While recuperating from the battle, Anastacia explained what she knew of the story of the three hunters and what the newly branded trio should expect, based on the appearance of the Stag Lord. “From what I remember, we’re looking at three more beasts, one for each hunter. The wolf you claim to have seen before, a bear and a massive snake. Each of them was killed by a single hunter so we probably won’t get the chance to team up again.” She said, having regained her senses after a moment’s rest.
“Is there a way to tell who will be dealing with what?” Teal asked and scratched the mark on his arm.
“Well, the version I heard was so massively biased thanks to that obsessed nutjob that I can’t even remember the names of the other two hunters. The one called Cottona had to deal with the snake, is pretty much all I have to say.” The adventurer shrugged and clumsily spun around one of her remaining spears.
The inquisitor scoffed. “Brilliant, and now we just wait for the beasts to appear and put them down one by one?”
“You two might as well go comb through Stel’s room on the off chance she has the details of her plan written down somewhere. I’ll go grab Strawberry and continue looking for the murderer by checking up on Magnon and Ilyu.” Anastacia instructed her temporary team. “I’d rather keep everyone here just to make sure the murderer doesn’t slip through my fingers, but if the situation calls for it, we might have to send at least the servants to the nearest town.”
“Human adventurer Anastacia would risk not catching the assassin to spare a handful of serfs? Oddly virtuous for one such as yourself.” Lady Helia commented. “But we will comply with the suggestion and search through the menial’s room. Teal, perhaps you would be able to guide us there?”
The inquisitor picked up his two remaining swords and glanced at his fellow necromancer to make sure she would be able to defend herself. Anastacia noticed it and let her powers flare out slightly – or at least that’s what she thought, but what the inquisitor felt was an oppressive force that clashed with his own powers and pushed them aside effortlessly. Though, a bit unsettling, it was enough for him to feel good about leaving Anastacia alone again. Even if the adventurer still had a bit of a headache, Lady Helia was a much softer target for both the assassin and the ancient spirit that now apparently loomed over them as well and protecting her would serve Teal’s own goals more.
He took the lead and started to guide the Ouan through the staircase near the kitchen, towards the spot in the top floor of the lodge where he had felt Anastacia and Lumira in before they had rushed downstairs.
“Could I inquire something?” Lady Helia suddenly asked as they reached the top floor. “Might it be, that Teal and human adventurer Anastacia share more history than they let on?”
Teal stopped briefly and pondered whether revealing Anastacia’s identity to the Ouan would affect things anymore. “What makes you think so?” He answered, playing it safe for the time being.
“The relationship betwixt Teal and human adventurer Anastacia appears confusing for someone such as we. Oddly familiar for strangers, there is a level of trust, or perhaps confidence? Yet it appears partly hostile on human adventurer Anastacia’s part, while Teal appears almost subservient to her at times.” Said Lady Helia, revealing herself to be far less blind to social cues than Teal had thought.
“Looks like the jig is up then.” Teal sighed and revealed the absolute bare minimum of the relationship between the necromancers. “The inquisition and Anastacia had a run-in a while ago and we may have tried to kill her. We’re all painfully aware of her prowess and since we obviously failed, she’s holding a bit of a grudge, but still knows what the inquisitors are about.”
As if to check the honesty of her companion, the Ouan pinned the inquisitor against the wall and stared deep into his eyes. Though he didn’t really have any reason to be afraid of Lady Helia, something about her shiny black eyes made Teal extremely nervous, and the tiny pulsating orange irises in them didn’t help either.
Though it started out as slightly threatening, the situation slowly evolved into something completely different, yet no less intense as the Ouan kept getting closer and closer.
Suddenly she pulled away and walked off while muttering to herself. “Sufficient, we had feared it was something else.”
Teal took a brief moment to calm his heart before following Lady Helia into the mess of research and obsession that was Stel’s room.
