Morna had come through for them, returning in the company of five of the town’s more elderly occupants. Over dinner they had told the adventurers everything they remembered about the region south of Gerron’s Vale and had even drawn them a crude map with the abandoned villages and the connecting roads on it. With a clear route before them, the party had left the town in good spirits the next morning.
Bordan had been worried about Edwin’s injuries, but the latter had insisted that the scratches on his legs wouldn’t prevent him from marching. Had anybody looked at them, they wouldn’t have been able to tell that he had been injured at all, but Edwin made sure that didn’t happen. He also kept his right arm in a sling and covered in bandages, not because he needed it, but to make it seem like it was actually still bothering him. It, too, was completely functional, although it looked somewhat strange because the lost flesh hadn’t regrown completely. Edwin’s plan was to keep it out of sight until they reached Pel Darni, where he would pretend to have it fixed by a healer. The main purpose of the sling was to prevent him from moving it reflexively, ruining his deception.
Bordan had accepted his assurances that he was fine without complaints, but Edwin caught the former soldier shooting him suspicious looks several times.
The start of their journey had been an easy one, the road south being well-trodden and even while it ran between the town’s fields. Once those ended, however, the road almost immediately disappeared under a thick blanket of tall grass, broken only by other kinds of plants and young trees. Something the adventurers hadn’t considered was that a country road that wasn’t used for a decade quickly returned to the land. Most of the time it was actually easier to walk through the forest parallel to the former road, as the undergrowth and grass was much sparser directly under the tall trees. In some places, the surrounding flora had retaken the trail so completely, it was hard to even tell where it had once been. Several times did they think they were following it, only for their trail to abruptly end, forcing them to backtrack.
Thankfully, the weather was good. After the boar incident, the adventurers had enough of rain and mud for a long while, so even with the added frustration of constantly searching for the way, spirits remained high. Just before sundown, the party reached the next village on the map, situated in a gentle valley. For a few minutes, the adventurers stopped on the hill they were coming down and marveled at the view.
“All for sleeping outside?” Leodin finally spoke up, raising his hand. Salissa’s immediately followed.
“Come on, it’s not that bad.” Bordan said, though he didn’t sound as sure as he probably meant to.
“It does look like the kind of place featured in scary story you’d tell a child if you didn’t want them to sleep.” Edwin remarked.
“Definitely haunted.” Leodin agreed, his hand still raised.
What had once probably been a quaint little village looked like nothing short of a ghost town out of a nightmare, an effect that was only reinforced by the low sun and long shadows. The palisade was overgrown by creepers, with the gate facing them an empty, yawning mouth. Further along, the protective wall was destroyed entirely, the logs having fallen to the outside. The roofs had holes in them, and the streets and gardens were wild with weeds and brush.
“Ghosts don’t exist.” Bordan snorted. “It’s just abandoned. We can have four walls and a roof tonight, and you want to sleep outside?”
“Three walls and a hole more like.” Leodin said with a raised eyebrow.
“You can’t be serious.” Bordan sighed. “Come on, Edwin, help me out here.”
“It’s definitely not haunted.” Edwin agreed. “But I’m starting to ask myself what else might have taken up residence. I think human homes might be just the right size for most direbeasts.”
That stopped Bordan short, but he quickly recovered. “Even if you’re right, we’d be safer going in and rooting it out now instead of having it visit us at night when we’re asleep.”
“Fine.” Leodin grumbled. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
The adventurers entered the village ready for a fight, which didn’t mean much in the case of the one-armed Edwin. He had Bordan’s shield strapped to his left arm, but without the use of his right he lacked offensive options. From up close, the wooden houses and deserted streets looked at least as spooky as from afar, if not more. Small animals fled as the humans passed by, each rustle in the grass causing them to whirl around. A lap around the inside of the wall took only ten minutes, but the stress made it seem like an hour.
--- ----- ---
“There’s nothing here.” Bordan said. They were standing where the central square used to be, only distinguishable from the back yards of the surrounding homes by the circular shape and its location in the center of town. “It’s getting too dark, let’s find a place to stay.”
They checked the main building first, as it was the largest and seemed fairly intact from the outside. Sadly, the floors had collapsed, almost dropping Bordan straight into the basement as he walked in, not noticing the gaping holes in the twilight. They decided on a small home instead, one of the few that had both an intact roof and working door. Leodin and Bordan slipped out to procure firewood, while Edwin and Salissa started preparing their meal. The thankful people of Gerron’s Vale had given them a large slice of direwolf, and they were looking forward to tasting their victory. They didn’t get very far, though, as neither Salissa nor Edwin turned out to be good at cooking.
Even after his father’s death, Walter had rarely prepared his own food, and once he’d transitioned to a Lich, eating had become something that happened to other people. Naturally, Edwin blamed his lack of ambidexterity instead of insufficient practice, but either way, the meal only started to come along once the other two returned. Direwolf meat turned out to be…alright. It was gamey and a little tough, but not bad. Edwin certainly couldn’t understand why people would pay a high price to eat it when cow or chicken were available. Maybe there were special ways to prepare it that Leodin and Bordan weren’t aware of. Or maybe rich people were stupid. Who could say?
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With a fire crackling in the fireplace, decent food in their bellies and the door and windows bolted shut, all talk of ghosts was quickly forgotten. The shutters were of decent quality, and a careful search of the entire house had revealed no holes, so Bordan agreed that posting a guard was unnecessary. Satisfied, the adventurers went to sleep.
--- ----- ---
“I swear I heard something!” Leodin protested.
