Not to Cause Offense Ch. 02

"Lisbeth," Terin greeted, stopping by her table and nodding to each of her four-man crew in turn. Among them was a full-sized orc in sparse leather armor, a halfling mage sitting astride a stone golem that resembled a skull with legs, a solemn-looking berserker who likely hailed from one of the Great Arctic tribes, and that weird gangly fellow with no apparent fighting abilities or magical affinities who he could never figure out. "It's, uh...been a while."

With a sigh, Lisbeth leaned back in her seat so that the black leather armor she wore wailed in protest, only glancing up at him in the wake of a long and heavily exaggerated pause. She looked exactly as he remembered her. Short, shimmering black hair framed a pale, near-expressionless face and even the intricate, old world cryptids coloring the right side of her face, neck, and shoulders were unable to brighten her features. Much like Terin, she was fully human and completely devoid of any magical affinities. That was a fairly rare set of traits given their profession—especially among the big game hunters—and they'd bonded over that shared struggle once upon a time. But whereas Terin compensated for his weaknesses with knowledge, Lisbeth compensated for hers with raw brutality. If she'd ever had a moral compass, it had long since been obliterated and all that remained were the rusted, pointed shards of its metallic skeleton. The woman understood empathy as a concept, but her understanding ended there.

"Terin," Lisbeth replied, finally acknowledging him with a curt nod. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"You're surprised to see me? This is a rescue job. It's damage control."

"It also pays better than most and my crew doesn't play favorites. You, on the other hand, don't usually take jobs that require anything more complex than, say, a quick and odious head bashing targeted at some dumb, sharp-toothed, cave-dwelling beast."

Terin stiffened. "What are you talking about?"

"Those women they've got locked up downstairs," Lisbeth began, her voice eerily monotone. "They know something—they have to know something—but they won't talk, so we're calling in a rotary. He should be here in a few days time."

"How do you even know they won't talk? Or that they simply can't? We just got here," Terin hissed, immediately feeling uncomfortable. "Did Lord Vareill sign off on your rotary?"

"Uh oh, have I upset you, Lancet Slayer? Is the bloody, rotten stench of the career you've chosen starting to crawl in through your nose?"

"You're not even gonna try tracing the enchantments they're likely under? You're just gonna go for a rotary straight out the gate?"

"My Lord Vareill insists that they are under no enchantments."

"He could be wrong!"

"And if he isn't?"

"Maybe they can be saved," Terin growled, his fists trembling by his sides. "Maybe they can be brought back to their senses."

"And maybe they can't be, and every day we waste chasing hypotheticals is another woman lost to the foul beast driving this province toward madness."

"Like you care."

"I'm just trying to make you feel a bit better about the situation," Lisbeth shrugged. "But you're certainly welcome not to."

Just then, a loud cough echoed through the banquet hall and they all turned to see Lord Vareill being escorted by two personal guards down toward the center of the room. That was Terin's cue to stop arguing and find his seat—somewhere far, far away from Lisbeth Remaulde. While Lord Vareill was greeting everyone in turn and begging them to fill their plates, he managed to grab himself some food, then claimed a table on the outskirts of the hall. There were no introductions. As soon as everyone had filled their goblets and loaded their forks, Lord Vareill got right into the debrief. It was largely the same story as before, only with more dates and names attached. The "infestation" had apparently begun almost nine months ago, when the Potion Master's wife and their adult daughter went missing. For ten days, there was no sign of them. The search quickly ran cold and there were no clues as to their whereabouts. Then early one rainy morning, they suddenly reappeared, unharmed but dead-eyed and eventually...

"...hello?"

Terin nearly cursed all his gods in a single go, he was so startled. The voice seemed to have come out of nowhere, but looking down, he could see that the strange Felinix woman from upstairs was now awkwardly crawling under the table for some reason. She gave him a coy, mischievous smile, then nodded toward the seat beside him. The little devil was trying to sneak in mid-debrief! Trying to look indignant, Terin shook his head, but she didn't seem to care. Slowly, she eased herself into the chair beside him as naturally as if she'd always been there and then—then she grabbed a chicken leg off of his plate!

