Arrival in Ashurst

Renard boards his carriage and leaves Meurille that evening.

Several days later, he arrives in Daversham, the county that neighbours Meurille to the north. This is the whereabouts of the anomaly, and the territory of Lord Byrus.

Daversham is a much larger region than Meurille, and larger than most territories Renard ever visited during his time hunting ghouls. Were he still of that strict hunter’s mindset, he likely would have ignored any chance to parley with Byrus and raced instead straight to the ghoul, but now it feels correct to visit Lord Byrus first.

Further, Lord Byrus has been a pleasant acquaintance over Renard’s time lording Meurille, and though the idea of embarrassing himself within Byrus’ chambers does shake him, with gifts prepared to ease him through the first introductions, Renard finds himself sincerely looking forward to seeing him.

Renard arrives at Lord Byrus’ estate and stays there for the day. Between the friendly socialising of the visit, Renard asks Byrus for any information he has on this ‘anomaly’ that did not make it into the letter. “It is something like a honeycomb," Byrus struggles, cringing at his own inadequate description, miming at the air as if packing together a tight, twisted cloth, “but it is… there is an odd—I apologise, Renard." So is the extent of his information, Byrus’ struggle puzzling in itself, but the need to personally see the ‘honeycomb anomaly’ so confirmed. Byrus gives the specific location of the anomaly as the village Ashurst.

Renard departs for Ashurst. It is a small village, deep in the woods, at the corner of Byrus’ territory. It is one of those places where, despite all the life and beauty in the thick trees and rolling hills that cradle the settlement, one has to question why anybody ever settled there. Perhaps a holdover from pilgrims bound elsewhere who only meant the place as a camp, it is inconveniently isolated in a way that does not serve any purpose, but only makes resupply from out of town difficult, since the only difficulty of entry is bothering to use obscure roads. The few farms present here are small; the woodlands have not been cleared enough to foster success in that industry, and even concluding that this is a lumber town, there is nothing remarkably lucrative about the pines here except that there are a lot of them.

It is a bread-and-butter town, thick with cool, damp, verdant forest air. Though a more pleasant place to look at than Renard’s old village, the reliance on imports to keep the place fed likely makes it a worse place to live.

Not that the locals here reflect such a sentiment. As Renard rolls into town, he meets only strong, proud, assertive folk, freemen and sons of freemen, who fancy their pocket of beautiful but unusable land as the hidden jewel of Daversham, tied with a cosmopolitan sense of independence and community disproportionate to the needy backwater the place is. Still, the atmosphere is not unpleasant, and when Renard asks about the anomaly, the people are excited to talk.

The rumours cycling through town conflict with each other and clarify nothing, as rumours do. Renard in the tavern asks to meet the hunters who have seen the anomaly, so they may escort him to it.

“Ohh, then you want Mr. Klee. Poor luck; family business got him out of town ‘least a handful of days. We’re all jabbering about it, thinking to go out and scour for it, but it’s only him what’s seen it, him, the mayor, and that boy Fidel. Guess the thing ain’t so bad to have Klee patrolling all day ‘round the place anymore… been a full month of zip."

“Who is Fidel?" asks Renard.

“Ahh, Fidel, he’s just a kid. Found the thing," advises the patron of the tavern, tilting his tankard to and fro. “Hard to talk to. Best you’re off waiting for Klee, or catching the mayor when he ain’t busy."

Though not doubtful of the advice, Renard asks where he might find Fidel.

The patron again urges Renard to speak to the mayor, since Fidel is seriously just a kid and not even a very forthcoming one. While it’s true that Fidel was forthcoming enough to excitedly report his find to Klee, there isn’t much point taking him as an escort up to the thing.

Renard taps his chin and resigns the advice as fair. His instinct to check Fidel comes from his knowledge of teenagers; things they get tight-lipped about are things they are often burning to say. In finding the thing, he may have insight about it, or think he has insight about it, and secretly want to spill an interesting detail or two.

But pumping him for his story doesn’t mean bringing him to the anomaly. It’s smartest to go with the mayor, in an official capacity, and keep the child away from what could become a dangerous situation.

Though doubtful Fidel knows anything special, the patron concedes his workplace — he helps clean equipment at the lumber-yards — and his address. Still, when Renard finishes his questions and marches determinedly out, the patron can only see him off with a shrug of ‘good luck’.

With it still being afternoon on a weekday, and Fidel likely being at work, Renard first pursues the mayor. It would be nice to study more before going up to the anomaly, but the longer he puts this meeting off, the more awkward things will be later. The mayor’s office is also in town, rather than out in the forest as Fidel’s work is, and just closer.

Renard enters the mayor’s office. Ding ding ding, and rings the bell at the reception desk, but the only response that comes is a voice wafting from deeper inside the building: “One moment!".

