But to your shock, a low, familiar, amazingly wonderful voice growls inside your head…A cult? Where the hell are you, human?
Turning to the elderly woman where she stands near the door, you decide just to ask. Who knows. Maybe she’ll even answer!
“Where exactly is this?” you ask as politely as you can manage, hoping she won’t guess you’re actually planning to use that information to devise your cunning escape.
“Ah, wherever are my manners, dearie,” she says, sounding much nicer now than when she was streaming expletives as you passed out in the truck. “You may call me Grandma Elena. Welcome, dear Chosen One, to The Children of Tempest!”
Yep.
Just as you thought—you’re at the cult.
Goodie.
“And what, uh, exactly am I supposed to be saving you from?”
The old woman’s face darkens, wizened lines of worry deepening around her eyes.
“Are you familiar with monsters, oh Chosen One?”
You glance outside at the bright morning light streaming in through the window. And further out, to a line of black storm clouds rolling in across the golden hills.
“Yes,” you say cautiously, wondering if they’ve been experiencing problems just like in the alley behind the cafe where you work. Perhaps the world-veil is thin here, too. Maybe it’s skaddlers.
You shiver.
Can you take down a skaddler alone with just your sword, and no Ziros to back you up?
You hope so.
But first…
“Hang on,” you say, rubbing your temples. “Are you telling me you kidnapped me, dragged me near the brink of death, and now you’re trying to get me to save you?”
“Not just me, dearie,” she says, sounding older and more tired with every breath. And maybe a little bit sheepish.Good. She ought to. “Our entire community is depending on you.”
“Wonderful. This is getting better by the minute.”
“I really am sorry for the way those buffoons treated you. But we didn’t have a choice—”
Thankfully, the old woman’s apology is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door, so you don’t have to listen to her continue trying to tell you how they didn’t have any other option but to abduct you.
“Hey Gram,” comes a male voice from the other side of the door, and she opens it to reveal the teen boy from the truck. “Might wanna come out to the yard for a minute. Getting real stormy again.”
The old woman swears under her breath, giving you a hurried glance.
“Stay here. We’ll explain more later.”
The both of them vanish into the hall, the door shutting with a dullthud.
The previously bright sunlight flutters, already at the edge of the ominous wall of clouds.
The house where you’re standing must be old. Every step you take creaks as you cross the room to peer out the window.
There, dark clouds race across the sky, blotting out the sun over rolling, golden hills and a fenced community of maybe a few dozen homes. Small groups of people walk to and from little shops and clean, simple houses, carrying baskets of goods or toting farm tools over their shoulders.
Overall, it looks pretty idyllic. At least, for a cult, anyway.
You’re up on a little rise toward the center of town, a vantage that lets you see all the way over the fence and into the wide open farmland beyond.
