Heimurn Chronicles (No, SV, you're a young valkyrie in the middle of a bizarre and dangerous journey)

Just when you began to dig your memory for the monikers with which you presented themselves to Kherees, a male voice called out for Inga on turanese. Assuming that freelanders' native language employed the same intonational logic, you could only presume that kherees informed Inga of some complications that may require her attention. Ultimately, with an air of annoyance, she excused herself from your followers' circle, letting you collectively plan out the next step in relative peace.

"You all did well," you began, "what we've gathered here stacks well with the tidbits of clues from before. But while we're here, it may be prudent to jump on the chance to dig for more. Ren, you did really great at the skirmish spot," to your praise, Ulren shrugged indifferently, "Do you, perhaps, have ideas if there's more information to unearth from around, or would you rather like to help the kherees with what they are doing?"

"With everything said and done, doubt there's much left to gather from the place, so I might as well lend my eyes to the recovery party and search for the missing sod even though I'm not that good of a scout."

"Please do," you smiled at him encouragingly, chiseling out from Ren about as vague shoulder shrug as the one before it. "With the degree of our entanglement with this case, we might seek to harvest some testimonies from their side too," you began to relay your stream of thoughts once again, "Given how much they rely on us, this probably wouldn't be that difficult. Yet we might want to be considerate when approaching, lest, given what we already know, we want to close off some venues."

"Oh! This Inga girl appears to have a finger in every local pie, making her a safe bet," Sephie sprung to activity once you mentioned possible skulduggery, "besides, I feel like she has eyes for our bhiroth, meaning her lips might be just a bit looser ~." Needless to say that the soonest Sephorah mentioned her idea, she was rewarded with Ulren's deadpan stare of such coldness that might've made trees shed their leaves.

"Uh... There is no debate about her being a potentially valuable informant, but I was thinking about Elgar instead: he did approach us with a plea which I had to turn down for more urgent matters. Can you and, perhaps, Karl have a chat with him? Even though his issue might not be connected with the one at our hands, it might provide more context or lead toward other clues."

"Oh goodness, you're certainly not sending us to save yourself the embarrassment of having to talk with a potentially aggrieved young man. No?"

"Not at all, Karl," Now it was your turn to try on an icy expression, "If only you were more attentive, you might've recalled that there is a special witness in need of interviewing. The type of witness only I among everyone gathered here can communicate, with it being at the top of my list of concerns to attend." Just when the mage opened his mouth, you raised an index finger at him in a "cease" gesture, following up with: "And please, refrain from exercising your witticism against the poor pal - he did not look like in a state for cynism intake even before witnessing five of his clansmen murdered".

"Don't worry, Sparkling! Should the dandy-o start acting dumb with his tongue, I'll pinch the stupid out of it."

"Ah, the exotic southerly idioms, how quaint," Karl commented Sephie's surge of helpfulness, drawing the latter's stare.

"You were, of course, joking, right?" Sephorah remained silent and weakly grinning, but you could tell "mess around and find out" was written on her face.

"That settles it," you had to cut the banter short for time's sake and out of fear of Inga getting mentally traumatized by witnessing the specifics of your in-group dynamics, "let's get to it."

_______________________

Following the signature of a disembodied soul spark, you approached the log-lined watchtower, cautiously opening the improvised door and staring into the darkness of its innards. Yet, it wasn't the dimness of the interior that startled you but the unnatural chillness - one of the giveaways of a possible haunting, which you memorized from visiting Bartholomew at the locked observatory of Dalgaard's mansion. Recalling that bizarre encounter gave you a token of confidence as neither it would be the first time you interact with spirits, nor did you expect them to be hostile in the given circumstances. And so, you slinked through the doorway gap.

Remembering the effects of thaumaturgic light (or just any natural-ish light) in Limbus and wary of the risk of scaring the spirit, you glimpsed into the nether realm right off the doorstep. Peculiarly, the scant interior of the watchtower looked like nothing like what you expected from Limbus: no spectral shapes, only a few insignificant memory traces blooming with dim light from a bow rake and a cup standing on top of a barrel, and darkness making through the cracks in the walls, resembling pitch-black smog smoking its way inside only to dissipate. The outsides must have been dark as the void itself at the moment, which probably was the main reason behind the poor soul secluding itself in this tiny bubble of stability and relative security. As fresh of an experience it was to glimpse into a nether realm during the daytime, your internal voice reminded you of the reason why you came here, with you cautiously proceeding upwards the staircase.

