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Redemption Arc 69
🕑 Added 2025-12-12 06:59:01 +0000 UTCLucian thought they had quite a conundrum on their hands. There were two sides that needed to be persuaded, in his view. They needed persuade Rowan and the others that nothing shady was going on. Maybe they needed to fold him into things, or at least abate those concerns. He knew Rowan well enough to know the man wouldn’t be particularly forgiving when lives had been lost, and Lucian was off elsewhere. Secondly, they needed to persuade Rowan without giving the demons any inkling that Lucian had been responsible for what happened to Vivari.
It was almost too difficult a problem to overcome, Lucian felt. He’d asked Aurelia to lend a hand, but he didn’t honestly think she’d have any special tricks.
He was quite wrong.
***
Duke Cyril blinked open his eyes, watching the sunlight filter in through the window. He lifted his head up and looked down. There, his right leg was missing. Of all of the body parts that he could have lost, the leg was the one he had been least concerned about. Prosthetics had improved greatly, and the injury was below the leg.
Healing magic could restore limbs, but generally only if the original flesh was intact and the wound was less than a day old. If it was crushed or stolen, it became a more difficult prospect. High-level healers didn’t need the original flesh, just a fresh wound. Either way, it didn’t matter—that useless lump of blackened flesh had long ago lost its purpose.
The duke laid there for a while, reflecting on what the days prior had held. Belcourt Asheford. The First Inquisitor had returned. If he was back in action, that meant that the demons were plotting something huge. Belcourt certainly wouldn’t be involved in smaller schemes. He had sent people to investigate the tracking magic that he left behind in the wound he’d made, but Belcourt had been shrewd enough to notice the mark and send his people on a wild goose chase.
The Student Ambassadors had comported themselves admirably, springing into action to rescue the labor union from an attack. Belcourt hadn’t managed to do any serious harm. It might sound like a victory on paper, but by Cyril’s estimation it was a stalemate. He hadn’t been able to uncover any new information, just like in all prior incidents.
I need something. Anything, Duke Cyril thought. What will I need to do? Start an Inquisition in Riverra? The rot must be purged.
He waited for a while, and there was a knock at his door. He turned his head to look and called out, “Enter.”
The doors opened wide, and Walter entered. “Your Grace, I have some news.”
“Share.”
“The members of Heavenwatch Monastery have returned. They claim to have been working in concert with you to smoke out demons. They… they claim to have found a portal to the Hells, thanks to you,” Walter said hesitantly.
Duke Cyril blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”
***
“And why are you so certain that Duke Cyril will be a satisfactory scapegoat?” Lucian asked.
“Because when people have misfortunes befall them, it’s much easier to think of old enemies rather than consider the possibility of new ones,” Aurelia said.
Lucian considered that. He had some knowledge of the fact that Cyril was responsible for shutting down the Inquisition.
“And what of this Belcourt character?” Miriam asked his question. "He's the primary concern, no?"
“I’ve spoken to Belcourt plenty of times before. He specifically highlighted Duke Cyril as a person to avoid. I can guarantee you this will divert Belcourt’s attention.” Aurelia smiled cheekily. “I can almost tell you what he’ll think.”
***
“What exactly do you mean, they’ve discovered a portal to the Hells?” Belcourt demanded. “I destroyed the portal. I destroyed any trace of it.”
“Not that portal, master. Another,” the messenger, a trembling human, delivered. “They found another portal in Riverra.”
Belcourt walked away, clenching his head with his hand. Duke Cyril… or was it Aurelia and Cyril in concert? He had visited Vivari’s safehouse. Ruminian’s body would’ve dissolved to ash, but not Vivari’s. Her body had been torn asunder when Ruminian burst free of it, but on her flesh he could see the remnants of the holy fire of divine beasts. The only one even remotely capable of challenging her was Aurelia. He didn’t know if she could defeat Ruminian, but… perhaps she could.
“First, he disbands my Inquisition… and now this,” Belcourt said with a tired smile. “This man, this damn… man… why is he so persistent? I was under the impression that we had a tacit agreement after our last fight,” Belcourt reflected with a shake of his head. He ran his tongue along his teeth, saying ‘mm’ thrice as he shook his head. “Perhaps facing death has made him think he has nothing left to lose.”
“What must I do, master?”
Belcourt paused, then turned. He kneeled before the man. “If I were to tell you that you master is thinking very hard after you ask that question, how would you feel?”
