I stalked along the edge of the crowd, following my target, vision burrowed into his skull with the intensity of a roaring forge. While I moved, I slowly weaved my way towards the front of the rows of people, keeping pace with the procession of knights. There was a break in the crowd ahead of me that would allow me access to the street, to my target. I moved with purpose, hand slipping over the hilt of my sword, I reached the breach, I was going to kill him, I... froze.
My body locked up. I couldn’t move an inch no matter how hard I tried. All I could do was watch as the elf trotted away on his horse, fury building up within me. Then, the source of my paralysis had the gall to lecture me.
Cease your foolish actions at once.
Let me go.
You would die achieving nothing, I cannot allow that.
Let, me, go.
No.
FUCK YOU! He burned my home! He hurt my friends, my family! You’re going to just let him walk away!
And you were going to charge him in the middle of a crowded street surrounded by soldiers. Your death would have been swift and pointless, likely not even completing your revenge. If you wish for his death, you must be more thoughtful than a rage fueled idiot running into a sea of blades. Need I instruct you like a petulant child?
They had a point, and I hated them for it. My rage was left impotent, my target already disappearing behind the crowd. With his absence the inferno in my chest slowly died down but still burned within me. Eventually I stopped fighting against the invisible restraints on me, and I was rewarded with freedom again.
Fine, I'll plan first.
My pocket god was satisfied with that at the very least. Despite my rage being snubbed, I wasn’t done, not by a long shot. Now I followed the tail end of the procession, I wanted to find out where they were staying.
I didn’t really know what I expected, but in the end, it seemed rather obvious, especially with them never leaving the main road. The parade ended up at the steps of the largest church in the city, a truly monumental structure dedicated to the Lord of Light. It was made mostly of marble carved expertly by masterful hands. Statues depicting scenes of the god’s triumphs and glory were standing in alcoves all along the walls of the building. Colorful stained glass was arranged above the large double doors that marked the entrance to the building. Large ornate pillars rose to support the structure and provide more for the eye to see.
Everyone in the paladin's entourage entered the building, disappearing behind the thick doors that looked capable of holding back a siege. I couldn’t track them any further, especially since I was uncertain about being anywhere even near this building. Now, I had to come up with something else, a way of getting inside, getting information, and then finding a way to take action that wouldn’t immediately result in my death.
Breaking in was highly unlikely to work. Not only would doing so quietly be next to impossible, but with all the priests, knights, and acolytes that probably inhabited the place, I would most likely be found quite quickly. No, I needed something a little more unconventional if I was going to see what was going on inside this place.
I stepped into a shadowy alleyway, out of sight for most everyone who wasn’t specifically taking this path to get somewhere. Pulling the book out of my pack, I began skimming through the pages, looking for something that could be of use in this situation. Raising the dead, speaking with the dead, constructing amalgamations from the bodies of monsters, all interesting stuff but not what I needed. After another two dozen pages, I stopped when I found something that was almost precisely what I needed.
There was a description in the book of a ritual, accompanied by a set of charms, that would allow me to experience the sensations of a reanimated creature. The only stipulation was to never use it on an intelligent being, something about thoughts overlapping with one another and creating an identity crisis. This would work excellently for my needs. I already had the materials, now I just needed to find a rat, not hard when you're in a city this size.
Well, not hard to find one, a bit more difficult to actually catch one. The slippery little bastards that slinked through the alleyways, feeding off of refuse and other by products of civilization, would scatter the moment I would try to approach. I had to seriously hunt one in order to catch it, setting up a trap that would snare the rodent alive.
It took a while, but eventually one of the traps sprung and I was able to collect the rat. Carefully, I gripped it around the neck to prevent it from biting and gave it a firm twist to quickly kill it. Snatching the wisp that tried to escape, I held it in place while I set up the rest of the ritual.
What was needed was a drawn triangle with a few runes surrounding it, a bit of mercury, and a small, sharpened bone carved with runes. The bone would be coated in mercury and then inserted into the spine of the rat. According to the book, mercury would weaken the nervous system of the rat, making it more susceptible to outside influences.
With everything in place, I speared the rat with the bone and placed it in the center of the triangle. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little nervous about this. The writing warned me of bizarre feelings and sensations that accompany this particular spell, so I was hesitant to just jump in, but I had already spent a good hour hunting rats and getting this all set up, so I couldn’t wait any longer.
