It's been a few days now, and after the ringer of whatever I did to myself when I picked up that lonely soul. I tried to explain what I did to Annabeth, but ‘I sucked up a singular mortal soul using my newfound saintly power in the forest, and the process exhausted me greatly’ is hard to sign.

I find myself enjoying my stay with my host, she got a slate board and some slate pens to mark it. It is significantly cheaper to write on compared to the pages of parchment paper we were using, apparently, which makes some sense. It also gives room to draw stuff, so double-win. After breaking down what happened the next day, or at least trying to break it down, I explained the tubers I brought back.

I showed her how to cut them up and plant them in quarters, talking about how they're good for stew, or at least I assume she understood my drawings. Now we just have to wait… well, I don’t remember how long, but not too long, the spuds were already growing, and it was only spring.

She decided to use a previously unused section, so I had to prep the dirt hoeing to remove the grass, then hoeing with a second, then a third hoe. Then plant it. I used [Planters Delight] on the spuds, which should help them root faster, and cut a week or so off their growth time. I started using [Aid Yield], which will likely make the gardens give my host a little more food to help cover for feeding herself and me.

Considering the size of her garden, that’s not such an easy thing, it's not all that big and presumably, she can only keep up with herself using her magic. While I was looking around, I found that many of the places outside of the city had small gardens, but there wasn’t enough room to actually feed a family, each one was too small. I asked, and apparently, there was a clearing south of the city with more room. It's just on the opposite side from where I walked in from. That’s not so surprising, people have to eat somehow, and it wasn’t coming from the forest, or at least entirely from the forest, because there was supposedly game to hunt, just not right now.

Later on, she sat me down with that slate on the front porch and explained stuff about the valley, which is what it was still called, even though it was currently a lake.

I also learned that across the water, there were in fact, other villages and towns that didn’t produce enough smoke for me to have seen, each with their own crops and specialties. Three distinct areas were small cities or townships in and of themselves, according to Annabeth. The valley was somewhat scantly populated compared to what I was used to with the main city right nearby hosting some 67 thousand or so people. For me, that sounded like a district, but when you factored in the other places with considerable human, and it was mostly a human presence it did add up to a decent-sized city, just spread out over four distinct sites. Apparently, as the largest site in the Moarn Valley, The city of what I have to assume translates to New-Moarn, has 4 main groups, the churches, the feudal lords and all their peasants, the artisans who are distinctly non-peasants and the huntsmen, which includes people who hunt game, other people, monsters, and for some reason plants, which I can kind of understand, but still seems strange.

Each group has its own town where they’re the most powerful group, except the lords, which exist around each town. Based on how my host described the sites, they are named after the leading group, who hold more sway there than the lord who runs them. Whereas the lords practically own everything that’s not a city or whatever you call the districts of ‘art place,’ ‘holy place,’ and ‘hunting place,’ like the hamlets and villages, which are made up of mostly peasants.

As it turned out while going over the local geography, and me asking about the numbers of people and so forth, I found out that we both use the same numbers, which was quite a relief to find out. I did not want to be forced to re-learn mathematics. In fact, apparently, some other group stepped in because the book she had on math was printed, not hand copied. The crisp shapes of the numbers were a familiar sight, that somewhere they have at least some of the machines that my people did. More and more questions that I don’t have the information to put together myself.

Learning about the valley’s current situation is an engaging way to get me interested in learning words. Or rather the pronunciation of the words considering what I figured out about the language my host speaks. Each word is spelled out, and written on the slate that’s leaning against the wall. I have to get given the words quite a few times before the idea of the word curls up in my head, and I start to pick it up. She also runs me through the garden stuff.

Flowers, leaves, and more are starting to be partially remembered, I can now effectively butcher the language of my host. Or I can when it comes to the names of flowers in her language, she went through the process of explaining the flowers while she was weaving together a new flower circlet for both herself and myself. Her taste in flowers is quite nice, she picks flowers that both smell nice and seem to match my hair for me, before chaining them together for me to wear.

All in all? I can feel myself settling into the cottage by the end of the week.

Today when Annabeth enters the house after returning from New-Moarn with a bundle under her arm, and a pep in her step. She places the bundle down on the kitchen table and gives me a little wave. I return it with a smile and a wave of my own. She has a mischievous look in her striking eyes, and like the simpleton I am, I bite.

