“You’re the detective,” Adam said, after a long pause. “You tell me. What do you think happened to those missing people?”

Valeria tapped her lips with her index finger, then looked upwards in a parody of deep thought. “My lord, my lord...how could a humble peasant such as myself know what you do not?”

“Skip the dance, Puppet,” Solara cut in. She crossed her arms and let out a disdainful sound. “Unless you want us to believe you’re dumb enough to reveal yourself, prattle for minutes on end, and then give us no reason not to scrap you..”

“Not all of us fear death, elf.” Valeria flashed a smirk. “Some of us have died once already.”

Adam shifted his gaze away from their argument and towards his own hand, turning it over and studying it carefully. I wonder if that applies to me too. He hadn’t died when entering the painted world, he didn’t think, but what difference did it make? There was no way to return to Earth, no one waiting for him, and nothing left undone – except maybe one person he hadn’t punched. Most people wouldn’t even notice that he was gone.

He might as well have died.

Solara smirked back at the Puppet. “You talk plenty, yet say so little. Whenever you’re done feeling superior for wasting time on flowery words, feel free to speak up with something of actual value. In the meantime, I’ll be sleeping with my eyes open.”

“Fine, fine,” Valeria said, holding up both arms, as if surrendering on a battlefield. She let out an amused chuckle. “If you insist, I shall be honest.”

The elf and the painter shared a look, nodded, and then both leaned forward. “Okay,” Adam began. “What do you think happened to those missing people?”

“I genuinely don’t have the slightest clue,” Valeria immediately replied.

Adam didn’t even need to look at Solara in order to reach out and grab her wrist. To his surprise, he managed to stop her before she could draw her knife once more. He wasn’t sure his reflexes and strength would be enough.

“My lord—Adam, she—”

“I know,” he replied, in a somewhat regretful tone, “I know. But just bear with it, please.”

Valeria continued on without reacting, as if blind to the elf who openly wanted to inflict violence upon her. “I do know, however, that the first reported incident happened five years ago. It might have started earlier, but that’s as far as our records go.”

“Any suspects?” Adam cut in. “Let’s be quick.”

“Only three people have been present in every trip where someone went missing.” Valeria closed her eyes. “The ship captain, Baltsar, is one. The other two are frequent travelers – Ferrero the duelist, and Serena, the Master of Communications.”

She slammed a fist onto her open palm as if suddenly remembering something. “Ah! And the missing person is always from the cabins below, where the poorer, less important people travel.”

“How do we know we can trust you?” Solara insisted. “We can’t verify that information.”

“Because I’m the detective.” Valeria withdrew her sword. Her flippancy vanished in an instant, replaced by the countenance of a soldier going to war.“And this truth of mine bleeds red. I am not allowed to murder, for the detective may not be the culprit.”

Even though Solara couldn’t tell the exact inner workings of the ability, she appeared dazzled by the display, as if enraptured by one of the theater performances she loved so dearly.. Adam, meanwhile, had already sought his tablet to confirm it.

Ability: The Bloody Truth

The Detective may declare something with certainty. If it is a lie, they will pay with their own body and blood. Once gone, a body part cannot be used as payment again, even if replaced. If the statement is proven correct or comes to pass, the detective’s sword becomes embodied with proportional power to the truth. The amount of blood and flesh needed to declare a truth is proportional to the importance of the truth.

“If this truth borne from my very blood becomes a lie, I shall pay with my own body,” Valeria said, quietly. “Do you believe me?”

Solara seemed about to deny her when she caught sight of Adam’s eyes. The elf raised both eyebrows in surprise at him, then shifted her gaze back at Valeria. “I suppose so,” she admitted, reluctantly. “But hear me out – you’re a Puppet! Your body parts matter very little when you can replace them.”

