Twisted Destiny

We enact our plan as we wait for the adventurers and soldiers to set up the space required for the tribunal. My sister, Hilda and I get seated first and get served everything we require, mostly from the soldier’s side. Maybe a bit too on the nose trying to get on our better side, at least I have insight enough to see through that rather quickly. The adventurers, because they all come from our world, are a lot less inclined to do that, instead, they are just working together in little groups, working as efficiently as possible to show off what they can do best. 

Then I get a message from Sam. “Hey, Ami, did the tribunal start yet?” 

“No, not yet. They are still setting up. Did you find anything?” 

“I might have.” She replies. “I still want to look into it a bit further though, but it seems rather promising.” 

“What did you find?” 

“Some bottles stashed in the hollow of a tree outside of the village perimeter. I suspect it to be the same kind of poison that was used to poison the well.”

“Oh, that is very promising, keep me updated, okay? And stay safe too.” 

“I will <3.” 

“Did you get a message from Sam?” My sister leans in and whispers into my ear. 

“I did, how did you know?” 

“Because your face suddenly lit up.” 

“Oh.” I blush. 

“Did she have anything to report already?” 

“Yeah, she might have found the poison bottles that poisoned the well.” 

“Damn, that’s fast.”

“Yeah, looks like this will be more fruitful than I had first imagined.”

“Sam does know what she is doing.” Hilda comments as well, she had been listening in. “So let’s try to not let her efforts go in vain.” Hilda gets up from her seat and looks at my sister. “Come, let’s set up a little zone of truth.” 

“Like the C&C spell?” I ask. 

“A bit.” Hilda smiles. “It’s way less effective but it will make lying quite a bit more difficult to people standing in it. It doesn’t stop you from lying but it makes your body feel very uncomfortable.” 

“I didn’t know you two could do that.” 

“We’ve not used it before.” My sister clarifies as she stands up as well. “But it’s something we theorized about and now seems like a good time to try it out.” 

“Do you want me to help as well?” 

My sister and Hilda look at each other for a couple of seconds before Hilda looks at me again. “Maybe it could be useful if you just kept near us. Who knows, maybe your presence will make it more effective.” 

“Yeah, who knows what your magical aura will do to it. But, since you are known as the Goddess of justice, it will probably be in our favor if anything does happen.” 

“Fair enough… just tell me where to stand and… I’ll go stand there?” 

My sister chuckles. “I mean, I think sitting here would be plenty fine, but if you want to, you can just stick to our sides.” 

“I am most comfy at your sides, so I think I’ll do that.” 

“Awh. Sweetcake.” My sister giggles and ruffles her hand through my hair. 

 

My sister and Hilda commence their little ritual to set up a ‘zone of truth’ in front of our little judging area. In contrast to most other spells, it practically doesn’t even show, apart from the bit of light that comes from the palm of my sister’s hand as she puts it against the ground. From afar I’m sure it wouldn’t even be noticeable, apart from three people staring at the floor, that is. 

It takes around five minutes before they are done. 

“And, did I help?” I ask. 

“Hmm, we will have to see.” Hilda shrugs. 

“We can test it out right now.” My sister comments and stands on the spot she’d been laying her hands on. “Ami, ask me a question. I’ll try to lie and we’ll see what effect it will have.” 

“But you are the one who set it up, aren’t you excluded?” 

“It shouldn’t matter. It’s a kind of holy magic, the only thing that matters is the truth.” 

“Hmmm. Okay…” I scratch my cheek. “Do you love Nikki?” 

“Wow. It will physically hurt me to lie about that even without the spell, you know?” 

“Just do it, Lise.” Hilda pushes my sister on. 

Lise takes a deep breath. “No, I don’t love he-” The moment she says, all the color pulls away from my sister's face as she brings her hand to her mouth. Almost starting to puke. She even collapses to one knee.

“Are you alright?” Hilda quickly helps my sister to get upright already. 

My sister looks ragged as she takes a couple of deep breaths, slowly regaining the color in her face again. “Holy shit, that was way more potent than I thought it would be.” 

“Definitely looked like it, maybe Ami’s presence did help quite a bit.” 

“Hmmm.” I tilt my head at the spot my sister was standing on. 

“Do you have anything to remark, Ami?” Hilda asks. 

“I wonder if it also depends on the scale of the lie.” 

Lise straightens her back again and finally stands on her own once more. “What do you mean?” 

“It was a pretty ‘hard lie’, right? To say that you didn’t love Nikki? I wonder if the same works for half truths.” 

“Huh, that’s a good point. So something that’s not really true but not really false either.” 

Hilda nods. “Alright, I take it I’ll be the test subject for this one.” 

“I’d rather not do that again.” My sister chuckles and walks over to me. 

“Valid.” Hilda nods once more and walks to the spot of truth. “Could you ask me if I like spaghetti?” 

My sister snorts. “Spaghetti?” 

“It’s just an example…” 

“Sure.” 

“Soooo… Hilda, do you like spaghetti?” 

“No.” As she says that, I do notice that Hilda gets a bit paler than usual and that she starts sweating a bit, but not nearly along the line of what my sister experienced. “O-okay… s-so that works too.” It is clearly taking a lot more effort to speak though afterwards. She jumps out of the circle quite quickly to avoid any more discomfort. 

“What’s your deal with spaghetti though?” 

“That… well… I’m not going to say I dislike spaghetti, but you will never see me order it at a restaurant because I don’t like like it. It was the first half-truth I could really think of and it appears that it was a half-truth enough for our little circle here to do its work.” 

“I see.” My sister nods. “In any case, we can relax some more now and just wait for all the people to gather.” 

 

And so we waited some more until half an hour later the first people started gathering in the big tent the soldiers had just finished setting up. It took them a couple of minutes to all get seated, with a clear divide between the soldiers and the adventurers. In total we had around 500 people gathered in front of us.  

My sister stands up as everyone looks to be present. “Alright, is everyone here? From this point on we will consider leaving this tent before a verdict has been made to be considered a plee of guilt. Obviously, going to the bathroom will be permitted though.”

Hilda then stands up as well. “As for the purpose of this tribunal, as you all probably have heard already, but it’s still worth repeating, we are trying to answer the question about who is the most at fault for the current conflict so that both parties can move on with all things settled and done. The three of us will listen to your plees and in the end decide what shall be done. There will be no objecting to the verdict, but we will make sure this tribunal will be held as fair as possible. Does anyone have any questions before we start?” 

A couple of the people from both groups raise their hands, mostly revolving around the question if it is to be believed what the people who plee will say. We quickly explain to them the circle we have set up earlier, this quickly raises a bit of noise in the tent, albeit more about the fact that it’s a kind of magic no one really knew about before and less about the fact that this rules out lying. 

Then the first of many rise up to usher in the start of the tribunal, already beginning with eye witness accounts of people seeing the people of the other camp behaving suspiciously around the well. But what is most curious, is that none of them are lying, even when the said times at which they saw one-another overlap. This also clearly confuses the audience as a whole. 

“Are you sure your circle is working?” One of the army officers asks. “How can they both tell the truth, surely only one of them can be right, right?” 

“Feel free to test the circle yourself, but I can guarantee you it works.” My sister motions towards the circle. The officer, not easily deterred, tries it out and quickly regrets it. Almost fainting completely on the spot. 

-People would definitely have noticed an illusion spell on such a large scale, right?-