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Interlude: "Why Do We Live For?" - 2
🕑 Added 2024-04-01 06:12:05 +0000 UTC*
Lawrence Farens' mansion in the capital met all the requirements of a dwelling of a very important person. Not that the detective himself needed such opulent mansions, but he liked and respected luxury, and if his position permitted - and in some places obliged - him to have such a mansion, why not?
Bastian Roche could not say with certainty that he understood his mentor. Anyone who thought he understood this living legend was mistaken, as the young detective had seen time and again. Yet for all his ability to see through and understand, Lord Farens had an uncanny ability not to waste his energies where they were not needed. Whether his apprentice wants to waste his limited spare time on his antics is entirely the apprentice's problem. As long as he manages to do his mentor's bidding without neglecting his self-development, he can have fun. He can have fun in brothels (as long as he doesn't get into trouble), drinking wine in boxes, or looking for another black cat in the underground caves, where there have never been any black cats.
Bastian was well aware that the mentor did not believe he was right, nor did he believe in the success of his actions. Whether he decided to let his apprentice experience the bitterness of defeat himself by teaching a lesson against stubbornness, or whether he was interested in seeing the result of the study... Bastian did not know, even despite his class.
But he did know that working at the limit allowed him to level up incredibly fast. The young man was really worried about the rate at which his class trait was increasing. Over the past few months the Guesses had reached fifty, giving the boy an epic perk, and yet he was also managing to develop skills with abilities. The last time he'd managed to upgrade his Unrestrained Guess to the maximum fifth level without investing any points, he'd had to bury his eyes and ears in a healing potion. And then, by some miracle, he didn't get his brain on the table in the truest sense of the word.
But it was so worth it!
Whoever the mysterious "Face Under the Mask" was, somehow it avoided his intuition, as if Bastian were trying to catch an incredibly slippery eel by the tail. He sensed the presence of the person he was looking for, but all his skills couldn't latch on to the truth - too little information, too stealthy a target. Yes, the Intuit Investigator can do a lot of things, but even he can't pull information literally out of thin air!
When this sad truth reached the determined young man, he immediately stopped banging his head against the wall. Pride is pride, but not to this extent! Realizing that the supposed foreign Hero had escaped his attention, Bastian began to sift through the sieve of his intuition all others associated with the case. Looking not for a stone that had already disappeared beneath the water, but for the circles made by this stone on the smooth surface of the water. It was already a move of despair, stemming from an unwillingness to give up.
At first, it had been just that - the few little flashes of intuition associated with the Adventurers' Guild of Kraj had turned out to be nothing. His workload was growing heavier and heavier, and there was less and less time left for personal work, and he should not have forgotten about his rest. The mentor loved the progress of his protégé and began to train the heir of Roche with triple the effort, leaving no time to waste.
Today he did not activate his skills in that direction at all, being fully occupied with the teacher's task. The recent scandal at the elven embassy provoked a veritable avalanche of events, culminating in the death of disgraced Advisor Mariun. Naturally, everyone who knew the cause of the scandal knew exactly who had killed the old freak (here Roche, whose family had lost a lot of blood to the intrigues of the Sixth Advisor, was a little biased), but they didn't make much noise. Even his mentor had given him an assignment purely to see how much the apprentice could understand about what had happened.
The apprentice understood a lot, and then he was pretty surprised when the forgotten thread of investigation that had broken in the Kraj suddenly came to life again. A whole night of vigilance, ending in nosebleeds had yielded an unexpected result. No, there was no arguing that it was the elves who had killed the Advisor, but then...
To begin with, the mopping up of all those associated with the elite squad of slave hunters was not initiated by elves at all, even though they picked up the baton with great enthusiasm, as the mentor must have known even without Bastian. Nor had the deceased's rivals intervened, of which Lord Farens must also have known. But no one but Bastian himself could have known that his intuition had literally screamed the connection between this attack and that strange Face under the Mask of the Kraj.
After that, with a clear conscience, he gave up on the analysis of the consequences of the death of the former Sixth Advisor, as well as on the likely redistribution of markets of influence - it was necessary to seize the moment before the trace cooled down completely.
Let's say we are dealing with a foreign Hero sent to Melareth.
