Rowan paced back and forth making a small trail in a patch of green grass. The trees above rustled and the shadows of the evening deepening the already dark forest. The lush green of undergrowth seemed to wrap up around the trunks of the closely spaced trees. There wasn't room for her dragon to land so she had let him wander for a few hours. Hopefully, soon there would be a clearing big enough for him to land and go with her on foot. 

  Lyra was supposed to be here soon, her accomplice from a few past missions. She too had a dragon and had contacted Rowan when the killing of the unnatural had been a bigger task than just one. Today they were to scope out some ruins deep in the forest in hopes to find whatever it was that had been picking off the village adolescents that were stupid enough to venture nearby. She had never been that youth that had tested the limits, Rowan was a hard worker who had learned at a young age that sometimes keeping your mouth shut and waiting for the opportune moment was better than rushing in full of anger. That didn't mean she was a naturally patient woman, simply that she had begrudgingly become proficient at waiting. 

  The years she had spent training with the master of arms had made Rowan lean and rough. Despite her best attempts, she was still more feminine than she would like. When all a man saw was shoulder length green eyes, a small upturned nose, and breasts, they weren't inclined to believe you could chop an arm off with a swing of your sword. At least with working with Lyra this wasn't an issue, she was another woman and both could hold their own in a scuffle. Rowan was antsy to get on this case, she knew a few of the villagers personally. In fact, one of the bullheaded boys that were missing had trained with her with the master of arms. Lyra would know what to do from here, she did this as a living not as a side job like Rowan.

  

Lyra was late. The lengthening shadows reaching across the forest floor showed just how much so. Peering into the growing darkness provided no additional insight to how close she was to her destination. The trees we're too densely packed to allow much line of sight. She shouldn't have let Strix choose the meeting point. 

"Are you sure this is where we're supposed to meet Rowan?" she asked her winged companion who continued to leave shallow furrows in her left shoulder. Lyra wasn't enamored with his method of reminding her to upgrade her equipment. His response to her inquiry was more blunt: he turned his violet head away, nose tilted up- offended, as he huffed disdainful. Well. It wasn't like it was her job to determine directions.

So she elected to slip between two trees with a particularly low hanging branch in order to cause Strix to duck. She chuckled as he nipped at her earlobe, but missed as he was still regaining his balance on her shoulder. It was then that Lyra realized they'd finally found Rowan. Her pacing indicated she'd been waiting, yet the grass wasn't so flat that she'd been waiting overly long. Directions were for Strix to figure out so it was did fault anyways. Which reminded her… "I told you this was the right way!" she imperiously and inaccurately informed her friend. Oh the dirty look he gave her. Hilarious, especially as he wasn't actually mad. He'd led her here, even if it took longer on two legs then it did soaring through the skies. 

"Hey Rowan. See you made it fine. Where's Mo'oele? Did he finally ditch you for some better company?" Lyra gently harassed. She hasn't failed to realize there probably wasn't room enough for him, but why not have a poke at Rowan's expense? "Strix made slow time, so we may not get to travel far before setting camp. I don't think traveling around here in the dark is a particularly good idea at the moment. Not with what's been going on."

Rowan looked up through a small gap in the thick canopy, trying to see if Mo'olele was nearby and was rewarded with the light reflecting off of his scales. He was circling overhead, trying to find a way to reach Rowan safely. It was a comfort knowing that he was near, even if he wasn't by her side as he had been almost every minute for most of her life. As a child Rowan had inherited a family secret, each child was given a dragon egg. Their family had been entrusted in raising them and becoming Dragon Riders. Though her father was only a minor lord, they lived high in the mountains, where the mists that clung to the keep like a cloak, hid most of the Dragon comings and goings. Mo'olele had been given to her when she was only three, as the creatures had been passed through her family for hundreds of years. A smile crept to Rowans cheeks as she reminisced about her family while waiting for Lyra to appear.

