When I stepped out of the temple after the others, I was greeted by hundreds of eyes, staring at me expectantly. However, when I closed the door behind me and walked up to the stage as the last person, many of the citizens’ looks changed, some appearing confused, some surprised. When the bells had rung a few hours earlier, indicating that there would be another announcement at noon, they had naturally expected to see Lilly, as per usual. Instead, me and Tomar took the place at the podium.
“Fellow Citizens!” I started. “Thank you for coming! You might be wondering why I am talking to you today, instead of Lilly, but the reason for this will become apparent in a minute, as it’s related to the reason for today’s announcement.”
Since the start, we had presented Tomar as the “number two” in Lilly’s group, and I had let him do the talking from time to time, to establish that he had authority as well. He was also unofficially the head of the guards ever since Grym had lost to him and became the new captain. With this foundation laid out, I hoped that there wouldn’t be too many people who doubted that he could speak in Lilly’s name, and so far I had at least not been booed off the stage.
“What I need to talk to you about is the outside world, and what life is like for those living in other towns, far away from Alarna. Maybe some of you have heard rumors about this before, but today, you will all learn the truth.”
Just like with our guards, I started by telling the citizens about category ten beasts. How they were a major threat in this world, how they even controlled towns, and essentially used them as their playthings. Understandably, many were shocked to hear about this. Even though rumors traveled fast in Alarna, very few people were keen on talking about the horrors in this world when they didn’t impact them directly. As long as their hometown was safe, there would be no reason to scare each other.
“That’s what life is for most humans in this world, and we are truly blessed that this area is as safe as it is! However! It has recently come to our attention that such a beast has set its sights on Alarna as well now!”
At this, the crowd finally became uneasy. Storytime was one thing, but telling them that this might be the future of their town as well was worrying everyone. Before the murmurs could grow too loud though, I continued.
“But worry not! Because Lilly is out there right now, gathering information on this beast, while we’re preparing to defend the town! We will make sure that something like this never happens to Alarna! And we will continue to push back against the beast threat in the Wildlands!”
First a little scare, and then the promise that nothing will happen to them. As expected, applause broke out after this declaration. They didn’t have a reason to question my words, and since Arax wasn’t just after us, unlike the moderators, I also felt a little better telling them that we would protect them.
My mind was really starting to clear up, now that I had had some time to process everything, and I felt good about telling the citizens this story, which was at least partially true. The others had questioned whether it was a good idea to essentially break the deal, but from where I stood, we only had things to gain with this move.
We had to explain Lilly’s absence, and I wasn’t sure whether the people would accept the “wandering souls” story. However, even if they had, that would essentially mean that Tomar and I would have to play the Lilly and Lilana roles for the foreseeable future. Not only in front of random citizens, but also people who knew Lilana, and that didn’t sit right with me. Furthermore, we didn’t really have much to lose, because if we assumed that the deal would get broken either way, we might as well score some points and tell the citizens that we were fighting for them. If we failed... Well, that would be pretty bad either way, but if we succeeded, they would celebrate us. And I wasn’t done yet.
“I have one last thing to announce! The outside world can be dangerous and scary, and for this reason, the former leaders of Alarna decided it would be best for everyone to not leave the town walls without special permission! This was a wise decision at the time, but maybe you have noticed something recently... It’s been several weeks without wild beasts appearing around town! Despite everything that’s going on, Alarna has actually never been safer, and come the next eighth day, we will have enjoyed a full month without random beast attacks! To celebrate this occasion, we will officially abolish this law, and Alarna will open its gates! While children will require the permission of their parents to leave town, adults will be free to come and go as they please! Please look forward to the end of the week, when you might step out into the Wildlands for the first time! I promise you, you won’t want to miss it! As per usual, we will post the details on the bulletin board!”
As I waved to the applauding crowd, and we made to leave the stage, I wondered whether anyone down there realized that every time we came up here, we usually had bad news for them, but we always ended on a high note. The people would leave hyped, and it made the bad news go down easier, if it didn’t even make them forget about them altogether.
Originally, I had thought about making our grand entrance to Alarna by inviting people to leave the town for the first time, but that plan was put on the backburner after we learned about the moderators. However, thanks to Hati, we now knew that it was fairly safe out there. Even though he wasn’t able to give us hard numbers for how long it might take until more moderators appeared here, based on his descriptions, it would presumably be at least a few weeks. And since the mana wall proved effective against the wild beasts, I felt confident that it would be safe to let the people outside at their own risk.
Tomar, Riala, and Lilana had all been amazed by the Wildlands when they first left Alarna, and I assumed that it would surely be the same for most people. Based on the reaction I got, I was right. We would make an event out of this day at the end of the week, with guards looking after the people, and after that, we would do away with this law that forbade people from leaving the safety of the walls. For now, we would gain bonus points that way, but should we not be able to beat Arax... the citizens would at least have a better idea about the outside world.
