Shadows Over Arcadia Chapter 66: 65. The Monsters of Fel

Read chapter 66 of Shadows Over Arcadia by Zacheas on NovelPedia.

I am Shadow, a year and two arcs old, and I am a monster masquerading as an adventurer. My close friend Maribel and I are on a quest, bound for the village of Fel. https://shadowsoverarcadia.com/api/storage/objects/uploads/51f2eb33-199c-4126-a5b5-1bea5c8fc16a As we draw near the village of Fel in the early evening, we pass miles of fields with stunted, sickly crops. The ground is still damp from last night's rain, and the air carries the sour scent of rotting vegetation and the steady buzz of insects. Huckleberry groans in frustration as she and Buttercup strain, slowed by the heavy wagon sinking into the muddy road. "These must be the cursed fields," Maribel muses, her eyes scanning the tree line ahead of us, using our map to shield her eyes from the sun setting beyond it. "There is no curse," I say, continuing to scan the fields with my diagnostic eye. "The soil is depleted and riddled with pests." "So, same as the rest of the country," Maribel scoffs. "Why do they think they are cursed?" she adds thoughtfully. "Hard to say. They may have local superstitions," I say flatly. "In the end, no matter what they think the cause is, completing the quest requires the crops be made healthy." "That's on you then, big guy," Maribel says with a shrug. "I don't know spells like that." I’m not surprised, but I am a bit disappointed. It had seemed highly unlikely an actual curse would have been placed on these farms. In a country with so few mages, who would cast the spell? Why target just the fields in this remote village, and to what end? That kind of mystery would have been more interesting to solve, and a curse far quicker to dispel. Revitalizing miles of exhausted crops, on the other hand, will take days and more mana than I currently have stored. “I think the village is just inside the grove of trees,” Maribel says, glancing from the map back to the road ahead. A thick fog rolls in as we draw nearer to a forest of very tall redwood trees whose canopies rise high above, swallowing the last light and cloaking the area in shadow. The air does not cool, the humidity does not change, and there is no wind to carry the mist. There is nothing natural about this fog. By the time the road brings us past the first massive tangle of roots at the base of one of those trees, the haze is so dense we can barely see past the mares’ noses. “Where did all this come from?” Maribel mutters as she rummages around behind the driver’s seat, fishing out our crystal lamp. She lights it and hangs it off the front of the wagon. The glow reflects off the mist in a yellow haze but does little to restore our sight. I ease back on the reins and the horses settle into a slow, cautious walk. We are wrapped in a blanket of gray, but my enhanced senses are not so easily defeated. I can see we have entered the village. Our wagon passes small homes cut out of the massive redwood roots and burrowed into the ground. Tiny round wooden doors seal tunnels so narrow even Maribel would struggle to squeeze into them. “Predator Sight,” Maribel intones as her pupils turn scarlet. “They’re hiding,” she adds, looking from burrow to burrow. The residents of Fel seem to have fled in a hurry before we arrived. An axe lies beside a stack of wood, halfway through being split. A basket sits abandoned, its weaving only partway finished. It looks as if the entire village dropped what they were doing and hid. But from what? “Think we scared them?” Maribel asks in a worried tone. I do not answer, my mind’s eye already fixed on the images being transmitted by my hummingbird scout. I watch as it weaves its way through the trees further down the path, circling the true culprit. Something has managed to cloak its presence with the aid of this enchanted fog: a massive, nine-foot-tall wolf-like beast with its head buried in the collapsed roof of a burrow. My scout circles at a safe distance, giving me a clear view of our target without drawing its attention. There is no doubt this is the monster we