  The branches rustled and Rowan placed a ready had on the broadsword hanging at her hip. Her fingers curled around the hilt reflexively as she watched a raven haired girl with a small dragon perched on her shoulders emerged. Before her was Lyra in all her glory, black hair brushing the tops of her shoulders, slender build, and an amethyst glare that could freeze the blood in your veins. The dragon was small, only about five feet long and liked to wrap itself around Lyra. Strix was an anomaly to Rowan, Mo'olele was the size of a small building, it was hard adjusting to the fact that Lyra's dragon was small. It had been many years since hers had been able to so much as sit on her. 

  "Finally!" Rowan practically shouted. "I knew you had no sense of direction but I thought Strix might know a little better." She scowled before sighing heavily. "Well let's be on with it. I've been told that the village a little way to the east has reported multiple missing children. One male around sixteen years old and a girl only 7. I was in the area visiting, well visiting Alex, the missing boy. I was helping some of the villagers with their wood stock when Alex went missing." 

  Rowan didn't like to be still, so when there had been nothing left to do at Alex's house for his family she had ventured to others asking if there was a task to be done. Her father had always told her that helping others was top priority. The villagers spoke of a cursed ruin where a shadowed being roamed. Anyone she had spoken with had mentioned the same thing and that was where her and Lya were headed now. 

  "Mo'olele is flying above us trying to find a place to land. He doesn't really fit down here, but if you and Strix would follow me we can get on our way." Rowan didn't wait for a reply simply tramped off through the trees to her left. 

Mentioning of the missing youths caused Lyra to frown. She didn't typically get involved in kidnap cases. They tended to complicate matters. Serve her right for not collecting all the details before agreeing to take this hunt. Nothing to be done for it now though. They'd already agreed to the task at hand. 

Rowan's impatience didn't leave her much time to dwell on it however. It was the benefit to working with her, typically. No waiting around when there was work to be done. Lyra worried that it might be detrimental on this particular hunt though. Rowan's connection to one of the victims was a variable Lyra wasn't comfortable with. She feared it would make her companion behave irrationally if push came to shove. Well. It wouldn't be the worst thing she'd ever dealt with. So long as the job was handled. She'd just have to plan for that eventuality. 

Working with others wasn't something Lyra was used to. Strix normally was the only companion and assistance she needed. But after the last time… It was time to acknowledge that maybe her field of work was too dangerous to refuse assistance simply because other people made her uneasy. Strix was helping her work on it. 

After a short time the trees began to thin before finally revealing the clearing they'd been hoping to find in order or Mo'olele to land. A small river churned along the northern edge. A single fallow deer looked up at their approach, startled, before bolting across the grassy expanse. It was some of the only wildlife she had seen in some time. The majority seemed unfamiliar with humans and extremely wary.

Rowan pushed a low-hanging branch out of all of their way and saw the thinning of the trees ahead. The light that came down on the meadow revealed that it was earlier than  she thought. The expanse of yellow-gold grass spread before them, rippling peacefully in the breeze though Rowan only thought of the fact that Mo'olele should be nearby. It was as if her blood sung to the large green dragon, she scanned the meadow and saw him clinging to the shadows on the other side. Slowly Mo'olele unfurled his leathery wings and bounded out into the light. The sun glittered off of the dark green scales of the monstrous being. Rowan ran forward, leaving her companions behind and rushed to Mo'olele's side. The few hours he had been waiting for a place to land had been the longest that Rowan had let him out of her site. Usually, she was mounted upon his back as they both went hunting or scouting. She wrapped her slender arms around the dragon's neck, nuzzling her cheek against his cold reptilian flesh. 

"Mo'olele! You remember Lyra and Strix?" Rowan said as she gestured to her missing companions. They were still back at the beginning of the meadow. With a sheepish grin, Rowan led Mo'olele back over to the small group. It was always important to keep up your niceties around Mo'olele. He seemed to get offended if she forgot to introduce someone and when he was offended it was possible for someone to get a hand bitten off. 

"Mo'olele remember Strix and Lyra? They are going to help us to find Alex and the missing girl." Rowan said to the Dragon. "The ruins is just on the other side of the clearing where the trees are older and spaced farther apart. What on Earth do you think could be taking these people? Alex was trained with a broadsword just as I, it wouldn't have been easy to overpower him." Rowan figured it would be good to bounce some ideas between them now before they approached and needed to use caution. 

