Maddison maneuvered through the quiet village, watching the lamp lights slowly come to life without a single torch lighter in sight. The village was definitely faced with some unholy hijinks, be it magic or an illusive entertainer pulling the strings.

He scrunched his nose up in disgust.

It had to be magic.

The villagers had gained an inappropriate calm after viewing the fresh set of corpses. One guard had been bettered and burnt, and the other snapped backwards with a trickle of blood escaping their blue lips, and yet there wasn't a single mutter of panic. The villagers looked around for a demon for three seconds, then turned back to their tasks like everything was perfectly fine.

Maddison jumped around a villager with a sharp gasp of surprise before the absent-eyed farmer managed to get a word out. He still didn't know the script, so sticking to short conversations with Cindy and Tarson was his only hope in getting to Maynard. After the incident with the guards, he definitely didn't want to risk being suspected of serving the dark lord.

As he rounded a corner to Tarson's house he caught a glimpse of the small boy he'd seen during the day, sat in small patch of grass with a little bonfire holding his tranced gaze. Maddison shook the shivers from his spine, shoving the town map in the small bun-filled sack Cindy had forced him to leave with by dropping a coin purse in it. He rapped his knuckles across the door, the thick wood shaking from the impact.

A muffled voice came through on the other end, laced with irritation. "There is no answer! Tarson appears to be sleeping! I should come back in the morning to talk to him!"

Maddison leaned in on the door with the sharpest whisper he could muster, glancing around as he spoke to make sure no one else could hear him. "Tarson. It's me, Maddison." He waited a couple seconds, moving to speak again when he didn't hear anything. "Tarso-"

The door cracked open, flashing the blacksmith's hardened gaze as he scrunched his brow to squint at Maddison, slowly pushing his head out to glance at the boy. "Come in." He pulled the door open just enough for a tight squeeze, his amber eyes digging into Maddison with a harsh whisper. "Quickly!"

Maddison squeezed inside, looking around the dimly lit house as Tarson snapped down every lock on his door and double checked the curtains to make sure they were drawn. "Gods have mercy I thought you gave yourself away! You were gone for ages!"

"Just an hour." Maddison replied plainly, dropping his load on the table as a set of light footsteps thumped down the stairs. A woman popped her head around the corner with a curious glint to her eyes.

Maddison recognized the young woman, her wild blond curls were no longer hidden in her helmet, and she was fitted into a set of ragged pyjamas. It was just a matter of which one she was. He pointed at her with an inquisitive smile. "Girlfriend?"

She clicked her tongue, shaking her head as she joined Tarson's side. "Sister." She grinned at Tarson's cross scowl as he diligently stitched the straps of a pauldron he'd adjusted. "His sweetheart is in a grave." She mocked, Tarson growling in frustration and waving away Maddison's surprise. "I'm kidding. She has herself a house with Sajus and his brother, the boys lost their mother a couple years back."

"Sorry to hear that," Maddison replied.

Tarson nodded in agreement. "She's got the worst punishment, putting up with that empty-eyed psychopath and his wailing banshee of a brother." He bit at the length of string twisted around his finger, snapping the course thread and sealing it with a tight knot. "Almost through with the adjustments."

Tarson's sister hovered over his shoulder to stare at the piece as he turned it around in his hands, shooting Maddison a wicked grin. "Ever killed a sorcerer?"

"Not alone." He slipped his hands into the sack of buns, sifting around for the small coin purse. "Why?"

She kicked out a chair, motioning for Maddison to sit as she dropped down across from him. "I want you to know what you're getting into. This place certainly isn't under natural influences. You can probably tell that by now."

Maddison smiled. "Magic doesn't mean a damn thing if you don't see your death before it hits you."

She leaned over the table, stretching her hand out to shake Maddison's with a mischievous smirk. "Name's Endris Grey, I'll give you all the help I can provide." She motioned to the frayed stack of papers tucked under a tanning knife behind Tarson. "I helped write those scripts, meaning I'm one of the few people the village won't attack for going off by a couple words... sometimes even a scene."

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"You helped?" Maddison gave her an apprehensive stare, working the gears in his head as she kept an innocent look. "Who helped you?"

"Cindy, Rimbolt, and Farrian. The latters lost their wits." She perked up as a clanging rattle sounded off from another room, shooting out of her seat to address the strange cry. "Maynard forced us to, had us base it off a skatty plotline." Her voice became thick and muffled from the wall in the way. "My point is, I have a morning to mid afternoon shift tomorrow at the front gate. I can help you out with that garlganox or whatever it's called."

She came back into view, carefully clutching the handle of a steaming pot in one hand, and in the other a folded up animal pelt. After using the scraped up pelt as a hot pad she left the pot in the middle of the table, rushing out of the room again to return with three bowls.

