As crazy as my life in Sharliya had been up to this point, the next thing to happen was the one thing that I really should have expected most, but honestly wasn't expecting at all: things settled down and got kind of normal. In the weeks and then months after getting home from the minorly-disastrous meeting with Vivian, I kind of managed to establish a normal routine for a while.

I got settled in at work, leaning a bit more every day about how the rune schemas worked on the Feurdanf self-driving project. The team lunches every Monday really helped with building a sense of camaraderie, as did the dungeon delves every Saturday, where I discovered that Felicity was right, I was now fourth-level. The cave below The Motionless Caverns got sealed off, and Torrin told us that the Guild had asked that we not go talking about what had happened, so as to not cause panics or wild rumors, so the dungeon was back to normal.

Felicity became a semi-regular member of our party, showing up about half the time. She kept looking for any sign of what had become of Gareth Meranas, but without any success. I saw her at church, which I kept going to mainly out of habit, and I was starting to get to know a few of the people there. Not every week, but I went pretty regularly despite how weird it felt. The preaching didn't get any better, but as I started attending Eventide School classes and making friends there, it started to matter less to me.

As for Meranas, he kept popping up from time to time in videos and stories online, showing up out of nowhere to help people. At first just in and around Sharliya, then gradually his area of operations began to grow throughout the northwestern region of Chitothia, helping a person attacked by monsters here, rescuing a trapped hiker there, and at one point even randomly walking into a hospital room and cleansing a comatose patient of a vicious curse that had stymied healers for months. He rarely said anything directly to the people he helped, and never identified himself to them or tried to induce them to follow him. Speculation ran rampant about the strange hero's identity and motives, of course, and of the small handful of people who knew anything at all, well, none of us were talking. Everything has to have a name, though, and the one that ended up sticking when people talked about him was "Sir Zephyr," of all things, after some talking head on some news show mentioned he moved as swiftly as one.

I deposited the advance check from House Kametan, paid off all my loans, and started looking around for real estate options, but wow was housing ever pricy around there! I didn't see anything that really "spoke to me," and honestly I wasn't sure what I was even looking for. Felicity's advice to have someplace, if for no other reason than to simply not be throwing money away on rent every month, still seemed reasonable though. And after thinking about the gemstones for a few days, I ended up deciding that I wanted to go with the auction afterall. If I had a chance like this, on something that was likely to never happen to me again, why not go big? So I let Mr. Gibson know, and he was happy to switch the schedule over.

The political crisis everyone had been so worried about somehow ended up not happening. Everyone knew what they had seen on live FV, but with the new Emperor crowned and Preservationists in firm control of the Empire, the Restorationists decided to sit back and lick their wounds for a while and not cause trouble, and the new Emperor's court didn't seem to bear much ill will towards the Transformationists for the mess they had caused, given that it benefitted them so much in the end. Kinda disgusting, but what are you gonna do?

Once or twice a week, Joanna would text me and we'd connect online to play Chanaq'era Street or some other game. She didn't ask to come over again, which was honestly kind of a relief, but we made pretty good gaming-friends.

I finally met Chris, the rogue who had been missing from our delving team. Turns out he wasn't a member of our development team at work at all; he was the head of maintenance for our building. A bit on the short side, 45 or so, with dark hair and a salt-and-pepper beard he kept perpetually just barely longer than stubble, Chris was open and friendly at work, and surprisingly adept at sneaking around in the dungeon. Torrin was right, though; The Motionless Caverns didn't offer much for his skillset.

And the best part of it all? As worried as I was about the possibility, I didn't run into Vivian again!

For four all-too-brief months, I got to enjoy exactly the sort of calm, orderly life I had imagined when I moved out here to take the job at Dyralight. I could just sit back, enjoy life, and focus on my career and building my skills as an enchanter. And it was tedious as anything! By all rights I should have enjoyed it, but it just kind of felt like my life was on hold. Just sort of going through the motions until the auction took place or I found the right house. Was this what it's supposed to be like, being an adult?

Then one day Gareth made the wrong right choice, and my calm, peaceful, boring life began to crumble, and I discovered I liked the alternative even less.

Ever since being crowned as Emperor, Vansar Chreidor and Chancellor Rosocress had been making regular pronouncements online and on FV, decrying the myriad abuses perpetrated by Good institutions, particularly churches and churchgoing kith, against kith of other alignments. They railed against the powerful oppressing the weak, and frequently tried to tie these abuses to the Restorationists and their policies. It all felt pretty cynical to me, when anyone could look up the Restorationists online, see their actual policies in their own words, and see how they had nothing to do with the crap the Emperor was accusing them of believing in. But despite the fact that everyone could have done it, it seemed like distressingly few actually did. Far too many people were willing to simply believe whatever the Emperor said, because the Emperor was saying it.

I tried my best to avoid all this garbage whenever I could, but enough people talked about it that you sort of just ended up picking it up by osmosis. So I at least had some basic context to understand when, out of nowhere, Kayla asked me "so what do you think's really happening with Sir Zephyr and that whole mess with the orcs?"

"Who what now?"

"You didn't hear about it?"

"No, what's going on?

"Heard on the voxcast today that he beat up a bunch of orcs over in Saint Kriaþ. It's got the local nobility all outraged."

"Wait, Saint Kriaþ?" I gave her an embarrassed glance. "I... don't actually know where that is."

"Oh come on," she said, "you've been here almost half a year now."

"And never had any need to visit Saint Kriaþ in all that time."

