1st of Middle Summer, 1535

After stepping through the tavern’s doors, Oleander could enjoy the brisk winds of midday. He corked his bottle of whisky and stowed it away in his horse’s saddlebags. The hunter hopped on his steed and set off through Blackburn Hollow.

It wasn’t terribly challenging to traverse the area; the city kept a primarily square shape with four main roads leading from the center to the corners. The four roads and the innermost streets were paved with bricks, while every other street was either a dirt or gravel pathway. It wasn’t uncommon for dust clouds to be kicked up during the busier parts of the day — especially today with all the festivities.

The central fixture of the town, the clocktower, could help even the most clueless of travelers figure out their position within Blackburn Hollow. Following the dragon attack that razed a sizable portion of the city to the ground, the city guard refitted it to become more of a lookout tower while still retaining its clockface. The landmark was entirely usurped as private, military property.

As Oleander weaved around groups of cheerful people, he noticed an abundance of strawmen. The Torching was a tradition of igniting scarecrows as soon as the full red moon came into view to ward off evil spirits and devils or as a prayer to the gods Orwein, Siskera, Maelonia, or Aurelian for a bountiful harvest. During the day, however, these scarecrows served as pseudo-celebrities paraded about in old clothes and hats — with no two strawmen looking alike. Towards sunset, small groups would go door-to-door singing before ending with the scarecrow getting splashed with ale, rum, or whiskey.

As Oleander got into town, he noticed that more and more scarecrows eerily resembled elves, goblins, and orcs. Although perturbed, he knew his friend, Cormag, would’ve enjoyed being paraded around town and given free beer.

Oleander pulled his head away from thoughts of the Torching and tried to recollect his old pathway home. While there were no visible demarcations for what constituted the Ember Quarter anymore, the kicked-up dust clouds in the area still had tinges of ash. The faint smells would send Oleander’s mind through a cascade of memories; the few vivid reminders he had left were of him walking to school with his friends, getting caught stealing from the market at the end of his street, and cowering with his younger sister when the dragon attacked. Rather quickly, he found himself on the familiar path he would take from school to where his home once stood — almost every building along the way was completely different.

Oleander turned onto Fishwick Lane, once a street lined with humble wooden cottages, now stood brick businesses and shoddy tenements. As the hunter passed by a group of children playing in the street, he looked for Donohue’s smithy. Near the end of the road, he stumbled across the worn-out building — it had seen better days. Despite its appearance, Donohue’s reputation for quality work kept him in business come hell or dragon’s fire. Oleander gave the front door a couple of hard knocks.

The gruff blacksmith cracked open the door, “Closed. I’m sorry, but come back later.”

The hunter wedged his boot in between the door and the frame. “Mr. Donohue, it’s me, Alexander.”

“Alex...” The old man squinted at Oleander through his cracked glasses, “...I don’t believe I know anyone by that name—”

He rolled his eyes, “—Alexander Swine, Roderick’s son.”

The blacksmith pulled off his glasses and gave Oleander another look.

“Oh! Alexander. I haven’t seen you in donkey’s ears. How’ve you been, my boy?”

“Can’t complain. I’ve been kept busy — hunting, family farm, and all that.”

“Well, it’s best to keep busy these days. An idle mind is a devil’s playground, especially ’round here... or at least I think that’s how the saying goes.”

Oleander nodded to keep the conversation going, “Yeah, I’m sure that’s right. Anyway, I’m sorry to bother you so early, but I heard that some bastard took a crack at your place. Mind I help you out?”

The tired older man sighed. “I doubt you’d be of any more help than the police were, but since you came all this way to check on me, I don’t see why you can’t look around.”

Oleander remembered that, in his youth, Donohue had a long mane of jet-black hair, but now it had grown entirely white with patches of soot across it.

Donohue led the hunter inside his humble establishment. They entered through the shop portion of the smithy with many finely crafted tools, guns, and weapons on display in glass cases.

“Three completed rifles were taken from these cases. No broken glass and no broken locks — Just gone.”

“Sounds like someone was careful about this,” Oleander remarked as he looked over the glass case, “How do these open anyway?”

“It’s got a locking mechanism. Only the key gets it open, and I always keep it on me,” Donohue remarked as he led Oleander behind the counter.

