[POV - Solleny Rodder]
I knew there was something off about this guy the moment I saw him.
I’ve been a guard here at Noffan for about two years, and I was a bounty hunter for a few years before that… Nasty business that really jades you to how scum people can be.
But I’ve learnt a lot of skills over the years, and reading people’s one of em. That, and a nifty spell called [Sense Emotion]. Gives me a sense of what a person I’m looking at’s feeling, it’s really good in combat to know what they’re planning, and it’s a good way to sus out liars.
It was around a week ago I first saw this guy. Brown hair, blue eyes, expensive sword, shit armour and shittier attitude. A real shifty sort, he was, wouldn’t speak an honest word for the life of him. Said he was from the merchant nation, Lariatne, but he didn’t even know the name of the merchant prince who adventurers get permission from to work in different countries. Heh.
What did he call himself back then? Millar, no last name to my memory.
He waltzed into town with that lizard friend of his, rounded up a party, and went off on some adventure.
I remember a priest, a monk, the lizard, and Millar left. But only the priest returned.
I wasn’t on duty, but I heard that the monk betrayed the group and the lizard and Millar got killed by traps… but here Millar is, alone, injured and with a new name and look.
What the hell happened?
I didn’t even recognise him at first. He was hunched over carrying himself with a mage’s staff, his hair was ash white and one of his blue eyes turned green. He was wearing different clothes, his useless ‘armour’ nowhere to be seen. But I never forget a face.
And he still had the fancy sword he seemed so proud of… but unlike how he kept it so spotless it looked more like an ornament than a weapon, it was covered in grime and blood, and even the sheath was crooked. It was like he didn’t give a shit about the sword anymore, like it was just some junk he happened to have, not a weapon.
And ‘Armin Fischer’... why come up with a new name? Why did he talk so differently? Why didn’t he change his other blue eye? Why didn’t he cover his face? What was that staff he was using as a crutch? Why was he so injured?
They aren’t small injuries either.
What happened that was so intense that he had to change his entire identity?
And to make things worse, I couldn’t get a read on him with magic anymore. Did he find an item that blocked mentalism magic? His mannerism changed too much too, I didn’t have a baseline to sus him out anymore.
I didn’t like this. I always felt like this guy was some kind of scamming ‘Snake in the grass’, but that priest had a lot to answer to.
[POV - Armin Fischer]
“People out here call me Solly, nice to meet you, Fischer!” the tall woman introduced herself with a boisterous laugh. “I’m surprised you went out that way all alone. It’s pretty dangerous, you know?” she asked, and don’t I know it?
I messed up by telling her my actual name.
However, I didn’t know the last owner’s name, nor do I have any knowledge about him, period. It’d be impossible to pass myself off as someone I knew absolutely nothing about.
I had a story, and it was one pretty heavily set in the truth. I’m a doctor who was attacked by a necromancer and woke up in a derelict temple in someone else’s body.
However, It seemed unbelievable and was full of too many logic holes like:
Why would a necromancer put me in a random corpse in the middle of nowhere? That’s a lot of effort to go through for no reason.
How could I prove I wasn’t some kind of body-snatcher? I had anti-magic after all, so they couldn’t check using magic.
Well, it looked like I needed to add a few lies to make the ‘truth’ easier to believe.
Amnesia, a shadowy organisation, maybe a lich or a dragon… damn, I had to write myself a backstory here.
But first, I turned to regard Solly as we walked. “Yes, there’s a lot of danger, I experienced that firsthand… and I lost a friend. Is there anything the church or temple can do for them?”
I kept my words a little vague on purpose, partially in a fleeting hope that this was the kind of happy go lucky fantasy world where resurrection existed, and partially so I wouldn’t be questioned if I asked for ‘rites’ and they had a wildly different culture that’s common sense.
“A friend? That’s unfortunate.” Solly replied, her expression tough to read. “Who is it? Are they local to the area? And do you know where the body is?” she asked, her voice still a little loud, but subdued as she contemplated something.
I decided to be as truthful as I could for Milvarr. “A kobold named Milvarr… I don’t know if they're local. I buried her body outside the ruined temple we were trapped in.”
“A kobold, eh?” she asks, before turning to look at me, coming to a stop for a moment. “Wait, what temple? The one hidden underwater?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “How could you travel that far-” she muttered under her breath, before grunting and adjusting her spear as she turned to start walking again. “I don’t know where it is exactly, but I can talk to some people to bring her body back if it’s not in a dangerous location. I’m sorry for asking this so bluntly, but what killed her?”
