“Oi Dian, just how far is this place? We have been walking non-stop for more than three days now.”, complained Shiv to the man who was acting as the guide for the group.

Almost two weeks had passed since Shiv and Agon paid a visit to the chief of the neighboring village, Stein. And just like Shiv had suspected, the problem with the soil had spread to his village too. The symptoms appeared three days after Shiv brought the supplies. Shiv had already explained the situation to the villagers, but most of them were skeptical, some even scorned at Shiv.

But when the symptoms began to surface, all the villagers fell into despair in an instant. It was then Shiv proclaimed that he would be going on a journey to find out the cause of this plague and he promised the villagers to return with a solution.

For that very purpose, Shiv assembled a team of six including himself. The other members were, Dian who was to be the guide, Kate whom Shiv guessed to be a swordswoman, Agon to aid him with offence, Clint who was actually blacksmith apprentice and finally Blina, the village herbalist who was had god knowledge about plants and soil. A small number of personnel with expertise on various fields but at the same time essential for the current quest, Shiv had planned well and chosen well too.

And so, the party of six have been walking for three days and three nights without much rest. Dian was a stamina monster and hardly needed rest. Unless the members pleaded to stop, the guide hardly rested. And so, on the morning of the fourth day, an angry Shiv voiced his complain.

“We are now on the outskirts of the village. If we were to walk a little more, then the village should come into view”, Dian replied without stopping or turning back. He kept walking and walking, like he was born only to walk.

Just like the dark-skinned man said, the village came to view after short while. And as the party neared the village, a sense of gloominess attacked them. Even before they entered the village, they could tell that village was on the verge of death.

The houses which were much larger and strongly built had layers of decay over it. There was a putrid stench that filled the air causing the six to cover their noses. The village appeared to be covered by fog, but in reality, it wasn’t at all. There were hardly any villagers visible. Almost all the crop fields had rotten and this again added to the stench. Kate almost puked because of it, while the others had pale faces.

With their face covered with pieces of clothes, Shiv and others made their way towards what Dian called as the chief’s house. Similar to all the houses on the way, the chief’s house, which was the largest of them all, too was decaying.

Dian, who was in the front, knocked on what was left of a wooden door. After the fourth knock, the door slightly opened, and the face of an old woman slowly thrust out. She stared at the strangers for a while, as if trying to ascertain the identity of the sudden visitors.

“Who are you lot? And what do you want?”, came a question filled with hostility. It was evident from how she was blocking the path to inside that she did not encourage their visit. Her choice of words and tone of speaking supplemented her disinterest.

“My name is Dian, grandma Sari, Stein’s son.”, Dian spoke politely as if not to worsen the old woman’s mood any further.

Hearing the name Dian, the woman’s face showed sign of recognition, but the hostile attitude remained. She stared at the dark man for some time and then motioned towards the other five using her chin as it to ask, ‘who are they then?’.

Dian nodded slightly and replied, “They are from the unknown. Things happened and they have stopped confining themselves. It seems that even their lands are being affected by the plague, so these five are here to know more about the plague and are trying to find a solution. I am here as their guide.”

“Hah”, as if mocking the six, the old lady let out a short laugh and the continued, “Find a solution? These brats? Don’t make me laugh. We have searched the entire forest, left no stones unturned and all we could find was nothing. And here you come saying that you can find a solution. My son, his wife, their children, all of them, it stole everything from me. Why am I the only one left alive?”, the anger and sarcasm in her voice at the beginning slowly faded away. Those emotions were soon replaced by grief and loneliness. The old woman fell to her knees as she whimpered, tears rolling out of her eyes she screamed at the top of her voice.

Dian caught hold of the woman, while Kate and Blina tried to support her. Together, they walked her inside her and made her sit on a chair. Shiv and the other two boys slowly walked in along with the others.

It took some time for the woman named Sari to calm down. With the tip of her dress, she slowly dried the trickling tears and cleaned her face. She then took a deep breath and the slouched back on the chair to sit comfortably.

“Being at the center, connecting other villages with each other, trading with them had made this village prosper greatly. The men, women and children were all happy. With abundant food, there was nothing that troubled this village except for natural deaths. There were hardly any with diseases, and for those that were sick, the forest provided them with medicine. Look at it now, the land dying, the houses rotting, and the men of this village almost extinct. What have we done wrong to deserve this fate?”, with her eyes closed, the woman complained as if a higher being was listening. “Six or so months before a man calling himself Kayne visited this village. He said he was from somewhere in the east and was here to study about the forest. If I remember correctly, he called himself as a traveler.”

