Broken Circle

Chapter 5: Hide and Seek

*I wanted to give a trigger warning that this chapter and the next involves suicide. I know in my summary and I said there would be violence but did not mention anything about suicide so I just wanted to let it be known just incase it is a sensitive subject for certain readers*
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Dolan:

The taste of iron dances on my tongue as blood flows from the fresh wound on my upper lip. I pull my sword out of the demon's ribcage and it falls to the ground, defeated. I look around to find that my group has defeated all the other abominations. Damn blood mages. We had caught wind of a possible cult within the city, but we never expected it to be this large of a group. These fuckers saw us coming to investigate and purposely turned themselves into abominations. I will never understand the twisted minds of mages. Random utter chaos was more important to them than their own lives.
We regrouped at the Pearl. A local tavern/brothel. While most people assume all templars take vows of chastity, it is not required. The guys in the group who didn't loved to get their rocks off after a long day of slaying demons. Though I never took such vows, I refrained from any such activity when I first joined. I did not want to parade about my bedroom activities and bring shame to the order. After about a year and a half this life had worn me down, and I realized why they did it. Hell, I'll even dance in the sheets if I find someone who catches my eye. No such luck this time. I am more in the mood to get a hot meal, some ale, and a good night's sleep anyway.
I awoke with the sun and waited for the rest of the group to shuffle out from their rooms. Plenty of them looked like they had celebrated yesterday's victory a little too much over the course of the night. Our group consists of 9 men, myself included, and one woman. All humans. The order didn't have any rules about women or certain races joining, but it was still rare to see either of those instances happen. At first I kept to myself, but now the lot has really grown on me. I was also lucky enough that Knight-Lieutenant Brennan is part of this group. He taught me everything I know and now I get to repay him by having his back in the thick of battle.
"Alright men, and lady," Brennan said addressing the group, he added the second part quickly not wanting to offend Adeline, "I know we had a big victory and then a little too much ale, but it's time to get back to work. We gotta look into some weird disappearances in Lothering. They suspect demon activity. Finish your breakfast and let's get this show on the road!"
Watching hungry templars eat was not a pretty sight. I swear most of them have no table manners. I didn't live with my noble family for long, but at least I still remember how to use eating utensils. Some of the men just use their hands and shovel food down their throat, not even bothering to chew. I would rather deal with being covered in demon guts than watching these guys eat any day. Lucky me, I had to deal with both constantly.
Part of me was upset to leave Denerim. It was an enjoyable city and there was plenty to do during down time. I was not going to miss the damn pickpockets though. I gotta give it to Denerim, they had the best thieves in all of Thedas. My first day here I saw a blur of orange fly past me and sure enough when I looked down I noticed my coin pouch was gone. Granted that time it was on me, having it just dangling from my hip like an idiot. I might as well have been screaming 'Please rob me'. I learned to be more crafty about where I kept my gold.
The trip would take us a few weeks to get to Lothering. We keep an eye out for any signs of apostates on our journey. Usually the roads are pretty quiet apart from the occasional group of highwaymen. Most of them retreat as soon as they realize we are templars. The ones who don't are taken care of swiftly.
When we finally reach Lothering we are exhausted from our journey and make our way to the tavern. We all agreed that we would start our investigation first thing tomorrow morning.
I have always been an early riser, so I decided to head into the town and get as much information about the disappearances as I could. No one could recall hearing any screams or commotion the days that each person went missing. So far only two people were missing. A female human and a female elf. The human was a wife and mother to three children and they seemed to make a decent living. After gathering more information though, it turns out her husband was having having affair and she found out. The elf was a servant at the tavern, and the owner assured me that she was treated well and enjoyed her job. I highly doubted that since I know majority of humans, especially in small towns like this, did not take kindly to elves.
The town was distraught from these disappearances, but to me it just seemed like two women with shitty lives decided to book it. Nonetheless it was our job to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary. I spent the rest of the day following empty leads until I decided to take a walk in the areas surrounding the town. I came across a creek and decided to rest for a moment. After sitting on a large rock and closing my eyes for a breather my ears finally concentrated on the noises around me. I was expecting to only hear the sounds of birds chirping and the flowing water when a faint creaking sound stood out from the rest. It seemed to be coming from my right. I got up and walked towards the sound.
Walking through the trees I finally came across the source of the sound. Seeing death always reminded me that I was no longer whole. A normal person would scream, cry, vomit, something. After seeing so much death and suffering over the past four years I had become numb to it. Maybe that made me a monster, but I didn't have the emotions left to care. I unsheated my sword and moved forward to cut the noose so I could bring her body back to the village.
After bringing back the missing wife to the chantry I met up with the rest of the group. I got yelled at by Brennan for not traveling with someone else, saying that there could have been a dangerous situation going on and I was vulnerable alone. All I wanted to do was relax before moving on to the next place. The group agreed that with all the information I gathered, it seemed like a suicide and an unrelated runaway case. Nothing to do with demons. We would head out to our next mission after a day or two of rest and stocking up on supplies here in town.
The following morning I decide to go out and about in the town. Maybe try to find supplies to make traps. It was always helpful during our journeys to be able to set up traps when we camped at night. Fresh meat was always a nice treat. During my shopping I see the young daughter of the mother who had hanged herself whispering to an old lady tending a stall. She couldn't have been more than seven years old. The old lady had a somber look on her face upon hearing the little girls words. I didn't think much of it at first until I realized the little girl was cracking a devilish smile.
One thing I stand by is to always trust your gut, and right now it was telling me that something was off about that little girl. As if she could feel my stare from across the market, she peeled her eyes away from the old lady and stared deep into my soul. She smiled at me, giggled, and started running towards the creek.
Without a second thought I made my way towards the creek, trying to find out where the little girl went. Ducking through foliage and sprinting I heard giggles coming from all around me, causing me to lose my sense of direction as I ran in circles.
"Come on little templar, come out to play!" The sentence started off sweet and young sounding, until the last word rang out in a deep, harsh snarl. "You're not too bright to come here all on your own are you?" The snarl continued. As the demon finished its last word the little girl dropped from the tree over me and latched herself onto my back. She pressed her palm to my forehead, and I saw a flash of green light.

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Sorry to leave you with a big cliff hanger :P not sure when I will publish the next one. Today I was on a crazy writing kick and uploaded three chapters! I'm still writing but will wait a little to release the next few.