Xanya entered his office with a plate of bread and jam and set it on his desk. “Heard you hadn’t eaten yet.”
Vrak sighed, and set the two messages down on his desk. The bread crunched under his coarse fingers as he ripped off a piece and sopped it into the bowl of red jelly. The sweet tang of wild berry was a welcome respite from the headache that had presented itself this morning.
“Good news, I take it,” Xanya said as she ripped off a piece of his bread and stole a dip of jam for herself.
Vrak thought to hoard the jam, but instead scooted the bowl to the edge of his desk. “It’s as we expected. The Baron knows about our dealings with the kobolds and demands we cease trade with them.”
Xanya lounged in a wooden chair, sucking her fingers of jam. “Hm. You tell the Mayor yet?”
“It’s not worth hiding, that’s for certain. But then there’s this message from the kobolds.”
“What’s it say?”
“I have no dreking idea.”
***
Jevrick’s Main Quest: Restore Maplebrook
- Restore population.
- Rebuild houses.
- Earn Maplebrook’s trust.
Side Quests:
- Find out the truth of Clyde’s past.
- Who are they?
- Restore Atan to good health.
- Where is Nora?
- Find out who burned down the chapel.
- Fulfill obligation to Atan.
- Is that really Clyde?
===
Maplebrook’s Population: 392
===
I thought it’d be wise to speak with Clyde, seeing as there was little room to doubt he was indeed the man who I owed my freedom to, I needed to know the truth about how he’d managed to dispatch Commander Dread. There was a missing piece that was driving me quite batty. Soul-Muted. That was not a status I was familiar with, but I had my inklings about its nature. More than likely, the truth of Clyde’s power was being masked. How and why were almost as fascinating to ponder as the true strength I wagered the man concealed.
So, since the town seemed to have settled into a steady routine for the first time since I’d first arrived, I figured I could spare a moment to humor my own curiosities. There was the matter of Atan and the mysterious they who had beaten him and stole his equipment, but I believed I had taken the necessary measures that I could in preparation for whatever encounter was to disrupt Maplebrook. I supposed I could warn the good folk about the potential conflict that was coming, but the poor townsfolk had endured much in the last couple of weeks, I felt they deserved a little respite. I had things covered, I was certain, I dared not disturb their simple lives unnecessarily.
Anyway, I found myself at Clyde’s door with a tankard of frothing ale in hand, as it seemed that was a substance he’d be most gracious for receiving. I rapped upon his door with flesh disguised knuckles and awaited his beckoning.
None came.
Hmm.
I knocked again. “Clyde? I bring some refreshment!”
There was a clank against the wooden floor, followed by plopping of bare feet as they shuffled along the boards—so I presumed anyway.
Sure enough, the door creaked open, and a very sleepish looking Clyde emerged in his linens. “Ah, you.” His eyes drifted to the tankard.
“For you,” I said, holding out the drink to him.
He took it with both hands and carried it gingerly back to his bed like a precious artefact.
The door had remained open, so I took that as a sign of admittance. I bowed my head under the doorframe as I entered, tophat held to my chest respectfully.
The small tavern room stank of sweat and dirt, and his armor laid carelessly in a pile in a corner. I struggled to find a good place to stand without kicking over one of a half-dozen mugs and tankards strewn about the floor.
Clyde sat on the edge of his bed and sipped his drink. Or rather, chugged the whole thing down in impressive time. He wiped his lips, burped, and then dropped the tankard onto the floor with the rest. “So. . . What is it you’ve come to interrogate me about, now?”
I had to be cautious. I had indeed prodded him a couple of times already about who he was and his past, but he’d evaded my questions each and every time. But, I had another idea upon how I might get him to speak.
“Tell me, dearest knight. Do you know me?” I said, sitting upon a stool that was so short that my knees came up to my chest. I had little pride to coddle and felt it’d be rude to stand while he sat.
He shrugged. “A bloody necromancer that somehow became mayor of my father’s town, and keeps his ashes in an urn.”
I chuckled. That was humor, was it not? Hmm, he did not laugh as well, just stared at me. Perhaps not so much humor, but an observation of the absurd. I cleared my throat. “Well, that is true, yes. But before that, you knew the being that I once served.”
Clyde rubbed his eyes. “Ok.”
I chattered my teeth. Why was this man so difficult to speak to? “Yes, well. . . You see, when Dread was killed, my bond was severed. My mind had been his for some time, and my will was a warped thing. I. . . committed many horrors in his service. Indeed, I even took pleasure in most of them.” I frowned. The memories of my shameful past filled me with guilt. “It was not but less than a moon ago where I realized that the cries of peasants no longer brought me joy. That was how I knew for certain that my mind was mine own again, and since then I’ve been reawakened to a wide range of emotions that I thought had long been lost to me.”
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Clyde stretched his arms into the air and yawned.
I pressed on. “Understand, Ser Clyde, I have been on search for you for a time I cannot recount. The days between the death of my master and my arrival to this little town are blurred. It was indeed many days that I had traveled until I learned of Maplebrook and came to meet you. I thought that I had, and had fallen into an unholy anguish when I thought you had died. But now. . . now that I know you live. . . I. . .”
Clyde pressed one of his nostrils closed and snorted something out of the other onto the floor. “Look, Master. . . Mayor. I don’t understand what you seek from me, and every bloody time you open your mouth to speak, all I hear is the infernal chattering of those twice-cursed teeth of yours.” He turned his gaze upon me. “What a joke the Celestials have laid upon my life that my father should die to the very paladins who were there to protect him, from a necromancer who had mistaken him for some child-fantasy hero. What a farce it is that I sit here for the thrice-cursed time, listening to him prattle on about, Afterlives knows what. You’re obsessed with me, is that it? You wish for me to show myself to be the holy warrior that you fantasize about? Well, listen here, skeleton—I am not. I never was. The man who went to face Dread? That man died with all the others, and for good reason. He’s not coming back. Never. Again. So you stick your bloody nose, or whatever it is that’s underneath that bleeding disguise, and leave me alone already.”
