Raven had been having a nice time as she and her team returned from their latest quest. They’d dealt with the mystery, enjoyed the gratitude of the town, and were now returning home. It started in the inn that morning, a days walk from the city. Everyone was talking about an attack. At first she thought they were still talking about the fire elemental from the month before until the word ‘demons’ hit her ears.

  Her stomach dropped as terror filled her heart. A demon attack? She snagged the shoulder of one of the gossipers, a human woman, and asked, “What happened?”

  The lady didn’t seem upset at being grabbed and started from the top of her story. “Well, two days ago there was a bit of a rumbling they said, coming up from the woods to the east. Then a few hours later several demons came and hit the walls. Some had wings and flew over, started attacking people. They called up all the adventurers and sent out word that anyone with fighting type classes needed to come at once it was that bad! Dozens dead, the wall was damaged and some of the buildings got destroyed.”

  Jace and Mazen looked as stricken as she felt at the woman’s story. Raven let her go before turning to her companions. “We have to hurry.” They were going to get breakfast but with this new development she didn’t think she could stomach a meal anyway.

  “The vault.” Jace said as they got outside, moving as fast as Mazen could manage. Raven wasn’t going to leave him behind even if she felt she could run back to Dacathus.

  “The vault.” Raven said in agreement. It was the only thing that made sense. Someone had managed to get the vault open. Someone who hadn’t headed her warnings about it, or just didn’t care. Likely they had been the demon’s first victims too.

  As quick as they could move it still took them most of the day to get back to the city. Mazen thankfully wasn’t suffering from cold sickness any more but chelkrens couldn’t move as quickly as humans and paracrest on a good day.

  When they got to south gate they saw guards on high alert. Some were normal civilians called into service from the look of it. One of them even recognized her on site.

  “Hold up.” The tanned older human called to the others, “Adventurers! So glad you came back.”

  Raven blinked a moment, working to place the woman. “Anteril Hillcock?” She asked, slowing her pace. Her legs burned from the prolonged pace she had pushed them through, grateful to finally have a rest.

  “Yea. Pulled my old sword out of retirement the moment we heard about the demons. Bart and the rest spent the day in the root cellar for protection. Pretty sure all the demons are dead but we volunteered to stay alert for a few days more just in case any more of those bastards are out in the woods.”

  “What’s the situation? We heard about the attack this morning at an inn we were staying at. Hurried back as soon as we could.”

  “Ok so demons attacked the east side of town. Not many, but enough to destroy buildings, break the gate on that side and kill some people. Not sure how many since there are a few collapsed buildings that side of town and some folk have gone missing.”

  A terrible feeling started welling up inside Raven. Something that started gnawing at her from her subconscious. This happened during one of Ramjack’s days off. A time when he’d often be in the woods to the east, hunting. She doubted he would have had anything to do with the vault. But what if he ran into demons out in the woods?

  She split off from her party, running right through the gates without submitting to a check. No one stopped her since Anteril had already vouched for her and her party. Her legs might have protested that she was back to running but she ignored the pain as she ran straight for the library.

  When she got inside the cranky librarian was at her desk. Her eyes seemed hollow as she gazed at Raven. “I take it you heard?”

  The paracrest swallowed hard. “I… I just got back to town.” She breathed hard, waiting with terror eating at her insides.

  “He’s been missing since the attack.” The civith’s eyes said it all. She thought he was dead. That was not something Raven wanted to believe. Until she found a body she wasn’t about to give up hope. Mayne he was hurt out there? He had skills, he could have fought. He was smart, he could have hid.

  “I… we’re going to go look. My team and I. We’ll find out what happened.” She didn’t care if this was a guild quest or not. Mazen would have her back, and Jace might be up for it as well.

  ———

  The party reconvened at the Adventuring Guild. There on the wall near the bounty board was a list of missing people. Ramjack’s name was on there. She stared at it even as Jace was busy turning in their quest. She would find him, no matter what it took. She knew his habits, his spots in the woods.

  “I’m sorry Rav.” Mazen said, standing at her side as she looked at the names.

  “Save sorry till there is no hope.” She replied, working to keep her tone gentle. He meant well but she didn’t want to give into grief. “I’m hoping you will come with me to look for him. He likes to hunt when he’s not at work.”

