Aleem grimaced under the glare of daylight streaming in through the wagon’s windows. The wagon was uncomfortably warm, and he had worked up quite some sweat while sleeping. Hot air wafted into the vehicle and howled softly outside.

He rubbed his eyes clear, yawning. His entire body was as sore as it’d been on his first day here. It was bad enough that he was missing the mattress from his room back in the stockade.

He felt a spike of alarm once he realised that he was alone in the wagon, but it quickly abated when he heard Serend’s voice outside. He strained his ear, but she was speaking too quietly for him to make out what she was saying.

Her shlöck lay on the bench across from him and the wagon door hung ajar. Eyeing the instrument, Aleem retrieved his water-skin from his cloth-bag and emptied what little remained of his water supply.

Hot light bathed the interior of the wagon as he pushed the door fully open. There was a charred smell in the warm breeze that blew in his face.

It was quite windy, and he could see why. He stood on an elevated terrain with small tents dotting the steep stretch of brown earth below. Lons encampment was much less impressive than Fouts had been. He panned the world, blue sun high above, as he took in the vicinity, shielding his vision with a hand to his forehead.

“Hey, lad, come get something to eat,” Wulry called.

Aleem turned to see the entire party seated some distance away from the head of the wagon. They were under a canopy reminiscent of the one he’d seen at the apotheca’s yard, though this one’s frame appeared to be wooden. It contained a low table, around which they all sat, eating.

That scent of something burning was still in the air, but much less muted now, almost as though the wind alone knew how best to syphon it to him. His stomach grumbled.

Aleem made his way over to them. He noticed that the wagon no longer had its horses attached. It sat by itself, a cabin on wheels.

He wasn’t expecting festivity, but the mood around the table was drab and surly. R’shai and Hetti had ditched their Olomti regalia entirely, and sat now in casual slacks and twilled cotton shirts. Hetti, cheeks stuffed with food, was chewing angrily, while R’shai just stared of into the distance a bun in her hand. Wulry had donned a similar-looking attire to theirs, and appeared to have freshened up some. There was a hand-cannon on the table beside him.

Serend was nursing a ceramic cup in her hands, taking the occasional sip from it. She scooted for Aleem to sit beside her. The fluffy flokati was a welcome reprieve from the hard bench of the wagon.

A middle-aged man with a hook nose sat between Wulry and Serend. His hair was cropped low like Hetti’s, but very evidently greying. His thick eyebrows and dense moustache were the same colour. A steaming cup sat before him, but his attention was fixed on a stack of sheets, which he held to his face, eyes narrowed in concentration. He had spell-foci on both hands.

Aleem recognised the man. “You must be Bebson,” he said. The man had been a trusted companion and ally of Wulry and R’shai’s in ‘Tales of Woe’. A versatile mage-type.

Bebson glanced away from his sheets to level a stern look at Aleem.

Aleem nodded in greeting. “Pleasure to meet you.”

Bebson ignored him and turned to R’shai. “So, this is the boy responsible for derailing our Quest?”

Wulry cut in with a conciliative smile. “Let’s be civil now. I’d like to think he helped steer the Quest in the right direction.”

“If ‘right direction’ is code for ‘doom and mayhem’,” Hetti muttered. She’d spoken audibly enough for everyone to hear her.

“Go on, lad,” Wulry said to Aleem, “help yourself to some food. We need to get moving once we’re done here, and it’s a long journey up ahead.”

At the centre of the table sat a large tray, which contained, to Aleem’s everliving dismay, some of that detestable ginger-bread thing called tamcha. It didn’t have the sharp scent that Bojra’s batch had, but he expected it to taste just as terrible.

There was a ceramic flagon beside the tray; it was uncovered at the top and had a thick handle, but no spout. Steam swirled up from its open mouth, and it seemed to be responsible for the charred smell in the air. “What’s that?” he asked quietly, pointing at the keg. He hadn’t directed the question at anyone in particular.

“Faw wine,” Serend answered, taking a sip from her cup. “Has a bit of a kick, but it helps clear the mind.”

Aleem gently picked the flagon up by its handle, which was hot to the touch, but not to such an extent that holding it hurt. A thin mesh covered the container’s open mouth, and when he peered into it, he thought he saw uneven chunks of something bobbing within. “Is that—is that wood?” he asked with a significant amount of incredulity.

Serend just quietly passed him a clay cup as if in answer to his doubts.

