* Fact: Imani would be dead if Liam hadn’t stumbled onto her.
* Fact: Her death would’ve entangled her fate into the creepy collector’s.
* Fact: The Goddess of Fate could not have known Liam was coming to Torum.
* Fact: According to Maridah, Liam’s very presence could perturb fates greatly.
* Conclusion: Thalgrim was trying to find him.
Liam felt like he’d been hit over the head as a sense of anxiety took hold. Thalgrim’s power wasn’t direct; if another deity came down to stand in her way, she was better off avoiding them. The threat she posed was that she could see such a move coming a thousand miles away and prepare accordingly.
There were exceptions to that power of foresight, with the aether-meteor being one big spanner in the works, but currently, Liam had to guess that he’d just tripped an alarm. The Goddess of fate had been making preparations… because, of course, she had. Everything had to be a plan, everything had to have a purpose, every detail, every-
“Do you know me?” Imani’s question startled Liam, he took half a step back, realizing he’d been staring. She stepped closer, frowning slightly as she took a deep breath. “I’d certainly remember meeting something like you.”
“Something? No, no, wrong question.” He quickly waved off. “You just reminded me of someone. I’m Liam, I just had a very long few weeks surviving a very shitty jungle.”
“Rude.” Bunny commented telepathically from within his shirt.
“Anyway, I wish I could’ve gotten here sooner. Sorry for… well…” He glanced over at the room full of corpses. Each and every one of them had died from eating rocks… not exactly the best way to go. Just being here was making him queasy.
“They were avenged, they will rest peacefully.” Imani muttered with a solemn tone, a dark gaze passing over her as she stared around the room before her expression became slightly distant. “The man, he had a pendant-”
“We need to be extremely careful, the cursed platter might activate again. And we can’t know for sure if there aren’t other dangerous items here.” He hastily bluffed, steering her focus away from the red glow and its ever-consuming corruptive power.
That set the mercenary’s expression into something softer. She nodded and began to move carefully to extract the bodies from the abode. Her eyes would keep flickering towards Liam, though, not that he’d blame her. Trying to figure out what the next move ought to be was stressful enough, doing so while a trained mercenary teetered at the edge of potentially becoming lethally obsessive about jewelry was not making it any easier.
Thalgrim had to have become aware he was here.
What would she do? What could she do?
The internal musings came to a halt when he felt Bunny poking his ribs.
“Boss is asking if you need aid.” Her voice spoke out telepathically.
Liam considered the offer, then sent a mild refusal. He wasn’t in any danger right now, he could handle things. “Can I help with your companions?” He offered the sullen mercenary.
“No, you did not know them, it would be disrespectful.” She replied with a shake of her head, draping several of the bodies over her feline torso as an easier way to carry them outside. “Do you know what might be dangerous here?”
“I can sense a few things, I’ll gather everything I can find of value, and we can decide what to do with it afterward.” He answered, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder. “The villagers told me the man here lived alone, no family. I’d approached because I heard he had a collection of special items and was interested to find if he was open to trade.”
The man had been half-blind, and his obsession with the cursed pendant had been the catalyst that would’ve eventually led him to use everything he owned to kill everyone in the village. Liam’s original plan had been to assess whether the guy could be saved at all, and if he couldn’t, then to allow the pendant to consume him until only a husk remained.
This fate wasn’t much kinder, but he wasn’t about to feel bad about it. As far as Liam was concerned, this was not too different from a zombie bite. Either you could be saved in time, or you were better off put down before you could spread it.
“He will pay in death what he owed in life,” Imani nodded solemnly, giving him another once over before setting out to gather the dead.
They set off to work. Liam started off by emptying the bronze platter of rocks and taking it outside, marveling at the intricately etched runes and wave-like patterns before putting it upside down. While Imani pulled the bodies out, he kept his activities in and around the common room. There weren’t many things of value or note there, but it made it easier for him to look like he was still working once she began preparing the bodies for cremation.
It was only when she was fully occupied outside that he slinked into one of the further rooms, pulling Bunny out of his shirt. “Where’s the pendant?”
“I ate it,” she answered in a low whisper, voice full of smugness as she puffed up with pride.
He frowned a little. “You should get checked later, I don't know how that thing might interact with you.”
His gaze shifted to the objects he was working his way through. The room was an alcove, with boxes and stacks of strange items that had a massive range of variability. From ordinary-looking mud vases all the way to tiny intricate contraptions of gold machinery that seemed to serve no purpose other than looking pretty. It was a collection of the odd and strange, with the vast majority of it being nothing more than mundane and worthless to most merchants.
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Liam worked from memory, comparing the items he found with the things he’d written for the horror story meant to unfold in this tiny village. Tiny little off-hand comments, little details and notes, things that he half-remembered from nearly five years ago. There was a sense to each of the tiny things, as if each item carried a weight to it, one that made him carefully set aside anything that set alarms off.
“What’s the plan?” Bunny asked hastily.
“Imani was one of the side-note characters, her fate wasn’t anything particularly grand, but she became marginally important during the war. By the looks of it, the Weaver is making small sacrifices for the sake of tracking my movements,” he grumbled, not entirely certain what that might lead to. “So she knows I’m here, and I’m putting good bets she’ll know about the relic if Imani’s allowed anywhere near it.”
Bunny stared at him for a moment, ears twitching. “Boss asks what fate this mercenary had.”
“Boilerplate star-merc. Great combat skills, good tactical mind, that sort of thing. I know more about her tribe than I do about her, leonid was meant to become a merc with a name, but not one for the history books,” he waved off, glancing over to the door towards the entrance. The sounds outside were of heavy things being moved around.
