"There, there, Marsh," said Alison. The two women sat in the old inn among the boxes and tools. The men who wielded those tools were gone... swallowed by... something. Something that had come to the town weeks ago and spirited off the entire town guard, Berwick the healer, and several others. Marsha's husband Lyburn, and Alison's husband Tuck were both good men... despite their faults they would never have just run off. Or allowed themselves to be taken without a fight.

But they were gone. Gone without a trace, just like the others. The women had come here looking for them twice already, but the still came back a third time... because there was nowhere else to look.

Now, finding the place empty for a third time had set Marsha on another crying spell. Alison comforted her, even though she was only moments away from crying herself.

"I... I just can't accept it," said Marsha. "I can't believe he's just... gone. Just like that."

"Sorrins will pay for what he did. If the town guard were still here they'd string him up!"

"I don't believe that either," said Marsha. "Sorrins is a good man. And a good mage. He'd never let one of his spells just get loose like that... not like that..."

"He said when someone got close, it just teleported them away at random. No way of tellin' where. And the monsters that came through... Poor Hax."

"He said if Hax hadn't fought them back and plugged the portal with his body it would've swallowed the whole town. But why'd it have to take my husband!"

Alison let Marsha cry.

"I wish I could remember," Alison sighed. "Sorrins says its better not to. Too horrible. He says it's a GOOD thing that our memories faded when the hellportal finally closed."

"...Hellportal..." Marsha sobbed. "My poor Lyburn... swallowed whole by some damned..." The rest was lost in tears.

Alison got up and walked over to the bar, which would probably never be whole again. She leaned over and picked up something she had spied earlier... a piece of rolled-up parchment.

"What's this?" she said.

Marsha paused in her tears and looked at the scroll.

"It... looks old," she said.

Alison unrolled the scroll and looked down at the water-stained scribblings. She frowned and handed it to Marsha.

Marsha looked at it and shook her head.

"Times like this make me wish I'd learned how to read," said Marsha.

"Me too," Alison added.

"It's junk." Marsha tossed the scroll back behind the bar, then she and Alison turned toward the door.

"So what're you gonna do with this place?" Alison asked as the door closed behind them.

"This is Lyb's place," Marsha answered. "To painful to leave it standin'... I'll probably just burn it down. Burn it down and let everything in it turn ta ash..."

[THE END...?]