He Begins To Investigate

Half way down the stairs, the innkeeper stopped and faced the room of patrons.

“Attention y’all! We’ve got a real nice guest in town tonight, so I want you all to treat him real friendly like. He’s already helped me out, more than Gerald over there who nearly threw his back lifting a barrel.”

One of the burly men at a table rolled his eyes and as the other men around him snickered.

“I can already tell that this handsome lad has a good heart, so treat him right alright? Why don’t you introduce yourself to the lovely folk of Knottori village.”

The innkeeper stepped aside and any eyes that weren’t on Earnest already were certainly on him now. He was surprised by the somewhat sudden introduction, but only took a moment to compose himself.

“Greetings, uh, Hello. My name is Earnest Pierce. I’m a member of the 7th knight squad Ganjo, under Commander Roland.”

He briefly stopped, as he considered what to say next. The villagers would naturally expect him to explain why he came to such an out of the way location. Knottori village certainly wasn’t anything special, so there was really no reason for a young man to arrive, unless he was trying to escape something. Some of the less trusting villagers already suspected him of being on the run. Speculations ranging from him being a criminal on the run to him escaping the hatred of a noble house had already circulated amongst some of the tables while Earnest was upstairs.

While these suspicions might be stopped by telling the villagers the true purpose of his visit, Earnest did not want to reveal his hand so easily. He didn’t know the cause of Rosalind’s state, and for all he knew, some of the villagers might be the cause. If he revealed that he was here to investigate Rosalind’s strange behavior, any villagers complicit in causing it might try to hide evidence, block his investigation, or treat him hostilely.

“I’m a friend of Rosalind’s. I heard she got stationed in a village nearby me, so I took some personal time off to visit and see how she’s doing. I can see that she is already comfortable with you all, and that you treat her well, so thank you for that. I’ll only be here for a short time, so please treat me well. I’ll be out of here soon, or else I’m gonna get chewed out by my officer, haha.”

Earnest ended his introduction with an awkward **** laugh, hiding the small lies that he told, however his audience was thinking of something else. While Earnest was speaking, his careful usage of proper vocabulary gave his listeners the impression that he was some noble or city dweller, or trying to be. However, when he ended his introduction with the phrase “gonna get chewed out”, their impressions changed. Some realized that no noble would ever talk in such a manner. Even if they didn’t consciously realize, the feeling of otherness and difference diminished, and the villagers softened their attitude towards him.

“Lad! Where did ye grow up?”

“I grew up in Nabu village with Rosalind.”

Earnest answered truthfully, seeing no disadvantage to telling them where he was born. If any of them had talked to Rosalind and she had told them about their hometown, Earnest matching her story would increase the villager’s trust towards him. The man who asked accepted the answer, then spoke up again.

“Aye, and do the folk there drink?”

“Yes, they do.”

“Then why don’t you come down ‘ere and show us how much drink you can hold!”

Two of the men moved their chairs to make space for Earnest, who finished descending the stairs to pull up an empty chair. For the next few hours, he talked with the men at the table, absorbing all the information that he could about the village. The men that were talking with him were the farmers, carpenters, and blacksmiths of Knottori, and they shared details of their daily lives while asking Earnest questions about being a knight. He learned that Gerald was a widower whose wife passed due to pregnancy complications. After years of grief, he had recently been courting the innkeeper. She was a widow herself, as the husband that she ran the inn with passed away from disease some years ago. Gerald often came by to help with some heavy lifting and other chores, but frequently made a fool of himself as he was somewhat clumsy and overestimated his abilities. Nonetheless he kept helping out and trying to impress the innkeeper, who secretly liked that aspect of him.

Earnest was honestly refreshed to talk and listen to the simple lives and problems of others. Being in the knights, he was used to constant training and testing, so Earnest listened with genuine interest to the slow paced lives that the men described. However, he still had great concern for Rosalind, and shifted the conversation towards her, and the last few months that she had been stationed at Knottori.

Before Rosalind had taken over, the previous knight assigned to the town was an old man named Arthur. While he wasn’t actually that old and didn’t have any noticeable gray or white hairs, he was known as an old man because of his elderly demeanor. While other knights would call him low-ambition, he was known for being peace loving. He performed his duties reliably for years, becoming a part of the town. After more than a decade of service, he had finally decided to hang up his rarely used sword and allow another knight to take his place as he retired to a civilian role within the village. He was still known as the old man, and still relied on, but no longer had the official duties of a knight.

According to the villagers, Rosalind first arrived in high spirits, to Earnest’s surprise. She quickly got to know the locals, and they responded well to her energetic enthusiasm. The children loved to play with her, the men respected her strength, and the women also welcomed her, as they didn’t see her as competition due to her lack of traditional feminine charm. She fit in well, and had the chance to quickly prove herself.

After news of the new knight spread around the area, a small band of bandits wanted to test what they hoped would be a cowardly and weak knight. Rosalind quickly responded to the threat, and put on a spectacle in front of the villagers, beating the bandits effortlessly. She made it evident that she was no average knight, and that reputation scared away any further threats.

“She was like a whirlwind.”

“Yeah, a whirlwind that picked up trees and boulders and smashed ‘em into them bandits!”

After successfully instilling fear into the bandits’ hearts, there wasn’t much else to do besides her regular duties. She would act as a point of authority to resolve some minor disputes and would patrol the village. The villagers shared with Earnest that there were a number of abandoned houses scattered around the village. For some people born in the rural town, a slow-paced life was not satisfactory. They aspired to bigger and better things and left the village in pursuit of their dreams. Their houses were then up for grabs, but usually weren’t worth much. While a few were repurposed or deconstructed, most were left abandoned. Part of Rosalind’s regular patrol was to check on these derelict locations, making sure that nothing sinister grew in the dark. This could be bandits, squatters, runaway criminals, or even small monsters.

