The hard packed road stretched in a quarter mile in each direction before disappearing to a bend. Trees hugged each side, with thick overhanging branches creating a tunnel of foliage that had a pleasant aesthetic quality. It made Raith wish he was skilled enough to capture the scene in a painting.
“I didn’t really expect him to leave,” Thea said, not trying to hide her disappointment as Silas rounded the curve to the east and the remaining team lost sight of him.
Raith had known. He’d by far spent the most time with their [Ranger] over countless hours of training and idle chatter during the last several weeks. Silas had showed him in a hundred little ways that, although he wasn’t holding any grudges, he couldn’t stay on with this team after what happened. And while Raith may have known it was coming, it still hurt.
Of course, not everyone shared this sentiment.
“I don’t understand why you’re all so sad. We barely knew the man.”
Tolliver took another bite of some sort of steak sandwich he’d pulled out while everyone else nibbled on Raith’s loaf-rations. The [Mage] looked up to find everyone staring at him in irritation.
“What? I certainly understand the utility of a man with his skillset, but isn’t that the very reason Raith’s been learning…”
Thea held up a hand.
“Just stop talking.”
Tolliver harrumphed and tucked back into his sandwich, apparently unconcerned with trying to understand the motivations of his inferiors. Raith put away the rest of his meal and took a long drink of water before addressing the group.
“Alright, let’s make sure everyone’s on the same page. Since we are already over on this side of the river, the plan is to head west and find this hideout to clear for my [Quest]. I have been very transparent that this is a Thieves Guild [Quest]. If anyone is uncomfortable with anything we’re doing at any point, we all bail on the [Quest]. Does that sound reasonable?”
After a round of nods, he continued.
“Once we’ve finished with the safehouse, we’ll push further south into the wildlands for Thea’s druid [Quest], then return to this road and head east for Old Valen. Any questions or concerns?”
Nyhm raised his hand.
“You don’t have to raise your hand. What’s the matter with you?”
He flushed and quickly put it down.
“Sorry. What are we expecting to encounter in this safehouse?”
“The only description I got was a ‘demonic creature as dark as the blackest night’. A pair of thieves from Old Valen went there on the run several months ago. They found the corpse of the last visitor and were attacked by some shadow-beast. The pair were unable to slay the thing but managed to escape.”
Thea frowned.
“This creature sounds to be a bit much for our team, don’t you think?”
“It’s possible. We’ll just have to take it slow and do a good recon before charging in. Like I said before, if you tell me we need to ditch this [Quest] then we’ll just move on to yours.”
She nodded, satisfied with the answer.
“It won’t hurt to go take a look.”
The team nearly became hopelessly lost trying to just find the safehouse, until Raith re-read the directions. On the first read through, he’d missed that not only were the tree-engraved glyphs obscured in thieves’ cant (which he read perfectly well with [Decipher Script]), but were coded for you to do the opposite of every third instruction.
By the time they finally found the small log cabin, it was late in the evening and the sun fell below the horizon.
Crouching behind a bush a fair ways distant, they observed the lonely structure for any signs of life. It was too dark inside to see anything from their vantage, but nothing passed in front of the single, broken window. There wasn’t a flicker of movement or sound, and Raith was beginning to suspect they’d just have to go inside.
“I’m not sure I want to go in there in the dark,” Thea said nervously.
Raith sometimes forgot that most people didn’t share his nightvision [Skill].
“Understandable. But I don’t really want to camp nearby if there’s some monster lurking in there, either.”
Tolliver spoke up.
“As a bat, I can see with sound and do not require light. If you would like, I can do a quick reconnaissance.”
Everyone turned to the [Mage] with raised eyebrows.
“What do you mean you can see with sound?”
The pale man’s nose went up into the air in response.
“It is the primary reason I selected this form, of course. Bats can identify the world around them without the aid of light by using sound and echoes.”
Raith had just assumed bats could see in the dark like a cat or something. That was one of the craziest things he’d ever heard, but he was just going to have to take the noble’s word for it.