***
After the announcement was taken care of, we made our way back to the office. That stupid office, which I was truly growing tired of. Though a big reason for that was probably that it kept reminding me of Lilana.
While Reurig went back to monitoring the town, and Riala practiced writing with Berla, Tomar and I still had to manage the town, though I would’ve much rather spent all of our time researching, which was apparently on his mind as well.
‘You haven’t told us how you plan to actually injure Arax yet,’ Tomar said while I was shuffling through various reports and complaints.
“Yea, I know...” I said absentmindedly.
Most of the files were about the supplies the various departments were missing, because the market hadn’t taken place in Cerus last month, and we hadn’t announced how we planned to get our hands on these things yet. This was currently our biggest non-beast related issue, and we would most definitely have to go to Cerus to even attempt to resolve it. This too would take precious time out of our schedule though.
“Long story short, I believe mana blocks mana,” I said as I signed papers in Lilly’s name and took the next file from a pile.
I did my best to dig through the work as quickly as possible, so we could devote ourselves to talking about scripts, but I had to admit that I was still thinking we had one more person to work with at times. While Tomar was still much slower than me with this kind of work, he had at least always helped, and I had done the rest in Lilana’s body. Right now, that would mean he could’ve done a part of our work, while I could’ve done some research. But that was naturally not an option anymore.
‘Mana blocks mana...?’ Tomar mumbled.
“Yea, remember Aelene in the cell?” I said, as I grabbed yet another file.
‘Oh! That’s what you mean! But... that was water. Same with Arax. Right...?’
I had to grin despite myself, as I was reminded of my first few hours in this world, when I was trying to work, while Tomar kept asking me questions. Though I was the one in the backseat back then.
“Kind of,” I said. “I think it might not be only water, but that the mana acts as an abrasive.”
‘What’s that...?’
“That’s... ugh, I should explain this to Ria as well, so we’re all on the same page...” I said and looked over to the couch.
“Huh? Explain what?” Riala asked curiously after hearing her name.
“Nevermind,” I said, “keep practicing your writing for now.”
When I made my plans, I hadn’t accounted for having two hands less now, and this pile of work had also grown substantially just this morning, as a bunch of reports came in. And while dealing with Arax was technically more vital, we couldn’t slack off in this area either.
I think we might need help... I thought, and after pausing for a moment, I had one idea.
“Hey, Berla... how trustworthy is your cousin?” I asked.
“Hayla? Uhm, I’d say it depends. Why? Do you think she lied about something?”
“No, I was thinking about something else. If we were to make a deal with her, do you think she would keep it?”
“Possibly... if it’s for the sake of Alarna. But I wouldn’t necessarily trust her words unconditionally. Like I said before, she really wanted to become queen.”
“Hm... wish we had a way to... Wait...!” I said, and my head snapped in Hati’s direction as another random thought popped into my head. “Hati... what kind of emotions can you smell exactly?”
He looked away from Riala, who he had watched practice. “Uh... I don’t know. All of them? I think...” he said, sounding anything but sure of himself.
“Do you think you could detect if someone was lying?”
“Lying? That’s not an emotion,” he said as he cocked his head in confusion.
“No,” I said with a chuckle, “but when humans lie, they might smell different to you. Want to give it a try?”
“Okay!”
“Great. Let’s see... First, I’ll tell you a fact and a lie. Try to detect a difference and remember how I feel and smell. Fact: Earth is about forty thousand kilometers in diameter. Lie: About ninety-nine percent of it is covered by water.”
Everyone looked at me with slight confusion, but I chose something they wouldn’t understand on purpose, so Hati wouldn’t be able to tell what the lie was based on it.
“What is Earth?” he asked curiously. “And why is there so much water?”
“I’ll tell you later. Remember how I smelled?”
“Yes!” he said, sounding a little excited.
“Okay, tell me then, truth or lie: Earth is flat.”
“Hm... lie?” he said.
“You don’t seem too sure.”
“It’s a little difficult to tell apart.”
“Let’s try another,” I said and kept telling him things, without confirming whether or not he was right.
In the end, he seemed to have a success rate of over sixty percent, which suggested that he might actually be able to detect lies to a degree, though the results weren’t clear enough to be certain. I was hopeful that this might change in the future, since we were still assuming that beasts’ abilities and senses were growing over time, but for now, this wouldn’t help us much.
I still felt relatively good about my first idea, however. Having someone who cared about the town and who knew how things worked would be a huge help to us, and if we monitored Hayla, we should be safe. Everything else we could worry about once we weren’t threatened by Arax anymore.