The smithy proper was spacious, split in two, with the forge and workbenches on the left and a storage room on the right. The door housing all the supplies was heavily padlocked — a second lock was hastily bolted onto the iron door. Once opened, Donohue explained how his organizational system worked for incomplete projects, ingots, scraps, supplies, and tools.

“So right ‘ere,” Donohue pointed across a series of shelves and then to two different crates, "Some of my spare barrels, stocks, trigger guards, bayonets were taken. A handful of bullets were also snatched from my supply."

Donohue continued, "You see, this room doesn't have a window — the only way in here is through this door."

After leaving the supply room, Donohue pointed to the floor, “After a few good days of work, we get a small layer of soot and scrap on the floor. There weren’t any bootprints on the floor beside mine and Marcus’s. The other windows were shut and locked, same with the doors. None of the neighbors heard a single thing that night.”

Donohue wiped his brow with a dirty rag, “I was at my wit’s end trying to come up with an explanation, but I ended up with nothing — same went for the police.”

“Marcus is your apprentice, right?” Oleander asked, “Where was he when this happened?”

“I believe...” Donohue trailed off, lightly tapping his forehead, “He left for the day, and I took inventory by myself — everything was in its place. The robbery had to have happened sometime between me going to sleep and Marcus arriving the next morning to open the shop.”

Oleander asked, “Who noticed the gun parts were missing?”

“Marcus did. We’ve had to make more rifles for all the additional guards stationed at the walls. He came in early so we could start on a large order; that’s when he told me about the missing pieces.”

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“Aye...” Oleander nodded, trying to take in all the information he gathered, “Where is Marcus anyway? I assumed I would've been able to meet with him too."

“He took a couple of his friends with him to find whoever did this. I told him to consider it a loss since if the police themselves didn’t have any leads, how could he find something? You know kids can be stubborn."

“When was that?”

The old man paused, “He told me when we closed the shop three days ago. I gave him two days off because we were waiting on a shipment of iron to come in. He was supposed to return this morning to help work that military order. We have to reforge a shite load of supplies now."

“Give me a description. I’ll keep an eye out for the lad when I'm out and about.”

“He’s sixteen, lanky with a long mop of brown hair that should be cut off or tied up when working.”

“Aye. Anything else?”

“I'm afraid not, Alexander; That’s all I know about what happened. I’ve taken to sleeping with a pistol under my pillow just in case that thieving bastard tries to come around a second time.”

Donohue left the hunter to investigate the storage room. Oleander noticed that the wall separating the work area and the storage room didn't extend up to the ceiling — there was roughly a two-foot gap. Oleander reasoned that it probably had something to do with ventilation, but as he thought about it, it wouldn’t be too difficult for someone small to scale the wall and slip over the other side without touching the door. He had a plausible explanation for how someone broke into the storage area, but getting into the building was a different question.

“Alright, if I’m a small thief, and the doors and windows are out of the question, how do I get in here,” the hunter pondered as he stroked his beard.

Oleander’s eyes darted across the room until his gaze settled upon the forge; it had a chimney with an exhaust that reached up to the roof. After peeking inside, the hunter deemed it too small for anyone to move through it. Even if something had, they would’ve easily tracked ashes or charred debris all over the floor, and Donohue said there wasn’t any.

The sound of metal clattering came from the next room, and Oleander instinctively rushed through the building to investigate it.

“Everything alright in here?” Oleander asked as he burst through the door and into the small kitchen.

“I’m fine, I’m fine — just dropped the pan,” Donohue remarked as he used the dining table for support. Oleander scooped up the cast iron pan for the ailing blacksmith. “Thank you, Alexander. Haven’t been able to piece anything together?”

“I’ve got something,” Oleander replied. He then turned back to the door he entered through. “Do you lock either of the two doors at night?”

“Hmm, anything that leads outside, I lock up. I don't really bother with that door," Donohue explained as he pointed to the door Oleander barged through, "Fewer keys and locks to deal with."

The haggard old blacksmith lit his stove, "Might as well make yourself at home; I’m about to fix something to eat. Want anything?”

“Don’t worry about me; I’ve already eaten—”

The large fireplace grabbed Oleander’s attention; the opening was larger than the forge’s. Standing at six-foot-four, there was no way for Oleander to fit his larger frame inside, but someone smaller and leaner could easily scale the inside of this chimney.

