Chapter 22 - Lillinberg (Part 2)

Back at the bar, Clint hadn’t yet finished his glass. He merely swirled the unappetising liquid in its cup as he carefully observed the village through the window.

“Bartender.” He asked gruffly, summoning the lone working Auf.

It took some time for him to arrive, hurrying up from the cellar. “You’re still here? You really need to get going soon, we’ve got-”

“How many houses you got in Lillinberg?” He asked curtly.

“Houses? How should I know-” He pinched the bridge of his nose, clearly already far too stressed for what Clint was putting him through.

“500? It’s a hard one to count, but I counted 50 since I got here. This place is probably ten times bigger than what I’ve seen, judging by this map… That’s 500.” Clint nodded toward the aforementioned map.

“500’s probably about right, sure.” The bartender agreed quickly, eager to get away from the offputting cowboy.

“...Strange. This map shows 2000.” Clint mused, showing the menu to the bartender. “And they’re all in nice rows on here. Out there… Not so much.”

“It’s an old map, sir.” The bartender grit his teeth. “Do you actually need anything or…?”

“Just answer one more question.” Clint stared down at the Auf from under his hat. “What’s the population?”

Sol immediately jolted to action, turning toward the sound and breaking their camouflage spell. Before them was the mustachioed Auf they had encountered earlier.

“Mr Sol, Miss Luna. Why are you spying on my village’s children?” He huffed. “Did you think there were no mages here who could see through a simple Enshroud?”

“Who are you?” Sol asked defensively.

“I am the mayor of Lillinberg, and I’m in my right mind to banish the two of you if you don’t explain yourselves right now!” He steamed, hot breath pouring forth from his mouth like a chimney.

“Why are you lining up the children like that? What’s wrong with them?” Luna stepped in, taking a large step toward the mayor.

“There’s nothing wrong with them!” The mayor insisted, stamping a foot. “Besides their attitudes maybe! Those are the poorly behaved children who will be missing tonight’s festival, the festival you two are so rudely trespassing on! That’s why they were sobbing, there’ll be no festivities for them!”

“...A hundred kids? All getting detention?” Sol raised an eyebrow.

“Yes! Our population is in the thousands, is that really that surprising?” The Auf asserted.

“It’s a lot of misbehaving kids…” Luna grumbled.

“Auf children are naturally mischievous, Miss Luna.” The mayor made a final statement. It was clear the discussion was concluded. “Now, I must insist the two of you leave Lillinberg. The festival is so nearly upon us and we cannot have outsiders!”

“We can’t leave! We need to find the Adventurer’s Guild first! You wouldn’t send us into those goblin infested woods with no supplies, would you? What kind of Aufish hospitality would that be?” Sol protested.

“I-!” The mayor bit his tongue. “Yes, I do apologise we couldn’t accommodate you both this evening. Please, travel south for ten or so miles. We have a rather large orchard surrounding it, so don’t be afraid if you hit some trees. Just keep travelling and you’ll find it eventually.” He sighed.

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor! Please excuse my sister and I for our confusion.” Sol smiled, waving the mustachioed man away. He left with a grumble and a sigh, allowing the twins to regroup.

“South isn’t right at all. That just leads us back out to the woods.” Luna frowned, recalling the map and the trail they had already taken perfectly.

“Don’t worry, I know where we’re really supposed to go.” Sol beamed, already turning to face their new direction.

“How?” Luna asked, though she followed his lead immediately.

“His eyes flickered this way before he lied to us. If the adventurer’s guild is anywhere, it’s this way.” Sol grinned, pointing determinedly North-East.

The afternoon rolled away like tumbleweeds across the sand. Evening was not yet upon them, but the sun was dropping ever-lower, threatening to rob the world of its light sooner or later. Despite all the time that had passed, Clint was only on his second cup, and still there was no sign of Sol and Luna. Not that he minded. He was waiting for someone else entirely.

Behind him, the door at last creaked open. The footsteps were familiar to him by now, he had walked thousands of steps at their side. Marrie Gauld had returned.

“Y-you? What are you still doing here-” She stuttered, running over to Clint as fast as her legs could carry her.

He didn’t turn to face her.

“What’s eating you?” He asked, taking a casual sip of his wine.

“What? I’m not sure-” She stumbled on her words. “N-nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.” She insisted, at his side now.

Clint glared at her, yellow eyes bright and dangerous under his hat. “No. What’s eating you?”

Lillinberg’s Adventurer’s Guild building was situated exactly two miles North-East of the schoolhouse.

Was.

When Sol and Luna arrived, there was nothing there. Just a barren landscape and scorched grass in the vague shape of where its foundations would have lay.

“It’s gone.” Luna muttered. “How?”

“If it was attacked someone would’ve reported it, right?” Sol was in disbelief.

“If all the staff were killed…” Luna’s brow furrowed, mouth hanging open as she struggled to find any words at all.

“At that point it’d be up to the villagers.” Sol continued, but didn’t quite conclude. He didn’t need to. He and Luna were synchronised now. The Adventurer’s Guild had been destroyed, all its representatives killed, and the villagers of Lillinberg kept it quiet.

They had to leave. Now.

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.” Marrie stepped back, horrified, her sickly pale face giving away that her words were nought but lies.

“You’re feedin’ somethin’.” Clint spoke slowly and articulately, sharpening the contrast between him and the panicking Auf at his side. “That’s why all the food’s gone. That’s why you’re gatherin’ it all up.” He turned, bearing down on Marrie now. “Maybe that’s why the woods’ve gone quiet.”