I point towards the bundle, ‘good?’ her smile goes from small to beaming. She opens the bundle, and it contains a few things. A set of working clothes that are similar to hers, less long tunic, more short dress with leggings to go along with it. A set of nice-looking undergarments, and a book takes up a large portion of the bundle, the other half is taken up by a package of what I can recognize as meat and other sundry items she used around the house, like soap. Her soap always smells nice and used to be able to smell soap and food, along with other things in the house, from far enough away to startle her. She had been confused when I was able to ask her about the market based on my noise and ever since, she has picked up subtler scents.

She takes the first half of the items and hands them over to me. I blink at them, before looking up at Annabeth and gesturing to myself. She nods, and her smile becomes more amusement than anything else while she makes a set of gestures I had not thought about, ‘You smell, new clothes, wash clothes.’

My mouth hangs open to better catch the flies that must be swirling around me. I lean in to get a sniff of myself, and sure enough, both I and my tunic stink. Why did I not recognize it? I mean, it’s hard to wash and dry my clothes on account of me having only one set. You can’t wash and wear your clothes at the same time after all.

I sit there for a second before looking back at the brand-new smock. Only a second or two, however. After I got my gawking done, I stood up and thanked her, before going to pick up the bucket from its hidey hole on the closet floor, and started hefting it outside, alongside a towel. There is no way I’m going to get a brand new set of clothes, with dye, wet. I set everything up and get to work.

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“Clause, you're not going to believe this! I have quite a story to tell you, brother.” My brother called from down the hall. I sighed, venting my frustration with the interruption of the work that my brother was no doubt about to perform. I preferred my life as boring as possible, but nothing was ever easy.

Balancing father's budget, trying to fix the grain shortage that was all of a few months away, writing to [Scholars] in the capital for advice to draw from and figuring out a reasonable tax to levy that would meet expectations, while also not destroying the economy, was already a challenge. Doing that on top of Strause wrangling me out of my office every other day for some random activity, along with breakfast, lunch, second lunch, and dinner, was leaving me with a string of broken-up ideas that needed time to weave back together and the work was NOT going to do its self.

My brother's footsteps, stopped in front of my study, “Clause you are going to love this,” he said before knocking on my study; and then, as if invited, he waltzed in as cocky as ever. Straight into my dishevelled nest. Not that he saw that.

He looked at me, a quick look up and down before grinning, “Man, you look great, how do you do that, you rat bastard.” He asked.

My life might be a mess, but no one knows that [Center of Attention], [Youthful vigor] and, [Composed] were a triumvirate of passive skills that I never turned off. Not ever. I am almost sure Father has them as well, and he has them on all day every day. Not even Mother knows what’s under that mask of his and she has more Charisma and Perception than both of us put together.

With those skills combined no one can tell that I am always six seconds from losing my shit. My brother is not paying attention to the mess in my office, he can't read my face, and I look ‘great’ because I am artificially young looking. I’m the gladdest for that last one, after all, I’m not the social butterfly my brother is, the only thing that keeps me in the business of marrying someone is that I look like I’m still a young man, if I looked like Strause I would be utterly screwed, and I know it.

“Brother you went to see Beth right?” he asked me. My brain caught the topic at hand, and I filed my previous line of logic away for whatever later ended up being.

“Yes, just recently, why?” I asked.

“WHOO man, so I heard from my contacts that she went and got some supplies. Now I figured, good for her or whatever, but then they mentioned a dress.” He pointed at me, his smirk and raised eyebrows speaking for him.

I have to admit, Beth picking up clothes is, rather rare. She usually cares little for fine clothes. She enjoys spending her time and effort doing magic stuff, not attending a gala. Especially after Father got pissed at her for ruining her marriage with whatever his name was, I checked by activating, [Annotated History], and It only returns his last name… huh. Of course, I don’t just sit there while I use my skill to retrieve all the pertinent knowledge on him. I raise my eyebrows, which while muted by my skill gives the perfect unimpressed eyebrow raise.

“Oh, indeed. Quite a fascinating development, after that Consanti brat, I had assumed she would stay in her cottage.” I reply, which I believe I pulled off.