"You're late," Terin growled from the corner of his mouth, quickly snatching back his plate and setting it on the opposite side of the table. "I thought you were a professional, eh?"

"I'm not technically late if no one notices," Jira whispered back. "Besides, only amateurs need rely on punctuality to feed their reputations. The rest of us have other skills we can use to sell our—oh, gods!"

Jira buried her face in her arms and Terin watched curiously as a new fellow entered the room. He was unusually tall, but thin as a bean pole with short, messy black hair and eyes that seemed profoundly bored. Strangely enough, though his face was speckled with stubble and his skin somewhat grimy-looking, his dark purple robes were immaculate and he wore a single, golden stud in his left earlobe. Scanning the room somewhat lazily, he finally spotted the two of them and began to walk through the hall. Nobody seemed at all bothered that he had come in late or even acknowledged his existence, but Jira was frantically gesturing for him to sit at a different table. He didn't listen, though.

"You should have snuck in or at least sat somewhere else!" Jira moaned, as he plopped down beside her. "You're embarrassing me!" But the new fellow only rolled his eyes, then signed something to her with his thin, nimble fingers.

With that, Terin returned his attention to Lord Vareill and the debrief. Of course, the Potion Master's wife and daughter had only been the beginning, but no one else knew that at the time. In the six weeks immediately following their reappearance, there were no new kidnappings and it was assumed that whatever had befallen the Potion Master's family was an unfortunate fluke. Perhaps they'd gotten hungry and ingested some vegetation from the Firelands? Or perhaps they'd stumbled across a mischievous Imp and been unable to entertain some mercy out of him? Then one day, the local herbalist went into the woods to procure some specialty items and didn't come back. It wasn't unusual for an herbalist to camp out overnight during a forging expedition and so seven days were allowed to pass before anyone went searching for her. When they finally did find her, she was lying in a dew-drenched clearing and staring with unblinking eyes up at the sky.

"But still, there was no clear pattern," Lord Vareill continued. "Not for ages."

Then mid-spring, Lady Keerin traveled to Loroathe with plans to lead an expedition into the uncharted regions of the Wilds. Long-abandoned demon villages could still be found outside the protected lands and the Keerin Family had made a fortune excavating the ancient sites and using whatever strange magic had been left behind to forge weapons. Eventually, they were even granted a banner, a truly remarkable feat. Terin knew of only one other family to have earned its royalty, at least within the last six centuries. It was late one evening when Lady Keerin stepped into the gardens to clear her mind and simply disappeared. She was the eleventh woman to have gone missing and perhaps this was what prompted the royals to finally start paying attention, but more than likely, they only cared because they'd finally lost one of their own.

"Logic dictates that she was taken," Lord Vareill explained to the room. "By who or what, we don't know. But Lady Keerin would have had to check with my security team in order to leave the castle walls by any of the main exits and she couldn't have scaled the walls on her own. Even with her magical affinities, it would have been extremely difficult—if not impossible—and what motivation could she possibly have had? The entire outer perimeter is heavily enchanted and the enchantments are on a randomized encryption matrix."

"What about the servants' quarters?" a voice called out, and Terin took note that it belonged to the ominous fellow with an "X" burnt into his forehead. "Most royals I've been acquainted with don't even like having to look at the help if they can avoid it. They prefer to pretend that their beds make themselves, that the floors sweep themselves, that the horseshit shovels itself. They want everything done quickly, quietly, seamlessly..."

"And?" Lord Vareill prompted, looking annoyed.

"My point," the ominous fellow continued, "is that every castle is riddled with secret staircases and corridors and exitways, so that the help can come and go without having to be acknowledged. And these places—some of them get walled off for whatever reason, or misplaced, or just forgotten until someone with the know-how goes looking for them. If a castle is old enough, there will be old escape tunnels under the grounds and hide holes in the dungeon. I'd guess there are at least a dozen or so ways to get into and out of your castle that you don't know about."

"I assure you, the original blueprints say otherwise and any additions or alterations would have been noted in the original."