"If it's taking younger people I was thinking it could be some sort of hag or maybe something undead? Everyone around these parts seems to be terrified of something undead." 

Forests this dense always took Lyra by surprise. She didn't have enough experience to find them anything other then misleading. Her inexperience was highlighted as Mo'olele descended from the skies, a verdant glory as sunlight glimmered across his scales. An awesome sight, yet Lyra quaked in her boots. He was just so big. He could swallow her and Strix without even registering that he'd had a snack. The fact that Mo'olele and Strix were of the same species only made the size difference more stark in her eyes. While she had never lied to Rowan, Lyra hadn't actually been entirely forthcoming with how extensive her history as a huntress was.  Which was to say it wasn't. But no one wanted to hire a newbie and she had to start somewhere. This would only be her fifth mission, truth be told. She was still learning her trade and this definitely included dealing with things that could eat her with ease. 

But she'd been too long in reverie. They'd been left behind as Rowan rushed to greet her companion. They caught up in time to catch the conversation though. Lyra waved, aiming for nonchalant, but probably coming across as more cautious. How did one greet a house? Strix chirped an enthusiastic hello. He wasn't intimidated by his larger counterpart in the slightest. 

Given a moment to think while Strix offered his greeting, Lyra pondered over Rowan's question. "Missing children lead me to suspect a witch, but Alex would offer too much of a fight to take one so old. Then there are the local suspicions of the undead. It could be a ghoul or even a wraith I suppose." Lyra began to pace as she spoke. "If he's in any shape to do so, can we could on Alex to help? I am a little worried that whatever it is may indeed be fairly strong to take down a warrior, young as be may be. We have strength of numbers, but I would be remiss to have extra help with the younger child."

The ruins could not be seen from their current position. Between the four of them they should be able to handle whatever was menacing this area. Looking to their goal provided a question of her own. "How do you want to approach this?" she asked glancing up to Mo'olele's considerable bulk, "I imagine you may do things somewhat differently."

  Rowan continued to stroke Mo'o's scales as she glanced at Lyra, she seemed to shrink before her. It wasn't hard to tell that Mo'o was intimidating. He had a temper but mostply was kind so long as people didn't threaten Rowan. His size was pretty much the only thing that made him seem so scary, if it weren't for the acid breath he could use if he wanted to. She left M'o's side and went to Lyra, hoping to make her feel more comfortable if she could.

  "Well, I think between the two of us, Strix, and Mo'o we can handle one monster. I'd say lets go in but quietly and scope out the situation. Since it is still daylight then we shouldn't get much grief if it's something undead, also if Alex has the capacity he will assist us. There is no way he would let something take children from a village." said Rowan as she lead Lyra across the field past Mo'o and into the sparse trees on the other side. Before them was the ruins. It started with a low stone, tumbled down fence. Then farther back half broken buildings dotted the shade. With the large trees overhead the shadows that were cast shifted and made Rowan a little more jumpy than she should be.
 
  Before she had met with Lyra, Rowan had interviewed as many people she could in the small village. All had said that the ruins were haunted. Some simply mentioned that they avoided it during full moons or other suck celestial events. Others claimed to have seen figured moving about at night. One had even said he ventured into a few of the buildings with a friend who never returned. It seemed that they were all fixated on te eventuality of missing people around the cursed place. Rowan wasn't so inclined to believe in such things, but after listening to the things she had this morning, even Mo'o's presance wasn't much of a balm.

  Quietly she stepped through a broken bit of wall and moved on to the closest of the structures. It was obvious that the ruins had been abandoned for hundreds of years as there was only one building that remained even remotely intact. "Lyra I think we should scout out the smaller places first and then go to the large one. There is no place to hide three people in the small ones but there may be signs of whatever it is we are after in one of them." Rowan whispered. 

