Weekdawn, 21st of Octavius, 11th year of the Stringless Era

  Wilse was a truly small village. At the heart of the community stood no more than twenty houses. There was ample space between them, filled up with private and communal gardens used to raise a variety of fruits and vegetables. Besides living spaces, there were also the typical three buildings that belonged to the village as a whole. A large clay building, resembling a beige elephant, served as the gathering for the local chapter of the Cult. An expensive structure made of imported stone no doubt held the food stores of the village, a precaution against any fires, diseases or storms that ruined a harvest. Lastly, there was a wooden house that could be recognized as the gathering spot of the local council.

  If this place was anything like Oras’ old home, said council barely ever came together. The heads of the families of the village would only gather if there was something the community actually needed to tackle. In all other cases, each household would deal with their own problems first, then call upon their family friends. Only in the third of four layers of problem solving, would anyone call for a meeting.

  The jungle had been thinned around the heart of the village. Small fields had been situated between ancient fruit trees. The combination of both was more than enough to sustain the community. Hunger was very rare in this part of the world. When he had first read that other nations in the world had to fear famine regularly, Oras had been startled by the idea. Apparently, there were corners of the world where the seasons changed drastically over the months, where rain did not fall for long, and where heat or cold would kill the plants in the ground.

  Oras would never claim that Cursora was heaven. The jungle that provided them with plenty of game and edible plants did the same for a variety of monsters and savages. Still, he was happy to know that at least their bellies could be full reliably.

  Knowing the true extent of the local fields was difficult. Because their agriculture was in harmony with the fruit trees, many of the houses were covered by trunk and foliage. Estimating by the size of the village’s centre, Oras doubted there were more than 40 households out in the fields. Usually, each house had 1 man, 1 woman, and 3 children. In almost all cases, there were one or two successful men who managed to prove worthy of two wives, rarely three and almost never more. Statistically, this was balanced out by men too awkward or prideful to surrender their bachelor status and women too nagging or sick to be wife material.

  “So we can expect around 200 to 300 people here, in total,” Oras wrapped up his explanation.

  “Interesting,” Celia commented.

  “It ain’t interestin’, it’s math!” Theria groaned.

  “Hello there, young folk!” An old man shouted from his porch. He rose out of his rocking chair on wobbly legs. Once he actually stood on two feet and his cane, he was surprisingly swift in moving towards them. “You must be the adventurers we hired?”

  The party leader was quite happy to be able to talk to a local so quickly. “That’s correct. I am Oras, this is my wife Theria and this is Celia. Together we form the Dragonhoard party.”

  “A human and a Stringless, quite pious,” the old man remarked approvingly.

  “How did you know we were the adventurers?” Celia asked.

  “I know all the young people from the surrounding villages and none of them are a Dragonblood - and no one else would come here otherwise.” The old man tapped the floor twice with his staff. “I’m the village elder, not much I am good for these days besides sitting on my porch and spotting people.”

  Oras respectfully lowered his head. “Every village needs someone like you. It is a crucial detail.”

  “Hah… you could think of me like that.” The elder chuckled. He needed two small steps to adjust himself 90 degrees. “There’s a guest chamber in the council house, we’ve prepared it for your arrival. You can stay and eat for free… to say the less hospitable part aloud: that is, as long as we feel you are working on our problem.”

  “That’s tots fair,” Theria said.

  “We do not intend to stay for long,” Oras assured. “Optimally, we’ll have this mystery solved in a day or two.”

  “Optimally, I’d like you to take two days,” the elder joked. “You’ll catch the attention of the young’uns during mealtime. They’ll hang on your lips when you tell stories and we’d like to learn a few things about what happened in the capital in recent weeks.”

  “We will see if we find time.” Oras kept a straight face. He had nothing against entertaining children with what little stories he had to tell so far, but he also had nothing for it. They had places to be. “Any places where we should begin our investigation?”

