The village that Misha and Aliana had been directed to was small. The sort of size Misha was more accustomed to. Riding along on Grey's shoulders, she first saw the roofs of the buildings and their smokestacks as the small traveling trio came up over a rocky ledge in the mountains. Seeing the smoke from the stone chimneys, Misha eagerly thought of the warmth that would be provided by whatever tavern or the like that would welcome her and her companions. A crisp autumn wind had picked up over the past few days they’d been traveling. A fire and shelter before their investigation began in full would be more than welcome.
Misha did remind herself to be on guard for any signs of danger. But, as she approached with her allies, nothing seemed wrong. People walked about from one building to another, taking their laundry off wooden poles as the sunlight of the day faded, or tending to animals that acted as their livestock.
"Everything here seems... fine," Misha said as she observed the village's surroundings. Things here were, in fact, far more normal than the land she'd seen for the past while. Greenery had returned to this part of the mountains. Grass grew in places where the rocks turned to soil. The occasional tree sprouted up where the land allowed. Most of them displayed small needles that kept their verdant life rather than the leaves Misha was familiar with that turned orange and fell to the ground by now.
Aliana surveyed the landscape and the village as well. "No one seems like they're worried about horrible magic corruption." She took a step forward but stopped and looked back at Grey and Misha. "Uh... Should Grey stay back here, do you think? He might spook some of these folks, after all."
“Do you think so?” Misha asked. “The people in Indervel seemed… Well, I suppose they did seem wary, but there weren’t any problems.”
“Well, the people in Indervel are used to strangers like us passing through. I don’t know about a place like this.”
That thought hadn’t occurred to Misha before. She stood up from Grey's shoulders, about to suggest he remain here. She noticed, however, that her companion had not made any move to follow Aliana in the first place. "Is something wrong, Grey?"
Grey's ears twitched slightly. His attention was fixated on the village's buildings up ahead. Then, he stepped to the side of the path he and Aliana had been walking along, circling about on the dirt ground. He let out a displeased whine.
"What is it?" Misha asked again. She climbed down Grey's side and looked at him, trying to determine what was bothering him. "Is it the village?"
Grey sniffed, then lowered his head in a single motion akin to a nod.
"Do you think he knows something about the corruption?" Aliana wondered. "Animals seem to pick up on things like that... don't they?"
"I wonder..." Misha looked back to the buildings. "Can you lead us to what’s bothering you?"
Grey answered with a growl and another whine, then lowered himself to the ground. Misha scratched one ear as she thought. Nothing seemed out of place.
"Should we go on ahead?" Aliana asked. "I don't think he'll move at this rate even if we wanted to bring him in."
"Grey," Misha said, "we have to check the village for the shard. Are you going to be fine out here?"
Grey answered by staring back at Misha.
"Fine." Misha felt unease for her friend but standing here would not get any answers. “Don't wander too far, alright?"
Grey let his head rest on the ground, though Misha could see his posture was far from relaxed. She and Aliana would have to remain on guard. The two of them turned and headed to the village not far up ahead.
The villagers, kind and polite as they were, mentioned a man by the name of Logram before pointing Aliana and Misha to a particular home. The building was marked with a wooden plated carved into the shape of a bull’s skull hung over the front door. When Aliana knocked, there was a pause, followed by a gruff voice calling out, “Hold a moment!”
After the sound of someone shuffling about furniture inside the home, the door opened at last. In the doorway stood a drakkin man, broad-shouldered much like others Misha had seen in Indervel, but far more stout. Ruddy scales covered his body, though the colors of those around his jaw and the edges of his face had turned to a duller shade. Misha guessed this was a trait of drakkin as they aged. The man’s posture, hunched over himself as he was, gave the impression of an aged man, at the very least.
The drakkin man eyed the two women at his door. “You two seem new around here. What d’you want?”
“Are you Logram?” Misha asked.
“Aye, that I am,” the drakkin answered, then repeated more firmly as he held a restrained impatience in his rough tone, “What is it you two want? It’s late in the day for visitors.”
Misha explained quickly, “We have business in the area. We heard there’s fey around, so we thought we should prepare ourselves to handle them. The other villagers said you were the one to speak to about that.”
Logram let out a breath, tapping his clawed fingers against the door frame. “Aye, they would say that. You say you’ve got business here?”
