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TWWWW SubCh.3 Lie to hide a lie

Tanya woke up wondering why she couldn't see. She raised a hand and felt the blindfold over her eyes and remembered what happened. Her head didn't hurt anymore but from sleeping against the wall her body had a few pains. She tried to get up to see if she could stand and got up without the need to hold on to something. She then heard a metal scraping noise and a male voice speak "It looks like you're feeling better, get your bag, your leaving immediately."

She was confused. "Who are you?" She asked.

"No one. Now come or do I have to drag you out of here?"

She had a hunch that trying to talk with this man would be pointless. She reached down and grabbed her bag. Before she could ask how she would follow him she felt another hand grasp hers, the hand was covered with leather and metal. The hand then pulled her on and as they began to walk she could hear clanking of metal in front of her. Was this the man that locked the door behind her?

They walked in silence. She tried to keep track of where he was taking her. A left turn, a right turn, right turn, then the noise of a door opening and then he spoke again "Were here. I'm taking off the blindfold, I need the cloth. Don't open your eyes until you can't hear me anymore" She stood still as he took it off and kept her eyes shut. When he had removed the blindfold he simply walked away, clanking all the way until he was too far for her to hear.

She opened her eyes and quickly looked around, she was alone at the entrance of the fortress. She thought about tracing back the steps they took but she might not be so lucky next time she's caught. She didn't waste any further time and climbed over the destroyed ballistae and exited through the destroyed door. She took a moment to enjoy the fresh air and the sight of the town in the moon light. Her experience was over. It was still night but a sliver of orange on the horizon told her day break wasn't too far away.

She started going down the stairs slowly and carefully. She guessed she would go to Geile and hang out there while she waited for morning. He is usually up at this time and she did tell her parents she would be there. She would never be able to face her parents if she told them she stayed in the fortress but they won't even give a peep if she stayed over with a guy. But she now understood why they were so stern about the fortress. There really is a monster there. But why are the guard not doing anything about it? Why did anyone stay here? Maybe they stayed because she wasn't interested in killing people? Why didn't they just say there is a monster that wants to be left alone?

She reached the end of the stairs and walked down the little empty streets between the houses until she came to Geile's house, a smallish 2 story wooden building. She could see light through the window. She knocked on the door and waited. After a while the door was opened by a male porcupine, he wore spectacles, was very thin and looked like he was 19 years old. When he saw it was her he greeted her with a smile "hey Tanya, where did you hit your head?"

"Hi Geile, how do you know?"

He reached out a hand and rubbed a finger against the side of her head and then held it for her to see, it was covered with a green slime.

"Jigghead salve, are you ok?"

Jigghead salve was something Dr.Boron, the alchemist, sold in town. It's used for speeding up recovery from head injuries. The scaled woman must have applied it to her head while she was knocked out.

"Come in, sit down and I'll get something to wipe that off" he said as he stepped to the side to let her in. She walked in and turned right into the small kitchen and sat down at the table. Geile, after closing the door, brought a cloth and a small bucket of water.

"Thank you" she said and started wiping her head clean.

"I knew something bad was going to happen if you went up there. Going to tell me what happened?"

She never thought about what she was going to say. Of course she couldn't talk about the scaled woman or what she saw. Geile had known that she would be up there, she should have prepared for his questions. He would want to know how she got injured, and who put the salve on her head. She needed a lie and needed it fast. In her moment of hesitance he said "did he tell you to keep quiet?"

"Who?"

"The man wearing plate mail. Listen, I'll tell you something if you promise that you don't tell anyone and don't let anyone know you know about this."

She was confused, but she nodded. She wanted to hear what he had to say. He continued in a hushed tone "32 years ago when the first people wanted to set up they thought no one was here. Rovelt and Manuel went up into the fortress to see what was there. Rovelt came back terrified, babbling on about being attacked by shadows. Manuel was dragged back down unconscious by a man wearing plate mail armour. The stranger then said that he will terrorise anyone that entered his home. Manuel recovered and later on made a deal with the man, we stayed out of his home and he would let us use the lower parts of the fortress, and he accepted. Rovelt left, saying he wasn't going to stay next to a demon. Manuel said there was nothing to fear of the man, he stayed and became our mayor. Over the years people who have gone in there have been scared away, but the place isn't really haunted. The man's name is Maxwell, he is some kind of wizard that uses his magic to scare the people."

Tanya stayed still, processing what she had just learned. So the man in the rusted armour is Maxwell. The ghost was a magic trick. Who was the woman? She was probably the reason why he was chasing people away. Thinking back she saw what seemed like a single bed, they probably weren't a couple.

"Hey, who else is up there?" She asked hoping to get some more info

"As far as anyone knows there is no one... did you see someone else? Who was it?"

"I... I'm not sure I should say."

"Don't worry Tanya, I can keep secrets."

"I nearly lost a hand. Also I was blindfolded the whole time."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

After a while he got up and said "I'm going to make some tea. You want some?"

"Is it takka tea? It's been a while since I've had some."

"No, it's a tea from Britania."

"No then, I hate human tea" she said disappointed. It would have been nice to have some takka tea after the night's events.

As Geile went on to make his tea another question came up in her mind, "why is this kept a secret?" the younger people were always told of the ghost stories and told never to tell anyone outside the village.

"Not too sure, the explanation I got was that ghosts would scare away people and no one would come to the town. But Manuel said something about word getting out there was a wizard here would attract a lot of unwanted attention from other wizards."

"That makes it sound like he is some kind of outlaw" Tanya thought out loud.

"Maybe, but I guess not. So far he hasn't summoned the devil and he sells us potions and salves that have helped us a lot."

"What?"

"Oh and Dr.Boron isn't an alchemist, he is a normal doctor. He knows nothing of alchemy but he does know about diagnosing sicknesses. He is actually just selling things on behalf of Maxwell."

Now that piece was worrying. But she guessed if he was a doctor it was ok, but could she trust those potions anymore? Her mother probably knew about this. If her mother was fine with Dr.Boron then it probably wasn't too much a worry. Though a more important matter was that she was feeling tired again. It seemed as if she didn't get much rest in the fortress. Probably a short nap before she went off to help her mother was what she needed.

"Geile, is it ok if I slept a bit here? It's just so I'm ready for work."

"Sure but not past midday" he replied. He then dug into his pocket and handed her a key.

"Thank you, and I'll definitely be out here before that time" she said as she took it. She got up with her bag and left the kitchen, in the hallway she went up the steps and went to one of the 2 doors and unlocked it with the key. Not wanting to walk into anything in the dark she got her candle and lit it, the spare room had only the one bed and nothing else. she went in and locked the door behind her. Now that she gave it a thought Geile's house was empty of anything besides the bare basics needed to survive. No one knew how he made the little money he had or why he never slept during the night. It seemed as if their village had a bunch of secrets besides Maxwell. She sat down on the bed but before she could go to sleep she needed to note everything down. She got her diary, a pen and a bottle of ink from her bag. She flipped open the diary to the first open page but was surprised to find that there was a new entry she didn't recognise.

The entry had yesterday's date and written by it was the words 'NOTHING HAPPENED.' She didn't remember writing that and the handwriting wasn't hers. It looked like someone had tried to copy her handwriting and came close to succeeding. Had the scaled woman written it while she was asleep? It was the only possibility. She flipped through the whole diary looking for any other tampering. She didn't find any, but the one entry made her feel her private thoughts had been violated. She no longer felt like writing and put everything back into the bag and lied down to get some rest.