Talking with the spriggan didn’t really yield any more information than Iris already had. It was safe to assume that the missing necromancer was the reason for Xamiliere’s situation as well, but that didn’t really tell anything about who the necromancer was – though it did add into the rather impressive collection of pies The White One had their fingers in before disappearing. Apparently, they were somehow involved with The Guild, the ancient simulacra, the queen of a tribe of goblins and such a big part of a nature spirit’s life that she had lost all direction now, and probably a few more things to boot. Such a list of things certainly made them being a true white one a real possibility. For a moment, Iris couldn’t help but to imagine all of the problems convincing this ‘Brume’ to come to Mournvalley would fix. No matter what political shenanigans the nation had gone through, each and every necromancer would know a white one by their presence, and such a person would easily have the influence to wrangle the unwinding nation back into shape – not to mention the number of crownheads from around the world who would kill for the audience of one. Then there was the whole matter of sect. Once crowned to their position, they could no doubt solve the entire issue in no time.
Pondering the situation, Iris came to an uncomfortable realization. “Amora!” She called for the spider simulacra, who stopped entertaining the goblins for a moment and peeked into the castle. “Did the recording say something about a crown?”
“’Without your crown, you can not hurt me in a way that matters.’” The simulacrum parroted a line from the recording they had heard.
“Well… Fuck.” Iris blurted out. The only reason a white one would actually need a crown for anything, was to make their status ‘official’ in the eyes of The Violet Sect. The inquisitor tried to remember the known names of the sect members from Amaranth’s book. “Tekky… Tenkele… Tekhelet!”
The moment she made the connection and the name escaped her lips, it didn’t cause the shiver down her spine it no doubt deserved. Instead, an inexplicable wave of warmth and strength washed over her body. She had seen Eminence with her own eyes and the very thought of having to go toe to toe with something like that had been harrowing before, but now she found herself eager for battle. Being neither red nor white, she was fully aware that it would be a fruitless effort, but any of that didn’t seem to bother her anymore. For a brief moment, she could imagine nothing more rewarding than tearing into the corrupted husk of one of the members of the sect which was a source of much of her troubles. She yearned to see what she could do with the aid of her new wings and the unimpeded flow of power they allowed. Staring at her trembling hands, she could envision the dark corrupted blood dripping from them and couldn’t help but to smile thinking about it.
“Don’t give in that easily.” The spriggan beside her lazily warned the necromancer. “Know what thoughts are yours.”
“What?” Iris snapped out of her fantasy, slightly disturbed by the violent thoughts she really wasn’t usually prone to having.
“I heard you had been leaning on Emilia’s god for answers. None of my business, really – you can seek answers from them, but never give your trust to a god.” Xamiliere said without looking up from the snow falling in front of her.
“Ooookay?” Iris nodded. She was inclined to agree, but also her entire situation was apparently engineered by the forces high up, so she didn’t exactly know how much her trust mattered anymore. She also failed to really see the reason for the sudden lecture, but it seemed to be over anyway.
If their problem indeed was one of the members of the sect, and Brume didn’t have her crown, it would probably be wise to get it before trying to pick a fight. Which led to a problem of its own: what crown? The ancient crowns of the white ones were beyond lost to time, and while Mournvalley did now have a crown for its empress, it was a gift from one of the few allied nations the necromancers had and didn’t have anything to do with white ones – and was with Coquelicot and so, very unreachable. The inquisitor’s best shot may have been to see if the blacksmith or some other shop in the city just happened to have any kind of a crown and hope the rules weren’t that strict.
No matter what, it seemed like she had gotten everything she could from the goblin tribe and decided it was time to return to Valor. The sun was setting, the air was getting chillier and she wanted a moment of rest before trying to find a crown. Iris asked Xamiliere to come back as well, but the spriggan didn’t see the point in it and declined. Amora offered to speed the inquisitor’s return by taking the shortest path through the snow, but planned on conversing with the goblins for a while longer and combing the field for any crystals they may have missed with the other two simulacra. It seemed like a good idea to have some semblance of protection for the tribe, if Tekhelet was truly in the area, so Iris suggested they part ways there and then. The distance from the edge of the goblin infested area to the nearest road wasn’t that long to begin with, and she could make it to Valor in no time even without the help.
