It took until lunchtime for the settlement’s eerie situation to come to light.

Atteberry had a look of puzzlement on his dark-skinned face as he brought a few scraps of wood to their eating area, an outdoor table with a small awning for shade. He set them down in an odd heap, grabbing his portion of the meal while tossing glances at the wood.

“What’s wrong, Berry?” Of course, Juniper picked up on the man’s steady discomfort. “Do you hate fish?”

The jester was a reliable troublemaker, poking at tender spots with a cheerful grin, but she knew where to draw the line. After all, jester who went too far generally ended up dead.

“No, it’s—” The carpenter hesitated to even bring the topic up, sure someone would laugh at his silly presumption. He shook the uneasy feeling out of his mind, asking bluntly instead of dancing around the topic.

“Who left me the doodle request for an anvil and other tools?”

No one replied; the only sounds were utensils hitting serving bowls.

“It’s okay, really,” the carpenter tried again, scratching his dark sideburns in vague discomfort. “We will need an anvil eventually. I already made the hammer handle per the last request.”

Again, no responses.

Yianna glanced around the table, finally settling her eyes on Atteberry. She waved her hand, golden bangles jingling. “Would you care to explain?”

The carpenter sighed, this entire experience making him feel very unhinged. “A few days ago, someone left me a scrap of wood with this sketch of a hammer on it, arrow pointing to the handle. It was next to a big piece of vetta wood.”

Atteberry halfheartedly pointed at Nanazin, who chose the wrong moment to put food in her mouth. “I thought it was you, ‘cause you were processing vetta root the next day, but I couldn’t ever figure out why you wanted a handle.”

He shrugged. “Wasn’t really a problem though. I did it in my downtime. A draw knife and a rasp, didn’t take that long. The handle disappeared off my table, I just assumed one of you picked it up.”

Atteberry didn’t mention his other thoughts – that it had to be for something really stupid or really horny for any of them to outright ignore the request’s existence and not say anything to the carpenter directly.

“Then, today, I found these.”

He picked up each of the wooden scraps in turn, naming the crude charcoal drawings on them. “Anvil. Crucible. Ladle. Felt odd, as I don’t think any of you or your incoming adventurers have mentioned blacksmithing.”

Yianna tilted her head at the man, her tiny bell earrings tinkling in the silence. “You found drawings of blacksmithing equipment?”

“This one has farrier supplies on it, if it makes it more confusing.” Atteberry held up a cookie, a thin, round slice from a log. “A horseshoe drawn so I knew what it was for, then the thing they use for pinching off bits and a rasp.”

“That’s… strange.” Nanazin had recovered from the sudden moment of attention, blocking the view of her mouth with a hand. “And no one did this?”

They all looked around the table with a murmur, each counting the occupants of the settlement. With everyone accounted for, and still no confession, the carpenter passed the drawings over to Yianna.

“There are legends of helper spirits in Fyrmann and Myelford,” Juniper began with a grin, hands poised over her bowl of fish stew as if it was a campfire at night. “They ask for materials, and when provided, they make repairs on your house but be warned! If you ignore these kindly spirits, they may set your house ablaze.”

Atteberry rolled his eyes. “That’s ‘cause of the swamp gas, not some spirit. It’s easier to explain your house being set on fire overnight through a spirit than accepting you built over a gas-hole and forgot to put out the cooking coals at the wrong hour.”

“Then you explain!” The jester retorted, leaning against her gloved hands in a guise of innocence.

“I don’t know! I really thought it was one of you.”

Rakhi spoke quietly, looking toward the goatherd. “Varys, you don’t want to try blacksmithing, do you?”

The teenager looked confused and shook hir head.

“It’s okay if you do. Everyone needs to try new things.”

“I didn’t do it,” Varys answered quietly.

“Well, who did?” Atteberry retorted, not exactly frustrated at the teenager but at the idea of a mystery occupant of the settlement.

Samir was oddly quiet, usually an active participant in any conversation. He was looking over a knife on the table, eyeing the blade.

“Who left the fish for me this morning?”

Any retaliatory debate stopped as eyes turned to the cook.