“That is really weird, but alright. Go check it out.”
He was probably the only one who could track the bat’s movement in the quickly diminishing light and winced when he saw the [Mage] dart in through the broken window after flying several circuits around the outside. It was a risky maneuver to go in there alone. Raith breathed a sigh of relief when the bat flew out a few moments later and returned to their side.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“The structure is comprised of a single room and is completely empty. A corpse lies upon the bed and there are signs of struggle throughout the rest of the cabin.”
“No signs of a monster?”
Tolliver shook his head firmly.
“Unless it is exceedingly small, there is nowhere for anything to hide.”
As Raith considered their next move, Thea spoke up.
“If this dread beast isn’t in there, that means it’s probably out here.”
The implication sent a chill up his spine. They all looked nervously into the surrounding woods.
“Yeah, let get in there and try to fortify it as best we can for the night.”
The inside was exactly as Tolliver had described. A simple affair, with a wooden table and four chairs in the center of the room that had been overturned. One of the chairs was broken. A stove sat on bricks in one corner, to be used for cooking and heating in the winter. Next to it was a stack of wood, and an axe leaned against the wall nearby. Several shelves with basic pots and utensils lined the wall beneath the broken window, and on the opposite wall was a small bed.
Strangely, whatever turmoil had taken place in here had left the corpse on the bed completely untouched. Raith thanked the Weavers that the remains had been here long enough they didn’t stink. It lay there on its back, clothes draped loosely around the emaciated remains as though they’d passed away in their sleep.
Nyhm righted the table, and Tolliver fetched a glowstone lantern from his pouch and place it at the center. The door was thick, sturdy oak and undamaged. It had a heavy iron bar that Raith swung down to secure it when it closed.
At least the thieves take their security seriously.
“Thea, can you set a vinewall across that broken window?”
She shook her head.
“Not one that will last the whole night.”
Damn.
He cast around the room and saw a wooden toolbox on the bottom shelf beneath the pots and pans. Inside was a handsaw, a hammer and a tin of nails.
“Let’s cannibalize these shelves and board up the window. That’ll keep the light from attracting any unwanted attention, too.”
The team got to work and accomplished the task in short order. They then tidied the room, sweeping up the glass, broken ceramic plates and splinters of wood to make the place habitable for the night. When it was done, Raith looked around the room, still feeling like they were forgetting something.
“We didn’t get a [Quest] reward,” Nyhm finally pointed out.
Yep, that was it.
“Maybe someone already completed it?” Thea offered.
“And left everything in the state we found it? With a corpse lying there? I’d be surprised.”
At the mention of the corpse, all eyes turned to the bed. Tolliver’s lip curled and gestured towards it with a brushing motion.
“I don’t care to share my sleeping quarters with that.”
For once, Raith was inclined to agree with the noble. He moved closer to inspect the remains. Whoever it had been was small. Bigger than a halfling, but smaller than a human. Maybe a dwarf or gnome. The complete lack of facial hair led him to conclude it was probably a gnome.
The thought brought to mind Vandamir, and an unexpected melancholy struck him as he missed his old friend and mentor. Shaking it off, he grabbed the backpack that sat next to the bed and set it on the table. Inside was typical traveling gear with a few thief centric additions. He held up a box of smoke bombs.
“Does anyone else want these?”
Nobody did, so he stashed them in his bandoleer pocket with the others.
“There’s a bedroll and travel gear in there. I vote we let Thea have it since she lost hers.”
Nyhm hardily agreed and Tolliver assured there was nothing he wanted in that disgusting bag. Raith didn’t mention that it was much higher quality than the stuff he and Nyhm had, plus two bottles of wine, but the [Mage] probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. Thea took it and gave a grateful nod.
They all turned back to the corpse.
“We should bury him,” Nyhm finally said.
Thea immediately agreed, but no one made a move towards it. Tolliver cocked his head to the side and leaned forward with curiosity.
“Judging from their unmarred appearance, some of those items are likely magical.”
