Rotten To The Core

Laura blinked away a few errand tears and finished her cup of coffee. Then she scolded herself for not following up on how to beat a Dark Elf's innate abilities. She made a mental note to ask the more experienced Order members she would soon meet and fetched another cup. She still had about ninety minutes to kill.

* * * *

Trees, nothing but trees as far as the eyes could see. Laura had always heard that things were bigger in the US but seeing the almost infinite Massachusetts forests drove home the point like nothing else she had seen in the last four hours. The trees towered high above the road and some branches almost reached for the bus's window.

Public transport was an entirely different affair from what she was used to in France. The bus she was on only left once a day and crossed into Conneticut before looping back to its destination in Greenbury after an almost four-hour drive. No comparison to the four times the small bus connecting Briou to the outside world came into the village or the dense net of busses and trams she was used to in her home town of Cologne.

Another glance at the window. Her reflection showed a pale young woman looking back at her with large blue eyes. Her heart-shaped face was framed by a short bob of almost black hair. Before she had met Vicky, Laura had worn her hair extremely short so no one could use it as leverage in a fight. She suggested I should try emphasizing my feminine side so I let it grow. Laura sighed. It's cute but impractical. Need to trim it soon. Every time she thought of Vicky, it stung less.

Laura also sported some impressive shadows around her eyes from lack of sleep. Despite a whole lot of coffee, the time difference was playing havoc with her body. She fought a yawn.

Outside, the wall of trees seemed to thin somewhat. Laura spotted sunlight glinting off water. She remembered reading something about a Black Lake being near Greenbury.

Time to make myself known, she thought, disconnecting her phone from the charger. She resisted the urge to see if Vicky had finally responded to the long mail she had composed over her breakfast in Boston and scrolled through a copy of the conversation between Headmaster Aulin and Jenna Tallfeather until she found the contact info she was looking for. She copied everything into her address book and dialed the chapter house's number.

"Black Lake Chapel, Doug speaking." The voice was deep, booming and definitely male. Her phone's speaker struggled to capture the impressive low end.

"Um, hello. This is Laura Stürmer. I was hoping to speak to Jenna Tallfeather."

"Ah, our newest recruit. Mama Bear is out for groceries at the moment. Care to give me a message for her?"

"Well, I'm on my way and should be in Greenbury in about twenty minutes. How do I get-"

"Say no more. I'll pick you up at the terminal. Who am I looking for?"

"The lithe young woman who kinda looks like a zombie, with the big bag over her shoulder."

"Gotcha. I'm the big dude with tusks. See you in twenty-ish." The connection closed.

Lucky for him all Briou graduates are able to see Shadows, Laura thought. Although in her case, that revelation had come much earlier, when she was eight. There was that tiny old woman living next door Laura knew only as "Apple Auntie" because she loved to spoil the young girl with juicy green apples.

That fateful day, some bullies had ambushed Auntie right in front of Laura's house while she was playing in the garden. When Laura heard the old woman crying for help, she didn't hesitate and intervened, grabbing her wooden practice sword as she went. The bullies laughed as she vaulted over the low hedgerow, screaming at the top of her lungs as her Dad had taught her. One tried to shove her away -- until she landed a precision hit on his fingers. In true bully fashion, that shithead screamed like a little girl for his buddies to kick Laura's ass but their unprotected knees and grabbing hands were easy targets for stinging slaps of her weapon. By the time things threatened to turn ugly, her Dad was on the scene and none of the hoodlums wanted a piece of six-foot-five, three-hundred pound Matthias Stürmer who calmly asked if the bullies wanted to wait with him for the police. Of course they ran like the cowards they were.

Laura remembered reaching for the old woman's hand -- and something she had almost forgotten stirred in the depths of her memories. Apple Auntie's eyes looking past her, to where Dad was. Only when she caught some unseen approval did she allow Laura to pull her upright. And Laura squealed in surprise as she saw Apple Auntie for what she truly was. Granted, she still was an old woman but not a human old woman. Her skin was as green as the apples she lavished on Laura and her ears were large, floppy and triangular, giving her skull the shape of a football. Long wisps of white hair went down her bent spine and her hands had only four fingers, each one tipped with a tiny black claw. Her eyes were full of gratitude and pride.