Aliana nodded. “We’re looking for something, and if it’s not here, the fey might have it. Or it’s out in the wilderness, at least. You haven’t seen anything unusual going on around here, have you?”
“No, can’t say I have for a while. Used to be we had fey taking our livestock and our children.” Logram turned to head back into the house, waving for Misha and Aliana to follow him as he did. “Too bad for them wretches, we got quarries full o’cold iron. They don’t come ‘round here anymore. Haven’t seen much out of the ordinary since they quit pestering us.”
The small building's main room appeared to serve as a kitchen and dining room merged together. A stone oven sat to the side of the room, a rusted iron pan atop it. Other kitchenware–knives, pots, and the like–were scattered over a countertop built into the wall. Part of the room was taken up by a table covered in books and miscellany that looked like they’d been collected over many years. Misha could spot bits of dust building up in neglected corners of the home where it seemed cleaning had not been prioritized for some time. Logram disappeared briefly through a door at the back of the room.
"It sure is a... cozy home," Aliana said quietly, peering closely at the mess of papers, drink mugs, and other items that accompanied the books on the table.
Logram quickly returned from the room he'd left to, holding something in his hand as he came back to Misha and Aliana. He stopped by the table and held out his hand, revealing what it was he'd retrieved. A round object sat in his hand that looked like a rough stone or metal. Misha guessed the latter based on the sheen of its blue-silver surface. Several matches sat next to it in the palm of Logram's hand.
“That’s cold iron, then?” Misha guessed.
“Aye, that it is. We spread it over the village, in the grass and the dirt. Stops a fey’s magic from working. From what I hear, it hurts them something fierce to be near it as well.”
“Does it?” The fact that it covered the whole village brought a thought to Misha’s mind, but it would be one she’d have to check on later. “Is it alright for us to take some from you? You mine it yourself, do you have enough to keep your village safe?”
“Bit pointless of you to come around here for my help if you’re gonna be worrying ‘bout that,” Logram said. “We’re not in any shortage of the stuff. Might be wasted on some fool merchants who think they can make a profit up here, but you two look like you can actually fight. Assuming those weapons aren’t just for show.”
Aliana grinned. “I’ll have you know, I was trained by one of the strongest mercenaries I’ve ever met.”
“Then if givin’ this to you both means you might get rid of a few o’them fey, I’ll take it. They may not come around here anymore, but gettin’ rid of the problem altogether is better than keepin’ it from coming close. Strike a match to the metal, it’ll cover an area.”
“How far does it reach?” Aliana asked.
Logram, with his free hand, grabbed one of the matches. He gripped the sphere of iron tightly in his hand and struck the match against the side of it. The friction caused a bright and sudden flash of light that forced Misha to cover her eyes and Aliana to cry out in surprise. The flash was accompanied by a loud, shrill bang. When Misha was able to open her eyes, blinking away the spots that had speckled her vision, she saw that a cloud of sparkling metallic dust was falling over the room. It was a chunk of the cold iron that had burst when the match made contact with it, leaving a small crater in the metal. The majority of the ore still remained, however.
"Reaches about that far," Logram said.
"You could have just told us that!" Aliana complained. "Aren't you going to have to clean that up?"
Logram simply shrugged and held out the cold iron and the matches to Aliana. “Now if you two’ll excuse me, it’s about time for my evening tea. You won’t want to be wandering around at night, but you’re not staying here either, so go bother Ined at her inn.”
Misha and Aliana found themselves being essentially shooed out of the man's home then, and the door shut behind them both of them a moment later.
“Well… That was, uh, productive,” Aliana said. “What did he say? Ined’s inn?”
Misha looked up at the sky where the sun was already nearly set, the afternoon’s oranges giving way to the blues and purples of the evening. It felt wrong to leave Grey on his own overnight, but after her conversation with Logram, Misha suspected there was little that could be done about it at the moment. “Should we go take a look, then?”
The inn was spotted easily enough in the small village. It was barely any larger than the other homes here, but a wooden sign with the words, ‘Ined’s Lodging’ carved into it and hung on the front of the building denoted it from the others. Potted flowers hanging from the windows and sitting outside the door on the front porch gave it a welcoming atmosphere.
