Monster Party Book 6: Only mortal trust or faerie dust...
Chapter two: This year has been a little crazy for the Andersons...
"I think we've found our next source of clues." Alexander Diamondclaw declared happily as he inspected the inside of another of Briggdarrow's many homes.
Cal Wright took one look around the place and couldn't help but snicker.
"Of all the random buildings in this entire town, you pick out the distillery on your first try. Are you proud of yourself Boss?" The alchemist asked.
"Yes. Yes I am. Distilleries are important. Someone might have tried to seal themselves in a wine cask when whatever happened to this town took place." Alexander insisted.
Then he casually pulled out a few golden coins and dropped them on a table in lieu of paying the currently missing proprietor.
The interior of the building was home to two pyramids of wooden kegs stacked upon each other. The thick scent of hops and fermentation made the air noticeably more humid than it was outside. Shelves along the walls carried jugs marked as "ale" or "mead" which drew Alexander's attention.
Having heavily overvalued the stock by any reasonable estimation, the blond haired man felt no shame about pouring himself a swallow of each substance.
"So can you tell how long it has been since they were made by tasting them?" James Firecat inquired eagerly.
"Mainly I was just testing if they were any good." Alexander replied honestly.
Then his left eye suddenly focused on a section of the floor intently.
He poured out another serving of the liquor, this time directly onto the floor, and watched as it seemed to vanish far too quickly for evaporation to be the cause.
"There's a trapdoor in here. Let's get it open and see what someone was trying to hide..." He ordered his companions.
They all got down on their knees, and carefully worked out the dimension of the trapdoor before gently lifting it up to reveal a staircase leading downwards.
Alexander was the first one to descend into the darkness and a few moments later his voice echoed upward to those who had remained behind.
"This… this can't be! I've never seen something so horrible!" Alexander Diamondclaw cried out in tones of shock.
The prospect of something managing to break Alexander's normally stoic calm was more than enough to send James Firecat shooting down the trapdoor with a dagger in either hand, precariously balancing on the lader rungs with his feet alone.
Below the brewery he found only a cool moist basement where a hanging lantern providing more than enough in the way of illumination. Its walls were adorned by shelves stacked with glass bottles that Alexander was examining in great detail.
"Nova Vaasa 717, Barovia 580, Darkon 688, a G'henna 715!" He exclaimed.
"Uhh, Alex what is the matter?" James asked in considerable confusion.
Alexander put down the bottle he had picked up and banged his head against the wall in exasperation.
"The point of a private collection is that you drink it! This though, if there was a darklord of distillery, this is what sort of a collection the Mists would curse them with! Each of these bottles is a crime against fermentation! Just look, for yourself, here's a Falkovnia 694, might as well poor it back into the horse it came out of!" The blond haired man spat in disgust.
James returned the daggers to the sheaths sewn into his jacket that he had drawn them from.
"Really?" Was all he could bring himself to say.
"Indeed, really Alex?" Florence Bastien added a few moments later when she descended down into the cellar as well and saw what he was raising such a fuss over.
"Look, this is important. Not worth purchasing, but important. The person who ran this distillery was a distinctly mediocre brewer with truly horrible taste in vintages.
In short, they were completely and utterly unremarkable and devoid of any obvious exceptional talent. There's no reason why an evil fey should have left them shadow-reft." He insisted.
"When Alexander is right, he's right." Devi Skye commented looking down into the basement.
Alexander returned the latest bottle he'd been examining to its shelf with a look of contempt that suggested he would have been doing its owner a favor if he'd smashed it to pieces instead.
"So have we found anything which suggests someone might be sealed in one of those big casks, or are we done here?" Mirri Catwarrior asked, having no interest at all in wine or other alcoholic products.
"Given the way the pyramids are still stacked I don't think it's worth taking them down and checking them. If anyone hid in them at the time of the disaster they're long gone. Lets go see if we can find an inn, that's probably the next most important gathering place in this village." He advised the group.
XXX XXX XXX
It wasn't especially hard to locate the local inn, the Spider's Web was the only building in Briggdarrow which bothered to have a sign outside announcing its name.