A sensation washed over me. Some sort of loathing I had not felt for any man. . . not since I had joined in Dread’s service. Shamefully, there was a part of that old me that niggled at the back of my skull. That knowledge that I had the total power to strip this man down to the last flecks of life. The temptation to peel him from mortality for the pain he was inflicting upon me.
That is not you, no longer. You must leave. Leave. . .
But I resisted the warning. I needed the truth. I needed to understand how a man like this had been able to stand against Dread, whereas a man like me could not.
Clyde’s eyes suddenly grew wide, and that cold venom that had been behind his face drained. He started to shake. He looked down to the tankard I had given him. “What. . .”
“There was no alcohol within it, I had used an old trick of materials and magic to simulate a brew. Through the ingenuity of the apothecaries, you should be sobered quite promptly,” I said.
He grabbed his chest. “No, no, no. Please, a drink. I need a drink.”
I stood, went to the door. . . and closed it.
“What are you doing? What are you doing!” Clyde cried. He broke out in a sweat and he slumped to the floor.
I sighed. “I’m sorry, dear Clyde. There is some deception at play here, and I refuse to be lied to. Not after all I have been through. I must know the truth.”
He collapsed to the floor and waved his arms for a tankard. He took one up and held it over his face, but there was no drink within. He licked at the inside like a newborn calf, but it was a fruitless endeavor. He dropped his arm and winced, grabbing his chest. “You. Don’t. Under—stand.”
I knelt to him. “What? What is it that I do not understand?”
He looked up to me, his face seizing up. “It’s. In. Me. It’s. . .”
I furrowed my brow. “Are you possessed by an agent of Infernos, man?” It made no sense. How would merely being a drunkard be enough to force a daemon at bay?
He shook his head, his eyes fluttered closed, and his body relaxed. He had passed out.
I used my True Sight on him.
===
Name: Clyde, Vessel of Seperatio | Seperatio, The In-Between
Anima Level: 10 | ???
Age: 48 | ???
Lineage: Human | Celestial
Class: Knight | Warden of Erabos
Status: Healthy | Invulnerable
Conditions: Awakened Anima, Twin-Souled
Stats:
Might: 10 | ???
Agility: 10 | ???
Intellect: 10 | ???
Wit: 10 | ???
===
My jaw dropped. What have I just unleashed?
Clyde’s eyes rolled open, only now they were washed in silver light. He spoke, only it was not his voice that came out, but one of power and eternity. “Jevrick La Kel. . . Take me to those who worship The Obelisk.”
***
A few days ago. . .
Nora knelt at the center of a circular council room upon a mural that depicted a pointed obsidian monolith within a great forest, which she knew to represent The Great Obelisk. In front of her were the three heads of the High-Council, sitting in black chairs whose backs stretched several man’s heights upward. The rest of the room was dark, save for a large lamp that hung from a long chain above.
The center councilor, a man in ebony robes, stroked his chin as he spoke. “Young Nora, what do you know about The Great Obelisk?”
She placed a hand over her chest where the borrowed shard hung, and looked up to the powerful leader. “The world was built upon its holy surface, and it is the foundation that the earth sits upon.”
The council members traded each other a look. Then the right-most councilor, an older man in black and gold armor, asked, “And what do you know about the Obsidian War?”
Nora had been told the stories by Ser Godrick many a time. “The Obelisk was destroyed by heretics, and its pieces were sundered across what is called the Arid Wastes. There knights go to retrieve pieces of its holy form and return them to Knightshelm.”
The man nodded.
The last of the councilors, a woman in white armor, said, “Indeed. Do you know what The Great Obelisk has recently ordained?”
Nora scowled at the question, but quickly let the anger dissipate upon seeing the councilors turn to each other with concerned looks. She took a deep breath. “Apologies, High-Council. I meant nothing in my emotions. I know that it has ordered the knights to leave the necromancer in Maplebrook alone, for what reason I don’t understand.”
The robed councilor said, “It is not our place to understand, only to obey.”
Nora bowed her head. “Yes, Master Paladin.” She feared that her moment of weakness had betrayed her. Would they throw her out for a minor slip up like this? She prayed that they would not.
The woman sighed. “Fear not, young one. High-Speaker Duncan means to iron out your emotions. There are many who come to join our order who come with misguided hearts.”
“Why do you come here?” High-Speaker Duncan asked.
Nora kept her head bowed. “All the men and women who I love, and who raised me, are dead. If I had the power to stop evil, then I might have saved them.”
“Hmm,” murmured the older man, “so you come seeking vengeance, not to serve our master.”
“No! I mean, no, I trust in The Great Obelisk. I want to serve. I just. . . all I bring with me is my heart. I want to learn. I mean no sin.” Nora could feel tears welling within her eyes. She was failing. She was lying. She knew. She wasn’t here to serve, she was only here for power. But, she could not tell them this truth. She could not surrender her chance.
High-Speaker Duncan cleared his throat. “Serve, you may. But not in the manner you might have thought.”
Nora looked up at him.
He leaned forward and pointed a long finger at her. “You are under the impression that The Great Obelisk means to protect that abomination that plagues Maplebrook, but you are mistaken. Our master sees a greater threat that is beyond the scope of our present. A greater evil than one lone necromancer approaches, and he will serve a role in undoing it, much as you will.”
Me? “What will I do?” she asked.
The woman frowned. “You must become a holy vessel.”