When I stepped out of the temple after the others, I was greeted by hundreds of eyes, staring at me expectantly. However, when I closed the door behind me and walked up to the stage as the last person, many of the citizens’ looks changed, some appearing confused, some surprised. When the bells had rung a few hours earlier, indicating that there would be another announcement at noon, they had naturally expected to see Lilly, as per usual. Instead, me and Tomar took the place at the podium.
“Fellow Citizens!” I started. “Thank you for coming! You might be wondering why I am talking to you today, instead of Lilly, but the reason for this will become apparent in a minute, as it’s related to the reason for today’s announcement.”
Since the start, we had presented Tomar as the “number two” in Lilly’s group, and I had let him do the talking from time to time, to establish that he had authority as well. He was also unofficially the head of the guards ever since Grym had lost to him and became the new captain. With this foundation laid out, I hoped that there wouldn’t be too many people who doubted that he could speak in Lilly’s name, and so far I had at least not been booed off the stage.
“What I need to talk to you about is the outside world, and what life is like for those living in other towns, far away from Alarna. Maybe some of you have heard rumors about this before, but today, you will all learn the truth.”
Just like with our guards, I started by telling the citizens about category ten beasts. How they were a major threat in this world, how they even controlled towns, and essentially used them as their playthings. Understandably, many were shocked to hear about this. Even though rumors traveled fast in Alarna, very few people were keen on talking about the horrors in this world when they didn’t impact them directly. As long as their hometown was safe, there would be no reason to scare each other.
“That’s what life is for most humans in this world, and we are truly blessed that this area is as safe as it is! However! It has recently come to our attention that such a beast has set its sights on Alarna as well now!”
At this, the crowd finally became uneasy. Storytime was one thing, but telling them that this might be the future of their town as well was worrying everyone. Before the murmurs could grow too loud though, I continued.
“But worry not! Because Lilly is out there right now, gathering information on this beast, while we’re preparing to defend the town! We will make sure that something like this never happens to Alarna! And we will continue to push back against the beast threat in the Wildlands!”
First a little scare, and then the promise that nothing will happen to them. As expected, applause broke out after this declaration. They didn’t have a reason to question my words, and since Arax wasn’t just after us, unlike the moderators, I also felt a little better telling them that we would protect them.
My mind was really starting to clear up, now that I had had some time to process everything, and I felt good about telling the citizens this story, which was at least partially true. The others had questioned whether it was a good idea to essentially break the deal, but from where I stood, we only had things to gain with this move.
We had to explain Lilly’s absence, and I wasn’t sure whether the people would accept the “wandering souls” story. However, even if they had, that would essentially mean that Tomar and I would have to play the Lilly and Lilana roles for the foreseeable future. Not only in front of random citizens, but also people who knew Lilana, and that didn’t sit right with me. Furthermore, we didn’t really have much to lose, because if we assumed that the deal would get broken either way, we might as well score some points and tell the citizens that we were fighting for them. If we failed... Well, that would be pretty bad either way, but if we succeeded, they would celebrate us. And I wasn’t done yet.
“I have one last thing to announce! The outside world can be dangerous and scary, and for this reason, the former leaders of Alarna decided it would be best for everyone to not leave the town walls without special permission! This was a wise decision at the time, but maybe you have noticed something recently... It’s been several weeks without wild beasts appearing around town! Despite everything that’s going on, Alarna has actually never been safer, and come the next eighth day, we will have enjoyed a full month without random beast attacks! To celebrate this occasion, we will officially abolish this law, and Alarna will open its gates! While children will require the permission of their parents to leave town, adults will be free to come and go as they please! Please look forward to the end of the week, when you might step out into the Wildlands for the first time! I promise you, you won’t want to miss it! As per usual, we will post the details on the bulletin board!”
As I waved to the applauding crowd, and we made to leave the stage, I wondered whether anyone down there realized that every time we came up here, we usually had bad news for them, but we always ended on a high note. The people would leave hyped, and it made the bad news go down easier, if it didn’t even make them forget about them altogether.
Originally, I had thought about making our grand entrance to Alarna by inviting people to leave the town for the first time, but that plan was put on the backburner after we learned about the moderators. However, thanks to Hati, we now knew that it was fairly safe out there. Even though he wasn’t able to give us hard numbers for how long it might take until more moderators appeared here, based on his descriptions, it would presumably be at least a few weeks. And since the mana wall proved effective against the wild beasts, I felt confident that it would be safe to let the people outside at their own risk.
Tomar, Riala, and Lilana had all been amazed by the Wildlands when they first left Alarna, and I assumed that it would surely be the same for most people. Based on the reaction I got, I was right. We would make an event out of this day at the end of the week, with guards looking after the people, and after that, we would do away with this law that forbade people from leaving the safety of the walls. For now, we would gain bonus points that way, but should we not be able to beat Arax... the citizens would at least have a better idea about the outside world.
