Names and notions

After sending the guards away, Lucia returned to the status screen, which had been suspended in mid-air. Taking out a skillstick, she said, "I'm going to make a visual record of this, so step back, Your Excellencies."

The others complied with her words, and as she busied herself with the skillstick, Dia found herself deep in thought. From what True Analysis had revealed, the man himself was twenty-nine years old. Unless he was supremely talented and spent every waking moment practicing with his spear, there was no way he could be that skilled.

It was possible that someone like him could exist, but the evidence from Risti's Last Words, plus her unique experience with Experiential Potions, told Dia that her hunch was far more likely to be possible. Experiential Potions were probably used liberally to make such a killing machine.

"Alright," said Lucia, brushing some hair away from her eyes. "Done. I'll get it sent over to the Association later, after I'm done with the report. Do Your Excellencies have anything else to add? Anything interesting that I should know and include in my report."

Risti cleared her throat. "Well, his age and his skills, I guess. Twenty-nine and he's already a master of the spear? Especially since he's not famous…or rather, given that he's a slave."

"A slave…" Lucia narrowed her eyes. "You're assuming an awful lot based on a single name there, though. No self-respecting evildoer would call anyone that nowadays. It might be a ruse or something. Designed to make us look for some non-existent slaveowner. To begin with, slavery is something Emperor Grandis himself personally prohibited. Going against his order is…"

Her words trailed off with a tremble, and Lucia shook her head. "Anyway! I'll make a note of that and send it up, but it's not really something you need to make a mention of it. The people closer to the Moons would also note that bit the moment they saw the report. But thank you anyway. Anything else?"

"Right, I think the man was drinking some potions," Dia added. "There were lots of small potion bottles near him, with some unidentified liquid in them. Maybe it's something like a narcotic? When I encountered him, he had a…how do I put it…hollow expression? Like he was empty inside."

"Potion bottles?" Lucia squatted down over the body. "Not just that, is it? You brought back anything that looked useful, but okay. Potion bottles…found it."

She got back up, a bottle in her hand. Of the dozen-odd bottles there, this was the only one with some residue left behind, but for obvious reasons, Lucia and the others didn't try to taste it.

"Empty inside, eh?" Lucid mused out loud. "His face really doesn't have any expression on it. Nothing about pain, or hatred…just nothing."

"He didn't even shout or react in surprise when I charged him," Dia added. "Really creepy."

"And you're suspecting that it's because of these potions?" Lucia asked.

"Precisely so," said Dia. "I'm not sure how to put it, but he showed none of the usual expressions or reactions that I would expect, especially since it was an ambush. In fact, it was odd how he was able to react without any surprise or fear at all. I'm not sure how that's possible — I've never heard even battle-hardened warriors doing such a thing — but it is what it is."

"To add on to Dia's words," said Risti, "when I checked on his last thoughts with a skill, those thoughts were all jumbled up. As if lots and lots of people were speaking or something. It was such a mess that I couldn't discern anything of use, but such a phenomenon could only come from something like hallucinations."

Lucia, who was in the middle of holding up the bottle to the Moons' light, lowered the bottle immediately. "Then I'm never going to drink this."

"Good plan, Lucia." Haber crossed his arms. "Still, now that I think about it, this person couldn't have acted alone. It didn't cross my mind earlier, but how did a single person carry so many spears alone? There were ten onsite, and there's been over thirty murders. That's a grand total of forty."

"Maybe he made repeated round trips, but everything boils down to the issue of motive," said Lucia. "It's unfortunate that Your Excellencies failed to take him alive, but given the odd state of mind he was apparently in, this might have been for the best. In the first place, what drove him to kill people in such a manner anyway?"

"Questions, questions." Dia sighed. "But I think everyone's ignoring the elephant in the room, aren't we?"

"Which one?"

That question made Dia chuckle. "Right, there are actually more than one. Well, let's discuss the Church of the Black God and their apparent involvement in this murder."

Lucia froze. "Lower your volume, Your Excellency! It's fine if you want to talk about the gods, but not that loudly!"

Dia turned to look at the others, who had equally perplexed expressions on their face. Clearly, she wasn't the odd one out, which could only mean that Lucia probably had some nasty run-ins with the churches of the Coloured Gods.