Aleem poured some Faw wine into it. Steam rose into his nostrils, bursting with the roasty scent of charred wood and, surprisingly enough, lavender. The result was a watery, frothy liquid with suspicious dark specks floating within.

“We were discussing the best route to Salgad,” Wulry said, by way of including him into the conversation. “Only Serend and Beb know where that is.”

“You don’t have maps?” Aleem asked, still peering past the upward draft of steam into his cup, sedate reluctance and curiosity wrestling in his mind. These were the kinds of ‘hard’ decisions he preferred. Whether or not to drink strange-looking beverages. Figuring out how best to handle divine entities, though? Not so much.

“Oh, we do,” Wulry said. “Just not very good ones.”

“If you’d taken the time after the girl’s vision,” Bebson said with unhidden irritation, eyes still glued to his sheets, “securing more precise maps from the Outpost wouldn’t have been a problem.” He raised his eyes briefly to cast a glare at Aleem. “But then you had to draw them out of there, fanatics hot on your trail.”

That still seemed terribly unprepared to Aleem. Why would they come down to a mostly foreign region and not have exhaustive maps at hand? Something about it smacked of recklessness, and that wasn’t a word he’d use to describe Wulry or R’shai. “What was your initial plan, then?” Aleem asked, looking up at Wulry. “If you hadn’t met me, what would you have done?”

Wulry bit into a tamcha bun, almost as if to hide his embarrassment. “That’s a difficult one to answer,” he said around a mouthful of food.

R’shai sighed, elbow on table, and head in hand. “We barely had a plan.” She pulled her gaze from afar and brought it to bear on the table, boring into the wooden surface with hard eyes. “The Quest was a long shot from the very beginning. We had too little time to prepare, and had to cobble the most reliable team we could, as quickly as possible. Our maps were general and covered the entire region we’d narrowed down as the designated ‘peninsular West’. The Deyegint Stretch didn’t fall within our final calculations.”

Bebson scoffed. “A waste of precious slots, if you ask me. If only you’d taken my advice in Fildaan, we might have gotten a competent [Charter] or two as adjuncts. Spare me having to work outside my expertise.”

Aleem narrowed his eyes, thinking over R’shai’s words. Her phrasing was suspicious. They’d gotten a Quest on short notice, and had rushed over to Ontacreese? There had to be some seriously compelling incentives for that. “What were the rewards?” he asked.

“You know why we can’t tell you that,” Wulry said, stretching out his hands to the side and smiling at Aleem.

Right. Private Quests worked on a system of priviness, and were very often hush-hush. One usually needed to be a [Quest Adjunct] to learn the general details of the Quest, and even then, the finer specifics—which included the Quest reward—were inaccessible. It wasn’t foolproof, though, because an industrious eavesdropper could very easily learn those details.

Still, Aleem decided to ventured a guess. “Did the rewards have anything to do with Diris Cortio?”

Wulry’s face grew very blank, while R’shai—an absolute master in micro-expressions—didn’t seem to have been affected by his question in the slightest.

Private Quests were uniquely rewarding, suiting their beneficiary to a very favourable extent. A private quest was carefully crafted with the intention of appealing to the desperation in its beneficiary, and very often made them do stupid things. It probably said something about her and Wulry that they hadn’t just bumbled all over the region in search of an otherwise illusive relic, despite how compelling the rewards.

Wulry cleared his throat. “This brings us back to Salgad. It’s a small fishing village in the valley, and we—” Wulry paused, frowning.

R’shai whipped her head towards the wagon. Beb put down his sheets, a surprised frown on his face as he stared in the same direction. The spell-foci on his fingers glowed softly.

Had they sensed something?

Aleem found little comfort in the fact that Hetti and Serend seemed just as confused as he was.

“Just how long have you been standing there listening in?” R’shai called out in a cold voice.

“Come on out.” Wulry said, contrasting her steely tone with forced composure.

A tense silence followed, and Aleem’s heart thudded violently in his chest. Surely, another Vriorian had come after them. Just as he opened his mouth to ask, he spotted some movement behind the wagon. A woman in light blue, flowing robes stepped into view.

Aleem’s eyes widened in recognition.

Her skin was pinker than any Vriorian’s he’d seen so far. She wore her hair in black braids, thicker even than R’shai’s, but not quite as long. A single horn, wide and short, jutted out from the left side of her head; it was ringed with jewellery that glistened in the sunlight.