I pushed the soul of the rat back into its body, which caused the runes that I had placed on the bone spear and the ground to glow a dim blue. The only thing I could do now was pray that I did everything correctly. It seemed I would be getting my answer to that soon enough.
As the light from the magical circle began to die down, the rat twitched a little as it came back to life, and I felt a jolt run up my spine. Suddenly I could feel things that I wasn’t touching, a pressure on my side that wasn’t there, and when the rat opened its eyes again, I began to see overlapping images of my vision mixed with its own. My mind couldn’t make sense of it, and I was rapidly developing a headache just from being exposed to this bizarre situation.
Eventually I shut my eyes, feeling relief as I was once again only subjected to a single point of view, but also disorientation as I was looking at myself from outside my body. My senses were all muddled up. I could hear and smell much more than before, but the way the rat saw the world around it was strange to comprehend. There were no colors, everything at a distance seemed out of focus, and my field of vision was wider with less emphasis on what was in front of me.
I had to come to terms with this fast because this spell wouldn’t last forever. The mercury I put in its body, while necessary, would also eventually destroy most of the nerves to the point where the body would become insensate and then paralyzed. The book claimed that it would take about an hour but gave no precise amount of time, so even seconds could be valuable.
Pushing past the confusing sensations, I began to command the rat to move. Scampering along on all fours, the rat darted down the alleyways towards the church. The feeling of being so small and vulnerable was overwhelming, not to mention my directing of the rat was more like a drunkard stumbling along than a coordinated animal. I’d have to make do though, and I'd certainly have to avoid being seen by others on the street, lest they kick or step on the rat, ending the ritual early.
The path I chose would take me and the rat behind the cathedral. There was less foot traffic back there, and more opportunities to search for a way in. Finding a gap in the small number of people that took this back path, I ordered the rat to run behind the cathedral and then look around. While it was hard to make out details, I could see small windows that were about ten feet off the ground, and one of them appeared to be cracked open.
I wasn’t exactly sure how well a rat could climb a wall, but there were small cracks and enough details in the wall itself that it might have been possible. I knew I couldn’t manage to control a climb like that with the level of control I currently had, so I attempted a simple command while essentially handing over the reins back to the rat. Then I bore witness to an impressive display of agility that was also somewhat concerning considering the animal who was doing it.
Once I had told it to climb, the rat sniffed around the wall for a moment before finding a long crack that stretched up the side of the wall. Its tiny hands and feet fit into the gap this crack created, and it hoisted itself up a steady rate. There was a practiced ease to the way the rat climbed, and I could tell that this was normal for it, that it did this on almost a daily basis.
My musings on the lives of rats were cut short when it reached the open window and climbed inside. We landed in a private room, small, containing a desk, a bed, and a chest for storage. Thankfully, the room was empty, and we dropped to the floor and squeezed under the closed door into the main hallways of the cathedral.
We stuck to the shadows; light was dangerous. I knew that on an intellectual level, and the rat knew that on an instinctive level. The problem was there weren’t many shadows in here. These people really liked their windows. I suppose when you worship the light, then you want to let in as much of it as possible.
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Speed was the name of the game then. With some prodding, I made the rat move quickly between what cover there was. A few times, we had to stop and hide behind some statues while a priest came by. Of course, we also had to take the time to check rooms for my target. It didn’t help that the rat’s normally keen sense of smell was being disrupted by the amount of incense that was being burned in this building.
Door after door we stuck our head under, yet the gleaming bastard was not in any of them. I decided it was best to try the second floor when we found a spiraling staircase that led upwards. Nothing says arrogance like physically placing yourself above everyone else after all.
There was certainly an increase in the elaborate nature of the robes, more gilding, more jewelry and icons. I could feel that we were on the right trail here. It was also less crowded, probably because it was reserved for the more affluent priests who probably moonlighted as nobles. Whatever the case, I was free to move more often than downstairs, and I exploited that for all it was worth.
I wasn’t sure how much time I had left before the ritual ended, so I took a few more risks and didn’t wait for a priest to move out of sight before scurrying along behind them. After about half a dozen more rooms were checked and cleared, I finally found it, the room the bastard had been in.
He might not have been present at the moment, but it currently held the armor he was wearing and was by far the most richly adorned room I had seen. An impressive looking desk, tapestries, richly colored curtains, upholstered chairs, and two bookshelves stocked with literature or perhaps even official work.
