Chapter 107: Regroup

Speaker, urgent news.

What could possibly be urgent enough to pull me out of breakfast with the baron?

Laniston is gone.

What does that mean?

The building. The people…. It’s just gone.

…The library?

Gone.

The prophet?

Gone.

*smacking noises*

What the abyss are you doing standing there, mobilize EVERYONE!

What abou-

EVERYONE!

The three of them were seated at a rough-hewn inn in a backwater village stationed in the lush greenery of the rural Ring. Food was cheap and plentiful, and there was a salt deposit nearby so everything tasted fantastic. It was a great place to lay low and regain a few dozen pounds.

Gods knew Jason needed them.

The only sound for a quite some time was the mellow thonk sound of a wooden spoon tapping the side of a wooden bowl.

Eventually, Will broached the subject that had been on his mind for a few hours now.

“Shouldn’t they have treated you like royalty?” Will asked while Jason wolfed down a stew.

“They did, at first,” Jason said, plucking the collar of his gold embroidered shirt that hung loose around his thin neck. “But then they wanted me to use these dead guy’s body parts as sacrifices and take…gods knew what class. I asked what it was, they said it was a prophet of Granesh, with a direct line to their deity. Great honor, and all that. Well, one of them let it slip that the direct line might be something of a two-way street, and frankly I didn’t like the idea of a deity being all up inside me, so I respectfully said I didn’t want to do it.”

Jason motioned over his face with his hand.

“That’s when the mask started coming off. All the ‘young master’ talk and luxury just kinda faded over time. They got pushier, so I dug my heels in further, and before I knew it, they were withholding food in exchange for my ‘good behavior’. You don’t really know someone until you deny them something they want, my dad always said.”

“I was wondering why they didn’t just shove me into the Trial with the sacrifices they wanted me to take, though,” Jason mused, pointing at Will with his spoon. “Like what happened to you.”

“There’s ways to leave the Trial via the merchant caravans that travel through the area, not to mention as you are, you’d probably get killed.”

“Oh.”

When will thought about it, once Jason dug his heels in, they shifted their priority from getting him his Class to breaking his resistance. They wanted to erase the idea of disobedience before they gave him the means to run away. That took time.

“More please.” Jason said, holding up the empty bowl, allowing Will to refill it from the pot they’d ordered for the table.

“…Do humans throw up when they eat too quickly?” Loth asked from where she was flipping through an ancient tome, prompting a feral hiss from Jason.

“Why don’t you let that first one settle, Jason?” Will said, pulling the new bowl away. “It’s not gonna do you any good if it’s on the floor.”

“You suck,” Jason said, but didn’t force the issue.

“You being in the condition you’re in…” Will gesture to his friend. “Is gonna make this next part a lot slower than I was hoping.” They couldn’t blitz their way back up, that was for sure.

“Not much I can do about it.” Jason said with a shrug.

“We could probably put enough fat back on him in two weeks, but the lost muscle will take longer.” Loth said.

Maybe if he had high resistance and Strength…but that would mean he was already in the Trial.

“What kind of Class would you like?” Will asked, hoping Jason would pick something in the Warrior Archetype that would make the Trial safer for him.

“Hype Man,” Jason said without missing a beat.

“I’m not sure that’s-“

“No, you don’t get it, drifting from inn to inn, people paying me good money just to tell stories about you?” Jason said, pointing at Will. “It suited me just fine. I enjoy it, I’m good at it. I wanna be a Hype Man.” He glanced around and lowered his voice. “I’m pretty sure the wenches were hitting on me.”

“You’re twelve, they were taking pity.”

“Thirteen, thank you very much.” Jason said, preening. “You’ve been gone nearly six months.

“Oh yeah. You didn’t get any taller, though.” Will said, measuring Jason against himself with his hand.

“That’s because you got taller.”

Will glanced at Loth, who nodded. He then glanced down at his sleeve, which had, without his knowledge, creeped from stopping at his wrist, to stopping a couple inches further back.

He’d kind of assumed it had shrunk a bit from being doused in blood and sweat.

Well, alright. I’m not sure that Hype Man is a known Class, though.” Will mused. Known Classes were ones whose Sacrifices were common knowledge. Most common people didn’t need the services of a Hype Man.

Although I highly recommend it.

“Sounds like a Charm Archetype, most closely related to a Herald or a Bard. Something in between the two.” Loth said, flipping a page. “Actually, two of the key Sacrifices that can make a Herald were in the monastery, being the Glory Eagle, and wood from the Tree of Empires.”

“Really?” Will and Jason asked as one.

Loth nodded without looking away from tome filled with the church’s secrets. “I assume they wanted the Class they gave Jason to enhance his natural storytelling ability. The third Sacrifice they had on hand was some kind of Saint who had found a way to surrender their body to the will of Granesh. Presumeably.”

“Gross.” Jason said with a scowl.

“Sooo…if we found Jason a Bard Sacrifice, then…” Will mused.

“The Class might not be called Hype Man, but its abilities would be the closest we could get to what you’ve described.” Loth said. “…Without spending years and endless wealth testing on random civilians to get the exact Class.”

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“…I’ll take it.” Jason said.

“Whaddya got there, anyway?” Will asked Loth.

“It’s a list of your siblings that the church has killed.”

“WHAT!?” Will demanded, grabbing the book away and scouring the list of names until he found one that stood out to him.

Henry Green

• Shot with an arrow in the Abyssal caves of the 1^st Escaped pursuit but never resurfaced. Presumed dead.

I remember him, Will thought, vividly recalling the skeleton he’d had that wonderful one-sided conversation with during his Establishing Quest. He’d had an arrow in his ribcage.

“I guess Jairus wasn’t lying to me.” Will mused, tracing his finger down through the hundreds of names of dead people he’d never meet.

“There’s the one on the second floor.” Will mused, his finger coming to a stop. ‘driven into the wilds of the second floor. Never resurfaced. Presumed dead.’

Will remembered the mangled headless corpse in the meatlocker he’d been strung up in. The one that had given him a strange sense of déjà vu.

All the – for lack of a better term – Deceiver corpses Will had met were ‘presumed dead’, save for the one in the church basement. This led him to believe that the church didn’t just leave the corpses where they lie. They gathered them up and disposed of them somewhere so that other – for lack of a better term – Deceivers didn’t stumble across the bodies of their siblings.

But the question was: did they destroy those corpses or did they store them somewhere?

“You look like you’re plotting something.” Loth said, leaning on her palm.

“You think the grudge of a thousand half-snake children cut down in their youth would be enough to curse a Relic?” Will mused. “Say a tomahawk, as a random, nonspecific example.”

“Not really my area of expertise.” Loth admitted.

Whose area of expertise would…

“Billy-bob.” Will said.