The man sputtered. “Ah-uh, er…”
“It’s not a trick question. Just answer honestly,” Belcourt urged.
“I would be… quite worried.”
“See? You get it,” Belcourt said, patting his shoulder. “You see, I went to my master, hat in my hand… and he said he needed to think very hard. He said he needed to consult various others. He was at a loss for words. I’ve never seen that. Even when something comes up, he’s very decisive. So when I see him at a loss… you can only imagine how I feel.”
The messenger seemed a touch disarmed by that display of humanity.
“As fellow sufferers, let’s grab a drink,” Belcourt urged, then wrapped an arm around the man’s neck and jostled him in a friendly manner. “Who knows? Perhaps he might arbitrarily smash my head into pulp, same as you feared I would you. I mean… why would I squeeze your head until it popped like a melon? What reason would I have to do that?”
The messenger laughed nervously, acutely aware of the arm locked around his neck as the two of them walked off to grab a drink.
***
“So, provided Belcourt buys it… what about Cyril? You think he’s not going to ask any questions?” Lucian pressed. “I don’t think he would, either, but I want to play devil’s advocate.”
“He’d never eschew influence, and potentially deeper ties with Heavenwatch Monastery, because it’s built on a lie,” Aurelia posited. “He’ll be using us just as much as we’re using him. It’ll provide him footing in the diplomatic game in the Concord to use our prestigious name.”
“Okay… that’s the more problematic concern down, then,” Miriam said. “What about Rowan and the student ambassadors?”
“Rowan’s a shrewd guy,” Lucian insisted. “He’s been putting up with my weird shenanigans because I saved his life, and a couple of other reasons besides. All the same, he’s going to be less than charitable when it involves lives lost. People in the labor union died, almost definitely. He’ll want answers.”
Aurelia crossed her arms. “Again, I have to propose my earlier idea. It’s the natural tendency of guilty people to think that other people will be suspicious of them. It’s the very guilt that generally evokes the suspicion. If you don’t act guilty at all, you won’t arouse suspicion. We could toss Miriam’s leg into a river, say you got ambushed by demons and got lost in the wilderness for a while… you wouldn’t have to expose anything.”
Lucian bobbled his head uncertainly. “I don’t know. Rowan’s sharp. I’ve been stringing him along for quite a while.”
“I think that she’s just worried her true nature might be exposed to more people,” Miriam said, staring at Aurelia. “She doesn’t want more people like me around. People privy to how awful she is.”
“I was never awful. I just had bad influences,” Aurelia insisted.
Lucian had a cutting comment in mind, but held his tongue. “How can I make him trust me?”
“How am I supposed to tell you when you won’t give me a single hint about how you know all of this?” Aurelia pressed.
Lucian furrowed his brows. She had a point. But he also had a point in keeping all of that information from her.
“Well… just be vulnerable,” Aurelia said. “It works for me.”
“Like you tried earlier?” Lucian interrupted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said bold-facedly. “Anyway, he’s into women, right? She’s pretty. Perhaps Miriam could lose her leg and he could find her—”
“No. What is it with you and putting her into situations where she loses her leg?” Lucian shut it down. “But expand on that. What do you mean, vulnerable?”
“Show weakness,” Aurelia said. “Start off by telling him about the wound to your soul, about the Formless Essence.”
“He can’t see my soul,” Lucian reminded her.
“I’m sure you could work something out to let him know. Either way, it probably won’t happen. You don’t like to be seen as weak, vulnerable,” Aurelia said.
“That’s not…” Lucian bit his tongue a few times. “Alright, fine, maybe. Miriam has the real problems there.”
Miriam glanced at him with a frown. “Why are you dragging me into this?”
“I’m not, I’m just…” Lucian sighed. “I’ll ask again. How do I get him to trust me?”
“You’re acting like this is a complex problem,” Aurelia said. “The answer’s obvious, isn’t it? You earn trust by doing what?”
***
“Basically, I’ve known all along,” Lucian admitted, heeding Aurelia’s advice to just be honest. “I didn’t tell you because I was worried that you would tell other people, and those other people would get the demons on my case, and the demons would… sshk.” He mimed slicing his throat.
Rowan stared at him with his blue eyes. “So… you assaulted a demon stronghold?”
