I know that I told Sir Maspers that I have no interest in studying anything about necromantic magic. And I don't. And I told Meadwhite too, and it was true then too. But this is not "studying necromancy", this is about Belisa Roadaway, the girl in my geography class who has been [ The Broken ] ever since I gave her back her family's blackmail material. She does not speak, she does not make eye contact, she barely interacts with anyone. I've been able to get a little bit of a reaction from her, but that's all.
So far I've been assuming she's traumatized by something and will recover with enough time, kindness, and opportunities. But the main problem with that is that we've already got one of those. Nux Gysmo, and he's [ The Madman ]. A mad scientist who is classed as a berserker and is purely incapable of saying anything that makes sense unless he's talking about weapons and bloodshed. It would be really hard for anyone to be more clearly coded as "insane" according the standards of this video game. So he's a known quantity. But she's very different. And that means she's not a known quantity.
So if one is a Madman and the other is Broken, and they don't behave the same way, then they're probably not just re-skins of each other. There's probably something very different between them, right? For example, one of them might have a condition that is super-relevant to a necromancer's research volume titled "Souls and Soullessness".
And a quest called "the Missing Piece".
Did someone just remove her soul? Is that why she's The Broken? Is that the piece that's missing? I thought she was just traumatized. She might be the victim of some disgusting necromantic assault.
So even though I totally promised Sir Maspers, and Meadwhite, and the guard captain, I took that book and I tossed it into my pocket dimension so I can read it later on my own. And I am already hating this. But if it gets her soul back for her, it doesn't matter if I hate my part in this.
Sometimes, you have to do things for other people, and sometimes you don't get to say when, or how, this happens. Sometimes you do the right thing and you shut up about the consequences. This is such a time. And if it means I need to walk back some very heartfelt promises and crack a book about necromancy to study it, all the while hoping I'm wrong about how easy it would be to get tempted by that knowledge, then I guess so be it. I can't fucking leave someone wandering around without a fucking soul.
It's not just abhorrent to me at a personal level, and it's not just about the very meaningful and relevant ethical concerns about letting other people suffer. It's also potentially dangerous. People aren't supposed to go without souls for any period of time. Or if they do, they die. So what we've got here is an extremely unpredictable situation that has a lot of unknown variables. Not the least of which, is that this is apparently tied to necromantic magics. So, this is a continuing situation involving unknown necromantic magics in close proximity to a lot of innocent civilians. I can't be sure that she's not going to become possessed by something, or mutate like the palanquin-bearers, or do something else of a similar vein. So, it's too dangerous not to engage, too dangerous to leave behind valuable information like this.
After I finished clearing the place of Meadwhite's sigils I let the guards know that the place was probably safe. They could come in and tear the place apart. I asked him that if they found any evidence of where his next prepared body might be, to please give me a sign so I could track it and destroy that too.
"I'd have to speak to someone about that," he said, still looking down at his notebook. "You're not in our chain of custody, you know."
I could shut him down. I am within my rights to just pat him on the head like a doggy and remind him that I outrank his boss's boss's boss's boss, and he had better fucking do what he's told. But I didn't want to do that. "Try to see my side," I clasped my hands together. "Imagine there was a lich somewhere in the world, who had no reason to hold back and who has nothing better to do than to plan revenge against you. Wouldn't you want to know which direction the attack's coming from?"
"Your Ladyship, if a gods-damned lich had my name and a grudge, I would not assume I could do anything to stop it," he rebutted.
"Yes, but if I can find his next body I can probably save someone else from a horrifying attack," I cajoled. I gave him my winningest smile.
"If the next body's in Broghton we'll take care of it. If we find information relevant to another jurisdiction we will pass that on to the proper authorities through proper channels."
Okay, I tried.
"If I need to make it an order, it's an order. My authority as an earl. Find any information or materials about offsite locations and forward it to the Golden Gift, in care of my name," I snapped.
He winced, and saluted, and I stormed out of there. I work so god damned hard not to do shit like that. I like to get by with a smile and a good logical reason for people to meet me halfway. But some fucking people...
This guy heard I was walking around one part of the city and set someone to tailing me and spying on me. Then his spy finds out that I'm arguing against a lich that is trying to tempt me with dark magic. Then I kill the fuck out of that lich and injure myself badly. He's pissed he can't press charges against me because he's holding a grudge from the last time I was charged with a crime in this city. Then he asks me a favor to clear out remaining threats. And when I do, he won't thank me. And when I ask him to help me avoid sneak attacks like this, he would rather talk shit until I fucking pull rank. Some people won't be happy until they see how big a bitch I can be.
