Ch.20 Rogue Conquest

Another month has passed here in the village. Hel's body is slowly recovering. The vet and his assistant can now see him healing. The village has a handful of new bright and laughing children, they bring more light to the village than the sun could ever shine. They are the future that this village is rebuilding on.

Everyone's got high hopes that they'll come back much stronger than before. I'm sure they will at that too. As for me, I've been setting up a better system for the village. Talking to the mayor of the village, discussing housing and building projects. The village was a measly nine buildings.

Now, it's a bustling village with twenty buildings, mostly housing and storage. Every village that's going through the changes of rebuilding needs a good bit of storage. While staying here and seeing over Hel a few new adventurers have come to live here. Three young girls and four boys. Every day they meet me in the village café and question me about things I've seen or done and fought.

They're quite the inquisitive types. Dad would have a ball with them; make them believe tall tales and crazy stories. Skelar would join me and answer them… When he could. When afternoon was setting I would take them out past the village and have them stand out in one of the fields that hadn't been prepared for seed and watch things spawn in the coming of night. Being a Skeletal heir I could tell these seven adventurers didn't have an ounce of Skeletal race in them.

The three girls were interested in Hel a lot more than I was expecting, not because they liked him but because he was interesting to them. They had never seen a werewolf before. Rayr and Skelar gave the seven young adventurers a lesson about werewolves that lived in the wild and how dangerous they were. Upon teaching them we also lured an ogre a mile off from the village and blocked him in with some obsidian that the miners had gotten down in the mine shaft that they had broken into a few weeks ago. The seven adventurers saw me and Skelar as adventurers and decided to keep it that way.

While heading to bed early one night I climbed up in the tower that looked out over the village for mobs that roamed too near. In the distance the fading sunset gave me an odd feeling. I let the feeling slide and went on to bed.

"Sell!" Des called out running to me with a hoe in his hand. "Dad left a few nights ago!"

I cocked my head wondering why. "Did he say where?"

Des shook his head. "No. He just said to tell you that on the outskirts of Denudiar there are strange things happening. He and Lones left a few nights to see what was going on."

Toc strode up holding a bundle of tied up wheat. "You tell her about dad?"

"Yea. He just finished." I replied looking at him. "So, Denudiar? That's a town if I'm not mistaken. "

My brothers both nodded. "We went there with dad before to help with cattle. Herded around fifty cows back into their corral before dusk. That wasn't an easy feat."

I knew it wasn't. Cows were the most stubbornness creatures in Minecraft. I scratched my head thinking why father would tell me about such a place.

"Maybe he wants you to project yourself?" Toc asked shifting the wheat.

Still though, it took a good bit out of me when I project somewhere far away like Denudiar. It was at least sixty miles from where we were. If you were on horseback it took you two and a half days to reach, by boat it would take two days, and if you flew it would only be one. Go figure.

"The village I'm in doesn't have a plane." I said folding my arms. "Besides, I can't leave the village with Hel being down still."

"Dad said to leave the village under Skelar and Rayr's watch. It's time for you to do this on your own." Des spoke up staring at me.

I frowned feeling my stomach get uneasy. I nodded finally. "I'll see if I can project that far. I'm not promising anything though."

Toc and Des nodded saying they understood. "We hope, if you do reach that far in projection, that you will help father out."

I turned away fading away slowly, waving to them with the back of my hand. "See ya'll."

I stared at the ceiling for the longest time and sighed with frustration. It was going to take me awhile to get that sort of concentration to pull off such a feat. All day of meditation would have to be in order. I got up and placed a sign outside the door saying: Stay Out! Now for the hard part, meditation.

I got myself comfy in bed and placed myself in utter blackness. Now, all I could do was monitor my heart rate and try to make my way to father.

Thunder boomed suddenly making me gasp as lightening followed, illuminating the room for me. I quickly saw that I wasn't in the village any longer. I had done it! I was… somewhere. Where the hell was I? I was on my feet striding about the room when I heard moping of someone somewhere, silently crying.

I floated, not walked, which I found odd. "Hello? Who's there?"

The person continued to weep and sniffle. It was all over the room. I circled and circled and circled until my head was dizzy. This wasn't getting me anywhere fast. I took hold of a chain that was hanging above me, strapped to a old, broken rafter. I gave it a shake, making the links rattle. The crying stopped in a sniveling gasp, the person could be heard shuffling quickly somewhere, fading from earshot.

"Hey! Stop!" I barked out, my voice echoing all around me. The room all around me was the same, crumbling cobblestone all the way up to the old, broken, rafter. Where the fuck was I? I searched the darkness blindly and only felt cold stone. I was sure I heard the person where I was, but then again, the voices really traveled.

"Hello? Anyone out there?" I shouted up to the ceiling rafter.

Silence.

"Hey! Is anyone crying up there?"

More silence.

Damn, I could've sworn that someone was there.

"Hey! If you're scared there's no reason to be! Help me out here?" I asked, thinking I was asking quite politely.

Maybe not enough, there was still silence. I sighed slumping against the stone. "Where the fuck am I?"

"Sell?" asked a familiar voice from someplace.

"Dad?" I asked perking up. "Dad, where am I? I'm in a small circular cobblestoned room!"

