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Agents of the King

This was the second village the group of four had visited that actually showed any sign of abnormalities. The first one was about a year ago when the King had assigned this mission to them. Shadows, tornadoes, and more unnatural occurrences.

To the untrained ear, however, these terms don't sound very uncommon. Shadows was in fact one of the many code words used among the agents under the King. Very few agents ever even come close to realizing how terrifying these creatures of the code are.

These four agents, Lucas and Jasmine who were twin warriors, and Raymina and Avert who were father daughter mages, had witnessed so many odd things this past year they could probably fill a book with it. Though it wouldn't be the most interesting book.

This one village was by far the weirdest thing they had ever seen. They've seen dancing bears and flying rabbits and talking trees all due to some crazy mage or someone who couldn't control his magic but this couldn't even be explained with the knowledge that they had.

Something was definitely going on and they didn't even have a code to describe it.

* * *

We've been in this village for almost a week now. The longer we stay in it the more I realize how much we're not seeing. It's not even what we're not seeing, more like what we're not feeling.

The shiver you feel as you walk into a room or a needle prick that's not there, all were clear signs that something wasn't adding up.

That night I was doing my rounds in an inn we were investigating because it's been drawing the most attention to itself. I walk into a closed off room and am instantly struck with horror that I wasn't expecting.

The room was in shambles, a crib and other furniture were broken and shattered, there was black goo all over the walls, floor, and ceiling. But the most horrifying was what was in the center of the room. You could make out a web of goo that was literally all over the room and an infant in the center of said web. The infant was discolored to a darker hue that looked like ash and had gooey strands of the black inky substance that looked like octopus tenticals erupting from its mouth.

The infants hollow eyes stared at me from where it was and the black vines of goo charged towards me. From instinct I pulled my arms in front of my face in an X formation and created a temporary barrier in front of me. The goo was deflected with the force it had come at me with, giving me ample time to grab the handle of the door to the room and slam it shut.

I didn't save my breath and ran straight to where I knew my father was doing his own rounds near the kitchen.

And of course he was snacking on a plum he had found in the cupboard.

"Father, we need to erect a full R barrier around room 42b before-"

"Raymina, I'm sure whatever it is you think you saw can be explained by a spell casted as a defensive against thieves." My arrogant father interrupted me before I could finish and took another bite of his plum. "Just do a level 2 knowledge spell and move around it."

"Father, this isn't something we can just write off as normal. We need to do something before this spreads like a virus and becomes something bigger than what we can handle." I take hold of his free hand and start dragging him towards the room I had fled from. He shook me off and stared at me blankly.

"If you think it's this important to put up an R barrier then just do what you can and continue your rounds. When we are all done then we'll go check it out as a team with Lucas and Jasmine."

I was a little annoyed but I couldn't really argue with him. I walked towards the room and started my best H barrier. I'd do an I barrier but I wasn't quite that skilled yet. If I had my father's help, we'd be able to do an X barrier together if needed, but we haven't seen something this dreadful in a little over a year and he's gotten a little lazy.

~Written November 2017~