0035 The Gray Path Books
*"Jenany, I wanted to apologize for the way I treated you before, I'm worried about my friend...
... And the church has always spoiled everything wherever it went, so I kind of have a hard time accepting that there can be good people... Aih!"*.
*"This idiot doesn't know how to apologize, he means he's sorry for having treated you badly!"*.
Jeffrey slapped the top of Maycon's head, who started to fumble with his apology, making Jenany laugh at them both, but soon she got serious and looked Maycon straight in the eye.
*"I really don't know what the other people at the church are like, the other girls I've met from there are really unbearable...
... As for the rest, everyone treats me very well, but I can see that deep down, it's all fake, maybe most of them are afraid or jealous of my uncle...
... But Father Alcione was the only one who treated me like a Healer, and not like a niece of a Duke...
... I think I can say that there are good people within the church, but it's like I said, I almost never saw them being themselves far from me..."*.
Jenany sighed, but they were distracted by the Envoy arriving and announcing the disappearance of the other group, and with that, the two Fathers got up and approached the cave entrance talking to the Envoy.
*"Jenany, can you do us a favor?"*.
Maycon made a serious expression surprising Jenany who smiled then and nodded, Jeffrey next to him smiled and patted his shoulder twice.
Near the entrance to the cave, Alberto and Alcione have joined the group of would-be soldiers, and Alberto has already asked his first question.
*"What ways did they take?"*.
*"Sir Father Alberto, they took some of the ways that curved a little more towards the center of the mountain, we sent two of our group, but they separated at a fork and only one of them returned..."*.
The Envoy replied by pointing to one of the would-be soldiers who had approached, waiting for a question, but Alberto didn't ask, and just looked at Alcione at his side.
*"What do you think Father Alcione? Do you think young people know of any danger?"*.
*"I don't think, if they knew they wouldn't be so calm...
... Unless they never came here, but if they never did, has that boy been fooling us so far?
And what would that big house be? A joke?"*.
Alcione already knew the answer to his question, but when he learned that half of his men were disappeared, it made him think that the joke had gone too far and maybe it was time to go back and leave, so he threw the doubts to Alberto decide.
*"In fact, maybe they just got lost...
... But since we're here, let's take a quick look at the house, and then get ready to head back...
... Envoy, can you remember the way back?"*.
*"Yes sir Father, we mapped a path to the other side, just let the men rest, they retraced the path more than three times to ensure a quick and safe return..."*.
*"Very good, so let's do our part here..."*.
Alcione and Alberto agreed and knowing that the way back was traced, both were relieved, so the two returned to the young people to make them enter the house.
*"Come, let's enter the house!"*.
As soon as Alberto arrived, he already called everyone to come in, Lucius got up and stretched his body already prepared to follow the Father, Jenany ran to Alcione's side and pulled the sleeve of his robe.
*"Father Alcione, let them go first, shall we rest a little longer?"*.
Alcione looked at Jenany's shy face and soon noticed Sara and Maycon looking at him from behind Jenany, he quickly realized that it was time for him to know the secrets involving Thomas, so he smiled and looked at Alberto who had already started to walk.
*"One moment Father Alberto, I'm going to spend a few more minutes resting with the young people, you can go ahead..."*.
Alberto stopped to look at them, he wasn't that interested in chasing these young people anymore, his mood went on a roller coaster this night, and the young man beside him managed to make him feel unmotivated to hunt down such heretics.
*"It's ok Father Alcione, just don't delay too much, we need to search through things as soon as possible to leave soon..."*.
*"Don't worry Father Alberto, it's only a few minutes..."*.
*"Watcher Jardel come with me, Watcher Freddy, you stay here with Father Alcione..."*.
*"Yes sir Father!"*. *"Yes sir Father..."*.
Jardel and Freedy faced each other one last time before they parted, Lucius looked at Sara, Maycon and the others, he figured Sara could tell what happened, but he preferred not to think about it now, after all, he is in the middle of two groups in conflict, and he has not forgotten the marks on the inner walls of the caves.
^"Yes, something must still happen, and if it doesn't, I can still try to play both sides or try to run away...
... How tiresome to depend on others, if I'm going to die again, this time maybe I'll try to take two more to death with me?"^.
To hide the anger rising again within him, Lucius reached Alberto's side and offered to open the black wooden door, extremely smooth and beautifully decorated with branches and skulls carved into its center.
Jardel glared hatefully at Lucius, but since Alberto didn't care, he could only hold his anger too, and so the three of them were the first to enter the house, taking in the incredible and luxurious interior.