It might have been flooded, but I don’t believe the temple I was in was this ‘underwater temple’, so she was thinking of some other place. I don’t know how I managed to, but I clearly heard her mutter ‘How could you travel that far-’. It implied that she had some kind of estimate in mind of my travels. She focused on how far the distance was, but far from where? Far from the village, maybe? She could have meant that I travelled far from the ‘underwater temple’, but that’s unlikely. For her to let that phrase slip, she had some knowledge beforehand, perhaps about the timeframe, and thought it was impossible.
If so, that means she knows more than she let on.
It was just conjecture, but I was fairly sure now that the last owner of my body came by through the village, and Solly recognised me as him. So she’s just been playing along with me so far like a sly fox instead of confronting me.
Knowing this, I had 2 options I could take now. I could either just continue telling her what happened with this charade going on, or I could confront her myself. That second option was dangerous because I didn’t know if she was tied to the priest and monk who betrayed us, but to be fair that doesn’t change even if I took the passive approach.
From what I knew about Solly, I could tell she was organised and the type who never showed her hand and read people till she was certain about any assumptions. With how she pretended to not know me when she thought I was acting like I didn’t recognise her, and how she didn’t even react to Milvarr being mentioned even though she likely met her as well, she seemed to be quite passive with her interrogation style. For a village guard, that skillset was a bit odd, but she might have experience in gathering information from people.
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This might be a stretch, but if she had magic, I was willing to bet she had something that could gather information from people. But if I was right about my anti-magic, that ideally wouldn’t work on me.
You know what? Screw it, confrontation is faster and if I play my cards right, then I could get her to accept that me lacking any common sense was perfectly normal and directly ask her about the world. I just had to play into the truth and mix in the right kinds of lies.
“ ‘How could you travel that far?’ ” I started by repeating what she said, making her glance at me again. I stared at her with regret, slowly shaking my head. “So, you know the last owner of this body?” I asked, letting out a sigh.
We’ll see how this goes.
[POV - Solleny Rodder]
“So, you know the last owner of this body?” the man asked in a gloomy voice, looking half dead inside as he stared at me. I swear I felt my skin crawl as those words set in.
This guy… with a different name, a different walk, a different talk… was he actually not Millar? I almost reached for my weapon, but stopped. I couldn’t just attack someone for saying something strange like that, I needed more information.
“Last owner?” I asked back, clenching my fist as I tried to keep calm. This might have been some kind of lie, or maybe he hit his head too, I couldn’t jump to conclusions just yet.
“Ah, sorry, that must have sounded confusing…” he replied, shaking his head. “I don’t fully understand it myself, either. My village was attacked by undead one night, the last thing I remembered seeing was this devil-like coin, then I woke up in this body… a young warrior who died in an arrow trap in a decrepit temple…”
I could hear tiredness seep out of the man’s voice as he spoke. I tried using more magic to probe at him, but it was completely pointless, it was like he was cloaked in an unfathomably deep anti-magic. This wasn’t normal, he shouldn’t even know that I’m using this spell, let alone absorb it so thoroughly. The amount of magic you’d need to do that… was inhuman.
And he was claiming some necromancer attacked him and moved his soul to a new body!?
He might have been telling the truth, but he was also dangerous.
“Is that so?” I asked, trying to fake being calm. I had to push back a bit to get more information, but I had to be careful not to push too hard. I didn’t want to fight someone strong enough to throw up such a potent anti-magic field so casually! “That’s hard to believe… a necromancer took your soul and put you in another body, then left it in a ‘decrepit temple’? Is there anything more you can tell me?”
“Strictly speaking, he didn’t choose to leave.” he replied, idly turning to look away, like he was staring off at a distant place that only he could see. His mouth curved down a bit like he was contemplating something, before slowly curving upwards, like he was remembering something fondly. Just what did he do to the necromancer? I never even heard of one being nearby, so he must have gotten rid of all of the death mage’s undead minions too…
“The temple has a nasty guardian. It’s a tall shadowy figure, a living shadow as dense as obsidian, wielding a long blade that drips shadows from it like blood. It made quick work of the necromancer, then disappeared down into the depths of the temple.” he said, describing… a Guardian of Faith.
I knew what this was. It finally made sense why he keeps mentioning a ‘temple’. There’s an old ruin hidden less than a day away. Any who enter die, but there have been some who could glimpse into the ruins with divination magic, and they confirmed a Guardian of Faith who patrolled the abandoned halls in intervals, mercilessly slaughtering any living creature that it found on its patrol.
