The town of Welldeep was a somewhat young settlement inside the Forgotten Forest.

The town's history lay two generations before the shattering event. Back then, when the forest was yet to be cursed, townfolk gathered medical herbs and hunted animals for their fur.

It didn't make anyone rich but allowed them to live comfortably for two generations.

Nowadays, they do a new business.

Welldeep had an ancient well with water blessed by Moon Goddess Lunara. 

The protection field of the well acted like a mighty castle wall and stopped evil from crossing it. Townsfolk took advantage of the blessing and offered somewhat expensive but safe accommodations for travelers passing through the forest.

It was just a regular day. Blue mists had gathered on the forest floor again, but townsfolk didn't care. Undead wasn't able to pass the wall anyway.

But their expectation of a monotonous day shattered when a figure emerged from the forest and passed the protection field, a Paladin of Solara.

He wore scratched armor without polish and a worn cape that lost its bright yellow color after dirt gathered on it, but he had a shining emblem of the Sun on his neck.

Bored townsfolk quickly flowed towards the man and circled him.

"What business Paladin of a shattered God has here," Townelder asked the man.

Lucius reached to the pouch hanging on his hip and patted it twice, and moving coins made a tempting sound. "I am here to stay for the night and replenish supplies."

"Nothing more?" Town elder asked again. Not everyone had a favorable opinion of the Paladins of Solara. 

After the shattering, the entire group came crashing down on itself, and its members went on a suicide mission to retrieve her pieces.

They were seen as troublemakers and said to bring misfortunes where they went.

Lucius took out his helmet. From his experiences, people felt more at ease when they saw the face of one they talked to. "Nothing more. I will go away when I rest and replenish my supplies."

"Are you from the central plains?" Town elder asked. "Your eye and hair color matches it."

Lucius nodded. "I am." His hair was golden blond, and he had amber-colored eyes, a common characteristic of people in Central Plains.

When he thought about the color of his eyes and his hair, a memory sparked in his mind.

"What you love so much about me," Lucius said while embracing the warm sunlight showering his body.

"Your eyes." A gentle voice of a woman answered. "Their burning amber color, warm as my sun, and your hair, like specks of my sunrays." She continued.*

It was a pleasant memory, but Lucius shrugged it off. It was no time to remember the past. "So, will your town let me stay." He asked sternly.

Townfolk murmured something amongst themselves for a while, and then the town elder spoke. "Sorry, but if you want to stay, give us your sword during your stay."

"I cannot." He drew out his sword, stabbed the ground with it, then drew a circle and sprinkled dust around it. "But I can leave it here. Long as no one dares touch it."

"Then, we can arrange something. Follow me." The town elder turned around and began walking towards a large wooden building.

Lucius followed the man and looked at the townsfolk.

He sensed something wrong with them, but he couldn't find it.

Shortly after, they arrived at a large inn. The building had three floors and many windows. It was the hearth of business for this town, so it was cared for especially.

After a bit of bargaining and a short transaction, an innmaid showed Lucius his room. 

"I will bring your dinner to your room in a minute." She said right before leaving.

Meanwhile, Lucius looked outside the window. Townpeople were gathering wood around the town center.

When the innmaid arrived with his food, he asked her. "Is there a celebration?"

Innmaid stopped for a second. "J- just a festive for the blessed well."

"Thank you. Now, I like to rest."

Innmaid quickly dropped the food on a small table and left the room.

"Rice porridge with honey with a side of some grilled meat looks like a generous food." He grabbed a spoon of the porridge and smelled it, then tasted it. "Spiked with sleeping drugs."

It wasn't his first time encountering this. Remote villages with less than acceptable morals did this to lone travelers to rob them or sell them to wandering slave merchants even though it was banned long ago.

The blessing of Solara nullified such poisons whenever he encountered them, and this time was no different.

Lucius drew a long dagger from his boot and exited his room. Two men were waiting right outside his door.

One of them was a fat man with a bloodied butcher's apron. He had a large cleaver in his right hand and a sturdy-looking rope on the other.