My brother doesn’t notice any discrepancy, so I did. He starts nodding enthusiastically, “Yeh, when she blew up the marriage proposals, she totally pushed them out of her life.” He says drumming up, what I have to assume is a hint of drama, but just makes him sound like gossip. Or rather a [Gossip].

After letting it sit in the air for a moment, he continued. “Except for one problem, it's too big for her. It's not for her brother, [Rumor Has It] sister dearest has a house guest.” He finishes Shaking his finger vigorously toward me.

That’s… actually important to note down for once. Sister is positively reclusive, and that’s compared to me, who has been sleeping on my notes for the better part of a week.

Was that why she got me to leave so abruptly? She had a guest over. She did mention getting back to something, and that’s certainly something.

“Oh? Is that all? She’s been over all week, from what I could tell.” I said confidently. That trips him up, I could see his mental wagon bump through a pothole and keep going, however.

“Oh, so you know this guest. What is she like?” he asked nonchalantly. That caused my mental wagon to bump into a pothole of my own.

“Well, no. She didn’t invite me in to meet her. Why? do you know anything, Strause?” I returned.

This was, much like the rest of the week, him sweeping me up in his hijinks. But I honestly did want to know. It’s not every day some stranger starts living in your sister's secluded cabin. I can only imagine the rumours if it was a man… Actually.

“Well, I don’t know much, [A friend of a friend] told me that sis referred to having an interesting woman over,” Oh, thank the gods, crisis averted, “But she also said something about getting to know her?”

Dam, my brother, for getting my hopes up. Now I couldn’t tell if this would be a shitstorm without following him on his hair-brained chase. I took a deep breath. IN… OUT… Strause, damn you.

“Can I assume this is where you weigh in with a hair-brained scheme, to find out about this visitor? Maybe find those that she conversed with and hit them with so many social skills that they swoon over? Because if so, I’m in, I need out of this office.” I say.

Strause starts talking automatically, totally on instinct. “Now, I know what you’re going to say Clause, I know you are busy but think of our dear sist… Wait your in!? Are you sure? Normally your all, whah I’m busy. Wahh, I don’t want to go. Wahh I have a job Strause! But this is what gets you to leave your room without complaint?” he mumbles out, totally uncomprehending.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Finally, I finally got one over on my fast-thinking little brother. The sound of his confusion was music to my ears. This once, I got him. I get to bathe it in for a minute. Before I stood up and exited the desk space as carefully as I could to not upset my parchment children, to approach my brother and patted him on the back.

“Well? Show the way, little brother.” And with that, we went out on the town to look into our sister’s interesting and mysterious guests.

***

“Ok, so first. A while ago, she came into town to purchase some stuff. She got a slate board of all things. I have no clue why she got it, but I do know where she bought it from,” Strause [gossiped]. He was in his atmosphere out here, where the hallways of our manor confined him, out here, he was in his element. It was enjoyable to watch him goof off.

“So, this guy named Sal sells slate stone, close enough to get it delivered to Beth’s house. Now I don’t know why she would buy slate, but presumably, she’s writing on it, because there’s like, no reason to buy it for any other reason.”

“So, we’re trying to find out why she needs to write stuff? Or at least what connection the slate and her guest share.” I conclude.

“Yeh, I’m going to do my thing, you know, and that will give us anything he knows. Maybe she even came with her.” He continues.

“Your thing? What is your thing exactly?”

He gets a temporarily shocked look on his face, “I figured you would know. But if you don’t know then you can’t just come out and ask that. Not cool, Clause. That’s like pantsing me in front of the peerage.”

I stared at him, utterly confused about the context of his words. My brother had said something that went totally over my head. What is his thing? “What are you going on about, Strause?”

“Can’t tell you, Clause, if you figure it out, you get to know! Sis knows, and so does Mother. I have no clue if Father knows, but I’d bet he does,” he tells me.

What? Everyone knows but me. He looks honest, but he might just be messing with me. We walk silently to the slate stone salesman named Sal. What a tongue twister that was. It was a good four-minute jog to the store, and when we got there, we walked right in.