It is a Hero, and it is a Hero with rare artifacts, otherwise, the newbie would be devoured quickly by the creature that appeared in Kraj. For someone who isn't summoned, there's nowhere to gain the experience and skill that would allow him to survive the carnage without being detected. So he is, after all, a summoned.
Next.
Why would the curators of the Summoned save the Kraj? Why would they want to destroy the Red Knot and contribute to Silay Mariun's demise? It is trivially too unprofitable to be a reality. Every single one of Melareth's neighbors would either have already priced their summoner out of a risky battle, or they would have tried to do as much damage as they could by his actions.
It can't be the elves, for they didn't give a damn about people's problems and certainly wouldn't allow an underage kinsman to be used in their operation (though if not the latter, it would be a very good guess).
That leaves, or he can imagine, only one option. One in which the summoner's actions benefit Melareth as a nation, but also drown the mysterious power's rivals. There have been as many as two summonses recently. The first was three years ago when the Dissector was summoned, but this Hero, despite a very strong legendary fighting class, does not possess the declared abilities.
The second summons failed, and there was even an investigation (by Lawrence himself) about it. It seems that a couple of embezzlers were executed - the King was furious about the money that had been wasted.
Summary?
Someone in Melareth has managed to summon a Hero on their own, outside the King's office, to pump him up, and now they are quietly using him to discredit the forces of the Crown and consolidate their position, not forgetting the good of the country. If this is not a bid for a possible rebellion - an assassin of the current monarch being prepared at the same time - then Bastian will laugh out loud.
Looks like the weekend is delayed for now.
But now the mentor certainly won't discard his versions for anything.
He would have gladly entrusted the stack of old notes to one of his servants instead of carrying it across town himself. Except that what was written on those sheets was too secret to let those servants live. And so he'd only managed to get access to that section of the library with the name of his mentor and a couple of the bribes Lasya had mentioned, and he'd spent half his monthly salary on them. And he's not poorly paid, even though he's a trainee!
With a quiet clatter and a cloud of dust, the stack of papers and parchment in roughly equal proportions ended up right on the table, next to two others that had already been disassembled. Intuition immediately jerked his perception, making him notice the small fact that the papers were not in the order in which he had left them. And some of those papers were missing altogether!
He was already reaching for the alarming amulet when its action was interrupted by the hoarse and smoky voice of his associate:
"Don't be in a hurry to yell, kid." The priest who had emerged from invisibility was as uncoordinated, unkempt, and inexpressibly insolent as ever, and his fingers, with their chewed and broken fingernails, were clutching the sheet of notes Bastian had written in his hands. "It is too early to make a fuss."
"I demand an explanation. By what right did you pry into the private and classified..."
"Don't screw my brain, kid." The rudeness of the answer took the heir of the House of Roche's breath away with indignation. "My access is as darn good as yours, and now you could have raised a lot of shouting and made yourself look like a little retard. And Lawrence would be reminded of that, he's got a lot of enemies."
"Explain it immediately." With great difficulty, Bastian got his nerves under control. First of all, he knew how to admit mistakes. And to believe that the former operative of the secret guard had managed to understand something from his notes that the recorder himself could not realize due to lack of data was much easier than he would have liked. No matter how powerful his intuition, it was no insurance against mistakes.
"Oh, you're so formidable!" He grinned, but then he looked serious. "You see, boy, you're looking at the problem all wrong. You're looking for someone to make an unsanctioned summons. You even go through all the trips overseas taken by our high lords and advisers. And the fucked up thing is, those routes are already being monitored, even without you. A whole corps reporting specifically to the King himself. And what you suspected, they would have noticed much sooner because that's their bread and butter."
While Bastian was just panting with humiliation, the damn priest sipped some crap from the flask on his belt, grimacing in the process, and then resumed his lecture.
"Alda Crystals, Black Lily, Gray Leaves - it's a commodity whose turnover is monitored so tightly that if it were anyone's intention, Lawrence would be the one who'd be investigating it. And don't talk about the waybill fraud - it's not that kind of merchandise. It's always counted in fractions of a gram, and all the "accidental losses" are checked so that the skins come off. I'd still believe your version if it weren't for the fact that both operations by the mysterious Mask were of no direct benefit to possible insurgents. Really? Silay's death doesn't change a thing - they're already preparing a new one to replace the shithead. If anyone benefited from this, it's His Majesty himself, and he does not need to hide such operations."
