Lys slipped in through the side door of Sara's shop, the one he used when he didn't want to walk past the customers at the front. The familiar smell of cloth, irons, and polished wood greeted him.
Sara stood behind the back counter, sorting through a stack of new packages she likely received from Madam Vesper.
She looked up the moment he stepped inside. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she studied his worried face.
Without a word, she set down the bundle of knives she was holding.
"Bertha, watch the front for a bit, will you?" Sara called out calmly.
Bertha replied with "Yes, Miss Sara" from the front counter, even though she was already swamped with her current customers.
Sara then wiped her hands on her apron and walked over to Lys. She took his arm gently and led him through the curtain into the small back room. Crates of supplies were stacked neatly along the walls. She pulled the curtain closed behind them.
"What happened?" she asked straight away, voice low. "You look like you're carrying bad news."
Lys saw a chair behind him. Without saying anything at first, he just sat down on it, as if he would fall anytime.
Then, when he breathed a little in the semi-dark room, he started talking, keeping his voice quiet, "I talked with the new guild master and Vessa. Both of them said, the signs in the forest… they're serious. They said it is a sign of a dungeon, a great one at that. Vessa even believes a dungeon break might be coming toward our village anytime."
"And to make matters worse, the outer settlement is the most exposed. Almost no real protection if things flood out from the forest. Even our village is on its way if things go south."
Sara listened without interrupting. She leaned against one of the crates, arms crossed, her expression steady as she looked straight at Lys while he was saying all of this.
When he finished talking, she stayed quiet for a few seconds, probably thinking in her head.
"Tresta's house is in that settlement," she finally said.
"Yeah," Lys replied. "It is."
Sara looked at him steadily. "And you were already planning to go see her."
"Yeah," Lys said without hesitation. "And I'm still going. It's just that there are even more reasons to bring her into the village now."
Sara nodded slowly.
She wasn't panicking. Instead, she was already organizing things in her head, the way she always did. Lys could see she was far calmer about all of this than he was, and he wasn't surprised at that. By now, he had already gotten used to this nature of hers.
"Vessa and I already had a loose talk about Tresta before I opened the shop this morning," Sara said. "We talked about the possibility of her moving inside the village, to see if we could arrange her citizenship legally."
Lys was about to say something, but cutting him off, Sara spoke again, "That was when we thought it was just about giving a grieving woman some support. But now that I see…. it's.....become more urgent."
Sara paused for some seconds, then continued looking up at Lys. "Vessa told me that when Tresta came to the guild to ask about her quest, she noticed something. That woman moved wrong. Not like she was injured or sick in the normal way. She said her hands trembled a little when she held the door, and her steps were weaker than they should be for someone her age."
"Yeah, so? What does that have to do with any of this?" Lys asked simply.
Sara took a slow breath and kept her voice low while saying, "So, all I'm saying is, I also heard some rumors from others about her background, Lys. They say she is suffering from a cursed object or something. I can't say for sure, as I haven't actually seen her or done a thorough background check on her by myself, but if she were an adventurer from the great dungeon in the capital, as Betha said she heard, then it is very likely to be the case that she is suffering from a curse, I fear."
Lys took in her words carefully and thought about them for a moment. "Does that happen a lot, to people who do adventuring in the dungeon I mean?"
"No, only the unfortunate ones, or to those who mess with the wrong kind of people," Sara said in a serious tone. From her tone, Lys could also guess what kind of people Sara meant.
"So, she used to be an adventurer herself, and probably she has also been suffering from a curse as well! Great, just what we needed on top of everything that's been going on."
"Well, anyway, thanks for telling me. I'll keep that in mind when I talk to her."
He turned toward the curtain to leave, but Sara's voice stopped him. "Don't you want me to come with you?"
Lys thought about it for a second. He glanced at the busy front of the shop and shook his head. "No, you don't have to come yet. Let me speak with her alone first."
Sara studied him for a moment, then gave a small nod. "Alright. But remember, you have to be patient with her. You can't just force her to come with you, Okay?
"Yeah, I know."
"Okay, be careful out there then. And don't go toward the forest side."
Waving back, Lys stepped back out through the side door.
But the moment he entered the main street, he felt that something was wrong.
There were suddenly more people outside than before he entered the shop.
They were mostly adventurers. Some were limping, others had fresh bandages on their arms or heads made with torn dresses.
A small group of people stood near the guild entrance, talking in urgent voices.
One woman held her side and winced with every step. Another sat on a wooden crate beside the road, breathing hard, drenched in blood, while someone checked a cut on her leg.
Lys stopped in his tracks, eyes scanning the growing crowd. The quiet tension he felt earlier, all of a sudden, had just become a lot louder.