  “Well, the priest can get you up to speed on everything we learned ourselves so far. I’d tell ya myself, but…” the elder tapped the side of his nearly bald head. “Memory ain’t so good anymore, outside of people. Beyond that, Poltan’s farm is where the Capys usually show up, so y’all will want to check there for clues.”

  “Thank you very much,” Oras said.

  The elder grinned, showing his missing teeth. “If ya need anythin’, I’ll be on my porch.” With that, he walked back to his rocking chair.

  The Dragonhoard party moved to the clay building. The entrance was an open gap with no door nor hinges to hang one. A silent statement that all were welcome to enter. A perpendicular corridor then gave access to the two segments of the house of faith. The eastern half held the home of the priest, the western half held the room for ceremonies.

  Oras led the way to the latter. The priest was, as could be expected at this hour, inside. He sat on a simple wooden chair at a simple wooden table. There were no decorations, no carpets or wall paintings. The only expensive thing around was the large shelf of scrolls and books, one of which the middle-aged man held in his hands.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  ‘It seems like the local chapter is one of the ascetic ones,’ Oras thought. The Cult was a decentralized organization, especially in Kumsyurt, and so various local versions of it followed their own paths in pursuit of enlightenment. “Hello, we are the Dragonhoard party. We came here to aid you with finding the source of the capybara migration.”

  “Ah, already?” the priest placed the book on the table, then stood up. “I did not expect y’all for another month. That was what the messenger that we sent to Kumse said was told to him by the clerk.”

  “The clerk is most likely correct.” Oras had to speak deliberately, careful not to fall back into his own countryside accent. “Either way, here we are. We were told that you know all that was gathered so far?”

  “Indeed.” The priest was already walking towards the shelf. He pulled out a scroll, then returned to the table with it. As he unfurled it, he waved them closer.

  It was a map of the local area, surprisingly detailed, and utilizing several colours to highlight different kinds of areas. Red lines showed the borders of the household properties, simple black sketches had been made of manmade landmarks and simple green ones of natural ones. In the bottom right corner of the parchment, the word ‘Year 434 of the Late Custodial Age’ had been struck through and replaced with ‘Year 1 of the Stringless Age’.

  “Is the map still accurate?” Celia asked. “Master requires the most accurate information.”

  “10 years is very little time out here,” the priest responded, then tapped on a farmstead on the northern edge of the map. “This here is the farm of the Riverman, owned by Poltan Riverman. They get their name from being the family that lives closest to the Wil.” The priest’s finger went further north, to where a blue line wound through the green jungle.

  “So that’s why the capybaras would come to his property the most,” Oras muttered.

  “Indeed, amphibious as they are.” The priest drew a large circle with his finger, all around the northern edge of the village. “The capybaras usually all come from the north. We had a few oddities, but nothing that is frequent enough to break that pattern.”

  “Is something wrong with the water?” Celia asked.

  “That was one of the first things we checked. Most of us couldn’t spot anything, but Poltan insists that some of the fish she has caught have been tasting odd. The Rivermans eat a lot of fish, so we’re taking their word for it.” The priest now gestured up the river. “Our current theory is that there’s someone dropping something into the water upstream that the capybaras do not appreciate. We did some small excursions, but we came up short.”

  Theria nodded. “So ya decided to get some adventurers to do it for ya, after all, who knows how long it’ll take and what we’ll find?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Have any of the Rivermans gotten sick from eating the fish?” Oras asked.

  “None, they are all in perfectly good health - as are the capybaras that munch on our crops.” The priest locked eyes with Oras. “We are not trying to get you into anything dangerous for a low pay, if you’re afraid of that.”

  “Concerned,” Oras put his feelings in a different word. “Cautious. We are not going to renegotiate anything with what you told us though. It is the job of us adventurers to investigate the uncertain. Any other details worth knowing?”

  “No, I think that is all I have for you,” the priest said with a sigh. “I hope our hunch is correct. If you find nothing, then perhaps you will need to investigate what is beyond the Wil.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Untapped land, simply. Rough, untamed, probably teeming with goblins and wolves.”