At such moments the old assassin began to speak too purely and correctly, revealing in himself the man he had once been. Before he decided to quit his main job and go into religion.
"But then who?" Immediately the detective intervened. "Destroying my version does not remove the connection between the Knot and Kraj. There are no other links, no interested parties other than Mask?"
The anger gradually disappeared, replaced by a strange mixture of irritation and gratitude. Yes, the man was inordinately rude and abominable, but he knew his business, and his intelligence was superior to that of many a scholar. It was clearer than ever why he had been tolerated in his position and why he had been allowed to leave it peacefully.
"And you were right from the beginning." The priest spewed his version out at him and then continued without letting him get indignant. "It really is a Hero. The one who was summoned right after the Dissector."
"But... But the Summon was unsuccessful! I personally saw the documents, and the mentor was involved in the investigation of possible saboteurs! The spoiled blood of the Amerian Wolf was the culprit! To me... well, to the mentor, the sages swore on their lives that the reagents taken from that beast had simply expired, for it had been fifty years since the legendary beast had been killed! I... I can't imagine why you would make such a fuss just to convince everyone that it's a failure! Melareth's credibility is only diminished by this, and if the king needed a secret assassin and eliminator, he could simply hold the summons behind closed doors!"
By the end, the detective was almost screaming, clearly in a state close to hysteria - long and hard work, multiplied by several failures in a row and, as the cherry on the cake, a complete misunderstanding of the possible motives of all involved. His interlocutor seemed to enjoy the young man's bewildered look before responding to the stream of outrage.
"Well, our people may think what they want, but the summoning, I can bet my lucky coin, was successful. It's just that Hero was summoned to the wrong place, and an error in the ritual prevented them from catching the fact of summoning itself. Think of it as my intuition, little one."
The priest's words gave him a headache at first, from trying to comprehend and calculate the situation. And when he did, the hairs on his head began to stand on end in pure horror.
"You must be mistaken." He said in a steady and stony voice, keeping his face. "You just have to. Kraj. Yes, Kraj. If it were a free Hero, he should have shone his Status, which would have attracted attention. They were always described as too reckless individuals, he, or she, would not deliberately hide from possible searchers. And neither I nor the mentor noticed anything."
"Ha! You noticed that, didn't you? They just didn't believe you for your unlikelihood!" The priest was quick to answer. "And he might as well have realized that he wasn't welcome in the world. Heroes are very good at that. Guessing, yes. And with the summoning process itself, his paranoia must have been high."
"But... No! No. If he knows there's going to be trouble. Why would he interfere in a battle with a Cult? Why attack the Knot? It's too stupid. Following that logic, he is simultaneously behaving like a master infiltrator, erasing all traces of his being anywhere, like erasing the memory of freed slaves. But. Along with this, he sticks his nose into danger, committing acts that can't help but leave traces. Also. He. He doesn't clean up every trace. The elite wing of the Kraj Adventurers' Guild. The slaves themselves from the Knot camp. It's all too silly. Illogical."
Bastian's speech became intermittent from the class skills working at full power - the detective was desperately overloading his own abilities, looking for inconsistencies and even seemingly finding them.
"I can see that you've done a pretty good reading on the subject, but you haven't delved into the depths of the historical chronicles." The former assassin chuckled as he made himself comfortable in the nearest chair. "You're the one who called the summoned stupid and reckless. Do you know why they were so, lad?"
"Because all at once they got a power they'd never dreamed of before," Sebastian answered as if it were written. "Simple gray souls, peasants, commoners, and scribblers, stripped of all the restraints on their whims and given the power to impose their truth on anyone. That's why they weren't tolerated - they didn't know their place at all, wanting to bring their vision of the world to a place they weren't invited to."
The only response was laughter - the same nasty, slightly grunting laughter. It was as if a drunken country pig, not unlike a human, was laughing at a vulgar joke from the same freak. Bastian habitually let the priest's game pass his ears, getting deeper and deeper into his abilities.
