The script I had found on a tree at the clearing last night was another message for me. It pointed further south, an area I wasn’t familiar with yet. However, it made sense that they wouldn’t stay here, at our old campsite, which our pursuers back then had presumably discovered already.
‘So we’ll just aimlessly wander south now...?’ Lilana asked.
“I guess so...” I said. “We don’t have much of a choice.”
The sun had barely risen above the horizon yet, but the light of the early morning made it possible to at least see where we were going. I walked along the cliff face for a little bit, until I found a path leading up onto the higher level and south from there. As I walked on, I felt like I was getting closer to the others. Slowly but surely.
‘How did you get separated from your companions anyway?’ Lilana asked all of a sudden.
We had made smalltalk for hours while sitting at the campfire, but for some reason she hadn’t asked that particular question until now. The problem was that I didn’t know how she would react to the truth. Then again, she would almost certainly learn about it anyway. Especially if we were to find the others soon.
“You probably won’t like the answer.”
‘I’m learning to accept a lot of things I don’t like at the moment... You can tell me.’
“Very well. We were experimenting on the ritual platform, as I’ve mentioned before. Everything went well at first, until two gods appeared and stopped us from giving someone a particular Calling. They determined that I was the one who had administered the rituals, and then they removed me from my host’s mind, to ‘solve the problem.’”
‘The gods removed you? That’s great!’
“... it is?”
‘They removed you from his mind, but they allowed you to return! Isn’t that nice? They punished you, but they gave you a second chance!’
Religious people have always astonished me. Especially how they could take something negative and spin it into something positive. Personally, I didn’t see the logic. If you want to fix a problem, you don’t move it somewhere else and give it a “second chance.” No, you fix it for good. And I was sure that that was what the gods had tried to do to me as well. Arguing about that didn’t seem worth it, however.
“Well, however I got back here, the gods apparently didn’t like that Calling. Of course that only makes me more curious.”
‘It’s like I told you, the gods won’t let you go against their plans of who should get which Calling.’
“Right... but this was an unknown Calling. One that nobody had seen before”, I said and explained my theories to her. Her response was predictable, however.
‘If your companion is destined to get this new Calling, she certainly will, but not before the gods will it. Though I’ll admit that an unknown Calling really is exciting.’
“Doesn’t it get boring to always just accept everything as the will of the gods? Think about it like this, what if people were supposed to be able to get that Calling, but the gods were withholding it.”
‘Have you considered that it might be a bad Calling? Something like the Mad Calling? Maybe the gods saved all of your lifes!’
I didn’t have any problem with people believing, especially in a world where gods did exist in some form, but I didn’t like when they didn’t question anything anymore. Unfortunately it was difficult to argue against the possibility that the gods might be good and that they were just doing their job. It was said that nobody had gotten the Mad Calling in hundreds of years, so maybe the gods did have a hand in that. I couldn’t even say for sure whether I just didn’t believe that that was the case, or whether I wanted my suspicions to be true. I wasn’t a fan of omnipotent beings, so of course I would’ve liked it if they turned out to be frauds, and that they were keeping something from the good people of this world.
“Maybe we’ll see who’s right some day.”
‘I’ll accept your apology for doubting the gods any time.’
Yea, yea...
We had been walking for a little while, when I saw smoke rise up in the distance, through gaps in the treetops. As far as I knew, there weren’t any villages in that direction, and I couldn’t imagine that anybody else would venture this deep into the woods without a very good reason.
Is it them? I thought as I walked on and my steps quickened. It took me at least another ten minutes until I finally spotted a small camp on a clearing. I saw a simple tent built from wood and branches, and a fireplace, with a small pot hanging above it. It looked like something might be cooking inside it, but I didn’t see any people as I carefully approached the camp. I was wondering whether the camp owners were hiding, when I heard a noise behind me and suddenly felt steel press against my throat.
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“Who are you?” came a muffled voice from behind me, as if they were wearing a mask.
Is that...?
“Reurig? Is that you?” I asked.
‘Huh? What is Reurig doing here?’
“What...? Lilly!?” he said in surprise, seemingly recognizing Lilana’s voice. When he took the dagger away and I turned around, he distanced himself from me. “What are you doing here...? And how did you even get here...?”
“Hey, I’m a capable woman. And don’t call me Lilly,” I said. I wonder if they’ll realize it, I thought, while trying not to laugh.
‘I really don’t like when you act like you’re me...’
