The man that has just run out in front of me falls to his knees and continues to yell. I don't know why I feel compelled to help him, but I do. It's the way I've always been.
I walk up to him slowly and lean down next to him, patting him on the back. "Is everything alright?" I say slowly. I can feel him trembling; he is shaking either with terror or with anger. When he raises his head up, I find it is a mixture of both.
"Who are you, boy? I haven't seen you around here before."
That's a tough question. I can't just say my name is Sigmund, now can I? I'm supposed to be in hiding. Isn't that why I went through all the trouble of buying a new outfit?
"Simon," I lie. "My name is Simon, and I'm here to help."
"What could you do?" he shouts. I notice there are people standing around the village, staring at us. "My son was kidnapped by one of those damned Spirits last night…during the Day of Darkness. The Olsen family was supposed to keep those things in check, and yet they let one of the strongest Spirits this town has ever seen escape!"
"Wait, a Spirit kidnapped your son?" I gape.
"Every Day of Darkness, one of them appears," the man sighs. "They are called Kidnapper Spirits. They're unlike anything else from the Spirit World, and when they come through, they kidnap children. Then, when night falls the next day…they eat them! They took my son! Those damned Spiritguards didn't find or kill it and now that thing has my son!"
"Do you know where it took him?"
"If I knew, do you think I'd be here right now!?" The man is obviously full of grief, and it is a bit off-putting.
"Do you know what type of Spirit it is?"
"They're…no, I don't," the man sighs. "I never thought anything like this would happen to me. I don't give much thought to Spirits. I'm the mayor's assistant here in Greenwald, and I have too much to worry about than the stupid goings-on of Spiritguards. All they do is leech taxes and do a mediocre job. They can't even kill one Spirit, one damned Spirit, on the one day they are supposed to kill Spirits!"
"It's not that easy…" I mumble, thinking back to when Merava appeared. "I'll help you, however I can," I decide. I don't have much to do today, so helping this man is the least I can do. "In the meantime, you should report this to the Spiritguards here in town. They'll be on the lookout as well."
On those words, I step away from the man and walk back to the motel. If anyone would know where to find a Spirit like this, it would be Kael. He knows next to everything about every type of Spirit.
Before I drop into the motel, I stop in at the local general store and pick up two bottles of Vitarine elixir. I know I shouldn't be supporting the company that has brought Merava from the Spirit World, but the fact of the matter is the Vitarine elixirs are indispensable. One of them is for me, and the other is for Kael. I'm hoping to wake him up and give him the elixir so he can think clearly when I ask him about the Spirit.
I wake Kael up and to no surprise he's insanely groggy. I stick the Vitarine bottle into his mouth and tilt it up so that he can drink some of the rejuvenating goodness.
As I medicate my dear friend, he starts to cough up and choke on the elixir. He smacks my hand away and I pull back the glass bottle before it falls and shatters. I'm not in the mood to clean up broken glass and Vitarine stains right now.
"What the hell are you doing!?" Kael growls at me. Well, at least he's awake.
"I had a question I needed you to answer," I look down and off to the side. "I got you a Vitarine and everything, the least you could do is say thank you."
"You practically choked me with that thing!"
"I need to know about Spirits that kidnap children," I say firmly.
"I'll tell you all about them, but get the hell away from me." When Kael says this, I realize I'm leaning over him in a really uncomfortable position.
"Whoops."
"Anyway," he says as he wipes his eyes. I adjust myself on the edge of the bed and focus on what he is going to say. I don't want to bother him too much, so I have to get all the information the first time. I sip on my own Vitarine elixir as he explains the situation to me.
"The only Spirits that kidnap children, as far as I know, are Bugbears. They have an Animus technique that coaxes young children into wandering outside early, early in the morning, and then when the child is outside the Bugbear will snatch them away. The Bugbears like to play with the children they kidnap until sunset, at which point the Bugbear will eat them. Creepy stuff, right?"
"Anything else?" I ask. "Where do they bring these children? Any place special?"
"From what I understand, Bugbears are exceedingly rare, and we don't have too much information on them," Kael says. "But I think I remember reading in some old book made a hundred years ago, back when Spirits were running rampant. It was an account of an old man who'd had his child stolen and went after the Bugbear who did it. In that story, he found the Bugbear wandering along a river that was deep within the forest. That testimony goes along with others, which all state that Bugbears like being around water."
"Wow, Kael, you're amazing! Thank you so much!" I give him a big smile and then run out of the room. If what he says is true, that means the Bugbears will be around rivers. As I flee the motel, I see the man who I spoke to earlier is still there, grieving.
"I have some information about the Spirit that took your son," I say. "It's a Bugbear, and they are known to like water. Can you please go give that information to the Spiritguards? Tell them the Bugbear is likely to be around any nearby rivers, or lakes."
"Truly?" the man's eyes light up. "All of this information, how do you know such a thing? Not even the Spiritguards here in town knew what that thing was!"
I guess only the Spiritguards in Arcona Village are this informed. That must be why Arcona Village has the only Spiritguard Training Program in the northwest…they're the only ones that actually know about Spirits. For a moment, I wish I had studied as vigorously as Kael. If I could have come up with that information on my own, things would have been so much simpler.
"While you go tell the Spiritguards, old man, I'll run ahead and see if I can find this Bugbear. Tell me, though, before I go. Which direction is the nearest river?"
"There's only one river that runs near town," the man points off to my left. "It runs all the way through the woods, up from the rocky mountain hills. Then it comes down past the village into the plains to the east.
"You said that it runs through the woods in that direction?" I ask, looking to where the old man has initially pointed. "That's where it will be, no doubt. Send for the Spiritguards. I'm running ahead."