  Mazen reached out with his good hand, squeezing her own in a silent agreement. Jace made his way over to them with their pay for the job. He stayed silent briefly, his own gaze on the names.

  “We need a meal and food. We cannot go out into those woods at night.” Either he had heard her talking or figured out why Ramjack might be missing. Either way Raven was grateful for his support. He was also thinking much clearer than her. If he was laying hurt in the woods time was in the essence but they would have no way to find him in the dark. Getting food and rest was their best chance to find anything at all.

  “How about I get us supplies for tomorrow while you get a table at The Sheltered Fang. We haven’t eaten all day.” Mazen let go of her hand.

  Raven closed her eyes, breathing deeply. She nodded as she let it out again. “You’re right.” Her stomach agreed too, burbling. It felt more raw than her legs did now that she was paying it attention. “Jace and I will get a table and order dinner. Thank you Maz.”

  At dinner Raven was caught between needing to eat because she was so hungry, and not having the mental energy to eat. She stared at the rice and stir-fried vegetables she had in front of her. It was normally pretty good but it tasted like nothing in her mouth as she forced herself to eat. Her companions were correct that she needed the energy. It was just hard, back to feeling helpless.

  Everyone was quiet at dinner. Jace and Mazen both ate heartily, clearly enjoying the food. She just couldn’t get her mind to settle. Either Ramjack was dead and already beyond hope or he wasn’t. And if he wasn’t he might need help fast. That’s what was eating at her.

  She continued to force down her rice even as Jace ordered a second meal after finishing a course of soup and bread. At last, the silence was broken. “We can head out at dawn.” She spoke. She wasn’t sure she would sleep, hoping that her exhausted body would just shut down a while and make her so she could get up that early.

  “I got everything we need.” Mazen told them, finishing with the fish he had been eating, “You just tell us where we are going.”

  She found herself cracking a smile at her loyal friend. “Jace and I have been to his campsite before. The path is easy and he told me he liked to go out there on his days off to hunt rabbits. A break from the city.”

  “If the vault really did get breached,” Jace put in, “Him getting tangled up with demons seems likely. If he… well, if the demons didn’t get him he might have made a tactical retreat out there and either gotten lost or think it is not safe to return to the city. If we do not find him right away the vault is a good choice. Even if the demons broke out of there it does have safety and rooms that can be closed off for hiding.”

  Raven forced some of the vegetables in her mouth, partly for fuel and party to stop herself from speaking as Jace talked. She felt that the human believed the librarian to be dead out there. Maybe just humoring her for the sake of the team. If he was, well, he still needed to be found and it could be dealt with then.

  ———

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Sleep did not come easy no matter how tired she was. She rolled on the nest of bedding she had in her tiny room at the boarding house. She had to tell herself over and over that she would do no good for him if she was exhausted. She finally lulled herself to sleep with a tiny fantasy about him stumbling back into town, telling everyone that he had been hiding from the demons and got stuck for a few days.

  She startled awake when Mazen came knocking on her door. It was time to face grim reality. He was missing. Either he was hurt somewhere and in trouble or… or he was dead. She didn’t want to think the words but she forced herself to so she wouldn’t be caught off guard if…

  Raven threw off the bedding, pulled on her gear, and headed out. Mazen was still standing there, waiting patiently for her already geared up. “Jace put himself in charge of breakfast on the go and will meet us at the city gate.” He told her as they headed out of the building, supply sack over his shoulder.

  None of them were [Scout]s or trackers, but both Raven and Jace knew the way to the campsite. They moved in silence, eating their breakfast pockets and sipping water from their water-skins. Sunlight cut down through the trees, sparkling against the dewy ground. As they got closer to the camp it also sparkled on something else.

  A knife, tarnished with gore lay on the ground reflecting what little sun reached it. Besides it, the source of the gore, was what was left of a demon. It had mostly decayed into goo but the severed plates remained on the ground. A bow and sheath of arrows lay close by as well.