*"Look at those stained glass windows! Such beautiful sculptures! The Craftsman who made these things must be a great master!"*.
The interior of the house was well lit, several oil lamps were lit and they were all made of amazing glass chandeliers like crystals, in addition, Alberto was also delighted with the various sculptures of some ancient knights and carpets of various colors with silver stitching.
Lucius was also blown away by the place, but it wasn't like he'd never seen more amazing places than this in pictures or on the internet, just that it was the first time he'd seen something like this in person.
And soon they began to look at each of the rooms in the house, discovering several paintings that Alberto recognized the various Marquises of Marro, from the oldest to the current, leading him to believe that Marro always possessed this very well-hidden Inheritance of the church and the empire.
Among the various rooms, many of them were apparently ordinary bedrooms, which Alberto and Lucius decided not to waste time searching, Alberto even forgot that Lucius had said earlier that he had been to this house before, as each room in the house was more luxurious than the castles of Dukes and Archdukes he had ever visited in his life.
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And Lucius was concentrating on finding some map, book, chests, anything that might contain some information of value to him, so the two were lost in their own ideas and dazzled by the place, and time passed.
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*"Don't worry about Watcher Freddy, he'll keep everything here a secret, right?"*.
Away from the Envoy and the would-be soldiers, Alcione looked at Watcher Freddy seriously, and Freddy nodded, interested to know what they were going to talk about that they should keep secret.
*"So Sara, what happened to Thomas?"*.
*"Wait, Father, how far do you know?"*.
Maycon was already restless waiting, but Sara wanted to make sure everyone understood the situation, so she decided to ask the Father directly what he already knew.
*"The girl Alicia showed me everything she has seen, other than that, I only know what Envoy Otis told me..."*.
Jenany and Freddy kept attentive to every word between the two, Jeffrey kept an eye on the conversation as he watched if the Envoy or any would-be soldier tried to get close, which made Freddy laugh, for he was a Watcher, and no movement would go unnoticed around him.
*"So, I'll tell you about the artifact The Light of the Guide first..."*.
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Arriving on the second floor, Alberto and Lucius found more bedrooms, as well as a large kitchen, an open lounge with whiteboards for painting, paint bottles, and various other things they didn't pay attention to, but still they were both amazed, even the Watcher Jardel was impressed by some weapons and armor hanging on one of the walls.
*"All right, let's hurry to the top floor..."*.
Lucius was looking through some parchments and other papers scattered around looking for something, but in the end it was just blank papers or artistic sketches, and soon he was called by Alberto, looking at Alberto going up the stairs, he can only follow behind when he notices Jardel going to get him.
*"Looks like we have something here, let's see..."*.
The third floor looked like a big office, full of books and tables, maps and many other things, as soon as Alberto arrived he was happy to finally find some apparently important things, behind him, Lucius heard Alberto and also hurried to the top of the stairs.
^"Now so, I hope to find some good things..."^.
*"Here on this shelf there is only literature, many of these books are from other kingdoms, it seems that the Marquis always smuggles products forbidden by the church..."*.
Lucius didn't want to search the same area as Alberto was, and the first place he decided to go was to a table where there were some maps scattered around, but each map was of a place he did not know, and many were in other languages, in which he recognized only those in English, Spanish, and French.
He could get all the maps, but it would just be carrying trash if the information couldn't be used now to help him, after all, it wouldn't do to carry a treasure map if he was going to die the next day.
Next to the table, a map was nailed to the wall, looking quickly he noticed that it was an island with a mountain on one side of it, and a great city taking up almost all the rest of it, by the shape of the city he noticed the similarities with the view from the middle of the mountain on which he now stands.
^"That's it, where are the exits?"^.
Analyzing it, he found several markings where a legend in the lower right corner of the map said to be the Inheritance entrances and exits, from the place where he was, there was only that exit which he entered with the others, and the nearest one after that, was in the city, at the foot of the mountain, in a kind of big square, and there was written the destiny, Neutral Forests of Neutral Lands.
^"Sara said that farm was near the border with the Neutral Lands or something, right?
Maybe it's the best place to escape, escaping both this church and the people who know this body..."^.
*"Found it! Look this! 'The Spiritualist's Book - The Gray Path'!
But this is a treasure! Rank C and Rank B Spiritualist!"*.
Alberto screamed when he found a book on a shelf, happy, he started to leaf through the book and then screamed again saying the Ranks that the book addressed, hearing the Ranks, Jardel became interested and stopped watching Lucius and ran to his side.
*"Sir Father, Spiritualist? Which class is this?"*.