Feriona Azi-anre. Otherwise known as the [Hag].

The Vriorian woman barely looked to be in her fifties, though, if memory served, she was a little over two hundred and forty years of age. Nearly two centuries and a half.

Aleem’s mind worked hard and fast to make sense of this development. Wasn’t she supposed to be off the continent? Aleem could have sworn that Sambi had confirmed as much. What did Feriona want? Why was she here now?

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Her hands were concealed by her clothes, which danced merrily in the midday breeze, a wan smile on her face. “I suppose I’ve gotten quite used to not needing to sneak about,” she mused congenially.

Wulry reached out a hand to the side and it hung awkwardly in the air.

“Don’t bother yourself with that, Cosk,” Feriona chided in a motherly tone. “I’ve locked down space, and I’d advise you lay off your weapons for the—”

Before she was done speaking, they moved quickly. Wulry snatched his hand-cannon from atop the table and grunted as the equipment glowed red and hissed in his grip. At the same time, R’shai grabbed and unsheathed her sword in one smooth motion, jaw clenched, while Beb, with a snap of his fingers, conjured a trio of fiery squares above his head, all of which fizzled out instantaneously. Hetti, in the same breath, picked up her bow, then dropped it with a hiss and began flapping her hands manically.

“—time being,” Feriona finished dryly.

“H-hey, hold on,” Aleem called out hurriedly to the tense party members. “Let’s all just try to stay calm, aright?” In ‘Tales of Woe’, Feriona’s decent into violence had been as tragic as it was unavoidable, but prior to the Creckowan disaster, she’d been something of a pseudo-pacifist. He was fairly certain that she wouldn’t be inclined to killing them, even if they attacked first. She could easily defend against anything this group would be packing at this point in time, but that was hardly reason enough to anger her.

“You know this woman?” Wulry asked. He and R’shai still held on to their weapons, and both their hands trembled ever so slightly from the strain of Feriona’s working.

“Put down your weapons,” Aleem urged. “She’s an ally.”

“Oh dear,” Feriona said, her smile gaining verve. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call us allies, child.”

“How do we know she isn’t here for the Kill Quest?” Hetti asked, glaring at the [Hag] and cradling her burned hand.

“Because I’m still alive,” Aleem said bluntly. That was something he was wholly confident about. If Feriona wanted him dead, they wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now.

“And her elevation?” R’shai asked, not taking her eyes off the newcomer.

“She’s a [Hag],” Aleem said. “You know what that means, right?” Exceptions not withstanding, there were certain Specialty Classes that simply couldn’t be attained by anyone below the third Elevation due to the number of varying branches of knowledge they combined. [Hag] was one of such.

“Ah,” Wulry tilted his head sideways, “I see.” He eased up a little, lowering his hand-cannon. Not that it would have done him any good against their guest. “It all makes sense now.” He nodded to himself, a smug—if strained—smile defining his cheekbones. “You must be the Venerable Sibyl.”

Feriona lifted a quizzical brow.

“The hidden master you spoke of?” Bebson asked with wide eyes. “This is her?”

Aleem laughed nervously. “Ah, no, no. You’re both mistaken. This is Feriona Azi-anre, famed [Hag] of Balda.”

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. And I’m entirely certain that there aren’t any visual replicas of me in the region,” she said to Aleem, making a show of squinting at him. He knew her eyesight was perfect, though. “Hmm. Ankai-nari’s youngest, isn’t it? You’re more interesting than I was led to believe.”

Aleem began to sweat. He plastered on his most polite smile.

“I try to stay away from Proven property, but you’ve been around my girls,” she said with some gravity and much less cheer. “I’ve been reading their reports about the recent incident with the untethered, and I must admit, seeing you out here has made me more than a little ... nebby.”

“Well, I’d be happy to answer whatever questions you might have, Feriona,” Aleem said with a nod. Unlike most powerful people, she didn’t care for titles.

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea to me,” Bebson spoke up. He sounded miffed. Casters hated having their ability to cast interfered with. But this guy really needed to take a hint.

“Well, it’s not your decision to make, is it?” Hetti scolded quietly. That surprised Aleem for all of two seconds. “If the fool boy wants to go walking off with dangerous strangers, I say we let him be.”

“She’s…” Aleem was going to say, ‘not dangerous’, but R’shai gave him an appraising glance. He reconsidered his words. “She’s just here to talk.”

“That much is obvious,” Serend said before slurping from her cup.

