Vol.1 Ch.7 – Phantom Melody

Chapter 7: Phantom Melody

It was nearing evening on the following day when we reached the next town on our way, named Lycia. From what the villagers in Rhine's Cradle had told us Lycia was mostly renowned for its beautiful pond that the Lycians would fish in. Lycia was even smaller than Rhine's Cradle so between a few farmers and the fishers they were fairly self-sufficient. Even better, the town had a small wall built up around the perimeter to keep out beasts. It seemed like a wonderful place to overnight, or at least it did until we passed through the gate. For the barest instant I thought I could hear children singing and then both Selene and Alisha let out a hiss and I paused, not daring to turn around. I had an inkling of what was wrong given there was only one thing that would make both of them pause like this.

“Did your Sense Evil skill flare up?”, I asked quietly.

“Yes”, Selene replied. “Can you feel it too?”

“Sort of”, I told her. “I'm getting a bad vibe.”

“What should we do?”, Alisha asked.

“Stay calm, find the inn, then assess our surroundings”, I said.

We walked briskly through the streets, looking for the inn and looking at the village along the way. The place was gorgeous, grass growing between the cobblestones, vines snaking up the houses and thanks to the nearby pond there were a lot of little toads hopping all around town, though I couldn't hear any of them croaking. The villagers were not eyeing us like vultures, which gave me hope that whatever had made the girls' Sense Evil flare up it wasn't the fact that the whole village was part of some death cult. But something still felt off.

As we walked through the village I couldn't help feeling like we were being watched so I leaned down to Alisha and whispered: “Don't look around. I believe we're being watched.”

I expected her to look around regardless. Instead she blushed and smiled and kept staring straight ahead. What had that been about?

**

Finally we reached the inn and walked in. The innkeeper immediately recognized Selene's status and offered us housing and food and we gratefully accepted, but I asked for a single two-bed room instead of multiple rooms.

Once we got settled in our room we started talking shop. We still had a few hours until dinner.

“So”, Selene started. “Why did you insist on the one room?”

“If your Sense Evil is still humming along, we need to sleep in shifts tonight and that is much safer if we're all in the same room.”

They nodded in understanding and Alisha asked the big question: “What's in this place that's so bad, though? Even you noticed something.”

“Well”, I began. “I can think of multiple reasons for Sense Evil to affect a whole town. The most dangerous but also the least likely is that the entire town belongs to the cult of an evil god. If that were the case, all the villagers would be evil. But that's unlikely.” I idly started drumming my fingers on the small desk in the room, thinking.

Eventually Alisha asked: “Why?”

“If so, we would be able to see signs”, I said. “The villagers giving us hostile stares, piles of corpses in the alleys, the symbol of a more evil god than Demeter on the town chapel, that sort of thing. Don't get me wrong, Demeter is a psychopath, but she is generally considered one of the good gods. But don't take my word for it. Selene, we're not that far from your home town now. Have you heard bad rumors about Lycia?”

She shook her head. “Nothing like that. About the worst we heard about this place was that the school here was too expensive to afford so a lot of children in the neighboring villages came to the school in our village instead of being sent here.”

“Alright, so the worst we can say is that they might be greedy. A less dangerous possibility would be that some ancient evil is sealed away beneath the village. In that case your Sense Evil would be ringing constantly but we're not actually in any danger. It'd be annoying for the two of you, but nothing to worry about”, I told them.

“That sounds much better”, Selene agreed.

I continued: “The most likely possibility is that some monster is using the village as its hunting ground. A feral vampire or something like that.”

Selene cocked her head to the side. “What's the difference between a feral vampire and a normal one?”, she asked.

“Feral vampires are the ones who gave in to their blood lust”, I explained. “Vampires only have to drink one adult human's worth of blood every three or four months, but they can do it piecemeal, never taking fatal amounts from anyone. Feral vampires don't care about holding back and kill indiscriminately. Normal vampires are basically just people who suffer from a weird disease that grants them supernatural strength, a crippling aversion to sunlight and a peculiar thirst. I mean, the one who resides in my district in the capital actually pays beggars with mun and a meal for their blood. But once they let the little voice that is constantly telling them to kill and feed rule their actions they go feral and are considered evil.”

“Well, any other thing it can be?”, Alisha asked.

“Lots”, I said. “An evil witch, a swarm of tooth fairies... I don't even know all the things it could be.”

“There is another possibility”, Selene said suddenly.

“Oh?”, I asked, honestly curious.

“We're not that far away from the Dark Lord's castle but the people here don't seem overly concerned. Maybe they were taken over by the Dark Lord already.”

I considered. “That's not a bad thought. But would they have agreed to house a Chosen One for free?”

“If they were planning to kill us, sure.”

“Alright, once we go down to dinner let me taste it first. I have a poison-detecting magic item. And we definitely sleep in shifts. But I still doubt it. I've noticed some other odd details.”

“Like?”, Alisha asked.

“Where are the children?”, I asked. “It's not that late outside but I didn't see any children playing. If they have a school building you'd think there would be more children around. But there's something else, if only I could put... my... finger...” I trailed off. “Athena's bush!” I stared at my fingers on the table.

“What is it, Felix?”, Alisha asked, concerned.

I drummed my fingers on the table again. They didn't make a sound.

“I don't get... oh. How are you doing this?”, Alisha asked, then drummed her own fingers on the table and neither of us could hear it.

“Hold on”, I said, staring at her. “Do you remember when I told you we were being watched?”

Her head snapped up to me. “We're WHAT?!”

“A few minutes after entering the town I whispered to you: 'Don't look around, I believe we're being watched'. Don't you remember that?”

“I don't remember you whispering to me. Wait, was that when you leaned down to me?”

