In a dungeon somewhere, Vittorio lay curled up in a corner of a cell. He was one of three things in the room: The other two were blankets. There was also a hole in one corner for 'waste', a magical light in the ceiling, and a heavy, locked door. The walls, ceiling, floor, and door were all painted white and inlaid with alarm runes. The people who had taken him there had been harsh but not cruel, leaving him with a bruise or two but no worse off than that.
Vittorio was not entirely aware of any of these things. His senses and focus were still in a different room, picturing the same things over and over. The feel of the dagger in his hand. The smell of Mother's blood as it sprayed from her cut throat. The warmth of it on his face, the taste of it in his mouth. The sound of the dagger burying itself in Father's eye. The look in Mother's eyes as she bled out on the floor.
It seemed like a nightmare. He tried to convince himself it must be because it couldn't have been real. It couldn't actually have happened. It couldn't.
He didn't know how long he lay there, and he wasn't entirely aware that time was passing at all. His mind just kept repeating itself: Dagger. Blood. Thunk. Dying. Impossible. The monotony, and his focus, were broken by the sound of heavy bolts being retracted. The door opened and a guard stepped in holding a long, metal-capped truncheon. She wore a tabard with the symbol of the Marezian League: A shield divided into three fields, blue above masonry on the left and green on the right, the fields separated by golden gems.
"Stay down", she said, as behind her more people entered: Another guard carrying a small table, followed by a rotund man wearing a short jacket and carrying a chair. He had the same symbol on his jacket. The guard put the table down near the door, and the man set the chair behind it before sitting down and starting to withdraw small objects from a bag of holding.
"You can go, thank you", the man said in a deep, rich voice. The guards stepped out and closed the door, but did not bolt it. The man finished placing things on the table and looked at Vittorio.
"Vittorio Merchant? Before you speak, be aware that I have a skill that allows me to record everything said in my Interface. I advise you to choose your words with care. I am [Investigator] Salvatore, and you, I'm afraid, are suspected of murder. My job, and indeed my class, is not about finding guilt or innocence but the truth. I will be gathering evidence and testimonies from those present when the alleged deaths happened as well as others to put everything into context. You do not have to speak to me, and while that will not be held against you, it may impede my work and distort what the court hears.
"Are you willing to speak to me?"
Vittorio sat up and realized he was stiff and aching, his belly and shoulders sore. "Yeah. I guess so."
Salvatore nodded. "Do you need water?"
"I don't think I could drink anything."
The man nodded again. "In that case, we will begin." The [Investigator] asked some basic questions: His name, the names of his parents, where he grew up. Vittorio answered truthfully. Each time he did a small gem on the table would briefly glow.
"Good. Now, on to the events of the 33rd day of the last month of spring. Can you tell me what happened that day? You may be brief in describing what you did before entering the Free Company building."
Vittorio thought back. Somehow, everything that had happened before that room seemed distant. As he began to speak, he noticed that another of the objects on the table would glow softly, its colour changing. "Me and Gloria, uh Gloria Innkeeper, we grew up together, we were coming back from a quest. We'd spent the night in a barn along the road. We got back to Pogna around noon and went straight to the guild hall - the Free Company building.
"My parents were there, talking to some of my friends. Pachakutek, Nuno, and Tarcisio, I don't know their surnames but they're adventurers here. Pachakutek is a mikhuq. Anyway, Mother and Father said they wanted to talk to me in private. I didn't want to. Gloria tried to stop it. But... my parents don't allow me to say no. I knew not talking to them would just make them angry, so... we went. We went into a meeting room and-" his throat closed up, as he did not want to think about what happened. He closed his eyes to steel himself. Salvatore came over with a cup of water and he carefully drank a little.
"We went into the room. Mother told me I was stupid to have joined the Free Company. That she'd been soft on me growing up. That- that she'd wanted to kill me as a baby. That I'm useless. They wanted me to change class and work for them. Before I left home they told me I owed them for food and clothes and stuff growing up, and for getting to see a [Class Guide]. Mother said I owed them more now. I told them no. I was afraid, terrified, but I didn't want to go back.
