Sworn to the State: A Magical Quest

The Spirit's attention is on you and you can feel it, the strum of a bloody string ringing against your skin. Her eyes grow disturbingly wide as you walk ahead, gently pushing Tala out of the way, never taking your focus off the nun. Even with your ignorance in Tolgoda, you feel intuitively that if you do, even for an instant, you will die. The unconscious soldiers on the ground still behind you seem a secondary concern. The sounds of the forest, whether the squawking of parrots or the distressed caws of the moa, are drowned out. Tala says something but you do not hear her.

"I am Vashti, second Vicar of the Vermilion Chamber." You declare to the spirit, and she stays silent, allowing you to examine her more closely. Her skin has a definite charred quality to it, the texture of petrified wood and fired porcelain. You notice now that she almost floats off the ground, her feet invisible under the bottom of her dress. Her features are perfect and statuesque, as if she was the centerpiece of a cathedral. Even her eyes seem carved, the whites painted and the pupils a varnished brown. It makes her fluid movements all the more unnerving, a religious icon that moves with the easiness of a living thing.

With the spirit still saying nothing, all her former humor gone as soon as you approached her, you clear your throat with a harsh swallow of bile and repeat yourself.

"I am a Vicar of the Vermilion Chamber, and I would like to ask if you-"

"I could bend you over my knee and whap your rump with a stick right now," The spirit hisses as her nostrils flare and the clay of her eyebrows crack into a furrow, "for being so impetuous. Not an ounce of respect for a spirit, you merely walk up, and talk to me as if I was some kind of servant. The fallen souls of God deserve nothing from a Vicar besides death, is that it? Not even the modicum of appreciation we ask for before you send us on our way?"

You hold firm despite the screaming voices in your brain telling you to run or look away from her penetrating gaze. "I am sorry. I did not mean any disrespect. I did not study the teachings of Rav Tologda enough to be able to know what...the proper address is for spirits. My...apologies."

The spirit moves a little to the right, but as far as you can tell there is not a single movement of her feet: she simply shifts. "Is that right," she coos, the motherly assurance in her voice sardonic and unnatural, "then you are like a little child, fumbling in ignorance, no? A babe delivered to the doorstep of my nunnery, needing help and guidance? Oh, yes, I can see it now. Let me..." She reaches her hand out towards your face, but you never allow it to come close, grasping it with your own gloved hand, never breaking eye contact as you do so. Into her wooden palm and bony fingers you release a chilling cold, an alpine wind of your determination. A warning that you are no child.

The spirit withdraws her hand in an instant and rubs it as if it was hurt, her eyes still wide but the furrow disappearing from her brow. Her mouth screws up into a mock pout, as if you harmed her terribly, but even if you cannot read spirits, you can read people. You know enough of the falseness of this whole charade, even if you don't understand it.

"I am a Vicar of the Vermillion Chamber," you repeat for the third time in an unwavering voice, "and I was falling in the Zurah, trapped forever. Then a hand came from the nothingness and pulled me up. Am I correct in assuming that was you?"

"Perhaps it was me," the spirit admits, "you interesting girl, you. How old are you, by the way? Too young for that outfit. Another one of Godei's untrained orphans? Oh, dear. Are you here to slay me, perhaps? I don't want to have to do this again."

There is a twitch in your eye at the mention of Godei, but it is not enough to break your concentration. "Why did you save me."

The spirit says nothing. You repeat the question but still it says nothing. This is going nowhere, but you're tired of not getting answers. You will not live your life as a blinded man walking through the world, constantly shocked by everything that happens. You repeat it a third time with a stamp of your feet, but the spirit laughs. Your eyes narrow and you rip the glove off one of your hands in a single smooth motion before thrusting your arm forward, offering it to the spirit.

"Shake my hand," you say in an even and clear tone, "and tell me the truth. In exchange, we will walk out of this intact. Both of us."

The nun stares at the hand as if it was a dagger pointed at her gut, breaking concentration with you to eye it, observe it, even touch it a few times with her wooden fingers. "What is this now? Some kind of Vicar trick? You going to touch me and activate some hidden aspect of the curse?"