Marrie’s hands covered her mouth, tears forming fast and heavy in her eyes. It was a truth she of course knew, but was still horrified to be reminded of. “This thing you feed; It gets angry, don’t it?” He continued. Marrie could only see his cold yellow eyes now, spotlights beaming down onto her. “Angry enough to destroy your homes. There used to be 2000, now you’re only down to 500.”

His head raised, briefly freeing Marrie from his terrifying gaze. “That’s why the houses are all ramshackle. No use buildin’ ‘em well if they keep gettin’ knocked down.” He returned his all-consuming stare to her. “I don’t see a point in buildin’ em at all. You’ve already got more houses than people. 500 homes to only 300 odd folks.” Clint’s voice just kept getting lower, it stayed calm, but it began to growl, like a dog drawing closer to its prey. “I guess that’s just to keep up the lie that there ain’t nothin’ wrong.”

“Th-there really isn’t anything…” Marrie’s attempted protest was weak, it lacked the foundation to sustain itself.

“‘Course those buildings used to have people in ‘em. People that’re gone now. People that hungry thing of yours must've ate.” Clint seemed to be right on top of her, though he hadn’t moved an inch. Marrie was being crushed between his sheer presence and the ground. “If you don’t give it enough food, it eats people. I’m thinking you wouldn’t want it to be your people.” Marrie felt like she could die at that moment. She thought maybe it’d be better if she did than allow it to continue any longer. “Is that why you were in the woods? Is that why you brought us here?”

The door crashed open. Sol and Luna rushed in with the chill the early evening air brought. It was cold outside. Far too cold for springtime. “Clint! We’re leaving, now!” Sol barked. “This town is-” Clint raised a hand to silence him. They shared a brief look. Sol knew instantly that he was a step ahead.

The cowboy took one last yellow-eyed look at Marrie before he stood, finally relieving her of the crushing gravity his stare exerted. His spurs tapped at the wooden floor as he began his exit, leaving the Auf woman behind him in total disarray.

Marrie struggled, choking on words leaving her spitting half syllables and garbled vowels. “I-I…” Their backs had turned on her now. If they made one more step, she would be damned forever, doomed to be branded a traitor for the rest of her days, nothing but a cog complicit in an evil, evil machine.

“That’s not why I was in the woods!” she wailed, earning enough of a pause from Clint that she could start a whole new flood of words. “Everything else… Everything else you got right! Th-there is no festival! That’s all a cover-up!” She breathed heavily, throat full of things she wanted to say. “There was no flooding either! The barren supplies, the ramshackle houses, all of it! Its all because…” She balled her fists. It took all of her strength to say what she said next.

“Every month we feed a monster! We give him all of our supplies and sometimes that’s enough, but you’re right! He… He eats us!” She wept her words, face burning with boiling tears that trailed her cheeks and stained them. “But it’s us and only us! That’s Lillinberg’s burden to bear! We’d never feed anyone else to it! Especially not wonderful people like you!” She screamed her last sentence, praying that her words would reach them through their turned backs.

“So…” Clint turned his head slightly, allowing her one more glimpse at his yellow eyes. They were so different now, so kind. “What’s eating you?”

“Th-the Ogre!” Marrie yelled those words with all the air her lungs could muster. It was a secret she and the rest of the Lillinberg had held so tightly for so long that she felt the weight she carried halving at just the utterance of it. “The Immortal Ogre!”

Blue and red eyes widened. The name meant nothing to Clint, but everything to the prince and princess of Gallia. “One of the Demon King’s Four Cardinals?” Sol uttered in one big exhale.

“He’s real…?” The words shook themselves loose from Luna’s throat. “But I thought…”

Only Clint was capable of remaining calm; Even then, it was only out of ignorance. “When’s he comin’?”

“He comes when the sun sets on the night of the festival” Marrie spoke slowly. The others hadn’t noticed, they had turned away from the open door behind them. They did not see that the sky was already dark.

They did, however, feel the earth shaking beneath them. They heard the crows screeching in fear as they fled from the trees, heralding the arrival of something immense and evil within them. They could even smell the stench of blood and iron that the beast bore down to its very bone.

By the time they got outside to investigate, he was there, pushing his way out of the trees with his wide flat head like a bulldog. He shoved through from the darkness piece by piece in a horrible birth, emerging out into the village finally.

He towered over Lillinberg, double the size of the buildings at least even with his back hunched from crouching under the treetops. His skin was a blue-green, deep and dark and stained with dried blood that darkened him still.

His breath was heavy and forceful, pushing the branches of the trees with each exhale. Inside him, gigantic lungs like great balloons worked to force the air up his long chimney of a throat and out of his tusked maw. It took such effort that he appeared perpetually out of breath, body constantly struggling to keep up with its own gigantic size.

As he stepped through into the clearing, his humongous feet, gnarled and calloused from being bare his entire lifetime, came crushing from on high, each footstep an avalanche. Every footprint he left behind was a pit that, if filled with water, could reasonably be called a pond, so deep and wide that a full grown Auf could drown in it.

When he rose to full height, he stood as broad and as sturdy as a castle turret. He cleared the tree-tops, only the tallest and oldest of the oaks able to compete with his height. As he adopted an upright posture, the sheer size of him was finally clear. His chest was broad and bulging, like his leathery skin had been pulled over forty barrels. His legs were comparable to the tree trunks he stood alongside and between them his fat belly hung low, round and heavy like a boulder, even in its currently unfilled state.

The Aufs were like ants beneath him, each of his toes long enough to stand two of them at least. They scurried to stand to attention, bowing in rows to the mighty beast before them in a twisted procession.

This, in all of its horrific majesty, was Blüt, the Immortal Ogre, Third Cardinal of the Demon King.

Current Party: Clint Morgans, Sol Dragoneart, Luna Dragoneart

Bullets Remaining: 5