“Look.” Bordan said soothingly. “We were in a strange, abandoned village, it was dark, there’s nothing wrong with having a nightmare.”
It was morning, and they were already back on the road. The night had been uneventful, except for that one time when Leodin awoke with a scream, waking up the rest of the party. After much worry and confusion, a torch was finally lit that revealed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. They had gone back to bed after that, but Leodin had been defensive about it ever since they woke to break camp.
“Wasn’t a nightmare.” Leodin pouted.
Edwin was glad he was in the back, because his wide grin wouldn’t have made the situation any better if the young man had seen it. The day was much like the one before, a mostly blue sky broken by wisps of white cloud while the sun basked the world in its glory. For a while, the road was actually easier to follow than the day before, so noon came and passed quickly. Edwin was walking along, enjoying the slight breeze, when his sharp ears picked out an unfamiliar sound above them and his head snapped upwards. The road was running parallel to a brook, and they were passing under the overhanging branches of trees contesting for sunlight. Something had lain in wait on one of these branches and was now dropping down at them, the rasping sound of a body gliding off the bark the only warning Edwin got.
“Danger!” Edwin yelled, slamming his shield into Salissa’s back with force. The slim girl almost took to the air, tumbling off the path and into the stream. At the same time as she fell into the water with a splash, a heavy body impacted the ground where she’d just walked. Edwin’s eyes widened as they met the slitted ones of a massive snake. Before he could react, the creature flitted towards him, almost too fast to see. Edwin reflexively raised his borrowed shield to ward off the attacker, but the snake wasn’t aiming for his body. Its head shot past Edwin, then looped around him several times in a single second. He didn’t even have time to think of a course of action before his entire body was covered in coils as wide as a man’s torso. Suddenly, he couldn’t move anymore, and then the snake began to constrict around him.
Edwin heard his companions yell, but then the giant snake covered him from head to toe. The loop around his feet shrunk and Edwin fell over. Then he started to feel impacts through the snake’s body as the other adventurers came to his aid. Curiously, Edwin didn’t feel fear. He was well aware that even a regular snake of this type had incredible power, and if he wasn’t entirely wrong, the specimen currently trying to prepare him for supper was a direbeast. It was probably strong enough to turn a regular human into soup in record time, and while Edwin’s bones were nigh indestructible, there were plenty of other parts that made up his body that weren’t. As his face was being pressed into the rough skin of the snake, he decided that he could ponder the situation later and tested his range of movement. As expected, it wasn’t great. The only saving grace was that he still carried Bordan’s metal shield, as it prevented the snake from neatly wrapping him up. As a first measure, and to buy himself some time, Edwin decided to fight back the only way he could easily do: He flexed his muscles.
During his short but eventful life, Edwin had realized a few strange things about his body. All of them could be attributed to the fact that he was, for all intents and purposes, a prototype, and while Walter was most definitely a genius without peer and the Immortalizer probably the greatest magical wonder of the world (at least in Edwin’s humble opinion), it was actually very, very tricky to mess around with a human body the way Walter had. The things were fiendishly complex and changing one thing might have unwanted consequences somewhere else entirely. Being of superior intellect, Walter had run several hundred body creation trials before ever even thinking of inhabiting one himself, and each of them had given him yet more insight. He’d had limited time and patience, however, and many of the issues coming to light now he simply hadn’t tested for.
Probably the most curious aspect of Edwin’s meaty vessel was that his strength didn’t seem to have an upper limit. The few times when he’d tried to go as fast or hit as hard as he physically could, he’d always found yet more reserves to go even faster or harder. Most limiting to his speed, for example, was how much attention he had to pay to moving his legs and setting his feet once he reached a certain velocity. While that definitely hadn’t been intended, Edwin had a fairly good idea how it worked by now.
Edwin’s powerful muscles bulged as they obeyed his will. Even as strong as he was, the snake probably barely even noticed him fighting its constriction. Edwin smiled grimly. This was the first opportunity he had to really test his limits. He continued, straining against the hold, his muscles swelling even further. Still, nothing happened. Suddenly, a warmth started to spread throughout his body. Next, his right arm started to tingle where his magic was hard at work repairing the damage. Like most unwanted sensations, his body usually suppressed that feeling. He felt it only for a few seconds until it stopped as all of the mana in his body was being rerouted to his muscles. The heat grew, becoming first uncomfortable, then painful, and suddenly the thick coils started to loosen ever so slowly. Edwin almost laughed out loud, digging his shoulders and elbows into the direbeast’s body. Bordan’s metal shield slowly stopped cutting into his torso, and Edwin became aware of the dagger he still wore at his belt. The sling around his right arm had torn, and he managed to lower his right hand enough to pull it out. He barely felt the cut he inflicted on himself before turning the dagger in his hand and ramming it into the monster holding him. Edwin felt like he was burning inside a forge’s fire at this point, the heat almost unbearable, but his strength had risen in the same measure. His dagger slid through the snake’s leathery skin with the slightest hint of resistance, and this time, Edwin couldn’t help but laugh. He scored a long cut along the snake’s body and was changing direction as he reached the limit of his mobility when his strength suddenly started to falter. His vision became blurry and his thoughts sluggish, and just when he thought he was going to pass out, the pressure on his body lessened. He was trying to piece together what was happening, when the coil covering his face was pulled off and he looked into Bordan’s sweaty and worried face.
“Hey.” Edwin greeted him with a mad grin, steam rising from his fire-red skin. “What took you so long?”