A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 2: Chapter 9: Questions & Answers

True love is a whisper, and deep hate is a shout. Often the two are intertwined.

- Attributed to the playwright Vlan di Panoli.

It was ironic that the agony I had endured at the hands of my captors in the slave pits gave me the tools to make the fat man, quite literally, spill his guts. With the aid of my healing magic and the judicious use of one of the potions, we had quite a margin of error to work with. Even when one of my companions got a little too enthusiastic in their cathartic questioning, we were able to bring Mr. Vanes back for another round.

According to my magic and confirmed by the man himself, his name was Amon Vanes. The man had confessed to being a priest and mage of the Church of her Divine Radiance, Avaria Goddess of Justice.

Amon Vanes - Mage (Human lvl.18) Health 26/166 Stamina 2/17

Mana 4/18

The lump of lard had impressive magical capabilities, though I doubted he could run a full marathon with his physical attributes. Still, he was of a comparatively higher level than the local mobs. Of interest to me was the fact that he had been able to resist, at least initially, some of my magic. If he had not been so fixated on his own personal glory and had come with the full force of his Church behind him, things might have turned out a little differently. What was pleasing was that, ‘unlearned’ as I was in the Control, the use of the arcane in the local nomenclature, my maximum Mana was only a little behind a full on Mage’s. At this stage of play, I reckoned that Control was probably something to do with my overall level of my spells.

What worried me was his ability to nullify magic. If there were others like him, who could perform similar arcane feats, then I would have to prepare accordingly. Though truth be told, I did not know where to begin.

Another concern was that the man had known where to look for me. The organization he was part of, the Church, had been able to divine my general location and had sent many of their agents to this land to find me. In between his screams of pain and dull pleading for mercy, we were able to learn that the ecclesiarchy of the Church wanted him to bring me in at all costs, on the orders of a certain Cardinal Mauros.

Amon claimed that he had been visited by the goddess Avaria herself and given the mission of finding her lost champion and bringing him back into the fold. Believing himself to be one of her chosen, a prophet, he employed a local guide and some hired blades and set out to search for me, the "Herald of Avaria," in the Sainba. Fortunately, for me at least, in his desire to claim all the glory of finding me in the goddess's name, he neglected to inform his superiors of his divine visitation. That meant the other teams still had no exact idea of where I was.

Providence works in mysterious ways.

Had he succeeded, he would have climbed several rungs up the ladder of the Church hierarchy. It was no different here than in my old world, where greed, power, pride, and the desire for social status were also prevalent. These were emotions and ambitions that I was familiar with. From Amon, I concluded that there were others like him, searching for me in various parts of this continent.

I would have liked to have spent more time questioning the man, probably extending our little session for a few more hours, but my companions, once sated, convinced me that it would have been a foolish choice. We needed to leave the immediate area as soon as possible in case the others, those which had escaped, return with reinforcements.

Amon’s words were confirmation that the Goddess Avaria had truly betrayed me. Was this how the deities of this world treated their chosen?

You have been judged and have not been found wanting. These had been Avaria’s own words. I understood those now to be lies and nothing more than tools of manipulation. A way to stroke my pride and make me more amenable to her terrifying will.

When we deemed it necessary to depart, I slashed the fat man's throat, leaving him to choke on his own blood, naked and helpless, like a stranded whale. This gruesome act earned me some valuable experience points and momentarily eased my disappointment.

However, as I assisted my companions in dividing the various items from the recently slain, I could not help but feel a little sense of unease at how my perspective on the value of human life had drastically shifted in this world. The once unthinkable act of murder had become just another necessary chore. But was it really murder? another part of my mind countered.

During the quick skirmish, the Hunter and the Rogue had managed to slay a ‘bandit’ each, but I did not receive any experience from this. This was probably due to me not having ‘tagged’ or damaged any of the enemies with any of my abilities. Shame, I would have to remember the conditions for experience gain in future conflicts.

We searched through the corpses of our would-be abductors and found an assortment of low-quality knick-knacks and miscellaneous equipment which we bundled onto Patches. The Donkey brayed in protest, but soon forgot her complaint when fed a carrot. The items we had loaded up were mostly vendor trash, I thought to myself. Still, waste not want not, I muttered under my breath as my companions and I pocketed odds and ends and a few coins a few coins for ourselves.