"It's about fifty miles east of here."

"Wow, I hadn't heard of him showing up that far away from Sharliya. Also, he's never fought kith before, only monsters."

She nodded. "So... you think it's a hoax? Someone impersonating him?"

"That would probably be my first guess."

"I guess that makes sense. But with the way so many people have noticed he dresses up like an avatar of Meþas, Archduke Tilar is saying that this is yet another act of religious oppression."

"Wow, jumping to conclusions much?"

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She lowered her voice. "You know something about the guy. Any of that true at all?"

I shook my head. "You know I can't say much, but I'll say this: even if that really was him in Saint Kriaþ, I can tell you for certain that he's not a follower of my god. No maybes, no tricks or word-games, nothing like that. Sir Zephyr is no Meþasite. And if it's a hoax... who even knows? The motivation could be just about anything."

"So we know a whole lot of nothing?"

"Doesn't seem like anything's changed there."

She shook her head slowly. "Maybe. But I can't help but feel like this latest incident is going to change everything."

She didn't even know how right she was.

That evening after work, they mentioned on the voxcast that the Archduke had issued an arrest warrant for "the vigilante known as Sir Zephyr" and urged any kith with news of his whereabouts to contact police immediately, but not to engage with him directly as he was considered high-leveled and dangerous.

I texted Felicity once I got home.

You hear about Gareth on the news? Any

idea what's going on there?

Yeah, something's not right here. That

doesn't sound like him.

Agreed. But seeing as how what he's been

doing all along doesn't sound like what he

told me he wanted to do, it's hard to tell.

Could this be the next phase of whatever

plan he has?

I really don't think so. There's something

we're not being told.

Yeah, that's what Kayla thought too. Looks

like we don't know anything then. Now what?

This is where faith comes in handy. When you

don't know everything you wish you did, act

on what you do know, do what you know is

right, and trust that the Gods will make up

the difference.

Of course she would go there.

So how does that apply here?

Beats me. You're the one who came to me

asking about the situation. How does it

apply to you?

I don't know. I just kind of feel

responsible for this somehow, because I'm

the one who let him out. I'm the one who

turned him loose on the world and then lost

track of him. And now this happens and I

don't know what to do about it.

Do you honestly believe you had the ability

to detain him against his wishes, if he had

really made an issue of wanting to leave?

Huh?

Because if you couldn't have held him, how

can you be responsible for "turning him

loose on the world"? All that happened was

that he left.

Involuntary imprisonment? That turned dark

fast!

Very funny. You know what I mean. When you

honestly did the best you could, according

to the knowledge you possessed at the time,

you can't be blamed for the results,

particularly if they primarily involve someone

else's choices.

You're using the word "blame." Do you think

there's a real problem here?

Hypothetical blame. I still think we don't

have the whole story.

And there's nothing I can do about it but

try to live right?

You say that like it's a bad thing. Didn't

you tell me you wanted to stay out of matters

like this anyway?

I know, I know. I should welcome being told

that it's not my problem. Not sure what my

deal is TBH.

"For strife and struggle are visited upon the

heads of all kith, that they may learn wisdom

through their experience."

-- Kendris 12:8

Yeah? What about it?

Could be that "your deal" is just that you're

restless. You think you have an idea of what

your place in the world is, but then you

learn that the world isn't what you thought,

so where does that leave your place? There's

a part of you trying to grow, to change, and

that always brings some level of discomfort.

So you say I'm going through puberty again?

Ugh, once was enough!

Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. You know that

science has a word for the state at which a

kith finally stops changing?

Yeah. It's called maturity.

It's called death.

Well you're just full of lovely thoughts

today...

In all seriousness, though, maybe your

puberty analogy isn't a bad one. Yes, it

sucked at the time, but look at who you

became as a result. Would you really like

to be stuck as a child today?

Am I a child now?

Maybe we always are.

Not following here.

It's something I've heard my dad say a bunch

of times. "I can't believe what a dumb kid

I was back then." About things that happened

2, 3, 5 years earlier, when he was already an

adult with kids of his own. He's still

maturing and gaining experience in life; why

shouldn't we?

I couldn't really argue that point. Not after telling Vivian how I enjoyed learning new things and wasn't finished doing so just because I had passed some arbitrary point in my life. But there was still a whiny voice inside protesting that I didn't mean this kind of stuff!

I guess. So what about you? Finding him is

kind of your personal quest. You going to

try and do anything about this?

Not sure that I can. There isn't even a video

this time.

So you just have to keep praying for

guidance, then?

Basically, yeah.

I didn't really get how she could live like that, having no idea what was going to happen next and being just fine with it. My uncertainty about the near-term future had me just about climbing the walls. But it seemed to work for her, for whatever reason.

For all her weird talk about living by faith, though, she was right about one thing: "restless" was the perfect way to describe the way I'd been feeling lately. But I wasn't like her, content to let things happen according to some unknown power's agenda. Especially when she herself said there was a þeomachy going on screwing that agenda up. No, I was going to approach it like an enchanter: look at the hard facts.

And if I didn't have the facts, I'd go searching for them. I got my rune tablet and started looking through local news, local forum sites, social media, anything that could shed some further light on the event. It took a few hours for a coherent picture to emerge, something kind of crazy, that I didn't really want to believe could happen here. I sent Felicity a handful of addresses so she could double-check what I had found. I got about 15 minutes of silence, then,

Oh. Wow. This is bad.

And when events manage to get a reaction like that out of a paladin, you know everything's all screwed up.