Aleem noticed now that she hadn’t been nearly as tense as the rest of them. She’d just been enjoying her wine, watching everything play out with far more repose than the present situation should have allowed. She was the only one among her companions who didn’t have their weapon with them, though, so maybe she’d just given in. Back in the gallery, she hadn’t seemed worried either. Maybe ignorance truly was bliss, but it felt like there might be more to it.

“This boy is under our protection,” R’shai said to the [Hag], voice still tense and sword needlessly clutched in a trembling hand. “He has a Kill Quest out on his head, and we need to know that you don’t intend to harm him.”

“Oh, you have nothing to worry about there,” Feriona said with an easy smile. “I was merely curious about all the mishanter that’s been going on in the region, and my Construals led me to you lot.” She seemed to glance at R’shai’s trembling hand. At this distance, it was hard to say. “You can use your Skill to verify my words if you like.”

After a moment of silence, Wulry asked, “No phrenes?”

“None,” R’shai said gravely, laying her sword on the floor carefully.

Wulry tossed his hand-cannon back on the table and gripped the wrist of his injured hand. The palm and fingers were a warty red.

“If she’s as powerful as the boy says,” Bebson hissed at R’shai, “then she could have a way of tampering with your Skill.”

That was true. Feriona couldn’t exactly counter [Assay], but she could greatly hinder the Skill’s ability to read her accurately. Aleem kept that to himself, though. He had drawn enough of Feriona’s attention.

“We’re outclassed either way,” Serend said, slurping loudly from her cup once more.

Wulry looked up at the [Hag] and gestured awkwardly. “Please. Join us.”

Feriona all but glided towards them. The space around the table wasn’t quite ample, but she found room beside Aleem. The flokati rolled out of its own accord to accommodate her.

“Faw wine?” Serend offered politely.

“Aren’t you a gem,” Feriona said with a kind smile. “I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. Faw tastes too much like tree bark for my liking.” Her horn sizzled, then a dim green light flashed on the hands of Hetti, R’shai and Wulry.

Even those unaffected flinched, but the next moment it was clear what Feriona had done. She’d healed their burns. Chantless, nigh gestureless, instantaneous, nonconsensual mass healing.

“It’s common courtesy to give some form of verbal warning before you do something like that,” Bebson groused, even though he hadn’t been a recipient of the spell.

“Think nothing of it,” Feriona said, waving aside the complaint as if it were needless steam. “I prefer to clean up after myself, so I undid the damage I caused. Call it force of habit.”

“Thank you,” R’shai said reluctantly, then cast a loaded glance at Bebson before directing her full attention back to Feriona. “How much of our conversation did you overhear?”

“A fair amount of it?” Feriona said. “I noticed when you drove into the encampment, but I’ve only been listening for some time before Two-seventy-four woke up. I’ll admit that much of it was a tad too cryptic for a woman my age, so you’ll have to help me there.” She flashed a charming smile that no one else on the table reflected. “But before we get into any of that, I’d like for the children to leave, so I can have a conversation with the adults.”

Everyone except R’shai looked at the [Hag] with varying degrees of incomprehension.

“The hired help,” Feriona clarified, looking at R’shai, though it seemed to Aleem like she’d spoken for the benefit of everyone else. “Ask them to leave.”

“Beb, Hetti, Serend,” Rshai said, holding the [Hag]’s gaze, “give us some privacy.”

“Seriously?” Besson objected. “The kid gets to stay?” He looked to Wulry for some vindicating input.

“We won't be long,” Wulry said without inflection.

Beb began to say something else but another loaded look from R’shai quieted him. Ridiculous. The man’s scale of terror needed some serious recalibrating. Serend was the first to leave the table, and Hetti despite the disapproving frown on her face followed silently, Beb trailing behind her. They walked on past the wagon and continued down into the camp.

“Don’t go too far,” Wulry called to their retreating backs.

“Why did you want them gone?” Aleem asked Feriona.

“To make some important enquiries of these two,” she said, levelling a piercing gaze at Wulry and R’shai.

Wulry folded his hands across his chest. “You do realise that we’re still going to share the details of whatever you tell us with them, right?”

“Not if I can help it,” Feriona said, her smile widening. “I intend to edit your memories if you give me the wrong answers. And oh, don’t look so uncertain, dear girl. I know about your Class. Phrenes are one of my specialties as well, see. I’m far more skilled at erasing things than you might have assumed.”