“These texts are engulfed in darkness, could it be that human maid Stel was studying beings of heretical origin?” The Ouan diplomat suggested. She was clearly very uncomfortable with the state of the room and hesitated to even touch any of the books. “Perhaps these tomes would be better off in a pyre? Her master was exceedingly negligent, allowing such clutter to build up within his property.”
“This is fairly standard for a certain type of people, though I would not have guessed it from the girl’s looks.” Teal said and quickly went through the couple of the book and note piles nearest to the door. “Looks to be history and divine beings, no surprises there.”
“Who knew that the pagan gods would warrant the writing of so many tomes? What could there possibly be to say about them?” Lady Helia asked and dangled one of the books like a dirty rag between her claws.
Teal kept efficiently flipping through the wads of notes and letters. “People write about the strangest of things. Mournvalley’s new policy on preserving all knowledge we run across has forced us to deal with some extremely questionable opuses, and a few books on some god is nothing, trust me. Our library has an entire category for things that have washed up from the sea and no one knows anything about.” He said to keep the conversation going.
The two kept chatting while slowly going through the top layer of the mess. Lady Helia told the inquisitor more about her position within Ou and what he would need to know before they returned to the empire, while Teal expanded upon the general workings of Mournvalley, carefully dancing around the more closely guarded secrets.
Time passed quickly as they worked and though their search came up largely empty, the pair didn’t mind. The busywork of wading through hastily scribbled notes and dusty books was a welcome respite after the fight and they almost forgot the threats they were facing.
After tossing aside what must have been the hundredth stack of letters, Teal stood up and stretched his shoulders. “I think I saw a couple of bottles of cider in the cellar, mind if I get those quickly? I’m feeling a bit parched.” He asked, already on his way out.
“We would enjoy that as well.” Lady Helia nodded and sat down on Stel’s bed to wait while the inquisitor stepped out. She noticed the letters under the pillow and began reading through them, making many of the same conclusions Anastacia had made.
With a hint of haste in his steps, Teal hopped down the stairs, all the way to the kitchen. Leaving his partner alone was a bit of a risk, but having seen her handle herself against their last opponent, he figured that the Ouan could more than handle herself for the couple of minutes it took him to fetch the drinks, even if he didn’t run.
Feeling the corpses of Fang and Nikolai so nearby reminded the necromancer that Farcie’s remains were still in the great hall, the smell had been completely buried by the eyewatering stench of the beast of decay they had fought, and the hall having a gaping hole in its wall had cooled it down enough to slow down the rot. Nevertheless, Teal felt like his late ally should get at least the same treatment as the other two casualties, so he made a quick detour to the great hall.
The mist on the floor hadn’t cleared out yet, but since the beast’s spilled blood had turned into dust and snow along with the rest of it, the distinctive smell had all but disappeared.
“I hope Nikolai’s heirs don’t mind the increased ventilation.” Teal said and chuckled to himself while making sure the package he had wrapped the elf in didn’t leak.
Suddenly a voice echoed from somewhere. “Ah yes! The stalwart inquisitor…” It stated and cackled.
Even if the brand on his arm hadn’t suddenly ached and burned him again, Teal would have recognized the voice as the same one that threatened the new trio of hunters earlier. His first instinct was to try and locate the voice, but that didn’t work at all, as not only did it sound like it was coming from inside his on head, but it kept moving around the hall as well.
“The world has certainly changed since my days, but its residents are painfully similar to the mortals back then.” The hag sighed longingly. “The all-encompassing greed is showing no signs of weakening, not to mention the pride and hubris of your kind in particular.”
Teal took a deep breath, ignored the voice and started moving the remains towards the cellar.
“Pardon me, but I do have to ask, did someone neuter the necromancers while I was not looking? This current generation makes me sad.” The hag taunted Teal. “The world is theirs to take, it always has been, but what do they do? They negotiate! Your people pride themselves to be above others as might is right, but at the same time, you lower yourself to the same mud and filth where the rest of the mortals grovel. You have all become weak shadows of necromancers that once were!”
