"Potions, a good idea. Let us hope an alchemist lives in this town, otherwise the chapel will be our only option. Did the priest tell you anything about his schedule, by chance?"

"No."

"Right, you said that before. To find the chapel, then. It should be in the center of town."

"We ask people where."

"What? No, no need for that. They're always in the center, it's a custom in these lands, you know."

Of course, this hadn't stopped being a generic fantasy world. After walking for a while we found it near a well and a small marketplace. It was much smaller and more modest than the church in Surom, which didn't surprise me, but it was bustling nonetheless. We entered and I looked around, but Galian wasn't anywhere to be found. A flash thoughted into my mind: 'What if he was actually a ninja playing hide and seek with me?' but I dismissed the silly thing with a shake of my head. Ninjas never play. Perhaps he'd scurried back to Surom to avoid being drafted into my quest.

"This fellow, what was his name, again? What does he look like?" said Giorgio when he saw my dejected face.

"Galian. Gold hair, short. Look like coward," I said, regretting my poor choice of words among the few that I'd bothered to memorize. The voice in my head agreed: 'He'll get confused by that. Is the hair short, or the man?' and I wondered when did my skullvoice get so growly. My following thought sounded normal, and I kept searching for a way to mend my clumsy description of Galian while Giorgio looked around and mumbled to himself.

I paced back and forth inside of the church among the crowd, but found nothing and got ignored and shushed when I tried to ask any questions. Apparently the usual ceremony was about to begin. I went outside and around the building. To my absolute astonishment, or maybe not, I reached a small graveyard where Galian stood alone in front of a tombstone, waving a chain of incense and looking down. When I called out to him, he ignored me on purpose.

"This is Stuart?" I said approaching him, but he answered without turning to look at me and still waving the incense around:

"Stay back, I need to concentrate."

So he was praying for the departed. A reasonable thing to expect from a man of the church. I stood and watched him as he began to walk around the tombstone tracing half-circles instead of doing full turns, holding the chain away from his face as if he didn't want to breathe in the thin strand of grey smoke. I considered going back to the church to fetch Giorgio, but decided against it. A knight must at least be smart enough to find his way to the graveyard, right? Since I wasn't sure about Galian's determination, it was better to watch him. He could try to stall if he wanted to, but I wasn't going to let him wiggle out of this adventure. At least not without a proper introduction to another priest or band of mercenaries. Or boy scouts that could carry our loot, whatever.

I leaned against a tombstone and watched him with my most piercing stare until Giorgio came about and asked me what was going on. Like a mobster I pointed at Galian, who kept waving the incense, with a slight gesture of my chin and Giorgio gave me a look that seemed to say "so this is the part where we act all cool?" before crossing his arms and joining me in the bad-boy leaning pose. After a few minutes, Galian walked in our direction and introductions began:

"Giorgio, Galian. Galian, Giorgio."

"Pleased to meet you," said Galian, to which Giorgio replied with an enthusiastic handshake:

"Indeed! I shall be honored and relieved to have you with us in this expedition."

"I haven't agreed to join you yet. Bawb, you change attires every time I see you. Please, excuse my mood, I'm still not sure that three men will be enough to survive in the forest."

"Then what do you suggest?" said Giorgio.

"That you forgo this expedition. The forest has changed. It doesn't matter if you bring twenty men along, you'll die."

"What?! You not say that yesterday. What change?" I asked with little patience. Galian tried to give me a cold look and stand firm, but his shoulders collapsed into a sag with a sigh from his lips. I knew the reason before he spoke.

"Stuart. In the edge of the forest. We only found his... his head. We haven't seen a single clue from Edith, prayers be unto her. To tell you the truth, Bawb, I'm terribly frightened."

The three of us gave a moment of pause, and Giorgio asked:

"What was this man doing in the forest?"

"Meeting his mistress."

"What an unseemly demise," replied Giorgio with a stern and troubled look.

"Stuart was a good man in spite of his faults. It isn't anyone's place to condemn him."

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"Yes, prayers be unto him. Let us hope he learns honor in death, and if he doesn't, that your incense will spare him my blade."

In that moment I saw another adventuring lesson flying straight at me like a loose arrow, spinning in mid-air and saying 'catch me if you can!': choose your team carefully. Much to my shame, I merely took notice of it without catching even a feather of its fletching. Now, in my defense, I was too busy gushing over the plump bit of lore that Giorgio had tossed out. Would I get to fight ghosts? What a marvel! Would I need a special weapon for that? Maybe Giorgio's axe was magical.

"Impressive words, but can a dead man fulfill them? You've both been warned. Bawb, don't make a mockery of this life you've barely kept." And with a slow turn of his shoulder, Galian tried to walk away.

"We not go in forest, people in town die. You want that?" I said, grabbing his arm and holding a determined action hero's gaze like they do in films. A good man wouldn't let others be harmed just because he's afraid, would he? I was aiming at his moral center.