  Suddenly she felt something hot and moist on the back of her neck. Rowan gasped and turned to run, while she tripped over her own leather boot. Crashing to the forest floor, she raised her right arm to cover her face from whatever had touched her. With a silent giggle she reaised it was Mo'o. The huge creature could move more silently than a ghost in her opinion. Last she had seen him he had been in the field observing, not right behind her literally breathing on her neck. With a sigh Rowan got up and brushed he dirt off of her green pants. 

Lyra hadn’t been as quick to seize initiative as Rowan had been and approached more cautiously. This left her in a prime position to watch Mo'olele apparently sneak up on Rowan. The other woman was clearly too preoccupied to notice his approach. She wanted to laugh as Rowan stumbled, startled, but couldn’t quite bring herself to clearly feel the emotion. This place was just too creepy. And judging from Rowan’s posture as she made her way forward she knew something that suggested that discretion was definitely advised. Lyra took heed.

Speaking softly in the newly ominous air, she started, “While it would probably be faster to search independently, I don’t think we should split up here. We don’t know what we could encounter and I’d rather play it safe. Sound good?”

Moving off to the side where none of them had stepped foot, Lyra inspected the ground. Her survival craft could use a lot of work, but it looked like this area had been rather recently disturbed. “How are you with tracking? I think people have been through here, but to me it looks like quite a number of people and they weren’t being careful about it. I don’t know what to make of it,” she asked. Strix seemed to shrink a little more in size as he wrapped his tail around Lyra’s throat and shuddered. It seemed like it wasn’t just the humans nervous about this place. She wasn’t certain if the small dragon sensed something they could not or was just picking up their mood. He was difficult like that sometimes.

With Mo'o finished scaring her Rowan headed out across the field. There was no point in stalling; this place had been silent for years now. The low walls sprung up around her as she entered the ruin, many large hunks of stone littered the floor. Dust had settled on the floor inside the mostly intact buildings, so thick it would muffle the sound of footsteps. Mo'o would have troubles moving through here, but the dragon was unusually quiet on his feet. She just assumed it was the same sort of magic that made the heavy beast fly. 

The rubble around them looked as if it could topple at any moment though Rowan supposed it had had a lot of time to do so. If it hadn't yet, it probably wouldn't for some time. She feared more that the hazardous environment would give them away. Thankfully Lyra could track them in the strange place. Chills ran up her spine as the thought of dead civilizations ran through her head. Usually, Rowan wasn't superstitious, but here, surrounded by crumbling buildings she could almost see the ghosts. With a deep breath, she remembered that Mo'o was with her, not to mention Lyra and her dragon. There wasn't much the four of them couldn't take on if they worked together. Although Lyra had said something about many footprints. 

"I agree with the sticking together. This place gives me the creeps, and if any of the rumors are true, I don't want to be alone here, even if I have Mo'o. I suck at tracking, s o if you see multiple sets of footprints, t hen you are probably right. The only thing I can think of is there are more missing people we don't know about. The village tends to write off people who go missing since the ruins are so poorly spoken of. They blame undead for any misfortune they have and if someone leaves everyone assumes they got eaten here," she chattered nervously. 

The stone buildings turned from crumbling to mostly intact as she walked farther in. A strange pattern emerged as she realized the town had been built in rings. Vines crept up walls and moss covered almost everything in stark contrast to the white stones. Small trees sprouted on the roofs of small homes. The forest was retaking what had once belonged to it, and there was an eerie beauty to it. Mankind was always clear cutting and destroying to live. At least, here it was apparent that there was a possibility of nature reclaiming once men were gone. Her home was a massive rock stronghold in the mountains, where she had often found solace in the closeness of the trees outside their walls. Now that she had left home Rowan found villages like the one nearby more and more attractive to her. Where once they seemed backward and simple, they struck her with a sense of comfort. As if life were a little slower here, but her mind was wondering to avoid the feelings of unease. She looked at Lyra and waited to progress. 

