Clara awoke to Gideon’s hand shaking her. She hadn’t intended on falling asleep. She groggily registered late afternoon light streaming in through the room’s window and various holes in the wall. At least she hadn’t slept for more than a few hours.
“Feeling alright? I found the bandits’ supplies and put together a stew. When you didn’t return I thought I might as well search for you, but it seems I didn’t have anything to worry about.”
“I’m fine,” Clara lied. “I was just a bit tired from today’s events. I’ll go get some food in a few moments.” Gideon nodded and departed the room.
Clara lay back and shut her eyes again, throwing an arm across her face. She was not ready to get up yet. The Paladin would doubtless want to resume their travels as soon as possible, especially since she had wasted a few hours of daylight with her nap.
She realized she still clutched Ella’s papers in her other hand and flung them across the room, watching the sheets flutter to the ground.
That was when she noticed a small figure perched in the room’s window. She almost mistook it for her own imp again, but something about the way it held itself identified it as Holden’s familiar.
“What now?” she groaned, sitting up as it winged over to stand at the foot of the bed.
“My apologies for interrupting you, Miss Elwin,” the demon said, bowing. “It seems you have swayed a Paladin to your side. A very valuable ally in your situation.”
“I had assumed your kind would be wary of them.”
“It is true that the angels and their followers are our most ardent foes. They are, however, generally incapable of deception. To have one trust you enough to travel together will provide us with many opportunities. But that is not the reason for my visit. There is an important component of our ritual nearby that we need you to gather. A ghost resides at a nearby farm, and we simply need a portion of its ectoplasm.”
Clara threw herself back onto the pillow and waved the demon away. “Fine, I’ll go do it.”
The demons face split into a toothy grin. “Thank you. Holden will greatly appreciate this service. You will find the path to the farm not far down the road once you exit the forest.” It held up a hand, a small vial of dark crystal appearing in its hand with a puff of shadowy energy. “Enough to fill this vessel should suffice. We await you in the capital.” The demon bowed again and flew off the bed, leaving the crystalline vial behind.
Clara let out an annoyed sigh, pulling herself out of the bed with some effort. She didn’t particularly want to take any more detours than were required on the rest of her trip to Calador, but collecting this ectoplasm would put her further in Holden’s good graces, which would hopefully lead to her gaining access to whatever knowledge he possessed even faster. She would have to come up with some kind of explanation for the Paladin for why they needed to go off track and hunt down this ghost.
Clara ran a hand through her unruly hair, pulling it back into some semblance of order, then grabbed the demon’s vial before returning to the great hall.
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Gideon had started a small campfire on the stone floor of the great hall, and a small cooking pot hung over it. The scent of fresh stew that wafted over was surprisingly appealing to Clara, though she thought that was perhaps caused only by the general lack of food she’d had recently.
The Paladin was seated beside the fire, idly tending to it. Clara wandered over to take a seat beside him, and the Gideon spooned out a bowl and handed it over to her, along with a hunk of white bread.
“Thank you. Do you mind if I ask a few questions about that golem from earlier?” she decided to ask as she waited for the stew to cool enough to eat.
“Go ahead. I was as surprised to see it here as you were.”
“Is that so? Is what it said about it being something akin to angels and demons true?”
The Paladin shrugged. “It’s said in the Church’s teachings that beings of powerful magic - commonly termed Ancients, as they’re believed to have existed before humanity - used to walk the earth. Angels, demons, dragons, and a few others, golems included.”
“’Used to’ walk the earth?”
“The beings themselves seem to have disappeared from history some centuries ago. They still exist, obviously - my order and the Church’s priests commune with angels and receive power from them, and that demon following you around had to come from somewhere. The common belief is that they reside in planes above and below our own, only able to be reached by magic. How those came into being has been left entirely up to speculation - along with why our angelic patrons can’t visit our plane unaided. Which is why I was surprised to see the golem; if it had been summoned, its master wouldn’t be far from it. Perhaps something to do with the core that held its spirit, but I’m no expert on those sorts of things. Such theories and speculation are better left up to priests and wizards.”
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Clara gazed off at the walls, thinking. She had known about the planes, at least, if not the existence of Ancients beyond angels and demons, or that particular term for them. Infernal magic drew upon the demons’ home plane, and it was obvious that the magic of the Church was similar in that regard - if not in its actual effects. The golem had mentioned ‘Dragon-sorcerers’, and Clara wondered if wizardry stemmed from dragons. That would suggest there was a type of magic that coincided with each of the Ancients. She wondered how many there were, exactly. What sort of magic would a student of golems be able to control? And if the planes they resided in didn’t exist until a few centuries ago, where did they come from?
She shook her head. Too many questions she wouldn’t be able to answer. She pushed them out of her head for the moment and took a spoonful of her stew.
“Oh! This is pretty good. You’re not a bad cook, Paladin.”
Gideon chuckled. “That’s high praise coming from a noblewoman. The bandits simply had good ingredients about - likely plundered from their victims. I’m sure you’ve had better cooks in your own home.”
