Chapter 54: Haunted by the Past

  After inspecting the farmhouse hologram, which allowed them to look at the would-be building in all three dimensions, Hank and Willam congratulated themselves on a design well done. Hank, as a builder, believed that the most important aspect of a new design was input from both those who would use it and those skilled in the building’s connected professions. Willam was both, and his input proved invaluable—despite the building itself not doing much. Design choices ranged from the distance between the seed storage and the fields and the distance between the grass and hay storage and the stables. The bedrooms were in the back of the building, as far from potential hubbub and foot-traffic as possible, yet still close enough to the stables so they could hear the animals if something was amiss.

  Tiny details that all together would make a major impact. Personal quirks might impact some decisions, making Willam’s preferences stand out when a new farmer joined him, but that would always be the case either way—all doorways had rather tall arches to accommodate his towering physique, for instance.

  Hank had little time to analyse his projection, as more designs were waiting. He left Willam and Theo when Grace arrived for her scheduled planning session with him. Hank was doing most of the structural designs for Sigil Lake, and his wife had taken on the role of lead constructionist. That was the term both had used, so who was Theo to argue against it? Theo was half-interested in joining Grace and Hank’s session but decided against it. He was the founder of the religion—in practice, at least—and he was eager to find out what was important and what wasn’t. Other than architectural differences, what made a church a church and not a house, spire or no spire? What would affect any bonuses from the building?

  Having finished his morning routine, Theo hung back with Willam, looking at the future building some more. The tall farmer gazed at it with a wide grin on his face, so much so that it infected Theo, turning both into silent, smiling weirdos inspecting a still light show. It could’ve been worse. Someone could’ve been watching them.

  “You look like idiots.”

  Wen was then pulled into an impromptu tour of the building, more or less against her will. When Willam had finished ogling his soon-to-be new home, the three left the farm to find some lunch. Grace had most of their abbles hidden away wherever she magicked them to, but she was the only one they could count on to have food on hand at any time. Hunter, the fisherman, was the only one of the food-gatherers that remained in town or around the lake at most times—Phoebe and Fischer’s duties taking them elsewhere to forage and hunt—but he usually saved his daily catches for their evening meal. Having cooked food in a larger group was also becoming a special ritual in Sigil Lake, and eating an abble for lunch wouldn’t ruin that.

  Sherblanc joined the four of them, along with Julie. The others welcomed him with open arms, but a question had risen amongst them before his arrival, one Wen wasn’t too afraid to ask:

  “What’s an occult P.I. anyway?”

  Sherblanc chuckled, his voice hoarse. “There are spirits all around us; some are talkative, others are not, though I find most can be persuaded to tell me their secrets.”

  “That cleared things up,” Theo said, earning a grin from Wen.

  “Ghosts?” she asked.

  “There is no such thing as ghosts,” said the P.I. “But everyone has spirits attached to them. Not many can see them, not like I can. They help me.”

  “So you’re not investigating the spirits, but using them as an investigative tool?” Theo wouldn’t have thought that based on his probably self-named occupation.

  “Correct. I’m an occult investigator, not an investigator of the occult.”

  “You mean, you’re an investigator…that is also occult.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to understand,” the man said. He scratched his scruff.

  “That’s misleadin’,” Wen said. Theo noticed the accent returning. Did this make her angry?

  “How so?”

  “Just…not what people assume, is all,” she shrugged.

  “How is that my fault?”

  He had her there.

  “What’re these spirits, anyway?” She huffed.

  “They grow from us—people—as we advance in our lives. To be cruder, a spirit is born whenever you gain a skill, and its strength rises when you level it up. Being able to see the spirits, I can often tell which path the people I meet are on based only on the spirits that surround them.”

  “Bull,” Grace said. “There would’ve been churches littering every street in every spirit’s name if that were the case.”

  “As I said, few can see them.”

  “What do they look like?” Theo asked, guessing Grace’s line of questioning, if she’d ever ask something, wouldn’t be helping.

  Sherblanc looked up at the midday sun, yet again scratching his lacklustre beard as if in thought. “They look like waves. Power. They look like what you see when you face the sun and squint. They’re like smoke, but solid while remaining transparent.”

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  Theo faced Wen, then Willam, then Grace. Each of them met him with confused expressions plastered on their faces. Huh?

  “You must excuse my poor description—consider discovering a brand-new colour and describing it to someone; likening it to another colour would only take away from the uniqueness of that new colour. I often find myself lacking words that are sufficient. Right now, Wen, to me, is radiating an orange haze, which contains waves of power constantly erupting around her. These waves have faces unlike anything you’ve ever seen, and they have a will, bound to Wen, yet still free to be what they are.”

  Wen looked around, nervous to find some orange fog rising from her. Theo couldn’t help but think of the moment he found himself at Arcana’s wispy throne, the white fog and the radiating power coming from her. He wouldn’t be able to put the intensity of Arcana’s power into words himself—it fogged his mind, tickled his body and promised to snuff him out if she so much as breathed at him wrong—yet it was also passive, touching him, inspecting him…knowing him.

  Could Sherblanc be talking about the same phenomenon, or was this just Theo giving it a bit too much thought?

  “What about me?” Willam asked with the eagerness of a much smaller child.

  “A farmer’s green. You’ve both done well for your ages. Your last village must’ve been quite the experience for you both.”

  “So, the colour gives our skills away? What’s orange, then?” Wen asked disbelievingly.

