An Arsonist and a Necromancer Walk into a Bar

Lies From Unseeing Eyes

A bit less than an hour later saw Palmira and Ósma sitting across from each other in the orc's office. The room was much smaller than the foyer, but its walls were packed floor to ceiling with hundreds of books, while papers and quills sat piled haphazardly on the expensive-looking oak desk in the center. A small window was barely visible in the back, on the ledge of which grew a small shrub. The desk in his office, unlike the one in the foyer, was designed to be tall enough for Ósma to sit at comfortably, which meant that even with her legs dangling off the too-high chair, Palmira's chin barely cleared the top of the desk. Being so low down, it made her feel like a child.

She wondered if that was intentional.

"Right," Ósma let out a soft sigh as he relaxed back in his chair, a huge and plush thing that looked far more comfortable than the wooden stool she was sitting on. "Now that those idiots are finally sorted out, I can get to you. Before we begin though, you're sure you still want to join? I won't judge if you don't—heaven knows I wouldn't have bothered with this place if I hadn't spent the last twenty years keeping it in one piece."

Palmira squinted at him. "I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to badmouth your own guild to someone you're trying to hire."

"Maybe not. But I'm doing it anyway. So, is that a yes or a no?"

"Yes," she nodded quickly. "I'm definitely joining. Especially, um… actually, when or how am I getting paid?"

"About that…"

Oh no.

"I'm sorry to say, but if you join this guild you won't be getting paid by us for at least a month—possibly more, if those idiots keep trashing the guildhall."

"A month!?" Palmira winced. He wasn't serious, was he? "Do I really have to wait that long?"

"You remember what I said about us not being able to afford anything, right?" he asked dryly. "Nobody is getting paid until after All Saint's Day at the earliest. Including myself, if that makes you feel any better."

Palmira sighed, slumping. Looks like she'd still be eating stale bread and watery soup for the foreseeable future. And she'd been so looking forward to a hot meal. Maybe jumping at the first guild willing to hire her had been a mistake…

"Moving on. While we can't afford to pay you right now, you still have access to all the perks being a guildmember grants you."

"Perks? What perks?"

"For starters, all guild employees get two free meals at the bar every day."

Never mind, this was the best guild in the world.

He shook his head at her expression. "Don't get too excited. You only get breakfast and dinner. Breakfast is just bread, cheese and cold cuts of salami, while the free dinner is a stew of whatever was left over from the previous night and a single glass of the cheapest wine available."

She got meat? And cheese!? "We get this every day!? Are we truly so blessed!?"

"You also get one free fruit a week from the garden thanks to our local Agromancer, but that's only when he's not out on a job."

Such decadence!

As Palmira zoned out imagining what a lemon might taste like, Ósma continued droning out the perks. "Along with the free meals, you also get the informal patronage of the Cadorna Famiglia. This includes the right to vote in the populous elections, the right to sell goods and services in the city, the right to own property in the city, the right to wear their crest declare yourself part of the Famiglia, and the ability to use their lawyers should you ever end up in any legal trouble. Please never let me find out you had to use that last one."

Palmira blinked, shaking herself. "Don't worry," she reassured him. "I'm not planning on breaking any more laws now that I have a job here."

"…Any more?"

Palmira froze.

Ósma sighed. "Is it going to come back to bite the guild at some point in the future?"

She shook her head mutely.

"Then I don't want to know. Your past is in the past. Just know we've got a three strikes rule here at the guild. Break that and you're out, got it?"

She nodded her head.

"Good," he grunted, looking exhausted. Reaching over, he picked up a large book and placed it between them. "Now, on to your personal information. The guild will need to keep track of some basic information about you if you want access to all the perks. Don't worry about it getting out, we keep only one copy and it's right here. Now to start, what's your full name?"

"Oh! Um, Palmira."

"No last name or other titles?"

"I don't—oh, wait! When I was younger, my mother would introduce herself as di Vittoria. Would that count?"