Now I had a choice to make. Wait here or keep looking for him. There was a chance that I would run out of time if I chose to stay here, but if I left, I might just miss him when he returns, or get spotted when moving. A quick risk reward calculation on my part deemed it safer to simply wait.
While I may be waiting, I wasn’t going to just sit around and do nothing. It may have been a bit difficult considering that I was currently commanding a rat to do it, but I began to rummage through whatever papers or books that I could find, which was a pain considering the size and strength of a rat leaves much to be desired. I cannot begin to describe how difficult it is to read with the vision of a rat, but I managed to do it, just barely.
Most of the papers on his desk were reports from other priests and churches in several other cities. It seemed the bastard was high up in the hierarchy of the church if he was receiving status updates from so many places. The report mostly detailed investigations into signs of what they deemed to be corruption, sightings of the undead, or otherwise heretical happenings that reached their ears.
I could scarcely imagine just how many people they’ve irrevocably damaged over the centuries of hunting the undead. It made me angry, but I needed to focus and not waste time on my anger. We dragged the paper out of the way and continued reading. Page after page of boring reports and status updates. Frankly, I was just about ready to give up on the desk when a line on a report that was near the bottom of the stack caught my attention.
It read like an after-action report, notating times, actions, and general situations. On its own, that might not have been so strange, but the content struck a chord deep within me.
6/13, 5:22, night, arrived at site 73.
6/13, 8:40, night, last resident of site 73 turned in.
6/13, 9:00, night, administered subject 42 in key locations around site 73. Beginning observations.
6/15, 8:43, morning, first signs of subject 42 affecting local population. Continuing to monitor until spreading has been confirmed.
6/16, 8:32, morning, made contact with residents of site 73. Offers of aid accepted. Started testing for solutions to subject 42.
6/21, 3:45, evening, first fatality due to subject 42 recorded. Solutions thus far have been inadequate. Changes to methodology authorized.
6/23, 11:10, mid-day, fatalities increasing. The risk of contamination spreading to administrators is growing. Withdrawing test groups.
6/28, 7:30, morning, most residents of site 73 have expired. Contacting cleansers for disposal of contaminated materials.
6/29, 7:00, morning, three sleepwalkers spotted. Tests for sleepwalker eradication authorized. Additional resources allocated to cleansers.
7/2, 9:42, morning, cleansers arrived on site 73. Tests involving sleepwalkers have shown positive results in new methodologies of eradication. Sleepwalkers put to rest, continuing cleansing.
7/2, 9:54, morning, site 73 cleansing proceeding steadily. Remnants of site 73 were disposed of with little issue. Solutions for subject 42 proved largely inadequate, suggest reevaluation of materials used in the solution for subject 42.
7/2, 11:37, mid-day, site 73 cleansing complete. Secured the site and confirmed destruction of all contaminated residents.
End of report
My chest felt tight as I finished reading the page. Despite it not explicitly saying anything, I couldn’t help but make comparisons. This almost exactly described the series of events that happened at my village.
I became numb, not believing that what I just read was real. But I read it again, and again, and again, each time trying to find something that would tell me that it was a lie, or that it was talking about something else. There was nothing to suggest it was anything else, and I felt that tightness in chest snap, turning into rage.
They... they poisoned us, infected us, and then treated us like a fucking experiment while pretending to be there to help!
I wasn’t the only one who was angry. Fury erupted from my pocket god. Have those insolent parasites lost their minds!? Are they so consumed by egotism and avarice that they can’t even comprehend the harm they are doing!? There was a brief pause as the fury simmered and became laced with melancholy. Is there truly nothing left of my brother?
That was a bit of a surprising revelation they dropped that also made sense when I thought about it. After all, their names are the lord of light and twilight, it makes sense that they were related in some way. Two sides of the same coin as the saying goes.
Whatever the case concerning those two might have been, now was not the time to dwell on it. I had to start thinking about what I was going to do with this information that we had just found. While infuriating, I couldn’t exactly take this to other people with zero evidence and only my word. Even if I could somehow get this piece of paper outside this building, it wouldn’t mean anything, because it didn’t say anything incriminating, and it would probably be labeled a forgery at best.