The building itself seemed nice enough from the outside, though it had a slightly weathered look which suggested it'd been in operation for decades. Inside there were even a few brass finishing and well-polished mirrors that made the place look more elegant than one would expect from a small village like Briggdarrow.
In the common room a dozen glassy-eyed, oblivious, and shadowless people sat a table eating. They did so with the slow methodical movements, and the meal itself seemed to be little more than a few recently picked plants, mashed potatoes and lumps of bread.
There was a man sitting behind the desk to welcome travelers, but he'd lost his shadow and most of his situational awareness just like all those around him.
Alexander made sure to drop a few more coins by the man in case they needed rooms later. After that the group took the time to search each of the inn's rooms, hoping they might be lucky enough to find somoene who could hold a conversation.
Sadly just like those out in the common room, all the patrons and employees they found were shadow-reft.
"This is getting real boring real fast..." Muttered Mirri in irritation.
"Normally when evil monsters have overrun a town you at least have lost of corpses. This time though, I'd say all you've got is a bunch of walking corpses, but that would be an insult to some perfectly personable zombies I've met..." She reflected while shaking her head in exasperation.
"When we find the ones responsible for this, they'll pay for what they did to these people." Florence Bastien insisted.
"I like 'Fun Florence' you should let her out more." Mirri declared, her face suddenly alight with a wide smile and thumb flipped upwards in support.
"Where should we check next?" Devi inquired.
"I'm out of 'great' ideas at the moment, so lets start checking places more or less at random.
We should keep our eyes peeled for any places which has to do with metalwork though, they might have produced weapons that could be used against the evil fey..." The blond haired man suggested.
XXX XXX XXX
The first such building they managed to locate was the town blacksmith.
It was surprisingly well appointed given the size of the town. A large forge and bellows dominated the place, with a wude assortment of iron wares ranging form horseshoes to pots and pans for sale.
The blacksmith like most such men was powerfully built, and sure enough he was shadow-reft.
He currently labored over a great anvil, trying to batter some unrecognizable lump of metal into who knew what. Every so often he would carry it from the anvil back to his forge, in the process failing to realize that the forge itself was stone cold.
It was either that, or he simply couldn't bring himself to care. There was nothing of great interest to be found inside the building and the group soon departed leaving the poor blacksmith to his equally endless and fruitless task.
XXX XXX XXX
After checking a few perfectly ordinary homes they next managed to locate a tinker's home/workshop.
Its workbench was littered with scraps of metal, an assortment of tools and a half a dozen partially completed drinking steins. Chairs and other tables had been overturned or smashed, suggesting there had been a brawl or battle inside recently.
An overturned glass jar lay on the floor near the workbench and a large pool of dried ink stained the floor. Unlike the blacksmith's shop there was no sign of its owner, either he was one of those at the inn eating or he'd suffered a fate worse than being shadow-reft, if such a thing existed.
"I'm surprised you found the blacksmith first." Cal chuckled looking at the nature of some of the tinker's last projects.
"I've got a keener sense of smell than most men, so I can pick out the scent of alcohol at a considerable distance. That said, I don't have some sort of unerring sixth sense for all things drinking related. These things look like they've never held anything other than air." Alexander shot back as he leaned over the bench and examined the steins in a little more detail.
"Hello..." He suddenly added in excitement before using his right hand to lift up one of them up and flipped it over.
A small piece of parchment drifted out that Alexander's left hand grabbed up before it could hit the ground.
Unfolding the hastily scrawled and crumpled missive he began to read aloud to the others.
"I hope that this note will fall into the hands of men, not the dread folk that have attacked our village. I do not know who or what they are, but never have I seen warriors so skilled. Even the strongest of our folk seem no match for these dancing men.
For some reason, they are taking care not to slay the fallen. When someone falls he is dragged off by these berserkers. What foul fate might befall him later I cannot say.
I hear them coming, so I must hide this note. I will offer what resistance I can, but these limbs are old and my heart weak. I fear that I will not even live long enough to discover what happens to the captives…." Alexander read.