With boots full of snow, she waded across the distance to the nearest path that had some signs of use during the day, and found a convenient sleigh track to follow until an intersection she could see in the distance. Knowing that Tekhelet was possibly in the area, ‘hiding’ as the goblins called it, made it hard for her to not be on edge and flinch at the slightest movement of branches in the treeline. However, at the same time, for every doubt and worry in her mind, she could feel an encouraging warmth emanating from some nook within her soul. At times, she almost felt like someone was talking to her, but she simply couldn’t understand the words, only the feelings behind them. Before she even noticed it, the winter’s cold had stopped bothering her entirely, and her boots melted their way through the snow on every step, revealing small patches of the icy road below.
She connected the dots between the warmth and the fiery goddess she had sought help from by the time she made it to the intersection. Warm thoughts she could have easily passed as her own mind trying to cope with the situation, but the undeniable external signs made it clear that some type of lesser divine works were afoot. “Lady Sylvia, is that you? Is this some kind of a divine pep talk?” She asked half-jokingly, but received no clear answer. “Well, you don’t need to worry, I’m not running away. I just need to sort out this crown thing to have some semblance of a chance.” She chuckled, thinking herself a bit silly for talking to a god.
Suddenly the gentle warmth turned into heat, more aggressive and even a bit uncomfortable. “Very well. Where you stand now, call out loud the name of the disgusting cretin once you have done what you must. I shall cast off the petty illusions from within thy mind and sight, champion.” Very clear words echoed inside Iris’ head. Not gentle, not joyful, or even encouraging. They were full of repressed fury that almost hurt to listen to. Each word crackled like fire and graded like worn metal being dragged against stone.
Iris spun in place, trying to locate the voice in vain. “Champion?” She repeated in confusion. “What?! Sylvia?!”
As the scorching heat slowly waned back into a simple warmth stewing within her, no other signs of the deity could be seen or heard. The way Emilia had described her deity of choice was very difficult to recognize in the words the goddess had directed at Iris, though she could without a doubt now understand the feeling of strength and purpose the priestess advertised as the boons of her vocation. Full of divine gumption, Iris even thought that maybe, just maybe, with her new wings and the backing of a god, there was a chance tackling Tekhelet wouldn’t be an absolutely catastrophic mistake – only a mild one.
With a whole new kind of confidence and determination in her step, the inquisitor headed back into the city and the inn to rest and plot her next action. As she passed them, she stopped for a moment to look at the pair of guards posted by the gate to the city. After weighing her options of telling them what possibly lurked in the fields around Valor, she walked past them without saying a word. Alerting The Guild seemed like more of a risk than anything and she decided to leave it as a last-ditch effort in case she failed to find a crown. It was unlikely that anyone considered ‘red’ by the sect – or the universe, or whoever decided that, would be tolerated in the city, and at worst the city would go into some kind of a lockdown and prevent her from acting. Crossing the emptying market square, it felt a bit weird to watch Valor settle into a restful night, knowing what she did.
Of course, perfectly according to what had been the theme of the day, the inquisitor wasn’t afforded a moment of respite to enjoy the warm ambiance inside the inn before she could already spot new storm clouds in the horizon. She would have at least liked to speak with Emilia about what had happened before anything else, but the bawling of a young owlfolk echoing from the kitchen wasn’t something she could ignore. Unlike someone else, who might have just waltzed into the back of the tavern, Iris knocked on the door frame to announce her arrival and coyly peeked into the kitchen to see what was up.
Surrounded by the innkeeper, her other employee and Gilbert, Holly flipped through the pages of a large book and hopelessly cried without a cease.
“What’s up?” Iris asked and joined the circle. She quickly took note of the large book with slightly yellowed pages, none of which seemed to contain a single word.
“Heck if we know.” Gilbert shrugged. “She just came in, screaming something about her book being ruined.”
“The book’s empty. Is it supposed to have something?” The inquisitor wondered.
“NOT EMPTY!” Holly was quick to protest.
Though her memories of it were already fuzzy, Iris hadn’t forgotten the weird vision that eating one of the owlfolk’s feathers had caused her, which made her a bit more worried about whatever was going on than she would have been about just any kid’s notebook getting ruined.
