The past and the future
After our four friends finally reached Feth after a long hike in the last blog, they had to make an unusual discovery after a restful night: There are no male inhabitants of Feth. In order to get to the bottom of this fact, their first stop today is Jarl’s wife Konstanze, from whom they hope to obtain some information.
Konstanze reacts very glumly to their enquiry, and so she brushes them off a little. She refers them to Fiona, who is best informed. Even our socially incompetent troupe take the hint and they go to Fiona two houses away. She is also visibly uncomfortable with the enquiry, but invites them into her modest home. They take a seat at a round table and Fiona begins to tell the story:
‘The story begins many years ago. At that time, we weren’t all old ladies, but were still in the midst of life. Gerda had just become pregnant and some of the others were still planning to have children. It was at this time that Negril, the village hunter, suddenly disappeared. At first this was not unusual, as Negril was often out hunting for long periods of time and sometimes travelled longer than expected. This time, however, it wasn’t just one or two more days, but weeks. This unsettled us in the village more and more and his wife Margret even more, of course. The village council therefore agreed that a search party should look for Negril. Our best men were chosen to follow Negril’s tracks. But no sooner had the search party set off than the next disaster struck.’
Fiona has to swallow and tears well up in her eyes. Only one quiet word comes out of her mouth: ‘Oskar’. Our friends wait patiently for Fiona to regain her composure and then she continues: ‘Oskar was my favourite and I’ve never seen him since, and the search party came back without any new results. We were all very insecure and warned each other to take good care of each other. But one night, Ronald, Carla-Theresia’s husband, suddenly disappeared. We knew we had to do something and started to set up guards for the night. Nothing else happened for a few months and we thought we had beaten the curse. But it was just a pause of horror.’
Fiona swallows again and this time she visibly struggles to regain her composure. She wipes her wet eyes and continues: ‘Almost nine months after Negril disappeared, it got my Ahring, my son, who was on guard duty that night. So we doubled the guards so that they could look after each other. The attacks paused again, but it wasn’t over. Kasimir and Nil, Konstanze and Gerda’s men, kept watch together, but Nil still disappeared. Kasimir, our Jarl at the time, reported a numbness that stayed with him for days. He could no longer remember large parts of the night. However, as a fellow watchman and Jarl, he felt obliged to set off in search of Nil. Despite our objections, he set off with his son Konrad to at least look for traces. Well, we never saw them again either. Telohren was now the last man in the village, and as he was the son of our fortune teller Isabel, we initially thought it possible that she would protect her son with some higher powers. But even Telohren was not protected from the curse.’
Fiona pauses for a moment before continuing: ‘Then one morning we all woke up very late. We all had a very strange feeling. We felt nothing but our emotions. The wind on our face, the hand on our arm, the warm food in our mouth - we couldn’t feel any of it. Some of us were familiar with this feeling, as it often occurred when a man had disappeared again. But everyone felt it that day. It was already dusk outside and that’s when I saw it: a lonely candle burning on our little fountain. I didn’t even have to talk to Isabel to realise that her telescope ears had also been hit. We gathered in mourning on the market square. But we were all dead, no emotions, no conversation, just bewilderment and fear. At some point, Konstanze asked us if we had also found a bead on the pillow of our missing men, and indeed - each remaining person received a glass bead for each lost husband or son. In total, we lost eight men and therefore now have eight glass beads. Strangely enough, five of these beads show a cross and three a circle. We don’t know if this has any significance…’
And then Fiona falls silent. An oppressive silence spreads between them, and Fiona stares around the room, transfixed, her eyes glazed over. Our four thank her and leave the trader thoughtfully.
In the small market square, they look at each other in silence before Theo suggests that it might be a good idea to talk to the fortune teller Isabel. His three friends agree and so they walk a few metres across the small square and knock carefully on the fortune teller’s door. A smoky ‘Come in’ emanates from the little house and they slowly enter a colourfully decorated room. Tangled cloths, curtains and dried flowers hang everywhere. Several sticks of incense spread an obnoxious odour throughout the room, causing Kel, Aldric and Löwenzahn to flee the shop immediately. But Theo perseveres and is greeted by a small woman in a purple robe. Before Theo can ask any questions, Isabel begins to predict Theo’s future. Isabel starts waving her arms around and words burst out of her mouth. Finally, she looks at Theo with twisted eyes and whimpers: ‘Lightning, streaked with red rage’.
This statement gives Theo pause at first, although he really has no idea what it is supposed to tell him. But then he remembers why he is actually here: to get new information about Grete. But you won’t find out whether Isabel can give Theo valuable new information or kicks him out immediately until another Arkanthia Pen and Paper blog in a fortnight’ time.