"That's…" Dia took a deep breath. "I might sound impolite, but that's quite the reaction."

The officer rubbed her nose. "Right. You guys are not from these parts…wait, I know those looks. What, you think my experience might be related to this case? That my drastic reaction hints at a bad experience with the churches?"

"Well…"

"Uh…"

"Mm…"

"About that…"

Lucia rolled her eyes. "Well, sorry to disappoint, but all these happened years ago. Twenty-six years ago, when I was a kid, the churches of the Coloured Gods rolled into Istrel with full force, and interrogated every family. The ones in the counties and baronies apparently didn't have it so bad, but for us people who live in fiefs like this…"

"What did they interrogate those families for?" Dia asked, curious. Since she was from Lustre, it went without saying that she had no knowledge of something as ridiculous as this.

"Well, I was still very young then, so I don't really know much. And the older folks don't want to speak much about it either." Lucia shrugged. "But my main point in telling you all these is that my reaction earlier had nothing to do with the Church of the Black God."

"I understand."

The others made similar noises of assent.

Lucia nodded and lowered her voice. "It's again fairly presumptive to think that the Church of the Black God has a role in this. It's possible that he was granted this skill at birth, only for disaster to strike. The name on one's status is mutable, after all. If someone kept calling him 'Number Twelve' over and over, and he internalised it…"

"Wait, that can happen?" Dia asked. "Weren't names fixed from birth? The books said that most slaves were numbered from birth, so..."

"It's…very rare," said Lucia. "Criminals are unlikely to subject themselves to the type of mental abuse and hypnotism required to change their name. In the past, prisons did something like this to make identification of felons easier, but apparently, that was from before the Third Godsfall."

"How do you know that little morsel of information, then?" Dia asked. "The Third Godsfall took place six thousand years ago."

"It's part of the history courses all guard officers need to take," Lucia replied. "But we're wandered off the main topic again."

"We seem to do that a lot, yes." Haber cleared his throat. "So, the Church of the Black God—"

"Is probably very innocent in this case," Lucia replied. "From what I can scarcely remember, their skills revolve around—"

"Disabling opponents without killing them," Risti cut in. "Of the nine churches, their skillsets are probably some of the gentler ones. In cities where a good half of their guards are believers of the Black God, injuries and deaths are very rare."

"Uh, yeah. That's about it, I guess." Lucia had a little miffed expression on her face. "We can't really pursue this trail, unless you want to get the bigshots into the picture. And it really doesn't help that the Church of the Black God isn't based in Grandis."

"That's a very good point. And I don't like the prospect of being horribly murdered." Lucid shuddered. "I like my life as it is, thank you very much."

"Shh!" Lucia waved her hand rapidly. "Don't say such things out loud! The Moons have ears! And eyes!"

"Yeah, yeah. I know. Sorry. Now, can we move on to the really odd passive skill? I don't about you, but I think the passive skill is really important." Lucid folded his arms. "Do you guys know what a thrall is? No, not you, Risti."

Risti, who was about to speak, clamped her mouth shut. "Fine. You go ahead and show off."

"I'm the occult expert here, so there."

When did the two of them get so close? Dia didn't know, but it didn't seem like a combination that would be good for her mental health, if she ever regained her position as Princess Dia. It was bad enough to have the others behave like fanatics, but from how Risti was apparently broadening her horizons…

She shook her and dispelled those irrelevant thoughts.

"Ahem." Lucid rubbed his hands. "Thralls refer to beings that are under another's control. This entire murder thing…it's been done at the hands of a pawn. A small team of helpers probably came with a bunch of spears, and then left him there to execute his orders."

"Control?" Lucia blinked. "Like what, Mental Domination? That's a…"

"I know. That skill's forbidden. But I recall that those affected by Mental Domination have a passive skill that says 'Mentally Dominated'." Lucid narrowed his eyes. "Doesn't that sound quite familiar to that Thrall thing? It's just that there's an odd word at the end."

"There's really a person behind the scenes, then." Lucia clicked her teeth. "Alright, I think I better send the report up. I'll use a priority channel or something. You guys are free to leave."

She scuttled out of the courtyard, leaving Dia with some really driven fans of their idols for company.