"Really?" the ominous fellow pressed, looking unconvinced. "Let me ask this: Have you documented every single addition and structural change you've made to the castle since you took power? Or are there some places you'd prefer to keep secret from those who have access to your Vaults?"

"The enchantments cover the entire grounds," Lord Vareill replied, refusing to take the bait. "Even if there are unguarded passageways and secret exits, the enchantments would make it impossible for anyone to go come and go undetected, regardless of their means."

"Exactly how deep do your enchantments go, my lord? And what about nullification barriers? Surely, there are regions of the castle with nullification barriers specifically so that if the castle walls were to be breached, you'd have somewhere to hide? Someplace enemy mages would have to physically occupy if they wanted to turn you inside out?"

"If you're still unconvinced, you're welcome to peruse the castle at your leisure," Lord Vareill drawled, this time turning burning eyes toward the man with the potions belt. "Under proper supervision, of course."

After that, Lord Vareill went on to detail all thirty-two women who had thus far been taken, noting that there were likely a good deal more unreported cases. The reasons for this were wide and varied. For one thing, women with less anchored lifestyles could easily be abducted without ever being missed. Worse still, communication between the city and the rural villages on the outskirts of Loroathe was limited, meaning that reports were often delayed if they made it through at all. Then there were the families who preferred to keep their missing sisters, and daughters, and mothers, and lovers a secret. Though Lord Vareill had made all relevant missing persons reports mandatory, many were ashamed of what had become of their friends and family members and many more were afraid. Those who had been afflicted by the monster plaguing Loroathe were forcibly quarantined in the castle dungeon and that was the last anyone outside of the nobility ever saw their loved ones. A large subset of villagers had been caught hiding their own inside their homes or else attempting to smuggle them outside the province.

"There is no evidence that the effects are contagious," Lord Vareill admitted. "But better safe than sorry and besides, the more cases under observation the more we're likely to learn of this...this...thing hunting our women."

"Sexist much?" Jira mumbled under her breath, and Terin rolled his eyes.

The pattern was always the same. Those abducted were all between the ages of twenty-three and fifty-six, though there was a single outlier who had disappeared just before her birthday. They'd be gone for exactly ten days and then they'd come stumbling back into town, utterly expressionless and without the will to speak. They didn't respond to any external stimuli—not to the cries of their friends and family, not to offers of food or water, not to bright light or noises, not even to pain. They seemed capable of finding their way back home, but that's where their memories apparently ended. For three days, they would remain catatonic, but then their minds would gradually start to lift from the fog, only the person underneath would be mad with insatiable lust. Extensive testing showed that they did regain access to their memories and their former personalities, but all of that was so diluted by their need as to be non-existent. They behaved as starving dogs might behave.

"And yet, there's no evidence of magic?" Jira asked with a mouth full of bread, and that's when Terin did a double take and realized she had somehow managed to sneak around behind him for more food. "Isn't it possible magic was used to make permanent alterations to the brain and the victims were released only after any residuals had faded? Just because the magic is no longer detectable doesn't mean it wasn't used."

"Oh, please," Lisbeth scoffed. "The skill required to make anatomical alterations that precise without any apparent side effects is beyond the scope of even the most seasoned healers under King Ordin. And besides that, residual magic wouldn't fade over the course of a mere ten days, even if it was imparted on living tissue."

"Residuals can be diluted," the man with the potions belt interjected. "Residuals can be covered up."

"Not perfectly, and certainly not well enough to register a complete and utter lack of magical influence," Lisbeth countered, while Terin grabbed hold of his plate just in time to prevent another theft. "Obfuscation rituals are only useful if you're trying to hide what you did, not if you're trying to hide that you did anything at all."

"When done right, obfuscation can give residual magic the appearance of meridian damage or similar abnormalities in the natural flow of mana," one of the elves corrected, and the other two immediately gave him a furious glance. "What?"

"Are we even sure it's a monster?" the man with the potions belt continued. "Why couldn't it be environmental? Something in the well water or in the air?"

"And only some are affected, specifically women?" Lisbeth chuckled. "Really?"

