Casting this particular spell was something different. Kiresula realised immediately that it was unable to be modulated and it immediately sapped her magic and her strength. She fell into bed and just as she did, she noticed a cherry-sized fruit appear in her hand. Taking the effort to look over, she saw that in the hands of the other person was a fruit the size of an apple but with the appearance of a blueberry. She weakly held the fruit up: “I got it.”
The other person nodded: “When you can, hand your fruit over to me.” It took a few minutes for her to feel better and have the mental and physical energy to commit to the few steps over and to hand the bandaged person her forbidden fruit.
She took that person’s forbidden fruit in return and returned to the bed. As soon as she did, she looked over. She saw this person look shocked. “Wow, that is actually the forbidden fruit spell‽ I didn’t believe you, but wow! At levels under 10, this is suicidal! You can be glad that the dungeon let you out when it did.”
Kiresula nodded: “So am I. Do I want to know what comes afterwards?”
The person shook her head only to make a pained noise doing so: “You very much don’t. Just stay away from this place, glitchling. I can barely sleep unless I use this ability and exhaust myself that way.”
Kiresula rephrased: “Do you want to talk about it?”
The person rejected that offer: “I do not want to. Running this dungeon was the worst decision our group ever made. I just want to forget… Everyone goes into the forbidden dungeon looking for different things, but few can find them. And if they do, it is often not worth it.”
Kiresula could only agree: “So true! I stumbled into it looking for a place to replenish my magic…”
The person laughed sadly: “That’s insane. Can’t you just… oh, no, you are a glitchling. So you shouldn’t even have magic…”
Kiresula nods: “The Holy Order doesn’t know a lot about us. But I think we are both exhausted enough to fall asleep.”
The person nodded and rolled to the side and Kiresula fell asleep quickly, only when waking up, she realised that she had never disclosed being a glitchling.
The next morning, a nurse woke up the patients with fresh gruel and some gossip. The person seemed far more happy than this time of day would normally warrant. After they had food, there was nothing to do but to recuperate. Kiresula tried to do Serenity despite the insanely low amounts of synthic magic in the air in order not to have to think about her failures.
At about noon (and after she recovered 5 Seren), another group of clerics arrived and instructed Mayana and the rest of the group to follow. Kju looked tired and miserable, but got up and slowly moved with the group. Kiresula got up somewhat easier but Mayana looked as if she had never been injured at all. As Mayana rushed over to help her, Mayana put the forbidden fruit into her hand. She tried to be stealthy but mostly succeeded in being fast.
Mayana raised an eyebrow as she took it and hid it in her garment, however Kiresula remained silent.
As they were leaving the place, Kiresula realised something: This place was teeming with members of the Holy Order. But not only them. Many groups seemed to be led by the Holy Order members against their will. One young kid even ran away, only to be tackled to the ground by a [Holy guard]. Kiresula asked what this was about. Kiresula felt that this behaviour was totally unwarranted, however the people leading them laughed about this. To them, the attempt of that young tyke of less than 13 years was apparently hilarious. Kiresula already had a bad impression of these folks but that just got way worse. She frowned at the people and murmured unhappily.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Eventually, they arrived at another room. The room looked like a courtroom, but only members of the holy order were present. Kiresula shivered. She didn't expect mercy in this place. Or justice. Or truth.
The person sitting in the position of the judge who was wearing the robes of a cleric spoke: “Kiresula-tsei-Haditera. Mayana-tsei-Nahmaya. Kerimni-tsei-Hayat. The Holy Order requires you to provide information. Each of you is to be interrogated by a team. According to the secular rules, interrogations cannot take more than 12 hours. But that doesn’t mean that several interrogations cannot take place close to each other. So better plan on providing us with information or plan on staying in there for a long time. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir,” the group responded.
Kiresula was taken away by three [Holy Guard]s away from the rest of the group. She shouted: “Take care, I love you!” while looking at Mayana, whose face turned a bad combination of love and frustration. Only then she realised that this was probably the worst thing to do. She had just given the [Holy Guard]s leverage. She would need more than her 13 points of cunning to ever navigate tense social settings well.
Kiresula was brought into a nearby windowless room. There was a stool for her to sit and there also was a padded bench for the interrogators. Between them was a wooden table. Kiresula sat down and looked at them.
The [Cleric] looked at her with something akin to compassion: “Let’s start. You can call me [Cleric] Haina. Tell me your name, please.”
She responded: “I am Kiresula, [Cleric] Haina.”
He responded: “Your full name?”
She responded: “Kiresula-tsei-Haditera.”
He nodded, slowly, deliberately: “I would like to talk to you about Kedsel. Do you know her?”
She calmed down somewhat: “Yes, I know Kedsel. She’s a [Holy Guard], or was, I guess. Part of Makit’s group. I met her brother Xekuan near Jetahkalesa.”
He smiled: “Yes, indeed. Do you like her? Is she a nice person?”
She confirmed that she did: “Yeah, quite the free spirit, surprising for the Holy Order.”
He nodded: “But, let’s tell me, do you have a grudge against her? Or would you know anyone who would want to harm her?”
Kiresula looked at him, tilted her head and paused before continuing: “I don’t really would know anyone. Except for the members of the Holy Order that dragged her back to the dungeon, they seemed mightily fierce. That was shortly before she disappeared. But then, their hostility seemed to relate more to the core of the dungeon than to her.”
He raised an eyebrow: “What does the Forbidden Dungeon have to do with this?”
“Oh, gosh, no! Not the Forbidden Dungeon but the Dungeon of the Bridge.” Looking at the questioning facial expression, she explained: “The Dungeon of the Bridge is a famous dungeon in Memleket. Far less dangerous than the Forbidden Dungeon. It was far more cooperative, but it was somewhat overrun with broken magic. That was also why I was glitched,” she explained.
“Maybe, maybe you should tell us what happened in it with Kedsel and Makit?” he said.
Kiresula once again explained the dungeon delve, the meeting with the core, the fight against the boss, as well as the talk with Tamijet regarding Ikandijenja, though she tried not to use her name and then seeing Kedsel being brought back into the dungeon.
Haina asked many questions, as if to catch her in a lie. She had no sense of time and too little magic to cast [Grains of Time] liberally. Sometimes, she had to clarify things again and again. Over time, the friendly demeanour turned icy and frustrated.
Eventually, she used one grain of time and realised that dusk was happening. She looked at the [cleric] and asked: “Can we, like, take a water break? The sun is setting already.”
[Cleric] Haina looked at her, then at his mechanical pocket watch, then back. “You must have misjudged the situation. It isn’t.”
Kiresula looked at him in anger. Having her own perception questioned always enraged her, but when such a blatant thing happened, she couldn’t keep calm: “Then, you are willing to bet on it and then go to a window to check, wouldn’t you be? I trust my own sense of time more than I trust your watch. As my own sense of timing doesn’t have a mainspr
ing that might break.”
“How could you say something like that? It’s not like you have magic to peek outside.” The [cleric] said.
Kiresula responded: “I can say this because all that the Holy Order knows is wrong.”