Teal stopped and considered responding but figured that nothing good would come of it. Instead, he kept his mouth shut, opened the hatch in the kitchen floor and gracefully lowered the elf’s remains with the other two bodies.
The ciders he had originally gotten downstairs for were at the back of the cellar with the rest of the drinks, as far away from the hatch, the cellar’s only source of light, as possible. The inquisitor carefully inched his way towards the bottle rack, almost stumbling on something in the dark a few times, until he could just barely grab a couple of bottles. Unable to read the piece of paper tied to the cork, he opened one of them and concluded that it at least smelled like a cider, though a particularly strong one – fairly unsurprising, considering that Vassundians often liked their drinks like that.
For the entire time, the hag had been taunting him by slandering Mournvalley, but he had already spent the entire day with someone who did very little besides calling necromancers scum of the earth, so the hag’s words didn’t cut particularly deep.
Right as he was about to start climbing the ladder out of the cellar, the hatch suddenly slammed shut on its own, sealing the inquisitor into the perfect darkness of the cellar. He tried to tackle it open a few times, but the heavy wooden hatch wouldn’t move an inch.
Teal sighed and hopped down from the ladder. “Very well, is there a point you wish to make before I tear my way out of here?” He asked and rolled his eyes.
“Such a fearsome man, this dulled fang of inquisition! In a great hurry to be get trampled upon by someone?” The hag mocked him as the cellar somehow grew even darker. “I am not the one to stop anyone from groveling on the ground, but this is not how things should be – you know it too, do you not?”
As the ancient spirit spoke, the smell of rot grew once more and got to a point where it started to bother even Teal.
“You are a flimsy tool to everyone in your life and have always been. You have seen the looks your inquisitorial brothers and sisters give you, as if you were a lesser necromancer to them, someone who could not handle themselves in the frontlines. Instead, you cower behind them in your armor, forever tasked to watch their backs.” The spirit of discord jeered and cackled insanely.
Whether it was through magic or simply the suggestive manner of speech, Teal could see the hag’s words becoming images in his mind. He could see the rest of the inquisition, loitering about the mess hall of their headquarters. Duke, Cyan, Cobalt, Celeste, Iris, Maya and Sapphire, each and every one of them a sibling and a teammate that Teal wouldn’t hesitate to give his life for. Though they were obviously all close, there were still small cliques withing the ranks of the inquisition, and this was often reflected in who they spent their free time with. In the vision given to Teal, seven of the inquisitors were loosely divided into two pairs and a single group of three, with the eighth one further away from all of them.
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The eighth inquisitor sat in a table of his own, quietly tinkering with a suit of armor instead of merrily chatting with his comrades. Teal felt the depiction be far too close to home, as he was indeed the odd one out. In the earlier days, Alice, who was often considered to be a big sister by everyone, would often keep him company, but she had met her match in Anastacia quite a while ago. Later on, he had found a friend in Periwinkle, but the newest addition to the inquisition had gone missing months ago as well. Ever since then, Teal was left alone more often than not.
“Truly, it is quite sad to watch, but this is only the beginning.” The hag said and made the image disappear, only to conjure up a new one. The second image was of the throne room where the current queen of Mournvalley ruled her country from.
Sitting on the throne, in her white robes, was Coquelicot. She had her hood pulled all the way up and further hid her face by burying it into two of her skeletal hands.
“Ahh! Coquelicot, the last of the red inquisition and the rightful ruler of Mournvalley! Though of course, these days she hardly fits the title.” The spirit continued. “She found you from the warehouse you previously worked in, helped you hone your edge to a point where you could be effectively used to manage the masses and take out some of her targets – and then she simply abandoned you. I would be surprised if she ever meant for you people to survive her coup, since she left you to your own devices almost immediately. Yet, you blindly follow her ‘vision’ of Mournvalley peacefully existing with the rest of the world, because that is was loyal little tools do…”
Teal was among the three inquisitors that once actively went against their leader by attempting to kill Anastacia back when Amaranth was defeated. He had since been forgiven and had worked hard to get back into Coquelicot’s good graces, successfully, or at least that’s what he thought. Thinking back at the last few times the inquisitors saw their queen, Teal realized that he hadn’t been given much responsibilities, almost like he wasn’t as trusted as some of the others.
