Wooden-Beaded Bracelet

Through the night until the bitter-cream sun rose above the distant mountains, Liel and Elienoire scoured every corner of Estelle. This was a feat easier spoken of than accomplished, but once the sun had risen, many of the townspeople saw fit to volunteer.

Elienoire, without a husband to care for her family, worked in the town as a seamstress. Through her work, she had made many friends, and so there was no lack of townspeople who cared to help.

“Isabelle!” Liel called out into the shadows of the twisting architecture, but no answer came.

“Belle!” Elienoire did the same, albeit using a nickname.

‘Will we increase the chances of getting her to answer if we use her nickname? If this is what Miss Elienoire calls her most often, then it’s something she’s bound to respond to…’ As a thought entered her mind, Liel grimaced. ‘That is… only the case if she’s still alive…’

She forced the idea out of her head, turning her head as if it were on a swivel as she thoroughly scanned the premises. “Belle! Belle! It’s Liel, the Paladin you met two nights ago! Are you hiding here somewhere!? You should come out!”

‘It’s already been six hours… if little Isabelle failed to return before the curfew, then it should have been at least twelve. Forget any malicious intent, can a child her age even manage to survive in the cold spring night for that long!?’

For a time, the two women and the volunteers continued to scout the town to no avail. The sun had begun to hang in the middle of the sky, and soon the curfew would come down on them once more. Of course, Liel could make sure that she and Elienoire were immune to its effects, but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of the volunteering townspeople. A Paladin only had so much official capacity. To demand that an entire town turn over their rules would be overstepping, especially for someone who had just graduated from the Seminary.

As she walked through the town, rain began to fall from the swirling grey clouds high above, coating the stones below in a glossy glimmer. She saw her reflection dancing in the puddles she passed, and her own contemplative state returned to her.

‘I should apologise to Lord Ciseus if I see him again… I never miss out on sleep. I didn’t know I could become so irritable. Was it the effect of the poison? Still, to talk to the Deity I’m supposed to serve like that… I hope he didn’t take offense. Maybe I really should kill myself as an apology…’ Liel let out a sigh, bowing her head. ‘Besides that, that poison made me forget my own operations. I was so... brazen... what kind of poison could that have been? Is it a traditional poison in the sense that it poses harm, but because of the Siltte in my body, it was diluted, having a different effect than intended?'

As she walked, she spotted a familiar face staring at her from the shadows. He wore a hood now, but his curly pitch-black hair and crimson irises that sat on his face of perfect curves couldn’t be easily forgotten, especially because Liel had made a specific note of the man. It was the Bard she had seen at the Hallflower Festival.

It was just too suspicious to Liel. Why would such a handsome man be working as a traveling entertainer? Someone like him would be able to obtain a reasonable position in a Noble court, or become an entertainer in a high-end district in the Capital. It was just a waste of his natural looks. Of course, this wasn’t solid evidence that should mark him a suspect of bad intentions, but it was at least enough for Liel to watch him with caution.

As the man noticed her gaze, he immediately turned and fled into the shadow. This caused Liel’s eyebrows to furrow, surprised. ‘What? Why?’

Countless theories raced through her mind, but it was all conjecture. Still, she had a natural drive to learn, and to discover, especially when it came to unraveling mysteries. Shouldn’t she try and learn why this man was running from her?

Out of instinct, Liel began to sprint after the man. Elienoire tried to keep up, but the physical training of a Paladin was far too adept for a towns person to match pace. She quickly found herself at the edge of town, following only the wisp of a cloak behind each corner she turned. At the edge of town, where a field of grain she had blessed only a couple of days prior sat, there was a hole in the soil.

It was long in length, around six feet, but its depth was shallow, and piles of the upturned soil had been laid at the side. Liel approached this hole, her stomach turning as she viewed its contents.

‘Gods…’ Liel reached down to her waist, retrieving her blade from its sheath.

The corpse of a woman lay silently in an empty, unmarked grave, missing her clothes and several limbs, her face mangled beyond recognition. Liel’s eyes widened, looking around for any sight of the Bard, but he had disappeared completely. Why had he done this? Was it for the sake of revealing his own handiwork to Liel?

‘Is that strange Bard the culprit behind this? Of course, that might be the conclusion the lazy guard might come up with if he were to discover this body, but who in their right mind would assume that the culprit would intentionally lead an enforcer to their own crime? But if it’s the case that he was the one who discovered this corpse rather than placed it there, why didn’t Lord Ciseus discover that using his abilities? Or did he intentionally withhold this matter from me?’

She knelt down on her knees, her eyes tracing along the body for any obvious clues. ‘Recently deceased… this doesn’t bode well for little Isabelle…’

Liel thought that there might be way too many factors to speculate, and rather than relying on her imagination, she should focus on the evidence before her. She only had so much energy to spare before she became burnt out, after all.

‘Should I use Lord Ciseus’s blessing?’ One of the key lectures that scholars of the Seminary attended, Classical Theology, did not just focus on the history of the Gods, but also on the application of their blessings. This was where Liel had first learnt how to bless a harvest, and also where she had learnt about the blessings of Deities. Choosing to serve a certain Deity would not just bind you to serving their ‘Will’, but also to embodying it fully. Only when a person embodied the Will of their chosen Deity fully could they gain a semblance of power that made a Paladin what they are.

