Shadow of Orcane

Nevile gripped the crumpled letter one last time, his brother’s words had already burned into memory.

Dear brother,

Throughout my journey I have passed through countless villages and met many kind souls. I am afraid what I have stepped into now is something more unsettling.

The day I arrived in the village of Orcane, about 6 days days by cart from Auburn Palace, I was met with 9 freshly burial mounds that lined the entrance. I approached with great caution, my first thought was a plague. Even the cart driver refused to go any farther.

It has been 2 nights in the village as I write to you, if the rumors hold any truth, then there is something far more sinister at work here, something beyond sickness,

Incase anything should befall me, do not follow.
Stay safe. You are always in my heart.

Your Brother
Aldric

That was the last thing Nevile ever heard from Aldric.

The cart shook as a worn wheel ran over a stone, the horses brayed.

“Fear this is as far I take you” the coachman muttered. He did not wait for a reply before turning the cart back toward the road.

Nevile noticed that the grave mounds Aldric mentioned had multiplied. 13 now.

The village was quiet. The folks he encountered whispered, never meeting his gaze, and hurried back inside at the sight of him. He made his way to the only inn the village had. The innkeeper startled at his arrival, his eyes narrowed with unease.

“I want the room my brother stayed in” Nevile said.

The old man didn’t reply, he picked up the old musket lying on the desk and began to clean it.

“Your brother, you say?” the innkeeper spoke finally “Then you better be more cautious”

In the room, Nevile found Aldric’s journal in a corner, next to a glass shard from a broken lantern. The journal revealed more than the letter had.

Aldric had learned of an old village tail “the Moorwraith”.

A creature born of darkness and teeth, bound to the forest outside Orcane, long forgotten, only not anymore. It fed on flesh, leaving nothing but bones and wore the skin of its prey.

Aldric had gone searching for proof of the creature and found unnatural tracks far too large for any animal. Nevile read the last entry twice, it was scribbled in a hand that was hurried.

I think it is watching me. I hear it breathing outside my door at night. I fear the moorwraith is real

Nevile froze as the floorboard outside his room creaked and the door slowly opened. A figure stepped into the dim lantenlit room.

“Aldric?” Nevile whispered, confused, frightened.

The man in the doorway looked just like his brother, same dimpled smile that he envyed since childhood. The same coat his brother wore when he set off.

“You should not have come, brother” the voice sounded familiar but wrong.
Aldrich smiled wider than a man should. The skin around its lips broke like old leather.

“You are not him” Nevile gripped the shard of broken lantern glass “Where is he?”

“All around me” it answered and then lunged.

Nevile dodged to the side, slashing on pure instinct. The shard tore through the fake dimple across the creature’s cheek, revealing something dark underneath that was not meant for daylight. The thing shrieked.

From downstairs, the innkeeper’s musket fired.

Nevile did not wait to see what happened to the moorwraith. He ran out into the cold night, through the silent streets of Orcane.

He did not stop until he reached the edge of the village, where the graves had first greeted him.

And then he noticed, standing between the trees, 12 more of them.

Smiling. Wider than any man should.