Misha allowed Aliana to take the lead in knocking on the door to the inn, seeing as how the doors here were made for her height.
It was a small, elderly woman in a patchwork dress and apron who answered the door to the building. She smiled upon seeing Misha and Aliana, and asked, "Can I help the two of you?" A set of arachnid legs reached out from underneath the end of her dress, similar to the ones on Zel back in Indervel.
"Is this the village's... inn?" Misha asked the question, though she began to wonder whether or not this was indeed the correct place as she saw past the woman. The room that she could see looked to be a personal kitchen and the main room of a home, complete with a rocking chair and armchair near a fireplace to the side of the room.
Still, the woman nodded. "Oh, yes. Not much of an inn you might expect in other places, but we've got rooms above and warm food for travelers like you two seem to be. You're looking to stay the night, I take it? Come in, come in." She stepped back into the room, allowing Misha and Aliana to enter.
The interior was sheltered from the autumn winds, just as Misha had hoped, and already a comfortable few degrees warmer than the temperature outside. A staircase led up to the second story, and the old woman said, "You two can take first the room on the left, if you don't mind sharing."
"That's fine, thank you," Aliana said. "So, you run the inn out of your own home, then?"
"That's quite right. Makes the place a might less quiet around here. Don't be too rowdy, though. I've a few guests sleeping in one of the other rooms."
"Of course. How much would you like for the night?"
"Oh, no, no," the woman said with a smile and a shake of her head. "Don't you worry about any sort of payment."
"Are you sure?" Misha asked, surprised. "If you've already got other people here, that's quite a few of us you'll have for the night."
"I insist, don't you think about that. It makes me more than happy to give travelers a place to stay."
"Well... If you're sure." Misha looked to Aliana. "We should head up for the night then, right?"
Aliana led the way up the steps, and the kind old woman called out to them, "I'll have dinner ready not too long from now."
"Great, thank you!" Aliana answered.
The staircase ended in a landing that opened into a hallway lined with three doors, two on one side and one on the other. Just as the woman had instructed, Aliana reached for the handle of the first door to the left, finding it unlocked and opening the door easily. The room was small, with a single window that looked over the roofs of nearby buildings. There was little furnishing, as well as little space for any. A single bed, low to the ground, took up most of the space against the wall to the right of the window. To the left was a small desk, a candle in a holder for light atop it, and a chair to accompany it.
Aliana stepped inside first and sat down on the bed. She began to take off the armor she wore, starting with her greaves. "I don't know if it's rude to say this, but if I'm going to share a room like this with anyone, I'm glad it's you."
"That's sweet of you to -" Misha began, then realized, "Oh. Because of my size."
Aliana grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. But it's true."
Misha climbed up onto the chair by the desk, pulling her earthcraft book out of Aliana’s supply bag where it was stored on account of its size and setting it down on the desk. "Oh, I don't mind, don't worry. Though it's too bad Grey can't join us for the night."
"Do you think he'll be alright outside?"
"I'm sure he will be."
Just as the kindly old woman had promised, she eventually came up to the bedroom's door, knocked, and provided Misha and Aliana with a warm meal and fresh drinks for the evening. While Misha ate some of the bread and chicken meat they'd been given, she asked, "What are those people called, Aliana? The ones with the... legs."
"Oh, her? She's an... Alrachni, I think. Not usually too many of them around in one place from what I see, but there's usually some of them here or there."
"Alrachni..." Misha tried out the word. "Thank you. I'd been wondering since I met Zel."
"Who?"
"Oh." Misha paused, staring awkwardly at the food in her hand. She'd forgotten she hadn't told Aliana all the details of that... errand. "Just someone I met when I was out the first night in Indervel. Do you know much about them? The alrachni, where they come from?" The question was as much to shift the subject, which she still felt guilty over, as it was her own curiosity. Misha understood that the drakkin were people created by the Dragons themselves, or so stories said, and that harpies were traditionally a nomadic people. But the alrachni were a complete mystery to her, as well as other varieties of people she'd seen back in the giant city of Indervel.
"Hmm..." Aliana leaned back on the bed, thinking. "I'm not too sure... Something to do with being made by spider monsters."
Misha blinked, letting that statement sink in. "Spider... monsters?"
