I couldn't help but gulp – the massive white building, which projected a sense of grandeur and stability, stood menacingly before me once more.

  Its front entrance was now fully opened, with a short queue formed in front of it for inspection, slowly moving forwards, like sinners entering the maws of Hell.

  ‘It’s fine… there is nothing to hide. Not regarding that incident, anyway. Just have to remember the key points…’

  Obviously, I had already thought of dozens of different ‘dangerous’ questions they could ask me, and ‘technically correct’ answers to match.

  There was nothing to fear!

  Trying to hold on to that last thought, I nervously approached the gate.

  “Weapons, accessories and bags.”

  On my way out of the Eastern Industrial Zone, I finally bought a bag, made out of thick and resilient fabric, for 1 silver. It was small enough to be worn together with my traveling backpack, but could also serve me perfectly on days like this.

  Having stopped by the inn on my way back, I dropped off my Darkness Sphere and shield, and picked up my adventurer credentials, together with one more thing.

  Now, I only had my potion case, bag, watch, and sword.

  “Here you go.”

  I had no problem leaving them for safekeeping. I was a bit worried about the sword, but its identity as an Adamantium Arm should have already been known to the Ministry due to Thomas’s earlier visit, and I had no reason to believe they'd actually inspect it even more thoroughly.

  “Please step on this platform.”

  After passing through the gate, I found myself in a relatively small hall, filled with guards and visitors.

  Next, I walked over to a metallic platform which emitted a faint white glow from underneath - being slightly elevated above the floor - and stood on top of it.

  The moment I did, I felt a tingling sensation all over my body, and for a moment, the white glow intensified. Then, it attained a distinct light-blue hue, which receded two seconds later, together with the light's intensity.

  “Proceed to that checkpoint.”

  Following the guard’s instruction, I entered a small booth, where another guard gave me a thorough manual search.

  “Clear! Proceed to reception.”

  Finally, I exited the small hall, entering a slightly bigger one. This hall had only a few guards, multiple exits leading in different directions, a staircase to the next floor, which was guarded by two men, and a reception desk with a few chairs scattered opposite of it.

  I was even given a tiny ticket - made of thin, rigid paper - by the guard near the entrance, containing a number.

  “...Please proceed to room 2-7 in the Investigation Department.”

  The queue was moving fast, and there were only two people before me anyway. The receptionist, a stiff middle-aged woman, referred them to different facilities or people in the building, and one of the nearby guards went to escort them.

  “...You may go to room 1-3, farther down the hall, and report it to the City Watch representative. In the future, please report regular crimes directly to your local guards, or go to the watch headquarters.”

  “But I swear I saw an imp snatch that pouch!”

  “Then report it to your nearest priest. Next!”

  As a nearby guard escorted the short grumpy man to one of the exits, I approached the receptionist.

  “Name?”

  “Sebastian.”

  “What is the reason for your visit?”

  “I was summoned for an interrogation.”

  “Let’s see…”

  The woman took out a small piece of paper from under the table and looked to its bottom.

  “Hmm… Yes. Special Investigations, Section 1, room number 6.”

  Under different circumstances, I'd probably find the name pretty cool, but as the one being investigated, it sounded rather ominous.

  “Let's go.”

  With a flat, stern tone, one of the nearby guards urged me to follow him.

  We went into the same corridor as the first of the two people, the one heading to the Investigation Department. However, rather than continuing forward, as I've noticed the previous pair of citizen and escort do before, the guard took a sharp right instead, opening an inconspicuous metal door, the light-pearl color of which almost blended with the walls.

  Behind the door was a set of stairs, spiraling downwards. As the guard urged me with his gaze, I began my descent, with him following closely behind.

  The aforementioned descent only lasted a dozen seconds or so, two full rotations of the stairs.

  In front of me was another metal door, far heavier than the last.

  “Move aside.”

  As I moved to the left of the narrow corridor preceding the door, the guard approached it from the right, nearly touching my chest with his shoulder.

  He then took out an identification token, and pressed it against a metal panel on the right wall beside it, at the centre of which was a concave glass lens.

  Perhaps this wasn't a concave lens but rather a similar artifact to that Identification Sphere from earlier, as aside from the color, the light it emitted upon contact with the token looked completely similar to the one I've seen the spheres emit before, based on the intensity to its extremely subtle fluctuations.

  Hnnnng

  The door slid to the left, revealing a long corridor.

  The lights on the ceiling almost looked like small circular LED's, if not for the fact that the ceiling was made of coherent, singular stone, with the light sources being small glass orbs seemingly embedded in it.

  The same type of stone, looking as if it was liquified and cast into a massive mold, served as walls – or, a protective layer on top of the actual walls.