The other was a slim man with crooked teeth holding a shiv.

He pointed the dagger towards the men. "Care to explain why somebody spiked my food with sleeping drugs?"

"Attack! Don't let the meat escape!" The fat man shouted.

"Got it, got it!"

Both men leaped towards Lucius. Skinny man unleashed a flurry of attacks with his shiver, while fat man recklessly slashed his cleaver left and right.

With not much space to go, Lucius stepped back into his room. The door was wide enough for only one of them to pass.

Fat man tried to get in first, so Lucius leaped forward and knowingly got hit on the shoulder with a man's cleaver.

Hit wasn't strong enough to pass through his shoulder guard and made an opening for Lucius.

He took it and slit the man's throat, and pushed him to the skinny man.

The skinny man lost his balance when the fat man's body hit him, and at that moment, Lucius launched himself forward and slew the second enemy.

"Cannibals, how great." Lucius grabbed the fat man's cleaver and peeked outside from one of the windows.

The town folk were dancing around a large bonfire and chanting for the name of the Well God.

Right behind the bonfire was a tower, and at the top of the town elder, commanding the ceremony. He was wearing only a fur coat and a mask made from human skulls.

He was chanting loudly. "Mighty Well God who protects us! Let us sacrifice the heretic! Let our sacrifice mean bountiful harvest!"

This harvest was a harvest of unknowing travelers.

"They are cannibals but not affected by demonic power or anything similar. As long as I get my hands on my sword, it shouldn't be a hard fight." Lucius thought to himself.

He sneaked out to the back of the building. There was a man on watch at the back door, but he managed to take him out quietly and went around the town to the location of his sword.

It hadn't moved an inch, though there were burn marks on the ground around it. "Some idiot tried to pull it out." He smirked.

The only problem right now was how close his sword was to the crowd. "Action will start rather quickly."

Lucius dashed towards his sword and pulled out of the ground, and cannibals saw him and began shouting.

"Heretic escaped."

"Don't let the sacrifice escape!"

"Catch him! Catch him!"

Almost four dozen cannibals began rushing towards him.

Lucius slashed, cut, and cleaved cannibal after cannibal, but they kept coming as if they were out of control.

"You have no chance of escaping!" Elder shouted. His body had twisted, and long, leech-like creatures were coming out of the sockets of the skulls.

"This explains everything. A Bloodleech infected this town." It was a type of parasitic demon that took control of living beings. Bloodleech also embraced a part of its victim into its personality. "But from how twisted you are, this town wasn't innocent from the beginning." Lucius threw the cleaver toward the town elder. The knife cracked open the mask made from skulls and split Elder's head into two.

The corpse lost its balance and fell into the bonfire, and burning leeches screamed while giving their last breath.

"You fool! This town is too far from saving! I have more bodies than you could ever dream of destroying." All townsfolk shouted at once.

They all were infected and were nothing but flesh puppets for the Bloodleech.

Lucius grabbed his sword with both hands and prayed. With every word of his chanting, flame appeared around his sword, growing stronger and stronger. "I was not there to save your bodies, but I shall save your souls."

***

After a long, bloody fight, he killed the last of the infected bodies. Lucius then gathered the bodies and gave them a proper burial before heading to the inn for a night's rest.

He removed some of his armor and lay on a bed. "Some of the bodies tried to escape, but the power of the well stopped them from leaving the town. But if well stops demons from getting in or out of its protective field, how did the first leech even enter here in the first place?"

Disturbed by the questions, Lucius left the inn and moved to the so-called blessed well.

"Traces of her Lunara is here, but this-" He moved closer and looked deeper into the well. "Demonic presence... Of course, Well wasn't here to keep evil from getting out, but to keep evil inside from getting out."

Lucius gathered whatever he could from around the town 

and closed the well and left a wooden sign-out.

[Careful! Evil sealed inside, took a short rest, and leave without touching anything] He carved the words using his dagger and painted them using charcoal.