In the morning Tristan and I met up with Bernardino's caravan. He had a mercenary group they often worked with, The Black Bulls, as our escorts. There were five of them and it was a pretty well rounded party.
The only downside I saw, from a veteran gamer's experience, was that they didn't have a healer. They were confident in their ability to avoid dangerous situations but I knew sometimes you had no say in the matter.
However I didn't press the matter. Healers were somewhat rare. They were the ones with real life experience, and that was invaluable compared to my theoretical experience.
Bernardino and I climbed onto a horse driven cart while the others climbed onto their horses. The horses were provided by the Serrano Trading Co., for convenience and ease for my first trip. However if we lost the horses during the trip we would have to find a way to buy new ones.
With the cart filled with supplies, I said goodbye to my parents and we began our journey.
However it was after this that I realized how boring the journey really was. If you just cut to the part where you get to a city or village then you never experience the boring parts.
I sat silence for more than four days. The group would talk to me every so often but since they couldn't hear each others' thoughts it was always a one on one conversation. So I opted to just sit in silence for the most part.
I felt the true effects of my curses during this trip, as I imagined the landscapes we passed along the way, and how I couldn't see them. I lived in a fantasy world now but I couldn't even enjoy it. Truly upsetting.
I passed the time by practicing my magic. Unfortunately I didn't have a mana bar or a character sheet that told me how many spell casts I had left. Instead I had to discover for myself how much mana I had.
I practiced when we stopped for camp at night, with Tristan, with him letting his thoughts become readable and attacking me slowly.
The goal was to get into the habit of reading the minds of people who were planning to attack me, and hopefully reacting correctly to it.
Tristan would stand somewhere near me and telegraph his attack with his thoughts. Then I had to either dodge or block the attack. It was actually really fun, even though when he hit me with the stick it hurt like hell, but I knew it was all for the sake of training.
However on that fifth day our journey led us to a small village where we were stocking up on supplies before continuing on our journey.
'We're at a small village for the night.'
"What's the name of the village?"
I asked. Since I had a lot of knowledge of the game world I could potentially identify if there was something valuable in this village from the name.
However it wasn't the case for this village. It was a small village called Yurlnav that my party never visited or heard about. So I just sat back and enjoyed the cool breeze blowing on my skin.
We soon found an inn and prepared to rest for the night.
We were outside tending to the horses. I was petting the horses since I knew they had their own complex thoughts, since I liked to learn the spell to talk to animals in the game, and I treated them with respect when I could.
However as I was petting the horse I heard a string of thoughts enter my mind.
'Help us.'
'It hurts...'
'Please save us.'
I spun my head around and scanned the nearby area.
All that there was were my travelling companions, and the animals in the barn.
I spoke aloud.
"I can hear you. Where are you?"
Confused by my statement I soon heard Tristan's thoughts.
'It's Tristan. Who are you talking to?'
I walked over to Tristan and placed my hand on his shoulder.
"I hear people asking for help... Do you see anyone? They said they're in pain."
However after a moment of silence Tristan spoke again.
'There is no one in this barn but us. The Black Bulls just checked and they don't see any hidden rooms.'
Troubled I walked around for a few moments scanning the inside of the barn for any one who might be nearby but my search came up empty. With a frown I joined the group again. We left the barn to head back inside but I continued to hear the cries for help in my mind.
'Something is wrong... I have played for so long I know that there are secrets even in the most unlikely places... I'll ask Tristan to investigate.'
Once we were inside our rooms at the inn, I asked Tristan to do me a favor and ask around the bar about anything weird that happened here.
The main things to look for were either disappearances or deaths.
"Please be discreet about it too... Here's some drinking money."
'Haha, you're too kind, but I won't say no to someone paying for my drinks. I'll look into this, but don't be too upset if I don't find anything. I'll be back in a couple hours. I'll lock the door.'
Soon I saw him leave the room with the map in my head and his dot disappeared. Character dots disappeared once they left my range of detection. I spent the next few hours wracking my brain trying to remember if anything happened in this part of the continent, but I came up short.
Eventually I felt a breeze enter the room. With a quick scan I was able to detect that it was Tristan who walked in.
'Hey kid.'
"Welcome back. Did you find anything?"
There was the a long silence, before I felt him sit down on the bed next to mine. His knees bumping into mine.
'I think you were right about something going on here. I asked around casually if there were any folk legends I should know about. Got the usual rabble. Haunted houses, dangerous cabin the forest and some weird voices they hear at night.'
"Yeah but you know those are just the ramblings of small town folks just trying to make their lives more interesting."
'Yes. I know... Then I asked if there was some legend about the birthrate or something, since I noticed there weren't any kids, and that was when everyone suddenly turned hostile towards me.'
I stroked my chin.
