Duskbound

They'd been running hard all night, and Sildra knew if she stopped to let herself think, she'd break down. So many people had died, or worse, been killed by Torwin. She'd recognized some of them, even if she didn't know their names. And [Eye of the Moon] had condemned them to death. Every stop, it was the same thing. Torwin killed at her direction while she hid like a coward and the townsfolk directed their anger at the monster hunter.

It was an hour before dawn, but she could already feel her power starting to wane. The moon hadn't gone down yet, not enough to blind her to the monsters pretending to be human, but it was a good thing they'd finally reached Alnsberth. It was the last stop on their run, and she was hoping and praying that the corruption hadn't reached this far.

As soon as they got in sight of the town, she knew the truth. There were certainly less corrupted seed bearers than the other frontier towns, but there weren't none. The town was quiet, with only a few people up and about so early. None of them were human. Strange. Every person I can see is a monster. Where are the humans?

"Something's wrong," she said quietly.

"What?"

"Monster," she said, pointing to a man standing by the gate. Her finger drifted to the left to a farmer looking out at a field. "Monster."

She pointed to a pair of women walking toward the center of town on the main street, then to a street vendor unloading fruit from a burlap sack into the bins in his stall. A guard nearby watched him work. "Monster. Monster. Monster. All of them. Every single person I can see from here is a monster."

"There could be humans still in their houses sleeping," Torwin speculated.

"Maybe. Probably. It's just… Why are there so many monsters outside and no people? It makes me think the infestation in this town might be worse than the others."

"I hope not," Torwin muttered. "Alsberth is the gateway to the frontier. If the corruption is thick here, that means it's probably spread beyond this region. I'm going to have to make another run to the city to let people know either way, but this gives us reason to believe the danger to the rest of the country might be worse than expected."

He surveyed the town, eyes flicking from one person to the next in a way she'd learned meant he was planning his opening attack. Torwin was, frankly, terrifying with his bow, able to fire arrows so fast that his gear couldn't keep up with producing them at the speed he needed. She had no doubt that when he started, there'd be an arrow for each monster well before the first one struck home.

"Spot for me when the screaming starts," he said, almost absently, his eyes still fixed on the town. "People are going to start running, and I need to know if any monsters head out the other gate."

"I know," she told him. They'd done this twice already tonight.

He grunted once, then lifted his bow. An arrow materialized on the string, and, with an easy exhale, he let it fly. Immediately, his hand brought two more up from the quiver beside him. She couldn't even understand how he held them such that they both landed on the string to be fired in less than a second. It almost looked like he'd thrown one in the air, then snatched it before it could start falling after firing its partner.

Another arrow materialized, with one second between each arrow, as far as she could tell. That one went into the gate guard, and two more real arrows came out of the quiver. Five seconds later, every visible monster had a feathered shaft sticking out of their throat. There'd been a brief outcry from those few monsters who'd noticed the arrows before being hit, but it was quickly silenced.

They sound so human, Sildra thought wretchedly.

"Kill notices confirm all monsters," Torwin said, not that she needed him to. She'd gotten her own set of notifications for assisting in slaying them.

He started running toward the town at a decent clip, and she took off after him. For her, it was a full sprint that ended with ragged breathing and a stitch in her side. And he still reached the gate before she was halfway there, once again making her reconsider the wisdom of skipping out on putting points into physical.

"Monsters?" he asked.

"None that I can sense."

"I guess we're doing this the hard way," he said. Without hesitation, he approached the closest house and started pounding on the door. A minute later, it opened to reveal a bleary eyed and confused man. Torwin grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him out of the house, then glanced back at Sildra.

"Human," she mouthed.

"Your town has been infested with a parasitic monster that gets inside people, eats them from the inside out, and assumes their identities," Torwin told the man. "They seem to retain their host body's memories and are adept at pretending to be whoever they've replaced. I've got a way to detect them, but I need everyone outside."

"Who are you?" the man asked, still bewildered.

"I'm the monster hunter hired to take care of the surge in population," Torwin explained. "Now, I need you to start getting people awake and out of their homes so I can root out the monsters. Every single person, no matter how old or how young, needs to be outside."

It took some browbeating, but the process was soon well underway, to disheartening results. It turned out there was a good reason every single person they'd initially seen outside was a monster. The town was completely infested, even worse off than Deshir had been. Fortunately, they'd developed strategies to help convince people that they were telling the truth.

All they needed to do was get the townsfolk involved. Sildra would find a monster, pass that information onto Torwin, and he'd get a few people to help restrain the monster. It wasn't that he needed their help, but this way, when he killed it, they'd get notifications for assisting. He didn't do this with every monster, or even with most of them, but he quickly assembled a throng of people following him as they went up and down streets, cajoling or dragging people out of their homes as needed.

It was a bloodbath, with well over half the town dead by the time it was done. Unlike in Deshir, the corrupted seed bearers weren't making any overt moves here. Perhaps they didn't have to, considering they'd outnumbered the true humans until Torwin had started killing them.

There were all the usual hysterics Sildra had come to expect. Outrage and anger ruled the day, but through all of that, he never wavered from his grim duty. Over and over again, he told the townsfolk that their friends and family were already dead, that all that was left were monsters masquerading as their loved ones. Sildra wasn't surprised at how little that helped.

Once the whole town had been awoken and the monsters realized what was happening, some of them tried to flee. Torwin killed them from a quarter mile away, his bow practically humming from the heavy vibrations of its string. Others hid in cellars, basements, and attics, but no one was safe from Torwin's senses. Whatever skills he had, or even just raw stats, it was too much for a bunch of people struggling to breach the level 20 mark.

[You have completed a quest: Save the frontier from the source of the corruption.]

[Generating rewards for you and your companions.]

[Reward: 1000 decarmas, 1 class orb with rare class, "Druid of the Crescent Moon"]

[You have been granted a new quest: Locate the source of the dungeon seed and destroy it before it can spread more chaos and destruction.]

The notifications came in unexpectedly when they still had a dozen or so houses left to go through. She saw Torwin pause mid-stride and realized he'd probably received a similar message, but he just dismissed it and got back to work. Thankfully, the quest hadn't lied and there were no more corrupted seed bearers.

They left soon after, the old [Ranger] frowning thoughtfully as they walked the trails back toward Beldrit. "What's a dungeon seed?" she asked, pulling him from his musings.

"What? Why?"

"When we finished the quest to root out the corruption, I got a new one to locate the source of the dungeon seed."

"I don't know," he admitted, "but I have some suspicions. I think it might have been what those two boys found years ago. Maybe it's how new dungeons are formed, or maybe it's something else entirely."

"I guess Morgus wants me to figure out where it came from so I can stop any more from appearing."

Torwin came to a full stop and peered at her. He grunted again, then said, "You're going to need to level up some more if you're going to complete that quest."

"Well, I did get a class orb to upgrade my class to rare as a reward for completing the quest," she said. "That's sure to help."

He nodded. "You'd better hope it removes those astrological limitations from your skills."

"It's called [Druid of the Crescent Moon]," she said.

"Ah, I see. It probably won't help with that particular problem, then."
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"No," she agreed. "But it's a start. Did you get a reward too."

"Just a thousand decarmas. I won't complain about it, but it's hardly life-changing for me."

"I wonder if Jensen got anything. He helped a lot with Deshir, so that's got to be worth something, right?"

"We'll find out in a few hours," Torwin said. By unspoken agreement, they both picked up the pace, eager to get back.