My thoughts were interrupted when the sensitive ears of the rat I was currently inhabiting picked up the movement of several individuals making their way towards the room. In a bit of a panic, I did my best to put the papers back the way they were when I first entered. It was a sloppy job, but I could spare no more time for it as I had to find a hiding place.
Scampering down off the desk, I darted towards the bookshelf and managed to squeeze behind the tomes, scrolls, and other literature. There was just enough time for me to disappear before the door opened and a couple of people entered. Whoever was leading the way into the room spoke to the others as they crossed the threshold.
“Thank you all for coming and please make yourselves as comfortable as possible. I apologize for the lack of chairs but there is only so much space.”
My curiosity got the better of me, and I tried to get a view of what was going on in the room while remaining hidden. Peeking through the gap between a few books, I managed to get a window into what was happening in the rest of the room.
The first person I saw was recognizable, and how I hated him. The elvish asshole who was responsible for what happened to my village was there, gesturing for all the others to find a place to occupy. Gone was his armor and in its place were some fine clothes of silk with colorful embroidery. Even out of his regal armor he still looked like a pompous bastard.
I adjusted my vision a little to see who else was in attendance. The next person who came into view was an orc. The burly wall of muscle had long braids of hair flowing down the back of his head. He lacked facial hair, which only served to accentuate the sharp angles of his jawline. Instead of clothes, he looked like he was dressed for a fight, wearing a type of armor that one might find on a very successful pit fighter, light enough to move, protective enough to prevent vital areas from being skewered.
The next person that came into view was a goblin, at least half the height of the others and a female to boot. While most goblin females didn’t have the typical identifiable features of a women, you could easily tell by their ears. Females had pointed ears while males had curved ears. I’m sure there were other small features that you could identify them by, but I wasn’t familiar with them. They were dressed fairly normally, wearing nice clothes that looked well-made and form fitted if a little on the darker side of colors.
Then there was the last one, a dwarf, also female. While the beards that were present in both sexes made it somewhat difficult to tell faces apart, the dwarven women still had bodies that held the normal indicators of sexual dimorphism. I always did think that dwarven women were particularly curvaceous compared to the general populations of other races. She was dressed a bit more practically, wearing clothes that seemed like they could be used for travel as well as meetings. Clean, sturdy, and practical. Reminiscent of the dwarves themselves.
Something else of note to make besides their appearance was the fact that they all dragged in with them a myriad of angry wisps that darted around the room, flying into and through them in a vain attempt at damaging the apparent cause of their misery. The cloud of souls was thick in the room, but I noticed that very few of them were attacking the dwarf, which was interesting, but not enough for me to devote more than a second of thought before they continued with their meeting.
The ladies occupied the chairs in front of the desk while the large orc stood behind them, arms crossed and waiting. Once the bastard elf sat down, he addressed the others to mark the beginning of the meeting.
“Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I know your schedules must be full, but it makes me happy to know that we all might still convene in such a way. When was the last time we were assembled like this anyway? I would love to catch up with all of you should the time present itself.”
An annoyed sigh came out of the orc. “Did you really call us here just to talk our ears off? Get to the point already or I'm leaving.”
“Very well then, I'll just come out and say it. My lord and I believe the dark one has returned.”
Some glances between the others in the room were had before the goblin’s slightly shrill voice spoke up. “This again? You said the same thing several years ago. You’d think that if they were back, we would have heard about it by now?”
Next the dwarf voiced her opinion. “I must agree. The Earth Mother is not one to act on hearsay. What evidence do you have for such a claim?”
The bastard leaned forward. “We never did find that child who was living in the village with all those undead. Now there are whispers of someone who can speak to the souls of the departed echoing throughout my city. I believe that child survived and is the current host of the dark one.”
“Or...” The goblin offered. “It’s more likely that kid died in the woods and was eaten by monsters or animals or both. The Mistress of Shadows can see how you might connect the large number of undead in that village with the dark one’s return, but it could be just a coincidence, and you could be chasing your own tail trying to find a con artist. Wouldn’t be the first one either.”
The elf banged his fist on the table in a firm manner. “I know he’s out there. The Lord of Light feels it. Something has changed in the world.”
They continued to argue the point of my existence while I slowly suffered from an ever-increasing panic attack. The casual mention of the gods, the apparent knowledge of their feelings and thoughts. This wasn’t a normal meeting between influential members of society, this was a meeting of champions...
And we were all in attendance.