  “The usual then,” Theria joked.

  Oras considered their next move as they left the temple. “We’ll venture into the other side of the river,” he announced, once they were back under the open sky.

  “Alrighty,” Theria said.

  “...As you desire, Master.”

  Oras caught the hesitation in Celia’s tone. “You think differently?”

  “I think you are in charge,” the blonde responded.

  “If ya don’t say what ya think now, ya lose the right to go ‘I told ya so’ later,” Theria teased.

  Celia’s lips parted, then hung open for a moment. “I have no desire to utter such a phrase,” she finally stated, borderline emotionless. “It would be unbecoming of a servant.”

  They had to walk about two hours to get to the river Wil. It was partly owed to them not knowing the lay of the land and the lack of proper roads on that land. The only trodden paths that existed beyond the core of the village lead directly to the main houses of every farmstead, which wasn’t useful for them.

  Finding the river wasn’t that difficult after that. All they had to do was keep north. The Wil was no narrow rivulet that could be missed. Over five metres wide, the water flowed by them at a moderate speed. A small herd of capybaras was inside the water at that very moment. The brown-furred, large rodents did not seem to care about their presence at all.

  “They must be used to humans,” Oras theorized.

  Crossing the river proved a bit of a challenge. They could have swum across but the water was murky and their bags heavy. However small the chance was that a crocodile or other predator lurked in those waters, if they did roll snake eyes on that gamble, it would not be pretty.

  They spent some time finding a crossing point. Some locals had taken advantage of a set of rocks in the river to lodge a few trees into place. It was a floating bridge with a large gap in the middle, far from a proper construction - but it worked.

  The difference between the two shores of the Wil was clear in every way. On the south side, the river had been adjusted by generations of activity. Niches for fishermen to sit had been secured, the riverbank cleared of dead trees, reeds and other high grasses removed so wolves and such had little to no angles to sneak up on a playing child.

  On the north side, none of this was true. Ancient trees tilted towards the river, the sediment they had grown from gradually getting washed away. Tall grasses and other foliage competed for every bit of sunlight it could get. After making it to that shore, the first thing the party had to do was push their way through the green wall and up a hidden slope.

  “No wonder they hired people for this!” Theria shouted, after brushing a tic off her neck.

  Oras just grunted in agreement.

  They eventually emerged in the jungle proper. It was the kind of verdant hell that even daring children usually stayed out of. Dense trees and tall foliage trapped the humid air, making it difficult to breathe. Everything reeked of wet wood and mushroom spores. The idea of a pre-trodden path was a laughable one. At best, they could jump between the elevated roots of ancient trees.

  If anything hid a mystery, certainly it would be a woodland like this.

  “Theria, you stay in the middle. Celia, we’ll advance slowly. I want you to shout loudly if you feel threatened by anything.”

  “Affirmative,” the doll woman said.

  Oras checked his compass, making sure he knew what direction to walk if they got lost. After that, there was nothing to do but start walking and hope for the best.

  Oras wasn’t sure how much time they spent fighting their way through the undergrowth after that. Between the bad air and the sameness of the environment, the only real concept was between daytime and nighttime. It was still the former when they stumbled across the pool.

  One moment they were in combat with ferns, the next they stood at the edge of a vast stone basin. It was one solid surface of rock, a large body of crystal clear water gathered on top of it. The outer rim of the basin was high enough that no rainwater swept into it and there was not enough dirt within the confines of the basin for any plants to have grown. Consequently, the canopy was open above them, allowing the humid air to escape and circulate.

  “Can this be natural?” Celia asked.

  Oras tried to make that determination. The basin certainly was shaped like a natural rock formation would be, with all of its rises and falls. Simultaneously, the scale of it was very odd. “Nature holds many mysteries. The real answer is that I have no clue…” He inhaled deeply, enjoying the crisp feeling of the air in his lungs. Drenched clothes stuck to his skin. “...let’s take a break here.”

  “And a dip?” Theria asked.

  “...Might as well,” Oras answered.