Ten minutes of waiting passes to twenty. As Renard crosses his arms and cringes up at the ceiling, he begins to wish that no voice had answered at all. Just when he flirts with the thought of storming outside, a door creaks, and a man in a dark cloak and spectacles seeps out from down the hall, passes by blankly, and exits.

Figuring that the mayor’s previous guest, Renard begrudgingly approaches the desk to be received.

The mayor emerges from the hall. Though he smiles pleasantly, waddling penguinlike in his cutely pressed formalwear — dressed exactly how his parents must have taught him — Renard can only stare, astonished, as if he had just been sprung an encounter with someone as horrifically ghoul-touched as Verdan.

The mayor is huge. Not in stature, but in girth, weighed with such corpulence that his very ability to walk seems some supernatural enchantment. Though Renard recognises swiftly that it is not, he still fumbles a moment to find his words and curses inwardly for his own impoliteness.

“Hello!" The mayor cheers, his voice as clear and pleasant as the bellish tones of a meadowlark. The bright cadence of it loosens the tension in Renard’s shoulders. There is nothing concerningly erratic, chopped, or unnatural to his speech as there had been with Verdan, and it hearing it warms the chest. “Sir Renard Cox! I am Mr. Thames," he beams, leaning forward to take Renard’s hands in a jolly handshake. “Mayor of Ashurst. I’m terribly sorry for the wait, that dark beaky fellow swept in just five minutes before you had, with quite a table of issues to sort through. You didn’t stay in here this whole time?"

“No, no, ‘tisn’t an issue," Renard begins.

“Oh, joyful news, come along then!" the mayor interrupts, too enthusiastic to notice Renard had meant to say more. “We’ve tea and biscuits if you like," he says, escorting Renard down the hall to a parlour with pink carpeting and many sculptures of cats, which lounge fancifully upon most every shelf and pin down large mounds of paperwork. The mayor floats to the kitchenette where he heats a kettle and pours tea into two dainty, petalled teacups. “You take a seat at the table. Anywhere that you fancy comfortable," his brows knit with focus as he pours.

He seems a friendly fellow, Renard thinks as he sits and gazes out the bay window to the colourful rose garden outside. The mayor places the finished tea upon the mahogany table and seats himself across from Renard, his chair creaking as he settles in.

After pleasantries, Renard and the mayor discuss Renard’s visit and business in Ashurst.

Like Byrus, the mayor struggles to convey anything specific about the anomaly, and in fact it is from the mayor’s reports that Byrus has the information he does. He speaks cheerfully of the time he has spent up in the woods with Mr. Klee, trying to make sense of the thing.

Were you not scared when you came upon it?, Renard asks.

The mayor reports that it had been a lovely day and, while worried a little at first, it seemed more to him like a piece of a puzzle, or a funny interruption in the air similar to how a geode interrupts stone, than anything actively frightening. It’s certainly been stable for all Klee has been watching it, and nothing odd has happened in Ashurst since its arrival. I’m surprised Lord Byrus sent you, not to discount how thrilling it is for you to be here, but it has yet been such a benign thing I just would not have thought to have that kind of urgency. Perhaps my letters carried a tone that misrepresented the situation somewhat. It’s quite forgettable, if it weren’t peculiar.

Renard asks how he might get to the anomaly.

Well, it is deep in the forest, says the mayor. You would need a map and a guide... It’s quite an excursion.

Apart from yourself and the hunter Klee, I have heard the only one who knows the way is a village boy, Renard notes.

“Oh, yes, Fidel… he’s a good boy, but private. It was quite surprising, his enthusiasm when he came to Mr. Klee. I wouldn’t trouble him too much. I doubt there’s anything he knows that we don’t," the mayor advises, then wiggles in his squeaking seat. “Would you be thinking to go to the thing before Mr. Klee comes back? The thought of adventure of hiking back up with you has stricken me with excitement, and tomorrow is Saturday, so I would have the time clear to take you."

Renard pauses, wiping biscuit crumbs from his fingers, unable to stop himself from awkwardly considering the mayor’s physical state.

Unable to avoid the question, he asks bluntly if the mayor is fit for it.

The mayor, taking the question well, assures that he is. Oh! And he’s so excited, he’s already thinking of all the things they’d have to prepare… all the things to pack in his bags…

Reassured by the mayor’s enthusiasm, Renard asks when Klee would be coming back, though not with particular intention to follow that track. The mayor informs it would be three or four days — not too long, but long enough to feel like a waste if Renard spent the time doing nothing. Dismissing the thought, he hums, and confirms his plan to go hiking with the mayor tomorrow.

Oh, splendid! Chirps the mayor, who claps his hands charmingly. We’ll meet here just before dawn, then — going up there and back will take the whole day, so it’s best to leave early.

Content with this plan, Renard shakes the mayor’s hand and departs.