The Cursed Farm of Westfall

Summary
Rhamiel goes digging about in Ysmere's mind. This is a direct continuation of the story Cannibal Etiquette.

The Cursed Farm of Westfall
It was a terribly dull day for Rhamiel. Emrys was busy schmoozing targets and Izol was off on injury leave-- an inconvenience that was Rhamiel’s own fault. Mostly. Even Yreine was nowhere to be found, not that he would think of seeking her presence. But the crypt was quiet, and dreary, and boring.

He hung up his surgical gloves to dry from the thorough washing he had just given them. Scrubbing out goblin blood was a pain, he had come to learn, but it passed the time. Sadly, not a trace of it, or the goblin it came from, remained.

He sighed and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms and humming tunelessly in thought. What to do, what to do? He could read a book, perhaps, or try mixing up a new poison of some kind. But neither of those ideas sounded attractive to him. They were simply too much work, and he wanted easy entertainment.

His mind wandered over his options, eventually settling on one he decided he liked quite a bit. How was the human woman he had saved from Yreine? She had a ripe brain filled to the brim with refreshing trauma. Ysmere, her name had been. He recalled harvesting that information the moment he and Emrys found her bleeding out in the snow. Coupled with the little bundle of Void magic he had left in her mind, it was all he needed to access the treasure trove of her consciousness and memories once again.

Rhamiel pooled his focus, seeking the node of magic and pulling it to him. It was effortless. Ysmere’s thoughts filled his mind. He saw through her eyes, felt with her hands, tasted with her tongue. She appeared to be at home right now, stirring a bowl of broth. On closer inspection, Rhamiel was not at all surprised to discover there was no meat in the stuff, nor were there any knives or forks to be seen. The trauma Yreine left her with must still be fresh. That was good news for him.

Her thoughts were rather simple: partly listing off the remaining steps of her cooking, and partly replaying snippets of a song she liked. She was tapping her fingers on the counter along with the gentle rhythm. This was not interesting enough for Rhamiel, and he quickly retreated to the annals of her memories to seek out the one bit of trauma he really liked.

It had been perhaps fifteen years ago, judging by Ysmere’s age in the memories. She was the youngest of the Flory children, well-loved and nurtured by her parents, Darven and Grethe. She looked up to her big brother Therran, who was tall and strong and handsome enough to have young men and women across Westfall swooning whenever he passed. He would often get into scraps with the older two neighbour children from the Spoonser farm, though was good-natured and protective of his sisters. Ysmere was too young to understand why the families had such rivalry between them. She spent most of her time with her sisters: Giana, the elder one, who was headstrong and energetic, and Annarel, who was afflicted with illness from a young age and preferred to stay indoors to read and write.

The Flory farm was a prosperous, happy place. Their crops and animals were healthy, and they were well-liked by their community for the most part. Darven Flory in particular regularly organised events for the farming families of Westfall and was known to most everyone as a friend, confidante and helping hand in hard times.

It made what happened to him so much harder to understand.

Rhamiel rubbed his hands with glee. Ysmere was in the field pulling up dandelion puffs to blow the seeds away when a shriek of terror from Grethe made her blood run cold.

“No! Don’t! Put it dow-- aghh!” her mother screamed, her words cut short with a final gurgle. Ysmere dropped the flower she was holding, stuck on the spot. Therran and Giana were in the field too and got to their feet, exchanging worried glances. Seconds later, Annarel screamed too.

That snapped them out of their fearful inactivity, and they ran to the door, Giana with a rake in hand. And then Darven appeared. He grabbed his daughter and threw her to the ground, brandishing a kitchen knife coated liberally with blood. He slashed and slashed, catching her throat. A crimson gout sprayed his face, and Giana writhed helplessly as she bled to death.

Therran was on his father like a bag of bricks. He leapt at the larger man, tackling him off of his sister. He screamed for Ysmere to hide as he wrestled the knife from Darven’s hands. Darven was shouting too, but Ysmere could not understand the garbled replies of whatever creature her father had become. It didn’t sound human, animal, or like anything she had ever heard before. It terrified her enough to send her sprinting to the barn, where she crouched behind stacked bales of hay. From this vantage point she could see out of the small window, turning her gaze quickly away when Darven effortlessly flipped Therran over and began to choke him, cackling maniacally.

“Stupid kid!” Darven howled from outside. He have a cry of victory. “There! Idiot! Ysmere! Where are youuu?! Daddy needs a word! YSMERE!!”

Ysmere froze, hearing Darven’s pacing draw closer. Would this hiding place be good enough? Her heart pounded in her chest, and she crawled quickly to the corner where her favourite cow, Dotty, snoozed. She tucked herself behind the animal, covering the rest of her small body in hay. Dotty opened an eye and glanced back at her, but appeared to go back to sleep, undeterred by Ysmere’s presence.

Darven kicked the barn door in, breath laboured as he stalked about. He struck his axe into bale after bale, finding Ysmere’s previous hiding place almost instantly. Ysmere willed her own breathing to quiet, hoping Dotty’s gentle snoring would cover any sounds she could not suppress.