Sure enough, now that he was looking for it, several items stood out from the rest. The cloak was the most obvious, a placid, purplish-black that suggested the depths of a night sky. One of the leather pouches also looked promising, completely unblemished in contrast to the one next to it, showing quite a bit of wear and tear.
It was harder to tell with the three rings and the amulet. It was entirely possible they were just jewelry, and they wouldn’t know without inspecting them closer.
Still, no one moved.
“So should we just loot the corpse?” Thea asked uncertainly.
Tolliver let out a disgusted noise from the back of his throat.
“I had no idea commoners were so squeamish. Very well. I shall initiate the process, but I then demand first pick of the items.”
No one objected, and the pale noble stepped forward with an hesitance that belied his bold words. He slowly reached for the most prominent item: an ornate silver amulet with a red gemstone in the center of the gnome’s chest.
The moment before his hand touched the object, a shadowy clawed hand rose from the amulet and swiped at the [Mage]. He let out an awkwardly high-pitched scream and stumbled backwards, falling and changing to a bat before he hit the ground.
The shadow seeped back down, then seemed to pool out from beneath the corpse. As they watched, frozen in horror, it began coalescing into a small demonic form. Tolliver flew in frantic circles around the small cabin, sending covert messages to each member of the team in turn.
“Open the door, you fools. Flee!”
The creature was a little under a foot tall and seemed to be composed of flames made of pure shadow. Each arm ended in smaller versions of the claw that had swiped at Tolliver. Its head was shaped like a candle flame with eyes and fanged mouth only a lighter shade of that impenetrable darkness. Wisps of the blackest smoke rose off of its body as it silently raised its claws and leapt from the bed.
[Exigent Offense] sent Raith’s dart hurtling towards the creature as he rolled to the side in the tight quarters. He watched the weapon go right through the shadow-beast as though it wasn’t there, just as it swiped its claws at Nyhm, who happened to be closest.
The elfling dodged the swipe and returned one of his own, the glowing dark blue aura of claws surrounding each hand. This attack, too, passed right through the beast.
“I can’t hurt it,” Nyhm shouted in alarm, but didn’t let up on the attacks.
Thea closed in to join him while Raith desperately tried to find a way to launch a strike in the narrow quarters without endangering his teammates.
A [Shield Bash] blew right through the creature, scattering it like smoke in the wind. Thea’s momentum didn’t slow, and carried her into the bed, which splintered with a resounding crack and spilled the body to the floor.
Raith saw the thing reassembling itself and tried to spin his dart into the smoke before it could finish. Instead, the weapon collided with the still madly circling bat, who wouldn’t stop messaging everyone to open the door. With a chirp of pain, the bat was launched into the wall with a thunk and fell to the floor.
Shit. Tolliver, you idiot.
He needed to check on the [Mage] but the creature was almost finished coalescing. This time, the thing was much, much bigger than it had been before. Nearly as tall as Nyhm. Oddly, the darkness of its body seemed to become more transparent in proportion to the size, as though the shadow was being stretched thin.
Raith, Thea and Nyhm launched almost simultaneous attacks that again passed harmlessly through, but the shadow was intent on Thea at this point. She winced as an onslaught of claws strikes came at her, raising her shield for one and managing to [Deft Block] the next, but there were too many, too fast.
She cried out as the claws tore through her, but the cry trailed off and Raith saw her shield dip down. The shadow continued its savage assault, and Raith sent another attack hurtling fruitlessly into the form before he noticed Thea had lowered her shield completely to her side and was just standing there with a confused expression.
“Thea!”
She looked back at him with a puzzled smile.
“It doesn’t hurt.” She held up her arm where a claw had just passed through. “See. Nothing.”
They turned back to look at the shadowflame, who had paused its relentless attack. It shrunk back down to its original size, growing correspondingly darker.
The shadowflame scurried over to the fallen body, clutched its little hands to its chest then stepped up and gave the corpse a hug. The creature then whirled around and spread both arms out wide in an unmistakably protective gesture and shook its head no.
Raith finally lowered his weapon and smiled in wonder.
“It’s a daemon.”
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