Ósma grunted. "I could write that down if you want, though I doubt it matters. Di Vittoria just means 'Of the Village of Vittoria'. It was probably just a communal last name for your home village. Does she still live there, or have you moved since?"

"…No. The village is long gone."

Ósma paused, his haggard appearance softening just a bit. "My apologies. I didn't mean to dig up old wounds. I can add the name if you'd like."

"…Wait," Palmira stopped him. "You said that the name just means 'Of Vittoria,' right?"

"Aye. Why are you asking?"

"I haven't lived in that village for a long time," she told him. "I barely remember anything about it. Even my birth home, I…" she shook her head. "I've lived in this city for so much longer. I know the streets and the people and the animals better than I ever knew my birthplace. I don't think I could rightly claim to be 'Of Vittoria' when I barely remember it. So instead, if it's possible… could you put me down as Palmira di Firozzi instead?"

Ósma's eyebrows raised so high they nearly left his forehead all together. "…I assume you don't know the significance of such a name, if that's what you picked. If I was anyone else, I'd be berating you for your arrogance right now."

"…Oh."

"But luckily, I am not anyone else," the old orc gave her a large grin filled with fangs and schadenfreude. "Very well, it's nice to formally meet you, Palmira di Firozzi."

She felt a small smile grow on her face, and she kicked her feet to stop sparks from flying. "It's nice to meet you as well, Signor Ósma."

"Of course. Now, do you have any previous experience in adventuring? Normally I'd have asked that earlier, but your acceptance into the guild wasn't how we'd traditionally gone about it anyways."

"Er, not really," she shrugged self-consciously. "I traveled around a lot when I was younger. My old village was near Iscrimo, so I stayed there for a while. I've also been to Opida and Bocca as well, though I've been in Firozzi for years now."

"Opida, huh? That takes me back," Ósma hummed, his voice turning nostalgic. "I worked there for quite a bit. Back during its golden age, even. It used to rival Palunera as a naval power did you know? But ever since the Demon Wars it's fallen on hard times. It was quite the beautiful city, back in my day."

Palmira shuffled awkwardly, as the old orc lost himself in his memories. "Um, I suppose it was nice when I visited too? I saw a pretty church while I was there. They handed out prawn stew to us orphans, which was kind of them."

Ósma blinked, before shaking his head. "Ah, of course. I wonder how old that church was, perhaps I might have visited it myself, back in the day…? Oh, I'm sorry, we were supposed to be talking about something else. Your experience, right? You said earlier you could use magic?"

"I'm a fire mage, as I said before," she told him, glad to change the topic. "I focus mostly on… I guess you'd call it the Movement of Fire. I haven't really used my magic to fight before, but I know how to use it well."

"Do you mind giving me a quick example?" Ósma asked absently. Then he froze his eyes darting to all the important documents filling the room. The important, flammable documents.

"Oh sure, here you go."

The old orc practically leapt to his feet. "Wait—!"

A small flame burst to life around the head of Morte's staff, just barely licking the edges of the burlap sack. It flickered and snapped for a few seconds, before she snuffed it out.

"I'm sorry!" she yelped, almost knocking herself off the stool in her panic. "What'd I do!?"

"Just…" Ósma sighed and shook his head, looking around and making sure nothing had caught fire. "…No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shouted. Let's delay that test for a bit. At least until we're somewhere, uh, less flammable."

"Oh, right," Palmira felt her face flush. She should have considered that. She was too used to being able to use her fire without worrying about burning anything that she sometimes forgot things could burn. "I'll show you later, then—"

Plop.

She turned instinctively at the noise, and as she looked down she felt her heart catch in her throat.

The burlap sack, which had hidden Morte's skull from the world, now sat on the floor by her feet, charred black by her fire. And now his skull stood bared, that polished cranium of his revealed for all the world to see.

She stared at the skull.

Ósma stared at the skull.

