Chapter Text
We begin our story 76 years into the Third Age.
A time of relative peace among the United Kingdoms of Azerim. Gerdawn is still in the process of being rebuilt after the final battles of the second great war forced the orcs of Schmargonrog to retreat 13 years ago, but slowly but surely, it is returning to its former glory. And while the orcs are still as barbaric, viscious and bloodthirsty as ever, the armies of Eastwatch have been doing a sufficient job of keeping them out of this side of the mountain range.
It is the beginning of a pleasant, mellow summer as we find ourselves in a small, quaint town called Honeywood, just as the sun begins to rise.
There, close to the lake, stands a thatched sod cottage.
Greg yawned and stretched as the first sunbeams came through the window, illuminating the interior of his small and cozy home. It was simple: A bed, a chest, a small fireplace and a table covered half with garlic and gardening tools, half with scrap metal and various screwdrivers. Greg didn't like to brag, but he was a man with many talents.
Pushing his blanket aside, he got to his feet and started rummaging through his clothes for something to wear - he had work to do. He had garlic to farm, a shop to manage, a tavern to deal with, sheep to herd, gadgets to build and most importantly: adventurers to greet.
Many talents indeed.
Fully dressed at last, he took a deep breath before stepping outside, blinking into the bright light. The streets of Honeywood were usually pretty empty at this time of the day and today was no exception. There were no adventurers milling about yet, only the other townspeople. The steady sound of sandals on gravel announced the arrival of one such person - a particularly predictable one.
"Morning! Nice day for fishing, ain't it?"
Greg smiled.
There had been times where Baelin had gotten on his nerves. Times when the fisherman's strange inability to say more than just a few lines had genuinely annoyed him. But he'd grown past that by now: at the end of the day, Baelin was a nice man, a good fisher, and his little speech impediment wasn't that big of a deal. It wasn't the strangest thing in Honeywood.
"Sure is, Baelin!"
"Hua Hah!" And walked off.
Greg looked after him.
Not the strangest thing in Honeywood. Oh no, not by far.
Greg knew that he was slightly better than the average person at noticing... odd things. Things that most people just seemed to ignore. Things like how tiny critters like rats and spiders sometimes carried around gold, armor or even furniture. Things like the weird but catchy music that was always playing from somewhere. Things like how strangely some adventurers behaved. Things like that. Not everybody noticed that. In fact, only very few people did.
One of them was currently busy in the tent on the other side of the lake, firing up his forge.
Bodger, the blacksmith, was somebody who seemed to notice strange things pretty frequently, but also sometimes did strange things. It made Greg wonder if he himself also sometimes did strange things without noticing. It was an unpleasant thought. Maybe if he and Bodger had been on better terms, they could have talked about that. Maybe together, they could have figured something out. But ugh, Bodger was just... it wasn't that Greg disliked him, it was just, Bodger was dumb. And a braggart. And rude. And greedy, and a sellout, and maybe Greg did dislike him a little, but who could blame him?! There wasn't much to like about Bodger!
Bodger meanwhile claimed - at least from what Greg had gathered - that Greg was desperate for attention, and a braggart, and incompetent at basic daily tasks in general and shepherding in particular, and weak, and annoying. Which was obviously all nonsense.
So yeah, he wasn't too fond of Bodger.
Unfortunally, Bodger was one of the few other people who noticed odd things. The other people in town, well...
There was Baelin. Hard to tell how much he noticed and didn't noticed. He didn't seem observant by any stretch of the imagination, but sometimes Greg felt like there was... more to the man than one would think. But having a conversation with Baelin was impossible for very obvious reasons.
There was Fred, the fruit seller. Fred was oblivious most of the time. But sometimes, when he got especially unlucky, there was a glint of awareness in his eyes, as if the sheer unlikeliness of his own misfortune were too much to ignore.
The two muggers who sometimes bothered the younger adventurers were a mixed bag. One of them was about as observant as a cinder block. The other one seemed somewhat more intelligent, but he couldn't be that smart - otherwise he wouldn't keep following his idiotic friend. But talking with them was obviously not an option; Greg wasn't going to chat with criminals.
The guards weren't even worth mentioning.
Greg glanced down the path. Right, Eugene. Eugene was... well, the nicest thing Greg could say was that Eugene wasn't as bad as the guards. He never seemed to notice anything. Eugene could stand in a doorway for twenty minutes while people were screaming at him without ever realizing that he was blocking the way. There was even a rumor, although Greg refused to believe that one, that Eugene had once caught on fire without noticing it.
