“On your knees.” Veros orders, pushing Lias down by the shoulders and forcing him to his knees, where he bends forward and places his chest against the block, his hand hanging off the opposite edge.
The other five Mistwalkers watch with bated breath as the clergyman soon receives the punishment he asked for. While he awaits the next step, he closes his eyes momentarily for a last chance of reflection on his actions, and to savor the relief he feels that his cursed existence will finally end. Veros unsheathes his sword and turns it over, standing the weapon on its tapered point and clasping the hilt with both hands to begin giving the monk his last rites.
“Lias Normand, you've been sentenced to death for your confessed crimes of ritualistic murder, torture, manipulating others to commit murder, and being an accessory to a conspiracy to overthrow the clergy.” Veros's judgmental speech condemns the disgraced monk. “Do you have any last words before the sentence is carried out?”
“I do...” Lias answers. “I assume you all will... continue north?”
“We will. Why?”
“The papers next to my cot... I've spent much of my free time writing down my story, my thoughts... as the lonely months passed. Please... collect them and place them next to my body... for others to find later. I want people to know of how the mist came about, and that in my final days, I became regretful of my actions...”
The veteran sighs softly. “Very well. We can do that. Anything else?”
“I...” Lias lifts his head slightly to look at the Mistwalkers who are silently bearing witness to his execution. “I'm truly sorry... about everything. I know my apology comes far too late... and is far too little... but please believe me when I say it. I had no idea things would turn out this way.”
The onlookers don't respond, unsure of whether they should offer their forgiveness, or even if it's in their right to do so. All they can offer at the moment is the quiet guarantee that his final words have fallen upon living ears. Content with this, Lias lowers his head again.
“Please... Go on.” The decomposing clergyman utters.
Veros takes a sturdy stance, lifts his sword, and lines up the blade with the back of Lias's neck to get his aim straight. The veteran brings his blade overhead, takes a deep breath, and swings it down in a vertical chopping arc with great force, slicing through the monk's rotting flesh in one fluid motion. Lias's head hits the ground with a thump, and his body lies motionless against the chopping block.
A contemplative and deeply melancholic silence washes over the six Mistwalkers as they stand still, leering at the headless corpse with mixed emotions. Meeting Lias, hearing his story, immediately executing him – it all happened extremely quickly and with little ceremony, and they don't know how to feel. His crimes were too severe to feel sorry for him, but he was also too pitiful in his last moments for his death to be celebrated. He followed insane men on a journey to realize their demented ambitions, and paid the price for it, first with his own sanity, then with his body, and finally with his life.
Even beyond that, the group have been given an incredible amount of new information regarding the mist that they had no clue about mere hours ago, and they don't know what to make of it, or even where to begin doing so. What exactly is the relic? What happened to Grand Monk Selick? Advisor Zellen Hayne? Where was Archduke Westshire during all of this? They can't help but feel that despite so much new intelligence, they'll be leaving Adderland with as many questions as they entered with – possibly more, in fact.
“I'll grab those papers.” Atticus is the first to break the bleak silence, remembering to fulfill Lias's last wish. He walks away to retrieve the monk's writings. The others, however, still drown in the somber silence as they quietly collect their horses and prepare to leave the village soon.
The knight enters Lias's home, and instead of directly approaching the collection of paper on the stool near the cot, he decides to take the opportunity to give a quick look around. The only other place of note is the single bedroom that's partially hidden behind a curtain. He walks up to the doorway and pushes the cloth aside to peer into the room. He finds a mess – various religious items, statues, and cloths scattered around the room, likely previously owned by Adderland villagers before Lias killed them. It seems as though Lias constructed some sort of shrine for worship early on, but after he lost hope, he thrashed the room in frustration. A subtle glint of reflected light on the floor catches Atticus's attention. He approaches the source, and finds a medallion, similar to the ones that were found on the two monks the group discovered outside of Levinburg. He kneels down to pick it up, and takes it with him back to the previous room.
Back outside, after Atticus collects the papers into one neat stack, he walks over to Lias's body, which is still resting against the chopping block, and sets the stack nearby. He grabs a few sizable stones to weigh the papers down, along with the medallion he picked up a minute prior.
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“Are you finished?” Veros asks, standing next to his horse and obviously eager to finally leave.
Atticus nods. “I am.”
“Let's continue, then.” The veteran brusquely commands while mounting his horse again. “We've wasted more than enough daylight here. We still need to stop by the stream up north to refill our water pouches and allow the horses to drink.”
Everyone else quietly mounts their horses, knowing that there is almost certainly no more undead to be wary of in the village. They opt to leave Adderland as quickly as possible, leaving Lias's body in the execution position, his head some inches away, and his extensive journal nearby.