“Okay… Mind if I take a look?” She suggested and put her hand on the pages to stop Holly from turning them and focus on something else. The owlfolk nodded and wiped the tears from her oversized eyes.
Beginning her inspection of the book by the cover, Iris closed it. By no means in immaculate condition, the book had obviously been tossed around quite a bit on top of just being old. It was a bit curious how someone like Holly had come into possession of such a thing, but the shops of Valor sold stranger items than old books all the time. Pressed into the black leather cover, likely initially with gilded lettering but that had worn out long ago, was the name of the book. “Book of Little Fates” Iris read out loud, and stopped for a moment to wonder what a strange name it was for what looked like a diary on the account of the pages being visibly empty, no matter what its owner claimed. Well-made and with high quality materials, once upon a time the book had not been a cheap thing to buy, and even in its rough shape gave of the feeling that its contents must have been important. Iris opened the book from the very first page, and was met with an extremely detailed drawing of a moth with its wings decorated with countless stars and the full moon. Below the drawing, in intricate lettering was the likely origin of the tome: ‘The Great Lunar Library’, which was a name she remembered hearing before. Below that, a longer text that seemed like a quote: ‘In the grand scheme of this world, the deeds of mice matter more than the machinations of gods, for it is them that fate is built upon – and so we gather each one, for no story is worth telling, if not them.’ With no more detail on the first page, Iris started flipping through the pages one by one, just in case one of them had a smallest of scribbles on it, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She was starting to lose faith on finding anything, until suddenly she came to a single non-blank page a little more than halfway through the book.
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“Well, fuck.” She couldn’t help but to mutter at the first sight of the page’s contents. After first skimming through it, the inquisitor read the page out loud. “Upon a field of snow, she stood. Unwilling to take what was hers by right. Her seat around the table forever empty, her burden forever neglected. So fades into obscurity the white with a violet hue, never to be remembered again. The End.” Written in clear haste and with the last two words taking up almost half the page, it wasn’t the contents themselves that ringed alarms in Iris’ head, but the ink they were written in. Messy, disgusting shade of violet that hurt her eyes and twisted her stomach when looked directly at. “Is this what you mean, and you didn’t write it yourself?” She asked and placed the book in front of the owlfolk.
“NEVER!” Holly screeched, almost insulted enough to stop crying. “It is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Against the rules, against the voices!”
“And could anyone else have written this? While you were at work, for example.” Iris suggested as an alternative, though she already feared things would not be that simple.
Holly shook her head. “It would kill them.” She said in an oddly menacing tone, one that didn’t fit her usual self, and a spark of greater intelligence flickered deep in her eyes for a moment before she started sobbing once more.
“Interesting.” The inquisitor nodded, closed the book and gave it up to its owner. Leaving Rosie and Yulia to look after the crying owl, she pulled Gilbert aside for a private chat.
“The sect?” The adventurer guessed, proving once more that not much passed him unnoticed.
Iris nodded. “We may have a bit of a situation in our hands. There’s a sect member on the prowl outside the city, and my current theory is that there is supposed to be a necromancer in Valor – a powerful one, who has been somehow removed by the sect. In turn, I’ve been ‘arranged’ to be here as a substitute. The exact hows and whys I’m still working on, but I don’t think that book… or the girl are what they seem.” She more or less explained what she had gathered over the course of the day. “What do you really know about her?”
Just as Gilbert was about to answer, the door of the inn opened and shut quickly. This was nothing out of the ordinary, but Iris’ attention was immediately shot to it. It was as if she felt the presence of a necromancer, or faint remnants of one for a split second but lost track of them so quickly that she could only tell it happened once it was already gone. She lifted up a finger to put a pin on the discussion she was having and backed to the doorway out of the kitchen to take a look who had come in.
