Jax on this journey towards the closest village in the South called "Linx" it's a small village with a population count of 140. After two hours worth of walking later Jax made his way to the village gate.
"State your business here!" The gate guard said shouting down at Jax. After a few moments of thinking of how to reply Jax shouted back up at him, "I'm here for an investigation about something important on the king of Finspell's order!" After a few minutes of talking with another gate guard they opened the gate to verify as they do trading and seen the badge multiple times from people close to the king. "Alright here... let's see the badge and afterwards I'll either allow you in or I'll kill you deal?" The head captain of the guards said coldly. Jax pulled out the badge from his pocket and showed him and the captain was shocked to actually see the badge. "Very well, what's your name young man?" "Oh, my name is Jax Midnight and if I may ask what's yours?" After a few moments he responded. "Cole, you can call me Cole. Follow me in and I'll get you setup in a small inn for your investigation of whatever it is your investigating around these places."
Jax follows Cole into the small ran down like village and heads to a small inn. After checking in Jax went up into his room and starts to go over everything he knows about this "sky ripple" person, and possible attack patterns.
Jax finished going over things and closed his small book which he had on the desk inside the room. He put his pen down on top of the book and got up from his chair rising slowly after an hour of sitting down. Jax decided to go outside and ask some questions to the guards around the small village.
"Hey Cole I have a question for you." "Huh? You have a question for me? ... very well what's going down?" Jax replied after a few moments of thinking if he wanted to ask questions about this incident or not but decides to in the end. "Well there's been an incident going around for a bit of time and I've just wanted to come by and ask you if you have any information or if anything weird like attacks on anyone recently?" "Well, there has been some weird rumors spreading as of lately but I mean other than that there hasn't been any attacks or anything suspicious." "Could you tell me those rumors?" "Alright then I have nothing to hide from the king of a kingdom" Cole begins to chuckle for a small moment before speaking again. "Well it all started last month. Fim and his brother Con was going on a hunt for food in the nearby woods and they found some kind of abandoned house in the middle of a patch of openness. It was weird when they both came back running to us and told us this information but eh I just think it was and still is a rumor so people don't go out hunting for more food, or so that's what I personally think. It could be real however I'm not sure." Said Cole sitting up looking over the edge of the gate to see if anything is there and sits back down. "But I mean if you do need any more information about the rumors I recommend going to see that place or talk to the boys." "Well... thank you for the help you've given, even though it wasn't a lot besides a rumor as you've said. I think I'm going to talk to Fim tomorrow some time and see what else I can find out by asking around." Jax sat up from the small sized chair he was sitting on listening to the rumors looking up at the star lit night with small clouds in the sky. The moon brightly lit, the breeze was chill as almost snow falling upon the land.
Jax walks away from Cole and the gate heading towards his hotel for the rest of the night before getting more answers in the morning.
On the other side of the kingdom towards the East Max arrived at a town decorated as if it was a party about to begin for a big event. Max walked into the town and he began looking around and saw nobody working, on the street, in houses, and he didn't hear anything but the sound of the wind at night. He continued walking around until he found someone laying on the floor. "Hey, wait up and hold on! I'm coming to check on you now." Max shouted over at the guy on the floor running over there while dropping on his knees to check his pulse. "Come on, come on..." "T-there... there isn't a pulse at all." Max said looking up and around the area before using magic to search his internal body to see what caused him to die. "W-what is this?"
Max looked into the body closer and found a needle sized hole. "What... what kind of people could've done this..." he took a moment to gulp while looking around at the completely abandoned and empty town. "Who could've done this on such a large scale?" Max asked himself while mentally going over all of the races and their abilities from what he had read and kept knowledge of, thinking it could've been a different race besides humanity. Max got up from the body and began walking house to house checking inside and out to confirm if it's the same death pattern or different. "Just what happened to these poor people.. I feel so bad for them all." He said aloud before starting a small prayer for all of their souls, afterwards Max came to a conclusion that it was some form of poison that was used from a small amount but heavily toxic to a human body.
After Max walked around for a bit longer he decided to go out into the forest behind the town to find any extra clues or anything related to what happened. He walked into the woods filled with darkness, trees, branches, and a slight sound of a waterfall in the far distance. Max walks towards the sound of the waterfall and before he walks over to it from the bushes he saw a carving in a tree which had a giant symbol of a circle with three X's in between each other and a upside down Y in the middle. "Huh? What's this." Max asked to himself wondering why it was there on a tree but more importantly why it looks like that. "Maybe a cult of some kind? Or maybe some kind of spell?" He thought before turning away and walking towards the waterfall as he heard something crashed into the water.
Max walked through the bushes and is about to look over the edge of the cliff he is on to see what the noise was and suddenly he stopped walking.