After several miles of silent riding, shrouded in the pensive silence that persisted from Lias's execution, the aforementioned clear water stream comes into sight, along with a slightly arcing wooden bridge offering safe passage over it. Before they deviate from the road to approach the water, they make sure to give one last examination of the grey curtain surrounding them. There hasn't been any sighting of undead since departing Adderland, and after deeming the area safe, they begin to dismount and guide their horses to the water.
Veros dips his bare hand into the stream, cups it, and brings it back up to give a closer look at the water. Thankfully, it seems as clean as it likely always has been, even before the mist. They all begin to dip their water pouches into the stream to collect some water for themselves, too.
“I don't know if I can wait until we reach Surling to finally drink this water.” Royd finally speaks up, gazing at his pouch with clear longing. He licks his dry lips in anticipation.
“It may be clear water, but it could still contain something that might make you sick.” Veros suggests his companion stays patient. “I don't think you'd want a stomach bug on top of your shoulder injury.”
Royd sighs in defeat. “Fair point.” He laments as he seals his now-full water pouch.
“So...” Kellar interjects. “Are we goin' to talk about all that shit Lias told us?” He looks around at group, somewhat annoyed at their silence about the topic.
“I don't think there's much to discuss.” Veros responds, reaching into one of his saddlebags and pulling out the two medallions he took from the bodies of the undead monks. “He didn't really give us any kind of information that would change the approach of our mission – just that Selick and Hayne were lunatics, along with the other monks we found.” He stares at the medallions, reconsidering returning them to the monastery like he originally planned. He holds them out to Kellar. “Do you still want these? To sell?”
The rogue shakes his head. “Hell no. That garbage might as well be covered in all kinds of curses as far as I'm concerned now. If I touch 'em, I might go insane, myself.”
Veros retracts his arm and stares at them again. He doesn't feel the need to do any sort of good deed in the memory of traitorous monks who abandoned the clergy to seek power from an unknown, ungodly source. Fed up with them, he cocks his arm back and throws them downstream, where they hit the water with a faint, distant splash.
“I still can't believe the villagers in the area were so quick to just... sacrifice each other.” Kellar continues. “Things must've escalated so damn quickly in these northern settlements, after the mist swept across the land in the blink of an eye.”
“The mist showed up and suddenly the dead begin to come alive with ferocious intent.” The veteran responds. “How can such a thing be explained to the common man? It'd be enough to drive most normal people to desperation.”
“Does this all mean,” Zyra talks for the first time since Lias's lengthy confession while staring into the transparent water, “that the first undead who showed up after the mist's appearance were likely sacrificed by other frightened villagers? Or even the monks themselves?”
“It's likely.” Atticus answers. “Lias said he was unsure of how to perform Aldrua properly, so he just killed people. It's reasonable to assume the other monks didn't know, either.”
“So the charred undead we saw at Legarthat were caused by monks who did know how to do it?” Zyra asks.
The knight nods. “Seems so.”
“Wait a second.” Kellar chimes in. “Lena said that there were Aldrua victims in Terrance when she first arrived there, and they reanimated and attacked her and her party. But the unresponsive bodies in Adderland didn't, even though they were burned too – just not in a proper Aldrua manner.”
“So you're suggesting that bodies that are burned outside of Aldrua don't come back?” Zyra responds.
The ex-mercenary shrugs. “Well, it seems that way, doesn't it?”
“That's odd.” The mage comments. “If that's true, then it's good we have two people here capable of pyromancy. But you'd think it would be the other way around. People burned in Aldrua would have successfully been sacrificed to Zerruth, wouldn't they? Isn't that the whole idea of the ritual?”
“I don't know if we'll ever find out answers about things that concern the Gods.” Veros interjects. “It's odd, as you say, but this probably isn't something we'd get a definitive answer for.”
“Unless we reach Armasstadt.” Kellar responds. “If Selick or Hayne are somehow still there, controlling that relic, maybe we can ask them directly.”
“We have to get there first.” The team leader remarks. “In two days, we might know – as long as nothing goes wrong.” He suddenly lets out a sigh. “You know, up until now, I wasn't sure of what caused the mist to come into being. But now that I know, I almost wish it was a cause that wasn't so... selfish and avoidable. So... human.”
“I understand how you feel.” Atticus agrees. “I think everyone in Yhordran expected the mist to be the result of some catastrophe beyond our comprehension or control. Yet it turned out to be the result of... zealous meddling.” He shakes his head judgementally as he finishes his sentence. “But is there any 'right' way to bring about a plague that kills so many?”
“I suppose not.” Veros looks down at the water once more, eyeing his reflection, quietly surprised at himself for being somewhat disappointed in such a thing.
After several minutes of continued quiet deliberation on Lias's claims and allowing the horses to drink clear water from the stream, the six Mistwalkers mount once again and proceed to Surling.