“One of you got up early and left fish for me to make for lunch. Enough trout for everyone.”

“Atteberry?” Azhar questioned, looking at the carpenter. “You were up shortly after us, weren’t you?”

“Just ‘cause I’m from Fyrmann doesn’t mean I fish. But, no, it wasn’t me.”

The expressions around the table began to look nervous, so Yianna cleared her throat and began managing her staff. “Has anything else odd happened?”

Samir spoke again, running a hand through his dark curls. “Someone repaired my cleaver. It was unusable when I went to sleep, then entirely repaired the next day.”

“There was the spider creature,” Atteberry reminded the group. It was Samir’s sighting, but they’d gossiped about it for a few days as a collective.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“The horses were noisy last night,” Varys added in, not looking up from hir bowl. “I checked on them before I went back to bed, but nothing was wrong.”

“Yet, the request for farrier’s tools this morning,” Yianna surmised. “Anything else?”

Rahki made a small noise, tapping her fingers on the table. “Well, the goats won’t go near the road anymore. They used to wander on that side of the lake when I was busy with the horses, but now they won’t pass the stumps.”

“They spotted something?”

“Must be the spooky spider again.”

“Don’t joke, you know I can’t stand the idea of a giant spider.”

“They do exist in Brigavalé.”

“That’s why no one goes to Brigavalé.”

“Enough,” Yianna said, rubbing at her temple. “All of this is to say that we have an intruder in our camp, who is providing helpful repairs and feeding us.”

Juniper broke the silence. “I mean, as long as they stay helpful! I’m fine with it.” She had the benefit of strength; there wasn’t much to fear when she wielded a warhammer with a pick end.

“Nah, we can’t let random people roam around at night,” Atteberry argued, shaking his head at the jester. “That’s common sense.”

“Should we set up a guard?”

“I can summon Korumak, but it won’t be happy to have a full night’s work.”

Yianna let the group talk themselves out of options as she watched the lake’s surface, contemplating the correct decision. The chatter eventually fell silent, returning to the clink of utensils and quiet eating as everyone sat in discomfort, waiting for the guildmaster to chime in.

“Nanazin, Juniper, if you can confirm our deliveries for the next week, I will change my schedule to nights and observe. In lieu of an answer, it may be an interesting idea to fulfill the requests.”

A murmur of confusion rolled through the group. Not outright disapproval, but a lack of full understanding.

“Why, Lady Yianna?” Samir asked politely.

The guildmaster was a vaguely intimidating person, but most people wrote off her intense aura because of her beauty and demeanor. However, the sharpness of her gaze was felt by Samir as she looked at him slowly, like he was a rabbit caught in a wolf’s sight.

“Have you ever met a silent blacksmith before?” Yianna asked with a sly grin. “If there is a hidden spirit or strange intruder, providing it with an anvil is exactly the way to find it.”

The others nodded in agreement, admitting that this was the perfect bait to learn what was going on.

Or, at minimum, to get access to an entirely new set of repairs and products from the ghost.

🎃 🎃 🎃

Over the next week, the mysterious helper continued to be a blessing – or burden – to the small community.

The horses were noisy every night, huffing and generally discontent by something in their stalls. The goatheard had yet to see what bothered them, but ze caught a glimpse of a piece of cloth disappearing into the treeline.

A large rock meandered its way out of the field to the shoreline. It was big enough to need help to move, but small enough that it didn’t require hitching to a vulleig. There were track marks on the ground, denoting the rocking path from the back of the settlement to the lake.

Whoever moved it didn’t have enough strength to pick it up outright – most people wouldn’t – but the guild folks had to admit that it made a good place to sit and snack while looking over the water.

Yianna remained vague about her night duties, promising to give a report once the next shipment arrived – carrying the anvil among other necessary guild goods.

She didn’t simply sit outside in a chair with a mug of tea, watching for a nightly intruder to tiptoe through the settlement. Her ways were more subtle. Afterall, she was the guildmaster and skilled mage – an illusionist. She had many tricks up her sleeves.

Yet, Yianna did not need to camouflage herself with magic.

