Render walked with me to the Chief’s house, but instead of following me inside just stood by the door. Noticing the look I was giving them, they answered my unspoken question.
“I do not see any reason for me to be part of this conversation, as it is no business of my own. You need not concern yourself with me, go on inside.”
“What? It’s absolutely your business, you did most of the work fighting the Necromancer!” I tried to refute their claim, but they simply waved me off.
“Even still, this is a private matter. There is no need for me to invade the privacy of either you or the Chief of this village.”
I frowned but conceded the point, knocking on the door and waiting until I heard the Chief’s voice tell me to enter.
She was… not looking too great. Admittedly, she wasn’t any worse than when I first saw her a few days ago, but this whole Necromancer business must have really gotten to her.
“Good morning, or afternoon, whatever it is at this point.” She tiredly sighed from her slouched position in the same chair she’d sat in when I first arrived. I took a seat opposite her after a moment of hesitation.
“I think it’s evening, at least that’s what Render said when I woke up.”
“Ah yes, he’s the armoured one, correct?” I guess so, but something about what she just said seems a little off, hmm.
“Actually, I don’t know if ‘he’ is even the right word. I have no clue what their gender actually is.” An amused smile crept onto the Chief’s face at my admission.
“Truly? But you seemed rather familiar, have they never taken off their armour?”
“I’ve known them for a little while now, but I’ve never once seen them without the armour. I guess they probably have a Skill or something to make it more comfortable, otherwise I don’t know how they could keep it on so often.”
“Perhaps, perhaps. I have heard of such Skills, they may be more comfortable with the armour than without. Anyway, you surely didn’t come here to discuss the private matters of your friend, did you?” Ah right, is it rude to talk about some behind their back? I’ll have to ask Render about that at some point. And apologise if it is.
“Yeah, I wanted to go and ask the Necromancer about something, but Render said there might be something odd going on with them, so they said I should come and ask you about it first.” Within seconds, the good mood that Elmwood had developed dropped, and their voice became noticeably strained.
“Of course, that. It’s quite the difficult situation, to be truthful, and it pains me to even think about it, but you’ve been of great help to Woodhaven, so it’s only fair that you get to know,” That doesn’t sound good, maybe I shouldn’t have asked, “I’ll start from the beginning, it’s as good a place as any. A few years ago a married couple were killed by an angry adventurer who proclaimed that they were practising dark magic- sacrifices, blood magic, and the like- and ran them through on the spot. It was… well it was a dark time for the village, but thankfully no evidence of any sort was ever found so the man was sentenced to be executed. A few of the more old fashioned villagers called for him to be killed by the couple’s daughter, Elara Woodruff, but that movement never got any traction.”
Elara Woodruff? Wasn’t that the Necromancer’s name?
Not giving me time to ask for clarification, Elmwood continued to recount the story, “To be completely honest with you, the main reason more people didn’t end up agreeing with it was because by the time anyone had gone to check on her, she had completely vanished. I’m sure you’re wondering what this has to do with the Necromancer and, well, it’s because they claim to be that very same Elara Woodruff. Her age matches up, that much is true, but I just can’t believe it’s true. Elara was a sweet girl, she would never do anything like this, it’s just inconceivable.”
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What do I do here? Should I tell her that she’s probably telling the truth, or would that just be cruel? Isn’t it better to be certain? Or maybe that just isn’t the same for everyone, and I should just ask what she’d prefer? But how would I-
“Rob, is there something you would like to tell me?” Elmwood’s face had become impassive, betraying almost no emotion whatsoever, yet somehow I got the feeling that she’d be annoyed if I gave her the wrong answer. Ah dang it. Do I even have a choice at this point? Well, I probably do, but it’s possible I would end up making this decision anyway, so I guess I’ll just have to hope it goes well.
“I don’t quite know how to put this but, well, when I started fighting the Necromancer I kinda got a notification through the System that kinda told me that her name was ‘Elaria Solarius Woodruff’, so she’s probably telling the truth.”
“I see. Well, I see no reason that you can’t go and ask her whatever you were curious about, so go on ahead. I’ll be needing some time to process this, so try not to do anything that would need my attention for today.”
“Right, okay. I’ll just be going then. See ya, I guess.”
I left the house, carefully shutting the door behind me, and motioned for Render to lead the way to wherever it was that the Necromancer was being held. They seemed to get the hint and silently walked there, not asking any questions about what had happened inside.
Maybe they had the right idea in staying outside, I don’t have a clue what I was supposed to do there.
After an awkward few minutes, we arrived at a nondescript house that, upon a cursory examination, looked to have been modified to work as a prison cell. There were a few serious looking people holding spears dutifully standing guard, though none of them had so much as a single piece of actual armour.
I guess they don’t get many Monsters around here, huh?
After exchanging a few words, we were allowed in and found ourselves face to face with a relaxed woman wearing remarkably not-necromancery clothes. Though they probably weren’t actually allowed to wear something that would make it easier for them to fight against the guards.
“What a nice surprise, it’s the two worthless bastards that got me captured, what can I do for you?” I found myself caught flat footed by the disparity between, not only her words themselves, but also the strangely cheery and friendly manner in which they were spoken.
Render, apparently, was not similarly caught off guard and was able to speak without needing to take a moment to figure out how exactly the Necromancer felt about the situation.
“There is some information that Rob would like to get from you, and some that I am also interested in finally getting from you, if you would be so kind.”
“Oh, but of course. Anything for the people that ruined my plans, while we’re at it, would you like me to get you something to drink as well, maybe a snack?”
I opened my mouth to accept before, at the last second, snapping it shut and glaring at the woman who I was beginning to realise might be making fun of me somehow. She just grinned and waited patiently for me to speak.
She wasn’t like this when I met her at the cabin. Is this just how she acts when she has nothing to lose? What in the hells is even going on here?
“Why did you follow me here? Did you attack this place specifically because I was here?” For some reason, she reacted as though she was expecting a completely different question, and for a moment the tables turned and she was the one to be caught off guard.
“Really? That’s what you were curious about? I only came across you by the Tomb because that was my next target, it was just a coincidence, more than anything. A pretty unfortunate one for me as well, by the way.”
“Oh, right. I guess that makes sense.” Is it weird that I’m kinda disappointed? This ended up being a pretty boring conversation.
“You know, it’s actually pretty fortunate that you came to speak to me, for me at least. There was actually a question that I wanted to ask you,” At this, I heard Render’s armour shift as they presumably turned to look at either her or me, and I was admittedly curious as to what she could want to know, “Something curious happened after you zapped me, I lost control of my magic, that was pretty bad on its own, but then I got quite an interesting notification. Any idea what it could’ve been?”
“No?” I responded, a little unsure about where she was going with this, “Am I supposed to?”
“What? So you didn’t even do it on purpose?” Ok, she's kind of getting a little annoying now.
“Can you just come out and say it? I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Hm, alright then I guess I may as well. The notification was probably something familiar to you, what with being a mage and all, if I remember correctly it went a little something like ‘Active Mana Pool Detected, Expediting Awakening’. Now do you get it?” Oh.
OH.
Is that bad?
It might be bad.
“Render, I think we’re done here.”
“Very well.” Somehow I could tell that they were curious, but they had the sense to hold their questions until after we’d left.
Now all I had to do was figure out some answers.