Hello, Everyone!
I hope you’re well. I’m busy as a bee but writing gives me wings. It’s NaNoWriMo and I’m not really taking part in the Big Challenge but I’ll try and write a lot this month. I hope to have at least 30 000 words at the end of it!
Are you participating?
Anyway, Mary and her friends are currently on the trail of a series of cases involving the Undead. So far they’ve witnessed two attacks by such creatures--ghouls, skeletons and the like--and they’ve fought off the attackers with only a few civilian casualties. Starting to think that there might be a connection, they went in the office of the Pamagos militia, seeking more information in order to help.
In our last episode, they met Captain Roche who told them that there were many more cases than the ones they’d encountered. It’d started 18 years ago, it’d happened again 6 years ago and was repeating now. Last time, a culprit had been found guilty in Myth Adofhaer, by an agent named Dwendel.
“Agent Dwendel?” Mary gasped. “Dorina Dwendel?! We’ve met her father!”
“Yes,” captain Roche said. “She was a really good woman, may the gods rest her soul.”
“She might not be dead!” Mary protested.
The captain looked at her and his face softened.
“Yes, I suppose it’s possible,” he said.
“What happened to her?” Mary asked.
"She completed her assignment in Myth Adofhaer and came back with honours. But only a few days after she returned to her home here in Pamagos, she just… disappeared. Didn't pack her belongings, didn't say a word to anyone. There were no signs of struggle in her room. Her scent was tracked to the window, so we assume that's where she got out from."
"When was that?" Mary asked.
The Captain opened a cabinet and rummaged inside to find Dorina’s file. He spread it open on the table and found the date, the 9th of August, six years ago.
"How old would she be right now if she's alive?" Bruno asked.
“She should be, let me see…” the captain hesitated, “twenty-six, twenty-seven years old? Somewhere around that age.”
Mary made the calculations in her head and realized that at the time of the last undead attacks Dorina must have been only a little bit older than her. So young, and already an adventurer. Mary couldn’t help but compare herself to that mysterious woman. After all, Lord Dwendel had said that she reminded him of her.
But she wasn’t supposed to think about how similar Dorina was to her. She had to focus on the task at hand.
“The attacks by the undead this year,” she said, “have there been any sequence or pattern among them? The places, the dates…”
“No,” the captain said. “They’ve been completely random.”
“But you said that there have already been 14 attacks. Are those on the same settlements as six or eighteen years ago?”
“The assaults six years ago were mainly in and around Myth Adofhaer,” captain Roche said. “But yes, the ones 18 years ago were more or less the same.”
“Oh!” Mary’d suddenly had an epiphany. “You said that the first time there were 18 attacks and now there have been 14! If they are on the same places, there’s a chance we could go to the four remaining places and concentrate on guarding them!”
“We’ve already informed the governance of the four settlements about the coming threat,” captain Roche said. “But we don’t have enough manpower to guard them all as well as we want to.”
“And besides,” Bruno interjected, “if too much force were to be stationed to one of the places, the enemy might just change their plan and attack another. It seems that they’re intelligent enough to think about that.”
They asked for the names of the four remaining settlements and captain Roche dug them out from the pile of documents on his desk. One was a small town on Zerakas tol’s territory, another lay near Frinkeltong, yet another was in the cedar woods just south of the city of Pamagos.
The fourth one was Belfast. At first Bruno scoffed at the idea of any undead daring to attack his fortified home, but then the captain reminded him that there had been a successful attack there 18 years ago. The dwarf fell deep into thought. He said that he remembered something big being hushed up around that time and it was then where clan Valkas had suddenly lost many of their people and nobody had talked about how it’d happened.
“Not every town is lucky enough to have people like you three pass through when the Undead strike,” Captain Roche said. “Your efforts saved many lives.”
“We would like to help more,” Mary said, thinking about the Pritley woman they couldn’t protect. “What can we do?”
The Captain thought for a bit and shuffled a few sheets of paper around his desk. He took a few and looked at them.
“You could go to one of the four remaining settlements,” he said, “although I’m not sure if that’s going to do much.”
“We could…” Bruno closed his eyes and sighed heavily. His mouth curved in a disgruntled grimace. “We could go to Myth Adofhaer. You know, talk to the person who confessed six years ago.”
“But will the elves let us in their lands?” Aurum said. “They’re famously not very hospitable.”
“We could become agents of Pamagos,” Mary suggested. “After all, Dorina Dwendel was let in the city because she was one.”
Captain Roche cautioned them that, as agents of Pamagos, they were going to have to comply with some rules and regulations. Mary’s friends weren’t very keen on those. They didn’t want to become permanently associated with Pamagos but ultimately agreed to try it out, at least for that mission. It was going to open many doors before them.
So, they signed the required forms, got their agent documents and were ready for action.
Ooh! Our babies got a job! I’m so proud of them! <3 That’s the second job Mary’s had, and the first one was with Lord Dwendel. Soo, this is a big deal.
And we’re going to see the elves, Mr. Frodo!
Until the next episode,
Take care and be well!
(Also, here's a link to the Chapter Guide and the Glossary for the series. You're welcome!)