A man sat behind the slate countertop. He was some five and a half feet tall, and his hair could be a whole host of colours, but his head was coated in stone dust. In fact, everything is covered in stone dust. He had beige eyes set into a face, with a beard that was also covered in dust. Strause and I looked at one another and hold our hands up and start whispering.

“Strause, are you sure, she got it from here, this man seems minorly unhinged, how can he even breathe in here?” I asked him.

“He is kind of weird, but he is the guy, he carves slate cheap. Don’t worry, Clause, we're in the right place.”

I nod to him and wave him forward, with as little awkwardness as I could.

"Excuse me, sir, can we ask you a question about a purchase made here recently?" Strause asked, putting whatever skills he used silently to the best effect he can.

I didn’t know what to expect from the dusty man, I was not expecting him to sound totally normal when he spoke. "Of course! Of course! What can I help you with? I’ll tell you if it’s within my purview to tell you. I do keep confidentiality on some stuff, obviously."

Strause gave me room to speak, so I decided to give a simple priming line. "Well, you see, our sister bought an item here, and we're just curious about it. She apparently has some friends over but hasn’t told us anything. We’re trying to ask around about her friend is all. Did she mention anything about her friend or why she suddenly bought a slate?"

The Shopkeeper, Sam, made a Humming noise, before eventually nodding. "Okay, who was the item for anyways?" he asked.

“Annabeth,” Strause said.

He “HMM”ed for a second before he nodded, “I remember an Annabeth, came in here for a slate.”

The slate cuter, stared off and nodded a few times before answering, “She mentioned a friend that she was working with, something about learning stuff? She checked my prices and checked the price of parchment and decided to go for slate.” The shopkeeper said, “Apparently I was significantly cheaper when you factor in the price of ink vs slate pens, where the price of a pen is literally dirt cheap.”

“How much cheaper, perchance?” I asked. He gave me a figure, I ended up ordering one the same size as my sister bought, and two personal slates. It would save me money monthly; it was a no-brainer.

“Thank you, good sir,” my little brother said as we left. “Now we’re going to the Soap maker she visits. Maybe sis is picking up something fancy ehh?”

And so, we walked for ten minutes until we came to the off-smell of the soap shop. When we got there, we entered like last time.

"Excuse me, mam. Our sister recently bought an item from your shop, and we were wondering if you could tell us about it, or anything she said about why she bought it."

Unlike last time, the shopkeep was an old woman whose eyes looked closed from where I was standing, and old enough to be our great-grandmother, started talking like we were her grandkids come to see her instead of two random men that had just come off the street, "Sure thing, sweety. Who is your sister, and what did your sister buy?" She asks.

Like last time I spoke second, "We're not really sure what she bought, Annabeth, that is. She just said it was something to help her friend, I think." That was a bit of a stretch, but the lady picked up on our sister’s name.

"Well, we sell a lot of hygiene products, but Annabeth is a dear. She gives me a lot of the things I use to make nice soaps, you know. She did come by earlier to pick up some new soap, she made sure it was only slightly scented, and she did mention a new friend that had a good sense of smell. Such a nice young lady." I suppose Young is relative, she’s almost as old as I am at 27, but hey, if she’s getting paid to grow her flowers, then I suppose it’s not a waste. I never did find out what sis does most days, I kind of assumed she just walked around her garden growing flowers and living in a fantasy.

My talkative brother spoke up. "You said it was something she gave you for a bar of soap? But something she gives you makes them nice, what about them is so great?" And she and my brother started up a conversation.

I thought about what I knew so far. A female friend, from the sound of it, with a sensitive nose. That and they were working on something. But what were they working towards? I waited for my brother to finish up with the lady, and I left the shop. He came out a few minutes later with a few bars of soap and started waving me on while placing the soap in a small bag.

“Next, we go to the butcher. So far, so good. Did you know sis grows and sells herbs and stuff? She’s apparently been growing them more frequently, no clue how, but apparently, she can grow her flowers faster now. Sis grew a brand-new bouquet of them for that lady over the course of the week.”

“Seriously? How can she do that for her flowers but not for our crops? How does that work?” I asked.

Strause just shrugged, “No clue, when she goes into magic and tries to talk about the nitty-gritty, I always tuned it out. We never really listened to her, you know?”