By the door leading into the frigid winterscape outside, stood a pair of distinctly unadventurous looking men. One, a crowfolk, and the other human, though wearing a bird-like mask that covered their entire head. Both of them wore an immaculate, yet not at all weather appropriate black and white uniforms composed of a white undershirt, black vest and black dress trousers. By looks and presence, they didn’t fit anywhere, least of all the inn they had just arrived to, but no one really seemed to pay any attention to them. Every adventurer minding their business took exactly one look at them, remembered talking to at least one of them at least once in some random point of their lives and didn’t spare a second thought for the matter. A supposed chance meeting on a busy street, a shared bench in a park, idle chat while fishing, all of them so unremarkable as conversations and moments that they had been forgotten immediately. This, of course, included Iris as well. Well before she was an inquisitor, before the revolution, she had been fetching water from a river, when the crow floated by with a dingy. Their conversation mostly covered Iris’ hobbies at the time, and was as unremarkable and forgettable as the rest – but thinking about it now, Iris couldn’t help but to wonder how he had made it so far into Mournvalley and how he had made it out alive.
The other man though, something about him was very familiar to Iris. She couldn’t remember meeting him, but everything from the way he walked down to details of him only really accessible to necromancers, all were something she felt she recognized from somewhere.
The masked man must have noticed the inquisitor staring at him as she pointed at her. “What is she doing here?!” He exclaimed to the crow in a voice that felt just as familiar to Iris as the rest of him, and possibly even had some remnants of a Mournvalleyan accent.
“A fine question indeed!” The crow nodded as he noticed the necromancer as well and opened up a small black book he was carrying. After a brief perusal of the text in it, he closed it and sighed. “Vinca, mark everything that has happened in here or in Ruvenstead in the past couple of weeks as possibly false.”
The masked man groaned and pulled out a notebook to scribble something into it.
Ignored by everyone else in the room, the pair promptly made their way to the kitchen, as if already knowing that’s where they should be. The crow politely gestured for Iris to give them passage, but the masked man seemed very intent on keeping his distance from the inquisitor, maybe for a good reason as she was contemplating biting him to figure out how she knew him. As they stepped into the room, the same look of recognition showed briefly on Rosie and Gilbert’s faces as they recalled who the two were, and neither seemed to oppose them being there for some reason.
The two waltzed all the way to Holly, bowed at her grandly before the crow addressed the entire room. “Pardon our intrusion, but me and my colleague here have been going over the records regarding this time and place, and they are severely out of whack – if you pardon my language, just wholly hogwash! So, we have taken it upon ourselves to see what exactly might be the cause. Now, the cause for such an occurrence may…” His speech trailed off as his partner subtly pointed out Holly’s book on the table to him. “Lady Saga! You can not take things like this out of the library!”
As he attempted to take the book, Holly grabbed it from the table and wrapped her arms firmly around it.
Not entirely sure what was going on, Rosie decided to act based on what she saw. She placed her hand on the crow’s shoulder, pressed on it with enough force for him to clearly struggle standing straight but what seemed to be no particularly big effort for the innkeeper, and dug her claws into the vest. “I don’t know what you’re on about, but no one in this place raises their voice at my employees. So why don’t you just explain yourself first, while I still let you?”
The crow retreated back to the side of his partner and fixed his attire nervously. “My deepest apologies, I didn’t mean to disrespect you or your fine establishment, Miss Rosie – but you must understand the serious nature of my concern. As you already know, my name is Noir, and this is my coworker, Vinca. What you might not know is that we are two of the scribes working for The Great Lunar Library – what that means is not immediately important for the situation at hand. What is vastly more important is that fate has been dislodged from its path in this location, and I doubt I need to explain why that might be unfortunate.”
“Noir…” Iris muttered and suddenly remembered that it was this exact crow she had seen in the vision caused by Holly’s feather. It didn’t take much deduction to gather that the location she had seen was the library itself, and the eyes she had seen through belonged ‘Lady Saga’ – which would mean that somehow the simple girl working night shift in the inn was the head librarian Noir and his kind answered to.
Noir looked at the inquisitor with a knowing smile. “It is exactly as you suspect, Iris. Thought I have not the heart to describe the details in her presence. Lady Saga is indeed present here, no doubt as a part of her own plans we are not privy to. It appears you might be the person we should talk to; your inquisitive mind has gathered much, I suspect – even if you are not supposed to be here.”
Understand the situation more before challenging Tekhelet seemed like a good idea, and if these scribes would be of any aid in returning the missing necromancer, letting them in on what she knew seemed like the play to make. “I’ll tell you what I can… On one condition: let me bite him.” Iris made her offer and pointed at the masked scribe who had been avoiding her the whole time.
“Seems she has us in a pickle, don’t you think?” Noir commented amusedly to his companion.
