Chương 57: Reunion with the Beasts

The violet band Evan had spotted at the edge of the horizon was already making room for a warm orange as the sun rose above them. His team snuck past the abandoned cart the Beasts had left next to the side entrance, and Evan felt his throat tighten when he spotted smears of dried blood on the cart's wooden planks. They were getting closer to finding the abducted villagers, including Oliver's brother, but they were also getting closer to the enemy that had wiped the floor with them during their last fight.

He could only hope they had learned enough since their last clash to defeat them this time. And even then, the greater challenge lay beyond the Beasts. The Professor. An enemy they knew almost nothing about, not even his true name. They reached the door. A wooden door with elegant iron decorations. Not as fancy as the grand portal of the main entrance, but this was clearly not a door that led to the servants' quarters. With one last deep breath, Evan tried to push it open.

He was half prepared they would have to break through the door with force, but to his surprise it gave way easily.

"Unlocked," he said, peering into the building. He could only make out rough shapes of the corridor behind the door, illuminated by pale moonlight streaming through large, arched windows. Luca bit his lip, looking over Evan's shoulder.

"That can't be a good sign, right?"

"No, it's a very good sign," Oliver said, fists balled.

"It means we're getting closer to the asshole who kidnapped my brother." Without further ado, Oliver marched through the open door. The rest of the group drew a sharp breath, and Lys the fox even gave off a panicked yip, picking up on the sudden spike of fear in her owner. A hundred pictures of Oliver triggering a deadly hidden trap flashed through Evan's mind within a split second, but to his surprise, absolutely nothing happened. Luca let out a breath, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Man, Olly, what happened to 'proceed with caution'?" Oliver looked over his shoulder.

"Aren't you the guy who made two dozen stone warriors attack us? Come on, what are you all waiting for?" They reluctantly stepped through the doorway, following Oliver into the house, although a lot more cautiously. Evan took out his glow ball and let the shine sweep over the corridor ahead, looking for traps, defense mechanisms, or enemies. The corridor was wide, with a high arched ceiling. Floor-height windows lined the wall to their left; the right-hand wall had several doors.

For a moment, Evan thought that this place must've been beautiful in its prime. He could imagine walking through this sun-flooded hallway, looking out into the lush garden outside. Now it was dark and the large windows were covered by a thick layer of grime and dust, after not being cleaned by anyone for decades. The floor was dusty, too, except… Evan tapped Catriona on the shoulder.

"Footprints." The layer of dust covering the floor tiles had recently been disturbed. Oliver followed his point and nodded.

"Footprints from three people. We're right on their heels."

"At least we won't have to search the entire building room by room to find them. We can just follow these footprints," Luca said, although Evan could see the fear behind his paper-thin mask of optimism.

"But be careful," Catriona warned.

"Keep your eyes open. That includes you, Oliver. I'm certain there are defenses inside the house too. No more blindly running through doors, alright?" Oliver grumbled a bit, but eventually agreed to be more cautious next time. They followed the footprints down the hallway. Evan held his sword in front of him, ready to parry a surprise attack. Catriona had taken the lead. She had the highest perception stat and was the most likely team member to spot signs of danger. Her fox familiar was on high alert as well.

Lys was a few steps ahead of them, ears pricked. A few times she stopped and sniffed something before she continued. Just after the next corner, Evan found something that made him pause. One of the floor tiles looked slightly off. It had the same size as the rest and fit in perfectly with the gray and white pattern, but it had an extra bit of smoothness to it.

"Hey, does this floor tile look strange to anyone else?" Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. The rest of his group gathered around. Catriona crouched and inspected the tile from up close, while Luca looked around and pointed out at least half a dozen more of the shiny tiles spread throughout the hallway.

"I feel some mana radiating off this tile," Catriona said with furrowed brows.

"I think this is some kind of hidden switch for a trap, probably activates once someone steps on it. It might be deactivated, the mana trace is really weak, but better safe than sorry. Make sure you avoid them." She stood back up and whistled for Lys.

"Stay by my side, girl. No solo adventures until we're out of this hallway."

"Good catch, Evan," Luca said.

"You probably saved our butts." They continued zig-zagging through the corridor until they moved through a large archway. The floor's tile pattern changed, and the shiny trap tiles disappeared. The footprints were easy enough to follow, which was good, because the inside of the estate turned out to be a maze of hallways. They turned left, then left again, then right, before reaching a large chamber with several corridors branching off in different directions.