"They got angry. I'm not allowed to say no to them, but I did. Mother said I was going to do what they want and that I should just do it. I told her no again. She punched me in the stomach." He lifted his shirt to reveal a large, dark bruise on his belly, the marks of Mothers knuckles clear. "I hunched over. I couldn't breathe. And then... a-and then..." He buried his face in his hands. Salvatore gave him a few moments, then gave him the cup again.
"What happened then?", he asked in a gentle voice.
Vittorio drank, more deeply this time. He could feel his emotions settling a bit. The glow from the table was shifting between deep orange, bright yellow, and deep blue. "I don't know. Everything just went... cold. I could feel where Mother hit me, but it didn't hurt. I didn't feel afraid or angry or anything. And then my hand moved. I didn't want to. I wanted to stay still. I wanted to wait for Mother to step away or calm down, she only gets mad if I move. I tried to stop my hand but I couldn't. And... there was a voice."
"A voice? What did it say?"
"It said... it said 'Fear not, thy liberation is at hand'." Vittorio started to shake, remembering the feeling of powerlessness as his body moved on its own. The glow was entirely orange. "I-I felt my hand grab my dagger. Mother said something, and - Teris shelter me - I cut her throat. Father started moving forward and I-I threw the dagger through his eye. And then-then I just stood there, looking at them.
"Then Gloria opened the door and I-I talked. I didn't want to, but I talked."
"What did you say?"
"I said 'Thus always to tyrants', and then to Gloria 'Rejoice, thy oath is fulfilled'. I don't even know what that means."
Salvatore looked at him, not unkindly. "Are you saying then, that your parents died by your hand but that you were not in control of your body?"
"I didn't want to do it! I didn't want to hurt them! I just wanted them to leave me alone! But I couldn't stop it. I wanted to. I tried. But I couldn't. I killed them."
Salvatore stood from where he'd been crouching before Vittorio. "Thank you for telling me. I cannot imagine how hard this must have been for you. I will see if I can find someone who can perhaps prove that you were under the influence of mind control or possession, and I would like to talk to you again if that's alright?" Vittorio nodded.
"I will be back in a day or two. Do try to get some rest, and at least drink some water, okay?"
The [Investigator] knocked on the door twice. It opened and guards helped him retrieve the furniture after he'd put his instruments away, leaving Vittorio alone with his thoughts once more. He found himself more at peace, as if a weight had been lifted. It could have been that Salvatore had used a skill or that he needed to tell someone, but either way, he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep as he curled up on a blanket.
When he woke there was food on the floor, delivered through a hatch. It was a thin, bland vegetable soup in a bowl made of bread - very odd, but this was presumably to not give him anything he could use as a weapon. He drank the soup and gnawed on the bowl, even though he wasn't hungry. Growing up he'd learned to eat when he had the chance because there was no telling when he'd be fed next.
At some point, his pact with {The Still Wind} had ended. He couldn't remember not renewing it but felt it was the right choice. With no small amount of fear, he reached out with Commune to try and make sense of what had happened.
Commune Open your mind to contact with those who dwell in The Place Which Is Not.
First he reached out to {The Still Wind}. He'd been in a pact with it when everything happened, and so it was the most likely to know something.
> Mortal. Pact ended has. Question {this} you have for?
>
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Yes. Did you make me do it?
> Clear be. Firm. Speak.
Did- did you make me kill my parents?
> Pact clear was. Gifts price granted paid. Part pact control not was.
I know it wasn't part of the pact, but did you make me do it?
> Pact clear was. Gifts price granted paid.
Vittorio could feel a fundamental clash in the meaning the entity was imparting and his interpretation of it.
Are you saying you couldn't make me do it?
> Part pact control was, could.
You could only do it if it was part of a pact, but not under the terms we've used.
> Correct. Pact clear was.
Vittorio broke the connection. He didn't know if he believed it, but neither could he think of a reason for it to make him do it. Next, he reached out to {Strength of Weakness}, the one which might have had a motive.
> Mortal mind greeted is. Pact it desires?
No, I had a question. I lost control of my body and- and killed some people. Did you make me do it?
> Pact mortals while under not killed. Command pact part of has not been.
