— You must be from the Palace. — A rugged man wearing the town guard’s armor approached Valeria. He was one of the very few people around who were able to keep it together, despite the gruesomeness of the situation. — Capitan Abner.

— Valeria. Commander of the Golden Palace Royal Guards.

— The Royal Guards? That’s surprising. I didn’t know you folks deal with things outside of the Palace too. — The man studied her carefully. When he learned that the court had sent someone to investigate the attack, he was expecting someone more… mature and imposing. Meanwhile, this person was not only a young woman, but also the head of the Royal Guards. Although, he had to give it to her that she was dealing with the situation a lot better than most of his men.

— Normally we wouldn’t, but this is a special case. The King wanted a fresh set of eyes to look at the scene. — Valeria explained, noticing the man’s suspicious stare. — Can you tell me what actually happened?

— Honestly? I have no bloody idea. The sun wasn’t even up yet when a panicked farmer busted through the door of the station, claiming that there was a monster attack. We didn’t believe him at first, but then when we followed him to the place… — Captain Abner paused and gestured at the gruesome scene before them — You get the idea.

— Who’s the farmer? Is there any chance he could be involved?

Abner waved his hand.

— He’s just some old man from a village nearby, heading to Lucetta for market day. You should have seen his face when he came to the station. There’s no way he has anything to do with this attack. Besides… — he paused again, thinking about something — I don’t think any of this could be a human, or even fey’s doing. I don’t even know if any of the forest beasts could do something like this.

This was something that Valeria agreed with.

Humans were known to be the weakest inhabitants of Karia. Fey were much more powerful, and depending on the race, they were capable of acts of great destruction, or creation. Ever since the disappearance of the Shape-shifting Goddess, however, there weren’t many left that could accomplish this, and most of them lived in the further parts of the continent.

The other possible culprit was a beast living in the forest, as the fauna of the region was quite diverse, and included a few dangerous species.

However, the wounds and the marks left around the area didn’t look like anything Valeria could recognize.
While looking around, she noticed a set of wheel tracks. Judging by their width, they had to belong to a wagon different from the one in the caravan.

— There’s a trail left by another wagon. They are quite deep, which means that it was carrying something heavy. The marks lead away from the city.

Abner supported his arms on hips and raised his eyebrows impressed. It took much more time for his men to notice the marks, and even he wasn’t as fast as the young commander.

— Good catch. — he complimented — We saw them too. A few of my men followed them all the way to the Soles River where the trail ends. We looked around the area, but we couldn’t pick up the trail anymore. Seems like a dead end.

Valeria crouched down to inspect the trail more closely. There was something off about about the marks.

She focused, allowing her wolven nature to resurface ever so slightly.

The world around her changed.

Her senses sharpened, catching small details that she missed before.

The sounds of the forest mixing with the cacophony of the nearby crowd assaulted her ears.

The smell of blood, sweat and decay rushed to her nostrils.

Finally, the view before her eyes became clearer, sharper.

Valeria studied the trail left by the second wagon. To her surprise, unlike the rest of her surroundings, it not only did it not become easier to see, but the image of it became hazier and partially see-through.

There were no doubts about it. The tracks were nothing but an illusion.

A foreboding feeling enveloped her, sending a cold shiver down her spine.

Encountering an illusion this deliberate and difficult to spot meant that whoever was responsible for the attack had a skilled sorcerer in their ranks.

What was even more concerning, was the fact that this type of spell could be used only by two types of magic: Air and Void, which meant that there was either a fully capable sorcerer for the first time in thousands of years, or an apostate wielding forbidden magic.

— Do you see something? — asked Captain Abner looking at Valeria curiously. She had been staring at the tracks for a good couple of minutes without saying a word.

— No. Nothing. — The Commander lied, while returning to her normal senses. She had no intention of sharing her findings with a man she had just met. After all, that might just provoke unnecessary questions that she would have evade with even more lies in order to keep her identity hidden. — That farmer you mentioned before, the one that reported this attack first, can I talk to him?

The Captain nodded and pointed to an older man standing between two guards, squeezing a straw hat in his shaky hands.

— He’s over there.

Questioning the farmer didn’t give her any new information.

From what he told Valeria, he encountered the caravan long after the attack took place.

Just like Captain Abner said, the man also didn’t seem like someone who could be involved in such a horrifying crime.

Valeria was about to leave, when the fearful man stopped her.

— I tried telling this to the town’s guards, but they didn’t believe me. — he started speaking with a shaky voice — There’s something evil hiding in those woods. Some unspeakable horror is roaming these lands.

— What makes you say that?

The man squeezed his straw-hat even harder.

— I have seen a similar scene before. — he gestured at the blood and gore behind him — In our village, there were also attacks like this. Except it wasn’t people, but farm animals. At first, we thought it was some beast that wandered away from the forest after sniffing out some food. But then, we realized that whatever was killing them wasn’t doing it out of hunger. Soon after that, we started hearing howling coming from the forest. It wasn’t like any other beast I have heard before. It didn’t sound like an animal, nor did it sound like a human. If only you could hear it yourself, My Lady, you would understand. — The farmer wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. — It’s unnatural, grotesque, vile. Nothing with a soul could sound like that.

At the very end of the Commanders visit, Captain Abner recalled that there was also one more case of a similar attack that involved a transport for a noble living in the area.

Not having any other leads, Valeria decided to pay the noble a visit. Just like she expected however, the young aristocrat wasn’t very helpful.

For most of the questions she asked him, he either refused to answer, or blatantly lied. Judging from his behavior, whatever the caravan was transporting couldn’t be fully legal. Having nothing but an intuition and knowing how prevalent was such behavior among the nobility, Valeria couldn’t do anything about the young master.

Fortunately, she didn’t leave the mansion completely empty handed. Just as she was about to leave, one of the servant boys took her to the side and told her the caravan, and the illegal substances that it was carrying, was organized by the Adventurer’s Guild in Lucetta.

Since the sun was still high in the sky when she left the noble’s mansion, she decided to continue her pursuit.