Clara shrugged in response, though she didn’t dispute the fact. Her family had been fortunate enough to be able to employ a cook - for the time being, at least. She had tried to learn a bit on her own in case that changed, despite her father saying it was unbecoming for one of her station, but all of her forays into the kitchen had ended in disaster, to put it lightly. She was once again thankful for the Paladin’s presence, if only for the fact that she wouldn’t need to eat her own fare.
She finished the rest of her meal in silence, as Gideon put out the fire. He stood up when she set her bowl to the side, motioning towards the great hall’s exit. “We should get going soon. We might have to make a bit of a push to reach the next town before evening falls. That, or take our risks camping outside.”
“Oh, I almost forgot. I… found a report from the bandits,” Clara lied quickly. “There’s apparently a specter haunting a farm nearby. I was wondering if it wouldn’t be too much trouble to investigate that? I’m somewhat curious about it.”
The Paladin shrugged. “I’m not in any particular rush to reach Calador, so I don’t have any problem with it. If it truly is a specter, it’s something that would require a Paladin to deal with, in any case. Lead the way.”
Clara nodded, glad that the Paladin didn’t seem to suspect her small deception. She stood up, checked that her few belonging were properly secured, and followed Gideon out of the great hall.
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Gideon strode through the trees outside of the castle unerringly. Clara followed close behind, trusting his sense of direction. There was no sign of the bandits after the incident with the golem, and they reached the main road within the hour, thankfully without interruption. Clara took the lead once they were free from the forest, scanning the road for the path Holden’s imp mentioned.
Trees still encroached upon the road, though they were more sparse than those deep within the forest. Clara spotted a small, beaten path to the left of the road after about an hour of walking, and she pointed at it. “That should be it, if I’m not mistaken.” Gideon stepped in front of her, silently taking the lead as they turned onto the smaller path, hand on the hilt of his sword.
The path meandered between the trees, leading Clara and the Paladin on a winding path back into steadily thickening woodland. It wasn’t long before they were brought to the base of a steep hill, the path curving up and out of sight around the side of the rise.
Clara couldn’t help but feel that there was something off about the hill. The air seemed wrong, somehow, thicker than it had been mere moments before. The Paladin seemed unconcerned and continued marching on, so she followed him without voicing her worries.
The air grew more dense as they climbed the hill, their surroundings taking on a pale, sickly green tinge. The Paladin still continued on, seeming almost nonchalant. Clara supposed that his work for the Church had made him no stranger to evil spirits and similar scenarios.
The hill eventually leveled off into a smooth plateau, the path they were following cutting through a small clearing in the trees. Gideon finally seemed to have some reaction to their change in surroundings, stopping in his tracks and holding out an arm to halt Clara. She tilted her head at him questioningly, before noticing what had made the Paladin stop.
A pale, ethereal figure hung just above the ground on the far side of the clearing, facing away from the two. It almost seemed to be an image formed from smoke, the edges of its form hazy and wavering, barely a part of this reality. Clara couldn’t make out any of its features from this distance, especially with it turned away.
But she could hear it speak. “Please… Help…” it kept repeating in a voice just as tenuous as its shape.
Gideon took a step forward, hand still firmly on this sword hilt, and the specter turned to face him. It seemed to recognize him, or at least the trappings of his order.
“Paladin! Please, my family… Under attack… Our home…” The ghost pointed off to the side, further down the path.
Gideon seemed to consider that for a moment, before nodding to the ghost. “It is the duty of a Paladin to save those in need. Consider it done.” He continued down the path, seemingly done with the spirit for now.
Clara followed behind, confused. She got a good look at the specter as she passed by it. Even at a closer distance it was hard to discern any details with its constantly wavering form, but it seemed to be a peasant, a farmer by what she could make out of its clothes, which moved as if disturbed by a wind that Clara couldn’t feel. There was a ragged hole torn in the ghost’s shirt, and a dark stain bloomed out across its chest. She almost missed it as they moved out of the clearing, but the ghost hovered above four shallow mounds of heaped dirt.
“You’ve some questions about how I dealt with that, I take it?” Gideon asked back to Clara as they left the clearing. “I’ve encountered something similar before. A fragment of the spirit, trapped in its dying moments in that ghastly form. You could tell by how he thought he was still under attack, though he is, in truth, already dead. They’re unable to pass on unless something is resolved.”
“I see. We’re going to investigate what killed him, then?”
Gideon nodded. “Based on what he said, yes. He must have had some strong feelings about whatever attacked him and his family, or he wouldn’t be trapped like this. At least he was friendly, for a ghost. The last one I encountered took me for its foe, and I was forced to strike it down.”
“You would have been able to simply smite it?”
“I would have, yes. It would have been more convenient, but I prefer to resolve things this way. Though I couldn’t be there to save him, at least I can put his spirit to rest peacefully.”
Clara sighed. She hadn’t expected her detour to turn into an investigation. She doubted she could convince the Paladin to simply smite the ghost and move on, though. She just hoped it was something simple, like goblins attacking his farm. Something that wouldn’t take much effort to deal with.