The fact that all the kids were missing was weird. The likelihood that they just had low birthrates was unlikely. Instead I leaned more towards the idea that there was foul play here. This came mostly from the fact that they got angry when asked about it, but no one said anything about the children being 'missing'.
"Something is going on here... Can you take me back to the barn?"
Tristan took my hand and we walked to the barn. When people asked why Tristan said that it was because I wanted to feed the horses one last time before I went to sleep.
Thanks to me being a child no one asked anything of it and soon arrived back at the barn.
As we approached the voices began to enter my mind again. They were still disorganized thoughts but they reacted to our presence.
'You came back.'
'Are you finally here to save us?'
Then a coherent voice entered my mind.
'Don't trust the adults. You're a child. They are going to take you tonight. Don't eat the food.'
I turned my head to Tristan suddenly.
"Tristan! Did you eat any food while you drank?!"
'Huh? No I didn't, but why?'
"Fuck. They're going to attack us tonight. There is something going on, and they need children. The rest of the group is probably already drugged."
I scanned the surroundings again but I didn't find any children. Frustrated I called out asking who was talking to me, but again there was no response.
Instead a small cat jumped down from the rafters and landed on my shoulder. It pushed it's face against mine affectionately.
'Don't tell me...'
I reached out and stroked it's head gently.
"It's you..."
The cat licked my hand and stared at me.
'It's not safe here. Follow me.'
The cat jumped down from my shoulder. I told Tristan that we needed to follow the cat. It was going to lead us somewhere safe.
After sneaking out of the back of the barn we entered the forest and walked for another fifteen minutes before we finally arrived in a small hideout.
From a quick scan I found there were toys and a small sleeping bag. The place was made of branches and was well hidden with leaves.
'Hey kid, I didn't know you could talk to animals.'
I shook my head as I pet the cat that had climbed into my lap.
"Tristan... I can't talk to animals..."
With a serious expression I looked at Tristan.
"She's not a cat. She's a child... Right?"
I turned my head down to the cat.
'My name is Katarina. My father is the village chief.'
****
Katarina told the story of everything that had happened.
The whole thing started a year ago.
Yurlnav was experiencing it's worst crop yield to date. There was an infestation that ruined 90% of the crops.
This meant that what they did get would have to be used for their own consumption, and it wouldn't be enough, while they would have to go into greater debt with their lord.
It was a terrible situation.
Then a stranger came to town. She was just passing by but ended up staying for longer. She lived in the swamp nearby but the villagers were strictly warned not to go near her hut.
For some reason the village chief was determined to please this woman, and said she would be the answers to the village's problems. Yet he wouldn't say how.
After a while Katarina began to notice that she wasn't able to see more and more of her friends. She went around asking about them but their parents simply told her they weren't feeling good. Probably from a sickness going around.
Katarina couldn't argue with the adults so she simply accepted it.
Over time the village started to do better. Although there was still a severe lack of crops for some reason all the livestock had managed to give birth to a lot new babies so there was now a lot of meat.
Then one afternoon Katarina was wandering around the village when she thought she would disobey her father and visit the hut in the swamp.
She had always been curious as to who the woman in the swamp was, but it wasn't until today that she felt like finding out.
So she snuck away from the village and made her way to the swamp. Once she got there it took her a while before she managed to finally find the hut where the woman lived. She walked up to the front door and knocked ever so quietly. Since no one answered, she figured that the woman probably wasn't home, and opened the door.
Peeking inside she saw that the interior was a bigger than the outside. She stepped inside where it looked like some sort of laboratory and started looking at all the different things the woman collected.
Jars with little animal parts or preserved eyes.
As Katarina walked around looking at all the strange things in the room, she made her way towards a door at the other side of the room. Once she got there she opened the door just a tiny bit and glanced inside.
In the room there were two people standing with their backs towards the door while talking to each other.
"As you can see, it's better if we do it right after they're born so that they don't know any other life, this way is much better."
"Sigh... I guess you're right. I just feel bad that the mothers won't be able to spend time with them before they have to give them up."
"They can just take care of them as animals? Isn't that the same thing?"
The two turned to look at each other as they talked and Katarina was able to see what was on the table.
Through the little crack she was able to see an abomination.
A small pig with the head of a human baby and arms of a human was wiggling on the table. It's eyes were listless and glossed over.
A small gasp escaped Katarina's mouth before she quickly covered it.
The two people turned their heads towards the door immediately. It was Katarina's father and the strange woman. The woman slowly approached the door and fully opened it. Turning her body so the chief could see who it was, his expression crumpled and he let out a long sigh.
"Can you show some mercy with her?"
The woman tilted her head slightly but let out a shrill laugh.
"Kekekeke. You're surprisingly a softy all things considered. That's fine... Since she likes to sneak around so much, I'll turn her into something fitting."
That was the last time Katarina was a human.