I once again direct my attention up towards the grand chandeliers of the main hall, complimenting the complexity of the estate beautifully, it paired and shone brilliant light down onto the various stone pillars that littered and supported each side of the titanic ceiling.
My feet follow silently behind the two, and I almost bump into them when they stop almost simultaneously, as if they were interlinked or something.
"I haven't introduced myself properly yet." She still speaks with a certain coldness that deeply frustrates me.
I stare ahead blankly, as she continues her spiel.
"As you already know, I am the Daughter of my father, and third-in-line to the Duchy, you shall address me as Tzofia aun Thagos." I assumed that 'aun' was the equivalent to 'of' in a title, but the reason why I couldn't translate it fully was because it was unique to their language, like how some words cannot be correlated over languages in my world.
She suddenly continues her brisk walk, at such a pace that following her made my feet numb, though she once again continued speaking, multi-tasking as she turned a corner whilst doing so.
"It's not that I am biased against you for your class, as you may have been exposed to already, there's just something suspicious about you, my father usually only sees the good, but I and my brother's can be much more sceptical, after all, you could be one of Marden's."
Marden. The opposition. Were they an opposing faction, a differing noble family? I really had to get to grips with how this place worked, I'm in the dark and if I begin to ask questions about anything I'm supposed to know, suspicion will grow even further.
Knowing all this, saying I understood the fundamentals of magic without knowing squat really might not benefit me, I hope to god this ritual doesn't involve quizzing.
We quickly turn into a diversion in the hall, I follow behind the massive behemoth of a servant as he takes up the entirety of the now small hallway on his own.
"Close your eyes past this point, I'll know if you open them." Tzofia says with demand in her voice, I choose to comply and my world delves into black as I close my eyes
Obviously I'm still able to see quite clearly due to the systems of my own body, sonar guides me through and maps out the winding corridors, though I wonder how they don't grow suspicious of my ease of walking whilst my eyes are close.
We stop suddenly once more, they do like being spontaneous don't they. My sonar luckily prevents me from colliding with the colossal back of the titan in front of me as we do so.
A door creaks open. "Go in and you can open your eyes." The woman clicks her tongue at the end of her sentence, why is she so annoyed?
"Alright." I say without fuss as I move past the juggernaut and into the room.
This all seems a little odd, perhaps they've confirmed their own suspicions about me and just dragged me off somewhere quiet to be executed, whatever it is, I've been at their whims for a few hours now so surely they'd have me killed sooner then this.
Worst-case scenarios in my head dissipate slightly as I open my eyes, white markings, most likely from chalk or some other substance cover the stone floor of the dimly lit room. What catches my eye is the brilliant blue fire emanating from each corner of the room, the orbs of flame lick and float in the air?
Fire can change colour through colorants of course, but I doubt they were using copper chloride to induce the blue in the flame, it was a definite product of this world's supernatural phenomena.
I'm once again thrown from my bedazzlement by a clearing of a woman's throat, I look to see the juggernaut and woman have entered the room and closed the door behind them.
"Sit on the chair in the middle, if you don't mind." The giant, or rather gentle giant speaks up, his voice is much kinder then his appearance, almost soft.
"This is Faron, one of our retainers as well as our chief-ritualist." Tzofia introduced him to me, so he wasn't just a nameless servant after all...
"Well it's nice to meet you all." I'd try to ease the tense atmosphere with friendliness as I sat in the chair.
"It's nice to meet you too, I was quite interested in you fighting off all those goblins too, quite in-keeping with a relatively proficient warrior." The behemoth gave a warm smile, his behaviour was surprising towards me to say the least, it was the last thing I expected.
"Faron is going to perform a scrying ritual, I'll let him explain to you how it works." Tzofia lists with neutrality as she avoids the friendliness of our conversation.
Faron begins wandering around the drawn on circle embedded onto the stone floor, he starts to fill in new symbols into the circle that I can't possibly begin to decipher with a white powder he retrieved out of a bag.
"If you could please touch a point where the dust lays on the floor without smudging it too much, so you can acclimate to the ritual as it's target." His orders were simple and worded kindly, I followed quickly, touching a piece of powder on the ground carefully, though I didn't really feel anything when I did so.
"The scrying ritual acclimates to and observes your very soul, we will ask you questions regarding your purposes here, and you will answer, the point of the ritual is whether to ascertain if your soul is telling the truth or not."
My soul? Souls seriously exist here? Well, I shouldn't be surprised if magic is in the equation in the first place. But shit. So this is essentially a supernatural lie detector. This just spells trouble for me.
I maintain my composure, however my anticipation builds as this lie I've constructed for myself could shatter at any one of the ritual's answers. What would they do if they knew my true origin?