It was in the midsection of the rower - arguably the darkest part of it - where you saw him: the dimly-glowing, yellow-green shape of a man whose body was now lying outside the back entrance of the barracks; same size, same features, and even the same outfit. The specter of the militiaman hasn't noticed you initially, sitting on the floor of the tower's midsection and leaning against the wall with hands clutching to the head. It was clear the man was in distress, confusion, or both. He did not seem to register your presence.

Cautiously and slowly, you began approaching the lad's specter, with but a little hope saying "Hello?" and hearing only the audial distortion; after all, you weren't physically in Limbus. But when you were three steps away from the figure, something made him turn his face towards you. Half a heartbeat after, the lad's phantom eyes widened in alert, and just a second later, he suddenly threw his frame towards you, trying to grab your hands. Instinctively, you squealed in momentary shock, your wings tried to unfold under the restraining leather wrapping (possibly damaging its integrity), and your figure recoiled from the ghost in an attempt to sidestep it. Although, it wasn't necessary: the wraith's limbs went through you like smoke dispersing against an obstacle. Recovering from the motion, the lad turned back to steal a glimpse of you, unable to hide the emerging panic and confusion.

For the next three minutes or so, you observed the scene of a person acknowledging the dramatic shift in their existential status raving and convulsing in helpless panic. Anguish, terror, denial, and confusion reflexed through the wild motions. Perhaps you even felt sympathetic: the scene commencing before your eyes was unsettlingly similar to your own first reaction after awakening in this world, which made you wish to find at least some encouragement to pacify this poor soul. Alas, the situation didn't seem to permit it, so you calmly sat at the next set of stairs, observing the gradual deceleration of the dead man's motions.

Ultimately, the victim's visage fell near a corner, slowly lifting its torso from the floor to lean against the wall and give you a stare full of despondence. This look paralyzed you for a moment, but you managed to carefully pick thoughts and words to transmit to the poor soul.

Despite imagining winding up in a precisely similar situation before, you still felt hesitant to initiate the exchange with the departed. You took an additional moment to assess your "interlocutor" and think of how to proceed. Peculiarly, the ghost looked almost realistic visually: aside from the greenish glow color, the shape carried no distortions, no fog or dispersion effects, and generally reminded of a person being submerged in crystal-clear water. Perhaps, this exemplary state of a disembodied spirit was caused by its "youngness" and relatively high integrity of the soul spark cognitive layers. You scanned the interlocutor for traces of demonic contamination, but there were none. Hence, recalling other reasons and factors that could cause a soul to stay in the world, you mentally concluded that the poor fellow failed to migrate either due to the confusion upon their death or because of some other circumstances weighing them down.

You are Ankhbar, right? You finally made a move by recalling the names listed by Inga and weaving a signal for the deceased witness. The reaction came in immediately: the spirit's eyes widened, and he tried to speak back to you. Alas, all that you heard was but an indistinguishable, distorted murmur.

I am looking at the netherworld from the realm of the living and can't hear you. Was your follow-up which only rattled the spirit more as he visually tried to yell with the same result; you could see a rare mixture of hope and desperation in their unliving eyes. Yet, you've got a sudden idea of how to overcome the metaphysical inconvenience: If you can speak new pherinian, I can try to read lips should you go slowly.

A couple of seconds after your latest signal reached the target spirit, you registered a tiny nod from the latter, after which he sat on their knees so you could see his face clearly, and then deliberately spell out their message. Mimicking their motions for convenience's sake, you ended up with the inquiry of "What is happening and who are you?" on your lips.

It took you a few moments to weave together an answer, not because of the message's content but due to how hard it would be for the recipient. Having to potentially crush their hope felt terrible, but you had to tell the hard truth and curb any further damage. I am Lucifina. Inga asked my friends and me to conduct an investigation at this outpost after a mass murder took place. She invited me here because of my ability to draw information from the netherworld. Obeying some inner urge, you paused to look the spirit in the eyes. This is where you are now. Alas, you are one of the five confirmed victims. Your body is still lying outside, at the same place where a demonic entity snuck up on you and broke your neck last night.

As soon as you weaved a message for the spirit, his eyes again ignited with despair-induced wildness. But, unlike the first bout, it appeared subdued to a minor degree; maybe, this Ankhbar lad might have held suspicions about his state. Still, the reaction was sharp, and the specter fell on the knees before you, incessantly repeating one phrase as if it was some sort of a mad chant: "Can you bring me back?".