And later that night I heard how Dad talked to Headmaster Aulin over the phone, telling him that I would come to Briou once I turned ten. I wasn't quite sure if it was a reward or punishment for helping Apple Auntie that day, Laura thought. I'm still not sure but it's too late to moan about that.

In Briou she learned that most humans were incapable of seeing Shadows for what they were until a Shadow willingly touched them for more than a second. Something about aligning metaphysical wavelengths, the teachers in Briou had said. Even so, most people simply refused to see Shadows for what they really were, because as a whole, humanity had been conditioned that monsters, goblins and elves simply didn't exist. Those who could see things for what they really were had been decried as lunatics or witches which caused many to simply keep their mouths shut for fear of persecution or ridicule.

One thing Laura had learned in Briou in regards to the world at large and magic in particular -- there seldom were cut-and-dry answers, easy black-and-whites to sort your world around. Everything was a confusing mess of grays, maybe's and potential.

Which brings me back to my own lack of magic, Laura thought. I mean, Mom is one hell of a spell-slinger and Dad is blessed by some higher power. Following the laws of genetics, I should have inherited at least a fraction of their power. She had been tested several times during her stay at Briou, with the same negative result every time. Carlos, one of the few other humans in her year and by now an accomplished assassin, had more magical aptitude than her!

"Hey, are you asleep back there?" the bus driver called. Laura returned her reclining seat to upright and looked around. She was the only one left in the bus.

"I'm awake. Are we there yet?" she asked back, putting as much cheer into her voice as possible. The driver chuckled and turned his focus back to the road. Laura grabbed her bag and relocated to the front of the bus.

Outside, she saw the outskirts of a small town pass by, with the towering forest an ever-present backdrop. The crumbling remains of large lumber yards gave way to warehouses and shuttered business fronts. Eventually, the bus turned off the main road and came to a stop under a concrete awning. The terminal to the left of the bus looked only marginally more in use than the rest of the neighborhood. A solitary figure, a hunk of a man close to seven feet tall, waited in front of it.

"Greenbury, Massachusetts," the driver announced unnecessarily. "End of the line. Thanks for using Piper's Bus Tours."

"The pleasure was all mine," Laura said, leaving the vehicle. She took a deep breath. It was surprisingly warm, easily 27° Celsius, and the scent of the city tickled her nostrils. A hint of warm asphalt, exhaust fumes and something else, something... old mixed in the dusty air.

She shouldered her bag and headed for the mountain of a man who was holding a hastily scrawled note over his head. Doug was bald save for a thick coppery braid hanging down to mid-back. He wore frayed jeans and a leather vest over a colorful, skull-adorned white T-shirt. His skin was almost tan in color, the sunlight purging most of the green tint from it. His tusks were on full display as he offered a huge grin. The note read "Frau Stürmer!"

She chuckled. "Laura is fine. Are you Doug?"

"Yup." He looked around and boomed a little less: "Paladin in the name of Mercy!" Doug tapped his chest. A wing-like wreath of light was briefly visible, brighter even than sunlight.

Laura raised an eyebrow. "What do you do? Hit sinners very gently?"

Doug roared with laughter. "I may be forbidden from starting a fight but, by Mercy's shapely bosom, I end fights once and for all, especially when helpless folk are at stake." He looked around. "Let's get you home. We can talk on the way. Fewer ears around."

"Fine with me." She followed Doug as he made his way around the bus terminal. The towering half-orc headed straight for a silver-and-blue Pontiac Trans Sport minivan which had seen better days. The side panels showed an impressive collection of dents and the sprayed-on blue crosses had almost completely rubbed off.

"Someone hasn't taken good care of their vehicle," Laura muttered while Doug fumbled with the keys.

"'S not mine," the half-orc grumbled. "Jenna brought it with her from New York. I figured you'd be bringing a bit more stuff than just that one bag, hence the van and not my bike."

"I'm a Pally, on a steel horse I ride?" Laura sing-songed as she opened the rear door. She threw her bag on the bench seat before climbing in behind it.

Doug folded almost double as he took the driver's seat. "Joke all you want. I'll take a Harley over a meat warhorse any day of the week." He put on his seat belt and started the car. "Much less maintenance."

