”See? Classic crab people.” Anastacia said and pointed at the flooded town of Ebonywatch.

The town and its surroundings were submerged in water from the flooding river that ran right past it. Ranging from just a few centimeters to waist-high, the water covered every inch of land and reaching the town gates would require going through a good length of it.

“Anna, I hate to break it to you, but crab people aren’t a real thing.” Gilbert pointed out. He kneeled to look at the water more closely and scanned the surface for any ripples or other signs of possible dangers. “Can you feel anything weird in the water?”

“Nope, there’s literally nothing alive or dead between us and the gate.” Anastacia said and shook her head.

Gilbert grabbed a branch from a nearby tree and ran it along the bottom of the water. When he lifted it up, the stick was covered in slightly greenish slime that had a very similar consistency to snot. “Some kind of algae maybe? It shouldn’t be dangerous, but do not drink the water and avoid getting it on your skin. There are a few poisonous types that can cause a pretty nasty rash.” He advised and stepped in.

Having learned from falling over in the marsh a few days ago, Anastacia was in no hurry this time. She grabbed tightly onto King’s arm and carefully waded through the slimy water. Falling down now would have been even worse, and she would have probably just drowned herself in the ankle-deep water instead of carrying on with the slime in her hair.

The town gates were unguarded and open, which was slightly odd but not unheard of. A town like this typically housed around a hundred people and had more than enough able folk to defend itself from smaller bandit groups, and since it wasn’t along a busy trading route, it didn’t provide a tempting target for a larger scale attack. The gate and the fence around it were built from beautiful, pitch-black ebony - no doubt the town's namesake.

Right before they reached it, Gilbert stopped the party and turned to them. “Remote places like this tend not to be the most open-minded ones. That means Anna is an apprentice fire mage, Emilia doesn’t push Sylvia on the locals, and King… only do what Anna tells you to. Do not act on your own unless it’s absolutely needed, and we might be able to pass you as some simple enchanted golem.” He instructed everyone before heading through the gate.

The houses were also built from the same dark wood as the gate, hinting that it was abundant in the area and probably the main reason for the existence of the whole town. Ebony was very popular material for high-end furniture and decorative items, so a whole town built from it was certainly a stunning sight. While the flooded streets were empty, Anastacia could feel a few people in the houses nearby and was quick to inform the rest of the party about it, though she reported that they felt awfully crabby.

One of the buildings near the gate had a beautifully carved sign that said ‘Jumping Ewe Tavern’.

“Seven crab people inside, doesn’t look like they’re hiding. I think one of them is sleeping too, his pulse is slower than usual.” The necromancer reported, still clinging on to the belief that crab people were real.

“You can feel people’s heartbeat now? That’s disturbing.” Emilia said and placed her hand over her heart.

Anastacia shrugged. “Only if they’re really close like this. There’s a certain way the flesh wobbles on every beat.” She explained and did her best to illustrate it with her hands, but stopped when she suddenly felt some movement inside the tavern. “One of them is coming towards the door!”

As the necromancer said that, the tavern’s door opened and out came a young female sheepfolk. She was in her twenties, buxom and overall very pleasing to the eye. The girl reminded Anastacia of Dam, the brothel manager in Valor, but she hadn’t seen that many sheepfolk before and probably just couldn’t pick up on the more subtle differences between them. With a bouncy prance the lamb hopped towards them and waved.

Emilia spotted a peculiar glimmer in the old adventurer’s eyes as he watched the local girl head their way. “Gil, no… We’ve been here for two minutes.” She whispered to Gilbert. “You have a problem.”

“I’ve seen you cough up a hairball, so just shut up.” He responded. “There’s no harm in getting to know the locals. She’s clearly not a vampire or anything, so just relax and let me handle this.”

The sheepfolk was wearing an apron on top of her white dress, suggesting she worked in the tavern. When she reached the party, she pranced around them once before stopping in front of Gilbert. “Hellowsies! My name is Yulia! What brings people like you to our little town? We don’t normally get many adventurers… Is there something scary going on in the woods?!” She greeted them in an overly cheerful tone.

“Good day to you, fair lass. There has been some trouble nearby, so we’re here to make sure everything’s okay. So just tell me if you guys are having any problems.” Gilbert said and bowed grandly.

The girl looked like she was deep in thought for a couple of seconds before remembering something. “There’s a jar of pickled veggies I can’t open! But you’re huuuuuuge – I think you could wrestle a bear!” She said and measured Gilbert’s shoulder width with her arms.

Gilbert laughed. “Can and have, maiden Yulia, Can and have. I think I can handle a jar, so how about we go and have a look?” He suggested and flexed his biceps.

“Yaysies!” Yulia celebrated and bounced a couple of times before heading back to the tavern with Gilbert in tow.

The rest of the party was left behind without a second thought. Both amazed and annoyed by the warm welcome, they followed their leader inside.

Emilia rubbed her temples. “Oh wow, I already hate her. She needs to shutsies the fucksies upsies. That just gave me a migraine…” She said and let out the loudest and longest sigh Anastacia had ever heard. “And Gil! it took two seconds for him to drop his guard entirely.”

“I think she’s fun. Did you see them bounce? It was like she had two puppies under there.” Anastacia laughed and made a gesture mimicking Yulia’s chest. “Clearly a disguised crab person though.”

Emilia sighed again, even louder and longer than before.

The floor of the tavern was also flooded and slippery, causing a very noticeable damp smell that didn’t mix well with the scent of tobacco and food. The furnishing was much like in the inn that the party called their home, but everything was made from the same black wood as the building itself. There were six other patrons in the tavern and just like Anastacia had said, one of them had slumped against a table, snoring. Two humans and four more sheepfolk, all of them men, under thirty and clearly townsfolk. They sat around a single table and talked to each other in hushed voices, every now and then glancing over at the adventurers. The clack of Yulia’s hooves against the hardwood floor carried over from the kitchen behind the counter.

