Chapter 88: Searching For Sins

Subject: Inis Location: Otemrest Borderlands - Atumen Village

Absentmindedly sliding her finger along the polished wood finish of her chair's armrest, Inis occupied her mind reading through the dozens of notes she had painstakingly transcribed.

Mertalo had been acting strangely ever since they'd encountered the bandits. Well, she didn't remember the actual encounter with the bandits, but she'd known they were prowling around. Maybe it'd been a close call, maybe a nearby enforcer patrol had scared them off.

I did inject myself with the second ARC concoction, though. I know I did. I have the lingering scars to prove it. I also feel more... honed.

The scar on the injection site was barely noticeable. It would heal in another day. It was the skin on her upper thigh that was covered in deep scratches and gouges, where her nails had dug into flesh in an attempt to escape the agony.

None of her possessions were missing, and neither of them seemed any worse for wear, save for his oddly distant behavior, so she didn't think any kind of tragedy had befallen them.

I'll have to observe him for a while. Maybe I'll learn why, or maybe he'll tell me himself.

She had already asked him, but he said he didn't know anything. Maybe they'd knocked him out, or maybe he'd promised whomever saved them to stay silent about it.

Fragma... is this your doing? I should have known.

That was it, wasn't it? The Hexknight didn't want her new "friend" to die so soon after "parting company", so she'd followed and protected them.

For now, these stolen records were more important than unraveling a mystery she'd probably just solved anyway.

The papers were arranged by source, fixed together with crude and impermanent metal clip bindings. It was the best she could do in such a short time. In the next city, there would be a more lasting solution.

The wealth of information at her fingertips was tantalizing. The touch of the pages, shimmering with glowing ink. In a word, it was euphoric.

Suddenly, Inis realized that her mind was fading away. Her exhaustion weighed heavily. In a muffled panic, she remembered how close she come lately to virastarvation sickness. To someone who'd rather face high pains than rely on another, a virastarvation coma was horrifying because it meant she'd need another to bring her out of it.

It was likely not as dangerous as it seemed, but it motivated her enough to slump over toward her small pile of yellow Stamina Shards. Inis crushed one just in time to keep her awake. She couldn't risk using up the remaining potions recieved from Fragma's underling. She'd be out of these soon, but they didn't help much anyway. One small comfort was the realization that her tolerance for draining work was increasing.

If she were to make a vague estimation of her ability to cast spells from her old repertoire and sustain basic virasenses, it was safe to say she'd extended her capacity threefold. That was no small feat. If she augmented her capabilities with potions and shards, she could last even longer. However, It wasn't good to rely on those.

Reading through the pages in her lap, there was some information here that she'd attempted to skip over in whole. This included the Guild’s deeds, and tables accounting finances. Some had been accidentally transcribed in part or in whole. It is no matter. She shuffled them aside. She wouldn't throw them away, but she couldn't see them being all that useful to her either.

A lot of this is redundant.

But there were startling accounts buried within the mounds of information.

The Guild has been suppressing news. The Blight's progression is much more pronounced and widespread than previously believed. They reason it's to prevent a panic.

"...by stepping up training efforts. Six additional programs have been established. Four for Guild personnel and two for our contractors among the official seekers. New restrictions are in place for noncombatant seekers. Harvesters, and even Porters, are now expected to pass stricter tests of combat rigor before being allowed to enter... or equivalently classified festerfonts. The matter of enforcing these restrictions remains yet unsolved."

All in line with the Guild's mission, but the reports read like they were leaving out critical information. Information the consumers of the reports were expected to know, but Inis was left in the dark.

"Payouts have been increased for suppression efforts, but it is my belief that this will attract Grays and other unsavory elements, encouraging them to game the system, endangering the public and weakening the Guild in the process. We have seen increasing casualty numbers, starting the month following this policy change."

This took some thought, but Inis could understand the perspective of this employee. If becoming a seeker was too lucrative, it would attract more seeker applicants who were motivated by the coin, likely at the expense of any care for collateral damage.

Then, what was the best way to attract the right kind of seeker? Mandatory service after a rigorous physical and psychological examination? For someone as freedom loving as her, that was an abhorrent thought. Most of these people were just meat to throw at the unending hordes of blightbeasts.

Festerfonts were being culled, yes, but it was also the sapient population of the known world that found themselves culled in rising up to meeting the threat they posed.

"Log of Sentinel Shifts

Shift 2: 'The order has come down from the council, we will begin assessing which festerfonts to cleanse, and which to preserve.'

Shift 1: 'What are they thinking?! Those blightsources keep us afloat!'

Shift 2: 'We aren't exactly hurting for resources. Didn't you just get your second apartment refurnished?'

Shift 1: 'It's more about the principle. This won't fly once they realize how much this takes out of our pockets.'

Shift 2: 'I'm more worried about the people who will die in the cleanse. Festerfonts bite back.'

Shift 1: 'Cry me a river so I can drown everyone who tries to separate me from my livelihood.'

End of Log"

"What are this vermin discussing so casually?!" Inis accidentally yelled, kicking the wall in front of her.

Mertalo came running, opening the door to the room they'd rented in the broken down inn. He inquired after her safety.

"I'm fine. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to disturb you."

"It's alright. That's the most emotional I've seen you get lately. I'm only curious what made you this way."

His was currently the curiosity of a child watching a parent for insight into how the child should feel about an unfamiliar encounter, whether to fear a potential threat or treat it as nothing unusual. Normally, the gaze might also harbor an appetite for foreign, conceptual treasures, but that was gone as of late. Why was this elder looking at her like this?

"You know worse things about me, so--"

"You told me not to, so I haven't-- Oh, about your strange 'experiment'. I won't share your secrets."

"Yes, what did you think I meant?" Inis asked, but he just shook his head, wearily. "Anyway, these reports from the Guild have revealed some unsettling things. Scum who care more about making money than fighting the Blight."

"Isn't it their job? Seems pretty normal to me that they get paid."

"No-- Well, yes, but it's not a job for people who want to make money. Or, it shouldn't be."

He nodded and smiled slightly. It wasn't a cheerful smile, more of a transactional gesture. Where was the Mertalo she'd met, waking up in her mechanized wagon dazed and missing days worth of memories? Gone. Would he return once they'd safely joined up with that convoy that was sure to come eventually? Hopefully.

"That seems like quite the pretty thought, but the way I see it, a job is a job," he explained, illuminating her naivety in harsh daylight. "They're all different, but it all comes down to needing money to live. Most people can't survive on their own out in the wilderness, so we trade freedom for safety."

He cautiously watched for her reaction.

She couldn't imagine most being able to survive like she did. If it wasn't the execute first, justify later enforcer patrols, it would be the wilderness beasts or the bandits. She hunted rare wilderbeasts, skinning them for rare materials to process and use or to sell, all to sustain her activities.

The only good thing about living like she did was that it gradually honed her potential, turning her into a receptacle for advanced magics and into a capable survivor.

"I swear it's worse than that. These people are lying to the public about how dangerous the Blight is!"

"Do you know they're doing it to harm others?"

"Well, no, but-- Wait here, I'll keep reading and you'll see that I'm right."

He waited. Multiple times, Inis picked out excerpts from the transcribed archives, and just as many times, her confidant Mertalo shot them down.

To be precise, he wasn't disregarding them as fiction. She strangely had no trouble convincing him that they were "borrowed" from the Guild firsthand. Rather, instead, he would come up with some excuse for why the excerpt was harmless, natural, or misconstrued out of context.

She would try again.