The Truth - Part 7

That could be a problem. It might even be a massive problem.

The issue, however, was that she couldn't be certain if it actually was one.

The danger was that the current chief had lied to them knowingly. And because he knew who they were. If that was the case, then, well, they could be screwed. But, it was also possible that he lied to them knowingly, because that is what he was told or had been doing since the previous chief left.

Then there was the possibility that he actually thought what he was saying was true. The idiot theory. Olivia hoped it was that one.

But, it was possible that their host for the evening was a rather good actor and had more to do with the new chief than they had realised.

Not knowing what was the case, being safe rather than sorry, Olivia told Lyrika that they needed to speed up their search.

…

"What's this."

It was Olivia's turn to head over to Lyrika to see what she had found, which ended up being a damaged book.

What made it stand out was that there was no form of title on the front of it. Any fiction or non-fiction book in this world had a title to show what it was, similar to most books on Earth. But this one was just blank. Very odd.

As Lyrika opened it up, she yelped and dropped said book upon seeing the dead spider fall out. But, once she composed herself, she picked it up and started going through it.

Half a page in and it was clear that it was a journal of whoever, well it was more than likely it was the new chief, that had used this room. The first page was rife with anger and sadness over an incident that had happened in their village.

It seemed that the beast-kin had had an altercation with some humans outside of the village. There was some fighting, and while both sides ended up walking away intact, their egos and their bodies did not.

One of the beast-kin lost the use of one of his hands, and one of the human's legs ended up being crushed, making it useless as well. There had been interactions between the beast-kin of this village with humans before, but nothing had ever grown so violent.

But while that was bad, what happened next was way worse.

The previous chief's daughter was kidnapped. The humans returned at a later date, and more fighting broke out. During that, they had managed to kidnap the chief's daughter.

Things ended up spiralling from there, as you can imagine. More fighting occurred, and the chief appealed to the Lord of the neighbouring human city for help to deal with these bandits that attacked them, but nothing came back from them. He even sent men to a couple of the nearby beast-kin villages as well for assistance. Teagan's was not one of them involved, which is likely why he did not know of this, but it seems that even with the other villages' help, not much happened. They didn't want to get too involved in fighting humans, so they helped in a smaller capacity.

It was clear however that as the days passed and the chief wrote in his journal, he got angrier and angrier with the situation, finding himself lamenting over all the problems facing him and reasons for this predicament.

From the date in his journal, months had passed and there was no sign of his daughter. He had no clue what happened to her, but he always wrote as if he thought she was still out there. It made both of them upset as they read it.

But, there was a turning point. He placed blame on everyone for what had happened, human and beast-kin alike. He spoke about how things needed to change, and that they needed to get out from under the human's thumb. And that is when his plan started to form.

He spoke of-

*sob*

"Hey, are you okay Lyrika?"

"Huh, I was going to ask you that."

Both of them just stared at each other trying to understand what had just happened. But what they could clearly see, was that neither of them had tears on their faces. A few pages ago sure, but now at the height of the chiefs scheming, they were no longer shedding them.

So who had just let out that cry?

…

It took a few moments to be sure neither of them was lying, hiding any sort of sadness from the other. Once that was done, it became clear that someone else was down here with them.

The immediate vicinity was still empty, so it was likely that the noise had come from one of the other rooms down here. So, with the book and map now in their possession, giving them the evidence they needed to prove the danger the new chief posed, they headed out of the room weapons in hand. While it sounded like someone crying, neither of them couldn't be too careful given the position they were in.

…

Back into the dark hallway, they found the first door. Ear against it they listened for any more noise, but it had been silent since the one and only sob they had heard. This meant they had no clue if someone was behind this door, or the other one.

Cautions as they had been so far, they got to opening the door, much in the same way they did the one to the abandoned office.

The light shone into the dilapidated room, showing a rather worrying sight. When Olivia saw it, all she could think about is how glad she was that their host had not been more forceful in trying to spend the night with one of the girls. Or actually, maybe it would have been better if he had. If he did try any advances on them, it would have allowed Olivia to give him a well-deserved beating. More so if he was the one that used the room before them.

The only way she could describe it was as a torture room. It didn't look like anyone had died here, the lack of large amounts of dried blood really being the only reasoning behind that though, but there were small amounts of it on the floor and walls. Whether this place was used for getting information out of people, or as some sort of dungeon for personal use, Olivia did not know, and would rather not find out.

But what she did see was the lack of dust in the room. Which very clearly showed who had used the room.

"I-I…"

Lyrika hardly said anything before she was back out the door. Olivia quickly followed after her.

It was unlikely there would be any more information about the new chief and his plans in that sort of room. And if there was…well, neither of them were going to search the room to find it.

…

Out of that…disturbing room, and back into the hallway, they moved to the last door in the place.

Whoever was down here was sure to be in this room. The question was who it was and why they were in this sort of place.

Well, that was the question. But after seeing that room, Olivia had a good idea as to why someone would be down here.

Slowly opening it up again, as the light shone through, the sound of chains rattling rang out from the room. As the light flooded the place, this ended up being one of the few times Olivia wasn't happy to be right.

In the corners of the room, if you could call it that, it being more like a prison cell, sat two people chained to the walls.

Two people that they had only met recently as it happens.

"Beatrix and Kathleen."

It hadn't been long since the meal, even though it had felt like forever given the subterfuge and their nighttime search, but it wasn't hard to tell, even with the low light who they were. The two girls they had met during the dinner, were sitting here in this dark and damp room, chained to the wall, with a terrified look on their faces.

That was bad enough in and of itself, but their look of terror only worsened, when they finally looked to see who had entered the room.

"Oh, no."

"Stay away!"

Now, they had all thought there was something fishy about the situation with these two girls when they saw them at the dinner table. They had looked so feeble and it almost seemed like they were afraid to even eat. The fact that they were in this horrible room, could only mean that the chief of this village that had introduced them, was the one that had put them in this place. Which was why, then they started to act like this, appearing more afraid than when they first entered, Olivia imagined it was because they thought he was back to do… whatever it was that he would normally do them. And considering the room they had seen before, the look of terror was understandable.

That was until she heard what they said next.

"It's come to eat us. He-he was right."

"Sta-stay back, you-you monster."

"Well, that's just insulting." Olivia couldn't help but say to everyone in the room. "Given what that guy has probably done to them, you would think they would be happy to see someone other than him." Olivia said, not really having paid attention to what they had said. She had mainly heard the insults within it, rather than the actual words.

Thankfully, Lyrika was able to correct things.

"I'm guessing to keep them from saying anything he told them about how dangerous you were. About how you were going to kill and eat them."

The two girls shivered and tried to move further into the wall. 

"Ah, I see. Well, still."

While the girls were still shaking in fear, both Olivia and Lyrika knew they had to sort out this mess and get them out of there. There was no way either of them could just leave them here with that actual monster.