  The man chuckled. “There’s a tinge of purple; you’ve done good, honest work as a keeper, or maybe…of course, the tavern. Innkeeper, maybe. Orange, though, a near-golden colour mimicking that of a nice ale, I’ve found. With a brewer of your calibre, I hesitate to think you did any brewing in your previous homestead.”

  “You told him everything?” Wen turned to Theo with a frown.

  “I told him literally nothing; he just…guessed. Or observed,” Theo said in self-defence. Sherblanc waved the words away as if shy about it.

  “I call lies,” said Grace, her stance as adamant as her voice was resolute. Theo was about to tell her to stop being so hostile toward their new villager when she added: “Do me, then.” She crossed her arms as if awaiting his judgment.

  The thin-bearded man turned to face the priestess, looking her up and down. Theo recognised his expression as the same one he used while observing him. Whether he was looking at the ‘spirits’ radiating from her or looking for clues about her on her person, Theo didn’t know.

  “Clergy, obviously. She of Storms, the Voice of the Wind, at least. You try your best to be nonchalant about your surroundings, but it’s only a defence-mechanism; you’re more worried about opening up and still being disliked. You’ve had that kind of relationship before, and it must’ve been just the worst.”

  “You’re being basic,” she complained. “Everyone could guess that just by looking at me.”

  Sherblanc grinned, then nodded in her direction. “Very well. As a child you were kept prisoner, hostage or otherwise against your will at one of these churches—maybe another church—and while you hate the church for doing that to you, you’ve never been able to shake off their chains, mental though they are. No doubt the reason for your history with several other churches is to find a place that will still give you that sense of belonging you crave since leaving your first; for your purpose in life is to serve Arcana—a fact that has been beaten into you since you were first able to walk.”

  “You are trained in combat; not mundane combat, nor with any weapon except that which you’ve always possessed: your body. From your first, and likely to your last, you’ve found the churches always appreciate a soldier of Arcana, and one willing to sacrifice her own body in servitude to their Mistress more so. There’s always danger in engraving one’s body, and for you to have so many—”

  “Next,” Grace said.

  Theo noticed a slight hesitation, her statuesque form wavering under the scrutiny. Theo hadn’t realised the soreness of her engraving. She’d seemed fine about it in the dungeon besides her not wanting to show them to him. Also, how many engravings did she have? What number would be ‘normal’? And what were the churches doing if they had kept her a prisoner as a child? There was a lot of information leaking out of this conversation, so Theo focused back on it as Sherblanc continued, though with another topic so as not to offend her more.

  “There’s not much else, as the church has been your entire life, though next I would conclude that your reason for being here in Sigil Lake lies with—”

  “My personal relationships,” Grace interrupted. “You mentioned it before.”

  “Quite right. A man, maybe a woman, maybe a matron of the church. There was love there, I’d assume, or you wouldn’t have been so hurt. You could be yourself, without worry, for only a moment. Whether you did something bad or they did—no, it was a matron—you had to escape. Not physically, but emotionally. You found you could have everything you did before even while putting up a constant barrier, so why not protect yourself? There was no harm in it. Until—”

  “That’s enough,” Grace huffed in anger. She turned on her feet and marched away, and said, “I’m going into the dungeon.”

  “Grace, wait—”

  “It’s not like I’m not coming back, Theo,” she answered before walking straight into a brute of a man, the priestess’ body bouncing back as if she was the one being charged at.

  “You Grace?” he asked. “Don’t look much. You Grace?” The man had eyed the much smaller woman that bumped into him first, then asked the same question to Theo’s small group of people.

  His chest was bare except for padded leather straps splitting in two to go around his magnificent, man-tastic man boobs, showing off his pectoral muscles in all their muscular glory. He had red hair, duller than Julie’s but equal in colour, as well as a thick red beard. A scar ran along his right cheek, below his eye.

  “Durian?” Julie asked disbelievingly. Her words didn’t seem to reach the man as Grace continued her shuffle towards the dungeon, her voice borderline enraged:

  “Dungeon’s this way. I’m going alone, and so are you. Let’s go.”

  The man followed without an inch of hesitation, leaving Theo speechless. As the man turned, Theo noticed the giant axe hanging on his back, its metal edges—of which there were two—darker than steel with a hue like the colour of his hair. It was very similar to Julie’s Havoc, the Woodslayer, he realised.

  “Who was that?” Willam asked with a furrowed brow.

  Julie gazed towards the shrinking form of the gargantuan man—soon he’d look to be of a normal size, maybe in another dozen metres. “Hm?”

  “That man. Durian, you asked?”

  “Oh. I must’ve been mistaken,” Julie said.

  “His axe looks just like Havoc, the Woodslayer,” said Theo, eyeing the axe she had fastened to her back just like his was.

  Her words were silent as she said, “What was the dungeoneer’s name again?”

  Theo and Wen both looked it up in their Town Management System as Willam stepped closer to Julie with a calming presence. He didn’t touch her but stood close enough to relay his concern and care. She accepted the silent gesture, leaning towards him.

  “Not Durian, but…Drian. Did he misspell his own name?” Theo asked.

  Julie remained muted as she gazed on, the red-haired, large man’s form already gone, hidden by the trees.

  The group remained silent, letting Julie’s thoughts wander. Until Sherblanc broke the silence with an offer Theo couldn’t refuse:

  “Well…want to show me your magical skills as they are as a first lesson?”