The skull stared back at them.

"Welp, looks like the cat's out of the bag now!" Morte cackled.

Ósma jumped at his voice, before he turned and gave her a look.

"He was on sale," she defended herself weakly.

"I know!" the staff bemoaned. "I've never been so insulted in my life! They were selling me for ten piccoli! Ten piccoli! I mean, sure, I have no idea how much that's actually worth, but if girly here could afford it then it must have been worth next to nothing!"

Palmira scowled and smacked him against the wall, ignoring the "Ow!" he let out. "Ignore him. Please, please just ignore him."

Ósma sighed, rubbing his eyes. "No, I'm sorry, but I can't. Palmira di Firozzi, why do you have a necromancer's staff?"

"It was on sale!" she stressed, her sweaty palms gripping the staff tighter. "I couldn't afford any of the others!"

Ósma stared into her eyes for a long time but, apparently, found what he was looking for. He visibly relaxed, sighing as he did so. "Right, just a dumb kid. Not a heretic," he muttered under his breath. Louder, he told her, "Alright, I believe you. But you can't be walking around with a necromancer's staff as part of this guild. Especially not one that talks. I think we have a few in the back we could swap it out for, and we can take him into the church to be cleansed."

Palmira blinked, feeling relieved but also a little guilty. While she knew it was the right thing to do, turning in Morte just like that somehow felt wrong.

"Ah, no-can-do, Mr. Orc. You see, Palmira and I made a deal here, and that deal means she can no longer use any catalyst besides Moi to use magic! It's such a shame, but if you want your new hire to be useful, you'll have to let her keep ahold of me from now on~"

Palmira froze. "What!?"

"You made a bargain with it!?" Ósma shouted at the same time, an incredulous look on his face. "What in the Devil's name possessed you to do that!?"

"It didn't seem like a big deal at the time!" she defended herself, before turning to Morte. "You never said anything about that!"

"Indeed I didn't!" Morte agreed cheerfully. "But I knew right away you'd throw me away for a better staff without a second thought, so I added some fine print to our little deal the first time you used your magic. Now you can't use any other magical catalyst but me!"

As Palmira stared at him in horror, Ósma clenched his fists against the table, looking one step away from snapping the staff in two. "…What does she have that you want, demon?" he growled lowly. "Depending on your answer, I may destroy you quickly."

"What does she have?" Morte hummed, sounding somewhat more serious than he was before. More serious than she'd ever heard him at least. "She has a voice to speak with, and hands to carry me with, and magic to awe me with. I'm not a cruel creature, Mr. Orc. But I spent the last thirty years trapped in a box with nothing but my own thoughts for company. Thirty years in total darkness, unseen and unheard and unwanted. You ask me what she has that I want? The answer is simple—companionship. And really, isn't that what we all want?"

Ósma's expression didn't move an inch. "And what if I say I don't believe you? Demons are known for tricking mortals with honeyed words. What if I said I'd destroy you right now?"

"Well, you certainly could, but then Palmira here would never be able to use a catalyst again."

Palmira flinched, squeezing the neck of the staff tighter. She wished it was a real neck, so that she could strangle it for real.

"But I'm not a cruel man, Mr. Orc," Morte gave off the impression of a smile. "I'll even submit myself for a test by any holy man or woman in your employ. And it will show that, for all that I am a horrid crime against nature, I am a self-contained one. I couldn't corrupt her even if I wanted to! This staff was created solely to keep the thing that was in it, in. You need not worry about Palmira—I can't even use her mana without her permission. How could I corrupt her if I can't even touch her?"

Ósma didn't look away from the staff for a moment, but he did relax ever so slightly. She wondered if he had some way of figuring out if Morte was telling the truth. "Fine. If you're so confident, then I'll call up an expert right now. And if you've told even the slightest lie in that whole spiel, then I'll have you destroyed in an instant."

