Three days had passed since beasts were sighted at the edge of the woods, and they hadn’t returned yet. It was kind of anticlimactic after we had planned out how we would try to handle them, and it almost seemed like they had decided not to come. I wouldn’t get my hopes up just yet, but this did give us time to keep working on Alarna.
True to his word, Grym was embracing his job as guard captain, and while his approach to leading seemed a little rough around the edges, he appeared to have the guards well under control. Additionally, we disbanded the agents for the most part, as we had no need for so many “spies,” and instead could really use the additional manpower elsewhere. They were now being integrated into the guard force, with only four staying on to work under Reurig for the time being. It was clear that we had to keep an eye on those opposing us, but with one agent in every major part of town, we would hopefully learn about any potential plans they might have. Some agents were initially not enthused that they were supposed to join the guards, a job that was usually considered to be more dangerous on a day to day basis. However, with the normal beasts having largely disappeared, they realized it would actually not be very dangerous anymore, and some even ended up being pretty happy about it.
Meanwhile, Tomar and I had spent the better part of those two days speaking to officials, Rulers, priests, and anyone who had any kind of leading role in town. We were now mostly up to speed, and we had also learned more about the people we had imprisoned, some of whom were naturally not bad people. We even released a few who had a particularly high reputation, for them to return to their jobs, including Lilana’s parents and her uncle. The conversation with her parents had been downright uncomfortable though. Not because they were mad at her or anything, but because I’ve never seen a family that was as cold towards each other as these guys. It was almost as if they didn’t know each other at all.
I had learned that priests typically weren’t the closest to their biological family, because they were raised away from them, but I had really expected more in this case, seeing how Lilana had been allowed to live at the temple, and how she had tried to brag about her parents when we first met. From what I could tell, she wouldn’t have minded a closer relationship, but her parents were professionalism personified. They did their job, they did it well, and that was all they really seemed to care about. And while they knew the High Priest well, based on everything we learned, this meant little to nothing in regards to their affiliation. If their gods had sent a divine messenger via their daughter, that simply meant they had gotten even closer to the gods, and with the High Priest out of the picture, they could do an even better job. With that, they were content.
The only family member Lilana was a little closer to, and who actually acted somewhat like a family member, was her mother’s brother, who was the priest who typically administered the rituals. That was also his role when we met twice before, and while he panicked a little about Lilana not having gotten a sign, he had never done any harm to us. He reportedly had even tried to speak to the High Priest on Lilana’s behalf, so she would not be killed outright. We had to tell him something about what exactly had happened with his niece in the ritual chamber, but he accepted the explanation that those who got a “Calling” by ways of godly intervention don’t get a sign, and that the voice Lilana had briefly heard came from the gods, telling her what she needed to know. This sparked a theory about those with the Mad Calling, and how they must be hearing the gods’ voices as well for some reason, but that they weren’t “ready” to hear their “divine words.” This was fine by me, since it wasn’t going against our story in any way. It was just another made-up tale in the temple’s history books. Probably.
Meanwhile, Berla and I made the best of our nights together, as it was pretty much the only time we were ever alone. Or as alone as possible. We even upgraded from a bloody couch to an actual room with a bed. Personally, I wouldn’t have minded staying closer to the office and our work, but Berla insisted, and lying there, with her in my arms, was admittedly nice.
“She’s going to wake up soon,” I said.
“Hmhm,” Berla responded, and hugged me a little tighter than before.
That first morning after we had officially become a couple, Lilana had woken up while Berla and I were still cuddling, and despite whatever she had said before, it was a little weird. Waking up while someone was controlling your body from the backseat was a strange experience to begin with, and suddenly finding yourself in such a situation must’ve been exponentially worse. After that, we decided to try to get up before Lilana, so it wouldn’t happen again.
I held Berla tightly for a moment, gave her a kiss, and finally got up. “Have you thought about what you want to do from now on?”
“Aside from this?”
“Yea,” I said with a chuckle.
Two months ago, she was ready to be left for dead. One month ago, she had some hope for the future, and now she was basically starting a new life. What exactly that would look like was still kind of up in the air, however. Under my watch, nobody would be “put to rest” for a stupid reason like not being able to do their assigned job, but this was all these people knew. The concept of just finding an entirely different job didn’t exist, but if we didn’t get rid of such people, we would need other options for them. This was easier said than done though, given how dependent they were on their Callings.
Just like you can’t put a tailor in front of a beast and expect them to slay it, you can't put a guard in front of a stack of complicated papers and expect them to work through them. Aside from basic skills, most people only knew what they had learned through their rituals, and not only would teaching them new jobs take many years, they would still have a hard time measuring up to their colleagues who got the right Calling for their occupation. The notion of giving people a choice was great in theory, but they would still need to earn money somehow if they decided to ditch their Callings. Just telling everyone that they could do whatever they wanted, or even nothing at all, would end in a disaster. Ideas for how to solve this problem swirled around in my head, but there was also one interesting possibility that we hadn’t tested yet. A reassignment via a second ritual.
