like. Some of these had been grouped together and lines had been drawn between circled phrases of text and areas in the maps. Some pages had been outright crossed out and left under a new layer of notes. Every piece of furniture was covered in similar scribbles, piles of opened books and stacks of paper. The stove hadn’t been used in quite a while and even the firebox had been left open and stuffed full of scrolls and notes. The bed barely had enough room for a person to curl up and sleep, rest of it was filled with more books and a few pieces of clothing. All drawers were so full that none of the closed properly and stacks of notes sprouted from every possible gap.
The floor was almost beyond description, crumbled up pieces of paper lined all corners of the room and some had to be pushed out of the way to open the door enough for the adventurer and vice commander to fit through. What wasn’t covered by litter was taken up by knee-high towers of books, usually with an open one on the top. Moving from one side of the room to the other required following tight paths of barely visible wooden floor.
In the middle of the room was some kind of a working space, or at least it could have been one if one was being charitable. In reality it was an assortment of things that weren’t piles of books and barely enough floorspace for a single person to sit in. Two candelabras that had been used to light the entire room, by the looks of things, were welded to the floorboards with a mountain of overflown wax from countless candles. A map of the local area had been spread open on the floor and the original markings on it had been all but covered by countless notes and symbols that appeared to denote something only the maid herself knew. One area in particular had been circled a dozen times over and as far as Anastacia could tell, it was located a few kilometers north of the lodge. Other assorted items spread over the map were a dozen or so ruined quills, several empty ink containers, a stack of empty paper, a second stack of barely legible notes and a couple of scuffed books.
“What the fuck is all this? Did you know about any of this?” Anastacia asked and waded through the sea of fire hazards to sit down on the corner of the bed that was free.
Lumira looked around, stunned by what she saw. “We knew she was still doing some research on her free time, as most of the mail coming in and going out was hers, she also took several trips to acquire books and such, but this is not what I expected – not at all…” She explained and hesitated to move out of the doorway.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
Anastacia looked around the bed and spotted a corner of a paper peeking from under the pillow. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a wad of letters with grand-looking wax seals on them. Based on the seals and the fancy titles of their senders, the adventurer could tell that they were from several different universities and royal scholars. Reading through a couple, they appeared to be some type of letters of rejection for positions and funding in their institutions. Each letter had a few spots near the bottom where the ink had been smudged slightly.
“Looks like she hasn’t had much luck with this stuff.” The adventurer said and flipped through rest of the letters, which did not get any better for the maid. “Did she ever ask Nikolai for help?”
The vice commander nodded. “A few months back, she asked for a few recommendations to some scholarly types. We wrote up a something, but since neither Nikolai nor I are all that known in those circles, our names only go so far. Seemed awfully thankful though – she gave me some hair beads and Nikolai got some book she had written about the history of the area; it should be in his room if you want to take a look.”
“Maybe later.” Anastacia shrugged.
Next to the bed was a large pile of letters that had been tied up in smaller bunches and appeared to contain correspondence with other historians and scholars that, based on a quick look, appeared to have varying levels of interest in the maid’s subject of choice. A few outright asked her to not bother the sender anymore, but others contained suggestions and arguments for and against the theories Stel proposed.
The adventurer tossed the letters aside and started to go through the titles of the some of the opened tomes that hadn’t been covered in other research materials. “Gods and worship, Goth’dr the mist hunter, Divine beauty, Goddesses of battle…” She listed some out loud. “She’s pretty into this idea of that one hunter becoming a god.”
“I think that started a few months back as well. To be entirely honest, I’ve started to go deaf to her ramblings.” Lumira said and leaned on the doorframe.
“Well, I think she needs a new hobby, but none of this is particularly murdery.” Anastacia pointed out and got up to take a better look at the working space in the middle of the room.
The most eye-catching item in the pile was a small leather-bound worn-down notebook that almost looked like a diary. The adventurer figured that murder investigation triumphed any unspoken rules about not reading diaries and opened up the book form the first page, only to find that it was a list of what appeared to be names. The second and third pages were exactly the same, as were the rest of the pages in the entire book. From cover to cover, it was filled with names, almost all of which had a note or two scribbled next to them.
“Amfoira: predates C Ymoggur: dead
Dafif: inactive, dead? Vaaka: inactive, dead?
