The rest of the night wound down with no commotions. The ship sent out to hunt Leon returned within an hour, unsuccessful. Roth and the crew stayed in for most of the evening, sitting around the round wooden table with small chunks of charcoal clutched in their ashen fingers.
In the center of the table, there was a small pile of jerky stacked on top of four overturned wooden bowls that previously held meat broth. No one reached for the meaty bits, though, instead focusing on the diagram in front of them.
“Right behind the wood furnace will work best. We won’t need as much piping that way, and we can save some money.”
Roth frowned as he looked at the dark charcoal marks left on the table by Holl, then used his own chunk to draw a small box a little ways down.
“On the side of the door will work better. It will require a bit more piping, but this will still work out.”
Holl and Cundy looked over it for a moment, then both shrugged.
“Let’s go with that, then.”
Roth glanced back down at the roughly drawn charcoal sketch of the cabin, then shook his head. He didn’t think it was unnatural for a cabin from this era to not have vents, but the layout didn’t really make sense to him.
The temperature would fall far, far below freezing during the winter, and the only room with any heating was the living area. The three bedrooms were all devoid of heat sources, not to mention the outhouse in the backyard.
The latter was manageable- they didn’t need to spend all that much time out there.
There was also a solution to the prior issue, but that solution came with its own problems.
What was likely the previous owner’s solution was to just leave the bedroom doors open. Heat would evenly disperse throughout the house, and everyone would sleep warm and comfy, even in the dead of winter.
For Roth, though, this wasn’t so appealing, leading him to prompt Holl and Cundy to install a few heating pipes to circulate warmth through the building.
“Tomorrow we will go see if we can get chimney pipes anywhere in town. Those should work well enough for the time being.”
Even Holl, who loved saving money more than the next man, was ready and willing to invest in heating pipes, and he’d even agreed with Roth’s plan to build a washing room add-on.
With their plans laid out, each of the men headed to their respective rooms for the night, leaving the doors open in the temporary absence of heating pipes.
I’ll forgo looking over my map, just in case either of them comes over… though there isn’t really much to do with it, anyway. It hasn’t really changed since-
KKHHHAACCCK!! ZZzzzzhhhhhh….
What sounded like a pissed-off bear’s growl echoed through the house, interrupting Roth’s train of thought. A similar noise had been present the previous few days, but the slightly warmer temperatures outside hadn’t prevented Roth from closing his door before.
As I was thinking, aside from noticing a small red spot just outside where the First Light ship is stored, I haven’t seen anything dif-
KHHAAA-... HAAAAACCKK!!! Zzzzhh…
Christ, Cundy. You couldn’t at least wait for us to fall asleep first? Hell, even with the doors closed, it would still barely be enough for me to fall aslee-
KHAA- BANG! Bang bang!
The sound of Cundy’s loud snoring was cut off mid-beat as a gunshot echoed through the town. Roth immediately shot up in bed, then leaped out of bed and snatched his knife out of his belt. He could tell that the gunshots were definitely coming from outside, but they didn’t sound far.
Shit, I need to ask Holl to buy me a gun, too. I’m just going to get caught in the crossfire with this knife!
“Kid, Cundy, stay in the house. I’ll check out what’s going on out there.”
Both Roth and Cundy exited their rooms at the same time as Holl, and the captain headed for the door, a coat already over his shoulders and a few packages of ammo slotted in his belt.
“You want to go out alone?”
Holl paused for a moment at Cundy’s words, but still nodded.
“It’s probably just something minor. If it’s not, I’ll come back right away.”
Holl put his hand on the door, his revolver ready in his other one. Before opening the door, he paused and reached his hand under his coat, grabbing onto another pistol-shaped object.
“Kid, take this flare. It’s not as good as a gun, but it should be plenty enough to startle an enemy long enough for you to run.”
Holl’s gaze seemed to linger on Roth a bit longer than usual as he tossed the flare gun over. The young man caught it, and when he looked up, Holl was already stepping through the doorway and into the darkness of the night.
“Let’s watch from the windows. If it looks like he’s in danger, I might be able to shoot out and help him.”
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-
Outside, Holl dove into the darkness of the night, dashing away from the entrance of the house. The gunshots sounded like they had come from the first area close to the shore of the sea, so Holl slowly made his way in that direction.
He moved at a steady pace, his feet steadily finding places on the ground lacking small sticks or fall leaves and allowing him to move silently.
Holl’s eyes strained to peer through the darkness with some success. A small mark underneath the shoulder of his coat glimmered invisibly as he stealthily moved through the woods, and his vision seemed to improve slightly.
“There was someone here! A thief!”
A shout from near the lakeside echoed through the trees, reaching Holl’s ears as he crept closer. Through the forest, he could see a small cluster of lights up ahead.
At least three different shadows flitted around in the dim lantern light, the long stocks of firearms clutched in their hands.
“Grab the chest, we need to get it-”
Bang!
Another gunshot rang through the frosty nighttime air, followed by the clinking noise of the bullet impacting a metal surface. The townsfolk jumped in fright, realizing that they were the ones being fired upon.