“Yeah, that’s… that’s where I got all of this,” Lucian said, gesturing to the wide variety of trinkets he’d pilfered from Vivari’s safehouse. “When I first came to Verne, with my reputation as it was, I didn’t think there was anyone I could talk to. Metterand was… well, possessed, then I enlisted the Heavenwatch Monastery for that, and now… one thing led to another, and… yeah.”
“But how did you know?” Rowan pressed.
“Lucian travelled back through time,” Miriam said. She looked at him. “That’s the obvious answer, right? You already did something similar with the Jeweled Eye. Other powers like that must exist. You know what did happen, but not what will happen. As things change, the future you know becomes less certain. That suffices to explain everything I’ve seen.”
“It’s, uhh… not quite the answer, but I suppose it suffices to explain,” Lucian said with a nod, then looked at Rowan hesitantly. “Do you…”
“I understand.” Rowan crossed his arms. He paced around for a bit, contemplating things. “Miriam’s right. It explains a lot. Some manner of future sight… it felt like you knew me from the beginning. All those preparations you made…” He nodded. “I believe you.”
Lucian exhaled. “I was worried. I guess it was all in my head.”
“But you have some very angry people on hand.” Rowan looked toward Miriam. “At you, too.”
“Really?” Lucian raised a brow.
“Lombard… the leader of the labor union… he died,” Rowan said. “It was either him, or one of our Student Ambassadors. I… I made the decision.”
Lucian blinked. Typically, losing Lombard was a fail state of the mission.
“He’s dead?” Lucian repeated. “Things… things could get very, very dicey. Lombard was universally loved.”
“Was an ogre,” Rowan said. “Came out of nowhere. I…” He hung his head. “I couldn’t…”
“An ogre?” Lucian said in disbelief. “There wasn’t an ogre in—” the restriction took hold, and he choked. He cleared his throat and then rephrased, “There wasn’t an ogre last time this happened.”
Rowan lifted his head, a little melancholy. “I understand the need to keep this information under close wraps. If it leaks… you could die. And now that I know how valuable you are, I can’t let that happen. Even still, people want answers.”
Lucian and Miriam shared a glance.
“I have an original idea,” Lucian said. “How about we act vulnerable? How about…” he pointed a finger. “…you rescued us after we were ambushed?”
“And I lost my leg, so Lucian stayed to help me,” Miriam contributed. “Hence, the delay.”
“Smart,” Rowan praised.
“And I have the facts to back it up,” Lucian said. “My soul was wounded. And… a certain alchemist we know will back up the claim, moving out of the woodwork to protect his apprentice and her savior. No one will question the integrity of Charlton Lowenthal.”
“Very smart,” Rowan continued.
Lucian felt a bit bitter. They were using Aurelia’s ideas after all.
***
Theobald had begun investigating Duke Cyril largely to help establish some background on the opposition. Considering how scrupulous the man was, he didn’t expect to find a genuine dirt. But his little guided tour of the Villamar estates had revealed something quite disconcerting.
Duchess Lydia Villamar, Lucian’s mother… she hadn’t been truly seen in over a year.
He had checked with places she was purported to be, but found nothing. He had gone to her many homes, and all of the duke’s estates—neither hide nor hair of her. He had asked around about all the places that she frequented, but none of them reported seeing her for a very long while, each over a year.
Theobald held up a letter to a lamp in Golvenne. “Bingo.”
Duke Cyril Villamar maintained she was alive and well, going so far as to send correspondence in her name. There was dirt, here. Big dirt. And he’d only just scratched the surface. Cyril had some major secrets.