“We can, but not as well as you’d think.” Valeria tapped at the arm Adam had been studying before. “This is a replacement of my original arm. A thin layer of skin over simple wood, strung together into my nerves. It is the only real prosthetic we can manage on a living person. The rest of my body is not too dissimilar from your own, my lady elf. However, the method that gave me my new body only works when a Puppet is first reborn, so I cannot bet my arm again.”

“If you call rebirth the act of stealing a corpse, then performing abominable–”

“Enough,” Adam sighed. So far, he was having trouble understanding Valeria, and he doubted she would help him in that regard. Which was fine by him. Adam’s art was a product of careful observation – he may not be a detective, but he wouldn’t lose when it came to understanding people.

No reason to trust her, but I also don’t want anyone to die, so I’ll play along for now. “What do you want us to do?”

“Speak with the suspects,” Valeria said, “and use your authority as a lord to compel that stubborn captain to enforce better security measures. Here’s what I propose...”

--

As it turned out, there wasn’t a need for much of that planning – the first suspect came straight to him. It happened the next day, as Adam was sitting in a lounge chair in the common area, his tablet out as he drew lazy sketches. Ferrero Acero, the duelist, took that moment to saunter up and peer over his shoulder.

“Ahoy there.” Ferrero examined the tablet. “Ah, right, right! You’re the Lord Painter, yeah?”

Adam hesitated. Normally this would have been a welcome fortune, but he’d just found a really interesting animal to paint – an actual fish, flying just outside the window! The burdens of responsibility know no bounds.

He glanced at Ferrero. The duelist seemed intrigued by the tablet, but not overly surprised or confused. People really do see my tablet as a canvas, huh? Although I guess I must still look really weird from their perspective. Half-laying down on a couch, with a canvas propped up on my chest, and probably getting paint all over myself.

“Lord Painter...” He lowered his tablet. “Is that what I’m known as?”

“Not really.” Ferrero shrugged. “But I don’t remember the names of lords much. Not like it matters to me.” He tapped at Adam’s shoulder, then gestured at Solara, who was sipping tea and reading a book in another corner. “I remember her father as ‘the one with the elven daughter.’ Gods be damned if I know what he’s truly called, though. Likewise, you’re the Lord Who Paints.”

Against his own wishes, Adam found himself smirking. “There are worse things to be known as. I wouldn’t mind if you remembered my real name, though.”

That was when he made the terrible mistake of sitting up – which Ferrero interpreted as an invitation to take a seat. The man looked as though he'd just ambled down from a mountain blanketed in snow and ice, wearing an overcoat so hefty it hid virtually all details of his underlying garb. The only definite thing Adam could discern was that the man's arm was enveloped in a long-sleeved shirt, ornately accented with leather, and complete with matching gloves.

“I might remember you one day,” Ferrero said, with a jovial tone. He nodded at Adam’s tablet. In that same moment, he opened the window and tried reaching outside – only to be repelled by the ship’s barrier. Appearing mildly annoyed, he put it back in place. “Oh well. So, what are you painting?”

“What the hell did you just try to do?” Adam lifted an eyebrow. “Are you interested in art?"

“In truth, I think flying fish taste rather wonderful. Wanted to catch that one.” He gestured vaguely at the fish Adam had been drawing. “Doesn’t look like it’s possible, though. And of course I’m interested in art.” Ferrero tapped at his sword and lifted an eyebrow in return, as if curious. “I am a duelist, after all.”

A long second passed. Just one second. Yet, so many thoughts went through Adam’s mind that it may as well have been a small eternity.

Are duels related to art in this world?

Is this guy just weird?

Maybe he’s fucking with me?

Did I mishear him?

How is that in any way connected with what I just said?

In the end, Adam settled on a simpler thought.

No need to overthink it. Just smile and nod. It won’t come off as strange so long as I ask it the right way. “You mean your dueling is art?”

“Of course. It’s an expression of emotion and creativity, spawned upon the world through a mountain of effort. How is it not?”

Occasionally, there are things inside a person’s heart that strongly disagree with what they’ve just heard; feelings so unconscious and ingrained that it’s a struggle to express them into actual words. For Adam, this was one of those times.

