The next day, after Sacrificing breakfast, I hit up Aurier.
“You mind sparring with a bit?” I asked. “I guess we might not have weapons to spar with though, unless you think you can borrow so from Gutran.”
“Sparring?” Aurier said, shovelling down more insect porridge like it was a Michelin star al. “I’ll be honest, I’m not that good with any weapons, unfortunately. You’d learn a lot more with soone like Hamsik. Also, why’s your hand scratched up?” he added, pointing to the linen wraps around my hand. “Did you accidentally cut yourself?”
“Sort of.” I explained about my experints Sacrificing blood.
Aurier looked a little troubled. “You’re getting a little too close to, uh, living Sacrifice there…”
I patted his shoulder in a friendly fashion, even while I grinned evilly at him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to suddenly Sacrifice you.”
Aurier made a show of shuddering.
“Anyway,” I said. “I think I can still benefit from so practice because I’m pretty sure I know even less than you about how to use things like swords and all that. Even so basic pointers would be good enough for .” I smiled. “It’ll be a nice exercise.”
Aurier was the type of guy to doubt himself and get embarrassed easily. From all that I had seen of him, it wasn’t just a failure of applying himself that had soured his apprenticeship with Gutran. He had self-esteem issues. Sothing he wasn’t really good at hiding.
I wasn’t so kind of master at spotting things like that, but after hanging around him for the last few days, I had started noticing the little hints that gave it away.
But my encouragent did the trick. Aurier slowly smiled back.
“If you think it’ll help,” he said. “Then I’ll be happy to spar.” He got up, taking his bowl and spoon with him. “We actually have so old weapons sowhere in the cult. You know, just in case. Let’s see if we can find where they are…”
We didn’t need to search much at all. As soon as we started looking, we t the Elder, who knew exactly where the old weapons were stored.
Aurier hadn’t been kidding. The weapons we pulled out of the temple’s basent looked like they belonged to Escinca’s great grandfather. A part of was worried that the old swords and shields and spears would shatter as soon as we started using them. Thankfully, so clacks and clangs revealed that they were still serviceable. As sparring weapons, at least.
“You’ve never used weapons back where you’re from?” Aurier asked after we found so empty space behind the temple.
I shook my head. “These sorts of weapons had kind of beco obsolete by the ti my life ca around.”
“What kind of weapons were popular then?”
I shot him with a finger gun. “Firearms.”
Aurier didn’t look confused. Considering I had seen Hamsik use a magical pistol with a weird wrist grip, I had a feeling gunpowder-based weapons or their equivalent weren’t unknown on Epheroth.
We began sparring. If I was being honest, I wasn’t looking forward to the exercise itself. No disrespect to Aurier, because I hadn’t been lying when I had said that he probably knew enough about weapons here that I could pick up so useful stuff from him. Still. What I was really looking forward to was—
“Ouch,” I said, interrupting the pointer Aurier was trying to demonstrate about blocking the sword correctly with a shield. I had to hold it right. Weird angles and edge blocks would just make the blade slip along the curved surface and hit anyway.
Which it had, drawing so blood along my upper arm.
“Ah, Pits!” Aurier said. He quickly dropped his sword. “I’ll get the salve and linen!”
Before I could tell him not to worry, he was already rushing off. I sighed. Ah well. While he busied himself, I finally tested my next hypothesis about Sacrifice.
I focused on the blood dropping down my arm from the cut. On my blood. Sacrifice acted up, the mana once again forming a connection between my core and my target. Magical energy flowed from to the blood.
And nothing happened.
No white flash that made the blood disappear. No sudden notification about what I had Sacrificed and what reward I was getting for it. The blood just continued staining my arm.
Befuddled, I channelled my Aspect with more concentration. I tried saying different things as switches. My blood was literally pouring out of the wound. So why wasn’t Sacrifice working on it?
Minutes passed, and even Aurier returned, hurriedly using the healing salve and linen bandages Escinca kept around for ergencies.
“I’m fine, Aurier,” I said. “It’s a small cut. Doesn’t hurt too much.” It stung, and it was annoying, but that was probably more because my little experint had failed. “Actually, I kind of wanted to get hit.”
“What?” he said, looking at in confusion.
“I was trying to see if I could use Sacrifice, say, in the middle of a fight. I an, there’s a high possibility I’m going to get injured in the future, right?” I frowned. “What happened with the Thralls… I keep thinking I was lucky to co out of that with hardly a scratch.”
“I don’t think a bruised arm and shoulder and broken ribs count as hardly a scratch,” Aurier said.
“You know what I an. Those Thralls were obviously stronger. If they had even the slightest idea about Gravity, about my capabilities, then we’d have had a very different outco on our hands.”
To that, Aurier had no response.
