The exterior backyard of the manor is far more intricate than either Demy or Kaz expected it to be: Unlike the front yard, which is fairly bare and seems to have had very little construction done to it, the backyard is far more detailed. The river flows only a short distance from the manor itself, with a large stone pool situated between it and the back of the house. A pair of sluice gates allow water from the river to flow into the pool and back out at a steady interval, keeping the pool full at all times.
A large, metallic pipe leads from the back of the house and runs along the side of the pool, leading slightly downstream from the lower sluice gate. Kaz reasons that the pool, which runs up against the very edge of the house, must supply water to the interior bathroom. The pipe, then, guides the used water back out to the river, to avoid contaminating the pool.
The rest of the backyard is set up like a fancy garden, but obviously there are no flowers or plants that grow here. Instead, there are a variety of stone sculptures placed upon the stone pathway that runs along the side of the pool where the two doors lead out from the main foyer. Various chairs, benches, and tables, made of wood much like the majority of the manor itself, line the pathway.
“Man, the rich live in their own little world, don’t they?” Demy muses as he steps out onto the stone pathway, looking around the yard. A high stone wall surrounds the perimeter and encloses everything. The sluice gates are built into the wall itself, but are not the only break in the fence, as there is a heavy wooden gate on the side of the wall opposite the pool.
“You mean you wouldn’t want to have a pool party here?” Kaz asks teasingly. “It’s surprisingly peaceful out here.”
“Yeah, like a graveyard is peaceful,” Demy grumbles. “I can’t get over some old dude building a mansion in the middle of nowhere and setting it up as if he’d ever have guests.”
“Maybe he just wanted a sense of normalcy,” Kaz guesses with a shrug.
“Then he should’ve built this back on Kattelox and saved everyone the headache,” Demy says as he puts his hand on one of the nearby statues, which depicts what he assumes is a Loxian soldier. The stone is cold but otherwise smooth, showing very little wear and tear from the elements. Just like everything else on this weird continent.
“I agree. Though, it was inevitable that someone would try to settle the Heart,” Kaz says, frowning. She ambles throughout the backyard, looking for something that would indicate an entrance to the basement, but there is no such door or opening that she can tell.
“I guess. Why hasn’t someone done it before, though? I mean, people knew it was here, right?” Demy asks.
“Because this place is taboo,” Kaz answers, walking along the back wall of the manor, looking for any kind of break in the wall or odd construction.
Demy wrinkles his nose and says, “That chopped up green stuff with the grain in it? Cash has tried to get me to eat it but it looks like lawn trimmings. What’s it got to do with this place?”
Kaz turns to stare at Demy incredulously. “Taboo. You know, off limits. Cursed. Not socially acceptable?”
“I mean, Cash really seems to like the stuff,” Demy says, slightly confused.
“No, not–” Kaz pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut in exasperation. “The Heart of Vale is cursed, as taught by the Nine Divines. How do you not know this?”
“Growing up, the only time we brought them up was to complain when something went wrong,” Demy says defensively. “Sorry if I don’t know the deep lore, mister… sister… priest person.”
Kaz lets out a low hum of disapproval, but decides against chastising Demy. Instead, she explains, “The legends say that the Heart of Vale was cursed by the Nine Deities; the reason for this was so heinous that the Nine would not speak of it. So for thousands of years, the only people who would come to this place were heathens or outlaws.”
She stops and casts a sideways glance toward Demy, muttering under her breath, “That seems to still be true in some cases.”
Demy responds with a particularly rude hand gesture, which makes Kaz snort.
“That’s why it’s so hard to get people to come here and why it was such a big deal when General Southgate decided to settle here. The Loxians have taken it upon themselves to defend him, which is why they put money into Tarn’s Rest and, I bet, why they’re funding the expedition. Hoping to prove that he wasn’t some crazy heathen for building a mansion on the continent,” Kaz finishes explaining.
Demy ambles toward the center of the “garden,” which is marked by a pedestal with a sundial atop it. The shadows cast by the sun, just now dipping past the horizon of timelessly dead trees, show that it is late in the evening, near dinner time. Demy scoffs a little, not particularly needing the ancient clock to tell him that it is near sundown, let alone that it’s dinner time. His growling stomach is enough to do that.
“So, what do you think about this place?” Demy asks, still staring absently at the sundial.
“What do you mean?” Kaz asks in response, making her way over to the sundial as well, curious as to what he is staring at.
“You’re a holy person, right? Can’t you tell when something is not right?” Demy elaborates.
