With Lily and Roran, the village came into sharper view as they descended into the valley. This was a small place, tucked into the landscape as if hiding from the world. It was little more than probably a dozen houses at any one time, weathered and worn, showing strain as if seasons had spent in silent struggle. The fields, which might once have been fertile, stretched cracked and barren, with an eerie mist hanging low over the ground. Here and there, Lily could see villagers walking with slow paces, their faces hollowed with exhaustion and fear. It's as if a part of the whole village has died.
"Is it always this. quiet?" asked Lily softly, not wanting to break the unnatural silence that pressed on them.
Roran shakes his head, weeping with despair. "No, this village used to be alive. The children would play in the fields and people would gather in the square, telling stories and singing. But since the shadows came, it's as if they ripped the heart from this place. We're just all. waiting.".
As they stepped into the very heart of the village, they could feel the weight of people's gazes turned upon them. Some were afraid to look up, too tired or too fearful; others kept their watchful eyes fixed on them with a flavor of desperation and suspicion. An old woman, her face etched by deep creases of worry, smiled faltering at them.
"Roran," she whispered hoarsely, "you have brought someone. someone who can save us?"
Roran nodded, pointing to Lily. "This is Lily. She has the light power, the same power that freed… well, freed someone bound by darkness." He threw a glance to Lily, seeking her leave to elaborate, and she nodded for him to be more precise.
The woman's eyes brightened, and she reached for him or her as if to grasp a thread of hope. "Please, Lily, can you help us?" There's something. something evil here. We feel it in our bones, in our dreams. The land has turned against us, and it's only a matter of time before it takes all the rest of us.
Lily gazed at the ravished faces, at the barefooted children who clung to their mothers' skirts, their wide eyes haunted with a tremendous sense of hope and desperation; she felt the weight upon her shoulders, heavy as that mantle. And within her, she felt the light, quite steady, quite warm, reminding her of all she had prepared upon her way.
"I'll do everything I can," she promised. "But I'll need to understand what's happening here. Can you tell me when this all began?"
Old woman nodded, a shadow crossing her face. "It started months ago, after one of the villagers, a young man by name Finn, had gone into the night in the forest. He said he heard a call, something he could not ignore. Next morning he returned. but he changed. The eyes were vacant, and he spoke of dark things, voices whispering secrets during the nights, the dead.".
She shudders. "Finn disappeared a few days after that. And then the nightmares began. First children. Then adults. Every night we dream of shadows… crawling, watching, waiting."
Lily's spinning in her head as she frames what the old woman said, but now she will tack on something more - one with corruption from a dark presence that has been being fed off the fear and despair of the villagers. She looks over at Roran, her eyes steadying on him.
"'We'll have to establish where this darkness is strongest. I must confront it head-on if I'm to understand what it is.'
Roran was unconfident, yet nodded. 'There's an old shrine deep in the woods, one that's been abandoned for years. Some say it was once a place of worship, a sacred site. But now, it feels.tainted.'
Lily took a deep breath, a chill settling over her. 'Then that's where we'll go'.