“But anyway,” I said. “It didn’t work. Bumr. But I think I’ve figured it out. Or at least, the only reasoning I can co up with is blood drawn by soone else isn’t really mine. That’s the criteria Sacrifice needs—that whatever I offer has to be sothing I undeniably own. But looks like the Weave doesn’t think blood drawn by soone else belongs to , even if it’s my blood.”
This brought up the related line of thinking of whether the Weave considered the blood to belong to my opponent. Would it allow said opponent to Sacrifice my blood then, provided they had drawn it? That was a rather problematic line of inquiry, but I was still very curious.
Turned out, the Weave didn’t think my blood belonged to Escinca either, even when he had been the one to spill it. Aurier didn’t have Sacrifice so we had to enlist a frowning Elder’s help.
“So weird ownership limbo going on around here,” I muttered.
“What does limbo an?” Aurier asked.
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Sotis, I forgot that the Weave was translating everything I said into a different language, and so terms just didn’t have a similar concept. I wondered if the Weave had picked the religious context of limbo to try and translate, which would explain why it had stumbled. “It ans like, stasis. A state of uncertainty where nothing really happens.”
“Ah, I see.”
Well, I wasn’t that unhappy at my test having failed. It hadn’t been an actual failure. This outco was way better than getting the idea in the middle of a fight and suddenly finding it failing. Although, it was morbidly funny imagining a scenario where I tried to gloat that I had my opponent right where I wanted them, only to get stabbed through the guts when Sacrifice didn’t work.
We trained so more afterwards, though my mind obviously wasn’t focused on it. I was still feeling a little bumd out at my idea for Sacrifice failing. Aurier gave so more pointers, things he had picked up from Gutran, and I did my best to try and rember it all.
Afterwards, we helped Escinca clean and tidy up the main hall of the temple. That was the main venue of the Elder’s little fete.
Our cleaning was interrupted by the guards. My eyes widened a little when I saw that it wasn’t just Captain Revayne—her face yet again hidden behind her book—leading in a small handful of her subordinates. The muscular Ogre leading them all had the aura of soone even superior to the captain, what with the dals pinned to the uniform and the bearing of soone used to commanding others.
“Ah, Guard Commander,” Escinca said with a pleasant smile. I thought I detected a wrinkle of tension around his eyes, though. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Have you co here to pay respects to the Great Arl? The sun god, banished though he may be, would appreciate all prayers.”
“Save the scripture talk, Elder,” the Ogre commander said. Her deep-set eyes roved over and Aurier, clearly assessing us for threat levels before dismissing us both. “You know why the guards would show up at your broken-down temple.”
“Well, you’re a little early for the fete, but perhaps we can still find—”
“It’s the Thralls, you damn…” Whatever the commander said next faded to too low a volu for to make it out. Then her voice rose in volu again. “We got a tip saying that you’ve been hosting a Scarseeker here.”
Escinca’s smile dropped a bit. “Well, that’s certainly one way to put it.”
“Is it or is it not true?”
The Elder sighed. He went on to explain the sa thing he had said to , about how the nobles were trying to buy their land, about how they had co here to offer them a good chunk of money to take their shit and sod off. Why was anyone’s guess. “The Scarseeker from House Kalnislaw was just one of the nobles.”
“So you aren’t accusing the Scarseeker of creating Scarthralls to put you under further pressure in order to sell your temple?” the Ogre asked.
“Isn’t that your job?” I asked. “To see if there’s a link between this Scarseeker and the Scarthralls?”
“That’s what we’re doing here, you human runt. Investigating all sources to see if there’s a link.”
“Please, Commander,” Escinca said sharply. “If you can restrain yourself from calling any nas, then I would be obliged if you could extend the sa courtesy to my junior cultists.”
The Ogre’s bared her hand-length tusks. “You should count yourself fortunate na calling is the worst you’re getting after the stunt you pulled, Elder.”
Ah, right. Now I got why she was pissed. The whole exploiting the legal loophole to Sacrifice hadn’t endeared Escinca to the guards.
The Ogre took a deep breath before rattling it out. She looked like she’d have much preferred to wring all our necks instead. “We’ll be taking testimonies from each of you individually. This is part of the investigation. I want to hear everything, I want to know every bit of information you have about the Scarseeker noble. And you better not lie.”
What followed was just that. A brusque but thorough set of interviews were conducted by the guards. I was saddled with the captain, Revayne, as my interviewer, and I told her everything as truthfully as I rembered them. She was curt and professional, and still reading her book, even while she was interviewing .
“How are you on the sa book when you’ve been reading it all this ti?” I asked.
She flipped a page languidly, eyeing once over the rim of the cover. “You are aware of the concept of re-reading, yes?”
I grumbled. We continued our conversation, and while she was marginally interested to hear that I had been summoned, I wasn’t sure if I was glad that she didn’t pursue it any further.
