Chapter 8: Coming Clean

It took very little effort to convince the man to come clean, on threat of poorly defined, even worse consequences executed by Dominion agents who ‘were intimately involved’ and ‘had been watching the merchant for some time.’ The false witness was quick to begin vomiting forth all the crimes he knew ‘that vile villain’ had committed, eager to focus on something other than his own fate.

The night was almost dead by the end, so they let him stew a while longer before the grand courthouse of Restwater became active. Naturally, the ‘sage’ departed, with only a final warning to keep the confidence of the ‘meeting.’

Once his faculties returned, Mr. Cutter was quite adamant he’d come to the entire decision himself. He had been wracked by guilt, sleepless and miserable, and it was for compassion and the truth that he heeded the ‘wise counsel within.’ Oh yes.

It somehow made Sammy feel a little better that the man was adapting and could presumably obtain mercy from the court with his story. If he didn’t, she’d have led him to his doom by all appearances. Though he was certainly a sniveling coward and deserved some form of punishment for being a party to the matter, she wasn’t sure he deserved to become some sort of soulless zombie.

Would I have been a sniveling coward in such a situation? I’d hope not. Especially not helping to cheat the system to screw over an innocent person. I’m totally not a cheater. Well. I didn’t ever pay for WinRar. But I intended to! Now I’ll never be able to. Not my fault, now. I was totally gonna pay it soon, too.

The court always opened at dawn, so Dax escorted Mr. Cutter up to a few blocks away from it and then simply let him go. Sammy couldn’t see anything from inside a coat pocket, but could just barely hear, from the shard being arranged to face outward.

“You-you’re just letting me loose…” The man seemed to hesitate only briefly before more assuring words spilled forth. “I-I’m going right to the courthouse! Thank yo- b-bless you, for helping me to see the light! Bless the Seven Sages forever! Th-there’s no time to waste, now!”

With a piteous noise, the man could be heard to hurry away. Dax said nothing to him, just presumably watched him go. She eventually angled around the block to see his approach surreptitiously from an alleyway, pulling out the mirror shard so Sammy could see as well.

Mr. Cutter was all but running down the street to the courthouse: a massive, beautiful building with multiple rounded tops towering above in a vibrant yellow, also including a clocktower whose bells she’d heard just down the road. It was more like a small palace or cathedral. A line of water fountains led to its entrance.

“That is pretty religious looking,” Sammy commented.

“It’s ancient. Probably re-purposed from a cathedral to some god, too. But even so, the sages are religious about law and order just like a faith. If you think you see that here, you should see the capital. Only, don’t, because there is no more dangerous place to screw around as a supernatural entity than the City of Heavenly Order.”

“Mmn. Coho.”

“What?”

“If you turn it into an acronym, then sound it out, it's Coho.”

Dax laughed. “Incredibly disrespectful. I like it. Anyway, most call it the capital. You’d have to be on a whole other continent for that to change, if at all. It’s the center of the land. And at the center of that is the Hall of the Seven Sages where the… ‘wisest’ of the world pretty much rule over everything. The tip-top, highest level, most powerful wizards, all working together.”

“Yes, they’re damned scary from the sound of it. I saw one recently. The basis for my lies. Elder Savant Greizer.”

“Mm. One of their agents. High level, but hardly the highest. The Seven are the highest, and they rarely leave the Hall. Officially, at least.”

“And they're comparable to gods, right? Immortal?”

“They shroud themselves in secrecy. Some say it's been the same Seven for thousands of years, since they keep the same names and the same appearances, but others say they eventually ascend to some higher realm of enlightenment and pass the role down. But in the Southlands, over a century ago, they say one died in the war. That’s what they say.”

“I see. What sort of war?”

“A bloody one. Conquest. In those days, the Southlands were all hinterlands but for the port of Geirkos. They took that, but the rest was nothing to take and far, far from the capital, over mountains. No good sea routes, either. Twenty years of vicious resistance from a stubborn, gritty populace and a massive drain on wealth, well, they just sacked it and left.”

“What’s it like now?”

“Geirkos is rebuilt and thriving if slightly backward compared to the Dominion. Just as wild out there, but the people are even tougher now. Some things are very advanced. They have fortresses in the mountain passes with anti-magic zones and special alchemically-derived weapons.”

Southlands, eh? This sounds promising, though there are likely fewer mirrors…

“You know,” Dax mused, “we haven’t had time to discuss it, but you sure don’t know jack shit, yet act completely human. You’re a transplant, aren’t you?”

Sammy froze up. “Uh, transplant?”

“From some other world, reincarnated with some or all of your memories intact. Rare, but I’ve heard the System does that. Spirits are usually a lot different.”

Sammy’s faux heart skipped a beat. There could be other transplants?! “I…”

She hesitated, wondering if she should come clean with a soon-to-be Follower like that. But she felt like she needed to with someone, at least, because she was so clueless, and the System was picky about what it would explain.