All three of them visibly tensed up. Aleem’s mind raced. In the game, Feriona did in fact have a Phrene specialty, but it was almost entirely a self-directed one. Memory editing was not something he recalled her ever doing. But that said little about whether or not she was bluffing. All her Skills and abilities had never been put on display, she’d been an NPC after all.

“So, tell me, Cosk, R’shai,” she leaned forward over the table. “Has my little kinsman over here mentioned anything about a Divine Grade Geas to you?”

That got Aleem’s attention. The godling, Luctari, had confirmed to Aleem that his Geas was directly tied to the Seeded Directives.

Wulry and R’shai shared a look.

“No,” R’shai said, appearing a tad puzzled. “He hasn’t.”

“Good answer,” Feriona said, nodding. “Next question, does the term ’Seeded’ mean anything to you?”

A chill ran down Aleem’s spine. Seeded Directives?

“No,” R’shai said, while Wulry shook his head.

“Excellent, excellent. You get to keep your memories. You can go now.”

“Sorry?” R’shai asked, and it was the first time Aleem had heard her sound so flabbergasted.

“I want to have a word with Two-seventy-four in private,” Feriona said.

“You’re not even … going to ask for an adjunct slot on our Quest?” Wulry asked.

“Boy, I have more Titles than all your Skill levels combined.”

Well, that was news to Aleem. “Is that actually true?”

Feriona snorted ever so softly. “Of course not.” She shifted a cool gaze to Wulry and R’shai. “But I don’t care for your suicide mission. It’s foolhardiness and you’ll all certainly die, the details are irrelevant. I’ll neither support you nor deter you. Now,” she made a shooing motion with her hand, “give us some privacy.”

Wulry and R’shai left them.

“I didn’t take you for the theatrical type,” Aleem told her with a slight frown. “My relationship with them is precarious as is, and you’ve set that back by a lot.”

Feriona watched Aleem for several long seconds as the wind ruffling his errant hair strands. Because of how round the table was, they weren’t quite seating abreast each other, and so he could comfortably hold her gaze without straining his neck.

Aleem broke the silence and got right to the heart of things. “You know about the Geas and Seeded Directives.” It wasn’t a question.

Feriona nodded. “I received a private quest late last night. I’d barely arrived at the Nejj encampment through the Wergris pass, and had to ride all night just to get here.”

A screen appeared in front of Aleem and he flinched away from it, taken by surprise. “Wait, I didn’t agree to anything,” he hurriedly said.

“Don’t be silly, child, this is the equivalent of force-feeding a baby. It doesn’t matter what you agree to.”

ALERT

You have acquired the temporary boon [Quest Adjunct]

You have earned the Title: Forsworn

The next screen was not nearly as informative as Wulry and R’shai’s had been.

LO!

??? has issued a private Quest

???

Facilitate [Wherewithal]

Rewards upon completion:

[NONE]

“There’s barely anything on here,” he muttered to himself. In all honesty, it felt less like someone out there was looking out for him, and more like he was being steered, being manipulated and fucked with.

He dismissed his schema. Unexpected as it all was, he was getting answers, and perhaps there would be something in the Seeded Directives that could help him with his Quest.

“Your mother was a very irresponsible girl,” Feriona mused. “But I owed her a favour. I was one among three others that assisted her in securing divine help when you and your siblings were born.”

None of this was game lore. Siblings. Ties to Azi-anre. Akniyano’s background had not been explored in ‘Tales of Woe’, and Aleem was starting to wonder whether it had simply just never been covered in-game, or if there were changes further back in the timeline than he’d supposed. The implications of the latter were too worrying, so he postponed contemplating them to a later time. “Which Tutelar placed the Geas?” Aleem asked.

“That’s not important,” she said. “What’s important is that you’ve been given a onetime-use Skill, and such things are quite uncomplicated. Ah, perfect. You at least have the [Meditation] Skill, that should make this so much easier.”

There was still one other thing Aleem had not been able to wrap his mind around. “What does a divine Geas have to do with Tanton?”

Feriona looked at him with condescending pity. “When the Order of Vrior-Proven found out what your mother had done, they appended a tailpiece to the divine Geas, preventing you from speaking or acting against them in earnest.”

That was actually quite bad, but fixable. Piggy-Backing off of a powerful Geas was very careful and masterful work. It was also relatively easy to undo. For the meanwhile, Aleem put that out of his mind.

“Show me how to use the Skill, Feriona.”