"Dancing men?" James piped up in confusion, unable to understand how performers could be much of a threat to an entire village.
"The worst of the worst among the evil fey typically fall into four types: bogies, who live for the hunt, redcaps who live for pain, shades who live for death, and then there are dancing men, who live for battle.
Except this makes even less sense… the dancing men are interested only in conflict, and only in demi-humans who can offer them some sort of challenge. Everything I've ever heard about them, it says they want warriors of the finest calibur, they'd never leave shop keepers and craftsmen shadow-reft..." Alexander explained.
"Somebody or something must have been ordering them to do it." Devi suggested.
"Which means something or someone who can impose order upon the dancing men made such the effort just to collect the shadows of a bunch of ordinary villagers. None of the pieces of the puzzle fit together..." Alexander growled in frustration.
There was a sound vaguely liking the ticking of a clock, but less regular, deeper and louder.
Turning in its direction the group saw that the noise was coming from Mirri who was slapping her tongue against the inside of her mouth.
Noticing that she'd drawn the attention of the others she cocked a hand to her ears.
"There's something out there somewhere that isn't like the others. Everyone we've met in this village has had a heartbeat so steady you could set your timepiece to it. This one though, much more irregular..." She insisted.
No one questioned this information, Mirri had the keenest ears in the group, especially when it came to heartbeats.
"Lets go back outside very slowly and casually as if we don't expect to see anything..." Alexander suggested and indeed the group did slowly depart from the tinker's shop.
Outside there was almost nothing interesting to see.
Still, for just a fraction of a sectiond it was possible to spot something that had eluded them since they first entered Briggdarrow; an unknown creature's shadow. Something had darted around a corner and out of sight just as the group exited the shop, and whatever it was, it wasn't another of the town's many shadow-reft.
"James, Mirri, fetch." Alexander commanded gesturing in the necessary direction.
Neither of his companions needed further instructions.
"Lets go get em Kitten..." Mirri declared, licking her lips before she took off racing.
Mirri Catwarrior blazed across the ground moving swifter than any would have expected possible, her limbs pumping with a machine like complacency, as if running full tilt required no more effort than standing still.
James Firecat followed close on her heels, he started out running just like Mirri, but as he moved, his body began to transform. His posture changed from running upright to pressing himself off against the ground with his hands in a quadrupedal hustle.
Thick red hair began to grow across his body, then both his gloves and boots seemed to recede into his flesh making way for his growing hands and feet. The clothing closer to his chest began to be absorbed more and more with every passing moment.
His mouth began to elongate slightly in order to make room for more fearsome pointed teeth. A crimson tufted tail emerged from the base of his spine, twisting in his wake as he ran, and helping him keep his balance.
As he spun around a building his hands and feet suddenly extend wickedly curved claws. They struck no foes flesh, and instead only bit into the dirt helping anchor the young werecat's body and twist him through the turn. No sooner had he finished reorienting himself then the claws retracted and he struck out at high speed again.
Mirri had managed to gain an early lead over James, but now that he'd completed his transformation he was able to close the distance between them. James Firecat's keen eyes and Mirri's keen ears could both detect proof of their quarry.
It was a small figure, and it used that smallness to its greatest advantage. It wove between carelessly abandoned carts, darted through a few small buildings, eluding them at every possible turn. It knew the terrain well, but it had not reckoned with the sheer implacability of Mirri Catwarrior and James Firecat.
Both of them had been well trained by Alexander, and the pair did not flag in the slightest even as Mirri could hear their prey's breath growing more ragged.
"Give me a lift?" James asked, though his voice was slightly mangled by his no longer fully human mouth.
"Sure thing." Mirri replied at once.
As the pair spun around another corner James jumped into the air, his body transforming a second time.
Now all traces of humanity fell from his form as his body grew more compact and feline with every passing moment. By the time he landed in Mirri's hands, he was nothing more than a red furred unusually large house cat.
A house cat who Mirri tossed at their target, her powerful arms propelling the lycanthrope forward even faster than his own legs could have.