  The corridor seemed to span at least half the building's length, connected to a T shaped junction at its end. However, I never saw what was past that junction, since the guard stopped near one of the sparse doors in the corridor, a third of the way in, and opened it, motioning me to go inside.

  What awaited me past the doorway was a bleak, colorless room, with the four orbs on its ceiling illuminating the white stone with similarly white light.

  On one side stood a couple of empty chairs. On the other, at the center of a large circular metal platform, stood yet another chair, with metal chains stretching through four small holes in the platform, each one adorned by a large, thick metal shackle, inscribed with strange symbols.

  “Sit.”

  The guard pointed at the isolated chair.

  Hesitantly, I approached it, doing as he asked.

  Needless to say, my nervousness had long evolved into severe weariness.

  ‘It’s not like they've brought me all this way just to.. no, they've given me too much liberty on the way here. But then again, that was Pine Harbor's watch – the Ministry may have a different approach in mind.’

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  The guard had already exited the room, leaving me to sit on the chair in solitude. At least the shackles remained scattered on the floor, albeit still very close to my chair.

  Thoughts were rapidly flashing through my head, my feelings alternating between relative calm and a creeping sense of dread.

  That was until my contemplations were finally cut short by the door opening once more.

  “So this is the boy.”

  The voice belonged to a large middle aged man, effortlessly moving in a suit of heavy plate armor, inscribed with a familiar symbol. His hair was yellow, like the radiant rays of the rising morning sun, and his eyes were light brown, nearly orange. From behind his back, a massive greathammer was peeking.

  “Indeed. You are Sebastian, are you not?”

  “Yes sir.”

  The one asking the rhetorical question was a tall man with short black hair and sharp features, his piercing green eyes gazing at me like those of a hawk eyeing a mouse in the grass.

  He wore regular, plain clothes, and carried nothing apart from a long, thin sword, resting comfortably in its sheath, only its exquisite metal guard, forming a half-circle, showing.

  “My name is Ornyl Truston, deputy leader of the MIS branch in Silverveil.”

  “I am Roderick Sunborn, a paladin of Her Radiance, The Shining Lady.”

  “I trust you are aware of the purpose of this investigation?”

  “You want me to testify regarding the.. what happened to… the murder of Amelia.”

  The paladin released a barely audible sigh, while the interrogator, Ornyl, narrowed his eyes.

  “Regardimg that incident, yes. Of course, since the miracle can be easier maintained than recast, it will be used for your residence questioning as well.”

  I nodded, doing my very best to keep my expression flat, not letting the nervousness shine through.

  “Now then, child, I shall soon call upon the [Aura Of Truth]. If you attempt to utter a falsehood, at least to your knowledge, that attempt shall be squashed. Of course, no harm shall come to you, but understand that silence is tantamount to admission of the gravest sin.”

  I nodded once again, as the paladin stepped closer to my platform, while the main interrogator stepped back, nearly touching the wall in the far end of the room.

  “Oh, merciful lady, please deliver us from deceit. May your light scatter the darkness of falsehood, and your radiance burn away the veil of misdirection!”

  Unlike Amelia, his prayer was spoken loudly, not lacking in pride or zealous passion.

  As he progressed, I could feel the air around him begin to vibrate. As he uttered the last words, a flash of radiant yellow light forced me to close my eyes for a moment.

  By the time I opened them once more, the air around the paladin was filled with tiny yellow orbs, emitting soft, comforting light.

  The orbs formed a circle, roughly 5 meters in radius, with me inside. The deputy branch leader stood just a step beyond its range, leaning on the wall.

  “Within this domain, by the grace of Her guiding light, no falsehood shall be uttered.”

  With those words, the interrogation officially began.

  “What is your name?”

  The one doing the questioning was, of course, the man from the Ministry – at least for now.

  “Sebastian.”

  “Where are you from, Sebastian?”

  “I’m from Luskar.”

  So far, so good. I was relieved that, at least, Sebastian's past was also considered my ‘true’ past, as far as this truth aura was concerned.

  “Where in Luskar?”

  “I lived with my father on the outskirts of the Gloom Swamps.”

  “What was the name of your father?”

  “It was.. it.. I… I don't seem to recall?”

  Ornyl's confusion was no greater than mine.

  “What do you mean, child?”

  The soft, pious voice came from my left.

  “I.. I've always called him ‘father’ or ‘dad’. I fail to recall a single time I heard or saw his name…”

  For a few seconds, all of us remained silent.

  I even tried to search Sebastian's memories for his name, but nothing came forth.

  Could he really have never mentioned his name to his son? But if so, why-

  ‘Wait, could he have looked this far ahead?’