"I'm going to feed my mana into the ritual so that it can begin, we will then ask you the first question." Faron kneels and puts his palms onto the outermost marked circle of the entire ritual formation, I narrow my eyes as the powder is suddenly jumpstarted by some kind of bright light.
The entire ritual is glowing, my eyes begin to naturally adjust to the irritating light, however the illumination seems to die down anyway.
"My first question, where do you come from?" Tzofia is the one asking the questions and she shoots me an incredibly vital one right off the bat, I gulp down any uncertainty I contained and steeled my resolve to muster up an honest answer.
"I don't originally come from the region, I travelled in around a year ago looking for new opportunities as a warrior and additionally to hone my lacking magical ability, when I reached this place, I heard about our Lord's great achievements and so wished to align myself with him, that is all." I construct a decently solid excuse on the spot.
Whatever it did must have worked as the duo's expressions did not change in the slightest, nor did the state of the ritual, maybe it would buzz red if I lied or something.
"That still doesn't explain what you were doing in the old ruins of our ancestors' castle. That is my second question, why were you there?"
"A hobby of mine is understanding the world, I simply saw the ruins on my travels, and decided to foolishly investigate, completely unaware of the nature of them, and for that I am deeply apologetic, words cannot describe my shame if I have desecrated your traditional heritage ground." I really am growing more well-versed each second I speak this language, my vocabulary is blossoming fantastically.
"You're quite well-spoken, but that's a shallow response." I blink at Tzofia's accusation, and see as she looks over to Faron for I'm assuming the results of the ritual, he nods, I assume it to mean I'm lying. Could the foundations of trust to survive in this strange new world be crumbling now?
"He's telling the truth. The ritual isn't giving any result." Faron confirms. I exhale a breath of relief.
"Interesting, not many travel in to this region, you're quite the rarity." Tzofia smiles as words of actual sincerity pour from her mouth, maybe once her suspicions are put at ease she'll actually be nice?
A thought flickers in my brain, how come the ritual isn't registering anything when I actually am lying, is it a sham? Obviously not, since magic does exist. Faron stated that it depended on scrying the soul. If I'm assuming that everyone in this world forms a soul upon being given life, a stranger like me from another can't possibly contain one.
So I'm an anomaly in the ritual's system, it'd just come up neutral every time. This is perfect. I smile internally with glee as I realise how lucky I am.
"Well my final question is. Will you remain loyal to our lord for as long as you live?" Tzofia asks an incredibly direct question, and one that smartly encompasses my entire future.
"Of course." My response is blunt, showing little emotion.
She gives a look to Faron, who nods, before turning back to me, with a terrifyingly serious expression etched onto her face.
"You lie." Her tone was dead.
Shit, it's over.
"I'm just kidding!" She begins to chuckle to herself, much to the annoyance of myself. Even the juggernaut catches in on the joke, expunging a hearty laugh from his lungs.
I guess she can be light-hearted after all, but not in the way I'd exactly like. Nonetheless it looks like I've passed this test, if I'd actually had a soul I would have definitely failed, but that's besides the point.
"We've confirmed your loyalty and purpose, we need people like you in the residence, considering the latest atmosphere we find ourselves in regarding Marden and the Kingdom as a whole." She explains.
The Kingdom, that's the first I've heard of it being spoken, so this must be a territory within a wider country that has fealty to a King? Just like the feudal times then, fascinating.
"So I've become one of my Lord's retainers, that's amazing news." I try to appear enthusiastic about the ordeal.
"Oh no, of course not, to become a retainer you need to prove yourself properly to my father, you killing a couple goblins doesn't mean you have the capability to defend our family, however your loyalty and strength puts you at a position to serve us, we'll let you live in that common house you woke up in exchange for work around the estate." She would snicker as she deflated my aims.
So I'll be a servant? I suppose it's better then starving and being homeless in a world I have no idea of. Looking on the bright side, I'm sure I can conjure up something to become a retainer in little time, my objective is beginning to become clear to me, though the time-lag, or whatever I've been through, still prevents me from thinking so clearly.
But I can still see the value in staying with this wealthy aristocratic family, pooling of resources and help will be easy under them, and I'm sure I'd get myself to the position of retainer quickly.
"You may stand up now of course." Faron's voice rumbles from his gut, yet it comes out softer then candyfloss.
"Let's get you to work then!" Tzofia exclaims as she slaps me on the back, she's grown a lot more friendly ever since confirming my loyalty, I suppose that's to be expected though, she holds the safety of her family dear to her, any unknown element could threaten that.
We flow quickly out of the room, Tzofia tells me I no longer have to close my eyes as we walk through a labyrinth of small corridors.
I've been incredibly restless from my injuries as well as the 'time-lag' I've been experiencing, add onto that stressful and constant social interaction, and you have me wrestling to stay up. Now I hear that I have to pick up horse shit among other things, what a long day this will be.
Can picking up shit really save humanity?