His small body struck the one they'd been chasing with speed and force enough to drive it to the ground.
Being tossed forward had given James his first proper look at who and what he and Mirri had been chasing. That was why he'd made sure that his claws were sheathed when he struck.
"I think we overdid it..." James admitted at once, to those who could still understand him.
His vocal chords were now limited to those of a house cat, but he'd spent a great deal of time with Mirri helping her learn to interpret such sounds.
A small hand grasped awkwardly in the dirt seizing a knife that had slipped loose when James had landed atop of him.
A desperate hand raised the blade for a moment, but then the hand slowly relaxed.
"You're not so much of a much..." The young boy admitted, unable to take James seriously as a threat in his current shape.
"Must have been my nerves, you looked a lot bigger when you were chasing me..." The young boy insisted while James began to surreptitiously start cleaning his paws.
"I could say the same." Mirri pointed out as she finished catching up to the pair.
Instantly the boy raised his knife (which looked as if it had been made more for a kitchen table than a battlefield) at her, waving it (what he imagined to be) threateningly.
"Stay back, you may have gotten the others but you won't get me!" The boy protested, his voice a terrified squeak.
Mirri sighed, and slowly raised her hands. Not in any sort of placating gesture to show they were empty (besides Mirri had dispatched countless far more formidable foes without any man-made weapon) but instead to fiddle with her glasses.
It took her about ten seconds of concentrated effort but she managed to finally tease the legs free from their looping grip on her ears and remove the spectacles.
Her ruby red eyes now gazed deeply into the boy's terrified blue eyes.
"We're not trying to hurt you..." She whispered softly.
"You're not trying to hurt me." The young boy repeated slowly as if he didn't quite believe it.
"I wouldn't hurt a child. Besides, if the cat trusts me shouldn't you?" She offered crooking a finger in their direction.
James eagerly jumped into her waiting arms yet again, and she began to stroke him gently as he in turn began to purr.
"I should… I should trust you..." The boy agreed, hesitantly lowering the knife.
"My name is Mirri, what is your name?" Mirri inquired gently.
"Kian McCollin." He answered in a voice that was mostly a dreamy drawl, but Mirri didn't much care if people she was interrogating really liked her or not.
What mattered was that once they'd fallen victim to her vampiric charm gaze, they'd freely tell her all but their darkest secrets, and those also if she made a serious effort.
"Why were you spying on us Kian, that wasn't a very nice thing to do..." Mirri pointed out.
She would have wagged a finger in the young boy's face but at the moment caressing James' fur was keeping both of her hands occupied.
"I thought you were more of the long haired ones and their beasts out hunting for me..." He insisted awkwardly.
"Long haired ones? Beasts?" Alexander Diamondclaw asked, as he, Devi, Florence, and Cal managed to catch up with them.
"It all started three nights ago… The beasts came first, they were black as midnight with eyes like burnin' coal and breath like the fires o' damnation. All the men o' the village took up arms against them, but 'twere no good. Swords and knives and all, nothin' could harm them." Kian explained.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he suddenly began to cry.
The sheer horror of what he had been through was evidently powerful enough that even Mirri's gaze couldn't dampen the depths of the emotion.
At least it couldn't do that while he was averting his gaze to look down at the ground and cry.
Mirri got down on her knees and more or less pressed James tight against the young boy's chest, the werecat purring as loudly as he possibly could. The young boy's hands closed around the feline form out of reflex, while Mirri used her right hand to tilt Kian's chin upwards so that they could make eye contact once again.
"It'll be all right… we're here now." Mirri promised Kian.
"Thanks..." He blubbered, using one hand to holding the purring cat tight while the other tried to wipe away his tears.
"After the beasts, then came something even worse! I thought you were some of them when I first saw you, but your hair isn't long enough…
They all had long hair, and giant swords, and their laughter hurt my head! When my mum seen them comin', she stuffed me and my sis, Arla, into a pair o' barrels." He explained.
"What kind of barrels?" Cal couldn't help but ask.