“You...” He knew dueling was a sport here, and that people enjoyed it as such. Not too different from medieval Earth – hell, not too different from modern Earth. “You fight for victory and glory. An artist does not.”

“Ah, interesting, interesting.” Ferrero nodded along and sank deeper into the couch, as if he’d been invited to stay for a long conversation. Adam tried to politely point out he was busy with a painting, but the swordsman appeared wilfully ignorant. “Are you saying that an artist who learns the trade solely to make money is no artist at all?”

Adam wanted to tell the duelist to shut up and let him draw, but the question stopped him short. “There are some artists who would agree with that,” he admitted.

Ferrero caught on to his hesitation. “Not you?”

“Not me,” Adam relented. “If someone draws a masterpiece for the sake of becoming a millionaire, and ends up making someone’s heart stir – well, it doesn’t become ‘less art’ just because I know the intentions of the person behind it.”

“Then how is that different from dueling?”

Adam forced himself to smile politely. Oftentimes, in this Painted World with its own history and culture, he found himself choosing words carefully because he didn’t understand a topic very well. This time, he was silent because he understood things too well, and was trying to find a way to voice his disagreement without losing his lordly conduct.

“How is it the same?” Adam asked, unable to keep some pointedness out of his comments. “Sure, I’ll concede that people can get emotionally invested in the result of a sports match. Their hearts will race, their breath will catch, and they’ll scream in excitement or cry in despair at the result. I get that. But that’s the limit of the kind of emotions that sports can express.”

“Interesting,” Ferrero replied, “I thought you’d criticize that we aren’t creating something like a painter is. It’s not like a duelist will leave behind a canvas.”

Adam smiled. “If I did that, I’d also be dismissing a lot of other art forms. Dancing, theater...there are tons of artistic performances that don’t leave behind proof that they existed. But sports – dueling, well, you can’t exactly evoke a range of emotions like those forms can. It’s a competition, evoking emotion isn’t your primary concern, it’s – look, can you say that someone’s life can change from witnessing a duel?”

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“Yes,” Ferrero responded immediately. “Mine did.”

Adam wasn’t convinced. “How so?”

“Had I not witnessed a duel, I would have killed myself.”

The two held each other’s gazes in silence. Ferrero wore a smile, although not a heavy one. It wasn’t the kind of smile someone put on to hide sadness. Rather, it belied a man with a storied past, yet who was not chained by it. For a second, Adam studied the duelist inquisitively, and then gave up.

On his painting, that is. Not on understanding him.

“I am sorry to hear that,” Adam said, giving Ferrero his undivided attention.

“Forgive me for my bluntness – I didn’t mean to bring the mood down with uninvited sadness, but the topic was related.”

Adam shook his head. “Nah, nah. If you don’t want to speak about uninvited sadness, then here you go!” He theatrically swirled his hands in the air. “The sadness is invited. You may now speak, you odd person.”

And if I need to turn you into a painting...this might help. “Come on – it’s a crime to keep an artist’s origins a mystery. Speak to me.”

Ferrero let out a boisterous laugh. “If my Lord of Paintings insists, then I will be brief.” His smile turned nostalgic as he looked out the window. “There was a time when I truly did not know who I was, nor had I any hint of what I wanted to be. Not much of a family, barely much of a life...death seemed amenable to me.” He spoke distantly, as if the story belonged to another version of him, nearly another person. “Then I saw him duel.”

“Vagueness is permitted for brevity, but not for style,” Adam cut in. “What was his name?”

“Merrivale,” Ferrero answered. “He was up against Sousa, who at the time was one of the Empire’s greatest swordsmen. Merrivale was far weaker. Technique, speed, strength...he was sorely lacking in all of them. But sword fights are not as the bards tell them – they are wars, where strategy can overcome mightier armies than you can field. I watched Merrivale prolong his match for hours, doing all he could to stay in it. He couldn’t win, but he could keep himself from losing for as long as possible.”