"I don't know much about spirits. I don't know about the curse. I don't know how to be respectful to them, or how to take care around them. But I know enough about you to know you were once human, and that humans like to shake hands to ensure trust, and tell the truth. Rav Rongen said that trust is built on truth. I want you to shake my hand and tell the truth. In exchange, I'll listen to what you have to say, and we'll make a promise not to attack each other. Neither of us know very much about the other, and that's good. If you knew anything about me you wouldn't want to cross me.." It's an empty threat, but one you deliver with such confidence that it is transformed into an ultimatum.

The spirit laughs a few times, glancing between your eyes and your hand. She expects you to retract it and laugh, as if this is all one gigantic practical joke. You stay still, hand out, waiting. Her laughs become more nervous, her giggles louder and more false, as if she is a cornered hyena with nowhere else to go. She is right, because you will not bend or break. Your hand remains outstretched.

At last, wooden fingers reach forward, uneasy, and grasp onto your hand. The spirit's hand is hard and cold, but not unwelcoming, and after some awkwardness her fingers interlock with yours, as if she has not used them in this way for years and is remembering how to do it. Finally, after a few seconds, the spirit retracts her hand as her eyes shrink, her body relaxes, and the frozen pout is replaced by the sound of clay shattering into a shy smile.

"Then let's talk, shall we? I will simply bring you into my realm and we will-"

"N-no. No." You say once, voice almost cracking, before you repeat it with a fortified resolve.

"Well that's rather unorthodox."

"I don't care. We talk here, right now. You shook on it. Why did you save me?"

"You really ought not to be acting like this around a spirit, you have no idea that not everyone is this patience-"

"Why did you save me."

"I am warning you now, just because you "shook" on it doesn't mean-"

"Why."

"You are a dullard and a scoundrel! What kind of treatment is this for a spirit and a nun! I demand that you stop this instant!" She yells at the top of her lungs, almost childish in her outcry.

"No."

"Oh, oh, such distress, such horrible distress that you cause me I have never had the chance to experience before in my existence. They simply do not teach Vicars like they used to, that ass Godei, that horrible ass, he has been twisting pupils for thirty years..."

"Shut up," you finally snap, almost grabbing her by the collar before remembering you have no idea how strong she actually is or why this is working, "shut up and tell me, right now. Or we'll have a problem and you'll have broken the promise you just made."

"Oh," she says as she covers her mouth with her hand, "oh no, I wouldn't want that. That would be just terrible, wouldn't it? To do that sort of thing to someone. I'm sorry my dear, let me just think about what I would want to tell you.." She trails off and rolls her neck back and forth in indecision. A glare reminds her that you do not have forever and she puts her hands up.

"Okay, okay. You really are a stubborn one. Don't be afraid though, I don't dislike it. Well, it's really rather simple. I saved you because you were fighting soldiers, and we were killed by soldiers. We're not fond of them." She says as she tries to break eye contact with you by tilted her head left and glancing past you, but you block her by moving to her new field of vision.

"You said we. Who is we?" You ask her, internally relieved at getting some answers, even if they're from an undead spirit. You have to start somewhere, you suppose.

"Oh, we, well, you know. All of us. The whole nunnery, everyone in there. I don't know how to explain it it's really quite terrible, but...hmm. Well, you might think of it as those who lived together, died together. We were all nuns, and when the nunnery burned...by god, they were utterly savage, we didn't even- we sheltered their men, and it didn't matter...when it burned, you know, we all huddled together, crying against the cruelty of soldiers. When the moment came, well..."

She puts a hand on where her heart would be and says, "Let's just say I am never truly alone. Most of the older fallen souls are like this. Nowadays, well, it's not as easy to tell. You have to watch your...hmm, I don't want to say hunting grounds, your territory? I'm not a dog but it might be the easier for a human to understand. You have to watch your territory from those who are utterly voracious, not just for your own sake but for the sake of the people there. There's an entire, I don't want to say society, but...gaggle? No, no, I can't explain it, but there is a variety. You have the wandering singular spirits who are often satisfied from little nibbles at the edge of society, the communal spirits who will feed on whole villages...and then there's Gospodin, oh dear that Gospodin..." she almost swoons.

"Gospodin?"

"Gospodin is the gentleman lich, of course. Why, you haven't heard of him? He is lovely. So polite to his subjects, so easy in speech and calming, so soothing..." she sighs. "He is wonderful to talk to, as well, a pleasant choice for a final conversation if ever one there was. I always thought he was some kind of grand commune of souls, but the way he takes new bodies, the way he mummifies and brings such serenity to those he helps pass on, mmmm, I cannot tell you how easy he makes it, how controlled he is. If he's truly a single soul with one purpose, then he's a wonderful aberration. He understands our ways best of all. Some of us are utterly unscrupulous, eating the poor and rich alike, children and adults, it's nightmarish...we lose everything that made us human."