"Ignore him." Alexander insisted, delivering a gentle elbow to the alchemist's midsection before he insisted on blurting out his leader's previous theories.
Kian did indeed continue.
"After that, I heard an awful lot o' howling' and sounds o' fightin'. It went on for hours… I guess I musta fallen asleep or fainted, or somethin'. Twas real quiet when I woke up, so I decided to crawl out of the barrel and have a look around.
At first I thought ev'rythin' was okay, but then I see the truth. Ev'ryone was actin' like they was asleep or somethin' even me mum and dad! Then I noticed that no one had a shadow anymore. When I saw that, I run and hid I did.
I been hidin' ever since. When I saw you pokin' around I thought maybe you were more o' those wild men or mebee friends o' theirs. I'm sorry that I gave you such a long chase afore..." The young boy apologized.
"You mentioned your sister, where is she?" Alexander inquired, realizing that there was an obvious hole in Kian's story.
"Well, after I crawled out of that barrel, and made sure everything was safe...ish, I went and got Arla outta her barrel. We tried to talk to me folks, but 'twere no good. After a day we' just about gi' up hope of anyone comin' to set things right.
Figurin' that those strange men would come back sooner or later we set ourselves to decidin' what to do next. I wanted to take a boat across the lake, but Arla was afraid o' the Avanc. She said that we oughta go inta the woods and try to find the White Lady.
I told her she was crazy, the woods is full o' goblins, and we get kilt. That's when Arla and me got into a big fight. I haint seen her since just after noon, I think she must've gone into the woods. I guess…. I guess I best be going after her." He reluctantly reflected.
"White Lady?" Florence seized on that name, wanting to know more.
"I've never seen the White Lady meself, but them as has say she's beautiful as a spring lily. Some of the kids in town, the little ones like Arla, think she's one of the wee folk come to live among us.
They say she grants wishes to them what can find her cottage. Once me mum seen her out in the forest… she had a bird on her lap, just sittin' there as quite as can be. Mum says she seen her pettin' and talkin' to that bird, just like 'twas a person, but when she noticed someone watchin', she up and disappeared she did." Kian told them.
Alexander looked at the sun, and didn't need to tilt his head in the slightest.
"It'll be dusk soon. Kian, as much as I'd like to help you find your sister, I think we will have to wait till tomorrow. There aren't many things in any woods that scare me, but going into them in the dark is a surefire way to get lost." He awkwardly admitted.
"You're probably right…. But what if those men and their beasts come back to town tonight?" The young boy worried.
"We'll see them off, I promise you that. In fact, you can sleep in our room rather than a barrel tonight." Florence offered.
"Our room?" Alexander spluttered, clearly far from sold on that particular idea.
Florence shot him a pointed glare and he quickly decided to terminate this argument before it progressed to the point that while Kian was allowed to sleep in the same room as Florence, but he wasn't.
End Chapter.
AN: Some of you may have noticed that something happened to this story. Yes it did originaly have a different song lyric/title. I changed it because by pure chance I found one that fit it much better. Ionly wish I could end up doing the same thing for Book 4, but that one is sort of a lost cause at this point.
The joke behind the collection of bottles that Alex finds is that they are all belong to years when that particular domain suffered from a major event/upheaval/war or similar disruptive event. Understandably people would have had more important things on their minds than brewing at such a time, like Barovia being invaded by their vastly larger, richer, and just generally more powerful neighbor Darkon for example. That, or Nova Vassa dealing with a cult/crime ring, or Darkon suffering from a horrible plague, or Falkovnia engaging in a massive (if fruitless) invasion of Darkon, or G'Henna having to deal with their religion getting overhauled when certain unfortunate things happened.
Just to be clear, Alexander Diamondclaw takes his drinking very seriously, he has a huge constitution score so it is the next best thing to impossible for him to actually get drunk. That means Alex HAS to care about how what he's drinking tastes/how "good" it is. He can't take the opinion of "well its rotgut, but the bad taste is worth it so long as it gets me drunk" because, well it won't, it will just leave him with unhappy taste-buds and no noticeably change to his mental facilities.