Evan was glad they didn't have to search the house room by room, because they'd already passed dozens of doors. The estate must've housed hundreds of people when the Vason family still resided here. Most of them were probably servants or guards. They followed the footprints into one of the branching hallways and then down several sets of stairs. The walls changed from ornate wallpaper to rough plaster, and the floor tiling looked less intricate in this part of the building. No more windows.

The only light came from the glow balls Evan and Catriona were carrying. There were simple lamps fastened to the wall every couple of feet, but they seemed non-functional. Evan assumed they'd entered the servants' area now. Another similarity to the grand estates of Earth. The rich and powerful lived upstairs, while the people who kept everything running smoothly had to dwell underground. Lys paused again. She nervously danced around before running back to Catriona.

"What is it, girl?" she asked.

"Have you heard something?" The fox yipped in a way that made Evan think she'd understood the question. And maybe she really had. Who knew how intelligent foxes were in this world, especially when they were magical familiars. Catriona definitely seemed to have some kind of non-verbal understanding with Lys, because her expression tensed.

"Not much further. There's a back door leading back outside. Lys smelled humans in that direction." Luca looked at her, then at the fox.

"Wait, what? Can you understand her? Do you speak fox language?" Catriona rolled her eyes.

"No, Luca, I do not speak fox language. I can understand her, yes, but it's more of a mental link. She's my bonded familiar after all, not just some pet."

"I trust her judgment," Evan said.

"Let's go find that back door." They snuck along the wall until they found the door the fox had spotted. The footprints in the dust ended there. Evan felt a lump forming in his throat. For a split second, he wondered how much longer Alex would take to arrive. He pushed the thought down as soon as it bubbled to the surface of his mind. They'd come this far, survived a pack of Nightterror Hounds and two dozen magical statues trying to beat them into a pulp. They'd found their way into the heart of the Vason Estate.

All they had to do now was to defeat the Beasts and then the path would be clear to save the abducted villagers, end their suffering, and bring the man responsible to justice. With renewed determination, he put his hand on the doorknob and gently pushed it open. Just a gap, just wide enough to peer through. What he saw outside in the courtyard, illuminated by the first rays of sunlight breaking through the clouds, turned his stomach.

Evan saw all three Beasts in the backyard, lit by the first rays of golden morning light. Bear and Spider both held shovels, digging into the ground with a lot of grunting and cursing, while Rat was standing next to a large white pile. At first, Evan thought it was a pile of old clothes. Only on the second glance did the horrifying realization hit him. Those weren't old rags... they were corpses. Human corpses, wrapped in dirty, bloodied cloth, and haphazardly piled up.

"I don't understand why we have to do this," Bear complained, leaning on the handle of his shovel.

"Why can't we just drop them off in the woods like all the others?"

"Because all those piles of corpses are starting to draw attention," Rat said, watching the two others work with crossed arms.

"Whose attention?" Bear asked.

"Are you dumb? The Forest Folk's, of course," Rat snapped.

"Who else lives in the Old Forest?" Spider kept shoveling, but gave Bear a sideward glance.

"You must've noticed they follow us around whenever we enter the Forest." Bear shrugged.

"So what? They're Forest Folk. They don't leave their forest. Ever."

"They do sometimes," Spider said, wiping sweat from his forehead, "when they feel threatened." Bear made an uncommitted grunt.

"Well then maybe the Professor should work a little harder, so his experiments produce actual results and not just mountains of freaky-looking corpses."

"Not our concern," Rat scolded.

"The Professor gets what the Professor wants. If he wants more people, we get him more people. If he wants those corpses buried in the backyard, we bury the corpses in the backyard. So keep digging." Bear picked up his shovel with a scowl.

"The Vason boy is getting impatient with him too."

"The Vason boy told us to do whatever the Professor tells us to do, and as long as he pays us, that's exactly what we're going to do." Rat's words gave Evan pause. That Vason boy? So someone really had survived—escaped or been spared. If the Beasts were working for a long-lost heir of the Vason family, that explained why they'd chosen this old estate as their base of operations. But how was that all related to this mysterious Professor figure?

Judging from the Beasts' words, the Professor and that alleged "Vason boy" were not the same person—but were they working together? Was one working for the other? Who was really controlling this sick business of abducting innocent people and turning them into human test subjects for deadly magical experiments? And to what end? The question momentarily paralyzed Evan, even as Rat dragged one of the corpses from the top of the pile and unceremoniously dropped it into the hole in the ground.

Evan didn't get much time to contemplate this new information. Oliver stepped up, nearly pushing Evan out of the way to take a look himself. It only took him a few seconds to recognize what was going on in the backyard. Before Evan could utter a single word of caution, Oliver had drawn his sword and burst through the door.