“Ysmeeeeere...” Darven crooned, tapping the blade of the axe against the ground with a dull thunk. He grunted, his words becoming unintelligible again. It sounded to Ysmere like he was speaking backwards.

But Rhamiel knew better. This was Shath’yar.

“Golden fields...” Darven was saying as he searched the barn. “Golden hills, golden wheat... golden... sun...”

Ysmere trembled helplessly. Tears dribbled down her cheeks unabated, though her terror kept her silent. She was holding on to Dotty now, trying to find some comfort in the animal’s gentle presence. Darven’s footsteps seemed to continue forever, his strange speech becoming increasingly agitated. He eventually screamed-- a horrible sound, one Rhamiel knew haunted Ysmere to this day-- and fled the barn.

Ysmere stayed hidden behind Dotty for hours after that, not daring to move or make a sound. She was eventually found by investigators called in from Stormwind, who broke the news of her family’s fate as delicately as they could. Grethe, Giana and Annarel were dead, and Therran was critically injured. Darven himself was dead too-- they found him lying facedown in the field without a scratch on him. They could not work out how it had happened.

Rhamiel pulled back from the memories, pondering the Shath’yar screams of Darven Flory. What was all this nonsense about gold?

It seemed looking into those memories had had an adverse effect on Ysmere. She had stopped cooking and shook like a leaf. She stared down into the bowl of broth, eventually remembering she needed to take it to Therran. Rhamiel sighed, wondering if there was any more point to him being here-- but the second he laid eyes on Therran, his interest was piqued once more.

The sturdy, strong young man from Ysmere’s memories was reduced to a pale, shivering wreck that clutched to his sweat-stained sheets in visible agony. His face was drawn and wan, his once lustrous golden locks thin and sticking to his forehead. He managed a pained smile at Ysmere as she set the bowl down next to him.

“Th-thanks...” he said, his voice a pitiful whisper.

Ysmere smiled at him, moving to dab his forehead with a damp cloth. “You’re welcome. We’ll have you feeling better soon, I’m sure of it.”

Ysmere was most certainly not sure of it, and Rhamiel devoured that piece of information with interest. He raced through her thoughts, learning that Therran had been fine just a few weeks ago. He had visited the old Flory farm for the first time in years, and when he returned his condition was poor and deteriorated alarmingly with each day that passed.

Rhamiel couldn’t help himself. He made the easy jump from Ysmere’s mind to Therran’s, and after adjusting to the man’s extremely poor health, he was off to rifle through his memories until he stumbled upon the day Therran visited home once again.

Most of it was dull and unimportant to him, though oddly scattered and fragmented. It took a while to piece together any sort of scene that made sense. As far as he could tell, Therran had lain flowers on the graves of his mother and sisters, and felt fury at the fact his father’s grave had been placed beside them. Also buried on the family plot were his grandparents, who Darven had inherited the farm from as a young man. Therran knelt by his mothers grave, touching those of his sisters in turn. He spoke, and his speech was by far the hardest thing to make sense of. Rhamiel guessed he was apologising, likely for taking so long to visit them. Therran turned to his mother’s headstone to speak to her-- his apology was clearer now, though the words were actually being spoken backwards. That was puzzling.

He gave a final glare to Darven’s tombstone and got to his feet-- and it looked like this was the point when things started to take a turn for the worse.

It was likely Therran was hallucinating, for the shadowy figures that crawled from the graves could not possibly be real-- could they? They were silhouetted versions of the people buried there, though their dark bodies were warped. Therran’s thoughts filled with static and terror, making it harder still for Rhamiel to follow along. The shadows were shrieking now-- in Shath’yar! It took all of Rhamiel’s focus to decode it-- some sentences were backwards again, or spoken with a word missing, and the sisters seemed to be starting and finishing one another’s sentences.

Rhamiel had expected the voices to be obscene intimidation, but instead it was... some sort of poem? The creatures spoke it in unison. The word “golden” was being used a lot once again, and Rhamiel tried with all his might to pull the fractured thoughts together to complete it--

--but it simply could not be done. Too many pieces were missing to know for sure how the poem was intended to be recited. It seemed that Therran had blacked out shortly after their chant began, and he had no memory of how he returned to his current home in Stormwind. The illness had set in at that time, something Rhamiel was sure could not be a coincidence.

With a sigh, he drew back from Therran to linger a moment longer within Ysmere. She had no idea what had happened to her brother-- it seemed Therran was unable to tell her. That excited him again somewhat-- for he was the only one in possession of what was likely a crucial piece of information. Ysmere was surely confused and upset about Therran’s condition, and if he were to shed some light on the matter it might benefit him in the long run. Ysmere was a talented mage, after all, with a lot of connections in Stormwind. Having a friend like that was never a bad thing.

Rhamiel cut the tie with a snap of his fingers, mulling over all that he had seen so far. Something was wrong with the Flory farmstead, that much was clear. Ysmere’s brother was probably going to die as a result, though Rhamiel toyed with the idea of intervening. Perhaps Therran Flory would also be a useful ally.

So many possibilities to consider! It was like Winter’s Veil had come early. For the first time in his life, Rhamiel was almost thankful for Yreine’s inability to finish a meal.