They drove in amicable silence. Laura looked out of the passenger side window. The drive through downtown Greenbury wasn't much more uplifting than what she had seen from the bus. There were old art-deco buildings, their imposing facades faded and cracked, next to early-Eighties concrete-and-steel office blocks. They seemed haphazardly placed, almost as if struggling for dominance. In the end, numerous boarded-up windows and deserted storefronts united those disparate buildings into a strangely uniform vista of failed ambition.

After a few blocks of the same depressing view Laura turned to Doug. "Say, how many people live in Greenbury?" she asked.

"A couple thousand. Maybe ten thousand? Haven't seen anything resembling a current census since I came here from L.A."

"The town looks much bigger than that though," she said.

Doug nodded. "When the lumber business folded, many got out while they could I guess. Well, and then there's the city's reputation."

"Which I haven't heard about yet. I mean, since the Order is setting up a new branch, there has to be something for us to do but I only got the short version when they sent me here."

"Which short version?" Doug shot her a quizzical glance.

Laura spotted two men digging through a dumpster while a third was roasting something over a barrel. Laura hoped it was a big rat. Shivering, she returned her attention to Doug. "'Congratulations for graduating, here's your first assignment.'"

"Oh, that's short indeed. Well, Greenbury has the longest list of missing people in all of the US. We're talking 'vanish without a trace' levels of disappearances. And then there's Black Lake."

"What about it? I saw glimpses on my way here. Looks ominous."

"It is ominous. When I came here, Jenna and I had a look. Something's in there and it made my holy symbol scorch a toasty little crater into my chest."

"Lovely. As if the sahuagin near Briou weren't enough scaly terrors from the deep. If I never see one fish-man flashing his dick at me again, it will be too soon," Laura growled.

"You're shitting me. Fish-men have no dicks," Doug said.

"Let me settle in and I'll show you," Laura said, tapping her jacket where she had her phone stashed away.

"You have photos?"

"Every spring the sahaugin came up from the lake near the castle to abduct a few virgins for their procreation rituals. Our job as academy students was to protect the locals," Laura said. "Sadly, I had to leave my trophies behind. No room in my bag for a couple meters of hand-cured lengths of sahuagin leather. But I have pictures."

I just need to move the ones with Vicky into a private folder. A wistful smile tugged on her lips as she remembered how Vicky had volunteered as bait for the horny fish-men, prancing up and down the shoreline in the nude. The battle was fierce, despite the whole class giving it their all. They nearly lost Marox to a poisoned spear and Carlos nearly drowned, harpooned off-shore by a sahuagin sniper.

She exhaled slowly before the inevitable memories of the victory celebration, of naked Vicky and the sunset beach, could tear at her heartstrings. "Anything else I should know about? Monsters in the woods?"

Doug chuckled. "Nothing an Order initiate can't handle, I guess. Just stay clear of the Asylum until we have a better idea of what's going on there."

"Asylum? This place sounds more and more like something straight out of either Lovecraft or King."

"Yeah, Asylum. Or rather 'former Asylum.' The place got shuttered in the late Seventies when the stories of patient mistreatment and dubious operating procedures became too frequent to be hushed up. No one coughed up the funds to level the place yet."

"Now it's a haven for creatures of the night?"

"Our local contact talked more about squatters, addicts, the homeless and other displaced souls but, until we've checked it out, I'd rather not assume anything."

They had arrived in a residential area. Tall trees did their best to obscure the old houses from view but the radiant sunlight only amplified the ever present signs of neglect and decay. Laura saw flaking paint, broken windows, cars rusting on cinder blocks, the occasional door flapping in the wind. Some houses were still occupied and in better repair than the deserted ones yet it was those lived-in houses which stood out like sore thumbs surrounded by their decrepit brethren.

"I hope the chapter house is in better shape," she muttered. "This looks dreadful."

"It is, believe me. We even have warm water and electricity around the clock."

"Speaking of 'we.' Who will I be working with, besides you of course?"

"You're gonna like them, I guess," Doug said. "Maria Lechner is our sorceress. Got her diploma from some place in Vienna."

"Die Schwarze Akademie? So she's a Necromancer?"

Doug shook his head. "Jenna wouldn't be stupid enough to pair a Necro with a Paladin. Maria does a lot with weapons, armor and tech. What's the word? Artificer. First thing she did for me was help with my armor." He clicked his talon-like fingernails against some kind of collar he wore. "Then there's Eric Deveraux. He's our healer. Poor kid had half his face bitten off by a ghoul."