***
After the announcement was taken care of, we made our way back to the office. That stupid office, which I was truly growing tired of. Though a big reason for that was probably that it kept reminding me of Lilana.
While Reurig went back to monitoring the town, and Riala practiced writing with Berla, Tomar and I still had to manage the town, though I would’ve much rather spent all of our time researching, which was apparently on his mind as well.
‘You haven’t told us how you plan to actually injure Arax yet,’ Tomar said while I was shuffling through various reports and complaints.
“Yea, I know...” I said absentmindedly.
Most of the files were about the supplies the various departments were missing, because the market hadn’t taken place in Cerus last month, and we hadn’t announced how we planned to get our hands on these things yet. This was currently our biggest non-beast related issue, and we would most definitely have to go to Cerus to even attempt to resolve it. This too would take precious time out of our schedule though.
“Long story short, I believe mana blocks mana,” I said as I signed papers in Lilly’s name and took the next file from a pile.
I did my best to dig through the work as quickly as possible, so we could devote ourselves to talking about scripts, but I had to admit that I was still thinking we had one more person to work with at times. While Tomar was still much slower than me with this kind of work, he had at least always helped, and I had done the rest in Lilana’s body. Right now, that would mean he could’ve done a part of our work, while I could’ve done some research. But that was naturally not an option anymore.
‘Mana blocks mana...?’ Tomar mumbled.
“Yea, remember Aelene in the cell?” I said, as I grabbed yet another file.
‘Oh! That’s what you mean! But... that was water. Same with Arax. Right...?’
I had to grin despite myself, as I was reminded of my first few hours in this world, when I was trying to work, while Tomar kept asking me questions. Though I was the one in the backseat back then.
“Kind of,” I said. “I think it might not be only water, but that the mana acts as an abrasive.”
‘What’s that...?’
“That’s... ugh, I should explain this to Ria as well, so we’re all on the same page...” I said and looked over to the couch.
“Huh? Explain what?” Riala asked curiously after hearing her name.
“Nevermind,” I said, “keep practicing your writing for now.”
When I made my plans, I hadn’t accounted for having two hands less now, and this pile of work had also grown substantially just this morning, as a bunch of reports came in. And while dealing with Arax was technically more vital, we couldn’t slack off in this area either.
I think we might need help... I thought, and after pausing for a moment, I had one idea.
“Hey, Berla... how trustworthy is your cousin?” I asked.
“Hayla? Uhm, I’d say it depends. Why? Do you think she lied about something?”
“No, I was thinking about something else. If we were to make a deal with her, do you think she would keep it?”
“Possibly... if it’s for the sake of Alarna. But I wouldn’t necessarily trust her words unconditionally. Like I said before, she really wanted to become queen.”
“Hm... wish we had a way to... Wait...!” I said, and my head snapped in Hati’s direction as another random thought popped into my head. “Hati... what kind of emotions can you smell exactly?”
He looked away from Riala, who he had watched practice. “Uh... I don’t know. All of them? I think...” he said, sounding anything but sure of himself.
“Do you think you could detect if someone was lying?”
“Lying? That’s not an emotion,” he said as he cocked his head in confusion.
“No,” I said with a chuckle, “but when humans lie, they might smell different to you. Want to give it a try?”
“Okay!”
“Great. Let’s see... First, I’ll tell you a fact and a lie. Try to detect a difference and remember how I feel and smell. Fact: Earth is about forty thousand kilometers in diameter. Lie: About ninety-nine percent of it is covered by water.”
Everyone looked at me with slight confusion, but I chose something they wouldn’t understand on purpose, so Hati wouldn’t be able to tell what the lie was based on it.
“What is Earth?” he asked curiously. “And why is there so much water?”
“I’ll tell you later. Remember how I smelled?”
“Yes!” he said, sounding a little excited.
“Okay, tell me then, truth or lie: Earth is flat.”
“Hm... lie?” he said.
“You don’t seem too sure.”
“It’s a little difficult to tell apart.”
“Let’s try another,” I said and kept telling him things, without confirming whether or not he was right.
In the end, he seemed to have a success rate of over sixty percent, which suggested that he might actually be able to detect lies to a degree, though the results weren’t clear enough to be certain. I was hopeful that this might change in the future, since we were still assuming that beasts’ abilities and senses were growing over time, but for now, this wouldn’t help us much.
I still felt relatively good about my first idea, however. Having someone who cared about the town and who knew how things worked would be a huge help to us, and if we monitored Hayla, we should be safe. Everything else we could worry about once we weren’t threatened by Arax anymore.