“Okay, Dax, first of all, I want your word that you will keep everything I tell you about myself confidential and secret. I do have to keep up appearances or whatever to the masses. Well, maybe. But I want to decide my level of formality, not someone else for me.”

“Sure. I mean, you’re the goddess: you’re the boss. You have my word that I will keep your confidence.”

“Okay. Yeah. You’re right. I am from another world, and I was just a student before this…”

Briefly, Sammy summarized her world and the experience that led her to ‘Calrenazzod Atka,’ and the immediate aftermath. It felt good to vent.

“... and this fucking stupid fucking System gets on my last fucking nerve with its smug bullshit, I want to pull my damn hair out!” She finished with a little growl, miming her hands in a ‘neck choke’ position.

Dax laughed and yawned at the same time, her eyelids drooping. She was sitting on the ground in a shadowy alley in the early dawn. Her expression sobered though, as she regarded Sammy through the portal. “A rough thing to adjust to… and here you are, helping my stupid ass and my stupid brother’s ass out of our own problems in the middle of yours.”

Sammy shrugged. “A good distraction, a good cause. And it’s apparently what I have to do to survive, anyway. I literally need others.”

Another yawn. “Maybe. I’m glad you did, in any case. I might be dead otherwise, pulling something harebrained out of desperation.”

“How long will the court investigations be?”

“I imagine it will be fairly lengthy into the day. But if they deem my brother innocent, they’ll release him after they arrest the merchant. Hopefully, that weasel in there doesn’t break down and mention me…”

“I’m pretty sure he believes his life depends on not doing so. Regardless, you need to hit your bed before you pass out right here.”

“Yeah…” With a groan, she got up and started off through the alley. “If I wasn’t so tired, I’d have a drink.”

“I’m sure you’ll make up for lost time in the future. I presume you’ll make it back okay? I’ll leave you to it for now. Let me know when you’re awake.”

“As you say, young goddess. I can’t sleep long. I’d rather catch my brother walking than him going where he thinks I’m staying…”

“Until next time, then.”

Sammy disconnected, leaning back and feeling cautiously satisfied. The quest had not been completed yet, after all. She hoped Dax was right about the Dominion’s sense of justice, but she knew it far better than Sammy did, after all.

She checked in on Estara, finding the mirror put away, but immediately she found that she knew absolutely where her Follower was without needing eyes. She could feel it, like…

When she looked up, among all the vague shining stars beyond the mirrors was a far brighter one glowing. Estara’s soul, effectively. It made her smile, though somehow she understood it was just a kind of visualization aid within her psyche.

When she brought the starlight closer, focusing on it, she found that she could see what statuses Estara was under. None. She also intuitively knew that she could speak to her in this way: into her mind. She couldn’t hear thoughts or access her senses. It was closed off.

“Sys, what happens when she’s not closed off?”

Primarily, two-way communication, for the facilitation of prayer and granted attention. Note that this requires focus and effort on the part of the Follower and can even cause fatigue. This slightly improves with practice, but greatly with higher-grade believers.

“Hmm. So I can’t do full telepathy or whatever? Reading thoughts?”

That requires practice and familiarity with a subject and a minimum of two grade levels. For example, Fanatic (+2), or Devout (+1) and Ordained (+1).

Why am I even asking that? It’s probably weird. The two-way has to be good enough for most things.

She also could tell that she could do a ‘knock-knock’ like a reverse prayer… but she didn’t want the girl to freak out. When Sammy found a mirror close to Estara to spy, she saw that she was engaging in helping with cook prep in the kitchen. She looked right as rain, a dab of flour on her nose as she was using a rolling pin.

Adorable.

“It’s not right. That quality is gone.”

The words made Sammy jump, and for a moment, she rather dumbly looked around, before she realized they were words into a mirror she knew and had touched, for some reason leaping out at her.

When she shifted her attention, she found it was back to the west. The broody young man that had been at the table of the dinner was in front of it, dressed in a tucked-in, fluffy white shirt and breeches, as a noble might informally.

He was squinting into the mirror judiciously and in apparent disappointment. Behind him was a spacious private study, books on shelves and tables strewn with mounds of various clutter and paraphernalia. It was the same mirror that had been at the dinner — it had been moved.

“Your pardon, My Lord?” A servant slid over next to the man, blinking at the mirror and back to him, puzzled.

But the young lord ignored him as he stepped closer to the mirror, inspecting it, clearly not looking at his reflection but at the surface somehow. Searching. And then his eyes seemed to lock right into hers, and he smiled in relief.

“Ahh, never mind — it is returned, now. That curious sensation, that glorious glow… There it is, showing itself no mere fancy of a dreary, dreary night.”

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