Greg thought of himself as a nice person, somebody who didn't judge others too harshly. But he had to admit that sometimes, every once in a while, he wondered if maybe Eugene had been dropped on the head as a child.
Anyway. Point was that Greg, as much as he would have loved to investigate all these strange things that occurred at times, simply had nobody to do it with and he wasn't going to get much done on his own. There were only two people he knew who where theoretically capable of helping him with it anyway. One of them was Bodger, who clearly wasn't an option, and the other person was High Sorcerer Baradun, who was somehow even worse.
He sighed and leaned back against his doorframe.
The sun kept rising slowly and Greg spent a few minutes watching the birds flutter around, singing loudly. Every once in a while, their melody was interrupted by a duck quacking, the sound of metal hitting metal in Bodger's tent, or the constant and repetitive sobs from Eugene.
Eventually, the first adventurer showed up, earlier than most. It was a woman, a tall elf in long robes. Clearly a magic user of some kind. A sleepy-looking owl was perched on her shoulder.
"Ah, hello adventurer and welcome to the town of Honeywood", Greg greeted her cheerfully. She paused before him.
"...I'm looking for a spellbook", she said. "Seen one around?"
"No, sorry", Greg said and wondered how Baradun managed to lose that thing all the time. It was a book. How did one lose a book? How did one lose the exact same book multiple times?
"Right. Thanks, I guess."
"Enjoy your stay in Honeywood!"
She nodded and wandered off, pausing every few steps to look around. Eventually, she rounded a corner and disappeared from Greg's view. A minute later, she reappeared on the other side of the lake, where she paused to talk to Bodger before nodding and walking away. Greg rolled his eyes. As if Bodger were the type of person to ask about something like that.
Bodger glanced over to Greg and frowned.
"What are ya looking at?!", he shouted across the lake. Greg crossed his arms.
"I can look wherever I want, Bodger!"
"Oh, can ya?"
"Yep!"
Bodger leaned onto his heavy sledgehammer. "Ya know, just 'cause ya can doesn't mean you should."
"Well, just because you don't like it doesn't mean I'm not going to do it!"
"Who says I don't like it? I'm just wondering if you don't have anything better to do. Ain't you got a job or something?"
"I have more jobs than you, Bodger!"
"Then why don't ya ever do any of them, Greg? Why do ya stand around in front of yer house all day? Go farm garlic or something! Or take care of yer sheep, they're probably running amok again!"
Greg opened his mouth to answer. But before he could say anything, Bodger was approached by a young knight with a heavily damaged sword, cutting their polite conversation short.
But really, how rude! His sheep hadn't run amok in at least two days! Besides, he was already working on something to end that issue once and for all. He had four jobs, for Azerim's sake! He had to farm garlic, he had to manage a store, he had to run the tavern in the evening, he had to take care of his sheep, plus the housework, plus his tinkering, plus greeting adventurers, Bodger only had one job and that didn't even require him to leave his tent!
He took a deep breath. Relax. Today was shaping up to be a lovely day and he wasn't going to let Bodger ruin it.
The silence returned, although silence in this case meant a whole lot of noise. Thing was, not all types of noise were actually audible. Some noises blended into the background so well that one stopped hearing them completely. The soft whistling of the wind, for example, or the steady ticking of a clock.
Eventually, one stopped hearing these noises. Then, once that point was reached, one gained the ability to hear the absence of those noises.
That might not sound like anything special. But there is a very big difference between just not hearing something and actively hearing the absence of something.
As more minutes passed, Greg found himself hearing the absence of a noise that had been there, but now suddenly wasn't. It took him a moment to figure out just what noise it was, but once he realized it, he froze.
It wasn't the sound of the wind or the sound of the birds. It wasn't the sound of quacking ducks or the sound of Bodger working. It wasn't the sound of rustling leaves in the trees or splashing water in the lake. It was...
Eugene.
Eugene had stopped crying.
Greg slowly turned around, half expecting to see Eugene dead on the ground - he couldn't imagine anything else that would silence that man. But Eugene was standing there, straight and completely motionless.
...Which was... rather strange...
Greg hesitated for a moment before stepping closer to Eugene. The other man didn't react at all when Greg approached him. He was frozen and stiff, staring off into the distance without a hint of life in his eyes.
