His house greeted him, joining a row of small and squat stone houses constructed identically. Perhaps they were - one of the mage paintings in the guild showed the wizard raising an entire city from the ground, so what were a few measly homes? All the buildings on the quiet street fifteen minutes away from the church were painted in shades of violet and black, and all but his had a crescent moon. His featured a full moon.
“Right, here’s the rules. You pay upfront for the month. If you break anything, you pay for it. No making noise after dawn, no parties or strange rituals either. Any animals you get are approved by me. Got it?” She spoke in a no-nonsense type of way that landlords often did.
“Loud and clear,” he said, counting the forty crowns. With that, she handed him a heavy iron key, and Daniel wondered how the hell he was supposed to carry the thing around.
“If you need me, you can find me at the church. I go every day,” she said, her lips drawn upwards in a smirk. She watched him fiddle with the key for a few moments before leaving, and Daniel could finally relax. He was bad at putting up airs of being someone important.
Finally, another one of his goals was accomplished - he had his own house now! The lock popped open with a horrible noise coming from the inside, but that didn’t stop Daniel from excitedly peering in. His face fell the moment he saw the interior.
A horrible stench hit him like a sledgehammer, almost dropping him to his knees. A thin layer of dust covered everything in sight, cobwebs being the least of his worries as he noticed several insects bolting into the living room. How was it possible for a place to get this bad in just a few months?
The inside was pitch black, the only source of light being the magical flame illuminating the streets. Taking a deep breath, he bravely went in, his eyes struggling to adjust. Like a miracle from god, an unlit lantern stood on top of a wooden table, and moments later, he found flint and steel on a nearby shelf. He struck the flint once, then twice, wondering how he was supposed to get a spark big enough.
“I should have taken those wilderness survival classes. This is a world of magic! Why is there still a need for this?” he yelled after failing miserably for a few minutes.
Once he finally lit the candle, he made rounds around the house, carefully making sure not to drop any lanterns for fear of having the entire house go up in flames. Returning to the entrance, he surveyed the situation.
The place was a total dump.
The living room was sparse. A round table for eating was surrounded by four chairs, though one was much more used than the rest, a wooden leg haphazardly glued back. The large fireplace dotted with stars and moons would’ve looked cosy if not for the absolute mess of dust and ash coating it. Wilted flowers drooped miserably on top of a windowsill, and Daniel doubted light would even shine through the window covered in grime.
There was, however, something curious built into the furthest wall. He observed what could only be a privy, with an opening no larger than his head. Holding his nose, he peered down, only to see a small, red stone shimmering with a menacing light a few feet down. Intrigued, he picked up a scrap of parchment and tossed it down. Almost immediately, it went up in flames, leaving behind only ash. How neat.
Wandering through the rest of the house, the kitchen was no better. Pans and pots were haphazardly thrown around, not to mention the dirty plates and cups. If he hadn’t arrived sooner, some magical creature would’ve probably mutated from all the mould growing on top of the rotten food. There was even a rat scurrying around! He thought he saw a deep look of sadness on the rat’s face as it went through the various sacks, finding nothing.
“Trust me, I’m even sadder right now.”
The one thing the old exorcist hadn’t neglected was his bedroom. A complicated ritual circle was carved deep into the floor, each line drawn with precision, each rune where it needed to be. Various parchments were stacked neatly on top of a writing desk flanked by two bookshelves, featuring a dozen different titles. Similar to the guild, this room also featured a magical inkpot, a quill, and a large wardrobe.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
There were only two spare outfits inside of it. Theoretically, they should fit him, but a deep distaste welled up in his mouth as he looked at them. The clothes were plain, the colours were muted, the material was uncomfortable, and they were barely his size. He would keep them for a rainy day or as a disguise, but no more.
A small, wooden bed was situated between two corners of the wall, draped in moth-eaten sheets, and it was a disgrace to call the thing on the bed even a pillow. A surprisingly ornate nightstand nearby held up a candle and a stick of incense. Finally, a shelf was stocked with thick glass jars, holding various powders and liquids. How could the man live in such conditions? As an older exorcist, he should have been earning way more than Daniel.
After carefully examining the situation, he had a simple conclusion. He got scammed. There was no other way to explain the utterly horrible state of the house. It was likely that the landlady hadn’t stepped in here for months. Daniel groaned, his limbs already feeling like they were made of lead. “Where do I even start?”
After minutes of aimless pacing back and forth, he spotted something shining in the kitchen - a large wooden bucket with a sapphire gemstone inside of it. The moment he held it in his hands, a stream of cool, clear water ran down into the bucket, solving multiple of his issues.
Picking up a stick from the outside, he used the bed sheets as a rag and began to furiously scrub the floors. The water in the bucket turned black in an instant, and he had to make frequent trips to a gutter nearby, where he unceremoniously dumped the water.
The cleaning was tough and took multiple hours, but Daniel enjoyed it way more than he thought he would. It was a chance to exhaust his body, to test the limits of his stamina. It let him sink his mind into the monotonous action, and before he even knew it, the work was done. The house was still much dirtier than what he was used to, but he could take his time with the rest.
As he had cleaned the house, he found out that it had a proper basement, though no murder mystery presented itself for him to solve. Instead, there was a different magic circle. A nearby diagram plastered on the wall showed that the circle was supposed to have been lined with blue crystals and magic dust, but a few nosy rats had created a mess, leaving none of the crystals intact.
Instead, his attention was captured by a much different kind of mystery - a red diary buried under a pile of papyrus. It took all of Daniel’s willpower to resist reading it in the middle of cleaning, but now that he was done, he could crack it open. Despite how messy the man previously living here was, the first page featured incredibly steady and beautiful penmanship, each stroke a lesson in art.
My name is Soren Godfall, a disgrace to my family name. My life before reaching out to Morvina shall remain buried with me, as I only truly started living with her in my heart.
I write this diary for those that come after me. I leave the record of my days here, no matter how mundane or unique. Let this book have an impact on the world, no matter how small or big.
This is the third of such diaries, a turning point in my life. The first I buried there, where the first god fell. The second I entrusted to my dearest friend. Every day, I feel Morvina beckoning me, but I have never been a good priest. I wish to live. Thus, let there be a fourth and a fifth, and many more.
Those who are reading this - beware. There is a deep shadow within the capital, lurching in the minds of every devout follower of Morvina. I only fear the upper echelons have already fallen. Let it also be known that I am a coward, who would rather hide and flee than face it head-on.
Daniel was enraptured, a thousand questions on his mind as he flipped to the next page. He read on with excitement, only for his mood to hit rock bottom immediately..
I headed over to the most exciting food stall by the gate, only to find out they were charging three crowns per skewer. Three crowns! The scammers! The audacity! I spoke my mind to them at length and finally purchased one. It was the worst three crowns I’ve spent in my life. I was toilet bound for what felt like an eternity.
After promising grand intrigues and unsolved plots, Soren went to patiently describe his completely mundane day-to-day arrival in the city. Daniel flipped through the pages, seeing hundreds of entries on end. Ah, now he got why the landlady was calling him an old bastard.
The diary wasn’t finished, not even close, but the writing abruptly stopped on a certain day. Piecing together information from various mundane interruptions, the entry on the day read like this.
More and more of Morvina’s flock has been going missing, and this night was no exception. However, Darcia finally pieced together the clues and found a trail - one of evil and magic. The thing that has been plaguing us for months is finally in sight. I shall depart immediately with a squad of night watchers to the ruins in case our suspicions of an evil spirit are right. By the night’s veil.