Well, that was awkward. Being in a position of authority has really changed Chloe. The Chloe I used to party with would have been the first to suggest violence towards these people. In fact, she probably would have done more than suggested it… and simply did it straight away out of anger. She is thinking things through way more now… thinking about potential consequences. I genuinely never thought I would see the day when she did that. She has taken to her role as knight commander really well.

  All of that being said… I don’t think that Damecus is used to having his methods questioned in such a manner. And seeing the two of them argue unnerved me. I’m used to arguing from Phoenix and Agaroth… but they are never this heated. Damecus is normally so calm and logical about things… this is clearly a situation where he is motivated by revenge. Which baffles me even more when I think about how he was able to mask his rage and put on that ridiculous act.

  Even when he is primarily fuelled by rage, he seems able to suppress it and act with a significant level of control. When I’m really angry or upset… I mostly just freeze and panic. Even as we walk to this awful man’s estate… I can tell from how intense his stride is that he is still pissed… the rage hasn’t gone… not even close… so how the hell did… you know what… I’m going to stop overthinking this and just fucking well ask him… I’m never going to answer this in my own head.

  Dwynfel: “Umm… Damecus…”

  Damecus: “Speak, Dwynfel.”

  Dwynfel: “Umm... are you really going to make a purse out of that guy’s scrotum?”

  I am such a disappointment. I can’t even ask a simple question. What is wrong with me?

  Damecus: “Yes.”

  Just ask about his emotions.

  Dwynfel: “Why?”

  For fuck’s sake.

  Damecus: “To serve as a reminder.”

  Dwynfel: “Surely the last thing that she wants is to remember all of that.”

  Damecus: “She has no choice. She will always be reminded. Smells, sights, sounds… every time she is touched. The purse is not to remind her of what she went through. It is to remind her that it ended. It is a reminder that there were consequences for those that did that to her. It is a reminder that should she ever feel afraid or unsafe… that if anybody harms her again, she can find me. She can find me, and I shall enact a level of vengeance upon those involved that shall make them regret their very existence.”

  Well, that sounds… intense.

  Dwynfel: “And what about the other girl? You only have enough skin for one.”

  Damecus: “You likely did not notice. But when his head collided with the door, some of his teeth vacated his mouth. I collected them. I shall clean them, polish them, file away the sharp edges, place holes in them and thread them onto a bracelet. Both girls shall have a memento of the consequences of such behaviour.”

  Dwynfel: “That’s… umm… that’s actually rather sweet… in a deeply disturbing kind of a way.”

  Damecus: “In what way is it disturbing?”

  Dwynfel: “Making purses and bracelets out of body parts… its… ya know… disturbing.”

  Damecus: “Why? You use animal skin to make clothes all the time. You simply recoil from that which you are unfamiliar with. In Sawtooth Village it is common place to take trophies in such situations.”

  Well, that explains Alterius’ skull. He gave that to Nomius as a gift when we got back from the Uddin Empire. It is currently sat on his mantlepiece. I don’t think that I would be able to sleep soundly with some guy’s skull in my house… no matter how much he had wronged me.

  Urgh… right… curiosity dealt with… you know about the creepy memento thing now. So, ask what you wanted to ask in first place damn it!

  Dwynfel: “Umm… back at the house… well… how did you do that?”

  Damecus: “Of what do you speak? Be specific.”

  Dwynfel: “Mask your feelings like that. I saw you at the gardens… I know how angry it made you… I could see it bubbling under your skin… this pure unadulterated rage. But when you were with Verity… it was gone… and again… when those two showed up at the house… it disappeared and you were able to put on that act, with perfect composure… how? Just… how? I don’t understand how you do that?”

  Damecus stopped walking for a moment. He turned to me and looked like he was choosing his words carefully. As though this was something that he had not thought about before.

  Damecus: “Anger is a powerful motivator, but it should not control you. Wielded appropriately it can be a useful weapon. Displaying my anger would not have helped Verity… what she needed was calm. As for the house, well, those men sicken me to my core. But they are little more than cogs in machine, and I needed information about that machine. That little… act… may well have obtained me that information. When it did not, I had learned enough to know which man to manipulate and how.”

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  Dwynfel: “Then why reassure Timothy? If he sickens you, then why help his family?”

