"Cordu Village..."
Fors murmured to herself, recalling what she knew about the little village.
It was a small village in a remote part of Leiston, a southern province of Intis, not far from Feynapotter and Lenburg. There was no precise population count, as many of its adult men worked as shepherds—a grueling occupation that kept them away from home for most of the year—leaving frequent gaps in the official census.
Unlike the Sequence 5 of the Hanged Man pathway, Cordu Village's shepherds were hired by flock owners to drive dozens or hundreds of sheep between the plains of southern Intis and the mountain pastures. They tended the flocks and made cheese, laboring away from home year after year and returning only at certain times.
Now was precisely the season when the flocks migrated back and the shepherds returned home. Yet as Fors looked around, she saw not a single sheep in the pastures, let alone any shepherds tending them.
Was the information wrong? Had the flocks already set off for the lowland pastures? Or were they on the other side of the village... She was puzzled, but paid it little mind. Just as she did when wandering deep in the cosmos and visiting a new planet to encounter an unfamiliar civilization, she concealed herself with a recorded invisibility ability, then followed the well-trodden dirt path toward the village below the slope.
Fors did not use Teleportation to enter the unfamiliar village directly. It was a good habit she had developed after several rash ventures. Even so, as she approached Cordu Village, she noticed many abnormalities.
It was nearly evening, yet not a single light shone in the village. Behind the yellowed windowpanes, everything was dark. No smoke or steam drifted from the chimneys of varying heights and shapes; there were