Lavandula

The Key

Another day, another drowner. That's how it worked for him, his whole life. Oxenfurt had the same kind of a problem, but not with drowners. Another day, another dead body. Those bodies had just started to appear randomly two months ago. One by one. Sometimes the guard found more in one day, not that it made people care more.

Everything about this whole situation fell out of place. No fear came, sometimes someone would gossip in an inn. Another time, some woman would scream in the middle of a town square and exclaim that the monster would eat their kids. Not that any of these inhabitants would get any feedback.

The fear never came, not in a way a normal person would expect. The scholars didn't stop visiting their favourite inns and leave alone, intoxicated and right into the dark. The beggars didn't change their spots. And everyone trying to mourn for the lost or just felt something was wrong was silenced by the life of the city itself. Its life was unable to dim, so it dimmed the reasonable ones.

***

Her body was in an unspeakable state. The latest found body lay before him. He wasn't sure if calling the object before him "body" was appropriate. All the meat and bones were thrown onto this table with a visible intention for it to resemble the human shape. The Corpse before him belonged to a woman, that's what the mortician told him from the shape of her hip bones. And that she was young, but that he was able to say from her hair. Before what happened to her she must have had the most shining and smooth hair in whole Redania. It was beautiful even now, sitting like a golden crown on something resembling a head with smasher up face.

He hoped he would find some lead on what was going on, but all the bodies were in a devastating state, such as this one. Eskel couldn't see any pattern that would tell him what exactly he was hunting. It looked like the monster didn't care who it killed or when it killed them. All victims were turned into mincemeat with missing organs, limbs and everything felt random. It could be anything.
"Are you sure there is nothing more you can tell me about her?" Eskel asked while looking at the bloody rug covering her ankles.

The mortician did not pay attention to Eskel's observations, so he stood up from his table in the back of a morgue and came closer.

"She was a young woman. Student, probably."

Who is not in here. The witcher shook his head and looked at the mortician from up close. The old man seemed untouched by the state of the body before them, nor did he seem to be affected by the disgusting smell in the air. The smell of rotting flesh did not belong into Eskel's list of scents he enjoyed smelling, his lifestyle showed to him, even more, grouse smell, yet the whole morgue reeked of death and iron and he couldn't wait to get to the fresh air.

The old man looking like death itself, probably waiting for some reaction, shook his head and pointed his focusing on the same spot Eskel was looking before. "Her whole body was wounded, but nothing is missing except for the lower half of her abdomen and ovaries. That's the second most interesting part that has been taken away from the victims." said the old man with a smile creeping onto his mouth.

So you have more expressions. "Why? Was one of them missing his manhood?"

"No, his rectum."

***

Time flows by differently when you are standing next to a river or any water in particular. Everything seems lighter and more colourful. Eskel hoped for any idea or lead on where exactly he should start and actually find something useful. Last night, he had tried to examine some places that seemed logical for a monster to be hiding, but nothing satisfying had come up. All of the victims were found in different places one close to the river - one in a back alley - one in a well. Maybe a ghoul, but the cemetery was clean. It was getting frustrating.

The sun was slowly making its way down on the sky, the shadows became longer and Eskel pulled a tiny object from his pocket. A key. A key engraved with the number 25 with a small emblem of the university attached to it, found in the girls closed fist. A key to a dorm room. She was a student, that much he knew. Now he knew where she lived, that was some start.

***

Finding the building was easy, the more challenging part was to convince the guardian grandma to let him in.

"If you think I will let some freak inside, you are terribly mistaken. This is a decent establishment, provided by the University itself. Not some whore-house!" The angry looking woman in her late fifties had a strong voice. Eskel was pretty sure that even people outside heard every word clearly as if someone yelled them right into their ear, not just Eskel's.

"I am just trying to find out who was the last victim. I do not intend to destroy the great reputation this institution has." His much quieter answer made her flame up even more. He should have had used Axii in the beginning.

Her wrinkly face twisted into an offended expression and Eskel realised he had underestimated her. He was very close to actually using the sign. "You think I am that stupid! I hear excuses like this every day. No. No. You are not getting past me."

"I am a Witcher, not some hotheaded brat, lady. Someone died and I am here to make sure it won't happen again. If you really want the reputation to be spotless, you should reconsider letting me in and let me do my job." His voice was calm, so was his face, but his cat-like eyes burned into the woman, making her cast her glare aside.

"Just show me the list of the students living in here, the floor this room is in, and I will not bother you anymore. For today." Eskel added as he watched the old lady's face twitched in disagreement.

***

In the end, she let him enter the dorms. The halls felt confined, the wooden floor beneath his leather boots didn't make a sound as he passed by identical doors with different numbers on them.
The sun was probably already down when he found the right room. The dorm-lady had pointed him to the general direction of this room, although she had not shown him the list. "The lists are stored in the university archives. For safety reasons." Of course, they were. Of course, they were.

Eskel inserted the key and opened the door. The first thing that got to him was the scent.

The whole room was filled with a lavender scent. Yet it did not come from the pot on the windowsill filled with blooming lavender or the scented candle next to one of the small wooden beds close
to the door he was currently standing in. The scent existed on its own and blew his attention away for a second.

On the other side of this plain looking room, behind her working table, Svetlana froze in shock at the sound of the door opening with such force. She knew it wasn't Viola, as all of her actions were
gentle and slow. So she turned her head in the door's direction and her greyish eyes met eyes of an even more unusual colour.

It was not uncommon for some random guy to appear in their room, these were dorms and mistaking your room for a different one was easy when you were wasted and you lost count in the floors. But they usually looked like half unconscious human dummies, not like someone big as a mountain, standing straight with two, way too real looking swords and wearing an expression you were unable to tell anything from.

His face was marked with deep scars that made the "expression reading" almost impossible and Svetlana found herself scared of what might come. But if life had taught her anything it was this: Everything could be solved with a conversation. She just hoped that this man was open to it.