That is, until he was MURDERED! That's right, murdered. Imagine your life-force leaving your body, along with your hopes and dreams, and your youthful innocence and goodwill towards the world, all collecting in a sanguine pool on the ground.
Terrible. Despicable. Most curious.
Who could commit such a foul act? The directions of Killa's descendant, Killason, led me to his ancestral home. As suspected, it had no palisade, so I left him some leather and rope, and a dead animal, as is the hearthland custom. His home was squalid, but the man lying in the center was unmistakably dead. Strangely, there was no murder scent. Not in here, nor in the surrounding area. But there were a scent of battery, and a scent of assault. Perhaps the murderer used leeches, and Killa, in his naivite, thought he's made new friends with the annelids greedily draining him of the remaining blood. Perhaps he has died of a broken heart at the sheer cruelty of the world.
But I had the clues I came for, and the trail was still hot.
The scents took me further east than I've expected. At first I imagined the criminals were from another continent, pirates, vikings, AD raiding party. But the scents pointed inland. Could it be the neighboring village of Action, asserting their territorial dominion? Not so, although their knarr boasted a threatening sail design, they were blameless.
I rode on and on. Then I said screw it, and hearthed home, and continued eastward. Past CF, past Fancy Huts...wait! The scents were pointing to Fancy Huts! Wasn't this the HH realm's founding village? I could scarcely believe my eyes. It seems whoever's had a hand in poor Killa's untimely and brutal end, had noble origins. Noblesse oblige indeed, you fiend, whoever you might be.
Let this be a warning to other simple hermits, for sometimes the beasts among us walk upright and wear hermine capes. Build your defenses, lock the gates and count your ever declining realm's blessings. Seriously, what's up with that swan quality? It used to be 225% for Odin's sake!