  Damecus: “The sins of that man are not his family’s. I will not see a child suffer for the mistakes of its parent.”

  He always talks about Nomius having a soft spot for children. But it has really become apparent to me how much he cares for them as well. The pair of them can be absolutely terrifying, but they will both go massively out of their way for the benefit of children that they don’t even know.

  I wish that everybody in this world was as considerate of children as those two.

  Dwynfel: “Okay. I understand that. But… I guess, what I really want to know is… how? How do you contain those feelings the way that you do? How don’t they override your brain the second you feel them?”

  Damecus: “They do. Outbursts slip through the net. The important part is making sure those outbursts are pointed in the right direction. If I were able to completely disconnect from my emotions, then I would end up like Alexi. Once you cut yourself off, it can become impossible to tap back in. With him it was likely a defence mechanism. Every emotion he felt was painful to him… so he stopped feeling. He isn’t even aware of how to feel anymore. He is slowly learning, but it is difficult for him.”

  That makes sense about Alexi. I do think emotions are starting to creep back in. I mean… I am basing that on the fact that he asked me to rescue Tadwick from that crocodile. That showed he at least had some level of feeling towards Tadwick and by extension the family that we have created.

  I’ve been hoping this entire time that Alexi will… kind of… suddenly just unleash all these emotions so we can process them and help him move forward. But maybe Damecus is right… maybe we need to teach him how to feel first. He needs to learn how to feel before I can expect him to process those feelings.

  Damecus: “At the other end of the spectrum, there is Verity. She feels what she feels and displays her feeling then and there. She does not understand how to direct her feelings. They just happen and it is up to those around her to deal with them. Most people are struggling with how they themselves feel. So being burdened with her emotions as well is too much… it drives people away. This is why I must remain in her life. I can assume that burden for her. And should anything happen to Cathy, then I shall remain by that child’s side for as long as she is a part of this world.”

  His devotion to that family really amazes me. For a family that was created out of what was essentially housing fraud, they have really become a more dedicated family than most of the blood families that I know.

  Dwynfel: “That all makes perfect sense. But I still don’t understand how you have so much self-control. You came up with that entire plan in a heartbeat… you were angry… you wanted to kill them… but you suppressed that, pulled out your pipe and came up with all that stuff about buying drugs and used the fact that I’m a goblin to convince them that we wanted to buy human slaves. How did you keep your head so clear? Just… how?”

  Damecus: “You used the term “mask your feelings” earlier. That is all it was. A mask. When you wear a mask, you assume a role. The mask does not change who you are, it does not change how you feel. But is does allow you to present as something else. I needed to seem calm, so that is the face that I chose. As for coming up with that plan; the best lies are founded in truth. Had I been with a different Grim then that is exactly what that Grim would have been after. Everyone knows what Grim are like, present company excluded. Having you present made the deception easy.”

  What he says about it all being a mask makes sense. But I still don’t really understand how he can suppress his feeling enough for the mask to stay on. And hang on…

  Dwynfel: “You said that the best lies are based on truth… so was all that stuff about cannabis true?

  Damecus: “Of course not, I can grow anything. I have it in the green house. I sell it in the shop. I sell it for smoking and also in oil form. The oil is helpful for reducing seizure activity. Although you have to be careful with it, some people’s kidneys do not react well, and by that, I mean it can cause them to completely break down. So, dosage needs to be monitored. I only have two clients who use that regularly, but it has worked miracles for them. As for the smoking, it is good for many things, although the vast majority of sales are clearly just people who plan to use it for… recreational purposes.”

  He has really put the funding that he gets from Lady Chlamydia to good use. Most people in town will just accept their fate if something cannot be healed by magic. But Damecus is providing ways of dealing with these ailments.

  Why do I feel like everybody is making these great strides forwards and I’m just kind of tagging along, being useless most of the time? No… no time to think like that now. We are almost at the estate. We need to make sure that we don’t mess this up.

  Damecus: “I apologise that I am not able to provide you with solid answers to your questions. I am not you. I cannot tell you how to control your thoughts or emotions. That is something that only you can work out. Talking helps. That being said, now is not the time. We have people to kill.”

  Dwynfel: “You mean we have an estate to case while we wait for Chloe.”

  Damecus: “I meant what I said, now let us be off.”