"That's right, phew, yeah." The man continued the conversation after he calmed down, bursting into laughter and giggles. "Right, but not right at all. They were the fools not because of power. They weren't, by and large. You see, kid, Bastian, yes, the thing about Hero is that it's not just three classes and three points of enhancement every 5 levels. No, it's more than that, and it's what made the summoned afraid, afraid to their knees, even now blowing on water and fearing any relapse. The Hero is always ahead. Where the Hero walks, the circle of events follows. Some believed that the very presence of the Hero causes trouble. This, by the way, is wrong, no. Heroes don't call trouble; they open up boils. Where a simple check will show nothing, the Hero will find the problem and make it come out. If there isn't one, there won't be a problem either, but if there is one..."
Another sip from the flask, another nasty, horrible laugh coming out of the throat of an old assassin whom Bastian had quite in vain considered harmless.
"It is not an influence on probability, or at least, not only. It's just that a Hero cannot be shut up with a bribe, cannot be stopped by nobility and title, cannot be turned aside by a false trail. Or rather, it's all possible, but it's costly." At that moment the priest showed his hands a huge circle, shaped like an ass. "Also Hero can speak, yes. They've always been able to ignite hearts and get right into them - it's their destiny to lead people to their goal. Not necessarily a good one, or at least a normal one, but to some kind of goal. They set it for themselves, and then they look for those who would be on their way with the Hero himself. Scary feature, yes. Just strong bastards no one would be afraid of, but strong bastards who can not just rip the heart out of a lord they don't like, but also lead people and non-humans, gather like-minded people around them..."
The speaker was silent for a moment, smirking at something of his own... Or just savoring a drink from his flask; here Bastian's intuition was silent, completely focused on the main task at hand.
"The Yoke was created for the specific purpose of subjugating the Summoned and depriving them of these two traits. The tendency toward trouble and the ability to cause a rebellion with a sermon or two. And to take away their arrogance, yes. Not many people like to be whipped to death for a couple of screwed-up peasant girls. That's how the Heroes we know now came to be - just really, really, really strong warriors, mages, and other classes. Striking power, Blade of Kings, but nothing more. That's why they're so careful about purity of summoning - one strong bastard isn't dangerous for Melareth, but one strong bastard that can lead all the discontented to it is a different matter altogether."
Another sip, followed by a new batch of information, for the possession of which without hesitation is killed or paid with mountains of coins, and Bastian listens in silence to everything the priest of the roads said.
"For ours, and not just ours, it's a lot easier to deal with our own Heroes. Even if there are only a handful who can take the half-hundredth level, even if they are about a quarter of a grade lower than the summoned, even if they demand a lot more than the summoned, they are our own. The good old familiar shitheads, the ones who've made connections and gained power, often are. They too have these characteristics, albeit much weaker, reduced. But they will go to the dialogue, simply because they are used to living well, used to be on top. And those who will not remain silent simply will not live to become and exalt."
A dozen seconds of silence, during which the priest took a few more sips from the flask and yawned while scratching the back of his head, and then he continued.
"You know, kid, we're all sort of Heroes in our own story. We can all be heroes ourselves. Deep in the fucking theory, of course, but we can. If you regularly go into the thick of it, serving in the army, rushing into every battle with the enemy. If you don't get out of all the tombs and wildlands, cleaning up the monsters for years. If you are the first master in your business, holding on to all the trade or administrative operations of half the kingdom. Such a person is no longer just dirt, not just someone's mutt, trained for blood. They become Heroes themselves. If they live long enough, of course. If they still have something to live for."
Another sip and the rapidly intoxicated priest continued to pour out information to Bastian that he would not be able to possess for years to come. He naturally listened, ignoring the irreverence and the manner of speech - such a thing must be heard, and if this drunkard would shut up because of his manners, he would not forgive himself.
"Sometimes it happens that Yoke starts to malfunction. Regardless of a Hero's power and classes, it just happens. Nothing fatal, the most basic functions don't go anywhere, but some aspects of heroism slip through the cracks. No, they're all given special potions, and they try never to be left alone so they don't miss anything. But it happens, yeah. If some slut His Majesty's middle son fucks starts looking at sunsets in her spare time, that's fine, let her enjoy the scenery. If she's socializing with someone other than her chosen entourage, that's okay too, though they try to keep that out of the way. It's more for secrecy than for security reasons, because a person who is summoned may catch a glimpse of something unnecessary in a conversation. If such a slut manages in a few conversations to convince a perfect murderer that there are other values in the world than blood and gold, it's cause for concern if it becomes known."
