When the door closed I was left in darkness, not that that changed anything since my vision spanned most of the room. The walls were an eggshell white and decorated with meandering patterns, there was no two-way glass and the room was far too bright for it to feel like an interrogation room but I was starting to feel anxious nonetheless. This was also the first time I had been left alone somewhere I felt somewhat safe and my mind began to take that as a cue that I could finally start panicking.

I was somewhat incredulous that I had kept it together for so long and hadn't just had a breakdown yet but that seemed to just make it worse. The more I thought about how the archpriest had invaded my mind the more violated I felt. No-one should have the right to do something like that. Every private memory, secret and thought was pulled from me and I didn't even know how to feel about it. Especially since afterwards he acted as though it was nothing and left me to be picked up by an underling like some kind of trash.

To have yourself so thoroughly exposed and then... dismissed felt almost as hurtful as the act as itself, then the realisation that in my first day of being in contact with actual people for the first time I had been mindfucked by not one but three people. Granted Nym did it unintentionally and seemed sincerely apologetic but this was insane. Was this going to be my life if I chose to be around people? Constantly forced to worry that something is influencing my mind? How could I even trust someone knowing how easily it could just be some title making me like them?

After I get out of here and have a body again I am going back out into the woods, I need some time to think and to recuperate, I would rather worry about being attacked by wolves than being mentally enslaved to some person because they happened to have a title that screwed me over. What kind of world was this? I was expecting magic and monsters but mind control being so common, ridiculous gods and their worshippers. Wait, thinking of gods didn't they say something about bringing my planet under their domain or something?

At that point, the door opened and a well-dressed woman entered the room. She had bright scarlet hair tied back into a ponytail and a thin pair of spectacles perched on her slightly pointed nose. Her features were slightly gaunt and pointed and She looked to be in her mid-fifties by the slight sag of her face and web of cracks that formed next to her eyes as she gave a firm, business smile to me. She was pale enough that I floated the idea of her being vampiric, unable to venture beneath the sun but perhaps she really was just an office worker. She had full-length robes of a silver-grey with darker grey trimmings and large shoulders. She quickly flowed across the room and into the chair opposite from me. As she sat she brushed a stray lock of hair from in front of her ear, drawing my attention to their pointed nature.

She sharply clapped and the lights came on in the room just as the door closed, again there didn't seem to be a source to the light, it was as if everything had its own glow to it and light was just there. With the lights on her eyes focused on me, not just my general location and she began speaking.

"Good evening, my name is Daena and I will be helping you today, I am lead to understand that you have a method of communication so may I inquire as to your name?" Her tone was polite and business-like but not cold, I got the feeling she didn't dislike doing this and that settled my somewhat frayed nerves a little. I quickly began to compose myself, trying desperately to stuff the genie of panic back into its bottle and barely succeeding. I then cast the spell and replied.

"I'm Alex, it's a pleasure to meet you and thanks for helping me in this matter." I hoped that my emotions didn't bleed through into my words and she seemed pleased with my words.

"Ah, whispering wind, always a somewhat eerie spell but effective enough. A polite one too, it's a refreshing change from the usual sort that we get here. It's been nearly 50 years since I registered another unbound and I had to have him animate a pencil since we didn't have a mage present at the time. I honestly didn't know it was possible to write so many curses in such a brief amount of time but here I am, a wiser woman for it.

Sorry, a little bit of a tangent, since you are using a spell to communicate you should save your mana to answer my questions, I'll try to explain thoroughly but if you do need to ask something feel free to interrupt. Now where to begin?"

She reached up the sleeve of her robe and fished out a roll of parchment and then a pencil and began to unroll it. I could surprisingly read what was on the page though it wasn't common, I knew somehow that it was written in sylvarian though I didn't know what the significance of that was, I don't even know how I learned that language. It was written in the same boring way all contracts are written, full of jargon and in ways that made my non-existent head hurt so I just waited for her to continue.

"Might as well start from the top, is it just Alex or do you have a family name?"

I paused at this one, I didn't know whether to give my family name. My family wasn't on this world. I guess I could always give them it later if I needed to but something was telling me I should keep my full name private. I had read enough novels where names had power and I wouldn't be surprised if that was true here.

"Just Alex is fine." To which she nodded and wrote something down.

"Very well, just be aware that if you are attempting to find your way back to a clan or family then it would be able to lend more aid if we knew more. Would you also like to keep your race to yourself? Likewise, it doesn't really matter to us but it would help in locating loved ones."

"I would, please."

"Alright, and what were the circumstances of your return to this world? Was it intentional or by chance and did you have a master previously? How long has it been?"

"Umm, by chance, no master and I was summoned a couple of weeks ago I think? I haven't really been keeping track of time."

She wrote down everything I had said, I was surprised that my vague answers were ok. When she had finished speaking she reached up her other sleeve and pulled out a metal rod.

"Now, we I can either do a quick scan of your status now to get an idea of your baseline stats or we can have a truthseer come in and I can record what you tell us if there is something on there you would like to keep private. As you may know, if you have had children this is done to everyone as a newborn to ensure that we don't get anything from the abyss or the dungeon or anything inhabiting a body. Which would you prefer?"

"Just scan me." What did it really matter if my secrets were once more stolen from me, at least this time I was given an option and it seemed like a reasonable request. It did bring up a couple of questions. She reached over and lightly tapped the rod to me. Rather than the piercing light of the last time, this felt more like a request, I could fight it if I wanted to though I am sure she would know if I did that. She scowled as she looked at the side of the wand.

"You got a bad draw on that core, I can hardly believe it has held together so well, I assume you've strengthened it somehow. Your soul seems healthy and normal, hard to say if it's weak or strong. Usually, there is a definite skew in the stats, it's rare to have them balanced like yours, it will give you a firm base to build from and I can see that your soul is quite malleable. You'll grow quickly but be careful, soul magic will affect you more strongly that it will others.

You're under level 10 so you won't be gaining any non-language skills just yet and it looks like you have at least a year for your newborn stage so you have plenty of time to learn some. You'll make a fine golem Alex, I'm sure."

So much to tease apart there, it seems like not everyone's stats started at 10 then like I had expected, I don't know if that is just my natural soul or if coming to this world had something to do with that. Malleable soul? soul magic? Newborn stage? Won't gain any skills until level 10? I was going to have a lot of questions for Nym. I don't know if I should be asking questions about this system to Daena, I don't really want to tell anyone else that I am a world traveller.

"Ok well that's really all there is to it, you don't seem unhinged and I doubt you're inherently evil since you came in with a priestess of Arya, you've got good potential but I don't think we're gonna have a lunar golem on our hands any time soon." she let out a throaty chuckle. "It really was a pleasure to meet you and I wish you luck in your endeavours... Oh! almost forgot, we need to get you a symbol." She tapped the same metal wand onto the sheet of parchment and ink spread out across it. It swirled around until it resembled a bird taking flight, surrounded by lots of different markings. She tore off the paper and placed it on me, it instantly absorbed a point of my mana and was under my control so I stuck it to my core.

"Just inscribe any body you make somewhere visible with that symbol and officials will recognise you as an unbound, if they don't and they give you a hard time, then you send them my way or come here and report it. I'll sort them out. I will send Nym back in here when she is finished to collect you since I was told she was taking you to get a body. Don't steal any materials for your body, you may technically be a monster now but the law is still the law and it applies to you."

With that, she turned and left the room leaving me slightly baffled. I was expecting a much more thorough investigation than that, though I guess that was essentially just filling out a birth certificate for me? Weird but honestly I couldn't bring myself to care enough about it. I began to ponder on the questions I would ask Nym when she came back and settled in to wait.