A figure made its way and leaned over the ceiling, next to the rafter. "Sell! Hang on, I'll bring you up!"

"Bring me up? Up from where?" I asked grabbing the chain as dad tugged it upwards.

"You're in the town well, my daughter!" he called down to me as he slowly brought me up with each yanking lift. "How you got there, I don't know. I and Lones have been waiting for you for a while now."

"I just found out about this today!" I barked up. "If you hadn't told Des and Toc where you'd be going I might've not been here at all!"

Dad laughed as another voice and a pair of hands helped him out. "What the hell, Rien? Are we bringing up a well fish? This bucket is fucking heavy!"

"Yeah! This well fish has a big mouth and a even bigger bite!" I snapped climbing up the rusting chain the rest of the way.

Lones looked over the side and gasped as my head came over the edge of the well. "Boo!"

Lones stepped back slightly taken aback. "What in hell's name...?"

I pulled myself out and over the cobblestone wall to sit at the edge. "Yeah, what I'd like to know too."

The man named Lones, a medium built man with grey slanted eyes and dark black hair that came down to his waist looked Sell over. "Your daughter is quite the looker, Rien."

"And you're quite old," I retorted making Lones look at me sternly. Dad placed his fist against his mouth to not laugh. Lones slid his glance over to my father.

"Quite the sense of humor too."

"So, here I am. What am I to do?" I asked looking to dad.

"There have been reports all over the news that's going national and saying children are disappearing." Lones spoke up leaning against the wells' support beam. "Not only children but adults too."

"So children and adults are disappearing for no reason?" I repeated. "What could cause that?"

"Eye witnesses say they would see a young child around the age of ten walking up to people and helping them out. When the child gets sick though the people that have been helping them out suddenly vanish." Dad said putting his hands in his pockets. "It's baffling. We've been here for a few days now and we can't come up with a single reason to any of this."

I tried to imagine what it'd be like. To be a kid around the age of ten going up to complete strangers for help. "What about the kid's parents? Has no one seen them?"

Lones and father sighed together on this. "They're dead."

I muttered. "Oh." Looking about the town I saw that this was the middle of the town. The very heart of everything. "How did they die?"

"Drowned right here."

"They couldn't swim and some robber took their money."

I looked down in the dark depths of the well where I had been. "They were pushed in?"

"Yup. No one heard their cries for help because that day was a day of a festival. Everyone was in the market square." Lones answered looking down into the well.

My mind went back to the person crying somewhere nearby. How I grabbed the chain calling for help up to the voice and heard it shuffle away. It had to be the kid. There's no doubt about it. "Where did they live?"

"The parents were divorced," father said turning to look in a direction down the road. "The father had an estate up this road here and the mother lived down that road there. She and the boy lived in a small apartment complex."

I slid off the well staring down the road where the mother used to live with her son. "Have you scouted both the places out?"

"I checked out the apartment. All that's left is the estate." Lones replied pushing off from the well support.

I started walking down the road silently as I thought to myself. Surely the townsfolk are wary of the kid by now? I doubt anyone in this town would notice a few people missing right off the bat. A thought came to my mind then. I stopped a passing old lady by gently grabbing her arm. "I'm sorry to stop you. Can you tell me something?"

The old lady looked up at me and smiled. "Sure, child. What might that be?"

"Can you tell me how many new people have moved into the town recently?"

"New people?" she questioned and shook her head. "I'm not quite sure. I do know of Mary, the sweet girl that was learning to be a farm hand. She lived down the street from me."

"I do believe that was one of the missing," Lones said turning to Rien who nodded.

The old lady went quiet and shuffled away when Lones said that to dad. "I'm sorry I can't help you. Good-bye."

I watched her go and gave Lones a look of annoyance. "You need to be more careful on what you say! If you say something like that again we'll get nowhere!"

Lones snorted and walked on. "Quite the tongue she's got too."

"Ananon would be mad at you if she were here," I muttered walking after him with my fists balled up.

Lones whirled around on me looking angry. "You dare threaten me with her name?"

"I have her heart in me. She gave me life when I died!" I spat at him. "I can say what I like in her stead!"

Lones shook from anger. He whipped his head to my dad and back to me not knowing who to accuse. I turned away and walked on. "There's no one to accuse but you, Lones. Don't start complaining to me if you feel like you just got slapped and you're not in your comfortable zone."

Dad stared after me and turned to his friend. "She means well."

Lones gave dad a dirty look before continuing on. "That brat…!"

I walked down the road until I ran out of road. Stopping on a grassy hill I turned back to check where father and Lones went but didn't see them. I scanned everywhere and realized that the town was gone too. "What the hell? Where's the town? Where are Lones and dad? Hello?"

A sob made me stop and listen. It was a very faint but continuous crying that traveled on the wind. It was the same sobs from before. Traveling down the hill side into a valley that pigs and cows roamed free I saw a river that twisted and turned away in the distance. A small boat was tied to a tree, bobbing in the water that lapped the bank.

I decided to go with my gut and travel down the river. The sobs seemed to come from that way. Climbing into the boat, I untied the rope and pushed off into the river's current that swept me downstream. Where ever dad and Lones were hopefully they could find me soon. Where the hell was this river taking me anyways?