“Yeah. You were blushing, which I found an odd reaction.”

“I didn't hear anything. I thought you were”, she blushed, “smelling me.”

Selene chuckled. “Save it for later, lovebirds. So we can't hear small sounds, is that it?” She moved her lips as though she were whistling but none of us could hear it. “Weird.”

“There has to be something causing this. It wasn't like this before we came here.”

“I have an idea”, Selene said. “Or rather an opinion. But you know what those are like.”

“What do you mean?”, Alisha asked.

I smirked and explained: “Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one except for nymphs and dryads.” Alisha snorted and I continued: “Please Selene, go ahead, we're just brainstorming here. Any idea helps.”

“Alright, but bear in mind that I know nothing about magic.” Alisha and I nodded. “What if there's a constant sound in the air that drowns out small sounds like whispers? Something or someone doesn't want us to hear that sound so they're casting some sort of charm spell that makes us unable to hear it. We wouldn't be able to hear the sound itself but the sound is still there, drowning out other, smaller sounds. Is such a thing possible?”

Alisha considered. “Demanding but possible, yes. But what would they be needing to hide?”

“An evil cult's chanting?”, I suggested. “The heartbeat of whatever Outer God they've got chained up in the chapel's basement?”

“Some sort of siren song?”, Alisha added.

“If that's true”, Selene began, “the idea of the evil cult is pretty much out of the window now.”

“How so?”, I asked.

“If the villagers were evil cultists they wouldn't need this setup to hide what they were doing. They could simply not open the gates to outsiders”, she explained.

“Good point”, I said.

“But what could it be?”, she asked.

I shrugged. “No idea. The true question, Miss Chosen One, is what you want to do about it.”

“What do you mean?”, she asked.

“The way I see it", I said, "you were sent to slay a Dark Lord. You contracted us to help you slay the Dark Lord. The Dark Lord is not in this village. Technically speaking we have no reason to poke our noses into whatever is happening here.”

“Are you suggesting...” Alisha began but I continued:

“We can either sleep in shifts tonight and then get out of here at the break of dawn and never look back or we get to the bottom of this and find out what is going on here.” Alisha relaxed at that. “However, Alisha and I are only your mercenaries. This is your decision to make, not ours.”

To her credit, Selene actually took time to consider it. “I think... I think we should investigate. If it's some sort of sealed evil creature we can just leave it where it is, but if some monster is preying on the villagers we need to put a stop to it.”

Alisha and I smiled and nodded at her.

“Alright then”, I said. “Let's grab some dinner but, just in case, wait until I've used my poison detector.”

“Yeah, fine, 'dad'”, Alisha said.

“You sure you want to call me that after what we did last night?”, I asked her and she swatted my arm.

Selene chuckled at our antics.

**

The tavern was a bit raucous by the time we got there. Lots of people celebrating, which struck me as odd in a village that might have a predatory monster eating the villagers. Despite all the people it didn't take long until we were served. The barmaid was an adorable little girl, maybe nine or ten, carrying three large plates easily.

“Hi”, she said, smiling. “Are you new here? Oh wow, you're a Chosen One!”, she said, looking at Selene's shiny armor.

The Chosen One smiled. “Yes, I am. My name is Selene, what's yours?”

She smiled and told us: “I'm Shelly! My dad owns the tavern and I help out lots!”

“I can see that, you're such a good girl. These are my friends, Felix and Alisha.”

We both waved at her and she waved back.

“Nice to meet you!”

“So”, Alisha asked her, “do you like living here? Do you have fun?”

Shelly leaned her head to the side. “Everyone's friendly but it's a bit lonely. There's only two other kids my age in the whole village. But at least Miss Mary is here!”

“Who is Miss Mary?”, Alisha asked.

“She's the teacher. She's super nice and knows lots of stuff.”

“You like going to school, huh?”

“Sure! But mostly because of Miss Mary. She's so great.” She got a sly smile. “She's also pregnant.” She giggled and told us conspiratorially: “But she doesn't have a husband. Daddy says I can't talk about that though, so shh!”, she said, gesturing us to hush. We all mimed zipping our mouths and she laughed. Then she looked up and said: “Oh poo, I just remembered I don't have time to chat. The old guys over there”, she pointed at some men in their late twenties and I smiled, “probably want their beer. See you tomorrow!”, she told us and was gone.

“Such an adorable girl”, Alisha said. I agreed.

We turned to our plates and I pulled out a tiny lime green stone. I tapped it on each of our plates in turn and it didn't vibrate, telling me there was no trace of poison in our food, so we started digging in.

The house special was floured lake trout with white wine sauce and assorted vegetables. The mellow flavor of the fish went wonderfully with the rich and slightly tart flavor of the sauce and the sweet roasted vegetables were the perfect complement.

**

When we got back to our room we decided on the shifts and I offered to take the second shift once again. And again, Alisha woke me up with a kiss when it was time for my shift. This time I pulled her in and inhaled her scent.

“What are you doing?”, she asked, giggling.

“Smelling you”, I told her. “If I get blamed for doing that I might as well actually do it.”

She giggled again and then made a show of smelling me as well before she laid down under the blanket.

I had been up for about two hours when I heard it. A sudden, profound silence fell over the entire village and I experimentally tapped my finger on the nearest surface and, sure enough, I could suddenly hear the small sound again. Whatever sound we weren't supposed to hear had stopped. But why now, in the middle of the night? Did whoever was doing this feel no need to keep it up when nobody was awake? Did they get tired as well? Or was there another reason the sound had to stop? I made sure to write the occurrence and my ideas down before my shift ended so that I wouldn't forget it when I woke up.

An hour later I woke up Selene and went back to bed. The last thing I heard before sleep claimed me again was the faintest sound of children singing.