Emilia sat down at one of the empty tables instead of going in the Kitchen. She already dreaded having to stay in the town overnight, something about it just felt off; and if they were going to fix it, Gilbert would be useless unless they managed to talk some sense into him. Anastacia joined her even though she was slightly curious about what was going on in the kitchen. The necromancer dug out a folded piece of paper from her pocket. On it were written all the things she had theorized that could be wrong with the town.

“Don’t make a scene… Please…” The ticked off priestess tried, but her words achieved nothing.

Anastacia cleared her throat, got up from her chair and started to recite the list for the locals. “Please raise your hand if you are one of the following: a secret crab person, vampire, man-eating plant, lobster person, an evil cult member, crab people supporter, a crab vampire, secret crab cult member…” The list was far longer than it had any right to be and basically contained every possible combination of crab people crossed with different creatures she had seen or heard of. When she had gone through it and no one had raised their hand, the necromancer disappointedly sat back down. “The crab people are smart, of course they wouldn’t fall for that…” She muttered to herself.

“You… You seriously thought that was going to work? I agree with you on that there’s something going on here, but it’s not going to be crab people and that would literally never work. No matter what it was.” Emilia said, looking like she had started to slowly die inside. “Can we just figure out where we can rent a room and get on with whatever we’re here for?”

Anastacia’s stunt had broken the silence between the locals and their new guests, giving a couple of them the courage to approach the table. The two men looked like they could be brothers, both of them having the same short haircut and similar slightly tattered cheapish workwear – presumably for working in the woods.

“You gals just got here, right? We were thinking we could show you around.” One of them suggested and sat next to Emilia, completely uninvited, while the other one sat next to Anastacia. “What are a couple of dashing ladies like you doing in our neck of the woods anyway? Seeking adventure maybe?”

“Ooh! That’d be really helpful. Do you know if there are any rooms we could…” The oblivious necromancer was about to ask but was interrupted by her friend kicking her in the feet to get her attention.

“Anna, they’re hitting on us.” Emilia pointed out.

Anastacia took a look at the men who had sat down with them, both were reasonably good looking and about twenty years old. “Are you sure? What do we do now?” She asked, completely ignoring them and the fact that they could hear her.

“I was planning on ignoring them until they go away.” The priestess said bluntly and turned to them. “Shoo! You’re wasting everyone’s time. We’re both taken already.”

“I can believe that you’re taken, but she clearly isn’t.” The man sitting next to Anastacia said and grabbed the necromancer’s hand. “Come on, bonnie. I’ll show you the rest of the town.”

Before Anastacia had time to refuse, King grabbed the man’s throat, lifted him up from the chair and threw him across the room. The other man who had invited himself to their table understood that their plan probably wasn’t going to work and backed off to help his brother up from the floor.

Gilbert had stepped out from the kitchen just in time to witness the action. On the way to the party’s table, he gave the young men a cold glance to make sure they kept their distance. “I’ve managed to get us a couple of rooms upstairs. If you’re done mingling with the townsfolk, you three can head there and put down your gear. I’ll be there shortly too, but I need to take care of some things first.” He said, gave Emilia the key to their room and returned to the kitchen.

After wiping the slime from their boots on the stairs, they headed upstairs and found two rooms with numbers hanging from their doors. “We’ll stay in room one and that old fool can have the other one for himself.” Emilia explained and unlocked the door with a number one on it.

Inside the room provided no change in the decor: Dark floor, dark walls, dark ceiling, two dark beds, a dark wooden table and a wardrobe next to both beds. With the ebony furnishing absorbing almost all light that hit it, the room’s only window wasn’t enough to light it properly, and they would have to ask for some candles or something later.

Emilia threw her backpack on one of the beds and locked the door again. “Now that we’re alone, we can talk about what’s wrong with this town.” She said and walked over to the window to look outside. From it, she could see the gate they came in from and over it into the flooded fields around the town. “Can you not feel it? Something’s off and it’s making me feel really irritable. We should not be here… I don’t think it was a coincidence that within ten minutes of being in this town, that giant idiot trips up on some tits and we get hit on. There has to be something going on.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t just my womanly wiles that won those guys over?” Anastacia suggested and badly copied a pose she had learned in the brothel.

Emilia sighed. “Anna, you have the womanly wiles of a mudbrick. Please take this seriously for once.”

“Wow, you’re being rude! But you’re right, something’s up.” The necromancer agreed. “I can’t check the entire town from here, but inside a hundred-meter radius, there are twenty-three living things – including you and Gil. All of them are about as big as a person, but I feel like there should be more and there are absolutely no animals anywhere. Nothing in the water, no birds, no nothing. Even in the desert there was bugs and stuff, but not here.”

They decided to wait for Gilbert to come upstairs before they made a plan of action, but slowly the minutes turned into hours, and Gilbert was still downstairs when the evening came. Anastacia kept checking the situation every now and then while they cleaned their boots properly and went through some other weird things about the town, like how there weren’t any old people in the tavern even though they are the ones usually populating establishments like that. As the sky started to darken, they started to get impatient.

Suddenly Anastacia jumped up from her bed. “Uh-oh… I was thinking about crab people and got distracted. Gilbert is outside and going somewhere…” She explained and pointed in the direction where Gilbert was.

“Damn it, Anna! Did the lamb go with him?” Emilia asked while rushing to the door.

The necromancer shook her head. “He left alone and she’s still downstairs. Are we going to get him?”

Emilia came up with a plan on the fly and opened the door. “Send King to look after the old fool, they’ll be able to handle themselves. We’re going to get some information while he’s away…”