No more gunshots followed the first, and Holl could hear someone faintly cursing up and to the left, where the gunshot had come from.
Up in the clearing by the shore, the townsfolk were in a panic, but they managed to regroup and grab onto the chest, hefting it up and charging toward the docks.
Behind the fleeing townsfolk, Holl could faintly see a bit of cloth poking out from beneath one of the low-lying bushes.
Just as he was about to creep deeper into the woods to investigate who the culprit of the gunshot was, a heavy weight clasped down onto his shoulder.
The captain immediately twisted away, raising his pistol up to the unknown attacker.
“Quiet! They’re going to escape!”
Holl stopped short of putting a bullet into the ‘attacker’ as he recognized the man’s figure. It was the skinny hunter, Enric.
“You are one of the investigators, right? That other fellow is useless, help me out!”
A second figure lumbered out of the woods behind Enric, its hands moving deftly as it reloaded a rifled musket. Holl was able to immediately identify the figure.
“The townsfolk haven’t done anything that warrants killing them.”
Tolus’s face soured when he recognized Holl’s face, and he cursed unintelligibly beneath his breath.
“Working with an investigator, really? Anyone working for the official Yanks-”
“Shut up and get a move on. You’ve already wasted our best chance. If the other townsfolk make it here before we can snatch the mist, it’s as good as gone.”
Enric charged after the fleeing townsfolk, his figure blending into the thick shadows. Every few steps, he seemed to skip forward a couple of meters. Tolus wasn’t much slower, his feet somehow making no noise even as the large man full-on sprinted through the forest carpet of fallen leaves and rotting branches.
-
-
Meanwhile, near the center of the small town. Many doors opened, their owners stepping out into the night. Every townsfolk was armed- many with firearms of varying conditions, and for the few who didn’t have those, they carried simple blades.
An invisible aura seemed to hang over them as they turned toward the docks in an eerie manner.
Hidden between two buildings, a gray dog’s head scanned over the street-going people before focusing on a target.
Jean Farsue.
The baker’s expression matched the same blank ones present on every other townsfolk's face as he hefted his weapon and turned toward the docks. The dog slowly crept out of its hiding position as it followed the baker down the road, its eyes not leaving its target.
Still, there was nothing out of the ordinary.
Aside from his weapon being the same type of rifled musket used by the two Regarded hunters, there was nothing that could set him apart from the other townsmen. Amongst the crowd was another man with one of these same weapons- one of the men who’d been out on the boat with Jean earlier.
The dog noticed nothing amiss, and eventually disappeared from the streets.
-
-
On the western side of the docks, where Enric had nearly caught up to the fleeing townsfolk. Just as he was drawing his musket, a flicker of gray caught the corner of his eye.
Partially hidden behind a cluster of brush, and not having noticed the shadow-walking hunter, a wolf-like white-ish gray dog watched the fleeing townsfolk.
“This fucking traitor wants to steal our loot again?”
Enric’s gun, which had been aimed at the head of one of the fleeing townsmen, rapidly turned. It refocused on the dog, who noticed the hunter just a moment too late.
Bang!
A spark of light lit up the night for the briefest moment as Enric’s gun barked, and a small grin appeared on his face.
“You bastard, you aren’t stealing ou-”
Bang!
Just as Enric was withdrawing a dagger from his belt to continue pursuing the fleeing townsfolk, another gunshot ripped through the night. A few dozen meters away, just ahead of the fleeing townsfolk, the old dockkeeper had a flintlock leveled at the hunter.
A trail of pain ripped through Enric’s side as he rolled to the ground, but the Regarded didn’t stay down. The hunter was back on his feet in an instant, but he no longer tried to continue chasing. Instead, he sprinted back toward the forest, his hand clutching at the left side of his abdomen.
“Fucking Hendricks, if not for this mutt, I would’ve had them!”
Once he was safely back under the cover of the forest, Enric spoke again.
“Tolus, what the hell was taking you so long, and where did that investigator go?”
The hulking hunter snorted as he glanced back into the woods behind himself.
“You know that I’m only at Half. As for the ‘investigator’... he might just be a random sailor dropped off here. That fellow is the captain of his crew, and he’s just at Base.”
“Are you sure?”
Tolus nodded again, and Enric rubbed his chin briefly before wincing and putting his hand back against the wound on his side.
“I shall recover in no significant time, and then, the mist will be as good as ours.”
-
-
In the forest where the chase began. After realizing that he couldn’t keep up with the two hunters, Holl gave up on following them and instead returned to investigate the original scene.
After confirming that there didn’t seem to be anyone around, the captain made his way over to the cloth bags discarded beneath one of the bushes. The tops of the bags were tightly tied shut with rope, but Holl’s knife made quick work of them.
When he revealed the items within, his heart made a small leap, and a strange ravenous feeling started creeping into his stomach.
Jars.
There were four small jars filled with mist within the bags. The jars looked to be the exact same as the ones he’d seen held by the townsfolk when they were moving them before.
Automatically, almost instinctively, Holl’s hands reached for the caps of the jars.