Adam nodded, picturing the duel in his mind. “Did he mean to outlast Sousa, then? Was he superior in stamina?”

“No. The longer the duel went, the greater the disparity between the two became. Sousa was superior in every way.”

Adam blinked slowly, in deep thought. “Then how...?”

Ferrero grinned. “As I said – sword fights are not like bards would have you believe. There is no secret move learned from a dragon or trained beneath a waterfall that may cut any suit of armor, go through any parry, or win every fight. Every move has a probability of success, and that calculation depends on both the effort you’ve put into honing that move, as well as your opponent’s ability to defend against it. Sometimes, overusing or underusing a move will also change your likelihood of making the attack land. Following me so far?”

Adam nodded. He could understand it if it was being explained like this. “Go on.”

“When your muscles tire, your throat dries up, and your heart races...you start doubting yourself. You tense up. Your moves become a fraction of a second slower, your decisions are delayed, and your strikes are less certain. This happens to everyone; even the greatest of us. When their duel reached that point, they fell back on their best moves. Merrivale was a master of the direct fleche. Do you understand?”

“Not in the slightest,” Adam said, “but I don’t think that’s relevant.”

“Unlike Merrivale, Sousa didn’t have a move he would call his favorite. He was rather well-rounded in most parries and attacks, rather.”

Adam snapped his fingers. “I see – so his best move was better than Sousa’s average moves, is that it? And when they were tired, they relied on those, and Merrivale came ahead?”

“Not quite.”

“Oh. Okay.” Adam drew a deep breath. “I really don’t get your point then.”

“Sousa’s talent was so overwhelming that, frankly speaking, his most average move was far better than Merrivale’ best. Even as an ignorant child, it seemed cruel to me. I could tell that Merrivale had given his life to create a blade only half as sharp as the one Sousa half-heartedly wielded.”

Suddenly, Ferrero chuckled. “And that is what made all the difference.”

Adam stared at the duelist, who only widened his grin. “You see, Lord Painter, when exhaustion was catching up to both men...when their skills were being tested...Merrivale was still relentlessly attacking with the move he’d dedicated his life to. He put his entire soul behind every strike. His efforts, his practice, his resolve, and his passion...they all guided his steel. Sousa, meanwhile, deflected the blows coldly, methodically, his overwhelming talent telling him only to wait for the chance to deliver the finishing blow.”

The duelist paused, his eyes sparkling with remembrance. “It was at that point that I looked at both their faces.”

Adam said nothing. He merely waited for Ferrero to continue. The man lifted his hand, then held open his gloved palm.

“Merrivale had no such hesitation. He knew he was inferior, but his constant practice granted him confidence. Mismatched as he was, he knew his hard work would not betray him, and so he attacked without fear. His blood, sweat, and tears shielded him from the demon known as exhaustion – a demon which affected his body, yet not his mind. The more talented Sousa, who deflected without passion, using techniques he took no time to master, was winning every exchange...but upon seeing the confidence with which Merrivale struck, allowed a single intrusive thought to enter his mind.”

At this, the duelist closed his palm with a thunderous gesture. “‘Am I going to lose,’ Sousa wondered?’”

“And he would. He was doomed to lose the moment he allowed that thought to enter him. A momentary hesitation afflicted the mind of the superior duelist, one that the weaker was shielded from by virtue of his own scars. It shifted the momentum of the duel. At that moment, I saw it all too plainly – everything in Merrivale’s dueling spoke of who he was. His manic grin, his pained but confident expression, the moves he insisted on using, the ones he insisted on refusing...they told the story of a person who’d forged his body every day for one singular purpose.”

Ferrero laughed. “That was when, Lord of Painting, that I decided dying could wait. I wanted to be just like him. I too wanted to stand on the duelist piste, be swallowed by the roar of the crowd, and show them who I was. Mayhap I thought it possible to discover myself in my duels.”