That was apparently the last straw and the hall immediately erupted into chaos and noise. As the central debate became more and more complex, little side discussions started to split off, angry arguments grew steadily angrier, and eventually insults were hurled. Right from the start of the debrief, the room had been tense and it wasn't difficult to imagine why. Cram over a dozen monster hunters of differing motivations, cultural backgrounds, and sub-specialties into one space and at the very least, there'd be a few underhanded comments. But add into the mix a supposedly "unsolvable" mystery and the prestige that would presumably come with solving said mystery? Now everyone and his mother would be out to prove something and the spring had finally unwound. It was exactly what Terin had hoped he could avoid. They hadn't yet left the castle walls and already the monster hunters gathered there were scrambling over one another in search of leverage, their nostrils filled with blood and their ears ringing with adrenaline.

"You know, the Felinix woman does have a point," Grotz drawled, and although his voice was quiet, its depth caused it to reverberate throughout the hall. Even among society's most loathsome outcasts, a Grand Teller garnered a lot of respect and the room grew silent just as quickly as it had devolved into bickering, save for the crackling of the fireplaces and Jira's chewing. "Does no one else see? Even assuming this was all done by a monster, it had to have used magic to impart these kinds of effects. The pattern is too consistent across the victims to be induced by physical trauma, no matter how surgically precise."

Much like the Draconian woman in the far corner, Grand Teller Grotz had seemed largely content to sit still and observe. But now, all eyes were upon him. He wore gorgeous sky blue robes that were so voluminous as to nearly overwhelm him, decorated at the sleeves and hood with the plain, thick-lined eye and constricting pupil symbolic of his order. Two enormous serrated blades as thick as his thighs and roughly the length of his torso sat sheathed on his right side and he sported a tiny gray vial on a chain around his neck. Then the cloaked figure sitting by his feet took down its hood and Terin could hear Jira gasp in horror. She'd likely never seen a Teller's channel before. The woman had short black hair and deeply unsettling bright blue eyes, as well as a scarification piece on its left temple in the shape of a magic circle. That was to say nothing of the three little cloth "X's" stitched up and away from the right-hand corner of its mouth. They made it look as if the woman were permanently smirking, hiding some terrible secret it intended to keep on hiding forever.

But none of that was why Jira had gasped.

The reason Jira had gasped was because of, well...everything else. From its neck down to its toes, the cloaked figure was covered in gruesome marks of every variety imaginable, from sunset-colored bruises and deep, anatomically-aware cuts to bubbling chemical burns. It wasn't unusual for a monster hunter to bear scars of course, but these scars covered such a wide scope of methodologies and had been inflicted with such precision that it was clear they hadn't all been acquired in battle. Stranger still, the cloaked figure was bare-footed and wearing hardly any armor. Or, more accurately, it was wearing hardly anything at all. There was nothing underneath its cloak except for a thin, knee-length black dress being held up by the O-ring around its neck. Though the cloth barely clung to its form, it was easy to see that the figure hadn't even bothered with undergarments.

"Maybe hypnosis?" the Draconian woman suggested.

"I'd expect a higher failure rate if it were hypnosis," Grotz disagreed. "Not everyone is equally susceptible to hypnotic effects and even those with inherent susceptibility wouldn't be equally compromised by the same induction method. Not to mention that hypnotic effects can't usually be sustained for months on end."

"And how can we judge the failure rate if there are unreported cases?" Terin blurted, surprised by his own boldness and, judging by their faces, so was nearly everyone else. "Look, I'm not interested in fighting with anyone, but if the victims consistently re-appear after a ten day absence, those missing who fail to return are likely presumed lost or dead for other reasons. Right now, we have no idea what the failure rate looks like. We can speculate all we'd like, but let's not pretend it isn't speculation."

"Very true," Grotz mused, and he turned toward Lord Vareill. "To argue like this without more concrete data is a waste. You say the victims are exhibiting the exact same behavioral changes, but if that's the case—"

"Well..." Lord Vareill interrupted, looking uncomfortable. "They aren't always exhibiting the exact same behaviors. Certainly, the progression of symptoms is the same across all of the victims and they're all consumed by their baser urges eventually, but the manner in which their need manifests itself is, uh, unique from individual to individual."