"Ghouls? Ugh. Did he...?"

"Catch Ghoul Fever? You bet. Left some damn ugly scars too. I wouldn't mention them if I were you."

The minivan turned onto another road. The treeline was much closer now while the houses stood further apart. Most striking thing of all was an old chapel, the tower barely taller than the next closest house and the nave not much bigger than Headmaster Aulin's office.

"I'll be gentle. You said 'kid.' How old is our healer then?"

"Just turned eighteen. Makes him the youngest of our ragtag band."

Laura whistled softly. There was little reason to doubt Doug's words. As a Paladin, lying was frowned upon. So, if this Eric was both that young and skilled enough to end up on Jenna's radar, he had to be something pretty special. Or carrying a giant chip on his shoulder. She grinned at her reflection. Whatever the case, things promised to become very interesting rather soon.

Doug stopped the car one door down from the chapel, in front of a wide, two-story building. The front was freshly painted, the white used almost painful in the sunlight. Someone had mowed the lawn recently and tended to the trees close by. Everything around the house looked new and fresh and healthy, even the small cemetery next to the chapel had fresh flowers on some of the graves.

"Cozy," Laura remarked, looking at the sign next to the chapel. "Oh, you answered the phone saying I called the Black Lake Chapel. Is that our cover?"

Doug locked the van. "Yup. Not very convincing, especially considering our priest, but it's the only thing we have right now. Not that the neighbors are particularly inquisitive." He opened the front door and the mouth-watering aroma of grilled steak greeted them. Laura's stomach roared like a famished werewolf. The promise of hot, tasty food lifted her spirits and turned her thoughts away from Vicky. She inhaled hungrily and looked around. Beyond the front door was a small entrance hall. A staircase snaked up and to the left while two corridors went to either side on ground level.

"I'm back!" Doug bellowed. "And I brought company!" He nudged Laura. "Gimme your bag, I'll take it upstairs while you say hello."

"Sure. Thank you." She handed it off to him and Doug took the stairs two at a time.

A tall, tanned woman with a thick braid of amazing, jet-black hair stepped out of a door in the left-hand corridor. "So, you're Camilla's girl, huh?" Her eyes were of a bright orange, the slightest hint of her strangeness. "I see the resemblance. How's your mother doing these days? As crazy as ever?" She joined Laura in the entrance hall and extended a hand, the barest hint of a welcoming smile tugging at her lips.

Laura shook it. "A pleasure to meet you. I'm Laura." She offered a grin. "Nice to meet you, Mother Jenna."

The werebear rolled her eyes. "Ugh, please. Save the titles for the paperwork. Jenna will be fine. Just don't call me 'Mama Bear' if you value your face. I'm a werebear, not a mascot for baby wipes, for Chrissakes!"

"No problem. How come Doug still has his?" Laura asked innocently.

"I'm not supposed to rip my second-in-command to pieces in the gym, that's why," Jenna growled. She was easily a head taller than Laura and swabbed in loose-fitting clothes. "But believe me, I'm this close!" Jenna raised her hand. Her index finger and thumb were just a hair apart.

Laura shot her a friendly smile. "And I have no silver on me to defend myself," she joked.

"I'm a natural, girl. I can hulk out whenever." Jenna grinned back, exposing a hint of canines. "So, you hungry?"

Laura's stomach answered with an affirmative growl. Jenna showed her a bathroom, to freshen up. While she was in there, Laura heard Doug coming down the stairs, saying something to the druid. Once done, the werebear led Laura through a large dining hall with room for at least a dozen people, out through a back door and onto an ivy-shrouded back porch where a table was set up, laden with bowls and plates. The smell of freshly grilled steaks and roasted bread was mouth-watering. Beyond the porch was a garden, a curious mixture of cultivated plots and wildly growing plants. As she watched, she saw two cats chase each other up a tree.

Jenna took her seat next to Doug. Within moments, they were bickering. Laura ignored them for the moment and focused on her new chapter mates.

Eric was easy enough to spot. He was a lanky young man, with tanned skin and a mop of honey blonde dreads going everywhere. A colorful bandana kept them out of his face and nearly managed to divert her attention from the ghastly set of scars going from his nose over his right eye to where his ear should have been. His lips curled into a friendly smile. "Heya. I hope my ugly mug doesn't ruin your appetite. You're Laura, right?"