  It was a harrowing scene. The worse thing for Raven wasn’t there. Ramjack, cold and dead from a demon attack. But she recognized the bow, the knife. They were part of his hunting kit. He’d done battle with a demon, and looked like he’d won, but where was he? If he was alive why were his weapons laying here?

  “Rav…” Mazen asked, assessing the scene, “Just how far is the bunker from here?”

  It was fairly close by. When they’d originally found it they had been tracking a [Hunter] who had gone missing. He had wandered around through the woods a bit before finding the downed tree and fell into the top of the bunker. Getting to it from where they found the weapons was not more than ten minutes. That’s where they found a few bodies, not Ramjack’s thankfully.

  At the top of the ramp, half lodged into the tree-roots was the decaying body of a hillsec. They wore little more than a vest and some kind of medallion around there neck, a spike driven through their back and out their chest. Looking down into the top level of the bunker there was another hillsec body, this one looking more torn up but still clearly one of the serpent people. Another two more gooey piles lay on the ground, the decaying remains of demons.

  “We need to see what’s down there.” Raven told the others, already on her way down the ramp. Both men only hesitated for a moment, their eyes still taking in the corpses, but they were right on her tail before she could get down a floor.

  Together they started their searched. The older bodies had been removed by one of the city’s funeral services groups, ones that felt even the ancient dead should be put to rest properly. Fresh blood marred the floors now. A few more piles of what were once demons and another dead hillsec were waiting in the records floor. The place was a mess. Old shelves smashed and the remains of something unidentifiable splashed everywhere.

  The door down to the vault level stood wide open. It had a big dent in it now. Carefully, Raven went down the ramp and found the vault itself. Empty shelves. Broken gear and another Hillsec body, this one looking like it was smashed under something heavy that was then removed.

  “All the non demons are hillsec.” Jace pointed out with a frown. Raven had seen that too. She’d already been asking herself why a bunch of hillsec had come here, and how they’d gotten into the vault when several adventuring teams had failed. Had they known what was down here?

  “I havn’t seen many hillsec since leaving Terath.” Mazen frowned as well.

  “Neither have I except in the Scholar Ward.” Raven agreed. Something poked her from the back of her brain. Where had she heard about seeing hillsec outside of there before? She felt she had but it wasn’t coming to her.

  “He’s not down here.” She said at last, confused and just a bit rattled by the situation. “I’m going to bet that for whatever reason whoever opened the vault and took the artifacts down here also decided to take Ramjack.”

  “He probably got hurt fighting the demon.” Jace suggested, “They probably took him for medical treatment… but, why would they not take him back to the city?”

  “I was wondering that too. I would say it was because the demons were headed there too, but, if we’re talking about the same people who willfully let demons out why would they want to save someone? That makes no sense to me. If they were bandits or the like they’d have killed him. People who just let demons loose would have let a stranger die in the forest rather than risk saving him too.” She shook her head. “And there is no way he would have left his weapons behind if he was moving under his own power.”

  “What do we do now then?”

  “First, we get what we can from the bodies. There might be some kind of clue. Then, unless we find a very obvious trail to follow we head back to Dacathus and see if anyone knows anything about a group of hillsec.”

  ————

  They looted what they could of the bodies, which ended up just being a collecting of strange medallions. They had a weird blob shape in the middle with a lightning bolt over top. Raven had never seen the design before and decided it was best to start there with her search of who these dead folk were.

  They got back to town in the afternoon, going straight to the guild to report their findings. They might not have had a sanctioned quest but the guild needed to know in order to get out the proper cleanup crew.

  Mazen stuck with the guild to the paperwork and finish explaining. Raven figured it was to get paid for retroactively completing a quest but she didn’t care. It was hardly about the money for her. She wanted to know about the medallions, and to do that she chose to question members of the hillsec community in Dacathus. They were a minority here, mostly transplants from Terath and small villages within a month of travel here for the Scholar Hall.

  It just so happened that one of the teachers was a Hillsec. Jace knew her, having studied under the woman before joining the Adventurer Guild to make money. More importantly, he knew her office hours and could bring Raven straight there for introductions.

  The office was on the first floor of the East Wing. A minotaur student, heavy satchel slung over one shoulder, exited the room with downcast eyes. He walked past the two of them even as Jace knocked on the door.