...His eyes, which... hang on.
Greg paused and leaned forward, closer, until his nose nearly touched Eugene's. Not only was the other man still not reacting, but now that Greg was closer, he could see that this was indeed not just a trick of the light - there was a tint of blue in Eugene's eyes.
Eyes that were supposed to be green.
"...Eugene?", he asked, but there was no response.
Greg tapped his shoulder. No response.
A slight smack against the cheek. No response.
By now, Greg's mind was going a mile a minute. What was this?! An illness? A curse? Was he supposed to yell for help? But there was nobody around!
"Eugene!", he shouted. Then, in a fit of panic, he grabbed Eugene by the shoulders and shook him. "Gimme a response, buddy!"
"Danger."
The word had been quiet. Much quieter than Greg had thought Eugene capable of. A mere whisper, not really directed at him or anyone in general. Just that single word.
"...What?"
Greg stopped shaking. Eugene... didn't move. Didn't say anything else. Didn't show any sign of having noticed Greg at all.
"Okay, look, you're, uh... I'm starting to get a bit worried here. Can you maybe elaborate, or...?"
"The heck are ya doing?"
Greg flinched and quickly stepped away from Eugene. Seemed like Bodger had heard him and had come over to see what was going on - too bad that Greg didn't know either.
But Bodger glanced back and forth between Greg and Eugene for a few moments, then glared at Greg.
"What are ya shaking the lad for?! He ain't..."
"Beware."
Bodger stopped mid-sentence, mouth hanging open like a goldfish for a moment before he remembered to close it.
"...What's wrong with him?"
"What in the world makes you think I'd know that?", Greg hissed and tried gently slapping the other man again. Still no response. "C'mon, buddy!"
Nothing.
"So, this is new? Ya ain't seen him do anything weird recently?", Bodger asked and grabbed Eugene's chin to tilt his head up. "Why're his eyes blue?"
"He's been acting completely normal until now", Greg said, wondering what else he could try. Water maybe? "One second."
He quickly ran over to the lake and patted his pockets for something to either soak or fill. He found a handkerchief and dipped it into the water, wrung it out and returned to Eugene's side. With Bodger still holding Eugene's chin in place, Greg could dab Eugene's cheeks and forehead with water.
...
No response.
"Darn, I was hoping that would work", Greg mumbled and looked around for something else that might help. "Just, I don't even know what's wrong with him! Like, is he ill, cursed, possessed, what's the problem?! How am I supposed to find a solution if I don't know the problem?"
"My aunt got possessed once", Bodger said, finally letting go of Eugene's chin.
"Did she act like this? What did you do about it?"
A shrug. "I don't remember, I was four."
Greg sighed. "Great. So..."
"Revenge. Betrayal", Eugene whispered.
"Maybe we should get him off the street", Bodger suggested and Greg had to admit that the idea wasn't bad. The last thing they needed right now was an adventurer coming along. "Help me carry him?"
Bodger raised a brow. Then he reached out, scooped Eugene's frozen body up and tossed him over his shoulder like a ragdoll. "Do I look like I need help?"
"Just shut up and bring him over", Greg ordered and together they walked over to his house, Bodger carrying Eugene with little to no struggle. So he was good for something after all.
"Get it." Greg opened the door and gestured for Bodger to come inside. Was this the first time he'd invited the blacksmith in? Probably.
Ugh, and the room was a mess. He moved a chair aside so Bodger could actually get past. But instead of actually making use of that, Bodger paused and looked around.
"...The heck are ya doing in here? What's this? What are ya disassembling a clock for?"
"You wouldn't understand it, it requires a brain. Don't touch that!"
Bodger completely ignored him and picked up a reddish gem, squinting at it.
"Where'd ya get that from?"
Greg tried to snatch it from his hand before the oaf could drop it, but Bodger was too quick. "Adventurer sold it to me. Put him on the bed."
"What's it do?"
"It kills annoying blacksmiths who can't keep their hands to themselves! Now put that down, that thing is valuable!"
Bodger shrugged and unceremoniously dropped the gem back onto the table. Greg winced as he heard the noise of the gem hitting the hard wood. If that thing was damaged, then he'd make Bodger regret it, that much was certain!
"Right, whatever. Where do you want me to drop this guy?" And he pointed to Eugene.
"I literally just told you! On the bed!"
"Don't care, wasn't listening. Should have..."
"W-what is going on?"