Donna’s birthday party was today
and since she isn’t pregnant and there’s someone to care for the kids, she had
a drinking competition with the Sparrows. Stella and Corso joined in and didn’t
manage to beat her though Corso did last the longest to my surprise. Since my
most trusted guards are out cold, for the time being, I decide to fulfill a
request by myself. This one I got personally in the mail. The family I got this
from says that their vacation home in the mountains of Fedele territory has
been taken over by some people that seemed to be bandits of some kind and they
don’t think they can negotiate with them, so they need me to get rid of them in
whatever way I find best. This should be easy.
I take a few Sparrows with me as a backup just in case things get hairy and head out to the vacation home. Seeing
as how the bandits that Donna commanded could change, I’m going to take a
chance and talk to these supposed bandits. Before I make it to the door, the
bandits come out though they don’t have their weapons drawn. They appear to be
more like people who live in the wild than bandits, but I can see how the
family could mistake them for bandits.
One of them says, “We don’t want
any trouble, hero. We think that the people who own this home have something we
treasure. We’ve seen them carry it with them and have tried to negotiate a deal
to get it back, however, the only way we could get them to take us seriously is
by taking the house while they were gone. We know that it wasn’t the best choice,
but we didn’t know what else to do.”
“Have you searched the house yet to
find what you were looking for?”
“We have, but we’ve come up with
nothing. That’s why we’re staying in the house and keeping the owners out of it
until they agree to show us where it is. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to help you find what
you’re looking for. You’re blessed that I have a soft spot for people who were
called bandits. I’ll have my Sparrows aid us in the search.”
“Thank you so much for
understanding.”
My Sparrows and I enter the vacation
home and begin to search it for secret rooms. This place looks plain, which is good
if you want to hide something. The stereotypical thing to do is have a hidden switch
or object to hide a room. While feeling around a bookshelf, I find an almost
invisible sticky substance on the black shelves in the kitchen. I feel around
the back of the bookshelf until I feel something behind it. I then pull the
bookshelf away to find a hidden cellar.
“I found it!” I call out to my
Sparrows and the others.
“How did you find this?”
“I was feeling my hand around the
shelves for a hidden switch of some kind and instead found some kind of sticky
substance.”
“We didn’t think to do that. We
couldn’t even see this substance on these shelves.”
“Is it related to what you’re
looking for?”
“No, not at all.”
That’s worrying. There’s more of the
same sticky substance as I go into the dark cellar. My Sparrows light the
torches as we go into the cellar to find wine. Maybe this is what this
substance is from? There are some bottles that are broken on the floor near the
substance.
“There it is! We finally found it!”
One of the bandits picks up a
statue from one of the tables. It happens to have the same substance that’s all
over the place, so I ask them if it had it on it before and they deny it.
“There has to be more to it than
this. I don’t think spilled and dried wine is supposed to feel like this,” I
say aloud.
After feeling my way around the
shelves of wine, I find a handle on one then pull it to reveal a secret room. Once
it’s lit up, we find the lower halves of bodies along with other dead bodies
with various items. It doesn’t smell despite how disgusting everything looks.
One of the bandits picks up something.
“What is it? Something else you were
missing?”
“No, but…it can’t be.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a piece of treasure. A ring
from a previous culture that I found with a friend. These rings were simple
things made for kids to remind them of the immortal part of friendship. I have
a similar ring on right now and this looks like one I gave to a friend long ago,
but it wasn’t found on him when the forest scouts found him half-eaten by a
bear.”
“So, it looks like these people kill
people who live in the wilderness along with bandits and take their stuff. We’ll
have to arrest them and bring them in for questioning.”
“We can’t thank you enough hero for
helping us. Now we know where our missing people have gone.”
Once the family is arrested, they
argue about the killing of bandits and that they didn’t know that the people they killed in the wilderness are just people who live there. The judge
rules that the family is guilty of the slaughter of dozens of people. He also
reminds people to not take the law into their own hands unless they are
attacked or have the proper authority. The family is sent to jail for life while
the house is scrubbed, and the remains of their victims are given a proper
burial. The substance we found is an expensive one found in the underground market
used to cover evidence of murder by hiding the smell of blood and making the
spilled texture of it feel like different forms of spilled drink or food. I’m
glad I didn’t judge the forest dwellers by what others told me.
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