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Comments
AddnSubtract
Uh oh angry people right before a criminal trial
Michael Vonica
It's kind of funny how, despite her contact with Belcourt, Aurelia never learned how an inquisitor's powers really work. She must have at least known he was Belcourt Asheford, the evil first inquisitor. But in all their talks, he never explained to her how to identify an inquisitor, or exactly what an inquisitor can do and how they do it. Had he done so, she wouldn't have been so easily tricked by Lucian. There was another thing I wanted to add on, continuing with all that Formless Essence speculation I was doing last chapter. One of the biggest problems Formless Essence gives Lucian is casting speed. Maybe there are some clever solutions for this? There are two methods that we've already seen that I think can help Lucian: consumables, and blessings. We know how scrolls work. They contain a stored spell, and when ripped, the spell is absorbed by the user. The user then gains an instinctual knowledge on how to cast that spell. The downsides here are that, even if you make the scroll yourself, the physical materials necessary to contain the spell are probably expensive. The scrolls can also be lost or destroyed, and you can't just rip them and hold the spell in forever (probably). Blessings, specifically the abilities they grant, are very interesting. Like scrolls, blessings store a fully usable ability within a person, and grant them an understanding on how to use it. There are no physical materials involved here, just divine energy. These abilities can come in both one time use forms, like the shifting flow, or they can automatically replenish themselves over time for multiple uses, like the giant's heart and soothsayer. The only problem with blessings is maybe the fact that the abilities themselves are complex and poorly understood, and that examples of them are so rare. Now, with Formless Essence, Lucian may be able to combine these two approaches. Blessings may be too complex for Lucian to try creating his own any time soon, but what about just copying their ability storage feature? Or the feature that allows them to regenerate those stored abilities? Lucian could make a holy healing spell with divine energy, and use that divine energy to permanently stick it onto himself, so that he can cast it later at a moments notice. He could do this with any spell, really, and he could stick as many onto himself as he wanted. If Lucian ever finds out how to make the spells regenerate naturally, and how to manually speed up that regeneration with his Formless Essence, he might even be able to recover to his prior casting speed. All he would need to do is convert the Formless Essence into the proper type of energy, feed it in, and let his artificial blessing do the casting for him. Although maybe that would still be too slow. I was also talking about the potential of copying alchemical energy with Formless Essence before. A problem there is also storage. The solution above applies here as well. No need to stick the copied alchemical energy onto a physical object, if it can be permanently stored in an artificial blessing. One last potential option, that doesn't involve divine energy at all, is just to make long lasting, versatile spells. Basically, just have large amounts of the purely magical energy just stick to Lucian all the time in the form of a spell, and have the spell be complex enough for Lucian to direct it post casting. So he can make it attack, defend, heal, or support as he needs. But who knows if a spell that complex is even possible?
WarStrider72
So Lucian has gained a bard in his adventure. Aurelia can certainly “sing” a tune to string people along.
Undead Writer
TFTC!
Gopard
she is also prime suspect in experimenting on her children with how she and Cyril were talking about "her just wanting a project of her own" but then she "couldn't care less about any of them either way" she is obviously a bad person. She was definitely alive at the start of this story, yet she obviously also NEVER did anything to change Cyril use and 'non-parent' Lucian into the shitty idiot he became while also selling of her autistic (or similar) daughter to a demon possessed asshole who hurt and abused her daily... These two do not at all deserve any pity I don't think. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets revealed that the two of them experimented on Lucian and his sister and then when they turned out "more and less crippled, but damaged either way" used Lucian for political schemes and games all but forcing him and letting metterand mold him into the idiot he is at game start.
Rebel
Now I wonder how Theobald is gonna fit in to all this. Belcourt is going to target Cyril, just as Teddy is investigating Cyril as well to play defense for Lucian, who is Cyril's son and on trial for crimes committed mostly by his father (or by his command) and was put on trial by his father. So Theobald and Belcourt end up working together to undermine Cyril inadvertantly? How's that going to look for Lucian if it's ever revealed demonic worshippers tried to directly or indirectly help him? This is a political clusterfuck.
John
Thanks!
Michael Vonica
Lucian's mom having been missing for a whole year is crazy. The only reason that Lucian is an auxiliary is because she forced Cyril to bribe the school for the spot. At least, that was the story according to Cyril. Belcourt is in a tough spot. But I think it makes natural sense for him to begin by trying to get his new number one enemy, Cyril Villamar, off the board. Luckily, Cyril has a perfect loose end for Belcourt to target: his lousy son, Lucian, who has no power or backers, and is on trial for murder. Belcourt can just walk on in, bribe Lucian or use some demon magic on him, and extract some intel on Cyril, before forcing Lucian to try and kill him. Easy no risk plan, right? It's funny how Lucian felt weak after having his aversion to appearing weak put on display, so he tried to make himself feel better by pointing out that Miriam was even weaker in this regard than him. Seems like Lucian is going to have to play politics to work around Lombard's death, and keep this situation from escalating. Probably work on convincing people that he is actually a useful and capable auxiliary, despite his recent absence.
Derek Zoolander
Obviously Lucian ran off to elope with his many beautiful wives.
.m
Lady was depressed before and taking dissociative baths. She probably meant to disappear. Leave her alone.
Jake
Ty for the chapter! 🫡