"It's not my place to determine the fate of others, only the Will of Light shall decide." A miss, but I wasn't discouraged:

"Light give you power, it is your place to bless, to heal. You go to Surom, you kill Brimbrom."

"No monsters have come past the edge of the forest, we still..."

"Orcs."

Galian gave pause with a grave grind of his teeth. Was he angry because I forced him to acknowledge the ugly truth he'd tried to hide? His visible inner struggle revealed in me an equally unpleasant idea: what if I actually convinced him? He might charge into his death because I couldn't look away from a shiny quest. Why did I put so little value on the lives of others in this world? Perhaps it was another glimpse into the humanity that I had been suppressing to survive in the civilized world where I wasn't afforded the perks of a visitor.

In the vibrant silence, Giorgio spoke:

"This new information is indeed troubling. This town is in danger, and it seems you've already had to bury a friend. How many more will it take to convince you?"

"Release me. I can bring reinforcements from Surom, they will..."

"Can not! They not here, not come before, you think they come now? We be strong, kill monsters, people not die." Had that been too blunt? I had to be careful, if any of them picked up on my bloodlust, my credibility would be hard to rebuild.

"Galian, these people need us. I could send a letter to my lord and request aid, but I fear the town would be far gone when they arrive. In any case they'll need information to prepare. Can you really walk away from this with your faith intact?" said Giorgio, and I was relieved. At least until Galian began to shiver and shed tears.

"I'm sorry. I know what's at stake, I know they don't deserve it... but I don't... I don't want to die! I don't want to be a head in the mud! I'm truly sorry. Please, let me go."

What a way to break down. He'd seemed far more collected until now, although I had noticed a faint smell of despair on him when we spoke in the tavern. It had been difficult for me to decide whether Galian was rattled by the recent events or merely drunk and bored. Perhaps I wasn't the most sensitive type, but more than that, I wasn't one to care. His teary face sent me the sudden idea that he must've been thinking about Stuart's death without pause, and what he showed me was his most condensed poker face.

I stared at him for a moment that neither of us noticed, looking at his red eyes and following each round tear that fell from them. He must have spent the past couple of days treading the same spiral, repeating the same thoughts in his mind. By this point his desperate confession had become a rehearsed act, because he had surely been telling himself the same words. He was waiting for someone to excuse and forgive him. That was his mistake.

"Bawb, let him go. He won't be of any use to us with a broken spirit," said Giorgio in a guilty voice. While I agreed with him, I was so immersed in playing the bad cop that it wasn't easy for me to just give up and be left with nothing.

"You want to go into forest with no blessing?"

"We'll find another solution."

I took a deep breath and released Galian's arm along with it. A perplexing detail: neither him nor I had been struggling against the other. He hadn't tried to break free in earnest, and my grip hadn't been tight. Still, Giorgio had no way of knowing. If I had to take a guess, it must've been Galian's own guilt which kept him there, as he didn't leave even after he was unhanded. He surely knew there was nowhere to go. Staying in Brimbrom would cost him his life, but returning to Surom would cost him his honor. A young man such as him would instinctively know that you can't preach love and salvation while turning your back on the innocent.

"Not worry. We kill monsters, come back for beer. You can wait," I said to Galian, who remained quietly sobbing as I began to walk away. My back was fully turned when Giorgio asked him:

"One last thing, my friend. Where is the alchemist in this town?"

"Nowhere. There has never been one here. If you need potions, the priestess might be able to scrounge something up, but I wouldn't expect much with Stuart buried as he is."

Of course, it hadn't occurred to me that the town might be out of herbs without its only supplier! But wasn't alchemy more versatile than mere herbalism? I would've expected some colorful mineral powders, wildflowers and monster parts used as reagents, at minimum. Wasn't this a fantasy world? At least it had a priestess, very common. If this world suddenly began to mix up the rules, I'd be at the risk of having to take it seriously. Now, here was my juncture: I had to take a guess on which stereotype this priestess was going to embody, but it wasn't easy to choose between a soft-spoken blondie or a disciplined ravenhead. After flipping an imaginary coin at the speed of sound, it landed on heads before I could assign the options. Instead of imagining another coin, I decided to leave the bright colors reserved for the inevitable elf archer and thus placed my bets on the black haired toughnut.

Giorgio thanked him and we went back into the chapel without a farewell to Galian. As we walked through the graveyard I realized that its tombstones were fewer than the corpses I'd seen strewn on the square upon first arriving in Brimbrom. There must've been another burial site in town, but why hadn't Galian blessed it? Perhaps he had while I was away, or the priestess might have done it. And what about the orcs? The townsfolk must have thrown them in some ditch, but where? The cleanup had been too fast and, all things considered, most people here seemed undisturbed by the consequences of the orc raid. Getting used to violence is one thing, but this level of apathy was unsettling, even psychotic.

No, I shouldn't get dragged to strange conclusions by a thin thread of appearances. After all, I'd rather see people trying to play it cool than a town full of distraught relatives mourning their loved ones; it'd break my heart.