Back when you began to view the spiritology talent as something that might put you in all sorts of situations and company, you knew there would likely be a day when you would have to announce some unfortunate spirit what you were about to. Yet, when this moment came, you found it difficult to follow through and crush the last desperate hope of a person who lost their most valuable of all possessions. Alas, you had to do it despite the hesitation. I can't. And there isn't much of a chance for it to be possible.

You half-expected a new bout of angry thrashing from the spirit, but their reaction to you robbing them of the last but false hope was the opposite: he sagged back in the corner, bent the knees, aiming them to the ceiling, and wrapped the ghostly hands around them. Evidently, your message snuffed out the last ember of their resolve like winter winds tear away trees' last withered leaves.

Meanwhile, you suppressed the urge to bury the spirit under the questions regarding the incident with quite some effort: the state of the poor lad wasn't auspicious regarding coherently relaying the intel bits or even possessing such in the first place. Hence, unwilling to drop this lead just yet for various reasons, you opted to take it easy and work on the "bridgeway" for the next move. This resulted in you quietly taking a seat on the dusty floor of the tower near the spirit, folding legs bent in knees in front of you and leaning against the wall. You felt like a quiet presence would be the most appropriate approach to someone who, until minutes ago, could not reflex on their new existential status or even share a fraction of their fear and confusion with anyone.

One, two, five minutes have passed with the spirit making nary a twitch and you patiently contemplating your next move over the otherwordly humming of the daytime Limbus. After all, you had a certain degree of responsibility due to possessing knowledge about the principles of the Netherworld the poor soul had to gather on their own with associated risks. So, when you felt like the innermost turmoil of your subject subsided from its peak, you initiated a new round of exchange.

This place is made of memories, ideas, and spirits. It has its own logic, laws, and dangers. You are here because something within you holds you from passing into what lies beyond. I can't bring you back to life, but I can assist you in unraveling your burden, so you can be free.

The freshly-disbodied spirit slowly turned his head toward you, granting an inquiring or estimating gaze. And then, after you almost considered he silently rejected your offer, the crestfallen lad barely spoke something. You asked him to repeat it, and from what you read, he said "I failed."

Tell me. You directed a thought to a rueful spirit and sat closer to him, inviting whatever it considered sharing. And Ankhbar indeed jumped on a chance. At first, shyly and slowly, he began to list how kherees were always his family and how he never even got to know his real parents, how he had risen in the group's longhouse. You weren't expecting him to make such a detour from the "Failure" part, but neither you were surprised, given the circumstances.

And Ankhbar continued, getting lost in his recollections, picking up the pace and making it harder for you to read his lips. But from what you managed to capture, he mentioned how thrilled and nervous he was during the initiation trials when he came up of age, how he harbored his first awkward juvenile love for Inga before growing over it, and he was happy to face many-o hardships with what he saw as a big family. His big family.

For a moment in which you lost the pace of parsing, you felt like the man sitting against you specifically aimed to share his most valuable memories. To hand them over to someone else like treasured artifacts through which his now-finished life gained its meaning. This thought settled deep in your mind, yet you had to push it back when your "interlocutor" lowered the pace, likely shifting the focus of his testimonial.

And undoubtedly he did: after a short pause, he began to speak of the state of affairs of Kherees in the latest years. Apparently, times were even harder than usual due to multiple factors nearly bringing about a cascade failure. With the surge of hostile wildlife, anomalies, banditry, and tensions between the poles of power in Blugd-Tur, sustaining neutral Tevon-Talab became excruciatingly hard, causing a growing spat within the hunter's society. One camp demanded to break the unwritten law of kherees neutrality and to seek help from either Nyth-Rhathon, Baator, Ertanghal, or even from the Olfadir theocracy while the rest feared such a step would hollow the essence of the centuries-old organization, which would be even worse than to be destroyed by numerous hardships.

Unresolved, the spat grew into a bitter rivalry within the kherees, which only came to a halt when one of the "outreach" camp's leading ideologues disappeared without a trace, another one died on a hunt, and two more forsaken the society with some of their protegees. Sustaining a massive blow in numbers, hunters had to downscale the operations range and barely went through the last winter without throwing Tevon into chaos or famine. Eventually, in the first days of this year's Hearthwind, the hunters could almost feel hope for recovery in the following year, with Ankhbar considering taking a protege to make up for the leavers and losses. But then the wave of rabies came about, followed by swathes of refugees. Then, someone began to hunt the remaining kherees. And there you had it in front of yourself: a poor soul that was forcefully torn from everything that filled its existence with meaning, now aching like an open wound.

