James watched with anticipation as the man known as Gryff did a small curtsy to Nora, his unsettling blue eyes trained on the councilwoman.
‘Who are these people?’ James asked Faust, unsure if he should leave or stay in the longhouse.
‘Lumen Knights,’ the spirit answered with what James could assume was malice.
‘What kind of business do they have here?’ James asked, but didn’t receive an answer.
“What… What are you doing here?” Nora asked in a shaky voice, her attitude a complete 180 compared to earlier. She was obviously terrified, her hands shaking as she slowly backed off.
“Nosy, aren’t you?” Gryff’s smile didn’t falter in the least. He stood up straight, his hands moving to clasp behind his back.
“Well, I’ll cut to the chase of the matter. Nearly two weeks ago, my superiors had detected a strange anomaly throughout the ley lines of Valenfrost.” Gryff strolled around the longhouse, examining the building as he spoke.
“They thought little of it until the next day, when it happened again. This time it was much… much more powerful.” Gryff knocked over a cup, the sound of it hitting the ground surprising Nora, causing her to jump a little. “It tore through the magical ley lines like a gash, specifically throughout the southern edge. According to them… The place of origin was here.” Gryff gestured around him as if addressing the entire town.
‘No…’
Gryff was gesturing to the entire island.
The man’s words almost made James turn pale. The dates perfectly aligned with when he was summoned to Valenfrost and when Dahlia performed the ritual to bring him back to life.
‘What the fuck is happening? Did I cause this?’
James wondered to the spirit, who stayed silent as James did his best to blend into the wall behind him.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Nora answered back, genuinely confused. She had every right to be, as she did not know about James’ true origins or his near-death experience.
“Are you sure?” Gryff asked, stepping closer to the councilwoman. “It seems like something has happened to your town recently. Can you at least tell us if you saw something strange?” Gryff was closing the distance between him and Nora, the councilwoman stepping back slowly as he approached closer.
“I… well…” The councilwoman was stalling, her fear clearly apparent as she tried to create distance. James knew she had no idea about what had happened to Yorktown, nothing beyond the fact that marauders attacked and a strange creature had shown up.
James remembered the abomination. Besides its appearance, the creature was all kinds of strange. It had somehow linked to James’ mind during the first minutes of the raid, clashing with him and Faust. The pain was not unlike the night James was revived. Its voice had changed throughout the fight, going from a curious creature to one begging for death, showing that there was more than one mind in play. Its eye was also burning with a blue glow, something that Dahlia had mentioned was like James’ own eyes back when he was revived and when he had fought the wolves.
In a way, the thing was more similar to James and Faust. The only difference was that James and Faust had a truce the night they fused, while the creature had seemed at odds with itself. James involuntarily shivered. Would he have turned out the same if he and Faust never made peace? He hoped he would never find the answer.
James turned to the ‘ambassadors,’ watching as Gryff came closer to the councilwoman. James gritted his teeth, stepping up as he swallowed his fear.
“Hey!” He called out. The man stopped, turning to look at James as if he had just noticed the young man. James realized everyone was looking at him, including the enormous man known as Hugo. James focused his view on Gryff, whose cold blue eyes locked onto his.
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“I... I have information you might want,” James explained, clenching his fist.
“Oh?” Gryff asked, stepping over to the young man. “What would that be?”
----------------------------------------
Gryff stood with the man known as James, who gestured towards the marked grave. A wooden post was planted over the dirt, labeling it as a burial spot.
“This is where we buried the creature that attacked Yorktown,” James explained. “We burned its corpse and buried the ashes here.”
Gryff nodded, scratching at his stubble as he looked over at his men. He gestured for one of the green-tunics to come here.
“Start digging,” he ordered, gesturing at the grave and nearby shovel. The man grimaced but didn’t object as he and another moved to the grave.
“Tell me more about it,” Gryff asked James. This young man had told him earlier about the thing that showed up approximately two days after the mysterious anomaly. He told him about how it killed a few of the people here before James himself finally killed it. Gryff wasn’t sure at first if James was telling the truth, but held his suspicions until he had all the facts.
“The creature was… weird. It had these crystals all over it; most of its skin was unnaturally black and purple, like it had frostbite. Its eye was glowing strangely, like it was magical or something,” James explained. Gryff raised an eyebrow at that. He looked over at the grave as his men dug it up.
“Anything else?” He asked. The cryomancer couldn’t tell how, but he felt as if James was hiding more information than he let on.
“The thing talked,” James answered after a couple of seconds of silence. “Its voice changed too, as if it changed into a completely different state of mind…”
Gryff blinked, his eyes looking back at James, whose face was grim and serious. Before he could ask more questions, one man called out to him,
“Sir! We found the ashes.”
Gryff walked up to the grave, looking down at the freshly dug hole. Sure enough, there was a bundle of cloth, opened by the men. Ashes and charred bone were visible, evidence that James wasn’t lying about its existence. Gryff knelt down, spotting something within the ashes. His fingers poked through the black soot and crushed bones before finally grasping the object of interest. Gryff held up the dirtied, thumb-sized crystal, which resonated with the faint presence of magic.
‘Interesting. According to James, this creature should’ve been dead for a week straight. Yet its remains still hold some residue of magic. What the hel are we dealing with?’
The cryomancer stood up again, reaching for his belt’s pouches, before taking out a glass vial. He dropped the crystal into the vial before closing it up. This was more troubling to Gryff than he had initially thought.
‘That old Wizard was right to send us here. Who knows if it could spread.’
The thought of the potential damage suddenly brought up another question.
Gryff turned back to James. “What happened to the bodies of the creature’s victims?” He asked, pocketing the vial. James looked hesitant, as if he didn’t want to say. Gryff took a step towards the man. “They had crystallized, hadn’t they?” He asked, throwing out an educated guess. Gryff had heard of this type of magic before, a form of the cursed possession that spirits used on living mortals. Still, from what Gryff could remember from the archives, they had never brought side effects like the ones James was describing. Crystallization, frostbite, possession after death? This was something else more, something stranger. Gryff didn’t wait for an answer as he gestured for Hugo to come with him.
Both knights walked to the nearby treeline, away from James and the others.
“What is the matter?” Hugo asked in his deep voice, his tone bordering on curiosity.
“This is all… strange. Too strange,” Gryff answered, rubbing his chin in thought. He had never read up on anything like this, which excited the cryomancer’s curiosity. Gryff pulled out the parchment from the high Wizard who had sent them here, pointing at it. “According to the old man, the gash has affected three other islands, which means we might be dealing with more than one outbreak.”
They could divide the crew into two groups to explore other islands, but it would require leaving Yorktown early and burning it to the ground. They only had a month to report to the high council, so time was the essence. Gryff couldn't care less about the lives here. His priority was finding the source of the gash and its cause.
‘We can find the source but it’ll take days of investigating this island to find the opening which caused it.’
There simply wasn’t enough time to research the island and investigate the others. Unless…
Gryff had an inkling of an idea, his eyes turning to the young man by the grave. Out of all the people here, James was one of the few who had actually had experience with this creature and disease. Technically, he was the only expert here. Gryff thought a little more about his course of action, knowing that it was stupid and possibly dangerous.
‘It could save us a lot of time…’
Gryff to his fellow knight.
“I might have an idea,” he said, a hint of a grin on his lips.
Hugo sighed. “I hate it when you say that.”