For servants of Lord Ciseus, this was a pair of eyes that could glean all information from anything they perceived. Ironic, considering his moniker, Liel often thought. To her, this wasn’t something she cared much about. It was already something she put into practice in her everyday life, and she assumed it would only act as a safety net in case she missed a minor detail in her normal observations.

But since her Lord had visited her personally, specifically urging her to make use of it, she thought it would be rude to refuse…

Liel grasped at the satchel at her waist, procuring the vial of Siltte. She pulled the cork out, the silver blood within beginning to writhe as soon as it had made contact with the air. Simultaneously, the rune on the side of her face began to glow, reacting to the presence of the blood. She tilted her head back, placing a droplet of the blood on her tongue before closing her mouth and swallowing.

Siltte was an interesting substance in the way it was consumed. It had the aspects of a person’s most beloved flavour, and also their worst, and so it was both delicious, and horribly disgusting.

Liel took a deep breath, shutting her eyes. Then, she took another, steadier breath. And then another, until it became a constant, rhythmic cycle.

When she reopened her eyes, her pupils had taken on an iridescent hue. This was the strange ability of a servant of Ciseus, True Cognition. When she looked back towards the corpse, everything seemed reasonably clearer. The obvious disparity between her normal senses was not truly her sight, but the way she took in the information she perceived.

‘The body is missing limbs… I’ve read that cannibals love to eat the limbs first, right after the internal organs… could it be that this woman was part of some twisted desire to consume another person?’ Liel glanced over the decaying flesh of the corpse. Luckily, the cold weather had preserved it slightly, and so it was free of vermin. Still, nothing could save a body from itself. It had long since bloated, freeing itself from moisture, which had definitely sunk into the earth long ago. What was most suspicious to Liel was the state of the woman’s chest. There was a large and precise incision down the length of her chest, right between her breasts. ‘The heart is missing… now I understand why Lord Ciseus was clear about the strangeness of this situation.’

By this point, Elienoire had caught up with Liel, visibly distraught as she saw the body. It was a grown woman, obviously not Isabelle, but even just finding a corpse led one down a trail of thoughts that ended in despair. If this was the body of one of the people that had gone missing in recent months, how long would it take them to discover the body of a small, dismembered girl?

Soon, the other volunteers had gathered, alarmed by Liel’s sudden mad sprint. Murmurs erupted throughout the crowd, and Liel had to take time to cordon off the area just to leave herself space to investigate the matter. After all, shouldn’t a Paladin properly assess an incident like that?

Liel took a step back, letting her chin rest on her fingertips as she pondered her observations. ‘The heart is the centerpiece of all bodily rituals. It is the circulation of blood, akin to the Tree that holds up the Worlds… even the consumption of Siltte is in itself, a ritual. Without my heart, I couldn’t circulate the Tree’s Blood, and so I wouldn’t be able to perform adequately as a Paladin. A cannibal wouldn’t choose to eat the heart… stringy and chewy. But if it’s the case that it’s meant for ritualistic purposes… why take the right eye? It’s neither good for rituals or for eating. It’s useless to take. Hah- maybe they meant it as a gift to the town’s Chieftain…’

Liel shook her head, sighing. ‘It’s all just speculation. I could spend a thousand hours studying this body and it won’t mean anything unless I discover a point of comparison or more evidence. A single piece of evidence will only reveal leads, not conclusions…’

Suddenly, her head perked up. The woman wasn’t missing her left arm, and she had hyper focused onto the missing one instead, thinking it a more important clue. What she had failed to perceive was that the woman had been wearing a bracelet on her hand. Of course, this wouldn’t be something strange that she should even consider. But why would the people responsible for dismembering her remove her clothes, and leave only the bracelet?

Liel carefully removed the bracelet from the woman’s wrist, examining it carefully. It was made up of harsh twine and wooden beads that had been painted black, the original hue of the wood shining through where the bracelet’s maker had missed with the paint brush. It was shoddily made, and had an odd smell to it. Of course, this could have just been from sitting against a decomposing corpse, but there was also something strangely familiar about the scent…

‘No… you can’t be serious…’ Her gaze shook as she reached into the interior of her cloak, procuring the doll given to her by Isabelle. When she touched both items to her nose, inhaling, she confirmed her suspicion. The doll and the bracelet had the same strange scent to them.

As she glanced behind her, she saw the solemn face of a scruffy-haired man standing in the shadows of a nearby building, observing her. This man had appeared as a volunteer in finding the little girl, and so at first, Liel had thought nothing of it. He reached towards the eyepatch on his right eye, adjusting it slightly as he stared at Liel.

‘Chieftain…’ She was silent for a moment, her calm facade returning to her. In that moment, she appeared like an Astalette should, calm and composed. But behind her gaze, there was something furious raging inside her, something bloody and visceral. Liel stared straight into that man’s remaining eye, obscuring all of her emotions except for this fury.