The experience of having a dead man's shrift perplexed you. Not only was it emotionally hard to look at your atypical interlocutor's predicament from the prism of your own experiences and circumstances, but there was also the rising tension of responsibility regarding you having to give this situation closure. From your previous experiences and studies, you realized that leaving the spirit haunting the place would entail the risks of him getting corrupt by the chaotic aethers, especially with the burden of confusion and negativity you witnessed. But, perhaps, unilaterally banishing them didn't sit well with you either. It was when you steeled yourself before diving for the verdict when a distraction came from outside the visible range - distorted yet familiar noises reached your ears from beyond the wooden shell of the tower; Apparently, it was Sephie and Karl trying to call out for you from the realm of the living.

After a momentary distraction and a glimpse of clarity that followed it, you forced out a decision to act upon once you attend to your friends and get back to Ankhbar.

You decided to:
[] Leave the spirit alone.
[] Forcefully banish the ghost.
[] Try convincing him to let go of his now-finished life and help to the other side.
[] Let the deceased decide his fate himself
[] Bind the spirit to an item and take it with you.
____________________

Rubbing the post-limbus-observation itch from your eyes, you left the watchtower for the overworld's sunshine and your friends; no matter how many times you had to glimpse into the fade, the adverse effects remained the same. By the wooden walls of the building you just left, Sephie and Karl were waiting for you, with the prior leaning against the wall with the leg bent in the knee, feet planted on the wall, and arms crossed on the chest, while the mage was casually fuming with, most likely, the remnants of his stashed smoking herbs.

"By Ashara's onyx boudoirs, what took you so long?!" Sephorah hardly suppressed her annoyance, "I called for you like thrice!"

"I had to slip into the Limbus to investigate one of the... uh... victims. And more than that, our interaction was hampered by their inability to communicate like older spirits."

"Have you, perchance, resort to charades?" Karl mumbled while fuming like a kettle with boiling water.

"Why, I would have never thought you fancy such collective activities, Norskov," you retorted the mage with a false nonchalant tone, "Amalia would be so thrilled to hear of your willingness to entertain our group with this game in exchange for dinners."

Your jab pulled a metaphorical carpet from under Karl as he burst into a short series of spasms and coughs. "My word, was it Rosaline who taught of such ruthlessness, young lady?" He said.

"Was... Was he of any trouble?" for now, you ignored Karl and retrained the focus of your attention to grinning Sephie, who tried her hardest not to laugh out loud.

"Surprisingly, no. I'd say even more: he was nicer to this Elgar lad than to any of us under normal circumstances. Perhaps, he got carried away by playing a detective."

"So, you did find out something curious, have you?"

"In fact, we did. The murders began in early Hearthwind - coincidentally, about the same time when the Gaian storm rocked the skies, and the rabies epidemic rattled the local fauna. Even though Elgar did not emphasize it in any way or, perhaps, even register as a clue, from his testimony, all the assault cases resulted in casualties among more senior militiamen. The geographic coverage of these assaults appears to be considerably wide - from the remote outposts like this one to the very heart of the Tevon town, so this demonic murderer we're dealing with likely knows of the territory and targets."

For a moment, Karl fell quiet, cleaning the insides of his smoking pipe. "Do you believe there can be politically-motivated demons?" He commented in a half-joking manner.

"We've encountered a zealot demon that kept kidnapping locals for some wicked sacrificial rites, so demons with a political agenda don't sound that outlandish to me anymore. And even less so after the spirit of Ankhbar - the victim who was slain the first and now lying by the barrack's back entrance - articulated to me there were and maybe still are internal fractures within kherees ranks. Perhaps, the existential motive of the voidling falls in line with the dents in kherees integrity, hence why such a specific choice of victims."

Your hypothesis slowly but surely wiped off Karl's smirk; it's possible he found your theory too realistic for comfort. Meanwhile, you paid attention to the lack of inputs from Sephorah, which was uncommon in itself. You looked at her only to witness her carrying a perplexed face and quietly staring into nothingness.

"Are you fine, Sephie?" You inquired out of courtesy, if nothing else, "you look a bit too puzzled to me."

"Maybe it's nothing..." Seph turned her face towards you, snapping out of her semi-trance-like state, "but Elgar's body language and signals were strange. As much as I wanted to believe that roths are capable of exaggeration, Inga did not fool us when she brought up Elgar's stressed behavior of late. When we talked to him, the lad acted... constrained, unable, or unwilling to open up. It felt like he tried to ask us more questions than we inquired of him. Not like he was intentionally trying to hide something from us but rather suppressing something both personal and hurtful to him. Also, it felt like he was frustrated about having to talk to us specifically." Sephie shook her head sideways, "Or maybe I'm just overthinking things."