Lyra, having turned back to look at the tracks again, frowned thoughtfully. She was attempting to sort through the various lesson her dwarven friend had taught her. She crouched to better examine what lay before her. The topmost layer appeared to human boot prints- but very small. Those of a child. Lyra realized too that they were recent. Left within the last couple of hours. Less distinct, given how thoroughly traveled this path was, were prints running in the opposite direction. They were all footprints, but the sizes varied from one pair to the next. None were large enough to be considered left by an adult though. Why was this path so well traveled? And by those with small feet? All the intel they’d received implied that the missing youths had been carried off. This suggested there was more going on then what the frightened villagers had warned them of.

Quietly she conveyed these new findings to Rowan and Mo’o. This job grew stranger the longer she was here. She should have known better to accept the job when she just wanted to pass through the town towards her destination. She wondered if the payment was going to be sufficiently worth the hassle and delay. Especially as she was going to owe Rowan a portion for for assistance. But it was exceedingly unprofessional, not to mention distracting, to worry about it now. She had a job to finish.

Gently she unhooked Strix’s talons from her jacket sleeve and took him into her arms. He certainly had grown over the past few months! He was getting heavy. Continuing to keep her voice down, she asked him,” Will you scout ahead for any danger? He need more information and you’re a lot harder to spot than we are. What we’ve been warned of isn’t matching what we’re finding here. This place should be abandoned, and yet clearly people have been coming out of here quite often recently. We need to know more.” Strix fidgeted and chirped a bit nervously but nodded assent. He took off, scratching her arms in the process of course, the pest did it on purpose she was convinced, and the little dragon disappeared into the foliage.

Lyra turned just enough to catch Rown in her vision. “Strix will make better time then we will. We should keep moving, just be ready,” she told her companion. Rising from her crouched position she followed her own advice. She proceeded forward, attempting stealth to hide their approach. They didn’t know what they were going to encounter after all.

They didn’t actually travel all that much further following the tracks before they began to hear voices. There were too many to properly make out what was being said- initially. As they grew closer all but three of the speakers had grown quiet. The loudest sounded to be a young girl making angry demands. Another sounded older, male, and soon to reach adulthood. He was attempting to soothe the upset child. Rowan’s friend perhaps? The last lent more menace to the situation. There were no reports of someone’s grandmother going missing. And yet the last voice clearly belonged to an elderly woman. Her quavery voice rose and fell in the cadence not dissimilar to spellcasting. She’d heard such once and it sounded remarkably similar to what she heard now. So it wasn’t undead after all, but rather a witch.

Strix had yet to return. Had he been captured? They no longer had time to wait for him though. The sudden silence of what had to be the other missing children was making her nervous. Were they running out of time for the others? They’d have to proceed without him as frightened as that made Lyra. She indicated something was up ahead around the corner of the stone wall. Not that is was likely necessary. It wasn’t as if Rowan or Mo’o were deaf. They had to know the children and something else was up ahead.

Peering around the corner revealed the scene Lyra most feared: children lying still in a half circle facing a crone of woman gesturing wildly. Her eyes took in other details while her mind processed what they were going to tell the families of these children. This area was a little more open than the ruined streets they’d been traversing. A blanket of moss covered the ground beneath where the children lay. Behind the witch was a simple stone cottage far more intact than any other building they had yet to see in this place. Planters of mint grew of the window sills, it’s fragrance wafting through the air. Sunlight made its way through to treetops to make a patchwork of light over the ground. It should have been a quaint little scene: grandmother’s cute cottage in the woods with her grandchildren come to visit. It did not. The wicked witch wore what looked like strips of linen wrapped around her to resemble clothes. A shawl of sorts covered her head shadowing her face. She wore no shoes. The soft moss here would be fine to walk on, but they’d passed through many areas where the ground was covered in briars and sharp stones. How had she made it to town and back?

Her wandering thoughts were reined in sharply as the child they’d previously cried out in fear. The little girl was promptly taken in by an older boy who had been sitting next her. He shielded the girl from the source of her dread as he turned away from the witch, shielding the child with his body. He was defenseless! They needed to act now if they were to save the ones who remained. Lyra drew her sword, ready to charge into meadowy area all pretense of stealth abandoned for haste.