The Magician's Assistant

9

The trail ahead went in almost a perfectly straight line. Rachael was thankful for that fact. It would have been a nightmare to keep following it otherwise.

She moved slowly, and tried to avoid making too much noise. Gramps did the same. Neither of them said it outright. but they both felt as if they were getting close to whoever or whatever they were looking for.

The rotting smell returned. It was coming from somewhere down the path.

Rachael was getting more and more sick of that wretched odor. As disgusting as it was on it's own, she was really getting tired of all the strange, awful things that seemed to follow it.

She gritted her teeth, and clenched her fists as she moved forward. She hoped she was getting close to the source, and could soon put and end to all this.

As if the smell wasn't enough of a clue, a new signal appeared ahead of the duo.

A thin stream of smoke rose above the trees. It lazily drifted in the general direction of Rachael and Gramps, carried by the same breeze as the rotting smell.

The pair stopped and stared at the smoke for a moment, before turning to each other. They exchanged a silent glance, then began to speak.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Rachael asked.

"Cautiously. This may be a trap,"

"I don't think it's a trap. It feels too out of the way for that. Though, there's no way the source of that smoke isn't guarded somehow,"

"Judging by that smell, undead must be nearby,"

"We'll probably be better off if we don't follow the trail any farther,"

"It's served it's purpose. Let's see if we can't find some place to observe from,"

Rachael led Gramps off the path, and they moved through the forest as quietly as they could.

It wasn't hard to stay out of sight off the trail. The local flora provided ample cover. Moving silently was more of a challenge.

Twigs constantly snapped under Rachael's boots, and it felt like every plant that needed to pushed aside was the noisiest one in the whole forest.

A large clearing was ahead. In the middle of it was a wooden structure. It seemed to be some sort of cabin.

The cabin looked as though it had once been a pleasant place to live, but that time had long since passed. While the stone foundation was largely intact. the wood used in it's walls was rotting away. The roof had given way in at least one spot. Every window was broken to some extent.

The building itself resembled the rotting corpse of a home. Attempts had been made recently to preform basic repairs, mostly in the form of tarps and other stop gap measures.

"What a dump. You'd be better off in a cave," Rachael whispered. A bit closer to the cabin was a particularly dense cluster of bushes. Gramps pointed to it, and motioned for them to move there.

The pair moved over to the bushes, and crouched down behind them. It was easy to peak out at the cabin while remaining hidden.

"We'll observe from here," Gramps said.

Rachael nodded.

With nothing else to do, Rachael continued to stare at the cabin. The smoke continued to billow out of the chimney, before eventually petering out into nothing.

There was a small wall or fence built around the cabin. It didn't look like it was built around the same time as the main building, and was thrown together with a mix of stacked stones and fallen logs.