What Is Done

Chapter 27 - Something Rotten Comes This Way

The only thing I remember from waking up from the house in the town where all the dead were dead and buried, was that we woke up to hearing a strident crack! Essaerae and I sat up in bed quickly. We looked at each other in confusion from what we'd just heard.

"What was that?" I asked myself, ambling to the window. I peered out to see nothing but the blue sky and the same dreary town outside. This is why I prefer my bed chamber to be soundproof.

Essaerae joined me at the window. She saw the window had latches to open it, and tried. "It's rusted shut."

A knock came to the door, afterwards Sellion ran in, asking, "Did you hear that loud noise?" He didn't bother to check if we had been doing something together.

Essaerae and I nodded in unison. "I say we found out what it is," I said. Sellion agreed and left us to change into their day clothes. We did the same thing as we did the night before to change. As I prepared to change, I pulled out my medallion from my folded clothing that I set at the end of my bed. It was odd. "It is...glowing..."

Essaerae paused on getting dressed herself. She had gotten her magenta, turquoise sleeved dress on, but neglected her shoes when she heard me. She stood behind me. The medallion wasn't glowing as brilliantly as it had been in Dirkk. I held it up by the chain, looking at it in awe.

"There must be a relic nearby," Essaerae mentioned, "we should find it." My spirit had lifted, ignoring the events from the previous night. Strange how I didn't notice it. Even now, it wasn't terribly bright. My robes must've concealed what little light it was making.

"It was not glowing last night." I glossed over the fact, believing it to be a glitch in the matrix. Perhaps the relic of Averis and Azriel is much closer now. Perhaps we just didn't notice it. 

We continued dressing and as we exited the room, Sellion waited for us on the landing of the stairs. He pointed out that the medallion was softly glowing underneath my shirt. I told him we knew. "Then I take it, we're going on a quest to find this relic?"

I spoke candidly, "Indeed."

The three of us left the house we spent the night in, unable to thank the people who'd owned it. We returned to the barn where we left the horses. We packed our clothes back into the saddlebags and were ready to continue on. We brought the horses outside with us. It was a relatively sunny day.

My medallion had become brighter as we went outside. I stepped into different directions to see where it had actually been coming from. We ended up following it to the south.

Crack!

We stopped again when we heard another stone hit a wall. This time, we saw a large rock fly by us and hit the wall of the building next to us. The rock fell to the ground, split into two. We all slowly turned to the east where we could see easily down the street, a pile of boulders and something digging in them.

The creature that had the basic shape of a dragon, swung its tail around as it moved. Its tail was barbed and it only had hind legs, its arms connected to its wings like a bat. The creature even spoke like a dragon, mumbling something to itself. The sounds it made, screeches and chitters, gave off the impression it was angry.

"What is that?" I quietly asked Sellion, quietly enough for the thing not to notice.

Sellion stared at the creature for a long moment before finalizing what it actually was. He kept his eyes on it as the animal flung a boulder at a wall with its tail and proceeded to laugh sinisterly.

It turned away from its amusement, muttering something about invaders. It's entertainment only seemed to last minutes if not seconds. "That damned horned man, human and dwarf!" It threw another boulder at the wall and broke it. "They thought they could just come in here and push me out of here, the place that's been my home for thirty odd years! Why, the nerve!" We could only watch in hopes it wouldn't notice us or toss a rock in our direction.