“Did you?”

“I did.”

“Is that why you travel to the Mines so often?” Adam asked, sharply.

“It is. There are strong duelists there. The strongest, even.”

Adam quietly nodded, sinking into contemplation. Was there anything in that story that would give Ferrero a reason to 'disappear' so many people? Aside from his hero worship of Merrivale. Perhaps if Merrivale wanted it to happen, for some reason, then maybe...

He reeled his thoughts back. No, that’s pushing it. Not enough info to go down that line of thinking. Still, something about his story feels a bit...off. This is the romantic, exciting part, so he’s obviously happy to tell me about it. What about the part that isn’t fun? How did he end up like that hopeless kid he described himself as? There’s too much left unsaid.

“As a duelist, I yearn for victory, glory, and orbs, yes,” Ferrero said. “But those are not why I am a duelist.”

“I can somewhat understand that.” Adam didn’t think he could agree with the man entirely, but he could tell that the sport meant a lot to him, and it would’ve been needlessly petty to disagree. And maybe there was some merit to the argument. “You’re making a little more sense now.”

That’s enough information, Adam thought, eyeing an exit. I should leave and speak to the next–

“What about you, Lord Painter?” Ferrero casually asked. “What made you into an artist?”

Adam stopped. He’d insisted that Ferrero elaborate on his origins by using artistry as an excuse. After all that, hiding his own origin would’ve been more than rude – it would’ve been downright suspicious.

He bit his lip. It wasn’t a secret, nor would it reveal any weakness of his...but somehow, honesty felt akin to nakedness in that moment, and he was feeling rather modest.

I suppose I can take off my jacket, at least. “It’s not too different from your story,” Adam began. “There’s this guy I admired–”

“Vagueness is permitted for brevity, but not for style,” Ferrero cut in. “What was his name?”

Adam exhaled loudly, but allowed himself a smile. He could appreciate the irony. “Eric,” he said. “He was something like...a brother to me. Maybe ‘idol’ would be a better word. He was always taking care of me, and I wanted to be just like him. When he took up painting, we were just kids. I had no interest in it, to be honest. But I didn’t want him to leave me behind, you know? So I chased after him. Got into the same hobbies and dedicated myself to painting.”

He was painfully aware of how odd this sounded in the Painted World, where a Talent was such a huge part of someone’s life. Not a point he chose to care about, though. Let Ferrero think he was insane.

It wasn’t like attending an expensive art school to follow his friend was much more sane on Earth, anyway.

“But I had trouble even keeping up with him,” Adam continued, some bitterness unexpectedly slipping into his tone. “To be honest, dedicating yourself to a passion when you’re only doing it for someone else’s approval is...hard.”

“Aye,” Ferrero said, in a measured tone. He too bore the same bitterness as Adam. “I can understand the feeling.”

“But at some point, I think I started to enjoy painting. Not just because of Eric, but because of...well, painting itself. No deeper reason. Sometimes...”

He laughed at the memory. “Sometimes Eric himself would say I liked art more than he did. It made me happy, you know? Made me feel like maybe my stolen passion actually belonged to me.”

Ferrero nodded. “Did it?”

“I like to think so.”

“Good. What happened to your friend? Is he a lord too?”

“I doubt it,” Adam laughed. Friend, he says... Not a word he would use. But Eric, much like Earth itself, belonged in his memories now.

Maybe he could choose to only remember the good ones.

--

From below, a young Hangman watched an airship soar. The vessel was moving fast. It would be difficult to keep up with it, even for an Imperial Hangman.

Not for him, though.

He tapped at his tablet, watching the wings sprout on his boots. Fortunately, the Emperor didn’t care if he stole souls so long as he killed the body after. One of the perks of the job. He wasn’t used to the Talent of Wings, but he could trail behind the airship for a little bit.

“Adam...are you really there?” the Gryphon asked to the silent sky.