That is nightmarish. The thought of some kind of monstrous amalgamation formed from the death of multiple people...you can only imagine what the child of a massacre would look like.

"But according to the Gentleman's teachings, most of us, you see- we dwell on the margins, and nowadays the margins are wide. Who will miss a soldier or two on campaign? He goes to do his business behind a tree, and then he is gone. The sick, the wounded...the Melik treats them as dead weight, but we treat them equally. The Melik cares only about the body, but we love and understand the soul. In that heartrending moment as you watch the light fade from his eyes, the soul from his body...you are reminded of your mission, the Gentleman's mission, to protect the weak from the strong. It makes it easier. Not easy, but easier. You use that mission...and carry it with you, knowing that for every soldier's life you take a dozen women and children are saved. If we are parasites, then they are locusts. Oftentimes it is a blessing for a wounded soldier to see a kind face before he passes."

"It is a terrible thing to take someone's life," she continues, "but it is how it is. It's why I can talk to you, right here, right now, and not feel an ounce of hunger, little Vicar. Believe me- even in my reduced state, even with a curse etched into my body, I could gobble you up. I know I could. But I don't, you know, because if I did...well, it would be horrible. I would be snuffing out the life of a young girl, and her mysterious friend, and that would be no good. Why not eat a few soldiers instead, especially when a girl has already done the work for me?"

Fear tickles the back of your neck and you shiver. You maintain courage, but the ease with which she talks about this, so happily and so smoothly, as if it was just a simple matter of profession, frightens you. You almost lose your mental footing, but hold yourself steady. A gentle hum from the back of your head gives you strength, and there is a single whisper that softens your nerves.

Be not afraid.

Still, something about the phrasing of her last sentence troubles you. "The work?"

"Oh, you...you don't know. Well then this will be...I don't want to do this, but I'm unsure how to express it otherwise." Her jaw opens low and wide like a wooden nutcracker, and four masculine screams pierce the air from the darkness in her mouth, before she puts her hand up against her lower jaw and closes it in a single cracking motion. "Does that make sense to you? Hopefully it wasn't too frightening, I can never tell the boundaries of mortal fear."

You feel deep confusion at the display but then freeze in place as you recognize the voices and what she's getting at. Understanding is a whip that strikes your face and you can barely stand after you realize it.

"I killed them," you state in a distant, matter-of-fact voice, "I killed the soldiers. And you ate them as I did it." The spirit gives a single sober nod.

You've never killed anyone before. Not even on accident. You've drawn blood, you've injured, but you've never killed once. Even if they were soldiers, even if they were trying to kill you...no, no. You cannot lose focus now. You want to retch but you cannot retch, you cannot lose concentration or attention or focus. You harden your heart. They were soldiers, they were going to kill you if you didn't, they feared and hated you. You burn your village in your mind just to ignite the embers of your anger again and distract you from the chill. Suddenly cold, you draw your arms closer to your body, but nevertheless maintain composure. You are glowering at her, at yourself.

"That doesn't mean I was just looking for a meal," the spirit says, her voice genuinely softening, "death is a terrible thing to happen to anyone. You are still a living girl, likely dislocated by the war as much as anyone else. It is a difficult thing to stomach killing someone, and I will not take advantage of it. No, no, I won't. Shut yourselves up, you cacophony of idiots." She's mumbling to herself now, "no, we just ate, I will not eat another, not an innocent, when there are so many in the valley and we just ate..." The spirit trails off into wordless murmuring, eyes closed in thought. Finally, she releases a breath and opens her eyes again.

"I must go. The choir is getting restless, and this curse has taken a terrible toll on my control of them. Many of them dislike Vicars reflexively and it is becoming difficult to maintain my resistance to that...particular lobby. I will...depart now, and leave you to it. Here," she says, retrieving a strange flute from within her sleeves, "I will give you something for the sake of your troubles. You are in a siege, yes? I could stop it happening again, then. Blow this flute, for me, would you? If you do, I will come to your aid. All you have to do is lift the curse..." she puts a hand up to her temple, cringing in clear pain. "You know, I wish that I could...all spirits wish we had a host. To be free from this hunger, to have someone else to talk to. Won't you...no, no, I couldn't, you're too weak, if I did you'd be possessed and the cycle would start again. But you know...don't be as we were. When the opportunity is handed to you, take it. No matter how terrible. I'll leave that with you...along with the flute."

