7: Nox Mortre

The stench of sweat and smelting steel was making Zen regret his greasy lunch choice.

Vo approached the burly old blacksmith focused on setting the shape of an iron longsword. "Blacksmith?"

"Who's asking?" The blacksmith asked while his focus was still on the burning sword laid on the anvil, and his hammer banging.

"It's me Lyra." She was about to say more but Vo stepped forward to cut her off. She grumbled complaints that stirred chuckles from Zen.

"Name's Vo. I'm a roshi, investigating the disappearances."

"A wandering swordsman. Did Leizan send you?"

"He did. I heard your daughter entered your hut and never came out."

The blacksmith paused and gave the men his attention. "And this is your partner."

Zen gave a cutesy smile. "We go way back."

Vo shook his head and kept conversations to business. "Did she show any signs of something being wrong when she saw you?"

The blacksmith wiped his brow and placed his hammer down. "No. My baby girl came to bring me lunch like she always did." His eyes welled with tears.

Lyra stepped forward and placed a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry Bob, I know this is hard for you to talk about it, but if there's any information you could give us. We want to find her."

He nodded and told them what he knew, which wasn't much. But he said she had been talking to some out of town strangers during her job at the tavern. One of them had been a bit rough with her: she had called on the guards to escort the strangers out.

"Guards?" Lyra frowned then nodded. "Thanks Bob. Is it okay for us to look around the hut, we'll make sure to leave it undisturbed as possible."

"Whatever it takes to find her, bring her home." He added a plea directly to Vo. 'Please, bring her home."

"We will do our best." Vo reassured him and strolled into the small stone hut.

Lyra was carefully examining the fixtures. Zen leaned against the door frame, finding the whole task tedious. Vo, however, had activated a passive ability that was shared to him via Shane. He could see energy changes as trace outlines.

"So far the objects line up to their physical shapes. Nothing magically impacted," he noted to Shane.

"A person doesn't disappear for no reason. If she didn't leave physically then magic made her go."

"What's this?" Lyra noticed a dry smudge on the ground, some were laid out like it once formed a splatter.

Vo saw changes in the splatter outlines, which were more widespread. Shane's detection magic allowed him to retrace the last few movements of the splatter. It rewound backwards, traveling upward from the ground to retrace a path to a vial held in a black gloved hand of a mage, who was completely concealed. The moment was lost, so his vision returned to the present state of the smudge.

"She was taken."

Lyra stared at him with many questions but, instead, she said, "How do you know?"

"That smudge is from a potion, when smashed causes a smoke screen that distorts physical reality. It casts a temporary illusion to allow a person a moment to escape. Everyone outside the range is unaware." Vo knelt down to stare closer at the smudge. "It's called..."

"Black Crow Eye. A common potion rogues and assassins use." Zen aloofly added. He rolled his eyes when they looked surprised and suspicious of his knowledge. "What? I've traveled to lots of places. Can't I have some knowledge about sneaky things?"

"Anyway, maybe we need to speak again with our blacksmith." Vo suggested.

They exited the hut to resume a conversation with the blacksmith. When questioned again, the man was defensive but Vo could tell he didn't know more. So, they left him to speak with the barkeep.

As they were headed for the tavern, Zen caught sight of a suspicious sort monitoring them from a doorway.

They chased after the person down the outer streets and lanes of the village and came to a dead end, at the far side of a hill past the north palisade.

The person they chased was a tall warrior in hardened bone and scale armor of a guard. A scar trailed the right side of his weathered face.

"Turn away before you get too deep." The warrior warned them while raising his metal sword and shield high.

"Wait!" Lyra cried out when she got a better look at the man. "Sneker? My god, you're alive!"

"I don't know who you are, lady. Back away now before it's too late." The warrior raced to fight them. Lyra's greatsword clashed against his blade.

"Sneker! It's me, Lyra! Snap out of it!"

"There's no Sneker! Lyra? No, turn away now!" The warrior continued to shake his head, like he was trying to swat away flies.

Lyra performed rapid parry, upper and lower slashes to knock the sword out of Sneker's hand. She found it too easy for the old guard, as her memory of him was a staunch shield warrior. But this Sneker just froze on the spot when his sword dropped.

"Sneker! Sneker!" She frantically called out his name.

Zen frowned as he approached the man. "Hello?" He waved a hand over the man's face but it was suddenly unresponsive.

"I detect two spirits fighting in the body: giving conflicting information. One's screaming at us to run away and the other wants to fight with the sword. The one who wants to fight, is dominating the control of the other. It's a dark form."

Vo stepped back to unsheath Shane. He activated his magic in the sword, and muttered a spell to separate the spirit disruptions within Sneker's body.

"Step back. This won't hurt him, but it will knock you on your ass if you stand in the way."

He raised the sword and, with swift movements, caused a cross-shaped flow of magic light to race for Sneker. It slammed into his body, causing the merged parts of his spirit form to split. The invading spirit evaporated. Sneker's spirit returned to his body, as it was still linked.

The man collapsed to the ground and began convulsing.

Vo sheathed Shane and hurriedly pulled out a healing vial, pouring it in the man's mouth.

"Thank you but it's over for me." Sneker gasped. "I had to use all my strength to warn others."

"Who took you?" Vo asked.

"My wife. Tell her I'm sorry. No, the Nox Mortre... they want..." Sneker's eyes were glazed as his life swiftly drained from his body. Then he was dead.

Zen stepped back with an expression of fear. "Nox Mortre... not here." He chewed a nail, fretting with mild panic.

"You know something about it?"

"Not here." Zen dropped his hand as his eyes darted side to side.

Lyra sighed with remorse. She closed Sneker's lids. "He was the first of the missing. One of our own. He can't be dead. He can't be."

"Do you want to take him back?" Vo calmly asked her and saw her head nod.

He lifted the man to carry him. Doing so, he caught sight of a woman motif etched into the dead end's stone boulder. "Nox Mortre."

Zen grabbed his arm. "Let's go back and update the good commander."

The men and Lyra carried the body back to the village.