The Search

We walked silently the rest of the way and arrived at slightly better hut than the others. It could probably stand without whatever magic the others kept together.

It was exactly like Shira had described.

Irena stepped to the door and knocked.

"Is Chanu here? It's about Shiroia!"

From inside the building movement and whispering could be heard. After a few more moments the door opened. A burly looking beastmen was standing inside. He had brown Dog ears and tail. He was fairly muscular, had suntanned skin and was quite tall at about 2 meters.

His clothes were a bit better than the average in the Slums and he seemed quite old.

"What do you want?" He asked in a deep voice, that didn't sound friendly to me.

"We would like to talk to Chanu for a moment please. We think that Shiroia was kidnapped. I-"

"He already told Shira everything he knows, go now"

"E-excuse me?! You know that if we capture those assholes your own family will be safer too!" Irena, who was 2 heads smaller than the men before her looked like she was lecturing a naughty child, it was a bit funny.

But except for a little twitching, his expression remained hard as steel.

"No. He alr-"

"No, father let me speak with them. Maybe they can help"

A younger version of the old man appeared behind the mountain that was his father. He looked like he could be my age.

The expression of the man softened a bit.

"Chanu, we don't even know these people. We can't just trust them"

"Father, they are the only hope we have. Not just for Shiroia, but Chia. Please let me help them"

A pained look appeared on his father's face.

"Fine... but you won't go with them, just tell what they want to hear. Come on in"

He gestured us to enter. And we followed Suit. I was surprised to see that the inside of the house was in a much better state than the outside. The furniture looked very well made, the inside was clean (except for some dust here and there) and to my surprise even the air was less stinky.

"Wow! Such a nice home!" I said impressed.

The burly dog-eared man smirked.

"Built most of the stuff myself. I am quite the decent artisan" he proudly exclaimed.

"But why does your house look so shabby though?" I asked a bit confused "Or aren't you good at building houses?" Irena hit me slightly on the head and starred at me intensely.

Mister Dog ears stopped short of opening a door. And seemed to hold back tears. He turned around and had a murderous look on his face. It was scary and I hid behind Irena who had a wry smile.

"OF COURSE I CAN BUILT HOUSES BETTER THAN THIS!!! DONT YOU GET HOW MUCH ATTENTION A NICE HOUSE WOULD DRAW IN A PLACE LIKE THIS!? DO YOU WANT ME TO INVITE EVERY THIEF AROUND TO MY HOME?!"

This guy was scary. I had the feeling he could be the one to have wiped out the Dragons. But why was he so angry though? My master always said that asking something is never a bad thing...

"Come on dad, she didn't mean it like that" Chanu patted his dad on the back.

"I apologize for my Daughters rude behavior, I'll give her a good lecture later on" Irena said, bowing her head to the man and forcing my own head to bow to him too.

I didn't get what was going on at all. What had I done wrong?

The murderous aura of the man disappeared.

"I-I hate this. Two more month's and I'll show them all... Best house ever..." He grumbled and opened the door he was holding onto and stepped inside the room. As soon as his back was turned to us, Irena let out a relieved sigh and turned to me again. Her eyes were serious.

"Valeria, never, AND I MEAN NEVER, criticize an artisans work in front of them. It's one of the quickest ways into the grave. THINK before you talk. Or just stick with the praise" she gave me a slight slap on my head again, grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the room.

Now I got it. He was mistaking my question for an insult of his work... so I can't ask everything... master was wrong... but man this stuff is really complicated...

We sat down around a table, in what looked like a kitchen.

There was a moment of silence and then Chanu begun to speak.

"Okay... I'll get right to the point. Shiroia often went to the outskirts of the woods near the northern part of the city. She was gathering herbs to sell. Shira doesn't know anything about it and I didn't want to snitch on her..."

"But isn't that far too dangerous?! How could you not tell Shira?! Especially once she was missing?!" Irena seemed very angry with him.

"Well... she didn't exactly go alone. She often tagged along some adventures. And I didn't tell her because I thought she was just late at first. But-"

His father interrupted him.

"But later we realised what must have happend. My own daughter was taken by them aswell about a month ago and I didn't want to risk drawing their attention to my son as well. Thus I forbade him to talk about it"

His expression was pained but serious.

"Oh... I see... I am sorry for... Well, but why should such a thing draw their attention?"

Chanu and his father looked at each other with troubled looks.

"Hmm... No point hiding it anymore. I looked into other kidnappings and we suspected that they have their base somewhere in the Forrest. But with Shiroia vanishing exactly in this vicinity we are almost certain that they are hiding somewhere there"

Irena instantly stood back up.

"Good. Thanks for the information. We'll see what we can do about your daughter too. Let's go Val"

I nodded and followed Suit.

"Be careful out there. Its not just your life that's on the line" the old dog eared man said as we left through the door. We had no time to waste. It was now early evening and the Sun was steadily moving towards the horizon.

We had just left the slums and made our way towards the outskirts of the forrest we just left earlier this day.

"Irena how do we finde the bad guys? The forest is big"

Irena sighed sadly.

"We just have to look around and hope. So many people leave tracks"

"Can't you use a bird again to search them?"

"No. Sadly I can't. I can let them search for a person, but I need to have a clear picture of what I am searching for in my mind. Though I could use it to ask if they saw a large group of people and lead me to them. But unless they are completely idiotic they'll have countermeasures for such a thing. Anyways I can't use it at the moment regardless. Its only useable once a day"

"Oh that is bad. Are you good at looking for tracks?"

"Not really, no"

"Hmm me neither"

"Liz would be quite helpful and Brandon knows a thing or two about it as well. But we can't waste any time. Besides we can't even be sure that they have time on their hands right now. We just have to go looking and if we are unsuccessful we'll just have to try it another time with the rest of the guys"

" 'kay! Let's give it our best!"

We tried to figure out a way to track them along the way. But the only thing we came up with was Irenas ability 'voice of the forrest' which would let her 'communicate' with the forrest and get noticed about any abnormalities in a few hundred meter radius. But it's mana cost was quite high and we needed to be ready for a fight at all times and thus wouldn't use it repeatedly.

We entered the outskirts of the forrest on a small dirt path. And begun exploring the forrest. Always on the lookout for tracks. We found quite a few tracks but most of them seemed to be from traveller's or adventures. We thought so because of the number of footprints was relatively low. But in the lack of alternatives we followed some of them but they all lead to nowhere.

I think we had searched for two or three hours and the sun would be gone any minute now.

"I think we should head back for now.

And get the help of the others"

" 'kay"

Defeated and in a gloomy mood we made our way back.