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The problem with giving people another Calling was that we had absolutely no idea what would happen. There was a reason people waited until they were fifteen, or rather, why the ritual platform script wouldn’t even let the ritual happen until they were of age. It literally transformed people, both mentally and physically. Knowledge, strength, agility... the body needed to be ready for that to happen. We could remove this check from the script, but I wouldn’t dare trying what would happen to someone underage.
There was also a check for someone having received a Calling already, and this one might have existed for good reasons as well. This meant that we would either need a way to remove a Calling, or test if it was possible to either replace the existing one, or add to it, at the risk that we didn’t know what would happen to our test subject. We couldn’t force this on someone, so it wasn’t really in the cards yet, and we needed different options for people.
“I actually have thought about it...” Berla said. “Do you think I can become a Researcher?”
“A... Researcher?” I said in surprise. I didn’t know what I had expected her to say, but definitely not that. “Hm. It depends. You know we can’t change Callings yet, so you would have to study. Like, a lot.”
For the most part, the Researchers I had met so far were a weird bunch. They were highly intelligent and well read, but they were obsessed with their work and oftentimes socially awkward. It was as if this Calling had been modeled after a stereotypical programmer. To reach the final level of Researcher knowledge, one would have to study decades in this world. Not to mention that there were no higher education schools or books on overly complicated subjects, since they weren’t needed. You would essentially have to learn most things on your own. Hm, making people who are sick of their actual jobs become teachers for those jobs might work...
“I know. You’d help me though, right?” Berla asked.
“Of course, but why do you want to become a Researcher?”
She lowered her head, looking a little sad. “I... don’t want to be useless ever again,” she said. “As a Researcher I can keep doing my job unless a beast literally rips my head off.”
I was searching for a good response, but came up empty. I didn’t have such a sense of duty, though this was perhaps also a cultural thing to a degree. The idea that you had to do your part was ingrained in most of the town’s citizens after all.
As I headed back to the bed, to at least show her some encouragement, I suddenly lost control over “my” body, and Lilana and I fell face first onto the bed.
“Whaaa!” Lilana said in a panic.
‘Oops... Good morning,’ I said.
“Ugh... morning...”
“Good morning, Lilana,” Berla said, and looked down at us with a smile, as if she hadn’t looked depressed just seconds ago.
“Can we make a deal?” Lilana asked. “Just stay in bed until I’m awake.”
‘In bed? Are you sure?’ I said teasingly.
“You can just lie in bed, can’t you!?” she said in exasperation.
Out in the Wildlands, I hadn’t usually been up and about around this time of day. At worst, I was sitting upright when Lilana woke up, which didn’t cause too many problems. Now in Alarna, however, she had woken up to me cuddling with Berla, me trying to open a door, which landed square in her face, and me walking around, making her fall over, so her request was perfectly reasonable. In my defense, her sleeping pattern wasn’t consistent, so I didn’t know how long I had to wait, and I really hated lying around doing nothing. At the end of the day it was her body though.
‘Sorry...’ I said. ‘Meet me halfway? At most, I’ll be sitting, okay?’
“Okay...” she said with what sounded like a pout and gave control over to me.
She wouldn’t have to put up with it for much longer though. We hadn’t decided on a specific date for when we would try to get me back to Tomar yet, but it would be soon. If the beasts attacked, it would be easier if I were with her, but for our work in town it would be more beneficial if I went with Tomar in the near future, because the longer we waited with changing the leadership, the weirder it would seem to the people if the divine messenger suddenly relinquished control. I felt like it would go over smoother while things were still changing.
I propped myself up and looked at Berla. “You’re not useless, you hear me?” I said, and she nodded while giving me a little smile.
‘Uhm... Sorry if I interrupted you.’
“It’s okay,” I said, when I suddenly heard voices from outside in the hallway.
“Riala you’ll have to wait. Lilly is not up y— Hey! Wait!” someone yelled, as the door to our room flew open and I saw Riala dodging an attempt from Bren to grab her and hopping into the room.
“Good morning, Mi— Lilly!” she said, beaming at me.
“Hey, Ria,” I said with a chuckle. “It’s okay, Bren.”
With a displeased look on his face, he closed the door after her, and I looked at Riala, and the suspicious looking bag she was holding.
“What are you up to?” I asked her.
“Sis is annoying! I will live with you and Tomar!” she declared.
“... Huh?”
Oh, that can’t end well...
“Riala!!” came a female voice from outside, somewhere down the hallway.
Ugh... I knew it.