She puts the flute in your hand, and then starts to float away, wandering down the mountain with a hand still pinned to her temple, her exit as sudden and strange as her entrance. You watch her go until she is simply a dim figure down the slope of the hill, disappearing into the lusher forest down below. It is only then that you realize you've been holding in your breath for almost a minute, and release it in a gasping shudder. Looking past, the spirit, you gaze down at the smoke and fires of the camp below.

When the opportunity is handed to you, take it.


A hard projectile hits you in the head, breaking you out of your concentration. A siege nut plops to your feet and you turn around to find Tala holding another, a bowl of them in her other arm, supported against her hip. A colorful red and yellow parrot squawks from the tree high above you, and it almost sounds like a laugh.

"Next time you say you have a plan," Tala says as she stands a few feet away from you, voice trembling, "I will simply knock you unconscious and proceed without you. Are you out of your mind?"

"What are you," you say as you screw your lips together in annoyance, "what are you talking about."

"So allow me to get this entirely straight," Tala says as she puts the bowl down and aggressively digs into the ground, retrieving another nut which she puts into the bowl, still talking, "you decide that the best thing to do in this situation is to have a friendly chat with a spirit that you know nothing about, Now I'm no witch, but I don't think that's a good idea."

"It was a back and forth experience," you dismiss with a nonchalant wave of your hand as you walk over to the soldiers, eyes glazed over in thought. Intrusive thoughts, their screams, everything, floods and buffets you, but you push it down. It doesn't matter. They were soldiers. It doesn't matter.

"If you're looking to check if they have anything in their pockets I already checked. I figured that the spirit would be too distracted with eating you so I should take some time to dig up some siege nuts and pickpocket the soldiers. Didn't think you were going to kill them but I suppose witchery is unpredictable." Tala explains as she digs out another nut before putting down the bowl and walking over to you. She grips one of your shoulders too tightly.

"Listen to me Vashti," she says in a sweet, sing-song, eyes half-lidded and hand digging into your shoulder, "if you ever try something like that kind of martyrdom ever again when I am right there, after I told you I would rather not lose a friend I just made, without any consultation or discussion, I am going to ensure that you fall through with that martyrdom. Is that clear, good friend of mine?"

"What-"

"Listen to me." She says as she grabs both of your hand sand holds them close to her like a jailer closing handcuffs on a prisoner, "I can handle myself. I do not need someone walking in front of me to face off against an undead icon so that I have to carry that guilt of that idiot's "sacrifice" for the rest of my life. Is that clear, or have you wandered off again to think about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?"

"It's clear."

She releases you with a courteous smile, "that's fantastic. I am absolutely glad we are on the same page. Absolutely glad. I'm not livid at all. Now then, since you have shown your incapability at not throwing yourself on a sword, here is what we are going to do right now. We are going to collect the nuts. We will dig small and shallow graves for the soldiers, and we will set the moa free to run and roam around once we strip the reins and throw them in with the soldiers. We will then, remembering what we were here to do, finish collecting nuts, leave, go back up the secret passageway, and never talk about anything that happened here again. Here's what we will tell them: Oh, we picked some nuts, there were soldiers in the area, we avoided them. That's what we're going to tell the abbot and that's what you're going to tell Godei. Is. That. Clear?"

You say nothing, attention wandering back to the soldiers' bodies.

"I'm- I'm serious, Vashti. Please. You can't just- you're worth more than that that you can't just throw yourself in front of the first obstacle you see and confront it. You have to...you have to think about yourself, once in a while. Why didn't you run?"

You shrug say, not very convincingly, "I've been running a long time, Tala. I'm tired of running."

"Wow, fantastic," she says as she puts a hand to her chin, "you're tired of running. That's great. That's just amazing. I'm glad. I'm tired of running too, but mostly that's just because I need to exercise more. But you being tired of running, well, hmm, it's just fantastic, you know, the way that you can say that metaphor for your own life and use it to justify getting into a ludicrously dangerous situations. Vashti: Tired of Running. That would look fantastic on your tombstone. You know who's tired of running? People who want to die. Do you want to die? Don't think so, but you don't seem to understand how not to die."