“Seems you know something about the faithful, despite your agnostic upbringing,” Kaz says, raising a curious eyebrow at him. Demy does not respond, merely waiting for her to answer. After a moment, she does, “It’s definitely tangible. I think everyone can feel it, but it’s clearer for those who train to sense these things. This continent feels very sterile, very removed from the rest of the world. Like some kind of limbo where nothing lives nor dies, where the living are intruders.”
“I’m not a holy person, but this place has had the hair on the back of my neck on end since I stepped foot here. It smells wrong,” Demy grumbles.
“Are you sure you have nothing of the divine in you?” Kaz asks playfully.
“If I do, it ain’t willingly,” Demy mutters.
“There’s something in you, though. Isn’t there?” Kaz asks, her voice no longer playful but stern and serious.
Demy instinctively takes a step away from Kaz and glares at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks, warily.
“It’s pretty easy to understand, I would think,” Kaz says, turning to stare directly at him. “There’s something in you. There’s something wrong with you.”
Demy scoffs dismissively and says, “You’re just trying to egg me on, huh? You’re sore we never got to actually throw down that first night. Have you been waiting all this time just to get me alone to try your luck?”
“That’s not it and you know it isn’t,” Kaz says, eyes narrowing. “I’m not trying to fight you, I just want the truth.”
“I got nothing to tell you,” Demy warns.
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“You’re lying,” Kaz says, her eyes faintly glowing.
“So your god is cool with you interrogating your friends like some dickish town guard?” Demy asks, gritting his teeth.
“I don’t need holy vision to tell that you’re not being truthful,” Kaz says, crossing her arms. “And I haven’t decided if we’re friends yet or not. I’m waiting until you decide to be honest with me, because that’s what friends do.”
“Pretty sure friends respect one another’s boundaries,” Demy says.
“When the safety of myself and our other friends is involved, that is the boundary I draw,” Kaz states.
“You actually think I’m dangerous?” Demy asks incredulously.
“You’re telling me that you aren’t?” Kaz asks. “Since we’ve been here, I’ve not seen you carry a weapon. That wouldn’t be so strange, but I’m certain that you have no magical talent, either, with how you’ve been fawning over Wren–”
“–Fawning?!–” Demy chokes out.
“–Yet you don’t seem worried in the least. So either you’re more dangerous than you let on, or you don’t care about your well-being. Either way, I find it concerning,” Kaz finishes.
“This is why I didn’t want to do this, but that stupid noble asshole would’ve turned us in otherwise!” Demy growls. “All because Cash had to try to steal an empty fucking purse!”
“I just want to know that I can trust you. If you need help–” Kaz starts, but she is interrupted as Demy punches one of the nearby stone statues out of frustration. To her surprise, the heavy stone crumbles at his punch, disintegrating into countless chunks and pieces of debris.
“I knew you’d stick your goddamn nose into my business the second I met you!” Demy snarls, taking out the rest of the statue with one well-placed, heavy kick. He turns to Kaz, eyes glowing a deep red, teeth bared. “You want to know if I’m fucking dangerous?”
Kaz raises her hands up, palms out, showing that she has no intent to fight. “Demy, I just want to know if I can trust you. And that’s because I want you to trust me,” she says.
“Oh, I trust you all right. I trust you to not leave it alone! You want the truth? I am dangerous!” He shouts, taking a step toward her. “And I try to keep that under control, but everywhere I go, people prod and poke and point! I hide and I drink and I try to keep my head down but nobody will leave it the fuck alone!”
He takes another stomping step toward Kaz, seeming to tower over her. She can sense the–whatever is wrong with him strongly now as the dark, inhuman anger radiates off him in waves. She instinctively puts her hand on the hilt of her sword, feeling the same fear that she felt back when the two first met and were prepared to stand off against one another. An unnatural, irrational fear of facing down something dangerous, something feral.
“I don’t want to fight you, Demy,” she says sternly, standing her ground.
“Bullshit!” He snarls, his clenched teeth longer and sharper than they were before, his eyes full of rage. “You’re just like everyone else! You won’t leave me alone and keep pushing until it’s too late!”
“Demy–”
Her words fall on deaf ears as Demy takes a swipe at her with a hand now tipped with sharp claws. She steps back from the blow, avoiding it as she draws her sword and raises it defensively. Just in enough time, as it turns out, as Demy swings another clawed hand toward her, but she manages to swat it away with her sword, leaving a gash across his palm in the process.
“Bitch!” Demy roars.
“There’s something dark in you and you have to fight it,” Kaz says, slowly backing away from him
“You think I don’t know that?!” He yells out, stalking after her. “You think I’m not fighting it every second of every day?!”