Tarson stared at the pot of stew with a waning appetite, frowning at his sister. "Weren't those two guards at the front gate?"

She nodded, not even batting an eye at the thought of the two horribly mutilated guards. "Unlike them, I've got enough wits to run inside. I'll be fine."

"Just... be careful, okay?"

"Me and Maddison will come back with a garlganox corpse before stardown." The comfort in her gaze leaked through Tarson as he relaxed a little. "I promise."

He drifted his worried gaze to Maddison, holding the link for a couple pressing moments of silence. "Make sure she comes back. Okay?"

"I will if you don’t jinx it again," Maddison retorted, looking down at the wooden table and tapping it twice. "I'm going to scout the creature before I attack it. If the thing's too big I'll send her back to get better equipment."

Tarson lightly laughed at his statement, watching Endris scoop stew into the three bowls and disperse the loot. "Not sure what the garlganox is, but if it's really a cave dwelling serpent the best equipment I've got is a crossbow, and those things take forever to load up."

Maddison stared at the sack of berry filled buns, pulling one out and squeezing it between his palms to try and tear it in half. It's golden skin cracked, and eventually it exploded into a few tough chunks. He held one of the pieces of shrapnel out to Tarson. "Bread?"

He waved his hand in protest. "Bread makes me sick as a griffin, I make a habit of staying away from it as much as possible now."

Maddison frowned, holding the bun out to Endris as she shook her head. "Only a monster puts berries in freshly baked bread. Enjoy your loot Mr. Maddison." She smiled, her gaze landing on a faint white handprint of flour on his shoulder. "I do hope Cindy didn't try to offer additional prizes for handing in your quest, she can be somewhat of a tease."

He chuckled dryly, dipping the bread in the stew to try and soak it into a softer texture. "My wife was a doctor, even she knew how to make a half decent loaf. It'd disrespect her memory to replace her with a woman like that." He caught Endris' squinting glare that she quickly hid with a neutral frown. "What?"

"Hmm?" She kept her gaze on the stew, cold enough to freeze it. After blowing the steam off a spoonful her gaze quickly flicked to Maddison, inspecting him as he bit the bun and grimaced at its sour tang. "You should eat before it gets cold."

Maddison reluctantly went for another spoonful. "A doctor that doesn't know what's making the villagers insane." He caught a curious look from Tarson. "Does she have magic?"

"No." Tarson and Endris replied, looking between one another to try and decide who would finish the story.

"We settled here last year." Tarson finally spoke. "A flock of Wyrms that were driven out of the Westlock region settled on the last town we were in, and they don't make good neighbours. We got out before they drafted the Heroguard, so what we know is secondhand. There was a strange sickness that went through the town before we came here, it left large boils on the skin and killed most through fever. Cindy tried to save as many as she could, but they lost a lot. She left the village after the incident to train herself better in medicines, and by the time she came back." He motioned to the drawn curtains. "Well, the village told her she was a baker and Maynard had her making scripts with my sister."

Maddison hummed in thought. The only remotely magical thing he had seen from Cindy was the stamp she used on his quest. Similar to the guards at the doors. Her reason to leave and come back was believable enough.

And there certainly wasn't any magic he could see in her cooking.

He eyed Endris, looking her over for any small trinkets that might be poking through her clothes. She caught his stare, rolling up her sleeves and basically doing his job for him as she flashed her bare arms and empty palms. He cleared his throat awkwardly, dropping his gaze back to the stew. "So is everyone that shirked the curse from out of town?"

"Timber isn't" Endris mumbled, earning an exhausted sigh from Tarson.

"Not this stupid kid again, you talk about him every night."

"He didn't come inside again." Endris hushed, digging a glare into Tarson as he held his scowl. "They're not her kids but she's still worried."

"Let him eat snails, whose idea was it to make my girlfriend watch those dumb kids?"

Endris steeled her tone, giving her brother a look as if he should know better by now. "Cindy didn't want them to starve to death in Maynard's house."

"Have you seen Sajus' cheeks? I can guarantee you he's not eating the fresh food I stuff my bin with. Fat load of use her idea was."

Endris moved under the table, her foot impacting Tarson's shin as he gritted his teeth.

Maddison continued his meal as the siblings bickered in the background over appropriate custody. The sickness sounded like a normal plague, but had precluded a strange curse. Someone may have struck a deal to stop the illness, and now the entity they had enrolled had returned for its payment. But it was a strange form of payment if that was the case. What could the cursed villagers be feeding it? Entertainment?

He thought back on the statue. It was another detail that failed to add up. The wrought metal cages were a familiar enough design, they were not from demonic roots.

They were used for executing witches.