Fali Nur: dead Unnamed west Vassundian goddess: predates C
Gapanagafama: predates C Valo: Predates C
Jakat: not real The screaming one: Predates C
Saara: The great maw: dead
Sylvia: Predates C Impera: inactive: dead?
Yma/Imaa: inactive, dead? She who sleeps soundly: inactive, dead?
Tamimat: not real Volkatar: inactive, recently dead?”
The list went on and on, covering hundreds, if not thousands of names. At first Anastacia wasn’t quite sure what the whole thing was about, but after finding one familiar name among them, she understood.
“Stel is literally just going through gods.” She sighed and kept flipping pages out of morbid curiosity. “I’m not comfortable with the number of gods she has found, or how many of them are apparently dead.”
The further she got in the list, the less careful and tidy the notes became. There was definitely some frustration visible in the handwriting, which was understandable, as the few names that didn’t have notes attached to them were few and far between.
As Anastacia went through the pages, a folded note fell out from between the final page and the back cover. She picked it up and folded it open, fully expecting it to be just more names that didn’t fit the notebook.
The adventurer read the note out loud. “Twenty-eight possibilities and no more time to rule any of them out anymore, the meeting has started, and there is a plan that will spring into action regardless of what I do. I have laid the groundwork for it, but should I really follow up with scribe Laurenth’s suggestion? Nikolai has been nothing but good to me and I could warn him or tell the adventurer, but there won’t be a second chance. If my work is ever to be taken seriously, sacrifices are inevitable…” She frowned and glanced at the dark elf, who was visibly shook by what she had heard. “Well that’s definitely murdery… What do you make of it?” She asked and tried to show the note to Lumira.
“I… I need to go detain her!” The vice commander yelped and would have sprinted off if Anastacia hadn’t stopped her with a bit of necromancy.
“She doesn’t know we’re here and she can barely walk, we may as well look for a letter from this ‘scribe Laurenth’ or some of her other notes. Besides, where is she going to go any-“ Anastacia was about to say but almost choked on her own words as she tried to find Stel in her room. “Nonononono, where is she?!”
The adventurer’s room was empty, as was most of the lodge. Teal and Lady Helia were still in the great hall, the three chefs were in the kitchen, Magnon and Ilya were in the high magister’s room, the rest of the staff were in theirs, but Stel was nowhere to be found. She couldn’t have escaped from the lodge either – or made too far in the deep snow even if she somehow did.
Anastacia released the vice commander and ran past her straight into the second floor and to her room. Kicking the door open, she rushed inside and confirmed what she had already felt: Stel was just gone. There was no blood or anything else to be found either, it was as if the maid had just faded into thin air without anyone noticing. Just to be sure, the adventurer checked the balcony and the snowbank under it, but neither of them had any footprints.
“Where the fuck is she?! I left her right here!” Anastacia yelled and tossed up the beddings as if the maid could have been hiding under them.
All of a sudden Stel had shot up in the list of suspects right to the top, but something about the note she had made bothered the adventurer. It had made it sound like Stel simply knew that something was going to happen but didn’t take part in it, though if Nikolai and Fang died through her inaction for whatever reason, the Vassundian authorities would certainly have a cell reserved for her even if she didn’t kill anyone – assuming she could still be found. Her part in the murders being a passive one would also mean that the actual murderer was still at large.
Lumira had finally caught up with Anastacia and stopped at door to see what was going on. “Where’s Stel?!” She asked and looked around the room.
“I… I don’t know.” The overwhelmed adventurer mumbled and sat down on the bed. “Just go to your room. I need to think.”
The dark elf obeyed without talking back and locked herself into the bedroom next to Anastacia’s.
Anastacia couldn’t help but to feel like an idiot for not being able to figure out what was going on. Gilbert would have probably known who the culprit was ten minutes after Nikolai had died, but he wasn’t there to help; and losing Fang while being mere meters away, completely falling for Stel’s act and now misplacing her entirely all felt like mistakes that could have been avoided by almost any other adventurer. She could almost see Strawberry’s smug face as he filled the report for the failed quest already and wasn’t sure if she could stand watching it all the way back to Valor.
Gilbert always said that sometimes quests just don’t work out, but the feeling of having her first big solo adventure be such a clusterfuck was hard to stomach regardless. For a while, Anastacia even considered just giving up and turning the whole thing over to the Vassundian military and have them deal with the fallout.