We didn’t, did we? Magic is magic, it wasn’t important for me to learn it, I was expected to learn swordsmanship and how to lead others, not wave my hand and fix crops. I thought about magic and how little I knew about it.

When we got to the butcher, I didn’t even walk in, Strause handled it. When he came out, he was laughing with two little bits of meat in his hands. When he handed the tiny piece to me it took me a moment to come back to the conversation.

“Sorry, I was thinking about some stuff. What is this? Some kind of sample?” I asked my brother.

He pat me on the shoulder after I took the meat, “It sure is, you taste that stuff in the meat? I forget what Phil called it, but whatever it is, it’s nice. And guess what? All of the meat in Phil’s shop has herbs and spices grown in her garden. She comes by every week or so to drop them off.”

“Truly? How is he getting the meat? With the undead and that fog that showed up last week, meat has become pricier.” I asked.

“Huntston has had all of the animals piling up on their arrows and spears apparently, so they have been salting and selling meat to vendors they know at good prices. Whenever Sis comes to give him his stuff, he always gives her some meat for cheap. I did find out that she asked for more than usual. Apparently, her guest likes it.”

“So, Sister dearest is hosting a mysterious, keen, noised woman who loves meat?” I asked.

“Pshaw Clause, you can’t just say that you’ll besmirch her honor.”

That one took me a second, we started walking and when my mind deciphered what his intent was, I huffed. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

Strause just laughed.

***

“No, can do, I can’t sell out Annabeth like that, even if you are her brothers.” The seamster said. We were both stumped. No matter what we said, the dressmaker refused to yield. The elderly man looked prim and professional, no-nonsense. And that extended to the people he worked for.

“Good sir, can we at least know if the dress was for her?” Strause asked, “We just want to make sure she’s ok, we don’t need to know anything else.” He reassured the shrewd man. He must have used a skill because that got him to give a little information.

The dressmaker looked at him perplexed, “Of course, the order was for her, although not the dress far too tall for little Anna. I won't give my clients measurements or sensitive information, shoo.” He practically pushed us out onto the street.

Collecting myself, I asked, “So Strause, what are we going to do now?”

“I suppose you go back home. OR! We can go do whatever you need doing, that caravan you use stopped in town a few days ago.” he responded, “I’ll keep looking for stuff while we walk, and you can get your stuff done before you go back to your office and do… whatever it is you do.”

Despite the fact that I should be doing something else, I can’t help but want to keep looking for stuff. Doing both at the same time was a possible win, maybe the caravan had some of the stuff I was looking for, or some mail.

We walked to the edge of town, towards the north, where the old road led to the next dutchy over. I tried to get a mental picture of my sister’s mystery guest. We knew almost nothing about the woman. She had never accompanied my sister anywhere.

When we arrived, I looked for the tent the caravan used for pre-purchased goods and made my way over.

Pulling the flap aside, I came face to face with Gunther. Gunther was the supposed name of the West Winds caravan companies [Caravan Master]. He was also a 5’ even wood elf. He had long blonde hair in a ponytail and moss-green eyes. Two long tapering ears hung off to the side of his head. He wore an ambiguous shift top tucked into pants with the symbol of the company on the collar. Two W’s on top of one another over a wheel.

I said the supposed name, as wood elves claimed that their names are sacred. I didn’t even know if Gunther was a man, or a woman, though I would never admit as much to him. When he saw me, he backed up and smiled. Wood elves don’t have human teeth per se, they have quite a few more canines than a human, It made their smiles intimidating despite their average height being comparable to a tall child.

“Well, well, well. Hello Clause, I was wondering if you were going to catch up. Come in, come in.”

“Hello, Gunther, any chance you have any of the stuff I was looking for?”

“Sure, sure have a seat while I go through my books.”

***

Gunther was meticulous in his record keeping, it was quite admirable, I had my letters and some of the grain we could afford to take in ready to go in ten minutes. It would buy us some twenty or so days of food if we didn’t ration it, and was well worth it.

I was looking around for Strause when he came out from behind a cart. He was buckling his pants.

“Strause, what did you do?” I asked him pointedly from across the caravansary.

He just waved me off, “I got you your information.”

I stared at the rat bastard I called my brother, none of us could ever tell if he was serious when he acted like he did. He held his hands up in surrender.