*"I've never heard of it either, it must be a long lost class, maybe not even the church knows...
... Look! There are healing spells! With this, the Healer class can greatly improve their own skills and miracles!"*.
*"Sir Father, the Healer class only advances to Rank B too right? Maybe this heretic Inheritance isn't even that good..."*.
*"What do you know Watcher?
Healer is one of the church classes with the fewest number of miracles...
... Look at this, here it even describes offensive magics, defensive magics...
... Imagine a Healer who can go into battle by your side, instead of waiting for the wounded to be rescued only then trying to be healed!
What we have here is a real treasure! Much better than I imagined!"*.
Jardel's eyes widened reading the parts that Alberto pointed out to him, in fact what he said made sense and finding such a book was a tremendous treasure.
On the other side of the office, Lucius frowned at their conversation, it was obvious they had found something good, but he couldn't take advantage of it just yet, so he took advantage of the distraction of both, and went to look at the cupboard with glass doors, there were some smaller objects inside that might be useful to him.
*"Sir Father, where was that book? Maybe there are other copies, we can get more than one, it should be faster for the church to study them!"*.
*"Yes, that's right, let's look more! Then look for a backpack or bag for me to carry the books!"*.
This time Jardel helped Alberto by going through the books and they both found a few more copies of the same, with that, Jardel ran to get a backpack he had seen on the previous floor, and Alberto sat next to a table and continued leafing through the books.
Lucius was disappointed, the objects were mostly decorative, at least that's what he thought, several skulls made of wood or ivory, as well as other strange objects, as valuable or powerful as they are, he didn't even know what to do with these things, but before going to the next place, he found a card much like a playing card.
The card was black with a dark green question mark drawn in the middle, it looked like a company brand or something along those lines, he found it strange and different, so he opened the glass door to look at the card closely.
Upon picking it up, he quickly noticed that there was nothing written on either side of the card, just the question mark, but before returning it, he noticed a label that was under the card earlier.
^"'The Wish Card, get creative and make a wish for the Entitled - Gift Genie'...
... What the fuck is this gift genie? If I rub it will a genie from the bottle appear or something?"^.
Lucius looked around and saw that Jardel still hadn't come back, so he took his cell phone from his jacket pocket, took off the protective cover and placed the card between the protective cover and the cell phone, so he put his cell phone back in his pocket and closed the glass door and went to the Father's side.
*"Found some good stuff right?"*.
*"Yes indeed...
... I'll make sure you don't die boy, but you'll have to go live with the other Fathers and Cardinals, so we can clarify these ideas and questions you raised earlier..."*.
^"Shit, who wants to move in with you? If I had known things were going this way I would have kept quiet..."^.
*"Here, sir Father, a backpack, it's big enough to hold about five books, I think..."*.
Jardel arrived carrying his backpack, and seeing that they were both getting ready to leave, Lucius continued rifling through the books looking for something interesting, and on the shelf next to where Alberto had found that book, he saw an interesting title in another book.
*"This one looks good too, 'The Necromancer's Book - The Gray Path'..."*.
*"What? Is there another Gray Path book? Let me see!"*.
Like a madman, Alberto took the book from Lucius' hand and began to leaf through it, before long his eyes widened.
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Telling about the artifact and Lucius' origin, Alcione, Jenany and Freddy's eyes widened, an artifact at this level capable of bringing someone back to life was something only the church claimed to be able to do.
Not only that, but it showed that the people behind this Inheritance might be of much higher Ranks than they thought, and with that they didn't even care about Lucius possessing Thomas' body.
Only Maycon and Jeffrey were shocked that Lucius was a person coming from the Chaos Gate, and that because of the artifact, he was in Thomas' body, and with that, they didn't know what to do to solve this problem that was Lucius.
"Sara girl, what is the Rank of this Inheritance?".
"I don't know, we've barely started Rank D training...".
Freddy and Alcione quickly understood the danger they were in, they were just Rank C, and if they came across several Rank B or even Rank A people, young people may be fine, after all, it was their home, but whoever was from the church would surely die.
"Watcher Freddy, let's get Alberto, help protect the girl Jenany, let's go!".
"Yes Father!".
They both ran into the house, Jenany was forced to go with them, Maycon, Sara and Jeffrey were left speechless at being left behind, but they soon remembered the Envoy at the entrance to the cave.
"We will follow them, but remember, you two will run away as soon as the opportunity presents itself, and I try to save Thomas!".
Maycon and Jeffrey agreed with Sara, they both ran after Alcione, Jenany and Freddy, and the feeling that they would soon have an opportunity to escape, began to make them excited.