All in all, Earnest didn’t find anything unusual that would indicate a reason for Rosalind’s degradation into her current state. He brought this up with the men, asking them how she ended up as a drunkard tonight. The men changed their tone from singing Rosalind’s praises to confusion and speculation. They didn’t know the cause of it either, but some months ago, Rosalind had begun to act strangely. Occasionally, she would come to the inn and drink herself into a stupor, as she did tonight. She had shown no interest in **** beforehand, and even turned down offers for free drinks before. In addition to this, she was seen skipping duties and lazing around on certain days. She also seemed to forget conversations she had had with villagers not long ago. The men speculated on reasons for this, but none of them knew for sure.

“I heard ‘bout a witch’s curse before. This lad, Albert, he was a motivated one, a real go-getter, but he slighted a witch, an’ she cured him! He couldn’t get his dick ‘ard no more and started drinking and lazing.”

“Mate, everyone knows that it was Alber’s bitch wife. She’s the witch in the story mate, I can’t believe you didn’t realize that yet. Nah, nah, the only time a lad or lass changes like this is when they’re lovesick or heartbroken. I’ve seen it many a time, and it’s the same sob story.”

Earnest knew that this speculation was of little worth, so he asked the men about any rumors or mischief going around the village. The men took a second to ponder the question.

“Well, there's the misfit boys. They’re a little group of three troublemakers. They were friends pretty much since they were born, and troublemakers since then too! I feel like it was just yesterday that they were kids, in fact I still see ‘em as kids, even though they’re adults by age.”

“Yeah, the three of those little shits. Thomlin the brute, Barnabas the brain, and Ricard the rascal, at least that’s what they call themselves. I can’t believe they’re still doing that, they made those up before they were ten!”

Earnest listened to the villagers talk about these troublemakers and their schemes. Ricard was their leader, ambitious and cunning. He was the one that concocted pranks and schemes that the other two would help him execute. Last year, after reaching adult age, he had tried to join the knights. Apparently he dreamed of becoming a commander, one that devised brilliant strategies to defeat foes, one that would be written about as a genius in history. However, his dream came to an impasse quickly, as he was not even close to being physically fit enough to join. Ricard always thought of shortcuts or ways to make others do work for him, so his body was quite weak.

Thomlin was the next member Earnest learned about. He wasn’t nearly as clever or intelligent as his friends, but had the natural strength to make himself useful. He was the muscle of the group, but wasn’t nearly as motivated, usually lazing around in nice weather. He was a simple man who didn’t mind living a simple life, but Ricard always convinced him to go along with his plans.

“I think he’s got a good heart, I think, but he’s too dumb to say no to Ricard. Without him, he’s lazier than a pig, but somehow as strong as a bull.”

Lastly, there was Barnabas, who provided his intelligence to the group. He was quite timid and cowardly on his own, hating conversation and preferring studying in solitude. He dreamed of going to the capital and becoming a scholar, one that would have access to all the recorded knowledge of the kingdom. Unfortunately for him, the path to scholarship required a rigorous test to be passed. Even though he was the best pupil in the small village school, this was only because the kind teacher accommodated Barnabas’s weakness, and found alternatives to test his knowledge. In reality, Barnabas quickly crumbled under pressure, forgetting his practiced knowledge and becoming frozen with indecision. The scholar’s test was unforgiving, and ate him alive.

“I feel bad for the little guy, he tried so hard. But in the end he couldn’t do it, he tried a second time next year, but same thing.”

After Barnabas failed the test a second time, he made another attempt to access the kingdom’s libraries, and that was to become a sorcerer. He had never practiced magics before, in fact he had only read about it, but it was his only chance to get ahold of new knowledge. However, this **** last chance was also crushed, as the primary test for talent revealed that, while he did possess some magical energy, it was not nearly powerful enough to cast even the most basic of spells. With what little magical energy he had, he would only be able to perform tiny spells of intrigue rather than the powerful weapons of war that the kingdom would invest in.

The villagers bestowed this group the name “the misfit boys”, a name which the group would adopt and begin to call itself. They had a secret base off in the woods where they would spend their days concocting new plans for mischief and entertainment.

Earnest thanked the men for sharing, and left to talk with the other tables. All of them told different flavors of the same story through their own filters and lenses. Some of the ladies were quite hateful of the misfit boys, as they had conducted a panty raid not too long ago, and had stolen many of the young women’s underwear. One of the ladies seemed particularly offended that her undergarments were actually passed over and untouched. By the end of speaking with every patron that would grant him the time, he had no more information about Rosalind than before.

Since he had exhausted his interview targets and his body was also quite exhausted from travel, Earnest decided to turn in for the night and talk directly to Rosalind tomorrow morning. He paid for a room with the innkeeper who set him up next door to Rosalind’s. He set down his gear before hopping under the sheets and laying there, staring at the dark ceiling. He still didn’t have enough information to figure out what was going on with Rosalind. His own mind started churning, as he thought back to the idea of curses. What if Rosalind had been cursed by some witch or wizard or demon? How would he break a curse by himself? He had no knowledge of magic himself, nor did he have access to anyone who knew either. He stopped himself before going too far, reasoning with himself that talking with Rosalind once she was awake was the simplest solution, and any thoughts right now were useless worry. Earnest **** himself into an uneasy sleep, with his mind weighing heavily on what tomorrow would bring.