Re: Vira Ikidane (xgkf) GMed by thetwo
A sip of the wine was enough to confirm that there was more then just grapes in the glass. From the taste and the burn of alcohol, it had been considerably fortified with some sort of apple brandy. To one with Vira's experience a single glass wouldn't hurt, but any more and she would really start to feel it. Rachel, meanwhile, had already finished half a glass, and the innkeeper had helpfully refilled it already. The innkeeper was somewhat more wisely barely sipping hers.
"I suppose this all started more than a year ago," she said, "that was when the first woman vanished."
"We didn't think too much of it at the time. Girls run away from home from time to time, and Alyssa was 21, old enough that she didn't need anyone's permission to leave. But she didn't talk to anyone, or leave a note, or write a letter from wherever she went to, and her mother was worried. Well, the council didn't think there was much to be done, but after she'd been gone a couple of days they organized a search. Nothing. By then everyone was sure something bad had happened to her, but what is there to do? The jungle isn't exactly a safe place, and these things happen from time to time. We moved on."
"More then a month passed, and we got word from another village that a girl had gone missing. She was only barely 18, so we joined in the search right away. Nothing. But we told the others about Alyssa, and now we were on high alert." The innkeeper took another sip of her drink, and filled Rachel's glass again before she continued. "But a few weeks without seeing anything unusual, and people got complacent. Another village sent a message saying a young mother had vanished without a word, leaving her children behind, and the very next week my own sister, Jasmine, disappeared."
"Well, as you can imagine we were quite worried by that time, but we still had no clue as to what was going on. Just that women were vanishing, 4 in a few months. We thought perhaps that some of the twisted plants or animals had changed their habits, but our hunts turned up nothing. In fact, we noticed that there were fewer of the foul things around then usual, if anything. Not exactly a cause for alarm, you understand."
"The disappearances slowed, then. Maybe it was just luck, or maybe our watches and patrols were helping. They never stopped entirely, but we combined reports from villages for fifty miles around and between us all the disappearances had changed from more then one a week to less then one a month once patrols started up. For a few months."
The innkeeper paused then, filling Rachel's drink again. The girl was already looking tipsy, but she didn't seem to mind. "Then about two months ago an adventurer showed up. He looked suitably impressive in gleaming armor and with a magic sword. He claimed that he'd heard about our troubles and wanted to help. Well, we had lost three young women from our village by that point, so we promised him gold if he found the cause and more if he stopped it."
"Two days later he came back, looking much less impressive. His armor was damaged beyond wearing, his sword was notched, and he himself was badly injured, but all the same he'd succeeded where all of our own had failed. He came back with a piece of strange black material, and an improbable tale."
"He claimed that he had cast spells over an article of my sister's clothing, and followed a magical trail to a particular cave not a mile from this village. And there the trail had ended. The cave isn't more then fifty yards deep, a place young people sometimes go when they need private time. But the man wasn't done. He cast more spells, and eventually realized that one particular boulder was strange. It resisted close inspection, somehow, and then resisted being moved. But eventually he did move it, and found an entrance to a much larger system of caves. He hadn't been more then a hundred yards when he was attacked. The first thing the attackers did was take out his torch, but all the same he managed to fight his way back to the entrance before it could be closed."
"In the smaller cave he faced a single beast, which was shaped like an enormous beetle, entirely black but somehow giving off light. He bested it, damaging its carapace enough to retrieve a chunk of strange black material. It retreated, pulling the boulder back into place, and the young man had been badly enough injured that he had to remove his armor to make his way back to the town to tell his tale. We paid him the agreed upon price for finding out the cause, healed him, and got his armor and weapons repaired. Then he went forth to try again, this time taking two men from the village with him, the best warriors we had. That was more then a month ago, and we haven't heard or seen any of them since."
Rachel didn't seem surprised so far. But then, she did seem drunk, and wordlessly gestured for the woman to fill her cup, which was now empty. The innkeeper did so with only a slight frown. She herself had only emptied half her glass, and never refilled it. "And that was only the start. Still interested?"