There weren’t many reasonable explanations for why a priestess-to-be would be out here. Even if she had received the Fighter Calling for some reason, there was probably no reason for her to travel through this part of the woods, and especially not alone. And based on traditional wisdom she would already be dead by now if she wasn’t a Fighter. Of course she might’ve received mana somehow, like Aelene had, and that would allow her to travel here safely, but why would she?
Reurig looked me up and down for only a moment until he spoke again. Apparently I hadn’t been able to fool him. “This aura...” he said. “Are you...?”
“Miles!!!” I heard a small girl yell. When I turned to the side, I saw Riala run in my direction. When she jumped off the ground, I caught her in a hug.
“Hey, Ria,” I said with a chuckle. I could see Tomar and Berla approach us from the same direction, both of them looking at me incredulously. “It’s really good to see you guys.”
“Are you really Miles...?” Tomar asked.
“Would you doubt Ria?” I said with a smile. “How about this?”
I activated my water ball script one-handed, and after the water had gathered above my hand, I aimed it at a tree in the distance, which it flew towards after a moment. “You’ll recognize a Miles-original, right?”
Riala let go of me and looked at me with a bright smile, but I had barely stood up, when all of a sudden another girl threw herself in my arms on a shaky leg, as I heard her crutches fall to the ground.
“Hey, Berla,” I said as I hugged her back and helped her stand.
“I thought we wouldn’t see you again...” she said.
“I got back to you as soon as I could,” I said with a light chuckle.
Tomar picked up her crutches and handed them to her when she let go of me after a little while. He then turned towards me. “It’s weird to look you in the eyes.”
“Heh, yea. It’s weird to see ‘myself’ standing in front of me as well.”
“You know, I thought maybe you would become a Calling again, but I didn’t expect you to be a cute girl when you come back,” he said with a chuckle. “Who is she?”
‘... cute?’
“Her name is Lilana, she was to become a priestess,” I said.
“A priestess... huh,” Tomar said and then waved at me. “Hi, Lilana. I’m Tomar.”
‘Uh... Hi?’
“She says ‘Hi,’” I said to Tomar, before addressing Lilana. “Tomar is my previous host. He knows what it’s like to be in your position.”
‘Wait... Tomar? And a little girl... A destroyed water source! You guys are the criminals!? And Reurig is a part of you too!?’
“Ugh...” I twitched at the sharp pain that shot through my head.
“Is everything okay?” Tomar asked.
“She just realized that we’re the ‘criminals.’ Apparently she’s not happy.”
‘Not happy!? NOT HAPPY!? How could you not tell me that!? You broke almost every major law and caused the deaths of a dozen people!!’
“No, we didn’t,” I said to Lilana.
“You really should’ve told her that upfront, Miles... Shouldn’t you have learned that lesson?” Tomar said.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that. I didn’t lie to her and I was open about almost everything. This is basically the one thing I didn’t explicitly mention.”
‘Don’t act like this is a minor issue!’
“Please calm down. We didn’t actually do anything that bad. It was similar to your own situation. All we really did was flee town. And the thing with the water source was an accident.”
“That was the only thing?” Tomar asked, raising an eyebrow. It was immediately clear to me what he meant with that question. I hadn’t told her about being able to control her body while she was asleep yet, and he knew me well enough to know that I would keep that to myself once again, just in case.
“... yea, the only thing,” I said and made a face to signal that I didn’t want her to know yet. I had suspected that she might realize who we are, and if bad became worse, I might’ve needed that trump card.
Luckily, Tomar seemed to accept my decision for the moment. “Alright,” he said.
‘Absolutely nothing about this is alright... It was unfortunate enough that I would be seen as a criminal for the moment, but I didn’t actually do anything! You guys were convicted though!’
“We were, but this doesn’t change anything. Don’t worry, our deal stands.”
‘And how are you going to help me become the head of the temple if every guard who sees you will immediately try to kill you!?’
“Simple, really. We’ll just have to change that.”
I understood that she was in shock, and that she didn’t know where we could possibly go from here, but she would soon realize that this wasn’t actually an issue. If Tomar and the others still wanted to go through with our plan, their names would have to be cleared anyway. And if they didn’t want to go through with it anymore, I would just stay with Lilana until I fulfilled my promise, helping her accomplish her goals more directly. Either way, I would make sure she got what she wanted, in return for helping me get back to the others.
“This is so surreal... Did I look that insane as well when I was talking with Miles...?” Tomar asked.
““Yup,”” Berla and Riala said in unison.