Chapter 9: Plague Village


    The sun still hung over the horizon when Ezren reached the abandoned village. The air was thick with the lingering scent of decay, but time had lessened the stench of disease. Empty homes stood in eerie silence, their doors hanging open like gaping mouths.


    Wasting no time, Ezren moved from house to house, collecting everything of use. Wooden tables and benches, sturdy enough to repurpose. Wicker baskets and wooden chests, perfect for storage. Cooking pots, wooden utensils, plates, bowls, and cups—all gathered and stored within his portal. A mortar and pestle, useful for grinding herbs, joined his collection. In one of the larger houses, he found four intact barrels and six wooden boxes. He took them all and put it in the portal.


    Once satisfied, he turned his attention to the cemetery. Every settlement had a place where the bodies of the fallen were put to rest. Ezren followed the charred scent that still clung to the wind, leading him to a makeshift cremation site. Piles of blackened ash and half-burnt bones littered the ground, remnants of a desperate attempt to halt the spread of disease. He knelt, sifting through the brittle remains, searching for anything still intact.


    “No bodies…” he muttered, disappointed. But the bones would suffice.


    He gathered as many intact bones as he could, depositing them into the portal. Some were brittle, but others were still usable. By the time he finished, the sky was beginning to darken.


    As night approached, Ezren searched for shelter. He recalled a house where a hidden hole had been carved into the ground—a crude, makeshift cellar barely large enough to conceal a single person. Likely a desperate attempt by one of the villagers to hide from something… or someone.


    He stepped inside the dim interior, brushed aside the loose wooden planks covering the hole, and examined it. Empty. The perfect place to rest.


    With a quiet exhale, he activated the portal, slipping inside. The fleshy, pulsating chamber embraced him with its familiar silence. He set aside his gathered supplies, lay back, and allowed himself a few hours of sleep.


    When he awoke, the village remained silent. Ezren stepped out of the portal; his body refreshed. He crouched within the small hidey-hole, listening to the wind whistling through the hollow remains of the village.


    Then—he heard voices.


    Ezren’s body went still. He pressed himself lower into the dark recess, steadying his breath. The voices were distant but growing closer. Footsteps echoed between the ruined buildings, breaking the dead village’s silence.


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    Someone had arrived.


    <hr>


    Soldiers Investigate the Village


    The heavy clatter of boots echoed through the desolate village as the patrol advanced. Their armor gleamed faintly under the fading sunlight, the weight of their weapons shifting with every cautious step.


    A gruff soldier kicked open a door, glancing inside the hollow remains of a home. “Empty. Again.” He sighed, stepping back onto the dirt road. “I don’t get it. Why are we combing this place again? This is the second time we’ve been sent here.”


    Another soldier, a younger man with an impatient scowl, snorted. “Because some highborn idiot in the capital wants to make sure we didn’t ‘miss anything.’” He spat onto the ground. “We already found and killed the damn warlock. There’s nothing left.”


    A third soldier, older and leaning against his spear, grumbled, “If you ask me, this was never dark magic to begin with. Plague like this—it spreads through filth, through bad water, not some damn sorcery.”


    The commander, a hardened man with a scar across his cheek, turned toward them with a sharp glare. “We do as we’re ordered. Whether you think it’s sorcery or not isn’t our concern.”


    The gruff soldier sighed and nudged a pile of bones with his boot. “Ain’t it strange, though? The inquisitors stormed in, killed some poor bastard they called a warlock, and the plague still killed everyone anyway.”


    “Maybe because it was just a plague,” the younger soldier muttered. “Cholera. Hits fast. Fever, vomiting, shitting yourself to death—doesn’t need magic to kill a village.”


    The older soldier shook his head. “Then we wasted our damn time. We dragged some poor soul to the pyre and called it justice.”


    A silence settled over the group. The commander exhaled sharply. “Enough. Check the houses. We report back at sundown.”


    One by one, the soldiers dispersed, searching through what remained of the village—unaware that something else lurked in the shadows, watching.


    <hr>


    Huddled in the dark recess of the cellar, Ezren listened. The soldiers’ voices drifted through the broken village, casual, indifferent.


    "Pointless, this is the second time we’ve checked this place."


    "Told you, the warlock’s dead. The inquisitors saw to that."


    "Then why are we wasting time?"


    "Because the higher-ups don’t trust their own judgment. ‘Make sure no dark arts linger,’ they say. Bah, it was just the plague. Nothing unnatural about it."


    "Cholera. Filthy water, rotten food—it wiped them out before we even got here."


    "And yet they still burned the bodies, just in case."


    So that was it. Orin’s death—his master’s sacrifice—reduced to an afterthought. A minor task in the daily routine of soldiers who didn’t care.


    The village hadn’t been cursed. Yet The people needed someone to blame. A warlock was the perfect scapegoat.


    Fear demanded an enemy, and the Inquisition provided one. The people, desperate and dying, clung to any explanation that gave them control over their suffering. It wasn’t just sickness—it couldn’t be. No, something had to be behind it, something unnatural, something they could point there anger.


    Orin and his master had simply been convenient.


    Ezren exhaled, quiet and slow. He understood now—this was how the world worked. Truth didn’t matter, only the story that people chose to believe. And in the end, Orin and his master had been nothing more than a story to them.


    He pressed himself further into the shadows.


    Let them finish their investigation. Let them leave.


    The dead didn’t argue with the living.