Late at night, Roy was sound asleep, and he had a dream about his meeting with the hook-nosed, bald man who called himself Master Mirror. This happened after he’d defeated the griffin, higher vampire, and the Unseen Elder. Then his dream was broken by a panicked knock on the door.
“Moore, Susie! This is urgent! I need you to open the door right now!” someone called out to the couple outside. Roy struggled to get up, cold sweat drenching his back. He saw his parents standing at the door with a candle holder in hand. Before them stood the muscular butcher, but he looked terrified, and his voice was quavering.
When a gust of the night’s breeze brushed across Roy’s face, he finally shook the sleepiness away.
What happened? Why does the butcher who cusses all day look so terrified? Roy had the answer before long.
“Did something happen to Brandon, Uncle Fletcher?”
Roy wore his thin hemp pajamas and went up to his parents. The cold candle light shone on Fletcher’s face. His eyes were bloodshot, his lips dry. There was worry in his eyes, and he looked haggard, like a cat on hot bricks.
“That damn brat…” Fletcher’s head hung low, the torch he held trembling as his hand and beard shivered. “He’s missing. Brandon didn’t come home tonight.”
“Did you search for him in Brady’s house? Could he be having a sleepover at his friend’s place?”
Roy took a deep breath and calmed himself down. “And Ol’ Captain’s Inn too. He’d go there once in a while.”
“No.” Fletcher shook his head. “I searched everywhere. Asked everyone, but nobody saw him since the afternoon. The brat’s cheeky, but he’s never stayed out this late into the night.”
“Calm down, Uncle Fletcher. Think closely. He might have gone somewhere else. We’ll help you find him.”
“No, you stay here and sleep.” Moore clasped his shoulder. “Susie and I will help.”
“Dad, did you forget what I’ve been doing for the past four weeks? I’ve seen more blood in a month than most people have seen their whole lives. I’m not scared.” Roy gave his parents a calm and reassuring look. “I won’t get into trouble. Trust me.” He held their hands.
Moore and Susie looked at each other and sighed, then they nodded.
They could see their son’s change over the month. It became more and more pronounced with each passing day. He was no longer his old, weak, timid self. Roy was an opinionated boy, and once he had decided something, they wouldn’t be able to stop him. They weren’t strict parents. After Roy had convinced them to let him join, they exited the yard.
Fletcher held his hand. “Thank you, child.”
Roy felt his grip and nodded. Fletcher had been taking good care of him over the month, so he wouldn’t sit out when Brandon was missing.
That snotty brat’s everything to Fletcher. He’d be devastated if he lost him. Roy knew the pain of bereavement, and he wouldn’t wish it on Fletcher.
***
Every villager lit up their house after hearing about Brandon’s disappearance. Fletcher was still on the search, followed by One-Eyed Jack, Seeger, Thompson, and three other male villagers. They were all holding torches, and some of them had a sword hanging from their waist, while the others were holding hoes and pitchforks, ready for the search.
“Is this all? So the chief isn’t getting everyone into this?” Roy was slightly disappointed.
One-Eyed Jack touched his beard and sighed. “The older they get, the more death scares them. The chief said it’s dangerous in the wild at night, and he’d only send a search party in the morning. Ain’t easy getting these folks to join the search. We’d best hurry up, or Brandon would probably stink as much as Skellige’s dead fish if we tarry until dawn.”
“Can you be quiet, boss?” Seeger then looked at Fletcher calmly and tried to console him. “Brandon’s probably lost outside. He’s a smart child. Melitele will protect him.”
Everyone knew what a kid in a remote village surrounded by the wilds would become if they went missing. Dead. But nobody would mention it.
An eerie chill crept up on Roy, and he recalled how harsh he was toward Brandon that morning. Fletcher even asked him to take care of the child, but he forgot about it after leveling up. If something happens to Brandon, part of the responsibility lies with me.
“Dammit. I have to find him.”