"Can I talk to him and see if I get the same vibes?"

"Unfortunately not at the moment: Inga sent him out with the third searching party. Our bhiroth hasn't returned either, so we're here with the gvuroth lass and just two more scared militiamen. Speaking of it, Inga would like to have a word with you and is likely to get the finalized input on this whole mess, from what I can tell."

"Sure. I'll have a word with her while we're waiting for Ren's return," you answered.

Karl decided to play a deaf log, Sephie gave you a nod, and now you had to plan what to tell (or withhold) from the person who has led you here. But do you know on which side of the kherees divide Inga is on? And how much are you willing to trust her?

Disclose (can select multiple or at least one)
[] Finalized reconstruction of the event
[] List of the possible motives behind the recent manslaughters
[] Pattern of the attacks
[] Your experience of communicating with Ankhbar
[] Your acknowledgment of kherees internal issues
[] Rene's lead on the murderer's identity
[] Something else? (write-in)

Ask about (can select up to three or none. Difficulty grade decreases by one tier for each pair of disclosures)
[] Overall situation around Tevon-Talab with recent noticeable events
[] More details on Elgar's state of mind (Normal CHA check)
[] Places where can you find Elgar (Hard CHA check)
[] Issues Kheree hunters are facing (Hard CHA check)
[] Details on the internal conflict of Kherees (Very hard CHA check)
[] Her to become your informant and contact person within Kheree hunters (Epic CHA check)
[] Something else? (write-in)

Contrary to the straightforwardness of the situation, you had some concerns still. Those concerns were caused not by the doubt in one's judgment or reasoning but rather by the narrowness of the outlook from only your perspective. Feeling that whatever you would inform Inga of would have an impact on the image of not just yourself but the entirety of your group, you drew the attention of your present companions with a little hand gesture before inquiring.

"What do you think we should, and more importantly, shouldn't tell her?"

Sephie was the first to answer, the expression on her face about as perplexed as yours. "You may already know what I think on the matter: we should not flash all the cards so they won't have a reason to garner suspicion of us spying on them. It might be worthwhile to "warm up" this Inga girl to the point she would be inclined to act as our informant of sorts, but should you tell her too much beyond today's case, the balance within kherees might change along with the light in which they see us. Such changes in conditions are seldomly beneficial to solving problems..."

"For a lady of your archetype, that's an uncharacteristic degree of precautiousness," Karl squinted unamused while searching for any remaining smoking herbs in his pockets.

"Aww! I'm so sorry for failing to meet your heroic novels-inspired expectations. I should sleep without a pillow today as I would definitely soak in my bitter tears." Sephie stung back, tauntingly emphasizing the "definitely" word.

"I'd say go and bury her under all the findings," Karl decided to demonstratively ignore Seph's jab. "Isn't this why she brought us here in the first place, no? If the covers we'd blow would send them down to an internal discord spiral, that's their problem, not ours. We have little if any skin in this game. They won't put public blame for these murders on us because we are their key asset for stopping them. Moreover: should they get too preoccupied with themselves, it may or may not give us a breather from their attention, which I see as a little but still benefit."

You raised a brow at yet another piece of evidence of Karl's recent trip down memory lane not passing without consequences.

Hello folks

I know it's been a while since the last time I posted anything: IRL pressed me pretty damn hard. Basically, I moved countries, became a de-facto (but not in a paycheck) head data analyst of a company with three territorial branches, got buried under various work-related projects (four of which are still pending), burnt out, underwent months-long bureaucratic masochism tango with institutions of two countries, mentored a junior, and am about to move again; this time across the ocean and probably for good. But hey - I had to see Ireland, Denmark, and a bit of the UK...

That being said, I haven't forgotten either about you or the stories; working mostly with the notes, back-end & media stuff of the setting wherein I've got time to do so. Speaking of, here's a bribe bonus for your patience!



Yes - weebs got to our dear Lucy, and she's been Final Fantasy'd. At least, she looks happy :3 The side story's protag illustration is also in the making (albeit a very slow one).

Anyway, I'm sitting at 9k words of the next update, and can't wait to finish the bloody thing asap to get back to you all, hopefully, this weekend. Really - I miss ya all, folks. Here's hoping the new pastures would allow me to return to this setting with more available time AND way higher budget for better and more frequent media content and whatnot.

So, for now, take care, stay safe, and I'll see you soon.