And a funny thing about this? I've been so tied up thinking about the danger to everyone around me that I can't even appreciate the feeling of blowing the Meadwhite lich to shit. I should be racking up therapy points for nuking his ass, but instead I'm just wringing my hands and fretting about the people that were standing too close when it happened. One of my only real stress-reduction methods is huge amounts of violence against my enemies, and I forgot to enjoy it this time.
I could be giving myself more credit. Maybe it says something really good about me, that my cathartic release of violence doesn't apply to public endangerment. That means there's a built-in safety valve in my "threat to public safety" habits, right? I'm not likely to endanger a lot of people just to let off some stress, probably.
On the other hand, I can take a minute to be proud that I stood by my convictions. A fight started to turn against me, and instead of engaging the enemy at their pace and on their terms, I did things my way and refused to let this endanger me. No more running around scared like against Magister Braux or the Uchislowi high priest.
But the here and now is in Broghton, and the outcome is... surprisingly good. I've gotten kind of used to bleak endings and pyrrhic victories, and yet this time, the only real problem is the lack of cooperation from city authorities. The fact I've done what I have, and hardly any of the innocents even got injured? Maybe that's where I need to focus my attention and priorities. I should pay attention to that and just take the win.
The guards were in seizing and cataloging everything, and doing their damnedest not to acknowledge me. Aloof expressions, stiff postures. Their clinking chainmail and clattering boots were bustling back and forth with business and purpose, and it seems like every one of them is under orders not to notice that they owed me big-time for this shit.
As if pretending the sorceress had not been instrumental was some kind of moral victory for them. As if denying me my due would convince people the city authorities had been the ones that kept everyone safe. As if credit for the win was more important than the positive outcome.
Whatever. I flicked open a hole in physics that led to the featureless white void, the yawning endless non-space where everything was all the same point and time did not exist, endless light and a ringing hollow absence of sound.
I brought metal blinders over my eyes, and stepped in, and from there to Cosfull, in Meadowtam. I picked it because I haven't been to that specific village in a while.
A nice middle-of-the-road town for me, quite unlike Broghton right now. The funny thing about the process of teleportation is how it does not really give you a chance to adjust. The void is a shitty emotional airlock, it doesn't really brace you to leave one place with its own character and atmosphere and enter another. It's not like stepping into an elevator on one floor and out on another, or into a carriage on one side of the city and out on the other. The best analogy is when I was a very small child and I fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV and woke up in my mom's arms in a Home Depot.
I closed the portal and dispelled the blindfold. Cosfull is a nice little town, bigger than Skydown but not by much. The people here have seen me enough that they don't freak out when they see the portal, but not so much that people approach me when I drop by. It's one of the towns that I dropped off several adventurers at, and they've been using it as an operating base while they work on establishing a Guild Hall in the region.
But I'm not here for adventurers, I just need to take a walk. It's evening now, and my day has been packed. Church services, socializing, lunch, scouting Meadwhite's place, fighting Meadwhite, negotiating with the guardsmen, clearing up Meadwhite's place for the guardsmen... honestly all of it went really fast except the last part, that was tedious and slow.
The best thing about Cosfull right now is that it is not Broghton, it's not Skydown, and it's definitely not Hearstcliff. I pause outside a busy restaurant, considering. It smells good, but I'm not wild about the crowd right now. I can find someplace else to get dinner.
Maybe it's not a terrible indictment of my choices that I just don't want to be in any of my usual places right now. But, it sure feels like it might be. I feel like everywhere I've ever been is unwelcome. This afternoon I'm just chasing myself from place to place, so odds are that the problem is me and not the places.
Instead I just try to soak up the town. Sea air from the ocean to the south, but without the usual fish-market smells from coastal fishing villages. Most medieval-inflected fishing towns have a very distinctive smell that carries a long way and tends to stick to things and people. But Cosfull had started as a ranching village, mostly sheep. The place took its name from the old causeway the fullers would use to prepare the wool. Cause-fulling became Cosfull.
