(Phantasia) Ghosts of Blacklake

Part 2.

A while passed before Ayan came to his senses, with a warm cup of milk clenched in his hands. It almost cracked by how much he clenched his hands around it. He had stopped weeping but stared straight ahead with a blank look, red around the eyes. He nestled himself against the wall where his chair stood, the blanket still tight around his shoulders. 

The tavern looked decent, although it had no windows. The one source of light it had was one fireplace with a kettle in the middle. The bar was at the left-end, with the owner, the woman who'd opened the door, behind it, who was cleaning glasses. Two waitresses were present, refilling drinks. The tavern did not look that cosy, but that's because the area didn't let it. There weren't many resources to tidy or decorate this place to begin with, safe for a few heads of animals, mainly boars and deer, that were hung with a wooden plaque on the wall. Not many people were in this tavern, this place was quite desolate, after all. Those that were present could be counted on two hands. They looked rough around the edges, shifty and brooding men huddled around creaking tables playing dice and cards, drinking-horns half-rolling off the tables or hanging by their belts. Mercenaries, deserted soldiers, bounty-hunters, gatekeepers that were off-duty and hangmen. A handful of others, seemingly farmers, herders and hunters were playing cards and swapping coins around a set of two tables that they shoved together, to make one big table. There was one man, he looked old, with a rag band over one eye, sitting at another table against a wall, very near to where Ayan sat, staring, with the warm milk still in his hand. 

"Got spooked, boy?" The old man asked. His voice was coarse, like a crow. He chewed on a small stick in the corner of his mouth. He looked as wrinkly and leathery as the undead Ayan had seen earlier that night, but luckily more alive. Ayan darted up at the sudden noise, his milk nearly splattered all over the table. He looked at the old man, calmed down, nodded, and took a sip of the remaining milk. It was still warm, luckily. 

"Yes, this ain't an easy place by any stretch, boy! The nights here are dangerous, ha!" Ayan nodded again. "You can say that again." The old man let out a cackle. "Southern boy! I hear it in your tone! 'Thought they could handle these sort of lands!" Ayan laughed, albeit soft and weakly. "The land is not the problem, and neither is the night. I've suffered worse." He laughed a little harder, and the old man laughed along. Ayan took another gulp of the milk. 

"Then what'd be that bad, that a rookie-ranger like you falls in here crying in the night? Wolves? Trolls?" The old man laughed. Ayan shook his head. Luckily, he'd gotten new pants. The old ones were starting to scrape against his legs like sandpaper. The new ones were made of a bear-pelt, while the old pants were being washed by the tavern-staff.  "No, not that." 

He cleared his throat after taking one more gulp of milk. "Both of those I've seen, and fought. No, outside, outside and out there I saw undead." Silence. Deathly silence. "I've seen a village rise up from a pitch-black lake." 

The old man nearly choked in the stick that he had frantically been chewing on, after which he spat the stick out onto the rough wooden floor. Ayan looked on in shock. "You... You what?!" The old man exclaimed. Others in the tavern, mostly the ruffians at the tables, looked at the scene playing out with big grins on their grimy faces. Naturally, they didn't believe a word the boy with the curled hair and the black ashy locks had said.  

"HAH! That's bull! If that boy has REALLY seen ghosts, then I'm a chicken!" Said a burly-looking man, and quite a hairy one at that. His hair was buzz-cut short, and he had a dark beard covering his cheeks and lower face. He was dressed in a dark doublet, and a chain-mail vest, both of which were drenched in the beers the man drank before. The old man was still catching his breath, one wrinkly hand clenching the side of the table. 

Ayan frowned. He knew what he'd seen. "Then you better start laying an egg, I saw what I saw! An entire, rotting village rising from a black lake!" He put his milk on the table and wobbly stood up, using his hands to power his words. "There were undead coming out of the slime and the rotting wood and there was ONE of them that had such red, terrifying eyes that...-"