  “Come in!” A cheerful voice called.

  Raven wasn’t sure what to make of the woman as she walked in behind Jace. The Hillsec was covered in creamy white scales accented by darker red stripes here and there. Her side head sails nearly came together at the top, striped with red and black. One of her hands held a porcelain cup with a flowery scent wafting from it while a lower one held a stylus.

  The hillsec’s body was curled on a soft pillow seat behind a desk of a rich dark wood Raven couldn’t identify. Shelves lined the office, filled with books and stacks of paper, along with various small instruments the paracrest had never seen before.

  “Good day professor Thaliss.” Jace greeted.

  “Jace! Pleasure to see you again. I heard about your discovery last month. Professor Voss was frothing at the mouth for the chance to prove his historical theories. Have you come to chat about it or for a catchup because you’ve finally re-enrolled in my classes?” She sipped delicately from the cup before placing it down on a saucer before her on the desk.

  “I do hope to re-enroll, soon. But that is not why I am here. Professor, I would like you to meet my colleague, Raven. Raven, professor Thaliss.”

  The hillsec moved her predatory eyes from the human man to the paracrest. And while the vertical pupils were similar in a way to Ramjack’s, the look they conveyed held no warmth. At least not to her prey brain which wanted to either run or kick as hard as she could. She quashed it quickly, wondering if the woman just had an aura about her, some kind of skill. She’d dated a hillsec before and hadn’t felt like food under his gaze.

  “Hi.” She said at last, forcing her gaze to stay on the woman. She didn’t want to show fear, nor did she want to challenge authority with her look. The pressure eased and the woman inclined her head just a bit.

  “Why do I feel like this is not a chat about academics? Is it my engineering prowess you seek? Surely it is not a math problem?” She folded her lower set of arms after setting her stylus aside and tapped her sharp teeth with an upper hand.

  “I’m sorry to feel the need to ask you about this…” Raven spluttered, cursing herself inwardly. She thought she’d gotten control of herself as she drew out one of the medallions. “There are not many hillsec in Dacathus to ask and Jace said you’d give the straightest answer if there was one to give.”

  Jace nodded even as the professor took the medallion into her hand. She was frowning as she looked it over, and shook her head. “Where did you even find this?”

  “It was found in the aftermath of the demon attack.”

  The hillsec let out a breath and cast her eyes towards the ceiling. “Reckless misogynist idiots.” She muttered, placing the medallion down on her desk. “This, thing, is from a cult. A really annoying mostly hillsec cult. It only likes men, worships something they call ‘The Master’. Speaks mostly in some old language only they know or so I’m told. Every once in a while we have someone who was raised with their ideals try to apply here only to not want me as their teacher. The college rejects them of course. What a dumb belief system that places importance on gender.” She shook her head. “That’s something you sometimes see with those from elsewhere. But this cult is the jewel in the crown when it comes to bizarre and outrages beliefs as far as I am concerned. Not sure how they continued with their men only thing. I’m guessing there are either kidnapped ladies in their basement or some woman with low self esteem got roped into their schemes for protection and kept making eggs for them.”

  “What are their goals? Do you know where they operate?”

  “Well, I’m sure the guild would love to know that if they can be blamed for the attack. Hell, might finally get them shut down. Sure, every hillsec knows since we try to avoid them. Though sometimes an impressionable boy might go out and join them. Always feel sad for those lads.” She shook her head. “There’s a tower, kept and maintained from the time of the Amber Empire far to the east past the forest. No roads lead there directly so you’ll either have to go through the woods to get there or go around them using the roads. As for their goals? No one knows really. Old tech and demons are usually what I hear about when it comes to them. Call themselves ‘The Master’s Chosen’.”

  That’s when it clicked together for her. Raven remembered what Ramjack had told her about the day he’d appeared. About where, past the forest but he didn’t know the direction. It had been a stone corridor, and a hillsec had tried to grab him but he’d ran. He didn’t know any details, or what was happening. He just ran into the woods and kept going until he followed the river.

  “He’s there…” Raven breathed. “Professor, thank you.” She turned to Jace. “We need to talk to the guild, and then we need to go on a trip. He’s there, I’m sure of it.”