As the second image faded from Teal’s mind he couldn’t help but to feel a bit betrayed by Coquelicot, since he and the rest of the inquisition had been thrown into a situation none of them were equipped for, and the inquiries for any orders had come back empty for long enough.
The third image appeared to be projected directly from the top floor of the lodge, where Lady Helia was trying her best to get through the texts she considered beyond heretical.
“And so, we come to this. Surely, I do not even need to point out how much the Ouan is using you for her own gain? If she brings you back to her country, she will be forever honored as the one who managed to tame an inquisitor. Through your blindness, Ou will gain control over the north and Mournvalley along with it – and it only required a bit of appealing to your base needs. Mortals truly never change.” The hag laughed and faded the image into the darkness. “To remedy the situation, I have brought you a simple suggestion, an offer for aid: kill Lady Helia Pain. Then with my aid, you will be able to finally take revenge for the death of this ‘Alice’ by killing the other necromancer here. Once that is done, the rest is easy! I will make a pact with Mournvalley, so that as long as this land of mine is returned to its owner, I will help you destroy Ou and you will be hailed as a great hero by your people for vanquishing their foes! So how about it?”
Lady Helia tossed aside yet another pile of notes that had turned out to be irrelevant to the investigation. It had already been a few minutes longer than she was willing to give Teal to return with the drinks and the Ouan was starting to get uneasy. She knew that the inquisitor would be able to deal with whatever was thrown at him, but just to be sure, she closed her eyes for a quick prayer to the gods.
Aimed at Sviesa, the divine guardian of light, in particular, the prayer was meant to halt whatever darkness was seeping in from the shadows and trying to harm Teal. As soon as she began, Lady Helia could feel that something was wrong. She had been praying several times a day for decades and whether it was completely imaginary or the gods responding to her, she always felt empowered while doing so, but this time was different. She could still feel the light and its warmth on her being as usual, but it was as if there was a stain of dark somewhere on her.
It didn’t take much to figure out what the problem was; in her own eyes, Lady Helia appeared flawless and radiant, but the brand on her arm was the exact opposite: a cancerous dark lump of corruption that fed on the light surrounding it.
Disgusted by the sight, the Ouan even considered trying to cut it off with the knife she had acquired from Anastacia, but decided against it, as triumphing over the dark by cleansing it was the more pious solution, rather than just scraping it off and letting it grow in some dim nook of the world.
“Reveal yourself, filth.” She commanded and dragged her claws over the brand.
Soon enough, Lady Helia’s already limited vision decreased noticeably, and the shadows surrounding her no longer heeded the crystal lantern’s light. The piles of books disappeared into an endless void of dark, filled with nothing but the lunatic cackling of the hag.
“I must congratulate you.” The ancient spirit laughed. “Not too many gods answer mortal prayers these days, it seems, but you have somehow found yourself with a whole troupe of divine clowns. In fact, it was almost a hurdle to get to you. Had you not ever so kindly ushered me out yourself, I might have had to go at it for a while still.”
“Reveal your gambit, carrion.” The Ouan demanded curtly.
“Been some centuries since I found myself with a person of faith, the last one I met was so set in his ways that he ran out of bones to rot before I made headway into his mind. But that was an experience I could learn great many things from, chief of which was to simply not bother with your kind. I may be immortal, but even I do not have the time for that.” The hag’s voice explained from the darkness. “Trust me, there is no shortage of angles I could aim for the chinks in your armor from. You yourself are aware of the infinite flavors of wrong, sick and heretical your budding flame with the necromancer is. So do consider that I do not come baring my teeth.”
