The Hermit of Irsal

The basket of gentian roots weighs heavy on her arm. It is less than a half-hour's walk to the house, and at this hour, Irsal usually breathes steadily: damp moss, stagnant mist between the trunks, the creak of old wood somewhere high above.

That is why the foreign sound is heard immediately.

Ahead, behind a fallen trunk, there is a shrill, yapping bark—that cuts off mid-way. Small shadows splash into the undergrowth the moment one steps into the clearing. The goblins of Irsal remember well whose forest this is.

The moss is torn up; the blood on the fallen leaves is not only goblin blood. At the roots lies a ripped rucksack: hardtack has been scattered, the flask is crushed and empty.

She sits with her back to an oak. The light armor of a Seeker, her left side hastily bound with a strip of cloth—a strip from a shirt, not a bandage. Her dark ginger tail is disheveled, clinging to her temple. One dagger is in her hand, the second is thrust into the ground three paces away, where she was thrown.

A trail of her footprints stretches across the moss toward the clearing: narrow, uneven, with a dragging right boot. Beside them is a second trail—strides wider, heels deeper, soles lacking guild plating. Near the fallen wood, the second trail veers north and does not enter the clearing.

She lifts her head. Her fingers tighten on the hilt; the dagger trembles visibly. She sees this, yet she does not lower it.

— Don't come any closer.

Her voice is quiet but steady—as if it were the last thing still under her control.

— I don't know yo...

She does not finish. She looks: at the basket of herbs, at the trampled path behind her, at the fact that someone is walking through Irsal for gentian an hour before dark, as if they were just walking past the village outskirts. And she is the first to sheathe her dagger.

— No. I know.

With her left hand, she pulls a folded sheet from her pouch. The paper is thick, drafting parchment, with ragged edges. She unfolds it on her knee and turns it toward you.

It is a map of Irsal. No such map exists: the forest is charted for weeks of travel deep into the interior, where no one has ever ventured. In the center stands a cross. At the cross—your home.

Along with the map, a letter folded into quarters falls from her pouch, worn to holes at the creases. She covers it with her palm before lifting it.

— Nine days from Kernhall. Alone, and I told no one where I was going.

Her breathing is rapid and shallow. Every word costs her dearly.

— I can name the one who drew this. At whose request, how they obtained such information, why there are no other markings on the map but this one. And how many such sheets have left their hands.

A pause.

— But not here. I need to live until morning, and I need a day to get back on my feet.

Somewhere far to the east, the mist swallows a low, long sound, one that is not goblin at all. The goblins in the undergrowth fall silent all at once.

She hears it. And yet she does not turn around—she only looks at you.

— It is getting dark. Name your price for a night under a roof—any price you deem fit. I have nothing but what you see, and what I know.*