Warthford

Chapter 1 - The Town

"Wait for me!" I shouted at my wife, sweat running down my face from all the walking. My wife's beautiful pink dress fluttered in the wind as she continued to climb the steep hill. She finally stopped at the top, she wasn't nearly as exhausted as I was, I carried the luggage.

"C'moon, we are so close. Pull yourself together," she said to me, smiling.

"I don't do... this. I'm from a big city, I don't do walking."

She gave a laugh and then pointed at something when I got to the top too. At the feet of the hill was a small town, surrounded by wooden walls. From here I could see a tall stone cross on top of a church, as well as a watchtower little further away. There was a nice looking lake on the right, but something not so nice on the left. She had seen it as well.

"What is that? It's disgusting!" She said from disgust and stepped back.

A junkyard was on the left. A gross junkyard, with moldy and rotten things like chairs, doors and even melons, if I saw that right.

"No wonder this has stayed as a small town for so long," I said, joking, "Let's go then!"

Going down was way less exhausting than climbing up that hill. It was actually pretty nice. We talked about what crazy things we could get up to once we arrived and moved in.

Only a few minutes away from the bottom, we met a man. He greeted us with a bow. This young man had brown, untidy hair, he wore a leather tunic, a silver belt with all kinds of tools and goggles that were put up above his eyes, resting there.

"Well hello there. Nice to meet you, sir..."

"Asher, my name is Asher. Nice to meet you both too!" The man said. He looked very happy to see someone around here.

"So, what are you up to?" I asked him.

"Aah, I'm just passing by Warthford. Already leaving to go to Gillamoor tomorrow. After that, I don't even know myself. Anywhere where adventure awaits."

"Good luck with your adventures then!" We both waved goodbye and continued on our way.

"Wasn't he a charming young man. You might have competition," my wife said to me.

I turned to look at her, there was a moment of silence, then we both started to laugh. It was nice spending time with her.

Once we then arrived at the bottom, the Sun was already going down. We saw the shining lights of the town, our destination, in the horizon. It was also getting colder.

"We just go straight now, definitely not to the left."

"Quickly, it's cold out here, I'm wearing a dress."

"Don't blame me, you chose to wear that."

Looked like she was getting pretty fed up with me. Quickly, as she told, we walked to the town, through grasslands and past a brewery. We got to the gate. A guard of the town was just about to close it as it was getting dark, but he let us in.

"Welcome to the town of Warthford!" The guard said, welcoming us.

The town looked nice, though a bit old fashioned compared to the big cities with fancy castles and tall towers where I used to live. I only counted about eight buildings. There was the church on the right with the tall cross, next to that was the town hall, and the watchtower. Some merchants were gathered around the town square and had set up stalls. A blacksmith was on the opposite side of the watchtower. I could see a few houses around there too, but we didn't have much time to explore, we had to settle into our new house. 

Our house was opposite the church, it was a wooden house with spruce walls and roof.

"Oh, this looks lovely, doesn't it?" My wife said, she looked very happy.

We went in, the house was already furnished so we didn't have to worry about that. When she went upstairs to explore the rest, I unpacked the luggage. We didn't bring much, some clothes, pictures and paintings. Now that I got to look at the interior properly, it did look great. There was a furnace at the back where we could bake things, it looked new. Once I got upstairs, I saw there were some chests and a closet to store our clothes in. One big bed was next to the window, where I could see the church from and there was a grandfather clock leaning against the wall. It was perfect.

Without doing much other than hanging a few paintings downstairs, we went to sleep, both quite tired from the long walk. Tomorrow we would get to fully explore the town and meet all the people, go see the lake, maybe go fishing. Excited for tomorrow, I fell asleep.

It was dark outside, nobody to be seen. The roads were empty. "What was that?" I jumped awake, as the clock struck twelve. It was just the clock making noise, so I went back to sleep, but soon I realised something else other than the noise that had awaken me. My wife was gone.