The grilling is all the more painful because it is true, but you cannot just concede to her. "I understand it just fine, thank you. I did avoid dying there. I talked to the spirit."

"Yeah, I heard," Tala says, voice dripping with sarcasm, "you did a great job. I eavesdropped. It got incredibly angry at you and only stopped once it was shocked by your sheer level of calm at your impending death. I bet it thought, 'boy, this girl sure wants to die, she's probably rotten or something like that, better pick some riper apples'."

"I don't think spirits think of us as apples. I like to think of myself as a hardboiled egg." You say as you kneel down by one of the shoulders and retrieve one of the shovels tied to their packs. These soldiers were surprisingly well-equipped. It does not bode well for your chance against the Melik's army.

"Well I'm glad to have the witch's insights. Let's just...I don't know, Vashti, let's just bury them and forget about this." That you can agree with, and you get to work without a word.

As you dig memory returns to your arms. After all, you're nothing if not familiar with burying bodies. Your Baba insisted that you bury every person you found on the road as you traveled, and even at the age of twelve you had become familiar enough with the dead, along with the little prayers and quiet sendoffs you'd give them.

The tough ground does not give easily to your digging, but as the sun begins to go down you finish four shallow graves. The soldiers are pushed in by you and Tala and covered over. Despite her objections a small mound is created topped by a stick to signify their resting place. The Moa are stripped of their reins and released, and they run haphazardly down the mountain away from the camp. You considered bringing one into the passage with you, but it would grow scared and try to run away or kick at you and Tala, and so it was judged better to let them run free. Even tamed Moa are hardly helpless, and can turn feral easily. They will find their own way to food and freedom.

The passageway's darkness is almost comforting now, and you let the blue moss' light take you back to the monastery. The strange conversation with the spirit weighs heavy on your thoughts. You regret not studying Tologda but...it is a terrifying prospect. The books are stamped with warnings placed by later authorities, iron-pressed into the covers or the first page. The beautiful old illustrations of angels and otherworldly beings have their faced blotted out, as if someone didn't want them staring up at you as you read. Certain passages are entirely blacked out or removed. Sometimes normal text descends into base gibberish or coded symbols you don't understand. There is an overriding feeling, as you read page after page, that it is not for you.

Maybe you will need to overcome that feeling. There is a great deal that you felt the spirit did not say, did not explain, or behaviors that would have made sense if you only you had the knowledge. Zurahna doesn't speak of spirits much, not even to describe their realms- she says that to do so would be a "violation", though what that means she does not say. Rongen has stories of his confrontations with spirits, which you drew from, but they don't explain how spirits function, only how to stand against them. Karogen...

Karogen says to punch them harder than they punch you. As always he is a light in the darkness of ignorance.

Tala delivers the nuts to the abbot Tata Tado without a word about what happened and says good night. You collapse onto your bed after you change into your nightshift, holding the flute that the spirit gave you. You didn't have the chance to inspect it before, but notice now how beautiful it is; a simple beige bamboo flute, made elegant by the addition of wonderful designs across it. They are geometric, various patterns from the religious symbol of the six-pointed star to lovely floral images. You wonder grimly if the spirit made it herself or took it off one of her victims before imbuing it with her energy. You certainly feel her presence, the same strumming string across the skin that you felt when you talked to her.

You know she wants you to blow it, but you're not stupid. You set it aside, wrapping it in a piece of cloth and hiding it under your bed. You'll talk to Godei about it tomorrow. Putting aside all other concerns, you drop into a fitful sleep, the same kind of fitful sleep you've had for years, made worse by the siege. Sometimes you wish it would stop, but there is never enough time, and there are almost always things to do, and so sleep takes the last priority. At least the persistent dreams of doom do not haunt you tonight.

Article:

When you wake up at the first peeking light of dawn, the first thing you do is seek out Godei to talk to him about everything that happened. Unfortunately, despite your best efforts, he is nowhere to be found. Instead, you find yourself encountering...

[] ...Your Baba, attempting to train nuns and monks in combat in preparation for a potential probing assault by the Melik's forces.
[] ...The Abbot, who has gotten into a heated verbal confrontation in the Monastery's library with a blindfolded, topless man you have never seen before.
[]...Ishin, the lazy cleaner, doing something strange and suspicious down in the Monastery's cellar.