But how did he know it was a temple? From what I know there are only guesses at it being a temple because of old texts that describe some of the ruins around the island.
There’s writing on the walls inside, but no one who investigated with divination can read it, and there’s no knowledge beyond the first twenty metres or so.
It would make sense that it could kill a necromancer without much issue, but this ‘Armin Fischer’ knew something… a lot more than he let on.
And he survived the Guardian of Faith… that’s not a light feat…
Just who was this entity before me? I shivered as I realised just how much danger I was in if I screwed up even a bit.
Looking at him, he didn’t look like too much of a threat, physically. But those immensely deep eyes that spoke of decades or centuries of experience, the terrifying deep mana he must have possessed, and the ability to hide it so perfectly… could this be some devil-lord playing around in a human body to amuse himself? Or maybe an ancient wizard? Or a lich!?
“I ventured deeper into the temple and found the kobalt Milvarrm, maddened and trapped in a cage. I helped free her.” Curing a madness effect was no small feat either. Thoroughly dispelling the magic altering one’s mind, especially that kobald who I knew was barely ‘stable’ to start with… that’s just insanity.
“Let’s say you’re telling the truth,” I started my questioning… I needed to be careful here. “How was this Milvarr inflicted with madness?”
“The air in the temple is filled with magic that muddles the mind, making you see things and act in extreme ways.” he calmly replied. “It’s quite a cruel place.” It did sound cruel. And maddening effects have shown up here and there in some ruins across the island, so it seemed to make sense. I couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t lying, but why would he?
“Why were Milvarr and… the last owner of your body trapped in the ‘temple’?” I asked, remembering the priest’s account. I wondered how true that was.
“From what she told me, the two of them were led there by a priest and a monk, and then betrayed by them. She told me that the monk attacked them, but she also distrusted the priest to no end as well. She first thought that I was the priest, using some necromantic magic to swap bodies…” he answered, looking down at the sword at his hip. “She thought that everything happened because the priest and the monk wanted this sword.”
I didn’t know much about that sword, but I could tell it was magical somehow. Maybe reinforced or enchanted, but I at least knew it was worth a pretty penny. However, priests and monks are the last people you’d think would care for monetary value… but some of em are corrupt scum.
I could see it happening. Evil is just a business model, after all.
“Hm… I’ll make sure to report all of this and thoroughly investigate it.” I replied. I wasn’t sure how much I trusted this entity, but the reports seemed to match what the priest said… but there were many questions they had to answer now. And one burning question I needed to know from this guy.
“How did Milvarr die?” I asked. Given how strong he was, it was hard to see her dying if he tried to protect her… but he was also quite banged up. What kind of danger was hiding so close to town that this monster would get injured and even lose a companion!?
“That… it was my fault.” he said, lowering his head with a regretful smile. I didn’t expect him to just admit that. My mind wandered trying to think about what it could have been. Did he kill her? Why? Or is he blaming himself for being unable to protect her?
“To leave the temple, there are four statues. You need to stand before the right one and recite a phrase… The true followers wish to retrieve his blessings from the sea.” he explained, looking down at his hands. “I didn’t realise it because of my situation, but I broke the puzzle by taking a key from one of the statues. The moment she recited the phrase, that shadow appeared again…” and he trailed off, as if he was reliving the moment.
“And… the Guardian of Faith killed her?” I asked, a creeping dread in my throat as I realised just how strong that creature must have been to appear before this entity twice. “Yes, it was instantaneous, she didn’t even finish speaking. She didn’t even make a noise” he replied, clenching his hands as they trembled.
Seeing this entity like this… was he scared? Was the Guardian of Faith just that powerful? That he couldn’t do anything even with his intense magic?
Adjusting my spear, I took a step around to peek at his face and- BLOODY HELL! His face was twisted in what could only be pure hatred! His hands weren’t trembling out of fear, he was holding back a mad rage!
I couldn’t even ask anymore questions, I was just terrified at that point. I felt like if I said something wrong, I’d be killed right where I stood.
*Gulp* He must have fought the Guardian of Faith, that’s why he was so injured, and now he was plotting his revenge, wasn’t he!?
I didn’t want to get involved.
“Hah…” He let out a tired laugh as he straightened himself, before turning to look at me with a chillingly neutral expression. “I hope you don’t mind answering a few odd questions from me?” he asked, and I felt sweat drip down my back as I tried to hide any bit of fear I had.
Whatever the true identity of this entity was in front of me, I had to make sure I wasn’t on his bad side…