The woman paused for a while. Her breathing was ragged and she was sweating profusely. The six people in the room silently waited for the woman to continue.

“We of course welcomed him, showed him around the village, taught him various things about the forest like the fountain of the fairies, the treasure trove of water sprites and the giant tree of wonder. It was a week later the tree surrounding us began to die. Even if I say die, it was not a large-scale incident. The tress began to loss leaves faster, but we paid no attention to it. Some of the branches began to wither and fall, again we paid it no heed. Often trees were uprooted, and once again we neglected the signs. Until our crops began to wither.”

The woman gazed outside through a small window. Shiv felt that the woman was reliving the story she was narrating.

“We were frantic, trying to figure out what was going wrong. The herbalist of the village said even the herbs and other plants were being affected and that she could find no cause nor any solution. When the village was despairing, our guest from the east caught some strange disease. It was truly strange, his body began to shrink, I don’t even know how to describe it. It was like he was turning to a tree himself. His skin color too began to change, he hardly ate anything except for water. He seemed to be not in pain as till the last moment he had a smile on his face.”

She let out a small sigh and then gazed at the faces of the six that had gathered around her.

“It was then the nightmare truly began. All the crops died out, anything edible began to rot, even the wooden house. The air began to stink and it made it harder to breath. To prevent it from spreading, we even prohibited people from outside. The shortage food and the pungent air began to take its toll on those who lived here. Slowly people began to fall sick and before long almost the entire village was bed ridden. And finally few weeks later, the all died, leaving behind this old had and some other helpless people. It seems, my village has caused troubles to your villages too. I don’t know how I should repent, but there wasn’t anything that this old lady could do”, with those words, she once again began to cry, letting out all her guilt and dismay.

Kate and Blina supported the woman as they shed silent tears. Dian and the other two children did not know what to do and so kept silent. But Shiv just kept staring at the woman.

“Grandma, if you don’t mind, can you tell me where this Kayne guy came from exactly?”, Shiv approached her and went on his knees. He then gently asked her so as not to startle the frail woman.

“I only know that he came from the east. He never told anything specific. We never bothered to ask we hardly knew about any place outside the forest except for the capital of this kingdom.”

“I see. But then why would you let a stranger to visit places like fountain of fairies and all? Are they not important?”

“Ah! Even if they have such great names, they are nothing special. They were names passed down to us by our ancestors. May be because of its beauty or because of the grand stature, these names were chosen. Even after we told that to him, he still said he wanted to see them. He said that he loved nature and wanted to visit those places which had such grand names.”

Shiv then thanked the woman and then motioned Dian and Agon to step outside the house. Once the three were outside, he turned towards Dian and Agon and asked them, “Any of you know what lies to the east of the forest” to which the two nodded sideways.

Shiv then called out the map function which displayed a map visible only to him. He then scanned through the map and then turned toward the other two.

http://imgur.com/LvTjwWH

“This forest, to be exact, is situated at the eastern region of the Bredon kingdom. Do you know what that means?”, Shiv gazed at Dian and Agon alternatively.

Agon appeared clueless, but Dian appeared like something lit in his mind.

“So that means, this man who called himself Kayne was someone from another country?”, Dian put forward a question.

Shiv nodded and continued, “The kingdoms to the east are Fernork and Hwan. Fernork is a country of orcs and that means, Kayne must have belonged to Hwan. And from what I remember this kingdom has a hostile relation with Bredon”

“Are you trying to tell that the reason for all these problems is that man?”, Dian asked as he squinted his eyes.

“I am not sure myself. Even of not something of this scale, all the kingdoms do have their own forests. But why did he come here? Why did he catch a strange disease while nobody in the village did not? When I have such suspicions, it makes me question, why did this problem start when he was around? Something tells me that he was behind this situation”

“Well, when you put it like that, things do get suspicious. So what will be our next course of action? Will we be visiting those three places she mentioned?”

“So you too think that those places have some sort of importance, right? But not now. I think we need to look around this village first. She did say that there were some still alive, so let’s start from there. Our first priority is gathering as much information as we can.”

And so with information gathering as the mission, the three split in three direction after they agreed to meet before the chief’s house in the evening.