  His training was clearly pushing Sebastian towards the Spellblade Path, with elements of that preparation appearing as early as Seb's pre-teen years. But could he really have predicted this very interrogation, doing his utmost to never reveal his name in front of his son?

  “Did you not hear a single other person refer to him by his name?”

  “...I can’t even recall him speaking to other people in front of me.”

  “...I see. That must have been a very isolated life.”

  “Yes. I have faint memories of living in the nearby town as a child, but most of my life, that which I remember, was spent in that lone house.”

  I indeed managed to uncover faint memories of Sebastian's very early childhood. There were a few peculiar things about it, but that wasn’t something I'd willingly reveal here.

  “Alright. When, and how, did you arrive in Valoria?”

  “A little over a month ago, I found myself in the old mines near Pine Harbor. I got there via underground tunnels, likely the Dark Regions. However, I also cannot recall the path I took.”

  “You forgot that, too?..”

  The man's eyes filled with suspicion – even if it was subtle, my senses, together with my experience trying to read people in this world, allowed me to notice it.

  “Do you have any reason to believe something during that journey caused your memories of it to be erased?”

  “Yes. Soon after finding myself in the mines, I became aware my soul was afflicted with a condition.”

  “Your soul?.. what condition?”

  “A geas, sir.”

  “...”

  The deputy branch leader silently looked at me, then glanced at Roderick. The latter lightly shook his head, perhaps indicating that his aura wasn't broken through or bypassed.

  “Do you know the nature of its compulsion?”

  “I do, sir. It's revenge, upon certain people who are almost certainly from Luslar.”

  “And this geas – who else knows about it?”

  “Am- excuse me. Now, it should be only the high priest.”

  “Who?”

  This time, it was the Solar Paladin who asked the question.

  “Amelia called him ‘master’. He is the high priest of the temple in this city. In fact, after Amelia wrote him a letter on my behalf, he invited me to the temple, to investigate this curse personally. I still have that token he sent in the letter – it should be in my bag, upstairs."

  Since I was going to visit the temple later, this was the second thing I put in the bag.

  “Really? Tristan did?..”

  The paladin was quite surprised, evident by the fact he couldn't help but ask the obviously-rhetorical questions.

  “Hmm… let's continue.”

  From there, I quickly gave them a short summary of my life in Pine Harbor, up until that fateful day. The interrogator didn't interrupt, except to ask the next question. Well, no, he did mumble something one time.

  “...so you were the one to discover that hobgoblin…”

  “Umm?”

  He did not elaborate back then, instead jumping to the next question.

  “...And so, you came to visit the apprentice priestess in the morning, correct?”

  “Yes. I came to retrieve the high priest's token that came with his letter, the same one I told you about earlier.”

  “What made you decide to break into the house?”

  “There was no sound – none at all. I have a very high degree of Awareness, the fact that I could hear nothing at all was highly suspicious.”

  “Highly suspicious, you say? Have you not considered that both of them could still be asleep?”

  “Not at that hour.”

  “Then, had you walked by any other home and heard no sound, would you also consider it empty?”

  “With almost complete certainty. Even when I walk the streets, I can hear minor sounds, as faint as the children's footsteps on the wooden floor, the mild rattling of wooden dishes being tossed into the kitchen sink, or, if I focus hard enough, even the crackling of the fireplace.”

  In truth, my first day in Pine Harbor was a bit overwhelming, but I quickly learned to avoid the sensory overload by phasing out most of the faint sounds.

  “Indeed?”

  The man raised his brow for the second time.

  “Hmm, how unusual. You hadn't attained a Path back, then, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “To think you'd possess enough Awareness to pass the 1st threshold without a Path..”

  I didn't know what the 1st threshold was, but given the fact he was the first one to actually specify an attribute by name, I suspected my theory about the 5 point cutoffs was likely correct.

  “Would you mind telling me which Traits, or Blessings, you possess?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  It did not slip my attention that for the first time, his question was phrased as a suggestion, and my reply came without a shred of hesitation.

  “Alright.”

  Surprisingly, Ornyl did not press the issue, or even display any hostility. However, a moment before his answer, I managed to discern a glimmer flicker through his eyes, as if he came to some understanding or conclusion.

  “And so, you broke in, correct?”

  The questions continued, leading up to my journey to the cave (“You felt a similar feeling from this hill to the basement? Hmm..”), my discovery (“That’s horrid, child. I wish you hadn't laid eyes on such an atrocity.”), the subsequent monologue (“It’s truly a shame his faith was lacking, to be eroded to this degree by the passage of time.”) and the fight itself.

  From time to time, the paladin would ask a question or share his thoughts, and the frequency of those occurrences grew as the story reached the last battle.

  Now, the most important part of this interrogation was imminent.

  And I could only hope I had the right answers to make it through safely.