In a lone office situated inside the city’s wall, Mia sat in a closed-off lit room at a desk. The chair she was sitting on had a weird cover on it that the guards placed on it before leaving her here. They had left her alone without so much as putting any restraints on her, much to her surprise, so she just sat and waited patiently with nothing to do but mess with her item box.
[They have left you here for a while.]
‘So?’ Mia took out a piece of jerky, then focused on trying to make the hole appear in specific spots away from her so she could throw it in, not succeeding as the hole always appeared next to her.
[They did so not even limit your magic or skills, you could easily escape.]
‘I would try to escape if they tried to put a collar on me’ she didn’t want to deal with those things ever again, hoping that boy managed to get away.
She perked up, hearing muffled shouting coming from the other side of the door. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but she could barely make out one of the people yelling was that priest she froze.
“You can’t let her do this! This is a matter of the church!”
The door opened, revealing that the person yelling was indeed the priest, she then saw the guard from earlier that came to apprehend her stand between the priest and the door as a robed figure in pure white snuck behind him and enter the room, giving Mia a short wave as they took their seat at the table.
“We have already requested this inquisitor’s services from the proper church channels… unless you are saying she isn’t she is of the church?” The guard stood in the doorway, preventing the priest from entering or seeing inside.
“N-no! Do not twist my words you simple guard! By Gaia I am just suggesting because I am personally involved in this matter as a victim I-“
“And we have taken that into account by requesting the service of one member from the holy capitol Gaia… is that a problem?” He stepped aside, opening the door wide so that the priest could see inside and more importantly, see the girl in her seat wave towards him “You do not have faith for this holy lady to perform her duty by the church, right?”
“…” The priest went silent, his eyes drifting between the guard and the lady “n..n…no…I have faith in Gaia as a priest of her cause…” His face twisted in apparent pain as he forced his next words out “I’ll leave this matter to you.”
“Good.” The guard ducked inside and shut the door behind him, leaning on the door and sliding down it “give me strength…” He let out a deep sigh.
‘I’m confused.’ Mia thought ‘Are they with the church or not?’ she glanced over to the robed women, who’s face was concealed beneath a black cloth, but now that she got a closer look her robe was different then the others. With most robes of the church being white with at most gold trims, this one was decorated with white jewels attached to several blue chains, and atop her cloaked head was a gold embroidery ‘weird.’
The girl noticed Mia staring at her, causing her to give another small wave.
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“Alright, let’s get this over with.” The guard came over and sat down “First off, I apologize for the cover, we have several damp people come through here and it ruins our furniture.” He motioned to the floor, where a puddle of water was forming under Mia’s seat.
‘ah…’ her mist was creating water and was pooling on the stone floor “…sorry…”
“Don’t be, we wanted to switch to metal but-“He waved his hand, dismissing the issue “Anyways, names Sett, and this is Inquisitor Morgan.”
The girl once again waved.
“Forgive her silence, she is on duty.” He leaned back in his chair, stretching “and your name?”
“Mia.” Mia stared at the robed women, Morgan, the situation still confusing her.
“Truth.” Morgan suddenly blurted out, her voice ringing like a bell, causing Mia to jump in her seat.
Sett chuckled “as you saw, or heard, she will be this interrogations lie detector, no lie can go unnoticed by her.” He leaned in, placing his elbow’s on the desk “Nothing too serious as we have a pretty good idea what happened considering we saw most of it, and who was involved… but for the sake of clarity we want to hear your side.” He then motioned towards her, waiting for her to speak.
Mia paused, while there was nothing wrong with her telling what happened, saying it was… “Church attacked boy, stopped them.” …the best she could do. The guards blank stare causing Mia to look away from him ‘Don’t know what you want from me, that was the best I could do!’
“Truth.”
His head snapped towards Morgan, giving her a look of slight annoyance, then he sighed, bringing his attention back to Mia “…ok, but can you give me more details?”
Mia wracked her brain, trying to figure out how to approach this…maybe specifics? “like?” she asked, hoping he’d get the hint.
“Well for starters, why did they attack the boy?” He sat up, pulling a stack of papers out from his inventory “Their side claims they were trying to apprehend an escaped criminal.”
“eh?” that wasn’t true. She slowly glanced towards Morgan, who shrugged.
“They had their own inquisitor present from the church, this testimony was approved by…” he flipped threw the pages, arriving at the last in the stack “Hah, didn’t even sign off on it. This whole shit is more worthless than wet toilet paper.”
“Truth.”
Mia slowly raised her hand to point at Morgan “Not Gaia?” she was confused, didn’t he say she was from the church of Gaia? How did they get another one, wasn’t she the only one? Was that how that worked? So many questions.
“Ah well…” Sett scratched the back of his head “How old are you again? 10?” he asked, glancing at the paperwork.
“Eight.” Mia replied.
“Truth.”
Sett whistled “They lost to an eight-year-old, jeez, what level are you kid? I’d love to get an appraisal on you but-“ he waved himself off “Anyways, before I answer that, Let’s get the previous question out of the way. Did the priest attempt to capture an escaped criminal.”
Mia shook her head “No, slave.”
“Truth.”
Sett smiled “Ha!” he let out a single, loud, laugh before snapping back to normal “Anyways, Yeah she is from the church of Gaia, the one located IN Gaia, the capital of Gaia. NOT the church of Gaia in Eldaha.”
“Truth~”
She crooked her head to the side “Difference?”
“Easy, one’s a cult that split off and the other is an actual religion!” The man slammed his fist into the table “At least that’s how everyone with a brain sees it!” He glanced threw the papers once more, getting angrier as he did so “Cocky assholes, using Gaia’s name to do what they want!”
“Truth~!”
“They snake their way into our town, take over our church, then start using that authority to pull all those stunts against people trying to run away from their madness.” He bent over the table, shaking in anger “If it wasn’t for us not being under Eldaha and our lord than half the city would be…”
‘Hm, so there are two churches…’ One was racist and actively trying to blow the world up in their war and the other was…not? ‘What was the other side doing then?’
She thought back to the previous cycle, at least to her knowledge she couldn’t remember a time when this supposed other Gaia church came and intervened, in the time span of 3 years the cult in Eldaha had free reign to do what they wanted till they eventually blew everyone up. She’d have to check that at some point.