"Of course," the staff chuckled. "I would expect nothing less from the brother of the famous Hero of Louve."

Ósma's scowl deepened, but he didn't speak further. Instead he made a strange motion behind his desk, and then settled back to wait.

Palmira shuffled a bit, before finally letting go of Morte's staff, placing it leaning against one of the bookshelves. For an awkward few moments nobody said anything, and she simply sat on the stool with her knees held to her chest.

Finally the door opened, and a woman stepped into the office. She had a square face with a jagged scar that ran from her cheek to her collarbone, and blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun. She was dressed in the armor of one of the Goddess' Holy Knights, and had already cloaked herself in an aura of holy prayer so dense it could be seen, bleaching her skin a pasty white.

"Ósma," she nodded at the orc, before turning to her. "You found something cursed? Is it the girl?"

"No," he shook his head, standing from hie desk. "At least I hope not. It's her staff."

"So the girl's clean?"

"That's what you're here to find out. Check the staff first, then her."

"Understood," she nodded, before turning to the staff and clasping her hands in prayer.

Palmira leaned forward, interested despite everything else going on in what a real Holy spell would be like.

"For the Lady speaks, and through Her dishonest conduct cannot be born. Those who take up Her mantel, remember Her words well. Woe to the falsehoods, the enemies of the Light. Woe to the primordial serpent and it's lies which blind man. Woe to the betrayers and the deceived, who shy away from Her Light. And so let Her Light guide this weary traveler, who so desperately searches for Her Truth."

There was power, there. Power she couldn't comprehend, but instinctively understood. Power that suffused every church and cathedral, every holy site in the world. Power beyond any magic she could ever conjure up.

It was true, what the nuns always said. Those who were under the Goddess' favor could never be bested by mere mortals.

But as the prayer ended, the Holy Knight flinched, eyes widening in shock. "What…?"

Ósma frowned deeply, leaning over his desk. "What? What's wrong? What did you see?"

The woman took a moment to gather herself, before letting out a low breath. "I did not think such a thing would be possible, if I had not seen it with my own eyes…" she shook her head. "Divine power clings to this staff. Not much—barely any, really—but the fact that it even exists at all shouldn't be possible. This staff is steeped in evil, that much is certain. But whatever this was, long ago, it must have been truly loved by the Goddess."

"Loved is a funny way of putting it."

The Holy Knight jumped, hands leaping to the sword at her hip. "It talks!?" she hissed.

"Indeed I do!" Amusement colored his voice, tainted by something bitter. "But that's not such a big deal. Tell me, pretty lady, how dangerous do you think I am?"

She stared hard at the staff, before giving Ósma a questioning look. At his reluctant nod, she continued. "It… he… whatever it is is not dangerous as far as I can tell. There's quite a bit of something going on in there that I can't get a read on, but I can't call it dangerous to us. There's a sort of barrier, around the nexus of the staff. I don't…" she shook her head. "One more versed in the black arts may be able to better explain what it is, but I can tell what it's doing. It's like a hole, that drags everything into it. Be it vile corruption, divine energy, or even just ambient mana, it all gets dragged down. The staff even did something while I was studying it, tried to use its own magic I think. It launched towards me at blistering speeds, but couldn't get far enough away, being dragged back to the center with everything else."

"Could it be building up power for something?" Ósma asked worriedly.

The woman frowned, but shook her head. "No, that's not what's happening. It's all just… vanishing. Into some sort of pitch black, singular point. And then it's gone. I'd know if it was hiding something—maybe not how much was hidden, but I'd be able to tell that at least—but that's not what's happening here."

"You're sure?"

"Yes," the woman stressed, scowling a bit. "I know what I saw, Ósma. Why did you even call me here if you weren't going to believe me?"

The old orc sighed. "Apologies. I trust you, Teresa. But trusting you and trusting that are two very different things."

"…Um," Palmira spoke up for the first time since the Holy Knight arrived. "Does that mean he hasn't done anything to me?"