Donohue asked, “What’re you up to in there?”

“I think your burglar might've come through here.”

“Nonsense,” the blacksmith said, “I sleep right over there. I would’ve heard someone stumble over the logs in the fireplace.”

Oleander asked, “How tall is the chimney?”

“Fifteen feet, give or take.”

“Well, it’s not crazy for some mad lad to climb down.”

“You’d fall flat on your arse from that height — maybe break a leg or two.”

“Not unless you had a rope,” Oleander said, “I need to check around outside.”

The hunter left to survey the vicinity around the smithy; he noticed that he could reach the lowest part of the roof without a ladder—he just needed a good jump. Oleander backed up a few paces before sprinting and hoisting himself up. He had to shift his weight to scale the roof's slope properly. As he approached the top portion of the chimney, something caught his eye. Hugging the structure for stability, he shimmied each foot between the bricks. Once at the perilous height, he plucked a thin strand of gray fiber from the top of the smokestack.

“Hair?” Oleander questioned, “Banshee hair? No, a banshee would’ve phased through the walls — but they can’t hold physical things while moving through walls. I know goblins can have gray hair—one could easily make their way in and out of this chimney with no problem. Devils definitely have hair that runs from black to white... dear gods, I hope it’s not a devil.”

While nothing definitive, he knew something was on this roof and could’ve descended into the smithy. He clambered off the top and started surveying the immediate area. Something had to have been caught in the nearby bushes or left behind in the grass — but there wasn’t much evidence. Oleander scoured the ground for any faint footprints but found nothing. He couldn't smell any lingering scents of brimstone, and as he thought about it more, why would a devil want human-made firearms? Most, if not all of them, had access to magic.

The only thing that stood out was a bunch of small pits in the ground; they looked like someone had stuck the first inch of a pencil into the dirt. The spacing between these strange pits mimicked that of wide-set footprints. Oleander followed these tracks across the ground and found they stopped just short of the lowest part of the roof.

Oleander traced a path along the ground and followed it away from the smithy. He passed behind several small tenements and back gardens until he reached the nearest section of the city wall. Oleander reasoned that Donohue was targeted because of how close he was to the city wall — this opened up another question: how did someone scale the barrier without being noticed?

After looking closely at where the tracks met the wall, Oleander noted little dirt clumpings traveling up the wall with the same gait. Whatever this entity was, it seemingly climbed up the wall at a ninety-degree angle. The hunter now wondered if he turned back and searched the smithy more closely, would he find clumps of dirt similar to this on the floor or even walls?

Oleander found a broken fence post nearby and launched it over the city wall; hopefully, it would serve as a marker so he could pick up this mysterious trail again. The hunter returned to his horse, rode through the closest city gate, and skirted around the wall until he found his post. The suspect seemed to have shaken off the mud from their foot while scaling the inner wall, as Oleander couldn’t find any tracks on the outer side of the barrier.

He sighed as he got on his hands and knees and started rooting through the grass. After five minutes, he finally brushed against something metallic. Oleander inspected the oddly shaped piece and realized it was a loose trigger for a gun. He pushed the nearby tall grass aside and rediscovered the tracks; they led northward into the forest.

Oleander trekked through the densely packed oak, pine, and hawthorn trees; intermittent blackberry bushes clawed at his trousers and the horse’s legs. The trail of small tracks snaked in and around the foliage; he would’ve lost the path if he hadn’t discovered another small piece of metal, a discarded animal carcass, and a chunk of purple fabric caught between some berry bushes. The material was soft, like cotton or silk, but it was definitely from a piece of clothing.

“Devils don’t wear clothes,” Oleander pondered.

He smelled the piece of cloth, which didn’t have the characteristic stench of rotting meat that tended to follow goblins and smelled more like gunpowder.

After rediscovering the trail, he followed the path into a small clearing. It was strangely circular; Oleander knew that areas relatively close to the city were being scouted for new watchtowers or guard posts, this must’ve been one prospective site, but nothing was ever built. He spotted shapes on the ground in the distance; Oleander reflexively placed his hand on his claymore’s hilt and slowly approached.