“Anastacia of Valor, the world’s most powerful and the most inadequate necromancer.” She mumbled and slumped down on her back into the warm comfort of her bed to just lay there for a while.
No matter how hard she tried to think, it felt like there was one thing she didn’t know, realize or consider, something that would have made the whole thing make sense, something even Stel had figured out.
“She was clearly the note keeping kind, maybe there are more of them somewhere in her room?” The adventurer continued mumbling and tiredly rolled out of the bed. “Might as well check up on the lovebirds while I’m up, maybe with Strawberry too.”
She left her room and dragged herself to the great hall to see what Teal and Lady Helia were doing.
The inquisitor had rolled Farcie’s remains into the tablecloth and moved it into the corner to avoid having to drag it into the cellar while there were people in the kitchen. In the spot where the chandelier had hit the elf and the floor first, there was still a noticeable red splotch and a large scratch in the wooden floor that definitely wouldn’t go away with a bit of waxing. The antlers themselves were more or less unscathed, aside from a bit of a red tint from the blood.
Lady Helia had once more cornered Teal against the curved table and as usual, kept stroking his long black hair while rambling on about the superiority of Ouans and the light. However, this time she showed no intention of stopping when Anastacia made her presence known by tapping the floor with her staff.
“Well, at least I made that happen, so there’s something I can take credit for…” She sighed and sat down on the table.
“Is something wrong?” Teal asked. “You and the vice commander were running around earlier.”
“It looks like I was wrong about Stel, she’s not a murder as far as I know, but not that far off from one. She knew that something would happen here and decided to not warn anyone about it for whatever reason.” The adventurer explained exhaustedly. “Oh, and she’s missing.”
“What?!” The inquisitor yelled and moved the Ouan aside. “Where is she?!”
Anastacia shrugged. “Who knows? But her room is… interesting. I could use some help going through it, if you two can keep your hands off each other for a minute.”
“Are we to pursue the human maid Stel’s disappearance or prioritize the assassination investigation?” Lady Helia asked and straightened her uniform. “Could it be that the death of elf merchant Farcie’s death was linked to the disappearance of human maid Stel and not the murders?”
“She’s got a point.” Teal agreed. “The murderer doesn’t seem particularly shy about hiding their deeds and you could have probably stabbed Farcie to death with a spoon, so why bother making it look like an accident? But at the same time, it just feels off.”
Anastacia groaned because of how sensible the suggestion sounded, she really hated giving any credit to the idea of the hag making her return. “Can we at least make sure that it wasn’t Ilyu who just poofed Stel into the void? Maybe she was the one behind everything and that’s why we’re constantly running into stuff that seems magical?” She asked annoyedly.
“But why would she do that? Nikolai was her friend and Fang her ally and getting rid of some maid seems beyond pointless.” Teal objected and started to get riled up as well thanks to Anastacia’s reluctance.
“For shits and giggles, I guess! How is that any worse of a theory than some ancient magical tart making her return just to fuck up some meeting?!” The adventurer insisted and started to poke the inquisitor with her staff. “Unless the hag herself strolls through the front door, I’m going to assume all of this is just someone fucking with us in a perfectly mundane fashion.”
As those words left Anastacia’s mouth, a gust of wind so power that it shook the entire lodge hit the side of the building and blew open the front doors with a loud crash that almost tore them off their hinges. The windows of the great hall shattered as well, showering the entire room with shards of glass and the great pyre that lit and heated it, was blown out like a candle.
Lady Helia managed to embed her claws into the wooden floor and Teal’s clothes well enough to prevent both of them from being thrown back by the gust, but the adventurer wasn’t so lucky. Anastacia caught the brunt of the wind and was blown off her feet. She tumbled over a few times and was smacked against the wooden wall next to the fireplace.
Woozy and disoriented after hitting her head, Anastacia struggled to get up once the wind had passed. Only barely managing to sit up against the wall, she shook her head a few times and finally began seeing more than just vague shapes and black, but what she saw was no more comforting.
From the dust and snow the freezing wind had blown into the hall, formed a great beast in the shape of a stag with three heads. As its form solidified and the details became clearer, the antlers that had been used to make a chandelier for the lodge tore themselves from their iron fittings and floated up to attach on either side of the middlemost head.
Spitting image of the first beast of ruin from the carvings, The Stag Lord of Decay loomed over the three mortals and struck its hoof on the floor.