"I don't know. Actually," Teresa quickly recited the prayer again at her this time, before shaking her head. "No, you're untouched. There are some imperfections lingering, but those are old wounds, not something you could get from this staff in the time since you've owned it."

Palmira let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, relaxing a bit. At least there was that.

"Really," Morte groused. "I can't believe you all just jumped to conclusions like that! Did you really think I'd curse such a young and innocent girl? What do you take me for, honestly!"

The three of them turned to give him a look, before Ósma sighed. "…Very well then. If there's really nothing dangerous about it, then I'll let you keep it for now. But you'll be watched, and have to take weekly check-ins with Teresa to make sure there's nothing wrong, understood?"

Palmira felt one anxiety leave her just for another to take its place. "Yes," she agreed uncertainly. "I understand."

"Good," Ósma sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Good. …Goddess, this is a mess."

"Um, could we maybe, just… continue with the questions?" Palmira asked hesitantly. She wasn't sure if she wanted to, really, but at this point she just needed something to distract her with.

"Aye," the orc grunted. "Let's get that over with while we can. Teresa, do you think you need to stay, or are you heading back down?"

"…I believe I will leave," she nodded reluctantly. "There doesn't seem to be any real danger here, blasphemous as it may be. If the situation changes, make sure to call me again."

"Of course."

With that she left the room, and Ósma turned back to her, though he kept Morte's staff in the corner of his eye. "…Right. The next question. What was it…? Ah. You haven't worked under any other Famiglias before, correct?"

"Oh. Um, no, I've never worked for anyone else before."

"I figured," Ósma grunted, flipping to another page in his book. "Next, what's your permanent address? We'll need to know it if we ever want to get in touch with you."

"…Oh," Palmira winced. "Um, I…"

Ósma glanced up and, seeing the look on her face, sighed. He placed his palm over his eyes and seemed to debate something with himself.

A moment later he abruptly stood up and started stomping out of the room. "Follow me," he grunted.

She started at the sudden movement, but swiftly got to her feet and followed him out. Then she paused, and ran back into the room to grab Morte, who had started to wax poetic about the agony of being abandoned. She knocked his head against every wall they passed to get him to shut up.

"Wait! Um, where are we going?"

"To fix your 'address' problem."

"Huh?"

Ósma led her across the villa, before turning down a hallway filled with doors, Volan numerals plastered on each one. Eventually he stopped in front of a door at the end of the hallway, and bent down to open it up. When he saw her standing behind him awkwardly, he moved out of the way and motioned for her to go inside.

She shuffled a bit, but quickly did as she was told, not wanting to annoy him any more than she already had today.

The room he showed her was small enough that if she stood in the center she could touch both walls at once. Fading pink paint was chipping off the walls, and a small window with broken shutters sat at the far end of the room overlooking an alleyway. In one corner of the room was a bed with a single thin blanket, and a small table and chair sat across from it, next to which stood an empty shelf.

Before she could ask why he was showing her this, he answered for her.

"It's not much," Ósma told her. "These rooms are supposed to be left open for other members of the Famiglia from other cities to stay in if they don't have anywhere else to go. But they always prefer to stay in the big fancy hotels instead, so we normally just rent these out to pilgrims. …If you want, however, you can stay in this room as long as you like. We have enough to spare."

She jumped, spinning around to face him. "What!?" she exclaimed, wide-eyed with shock. "You mean…?"

Was he being serious? There was no way, right…?

"Aye," Ósma shrugged awkwardly, leaning down so he could look at her past the door. "If you want the room, it's yours."

Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and she fell backwards onto the bed, no longer having the strength to stand up. She was simply overwhelmed, the idea that after a decade of living on the streets she'd just be given…

"…Thank you," she rasped, not even caring for the puff of smoke that escaped her mouth. "Thank you so much."

Ósma simply hummed, letting her have her moment.

Truly, she had been blessed.