Revayne thanked for the information again before returning to her superior. All the other interviews were done. The guards took their sweet ti comparing notes right in the middle of temple main hall, before finally leaving. Without giving us any further information, of course. Typical.
“Good riddance,” Aurier said, scowling at their departing backs.
Escinca just shook his head.
We were supposed to return to our regularly scheduled programming at the Cult of the Sun. Although, I had other business to take care of.
“Do you know what I need to gain citizenship, Elder?” I asked.
“You’ll need a sponsor, and that’s it mostly.” He smiled at . “And I believe I can suffice.”
Elder Escinca kindly drafted a letter, which I accepted gratefully before heading off.
While citizenship was my main goal for now, there was another thing on my mind. It was getting a bit ridiculous that no one had lied to and the Sacrifice reward hadn’t activated yet. Either I had misjudged how it worked, or I just didn’t talk to enough people regularly, or I was just a cynical jerk who expected lies to erupt around every corner with a loud “Boo!”.
Whatever the case, I realized I needed to take active advantage of it. So I used Gravity to raise my weight and travelled through the neighbourhood around the temple until I found the woman whose daughter Aurier and I had rescued.
She was surprised at my question, but she guided to the scamr who had sold her the packets of powder that supposedly manifested a strong Aspect.
“Are you going to… take care of him?” the woman asked with a whisper. She was clearly aware now that she had been duped. Had she found out on her own, or had Aurier told her?
“Uh, don’t worry, I’ll handle it,” I said. “But yeah, it’s best you don’t waste any more money on this.”
She nodded, thanking again before leaving. Her daughter was with her the whole ti, and I waved at her. Poor kid looked a little sullen at being locked to her mom like that.
The scamr was on guard the mont he saw . He looked like he was going to run. I had a feeling it had to do with my cult robes. Sotis, I failed to rember that most people I was going to et had a prebuilt assumption about just based on what they knew about the Cult of the Sun. Kind of like what I had experienced at the Mage Guild gates.
I reassured him I wasn’t out to get his ass. It might be doing the community a good service to chase him off and put the fear of the Banished Gods in him, but I had other plans to execute first.
So, I bought one of the packets.
I left him very confused, then tested Sacrifice on it. It worked the sa as before. Now I could detect two lies. What satisfying progress.
When I returned to the confused fellow, I bought out most of his stock. He was mighty suspicious, but he didn’t try negotiating a higher price or anything. At least, not after I reminded him he was lucky I was a custor just then, not a friendly neighbourhood cultist. Oh, and I paid for it with my cult stipend. I had just taken it from Escinca ahead of ti.
There went most of my agre wealth, but this was hopefully for a good cause.
Ard with my newly acquired illicit treasure, I entered Ring Three next. I headed to the Mage Guild first, checking if Kostis was present. He wasn’t. Escinca had promised to write another letter to the Scalekin mage if I failed to see him, but I figured I would try on my own first.
Next up was becoming an official resident of Zairgon. A part of was hoping I’d get my first taste of Ring Two when going to get my citizenship. But no, they had an office in Ring Three, and that was where I was guided.
Which ca after I got lost and ended up at a communal bathhouse sohow. It was very odd to have everybody staring at like I was the naked one.
Getting citizenship was an extrely smooth process. An old bird-person lady handed a form that asked about my residence, occupation, na, and so on. Easy enough stuff to fill out. She checked out the letter of sponsorship written by Elder Escinca, and then straight up approved everything.
“Congratulations on your Zairgon citizenship, Ross Moreland,” she said like she was wishing well for successfully spreading jam on bread. “Enjoy your stay.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said.
The whole thing had taken five minutes, tops. Considering what I knew and had experienced of immigration and visas and all that back on Earth, the last few minutes had honestly felt a bit surreal.
Anyway, I headed back to the Mage Guild. This ti, thank the Pits or Banished Gods or whatever it was that people thanked here, I found Kostis again. He was speaking with a different mage, the one who had a giant crystal for a head. However, as soon as he saw , he took his leave of crystal-mage and half-walked, half-slithered his way over to .
“Ross, my boy!” A puff of smoke transford into a waving hand. “Sothing tells you’re looking for .” He laughed. “And by sothing, I an one of my gems, of course.”
I clutched the packets I had gotten off the scamr in Ring Four. “Say, Master Kostis. Do you think you can make use of a lie detector?” I quickly explained the Sacrifice reward to him.
Kostis’s eyes widened at the question. Then he slowly grinned at , forked tongue flickering out in anticipation. “Why, I think I might have so use for sothing like that. But I’m guessing you want sothing in return, of course?”
“Yes. I want you to take up a Silver-ranked job and deputise it to . Entirely. With one hundred percent of the profit going to and alone.” I smiled. “Fair deal?”
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