I know, I was wondering if you made me do it while we were not in a pact.
> Pact formed not. Gift price given given not.
Again there was a disconnect.
You cannot do anything if we are not in a pact?
> No. Mortals many influence could else. Pact world is how reach.
He ended the connection. It was impossible to say for sure as both had admitted that they could have done it under different circumstances, but he didn't think it was either of them. It just didn't feel right. His Supernatural Awareness hadn't detected anything either. He wondered what it could have been - if anything. The worry that it had just been him bubbled up again. He had been angry, and afraid, and he'd wanted them to stop and go away forever, but he hadn't wanted to kill them. He'd never wanted or even thought of killing anyone, much less his parents!
He sat on his blankets and thought. There wasn't much else to do in the sparse room. He wondered where he was: Had he been taken to some guard station? He couldn't remember going outside, so was he in some Free Company cell? It would make sense for them to have some, he supposed. There were quests to capture people now and then. The guards were from the League but they could be working with the [Investigator].
Did it matter? Not really, but he needed something to occupy his mind, something to distract himself from his memories. It didn't work long. His dark thoughts were interrupted just an hour or so later by his guess, this time to admit a [Healer] accompanied by two guards. The [Healer] said little, only asked him to remove his shirt and trousers and then looked him over. The man seemed a bit troubled by the end of it, but just thanked Vittorio and cast a healing spell on him, healing his bruised belly.
The door opened again five meals later, at which point Vittorio was very thankful for the magical waste-destroyer in the corner. Once again it was [Investigator] Salvatore with his two guards, and things started the same as last time. The guards left as Salvatore placed the objects on the table.
"What are those?", Vittorio asked.
"Various detectors", Salvatore answered. "I have skills to hear lies and incomplete truths, but I have found that no method is perfect. If my skill and the detector disagree I know something isn't right. The others sense or record other things. To return to the matter at hand, I have been in contact with an expert who has agreed to come and examine you. It will take them some time to get here, unfortunately, as they are currently in Pithos."
"Isn't that in the Sacred States?"
"Yes, it's the capital. I understand they have the services of a fairly high-tier [Translocationist] and so will teleport part of the way, but it will still be a while. Assuming everything goes well here though, you can start having visitors soon. I will also see to it that you get some more amenities. For today, however, I would like you to tell me about your relationship with your parents. How they were to live with, what your childhood was like and so on."
"Uhm, okay. My parents raised me to work in their shop, and they paid for a [Class Guide] so I would get a class and keep working for them. I wasn't allowed to do things that were like other classes. They didn't want me to have any friends, because they said they'd distract me. Me and Gloria became friends sort of by accident, I think."
"When you say you weren't allowed to have friends, how do you mean?"
"Well, I wasn't supposed to leave the store, and they didn't want kids in there so... I didn't really meet many. I wasn't allowed to play or anything. They said the townsfolk weren't good enough, and maybe I could have friends when I'd helped them move to a city."
The [Investigator] had to drag the answers out of him because Vittorio wasn't sure what was normal and what wasn't, or what mattered. He didn't see how any of it did, really. They were his parents so they were allowed to do those things, after all. Salvatore wanted to know a lot about the different punishments Mother and Father had used and for what. Vittorio felt uncomfortable talking about how unruly he'd been and how often his parents had had to punish him, but he did.
Before leaving, Salvatore asked him to again walk him through the day of the killings.
"I thought you had it all written down or something?"
"I do, but I find that sometimes telling the story again can uncover new things."
So Vittorio told him as best he could. He couldn't remember everything Mother had said to him word-for-word though and he said as much. The voice he could recall clearly, tone, sound and words. Salvatore thanked him and left. A while later people - not the guards with Salvatore, but armed - came in with a thin mattress, a pillow, and a chair. None of them spoke until Vittorio thanked them as they were leaving. The last one out gave him a nod before closing and barring the door.
His living situation drastically improved and his mind calmer and clearer after a second session with Salvatore - he was pretty sure it was a skill of some kind - Vittorio decided to tackle something horrific that he hadn't wanted to talk about.
Alert!
You have 2 Talent points!