The fishing here was good for locals to bolster their diet, you could send a kid out with a hook and a string and they'll probably come back with enough to make dinner, but the deep water you need for commercial fishing is just too far out. So the people here eat a fair amount of seafood, but they don't really serve much.
This town and a thousand like it were part of my lessons growing up. Endless days and scores of texts, history and geography. I had never spoken to any of the locals about the history of their town, but from my books I knew that it had needed to redraw its borders three times because it kept adding new buildings to the south and abandoning the buildings to the north. The town migrated like an amoeba from the original ranchlands down to the seaside. My parents made sure that I knew these things, because they wanted me to know my land and its people, the history and how things came to be.
Not to rule it. They always presumed Nathan would rule it. He was the firstborn by a minute or so, and also the son. Patrilineal succession, that's the rule of law in Meadowtam. Some of the other duchies were more permissive about rule by a duchess, but for all that Meadowtam is a very advanced and well-educated populace, in some ways it's still very provincial and backwards.
He's meant to rule all of this. I was meant to represent it. To marry off to someone as an alliance. Another ducal family from the Central Houses? A protector or marquis from the Great Houses? An earl from a Lesser House we need better ties to? Or a count, maybe, that has a claim that needs shoring up. That's me, a tool to be used to fix a problem, given away to build a relationship. Not my relationship. Harigold, the House.
And when I get there, to be an ambassador of my homeland. Able to speak to any relevant subject, able to answer any questions. To suggest the correct region to search for certain products, or to know instantly what time of year was best for travel in particular shires. I walked down the sidewalk, trailing my fingers along the salt-stained boards of the building facades.
Maybe someday whatever count I was married to would say "Why does this wool have this texture?" and I would tell him about the process of using seawater instead of the usual lanning baths to strip the lanolin oils, and using a causeway's traffic to mill the fibers tight, creating a unique product from this region. And he would be astounded at my worldly knowledge and spend lavishly from his House's treasury to buy Harigold products and enrich Meadowtam villagers.
That's the life I was raised for.
Lovingly. Carefully. My parents were happy people who had held me sweetly and hugged me often, adoring my laugh and marveling at my interests. My mother wanted to have more in common with me, and she made efforts to involve herself in my interests. My father and I shared many jokes and long conversations. But ultimately, they were extensions of their titled positions, and so was I. And for all that my upbringing was warm and content, it was always part of a larger plan that involved me securing an alliance, and advocating Meadowtam products and practices.
Steel flushed my mana, and my fingers became strong and powerful. My fingernails did not tickle and hitch against the smooth boards, they left shallow, scraping gouges in the plank fronting. I scowled as I strolled, leaving a shoulder-high trail of scratches along the buildings.
Today I blew up a lich and people tried to minimize my work. I flushed traitors from my house's allies and had to turn over management to my cousins. I studied my ass off for years, and my own brother forged documents to get himself declared the smartest in the school. I revealed the origins of the blight, and now my only thoughts are how to stay ahead of the backlash from the royal family's wrath while the magisters conspired to steal the credit.
I saved my family's lives, stopped the people that would have tried again, and got sent to prison and written off by my House as devalued property.
Splinters rained down from my hand, I was digging in deeper now.
In the Newtown district of Broghton, they respected me. Adored me, really. The recognized what I had done for them. In Skydown, I could see gratitude on people's faces. Why can't everywhere be like that?
Maybe... well, the common thread is that any one with power always seems to be threatened by me, whether I help them or hurt them. Only the powerless are grateful for help, only they can appreciate good intentions.
I don't need gratitude. I don't do things just to be praised. But if the reward of good work is immediate betrayal, I don't know if I can keep on like that. And to the nobles in Hearstcliff, it seems like betrayal is the only constant.
I paused, turned, and with a flick of magic I repaired the trenches my fingernails had left behind. And then as an afterthought I smoothed out the splinters, sealed cracks, tightened the joinery and straightened planks. I'm not in Hearstcliff. This is Cosfull, and I'm better than that.
The wood swelled and straightened and sealed against the weather. Better. It was better than before. Sure I damaged things a little for a few minutes, but now it's better than when I got here.
I have gotten damned tired of people ignoring or diminishing my work. Damn tired of being overlooked. Damn tired of waiting to be offered a place after I've done what nobody else could do. I've had way too many people lean on me for favors and sneer at me when it's done. And I am deciding, right now, that it's not gonna fucking happen any more.