Another sip, after which the empty flask flies into the corner, and the hall is filled with the contented and satisfied burps of a well-drunk man, which makes Bastian shiver, despite his desire to keep his face.
"They may not even care if the girl continues to be friends with the "new comrade," especially if that comrade is also a Crown follower. But if, on the other hand, she mentions to her girlfriend "in confidence" that it bothers her when her controller loses her holes at cards for a couple of nights... there's only one thing to do - cut out her legendary class, and forget about the waste resource. That's the way it is, Bastian."
The pain in his head was overwhelming, but he was running through it with all the possibilities, adding the information he had, building a coherent inconsistent picture, and placing it all together. He could see, as if he were present there, the summons that had been deemed unsuccessful, the hero is thrown into a forest full of goblins, giving him time to pump up and take his strength. He had seen it all.
"I, uh, I just got the clairvoyance skill." That's all the young man could say. "Thank you for your information, Shyngys. It is... I can't tell you how important it is. We need to notify the mentor right away, to the Royal Court. We were too late to react, but all is not lost, and the danger is not so great."
The headache was draining away, and the increased level and the closed first rank of the class spoke for itself - the current guess of the already far from novice investigator was very significant, just can not tell how significant, and the detective himself can quite seriously claim a place to compete even his mentor... if only in the distant future.
"Yeah," The former assassin replied, not giving young Roche's speech even formal approval.
However, today's participation gave Shyngys a great deal of credit and respect from the lad who was already on his way out of the hall. No matter how strong the Hero was, the kingdom would have something to answer for the lone wolf. And surely the King will not forget those who bred the insect lurking in the shadows, the pitiful but deadly poisonous one.
For Bastian Roche, the colors of the future seem extremely bright...
...grey...
He had no time to notice, no time to fend off the attack, no time to be surprised, or even to realize his death. Here he was taking the last step toward the door, about to take the handle, when he was gone.
A cloud of road dust, spreading from the unmoving priest, covered the whole room. The detective too weakened and exhausted by his long work to notice and smell the treacherous attack, was vaporized to ashes almost instantly. A moment later, all his sheets and notes disappeared, literally erased from the universe, killing the work of the never-risen star of the investigation. A few seconds later, the entire room looked incredibly clean and tidy, leaving no trace of any living person there - even the specialized skills of interrogators and detectives couldn't find anything intelligible.
Standing in the middle of the empty room, the man squeezed his slanted eyes shut tight, his frank bandit face twisted painfully, and his breathing remained heavy and intermittent. For a second he thought he was going to drop dead, biting off more power than he could chew, but fate saved him again.
For some reason.
He managed to leave the building rather quickly - in the capital the chief always had enough work not to keep an eye on his apprentice. The servants did not see the assassin at all - he entered the house in stealth, not even using the amulet key handed to him. The next was a quick visit to the Royal Library, where he carefully removed the records from the attendance cards, learning from them who had given the deceased young man the books, scrolls, and diaries he had requested.
Four accidents followed, arranged with the usual ease. After a decade of idleness unused skills had rusted a bit, of course, but no more than that. It was enough for bookworms. In the last case, the "accidental robbery" was a clumsy job, but at least he'd won himself a few days.
Farens is a clever and meticulous man - he learns pretty quickly what books his missing apprentice had taken. It would take him much longer to come to the same conclusions as Shyngys did, but the legendary detective would find out soon enough. Somewhere along the way, he will suspect the involvement of his personal priest in this disappearance. He would not understand the motive, since it stays unknown, even when he resigned from the service, but the suspicion itself would remain. He will not be able to lead him by the nose for long - he is so young but too experienced.
However, he had already won some time.
Once again taking up arms
Taking other men's lives again.
Breaking the promise made upon taking the priestly dignity.
He had once promised to survive, to be able to survive, and to go on, walking his road to the end. Until the dust on his boots covers his forgotten wounds.
"Ansham-Nar, ah, Ansham-Nar!" As hoarsely as if to growl, said the priest leaning against the filthy wall of another alleyway. "Fuck you, Ansham-Nar! I renounce!"
