Ragnar had walked all throughout the night around the outskirts of Galdor. It was unusually quiet, he saw no signs of wildlife and heard nothing, almost like everything had been taken out of the ecosystem. He was walking around blind, thinking he would be able to make it through the thickets of forest around Galdor. He had passed a few farm homes but none of them where the ones described on the note. The notice said that there was a lone farmhouse with a decaying barn off to the side. As he pushed past some thick shrubs he stumbled into a clearing past the grove. Trees and bushes had completely stopped growing, branches that stemmed closer to the clearing had wilted and began to decay, it was a ring of nothing but short grass. In the centre of the clearing a house stood in solitude, and just like the notice said there was a barn off the side that had collapsed in on itself. As he approached the house he heard wailing in the woods, it was high pitched and resonated through the trees. The door on the house was wide open with claw marks on the door. Ragnar picked up his pace realizing he might be too late. The house was eerily quiet, lanterns that hung on the walls had been shattered and the oil in them had been drained out onto the floor. He passed a door that had a crack open in and he decided to look into the room.
Moonlight crawled through the window slightly illuminating what was on the bed. Tucked under the covers was a man. He lay there motionless not even breathing, he looked dead however his expression did not represent that of a dead man. His eyes were wide open staring directly up at the ceiling. And he was smiling, it spread from one side of his cheek to the other, there was nothing natural about it.
"Damn whatever this monster is it must have gotten him" He grabbed the door handle and shut it as a way of honouring the dead so no one can look upon him in this state.
Walking through the house he was only shown the same thing. A woman with the same expression on her face lay motionless in her bed. As he searched he found that there was one more room in the house. Ragnar dreaded what it could be, he had already found a mother and a father, he hoped that it wasn't their child. As he opened the door he saw the bed, the covers were messed up and threw across it, the sheets were stained in blood. But there was no one in it. The icy draft blew in from the window which was left wide open. Whoever was in here had gotten away but not unscathed, Ragnar heard something rustling outside of the window. He leaned out of the window and saw a small creature sprinting on all fours across the field. Wanting to investigate further he vaulted over the window and chased after the creature, he couldn't make out any features as he ran, the darkness had it well hidden.
It had noticed it was being chased and began to pick up it's pace. It made no sound not even its footsteps produced sound, the only reason he heard it in the first was because the grass near the house was dried and would crunch under any ones feet. Ragnar couldn't keep up with it and in desperate gasps he let it run off into the forest.
"What the hell was that thing?" It was surprisingly fast. As he watched it leap into a bush and bury itself into the shrubbery he felt a sense of defeat. Was that the monster he was here to hunt, if he cant catch it what can he do, maybe he could trap it? Ragnar felt weak in the knees and began to buckle over his own weight. Tiredness had finally set in, he had spent the previous night hunting Geoffrey and now he had spent this night trying to get to this farm. If the farmers weren't all dead he would have sought refuge in their home but now he must take alternative measures. He turned to the dilapidated barn, mould clung to wooden support beams and only some of it was protected from the weather. He began to make his way over to the barn keeping his eye out for anything… alive.
In the barn there was straw covering the floor some of it had been drenched in the rain but in the corner of the barn there was a mound of dry straw. Ragnar fashioned a bed out of it and sat down. His legs ceased to work as his backside hit the ground. He would gain as much energy as he can and try to think of something later. He unsheathed his great axe and placed it on his lap, to ready himself encase he needed to fight fast. As he lay their his mind started to wonder, how is he even in this situation, well everything does cost a lot of money nowadays. But no matter what he did he would always want to create more things which would in turn cost him even more money, money that he didn't have. Just as he began to think of other things he had potentially done wrong or things he could have done better his consciousness began to fade and in seconds he was asleep.
Ragnar awoke, but he wasn't in the barn he found himself in his home. Instead of his armour and axe he found himself wearing pyjamas and clutching onto a stuffed frog. Confused he climbed out of his incredibly comfy bed and left his room.
"I wonder where Mom is?" Ragnar wiped his eyes rubbing the crust off of them. His house was warm and inviting. The walls had been painted his parent's favourite colour, blue. As he walked down the corridor he heard his parents sparring outside, excited he ran outside to see them having a magic duel.
"Are you ready to lose?" said his mother, she smiled at her statement something natural for her. Her brown hair flowed in the wind and he mage robe stopped at her knees allowing her to move more freely. Ragnar's father smiled and chuckled.
"You dont stand a chance against me" as they readied themselves, Ragnar watched in awe, he loved his parents, they were the coolest people he knew and they do magic, what's not to love.
The match started, his mother placed her hand out and it started to spew out mist, the ground was now covered in it. The father readied himself for her to attack but she just stood there. Then from the fog a wolf made from wisps of the fog leaped out clawing in his direction, he swerved and before he could retaliate it had already disappeared back into the fog. Ragnar's father brought forth a ball of wind and smashed it into the ground, the shockwave caused all of the fog to dissipate. Before he got back up he dug his hands into the ground and when he pulled them out his fists were covered in stone. He raised his hands up putting them behind his head before leaning backwards and launching all the stones off his hands by swinging his arms forward. A buckshot of stones launched towards Ragnar's mother, she did not hesitate and drew water from the nearby stream. She produced a small chant and the water began to freeze, she created a thick slab and placed in front of her, blocking all of the stone shrapnel. Out of her pocket she grabbed two seeds. She kissed both of them and planted them in the ground, in the next seconds they grew into long saplings, as they grew his mother placed her hands on the growing branches, they wrapped around her hands causing her to be stuck to them properly. She began to pull the plants from the ground, but as she did the roots began to coil around each other forming a long rope of roots, when the plants had been fully removed from the ground it was revealed that she had created two whips made out of plants. She flicked one at the man, it slapped on his wrist and latched on, wrapping around it. She swung the next one lower, this time it wrapped around the mans legs trapping them. She pulled with all her might at the whip on his arm causing him to lose balance and fall over. He hit the ground with a rather large thump. Ragnar burst out laughing, his mother had beaten his father so easily that it couldn't not be funny to him. Both his parents had noticed that he was watching and turned to him.
"Good morning Ragnar, can you wake up" What? that didn't make any sense.
"What was that?" Ragnar was so confused, maybe he misheard his parents, maybe they were asking if he was fully awake yet.
"Ragnar wake up" This time it was his father talking, okay he must be going crazy. He shut his eyes and began to scratch his head to think but when he opened them he found himself, sitting in the barn. A man was talking to him.
"Hey there stranger, you awake yet?" As Ragnar shot up to see who the talking man was. He hit his head on his axe which had been propped up. He winced and started to rub his head before he opened his eyes. When he did he found the man he saw on the bed last night, the man who was supposedly lying there dead was standing right in front of him. He still had those blank eyes and a smile that seemed just not quite right.
"You. I saw you last night you looked dead in your bed" There was a lot of confusion and some fear in Ragnar's voice.
"Well that's not possible because I was out last night trying to sell the animals that have been killed by that wretched monster, say are you a hunter here for it?" The man's eyes had seemed to focus on him more now, wanting to now if this was the man the guild had sent.
What did Ragnar see last night then, his mind went blank. He must have been too tired to know what he was actually seeing. But he could have sworn that he saw the man in front if him dead, with a similar smile he had now.
"I'll take your silence as a yes stranger, well I'm the farmstead here. Please come see my family and we will tell you what we know" The man helped lift Ragnar up, he was strong. Ragnar was a big guy but the farmstead pulled him up with ease. It must be strength that comes with the job. With that he followed the farmer back to the house he had visited last night.