Tales of the Red Rogue - A Heroes Arrival

Chapter 11

Approaching the house felt wrong, something about questioning a mother who recently lost her child about her ex husband who left her to fend for herself, felt like rubbing salt in a fresh wound, and I've had rubbed salt in one of my wounds before, it hurt a lot.

I took another look at the carving on the door, it was still there clear as a day, or at least now that I knew what I was looking for, a dragon head, I can see how someone wouldn't know what this was unless they were told, it makes sense why she wouldn't have gotten rid of it.

My knuckles knocked the door twice, loud enough to hear but soft enough as to not give her a shock.

I heard foot steps from the other side of the door as it creaked open, Shean's mother stood there, eyes red and puffy, her brown hair tied up and unbrushed, she was so clearly devastated but I had questions, and If I was going to find her daughter I needed to toughen up and get some answers.

"Could I come in please, I have some questions I'd like to ask."

She opened to door fully and gestured for me to enter.

"Anything to help find my baby, is there any news at all?"

"Nothing really yet, I wanted to talk to you about your ex husband though, the one you said ran away."

We both walked to the living room, poorly furnished as ever and sat in front of the fireplace to talk, it was burning low, but it kept the bite of the winters cold at bay.

"You can ask anything you want, but I haven't seen him six years though."

"So I asked around town and I was told that he joined some sort of religion, was he important? Do you know much about It?"

"He did jointhe cult of The Corruptor of Dragons, he actually managed to get himself somewhat high ranking before he left, said it would pay well and help us look after Shean, so I let him be."

"What did the cult really do?"

"Nothing really, they tried to get people to follow them, they got donations, they talked about the day ancient dragons would overrun Elderia again and rule us all, they thought if we started worshiping them now they would take pity on us."

"So nothing sinister?"

"Well things started getting weird nearer the end."

She fidgeted uncomfortably, I could tell by the look on her face this was not something she enjoyed talking about, or remembering in great detail.

I put out hand on hers for support and warmly smiled at her, the way a mother would smile to their child when they fell over.

"It's okay, I'll keep everything between us, but this might help me find your girl."

She nodded and stood up, walking over to an incredibly old chest in the corner of the room, she pulled out a long red robe, it was finely dyed, and trimmed with a flair of gold.

"This was his robe, he was working his way to being the high priest, but near the end instead of just worshiping the dragons, they started talking of bringing them back to power, some sort of ritual to bring more into the world."

She looked down almost shamed.

"They talked about sacrifices, killing people and breaking the taboos of society to create a better more open world for the dragons to return to power in."

"I'm assuming that was around the time they left."

"They were chased off by some in town, but mostly they chose to leave, saying Whiteglen was too small for their large plans."

She tightly held the robe in her hands twisting the fabric in her grip.

"I never saw him again, he just left, one night he was there and in the morning he wasn't, I hid this away and never told Shean obviously, she's far too young to understand how religion and power can corrupt you."

I walked over to her slowly, like I was approaching a scared woodland creature and pulled the robes from her loosening grip, my arms wrapped around her and as her head hit my shoulder she began to cry.

"It's okay, I'll find your daughter and there's no need to tell her anything, she's not her father and you couldn't help what happened."

"Do you think he's back, do you think he has her? He wasn't sane when I last saw him, if he has her you have to find them now."

"Let me have a look through the chest, it might have some more clues, and I'll leave straight away to see what I can find, I don't want to delay this anymore than you do."

She stood aside and walked out of the room covering her face, leaving me with the open chest.

The inside of the chest had an empty space where the red robes would have rested, next to the space was a red wooden dragon mask, it looked very well made, probably crafted by someone in town, a shimmer of light danced off of something at the bottom of the chest and caught my attention.

I reached for the shine, pulling out a dragon head made from solid gold resting on the end of the thick leather string, I put it in my pocket, I didn't know if it would come in handy but I didn't want to leave anything valuable that he would want to come back to he house for.

I guess there's nothing left, another dead end, maybe I'll walk around town for a little bit and see what I can find, sitting in the bar isn't going to sort this issue out for me.

I went to the front door, shouting back into the house before I left.

"I'm going to have a look outside of town, thank you for everything."