The ear-twitching intensified. “She’s asking if you know her allegiances, and if she can be swayed.”
Where was this coming from? Liam frowned a little, glancing over towards the entrance again while rummaging in his mind for whatever factoids about Imani he could draw up. “This is mostly deduction, but if she were loyal to a cause, then she would be with her tribe and not here.” His brows furrowed. “The problem is that she’s infected with the red-glow. The previous guy became so paranoid over the possibility of losing the pendant that he started killing people.”
“Any solution?”
"Erase the memory of seeing it, and preferably every subsequent memory involving thoughts of the red-glow." It was what made healing such a thing hard. The worst part was that trying to fight against the hazard itself was like trying to not think about pink elephants. Every thought about the noetic hazard would make the next thought easier to slip in, and harder to pull out.
"Boss says you don’t need her help to do it."
Liam blanched at Bunny’s words.
Clearly, it wasn’t some expectation that he’d have some spell to pull off such a thing, which meant… He glanced at the forget-me-knife safely sheathed at his hip. So far, the only special use he’d found it to have (aside from the incredible sharpness) was that it would erase any memory related to the tool’s existence once triggered. If Liam were brutally honest, he would’ve claimed that he hadn’t exactly expected the enchanted item’s special ability to be of any particular use to him. At most, something to catch someone by surprise, or to slip it past some guards or somesuch (if such a thing was ever necessary in the first place).
Compared to the black-rope-circlet, the knife’s active functions were far more niche in scope.
He’d suspected there were hidden aspects; Maridah-made enchanted items were famously known to suddenly show new abilities hundreds of years down the road when used in some new way. Also, she enjoyed doing things under rules of three, the personal preference being also an empowering aspect of her abilities due to how it tied into her divine concept.
But that still left a hurdle ahead of him.
"Does she want to share how I could do that?" He asked through gritted teeth.
"She's more preoccupied with you figuring it out on your own than whatever might happen to the leonid," Bunny said with a shake of her head, hastily moving back into his shirt as the noises outside approached. Liam glared for a moment but didn’t throw further comments as Imani ducked under the threshold of the door to look inside. The leonid’s eyes coursed over the area for a moment before locking onto the door to the side-room.
"The preparations are ready, but we must wait until nightfall before the sendoff," she said as she approached, her feline ears twitching as they shifted the direction they were pointing in. "Do you need any help?" Her question was neutral, staring into the cluttered room.
"That pile is the dangerous one," he pointed at the items he’d set aside. "I only have a vague sense of what they might do, but I’m quite certain they are closer to cursed items than powerful tools. They should be destroyed before we leave."
Imani nodded at the explanation without question, taking a slight step away from it. "Anything else? Some of these things appear heavy, and you… are not strong."
“I’d appreciate the help, actually,” Liam replied with a wry smile, gesturing at the menagerie of random items dispersed around him. “With so many enchanted items lying around, there has to be aether stashed somewhere.” He pointed with his thumb towards another door further in. “I suspect it might be over there, mostly since I haven’t found the stash yet, and there’s nowhere else to look.”
As he spoke, his thoughts remained on the enchanted knife at his hip. The normal primary usage requirements were that either sunlight or firelight touch the blade; otherwise, it would not activate. There had to be some way this tied into what unlocked the secondary aspect, otherwise, why bother with that specific requirement for that primary power and not merely “can see the blade”?
Liam would’ve spent more time focused on trying to solve the particular puzzle, but Imani’s presence demanded he pay closer attention to the items in the room. Some of these things might still have enough of a load to remain active, and the last thing either of them needed was to get caught by a surprise cursed item.
What he found most surprising was how easily they both fell into a rhythm.
Despite her bulky feline quadrupedal lower body, Imani was incredibly deft and graceful in how she moved around him. Not once did she step or even brush up against anything; it was as if she were a whisper in the room, quietly and easily maneuvering herself and whatever she picked up.
Together, they’d properly split everything up between things that were mostly worthless, things that needed destroying, and things that might prove of value or use.
“You… are strangely accepting of my presence.” Liam finally broke the silence as they began pulling the valuable things to the pile outside.
“You saved my life,” she shrugged while nonchalantly dropping a box that had to weigh as much as he did. The leonid stared down at him with those intense golden eyes. “And you couldn’t hurt me even if you tried,” she added with a smile that was full of fangs, the statement stinging Liam’s pride a little. “And as a sell-blade, it’s not good to ask questions when you are getting paid.”
“But I’m not…” He stopped, then stared at the pile of items intended to be split. “Right, never mind.” His gaze traversed over to the three wagons that’d been left next to the house, alongside their horses. “Do you have any plans once you leave?”
“My contract was to get these to Doeta. I was already paid, so I will take these to Doeta,” she glanced at the wagons, and then at Liam. “I do not think I would be able to handle all three on my own.”
Bunny stirred within his shirt, Imani’s eyes instantly locked onto the movement, a glimmer of red appearing upon her eyes as they narrowed into slits. The leonid’s body tensed, hand instantly falling onto the pommel of her scimitar.
Liam took half a step back, his own hand on the pommel of his knife. “Don’t do this,” he spoke with a warning tone, mind spinning its wheels, looking for anything intense enough that might derail her thoughts.
She took another step, not making a single sound.
“I must have it,” Imani whispered under her breath, the specks of red within her eyes had turned into a slight glow deep within.
She pounced.