“Right. We’ll split into two teams to cover more ground. Let’s go in different directions, but don’t go too far. Come back as soon as possible if you fail to find him,” Thompson said. He then took Roy, Seeger, One-Eyed Jack, and Fletcher into his team, while Susie, Moore, and the other villagers were in the other team.
“Don’t worry about me, Dad, Susie. Mr. Seeger’s here, so I’m perfectly safe. You guys, be careful.”
The couple nodded. They could see their son was in a team that was better equipped.
The team walked in a straight line into the darkness with nothing but torches to light their surroundings. Seeger led the group, while Fletcher followed him. Roy trailed behind the butcher, and Jack stood behind Roy. Thompson took the rear.
Untold dangers lurked in the night. The wilds in Lower Posada were infested with rabid dogs, wolf packs, and gruesome creatures who would kill them if given half the chance.
***
Aedirn’s autumn night had always been chilly. The temperature was nearly zero degree Celsius, and Roy was shivering in the cold, his breath turning into mist.
The moon was full that night, its silvery light bathing the wilds, but it provided no security. Strange sounds crept out from the depths of the wilds. They sounded like bugs, but also something else. Something horrifying.
The golden ear of the wheat swayed along as the night breeze whispered its secrets among them, and they danced under the moonlight. The flowers of common hops filled the air with a faint bitter scent, but none came to taste it.
The party started their search in the fields around Kaer, and they kept calling out for Brandon. Even with the help of torches and the moonlight, their vision was severely restricted. Most of them could only see ten feet away.
Roy wasn’t most people. Much to his surprise, he realized that his vision wasn’t restricted at all. He could see things clearly even if they were thirty feet away, just like how he would in daytime.
He knew he could do this because of the sight improvement from his Perception. Yep. I made the right investment.
After one hour into the search, Brandon was still nowhere to be seen. Roy’s search party had searched through every field in Kaer, to no avail. Worry and tension started to brew among them. They knew the chances of Brandon’s survival would get slimmer the longer they tarried.
Jack was observing his members along the way, and then he suddenly stopped. “We can’t find him like this. Fletcher, think carefully. Where else could that kid go?”
Fletcher hunkered down and held his head in agony. “The damn brat keeps saying he wants to go to a big city and be a bard, but he never even left Kaer a day in his life. The most he did was fish in the river near the village, but he never went farther than that. I haven’t fulfilled my promise to him and my wife. I have to send him to Vengerberg and Oxenfurt.”
Roy sighed silently after hearing that. A short while later, something struck him. Roy recalled he said something he shouldn’t to Brandon. Show it to your mother… “Uncle Fletcher, I’ve never heard anything about Brandon’s late mother.”
Fletcher still looked despondent. “Anna’s been dead for three years because of her whooping cough. She’s buried in…” Fletcher paused. “The cemetery!” He shot up, looking galvanized. “Anna’s buried in the cemetery! It’s in the east of the village. Could the brat be there? It’s possible!”
“What are we waiting for then? To the cemetery!”
The cemetery where the dead villagers rested was about three miles east of the village. There was a dirt path covered by sticks and grass between the village and the cemetery. It was the dead of night, but the search party dashed across the path, torches held up high above their heads.
Roy was trailing behind the men, huffing and puffing. Sweat started glistening on his forehead not long after. He was slightly weaker than an average adult, but he couldn’t ask a father who was worried about his son to slow down. All he could do was grit his teeth and follow the team.
Jack was equally out of breath. He was getting on in age, and he had copious amounts of alcohol every day. Because of that, he was physically weaker than most people.
After running a mile, Roy sensed something coming their way, and alarm bells rang in his head inexplicably. “Everybody look out!” he roared.
The moment he said that, everyone noticed dots of eerie green light flashing in the darkness in the overgrown shrubs around them, moving quickly as they did so. They looked like eyes, but they gleamed differently. To be more exact, they crackled like pairs of ghost fire that threatened to burn them whole. Something shuffled within the bushes, and a deep growl followed shortly, revealing a menacing wolf pack before them. It was blocking their way to the cemetery.