Amon’s staff had been a disappointment. According to my Identify spell it was nothing more than a wooden stick and not magical in the slightest. I loaded it up on Patches anyway. It might make for good firewood one day.

A few other items of interest that we had plundered were a few pages of blank parchment and a small basic writing kit, replete with blotting sand, quill, and ink, that we had found in one of the fat man’s bags. These I decided to keep for myself. Alongside the writing kit was a gold-plated medallion on a silver chain, depicting a likeness of the goddess Avaria holding a sword and knife in each hand. I surreptitiously stuffed the medallion into my pouch when the others were not looking.

We looted the various articles of clothing from our attackers and left them only their small clothes. Around the necks of the ‘bandit’ corpses were black tattoos, styled in the image of the twin horns of some sort of auroch-like creature. They were the local muscle, members of a dubious criminal gang that the late Amon Vanes had hired. Ultimately, they too had been a victim of his hubris.

On one topic, however, Amon had been particularly tight-lipped. He refused to give me what I wanted when I had asked him about what magics he and others of the Church were capable of. Through magical means, simple mundane willpower, or plain vindictiveness, he had refused to give me even a tiny sliver of arcane knowledge as he walked the final steps to oblivion or paradise.

Once we had finished our business, I cast Decay on the corpses and was almost immediately assaulted by a sweet putrescent smell. The entropic energies had found fertile ground in the now rapidly rotting dead flesh.

With Patches braying at the assault on her sense of smell, we moved quickly away from the macabre scene. Luckily, a far-from-fresh carrot was all it took to distract the poor creature from the recent violence and blood. The Decay spell I had unleashed could not completely mask what had happened, but at the very least it would hopefully make identifying the corpses a little more difficult, should anyone come back to this site. The forest had grown quiet, I realized, as the animals were probably subdued by Amon’s shrill screams and the raw stench of death.

“The fat one was of Qisnian old imperial stock,” commented Elwin offhandedly, as he tightened one of the loose straps on Patches’ bags.

“Livestock,” grunted Kidu, from the front of our small formation.

It took a few moments for the Rogue to mentally adjust to Kidu’s attempt at a joke before he finally chuckled, which was soon echoed by Patches’ braying. Then, I saw Elwin’s face concentrate for half a second, mulling over a smart rejoinder before he just gave up and simply laughed along.

Our group trudged on. Kidu, despite being armored and larger than I, seemed to manage this almost preternaturally and with far less noise than me. Gradually, the sounds of the wilderness returned. Up above, creatures moving agilely through the branches of trees and beautiful multi-winged songbirds crooned their ardent melodies.

Lost in my own anxious thoughts, I couldn't shake off my constant state of worry. It was clear that I was being hunted by some powerful organization, and I couldn't help but wonder why the goddess had only revealed my location to Amon. Was it a deliberate choice, or did the gods of this world have their own limitations?

Perhaps it was my overactive mind but, moving through the undergrowth, I could not help but imagine another set of eyes upon me.

“I think I feel something or someone following us,” I hissed to Kidu, and I almost tripped over a tree root as I voiced my concern. The wild man simply nodded to me, before falling back to cover our rear.

We had chosen speed over stealth, and we had made no move to hide our trail. Even a blind man could have followed us.

My mind was spinning as I pondered various tactics and strategies to help evade potential trackers. However, my thoughts were interrupted by uninvited musings that crept in like unwelcome guests as I caught another sight of this world’s nature in action.

Looking up, I saw a six-legged squirrel analog jump across one of the boughs. A fraction of a second later, a jagged spike shot out and impaled the poor animal. It all happened rather fast. Too fast, really, to see what kind of predator was responsible for the kill. The animals of this world were truly perplexing; while some animals were familiar, such as horses and donkeys, others were completely alien to me. I couldn't help but wonder how that was even possible. And for that matter, why were humans present in this strange world?

Shaking my head, I realized that I would have to set aside such rambling thoughts for another time. Elwin, ever the practical one, posed a question that had been lingering in the back of my mind. In truth, it was more another worry than a direct question.

"So, it looks like we got the Church on us. What in the Dark Lady's name are we going to do now?" he asked us, his usual nonchalant grin absent from his features.