“Listen Clause, you wanted info on her, I got the info. Don’t judge me for finding it.”

She might be living just outside of town, but ever since last week, there has been an increase in signs of undead activity in the area. I would let him off the hook. It's not like he ever got in trouble for it, and no one got hurt.

“Well, Strause, what did you find?”

“Well, when the caravan was coming in, they passed a woman on the road. But get this, she had fuzzy ears on the top of her head. When one of the guards was nearby, he tried to ask her if she wanted a ride into town, and she waved him off. While carrying a shovel and a sack, walking with her eyes closed down the road.”

Wait, “Strause, how long do we think Beth has had her guest? It's been a week, right?” I ask.

“Yah, around a week, before that, she was doing things normally, or normal for her. Anyways the sac she had is the same as the soap lady uses.” For emphasis, he pulled the bag he was carrying the soap in. It indeed had a notable image on the side, a little flower shape made from lines of green thread.

“And if she was walking around with a bag from town, she might have gotten it from sis.” I followed.

“Exactly. Right time, she has a bag that could link her to dearest sister. She was fascinating by the sound of it, and was carrying tools that might have also been hers. And to top it off, she had an old tunic on, which Annabeth might have decided to replace with the new one.”

He beamed from ear to ear, like a cat that got the cream.

“Why did she have her eyes closed?” I asked.

He looks at me like I’m an idiot, “From the sound of it she has some side project going on with some lady friend, and they're doing silly lady things like buying soap and running around in the forest. I don’t know why she had her eyes closed, maybe she’s blind; I doubt it matters.” He states nonchalantly.

I start wagging my finger at him, “There has been an increase in undead activity for a week, Strause. What if she is some kind of [necromancer]? There is no good reason she should be running around in the forest with Our sister.” I start saying.

That would also explain why she refused to help with crops, she might be mind controlled! The possibility opens a door in my mind. Oh no, I can’t unthink it. What if this random woman was trying to do something unthinkable with my little sister?

Strause starts staring at me like I’m speaking nonsense. “Listen to me, Clause. Our sister is fine. I might not care about magic, and I don’t understand an iota of when she talks about it, but I do know that it's doubtful that a simple coincidence, like someone moving in with our sister for a while, directly caused the recent increase in undead activity. We both know Beth can take care of herself, and we both know Beth has been talking about how we need to drain the lake, or the undead will build up. In fact, knowing her, she probably self-detonated her own marriage so she can do whatever it is she’s doing now.”

If he’s such a font of knowledge, I'll just ask him, “Then why isn’t she doing anything?” I mutter.

He is unimpressed with me, “Clause, she has been warning us for years that she can’t do what she was doing forever. Unless this secret [necromancer] has been coming here every year since she was sixteen to give her instructions each year, and we have simply never seen it before, you can’t blame her actions on some spooky [necromancer] at a distance nonsense.”

Each word he speaks is straightforward, and yet parts of it stand out. When she was sixteen, she blew up her own arranged marriage, why would she do that? She would have been loaded. Instead, she came back here ostensibly because she hated it. But if she did, why come back here? So she could do whatever she was doing here? My mind spirals, and yet I hold heavily onto my [Composure] skill. I know I might be on to something, but Strause is unhelpful.

If I want to make sure my sister is safe, I need to keep digging into this mystery girl, and I need to make sure she is not doing terrible things to her. I hate magic, there’s always something to think about when it comes to magic. When anything could be theoretically possible, you could never count on an assumption.

We began to make our way back home, it was late midday when we got close to the manor. Passed the walls and into the noble quarter.

“Strause, will you or mother check in on her from time to time, or invite her to tea? I’m not good with her, never have been.”

“Sure thing, Clause, I was already thinking about it, I know it's been a bit of a sore spot since you were supposed to marry Senetra.”

It really wasn’t, I hadn’t thought about Senetra for years. Senetra Consanti was the older cousin of the brat Annabeth was married to. My father intended to marry our family, instead, Anna blew it up by getting the Consanti brats to marry one another. Gosh, that’s gross. Putting the consan in consanguinity as always.

“Please don’t remind me of them, Senetra is not my type.”

“OH? Do tell brother, what is your type?”

I groaned as we went home.