Aliana shrugged. "From what I heard, the first alrachni were humans who were made into what they're like now. Liessa told me about them once when I was little, but I'm not Veldin, so most of that didn't stay stuck in my head waiting for a chance to lecture someone about it."
"Veldin’s not that bad."
"Go ahead and try asking him about them when we get back to the mansion, then. I'm sure he'll be happy to give you a whole history lesson. Are you going to finish that?" She pointed to a hunk of cheese that had been left on Misha's plate.
Misha shook her head. "No, I don't like cheese very much. The taste is a bit strong."
"Oh. Who'd have thought." Aliana took the cheese and bit into it.
"Why do you say that?" Misha asked.
"Well... Uh..." Aliana suddenly broke eye contact as she chewed her food. Misha tilted her head curiously, noticing she was the only one who had been given any of the cheese. Aliana continued, "Just expected different things of what mousefolk eat, I guess. You eat meat, for example. I didn't think you would, for some reason."
"Of course, we do. Most of our food is fruit and vegetables, but we do our fair share of hunting. I actually haven't had cheese before we came to Indervel if I'm being honest."
Aliana made a surprised "hmm" noise. Misha still didn't understand why it was Aliana expected her to enjoy cheese, or why the alrachni woman had assumed the same thing enough to provide her with some, but she let the subject go for now.
After the two had finished their meal, Misha began to make herself comfortable on the end of the small bed. "Is this enough space for you, Aliana?"
"I..." Aliana, sat on the bed next to Misha, was looking off at something else. "Huh? Sorry, what did you say?"
"Do you have enough room in the bed?" Misha noticed Aliana had been looking in the direction of Moonlight, tidied neatly with Aliana's armor on the desk. "Is something wrong?"
"Um... Moonlight said something."
"What did it say?"
"That..." Aliana's gaze shifted to the window, then to the door, and back to the sword. "That we... Shouldn't sleep right now."
"What do you mean?" Misha stared at the sword as well. She heard nothing, as usual, and wondered what it was trying to do. She asked softly, "Moonlight? What is it you want?"
"It's probably just trying to bother me," Aliana said. She sounded unconvinced by her own words, though.
"Should we listen to it?"
"I don't think listening to Moonlight is ever a good..." She trailed off, her muscles stiffening and her hands clenching.
"Did it say more?" Misha asked.
Aliana nodded. "It's really insistent about this."
Misha ran a hand over her whiskers. She doubted Moonlight was good company to Aliana at any time, but this seemed like an odd time for it to act up. "We could keep watch."
"Maybe." Aliana looked at the door again. Her voice was growing quiet. "I... don't know. I think it's just Moonlight trying to trick me, I don't know if we should worry about..."
There was a noise outside the door to the room. Both Misha and Aliana fell silent, listening. One of the doors in the hallway had opened. Footsteps moved across the floor, but they were slow. Too slow for someone walking casually. The floorboards creaked, but it was a low enough sound that it would have been easily missed if Misha had not already been put on guard. Slowly, Misha stood up on the bed and walked to the desk where she'd left her bow. Aliana did the same, grabbing Moonlight, though there would not be a chance for her to fetch her armor.
Out in the hall, there was another light, a dim one, and Misha saw the shadows of legs blocking out the light beneath the door in places. She tried to make out how many people were there, but the shadows overlapped too much to be sure. The movement outside stopped. What did they want? Were they waiting for the candle to go out?
Misha held her bow tight, and she and Aliana waited. Time passed. The silence continued. Finally, the doorknob turned. Slowly. Silently. Misha could just barely make out the sounds of whispering beyond the door, but not the words. It was enough for her to know that something was wrong, though.
The door opened, then. Standing in the hallway outside were three figures. The old alrachni woman and two men who may have passed for human at a glance. But in the split second it took for the door to open, Misha saw they were not human at all. Even the old woman was not right. Their eyes were different, replaced with large and bulbous insectoid eyes like those of Sie. One of the men grinned at Misha and Aliana, revealing rows of sharp teeth. The fingers and nails of their hands extended out into sharp claws, and their legs were extended and looked to have gained an additional joint like those of an animal's.
The moment one of them moved, Misha drew an arrow to her bow and released it at the nearest of the beings that stood before them in the doorway.