She had a rare subclass, one that only thirteen entities in Aestrux possessed as it was highly regulated by the system.

A dragonshaper.

In the safety of her tent, the illusion shuddered away. A normal human guise slipped off to reveal the dragon’s “people” form – still person-shaped, but distinctly inhuman due to branching horns and a smattering of scales, the broad spread of which showed her age. This intermediary form was short-lived.

She bent over, rapidly condensing into a larger mass, a four-legged reptile known as a drake. It retained the emerald green associated with Nyrinus the Verdant; however, the drake form was far, far more stealthy and quick than her natural dragon appearance.

Yianna – now Nyrinus, as the system changed her name and title depending on form – was careful not to snag her claws on the nice rug as she ducked out of the tent.

Drakes were not small. Her shoulders were easily the height of a standard man, which allowed her head to drift up near the tent-roof. She moved quickly and stealthily, grateful that of all the dragonshapers, all her forms were more catlike and agile.

The dragon Faythe in the south of Kovatelli shared a catlike tendency, but her features danced uncomfortably close to human in some areas. It suited her; Faythe enjoyed riddles and interrogating interlopers. She was not stealthy as much as she was painfully scary, charisma peaked sheerly due to how much her appearance coerced people into compliance.

Further south, the Serpent Ediss fit its namesake, though the dragonshaper had succumbed to madness long ago, leaving only a dragon behind. There was nothing Nyrinus could do about the Serpent, other than wistfully think of her old friend when the subject of different dragon shapes arose.

That was not the point of tonight.

The drake wove its way into the darkness, sharp eyes and high awareness watching the settlement from a safe distance.

While she could certainly attest that the intruder was indeed the spider creature, that did not explain what the being was. Her eyesight was good, but not good enough to determine features from this far of a distance. Only the low glow of the creature’s face gave her any spark of recognition.

When the anvil and tools arrived, the guild left them near the carpenter’s table for the night, since that was the primary point of contact.

Nyrinus watched as the many-limbed thing contained the tools within its mass but struggled to move the anvil alone. It was accomplished like the large stone – a rocking motion and progress inch by inch.

The anvil shifted over multiple days, much to the guild’s surprise. It wandered by the stumps on the first day, then a short distance down the road, then disappeared entirely, vanishing into the forest.

The guildmaster knew where it was, as she watched the strange being struggle relentlessly to move the anvil.

Yianna was met with queries once the anvil went missing, as she promised answers but had yet to provide. It was difficult to give the guild members what they needed rather than what they wanted, the former of which was security and comfort.

The smith, as Yianna began to call it, was not dangerous. It had a multitude of chances to enter tents and cause chaos, yet it spent days simply moving an anvil around the lake.

The strange intrusions of kindness continued even still. A rabbit or two on the cook’s workstation. A funny-looking mineral for the jester, who immediately proclaimed it to be a pebble pecker and put it with her trinkets.

Yianna had to actively prevent the carpenter and the goatherd from investigating the repetitive clanging that echoed across the lake at night. It wasn’t loud enough to wake anyone, but if someone stepped out for nighttime business, then the sound became obvious.

It was a sore subject at the next few meals.

Atteberry felt threatened by the unknown; Varys, Nanazin, and Samir were left curious at the strange helper.

Azhar and Rahki only really chimed in once they noticed the beasts were slowly being tended to, their hooves cleaned and trimmed overnight. As the presumed eldest of the settlement, they had the most measured of responses. A midnight farrier was a benefit, and if they could leave out something as a thanks, they would.

The bowls of milk or small pieces of food were left untouched, however.

When the carpenter found a pile of freshly made nails on his workstation after complaining about needing more the day prior, the metaphorical dam broke. He refused to continue working until they learned exactly who the strange smith was, as Atteberry was feeling stalked and observed constantly.

The others agreed. Even though the smith was helpful, now the smallest sounds at night had more than a few of them waking up with great concern and mild fear.

Yianna sighed and agreed that tonight they could all go investigate, if they wanted, but it would be as a group and on Yianna’s terms.

Unfortunately, the saltsmith was far into the mountainside when this agreement took place, unaware that they would receive visitors tonight.