Killing his parents had leveled him up. Was that proof that it was actually him? He didn't know. He wasn't going to pick any Talents for now, that was simply too much, but he needed to confront and accept the truth of it. Murder had given him experience. He'd always known, on some level, that criminals leveled up just like everyone else even though there weren't any criminal classes. [Brawlers] worked as thugs, [Rogues] as thieves and so on, but experiencing it was a very different thing. Part of him wanted to reject it, leave the Talents unpicked, because he didn't want to profit off of his parents' deaths. He knew it wasn't practical or reasonable, but it was what he felt.
The food hatch opened slightly. Vittorio was finding it hard to keep track of time - the light stayed on constantly - but he felt like that probably wasn't right.
"Vee?", a soft voice asked.
"Gloria?"
"Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"
"No. My parents are dead."
"Yeah." There was an awkward silence. "What happened, Vee? I know you didn't do it, so who did?"
The simple, earnest confidence in her voice was both great and terrible. She didn't doubt him, she wasn't afraid of him, she didn't blame him: All these things he'd been worried about. Losing Gloria would have been too much to bear.
But what if he had to break that trust? What if he had done it? Would he have to watch her face fall, her friendship die? Time would tell. All he could do now was recount what happened to her. He dragged the mattress over to the door and sat down, huddling in his blankets. He tried lying down and looking through the hatch but it had some kind of barrier in the middle, presumably to stop people from reaching out. He wished he could see her face.
Telling Gloria was much harder than telling Salvatore. The [Investigator] had been passive, quiet, and calming, but Gloria was empathetic. When he told her about refusing Mother she sounded so proud, then furious hearing about the punch, and once he was done she was clearly crying.
"Oh, Vee", she said softly. "That's so awful! Who would do that to you?"
"I don't know. I've been wracking my brains but I don't know about this stuff. I was worried it was from my class, but I talked to them and I don't think so. They were confused about the question I think, like the idea of doing something outside of the pact didn't make sense."
"You told the [Investigator] all this, right?"
"Yeah. Not the class stuff but the rest. He said he'd found someone who might help but they're in the Sacred States. They're coming but it'll be a while. Until then... guess I'm staying here. Where is here, by the way?"
"Under the guild hall. Everyone's really worried and wanted to see you, but we weren't allowed. Are they feeding you okay?"
"Yeah, soup in a bowl made of bread."
"Huh, that... that sounds kind of fun, actually."
Vittorio smiled for the first time since the killings. He could always count on Gloria to find something to smile about. "It is! The soup's been bland but I think it could be pretty good."
From there they talked about normal things, which was precisely what Vittorio needed. He needed his mind out of the cell, his thoughts on anything else. He was pretty sure Gloria was making some of it up, but he didn't mind. As long as they could talk about anything else that was fine by him.
This continued for several days, though it wasn't just Gloria who visited. Salvatore returned and asked him to recount the events of the day one more time before telling him they would now wait for the expert. Pachakutek and the others in the group all stopped by to tell him they knew he was innocent, though Pachakutek and Tarcisio stayed the longest. He'd given permission to Gloria to tell them what had happened and Pachakutek could empathize more than the others, more even than Gloria: She'd watched her friend and cousin die a terrible death before her eyes while she was powerless to stop it. She knew some of what he was going through and she told him it never entirely goes away, but also that she didn't want it to. Her cousins death had reshaped her life and she wanted to learn and grow as much as she could from it and never forget.
For the most part, they just talked, however. Once their discussion was interrupted by him getting food and she was affronted by how dull the soup looked, which lightened his mood considerably.
Tarcisio, unsurprisingly, had strong feelings about the whole affair and made it abundantly clear that he knew Vittorio to be innocent. His visit was less of a conversation and more of a rant about how there was "no hate in his heart" and that keeping him locked up was an injustice. Vittorio found it comforting and almost amusing to listen to the [Fervent Warrior] walk up and down the hall outside, furious on his behalf.
He'd taken to sleeping by the door just in case someone came by. When a guard opened the door and stepped in he almost got it out of sheer surprise, as they presumably thought he was lurking by the door.
"Come", the guard said. "The [Exorcist] has arrived, and they won't meet down here."