In a blink of an eye, Lady Helia found herself in a completely new setting, one she could see perfectly. It depicted Anastacia and Teal, sitting across from each other in the adventurer’s room at the lodge. Seemingly engaged in a lighthearted conversation, but the words sounded blurred and distorted beyond recognition.
“It is just so much easier to help you out a bit and ask you to leave.” The hag continued. “So here is my gift to you: the adventurer responsible for your safety, is not at all what she claims. Sure, she can throw a ball of flame if asked, but that child is a purebred necromancer.”
Lady Helia tried to touch the faint image of Teal, but the scene faded before her fingers reached the inquisitor’s hair. “Is the craven scum actually thinking we believe a singly syllable from its foul mouth?” She scoffed at the suggestion.
“Oh? Well, that is not really my problem, for I am merely trying to warn you of their plot. If you refuse to listen to me and get killed, that is your well-earned reward.” The voice said as it moved around Lady Helia in the darkness. “Whether you believe me or not, it does not change the facts. The one responsible for the safety of the guests is a necromancer that hid her identity, now three guests are dead and both necromancers roam free and act together. I even heard some rumors that a certain someone was going to take one of the most dangerous necromancers in the world along with them, to an empire that is on the brink of war with Mournvalley.”
The Ouan representative fell silent for a while. “Your implications fall on deaf ears, foul spirit…” She said hesitantly.
The hag’s laughter echoed in the room for a while before she answered. “Do they?”
Anastacia was on her way to the library to tell Strawberry about what had transpired while he had been obsessing over his paperwork. She was already royally annoyed by everything that was happening; the state of the quest, the hag returning, having to deal with the beasts, Stel going missing and her head hurting after getting hurled at a wall like a wet towel; depending on how annoying the guild official was going to act, it might just be enough to send her over the edge and get her to throw Strawberry at whatever the next beast she had to dealt with.
She grumbled by herself and sat down to take a breather on one of the benches along the corridor where the guest rooms were and think about how to recite the events of the day to the official in the least embarrassing way possible. “Why couldn’t you just get murdered too?” She muttered and made sure that Strawberry was still in one piece.
Magnon and Ilyu were still in the high magister’s room and seemed to be okay as well, as were the staff and the vice commander. For whatever reason, Teal was putzing around the corpse riddled cellar, but Lady Helia was still rummaging through the maid’s room, so Anastacia figured that they just needed something from down there.
Just as the adventurer had collected herself enough to stand up and face the music, a sudden sharp pain in her thigh forced her to sit back down. The brand on her leg burned as if it was being applied again and every time she moved, it flared up worsening the pain tenfold. Trying to cool it down with ice magic did help a bit however, but even that was a temporary measure and wasn’t enough to allow her to walk.
“Just sit tight, tiny necromancer.” The hag’s voice bellowed from somewhere.
Anastacia looked around, but the hallway was empty in both directions. “And now you’re in my head too! This is just great!” She pouted.
“Yes and no, for now my form is tied to your knowledge of me, but I do exist as an entity of my own. I do not expect you to be too knowledgeable on the subject – in fact, I know you are not. But the mechanics behind immortal spirits are hardly the matter I came to discuss with you, for you see-“ The spirit began explaining but was cut off by the adventurer.
“Fuck off, you ancient spooky nerd!” Anastacia yelled and rubbed the aching brand.
Baffled by the outright rudeness, the hag remained silent for a while. “Excuse me? I do not think you are fully grasping the situation you are in.” She said and lost much of the menacing tone in her voice.
“I don’t think you’re fully grasping number of dicks you can go and eat.” The adventurer snarled and laid down on the bench. “I’m not in the mood, shoo!”
“You are being bewitched by the spirit of discord, the hag of the north herself from the legends, and you ‘aren’t in the mood’? This is not how this works at all, dear.” The hag struggled to explain something she likely couldn’t even fathom could happen.
