Chapter 114

The apprentice’s face was pale beneath her unwashed and uncombed hair, eyes heavy with dark rings from many sleepless nights.

Not that Baera was surprised at all by that considering what had happened. The apprentice had always been a nervous sort, one who jumped and flinched at the slightest thing, like a gazelle tip-toeing by a den of monsters. To nearly be eaten one had truly terrified her.

It was a minor miracle the apprentice was alive at all, having fled into the dark from the anomaly like a headless chicken. Baera had fully expected the girl to have fallen into the clutches of some monster or other and died.

But defying probability she had stumbled across her alive, albeit near out of her mind with fear, chattering and huddling and shaking like a leaf in the dark. The young apprentice had clutched to her master like a life-raft as she had left the dungeon to prepare the expedition back in.

In retrospect it might have been better to have left her outside, first because the apprentice might actually have been able to sleep at least a little ... but more importantly because she could tell her what the actual fuck happened to the town of Lynthia while she was in the dungeon.

Baera scowled as she surveyed the field of shattered buildings, streets filled with rubble, cobble splitting chasms. In sum: utter ruination.

Beside her a number of the local levelers who had also just returned from the dungeon were standing and staring in clear despair, or fallen to their knees and openly weeping, truly a pathetic sight.

The town had apparently folded like a wet paper bag, its sturdy walls made worthless, its people ... not there?

Well, she wasn’t quite certain of that, but it was true that as they had picked their way about the edge of town there had been no sign of bodies or blood or survivors.

“I sense that you might be in a rather deep amount of shit miss Inquisitor, if you don’t mind me saying.”

Baera’s scowl deepened and she glanced at the Centaur to her side.

“Having the town I was assigned devastated from wall to wall is hardly a result I could have planned for.”

“Mmmhm. Any ideas?”

“Exceptionally destructive Orcs perhaps. But the fact that the town is deserted and bloodless is not in keeping with an Orc attack, or any other species of leveler for that matter.”

“You did tell me this new monster thing can eat a shocking amount?”

Baera hesitated. “That did appear to be the case from what I saw, but ... I have yet to see a sign of struggle here, no discarded weaponry or broken armour, or even any blood, and from what I know of this wolf monster it is a messy eater.”

Drassi tapped her furred chin with a claw.

“Best hope it’s not the cause then for your sake, trapping yourself in the local dungeon and allowing the monster you sought to do this? Good luck avoiding your bosses wrath on that one.”

Baera tried to think of a counterargument to what the Centaur said, but found she could not. The fact was that she had fucked up. Acting in feverish anger she had closed off the dungeon and put her all into hunting down and killing the monster that had taken her arm.

They had found ... nothing ... nothing apart from a number of the levelers she had brought dying to various monsters, a dozen to Panthara alone. It seemed the anomaly had simply left the dungeon before she had closed it off.

It was a humiliation.

One that made her heart thump with fury.

Ignoring the Centaur and apprentice she strode forward, small stones and bits of rubble crushed to dust beneath her steel clad boots.

Moving through Lynthia did not improve its appearance. It was remarkable in how uniform the devastation was, as though an earthquake had struck it.

She eyed the sheared stone of a nearby building, a flat line in the masonry as though it had been cut by an enormous sword.

The town seemed as if it had been struck by an earthquake ... but also something else.

As she neared the square that had housed the town’s bell tower she heard the scuffle and clop of feet behind her, the others catching up.

It didn’t matter. She was no closer to understand-...

She paused as her eyes caught something red amongst the stone. She approached cautiously, wary of a trap, but there was nothing, only the jagged stump of the bell tower’s base.

And blood, a lot of blood.

Something had died here, and messily, the ground and wall were plastered with dried red, seeped between the stones and leaving long lines down the wall.

Her eyes drifted up above the huge red mark and alighted on scratches on the wall. Words. Or at least they had been. Whatever had deigned to make them had scratched them out leaving whatever it had said unreadable.

It wasn’t hard to see that something had happened here. The one death of the entire town?

More interesting was that it matched what she knew of the wolf like anomaly, masses of blood, and no body.

“Uh-uhm, d-does this m-mean what I think it means,” whispered Jilli beside her, voice barely audible, “Th-that h-horrible thing is outside the dungeon?”

Judging by the way the girl was swaying like a tree in the breeze Baera suspected she might faint on the spot if she agreed.

“We know nothing for sure as of yet.” She turned to the Centaur. “Would you see about gathering supplies with Jilli here?”

The Centaur rolled her eyes dramatically. “You know I was expecting something a little more exciting than babysitting your apprentice.”

“I do not doubt that will be the case. In the meantime, you will do as I ask.”

Drassi grumbled but seemed to reluctantly agree.

She turned her head to the side and glanced back at the black cloaked figure riding her back.

“You heard her, get to it.”

The blank wooden mask turned to look at her, a moment of incomprehension. Then, as if processing what she was saying, the figure slung its leg over the side and dropped to the ground, ragged black clothing fluttering around it.

Jilli eyed the thing warily, unsure of it. The figure stiffly turned and stared directly at her, making the girl clearly uncomfortable.

“Uhm h-hi?”

The figure continued to stare.

“Oh stop fucking with the poor girl and follow me, I’m sure I saw a warehouse more or less intact on the way in,” said Drassi, stepping by them.

Baera gazed at the enormous bloodstain as the clop of hooves moved away behind, the near silent steps of the black cloaked figure, and then the lighter feet of Jilli following.

She waited until she could no longer hear their footsteps and then she stepped around the side of the shattered bell tower, emerging into a rubble strewn alley.

“I know you are watching me. Come out.”

At first, nothing happened, but then, from behind a corner, a red dog stepped.

It stood and looked at her, silent.

Baera set her lips in a line. Then she turned and stalked away.

The dog trotted after her.

The inquisitor picked her way from street to street, navigating the ruin of a town, a spot of red fur occasionally seen following in her wake.

She soon found what she was looking for, the building that housed her office as the town’s Inquisitor, or what remained of it. Where once there had been a roof to the building now there was none.

She approached the door and put her hand on the handle. It didn’t open. She snarled and applied her strength, the door groaned, and then with the sound of a small mound of rubble moving, she forced it wide.

The inside was as empty as the rest of the town, abandoned. She eyed the tables. Plates of food, half eaten and starting to mould, drinks unfinished, a thick layer of masonry dust covering the leavings. It was clear that those who had been eating here had left in a hurry.

It was all very strange, none of the scenarios she brought to mind fit and it bothered her. Something new then? Or maybe more than one thing happened here?

She couldn’t say and she worried the problem as she clumped up the stairs to her office, or what remained of it, which wasn’t much. The hall was clogged with shattered stone and wood which she kicked aside as she entered her now roofless place of work. It appeared it had rained at some point and the papers she had left neatly arranged on her desk were soggy, the inks run to unreadability.