“I’m just asking to understand what you’re going through! I want to help you, that’s what friends do,” Kaz says, trying to plead to him.
“That’s what they always say, but then the guards come, then the chains get brought out!” Demy argues back, his low and guttural voice even deeper, angrier.
Kaz moves around the large central sundial, trying to put something between herself and Demy. She truly doesn’t want to fight him, but she’s afraid that if she tries to use her divine magic to subdue him, that he’ll retaliate too quickly. He’s too close, too focused on her; she has no opening and knows that if he gets his hands on her, she’ll crumble just like that statue did.
Demy seems to realize that she is stalling for time, looking for an out, and he pounces at her opportunistically. His leap puts him on top of the sundial, in prime position to leap upon her and tear her to shreds. He can see the surprise and fear in Kaz’s eyes, a look he’s seen before in the final moments of others, moments before the light within gets snuffed out forever. It makes him angrier for some reason and it’s hard to think, hard to form even a simple, coherent thought. Some part of him, deep down, is screaming to relax, to calm down, but it’s too late. He let himself get too upset, let himself get irritated for no reason, and now–
The sundial shifts, stone on stone grinding, as the circular top begins to spin slowly.
Demy perches atop it, his anger momentarily forgotten and expression uncertain as he slowly spins around with the sundial. Going around once, twice, three times. He stops suddenly, facing Kaz once again as the sundial presumably reaches the end of its rotation.
On the other end of the backyard, the sluiceways shift. The one upstream closes and the one downstream opens, letting the water that fills the large pool rush out in a deafening roar.
Kaz sees her opportunity. She holds her hand out toward Demy and utters a silent prayer, rewarded by a faint, golden halo of light that appears around his head. Demy blinks, already confused and out of sorts from the shifting of the sundial. He can feel himself relaxing, feel the anger leaving him. His frustrations, insurmountable and enraging moments prior, now seem trivial.
His bestial features recede, eyes returning to their normal color as he plops down heavily on the sundial, staring off into space in indifferent dissociation. A moment later, the halo fades away; his eyes once again regain focus and he looks around, momentarily disoriented. Kaz can see realization hit him and he looks at her sheepishly, flustered.
“You–has anyone ever told you that you’re really annoying?” He asks, shoulders slumped in guilt.
“A few times,” Kaz says, letting out a sigh of relief. “So, uh. You got a little upset there.”
Demy looks away shamefully and says, “I’m sorry. I try not to think about it, or else I get frustrated and, and–”
She puts her hand on his shoulder, the metal of her gauntlet clinking brightly in contrast to the roar of the rushing water leaving the pool. “I’m sorry I pushed you to that. I’m not trying to persecute you for whatever that was, I just want to make sure everyone is safe,” she explains calmly. “And that includes you.”
Demy looks up at her, seeming very much like a dog who got into the trash despite knowing better. “I almost really hurt you,” he says softly.
“Look, I’m not going to push you about it. But you need to be honest with me, and everyone, so we don’t accidentally do something that will set you off again,” she says.
“You’re right,” he says guiltily. “I… Cash knows. But I don’t like to tell people, it’s my problem–”
Kaz crosses her arms and gives him a stern look.
“Okay, okay,” he says, getting up off the sundial. “I’ll, it–it’s a long story. Let me psych myself up for it and when we get back to town, maybe, yeah.”
Kaz considers this for a long moment before nodding. “Alright. That’s fair,” she says.
Demy nods and looks away again, frustrated and ashamed and maybe just a bit relieved. His eyes widen after a moment and he points to the now-empty pool. “Hey, you see that?”
Kaz turns her attention to where he is pointing, to the very end of the pool that runs up against the side of the house. At the bottom of the stone pool is a door made of heavy stone, placed so it would be basically impossible to see from above if the pool isn’t drained.
“Holy Kel,” Kaz mutters in awe. “The basement door! We found it!”
“Yeah,” Demy says absently, before agreeing with more enthusiasm. “Yeah! We did! Totally on purpose, right?”
“Absolutely. I’m the one that noticed something off with the sundial–” She begins.
“–And it was stuck so I had to use my super cool muscles to turn it,” Demy finishes, posing in triumph.
Kaz chuckles and agrees, “That’s exactly how it went. We weren’t fighting or anything.”
“Of course not, why would we? We’re friends,” Demy says.
Kaz smiles a little and pats him on the back, saying, “Yeah, we are. Let’s go get the others so we can finally check out this secret, hidden basement.”
“That we found!” Demy quips cheerily as the two make their way back to the foyer in search of the others.