Anastacia sighed. “I’ve been resurrected by a god, half-possessed by an ancient necromancer and puppeteered by a muse in the last half a year or something; so I’m sorry but some old crone speaking in my head doesn’t exactly impress me when I’m having a bad day. Besides, I’ve got a friend who has that going on all the time, but apparently her head-voice sings instead of whatever raspy bullshit you’re offering here.” She explained while cooling her forehead with more magic.
“But… The lousy time you are having is part of my machinations, and there is so much more to come!” The spirit of discord threatened and started to sound slightly desperate.
“Oh what? You’re going to throw your pets at people, is that it? Either just give me my opponent already, so I can get that over with or give me back the maid and go crochet or whatever you did while you were dead.” Anastacia kept mocking the ancient spirit.
The hag noticed her chance to make an awkward transition back to her original plan. “Ah, yes! The maid! She has been most helpful for my plans, all in the hopes to meet her hero. Instead she released the shroud of discord that will one day cover all of north, until the cogs of the world turn to their original places. It is tragic really-“ She cackled until the adventurer interrupted her again.
“By the way, what’s up with this brand thing being on my leg instead of the arm like the other two? Is this like some weird thing you have or what’s going on? Emilia says I should get you to buy me dinner and stuff first.” Anastacia asked suddenly and moved on to just outright annoying the spirit, since she didn’t show any signs of giving up.
“What? That is what bothers you about this? I have watched all of you closely, dissected your memories and planted the seeds of doubt into your minds to enact my masterful plan and have you turn on each other – and what you want to know is if I have a thing for your frankly unimpressive physique? The brand simply appeared where it did because your twig-like arms do not have the room for it.” The hag groaned as her voice paced back and forth along the corridor.
Anastacia held back her grin. “Okay, just checking. It’s just that I seem to have an unexplainable amount of traction with ancient things. I guess you already knew that much, if you’ve really gone through my memories.” She shrugged. “Oh hey, if you’re able to do that, can you tell me where I left my gloves before I came here? They should be in my room back at the inn, but I couldn’t find them anywhere.”
The burning sensation in Anastacia’s brand flared up again, worse than ever before, when the hag understood she was being messed with. She could feel a pair of invisible, yet firm hands wrap around her neck and tighten their grip slowly.
“This is not over, tiny necromancer, I will have my revenge!” The hag screamed with ear-shattering power before the pain suddenly faded away, as did other signs of the ancient spirit’s presence.
Anastacia coughed a few times and rubbed the brand to further alleviate the pain. “Sure, sure. Come back and do the whole ‘I can help you rule the world with your powers’-routine, like everyone else did, maybe I’ll actually get convinced this time!” She taunted the spirit one last time and snickered.
Despite the pain, being able to let out some steam helped the adventurer’s mood considerably and the headache had been at least partially taken a step back. She gathered her strength once more to get up, but again, as soon as she was back on her feet, she was interrupted by the forgemaster kicking open the high magister’s door.
The Vulkan held the obviously drunken but still conscious mage in his arms and looked around before spotting Anastacia. He hurried over and placed Ilyu on the bench.
“Come on! Tell Anastacia what you just said to me!” He encouraged the drunkard and shook her shoulders.
“Anash… Such a nice girl, should make her my student.” The high magister stammered and almost fell over on the bench.
Magnon moved the adventurer closer to Ilyu. “Yes, this Anastacia, now tell her what you were saying! About the poison and Lumira taking your ring.” He pleaded.
“Posion’s bad for you, shouldn’t do that.” Ilyu stated, trying her best to make it sound wise but struggled to stay on the subject. “Poor Nikolai didn’t know. Maggy, did you know you’rrre my favorite caveman?”
“Focus, Ilyu!” The forgemaster exclaimed and sighed before turning to Anastacia himself. “She was telling me how the vice commander had taken a look at her ring and confiscated the piece of ice on it.”
“’twas very rude! She knows I need it in the morning.” Ilyu finally pitched in with something actually useful.
Anastacia took a while to connect the dots. “Wait, Lumira knew what the ice had in it?”