The wild pain throughout his body didn't make him scream, though it did make him slip quietly down the wall, biting his lip bloody and struggling to endure the excruciating agony. The divine curse was now trying to grow into his essence, but if he could withstand it if the god himself decided not to intervene personally if the cocktail of a dozen very rare potions he had taken earlier worked if his will and conviction could stand the test... then there are other options.
He unbent, glanced at his status, and smiled a rather red smile, spitting up the blood that filled his mouth. The Eternal Wanderer is one of the forbidden classes and the kind whose owners prefer to be either quickly enslaved in the same secret guards or entourage of someone powerful, or nailed down. If you still meet the usual Walker of the Road from time to time, then his new class is truly unique. Legendary Grade, motherfucker!
Now you can't beg the deity for more power than you have. On the other hand, you don't have to draw energy from a god, but from the Endless Road, which allows you to repeat many of the tricks in the priests' arsenal, and adds a lot of your own abilities as well. There is something to risk, something to refuse the help and protection of one of those who long ago...
It doesn't matter, though.
Once, he had voluntarily replaced his first class of Assassins with the priestly class, even though he didn't want it too much (as if there was a choice), and his second class, obtained in the twenty-fifth, was blocked. Now the blockage was gone, and his overall fighting power was even stronger. He wanted to laugh - he was going to die in agony, no matter how carefully he prepared. There were still priests who had survived the renunciation, but not many who had retained their powers. Those who had multiplied it in such a way... Shyngys had only seen such things in reports marked "unverified rumors".
He survived again.
What fort?
He fell to the muddy ground with a soft rustling sound, simultaneously throwing a noise suppressor beside him, and then burst into a wild, mad and frenzied laughter. Laughing to the point of pain and nausea, he laughed at himself and his own life, which would not end, for some reason going on and on despite all his efforts.
Exorbitant amounts of alcohol, cheap brothels, and smoking salts - he tried incessantly to bring his pumped-up body to the point of collapse, unable to break his once-promised promise to survive. Every drink, whether fine wine or cheap booze, had the iron taste of blood in his mouth, food carried the smell of burnt cloth and wood, and the body of another whore could not drown out, shut out, interrupt the sensation of the last touch...
The man was lying in the mud.
He laughed and sobbed at the same time, gradually subsiding, throwing out all the anger, despair, sadness, and resentment of the universe itself that had accumulated over the years of silent self-destruction. The brief attack passed, leaving behind heavy breathing and cloudy eyes, leaving an eager desire to go forward, straight to the palace on the rise, and then to kill and kill until the damned stone mass collapsed, burying all the dirt accumulated there under its debris.
The hand was clutching an amulet that had been taken off - a simple copper coin with a hole in the center, through which was stretched a harsh thread. Not even an amulet, a mockery.
"You see, Rebecca, I'm still alive." The broken voice was hoarse even more than usual, giving a rather repulsive impression. "But now I think I finally know why."
There are a lot of skills that allow you to peek into the status of the person you're inspecting. Fortunately, if you know who has what skills, if you know the mechanics of inspections and interrogations, you can try to hide almost anything.
The owner of forty-eighth level and two classes, one of which, suddenly, turned out to be legendary, could say about it absolutely precisely. For when he decided to "go religious" without explaining anything, which was (thanks to the loss of one and the blocking of the second class) one of the few ways to leave the service without a knife in the back, no one noticed one small detail in his status.
Titles: Companion of the Fallen Hero
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Authors note:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tvMOp3rrnLK4bUY8fBCqEEtl1sUwmEOD/view?usp=sharing - I think I found a weapon for the main villain.
This interlude does not show everything that I wanted to show, so the next chapter will also be it.
I also laughed at the little elf adventure. He really did not laugh, but he'll be able to brag to the big-eared ladies about how he was captured by short-eared slave traders and evil witch doctors as a child, and then boom, they're all dead!
And Shyngys - he was actually supposed to play a role lot later, but Bastian just bombarded me with crits. Seriously, he was luckier than the MC... to a certain point. Even felt a little sorry for him, because he had a couple of interesting episodes hanging on him, but that's just how it turned out.