Vinca glared at both the inquisitor and his friend through the goggles of his mask, gauging if they were serious for a moment before letting out a hissing sigh through the mask’s vents. “Not here, take us somewhere private.”
Iris quietly asked Gilbert and Rosie to keep an eye on Holly, as it was probably for the best to keep her within arm’s reach, considering she seemed far more important than anyone could have guessed, and the sect had already gotten their mittens on her book once. She then showed the way to the room she was borrowing to the two scribes and hastily relocated the conversation there. Being somewhat of an expert in info gathering herself, she could immediately tell that the pair carefully went over everything in the room with their gazes, learning everything about is inhabitant that possibly could be learned, but without touching anything.
“You’re awfully accepting of being bitten.” Iris noted.
“Complete blackouts on information like this are more dangerous than your teeth, and we know of your peculiarities.” Vinca stated, determined but clearly not happy about it. He exposed his arm by rolling up his sleeve and pulling down the long glove he was wearing. “I also know to not even propose me just telling you what you’re trying to find out. You would always have your doubts, but flesh doesn’t lie.”
“No… it does not…” Iris frowned as that was something she had definitely said at some point.
Noir kneeled to take a look at the little mound of wax that had formed onto the floor from all the candles Iris had been burning. As if something significant could be deduced from it, he took out a notebook and a black feathered quill, scribbled something on it without actually using any ink and smirked almost smugly.
“We’re working on a somewhat of a timer here, so let’s get this going already, or do you need me to spread some butter on the arm? A dusting of sugar?” Vinca hurried the matter, clearly anxious to learn what was going on.
As sort of a comeback for being snide, Iris left out the final warning and suddenly sank her teeth into the scribe’s pale skin. Not hard enough to bite off a piece, but definitely not in a playful way either, just hard enough for one of her canines to break the skin and let out a drop of blood.
“You know, this is in no way sanitary.” Vinca painedly joked while clearly playing tough and withstanding the pain.
As the metallic taste from the tiniest drop of blood filled the inquisitor’s mouth, she let go of the arm and stared blankly at the masked scribe before her, who immediately began rifling through Iris’ belongings, as if expecting to find something. The taste of long sought for freedom, happiness, companionship and utmost faith in one’s purpose were the first things the necromancer learned, as Vinca was definitely someone dedicated and happy with their current place in life. However, hints of much darker aspects came through, among which was a bitterness extremely familiar to Iris – Vinca was, or had once upon a time been a necromancer. Yet that was far from the last thing she realized, though matured in a good way, the taste was still familiar. The buried emotions of the past something she had tasted at their height.
The wings on Iris’ back opened wide, only barely avoiding the crow still poking around the room and ignoring whatever was going on. “P… periwinkle?” She uttered with tears in her eyes as she learned who exactly the scribe was.
“Iris.” The scribe answered to his old name with the first hint of warmth in his voice as he found the bottle of strong alcohol he had been looking for and proceeded to drench the bite in it before being tackled to a wall by the inquisitor rushing to hug him.
A few weeks after the defeat of the old rulers of Mournvalley, Iris had noted that Periwinkle had been entirely absorbed by seeking information on some particular subject. He would often go on unannounced trips to acquire materials or chase the slightest clue he managed to find, until eventually disappearing altogether. Being a late addition to the team and standing against some of the other members on occasion, as well as being ignored by Coquelicot, no one besides Iris even really considered him to be an inquisitor. While not necessarily ostracized by the group as a whole, the division between them and him was clear as day. Iris had made a token attempt at keeping him involved, but as everyone became exponentially busier, it became harder and harder to spare the time and effort – with his eventual disappearance being one of the many things Iris at least partly blamed on herself. Now, finding him alive and well, no matter the situation, was perhaps the first and only clear victory she could admit to herself in a long while.
“Great!” Noir exclaimed and clapped his hands once to interrupt the two. “Now let us get to the explanation of what on earth is going here!”
Vinca shook his head and made no attempt at freeing himself as the skeletal wings slowly wrapped around him in addition to the Inquisitor’s own arms. “It can wait for a moment more, she needs this.” He whispered.
“Ah… Very well!” The crow accepted the suggestion, though didn’t seem to really understand the purpose of it.