Volsten opened his eyes. There wasn’t much for him to see, other than an ornate ceiling.

“The guildmaster wishes to speak with him,” a voice said, distinctly feminine.

Another voice scoffed. “He’s in no condition to move. Unless Arel wishes to come down here himself, there will be no ‘speaking’.” Male, that one.

Volsten breathed deep. A mistake. He almost pissed himself.

The woman let out an exasperated sigh. “Of course. I’ll inform him of this most unfortunate situation.”

Heels clacked as the woman walked, and Volsten tilted his head just a little. He managed to catch her as she opened the door. There wasn’t much to see, but the orange-blue dress told him all he needed to know.

Guildmaiden, he thought with annoyance.

“You’re in some shit, I’d wager,” the man said. He sat behind a table topped with various elixirs and bottles. A table such as that would usually be accompanied by a bird-like figure with a greying head, but this time was occupied by a man with long black hair and a moustache “That’s the second guildmaiden this morning, and I’ve barely treated you.”

“You’re a…physician, I take it?” Volsten asked. His mind was syrup.

“Master Bellit, to be exact. And you are a very lucky man.”

“Half-dead in a guild hall. I don’t find that very lucky.”

Bellit laughed, then shook a bottle of light liquid. “Relative, I guess. At least you aren't fully dead."

The way Volsten felt, that was still possible. Breathing threw his left side into agony, and his head felt only a bit better.

“You’re bruised all over, mind you. Most notably your left side, it’s…I don’t know what hit you, but it wasn’t pleasant, I’d say.”

“What am I here for? The guild has uses for broken knights now?”

Bellit shrugged. “No idea. The guildmaidens kept that information close. I was simply told that my services were needed. Or, rather, any physician.”

“How…”

“…did you get here?” Bellit finished when it was clear Volsten couldn’t. “I don’t know. Nor do I know why you were brought to a guild hall rather than a place more conducive to a physician’s work.”

Volsten closed his eyes for a moment. Sleep was near, until something cold pressed against his right hand. He opened them to see Bellit placing a bottle near him, the same that he shook moments earlier.

“The next time you wake, you’ll be alone with one of the guild’s lovely maidens. This will help you rest, and I imagine that you’ll need every bit of it.”

*

Volsten opened his eyes. He was greeted with the same swirling patterns etched in wood as before. They hadn’t moved him, at least.

He breathed in, shallow this time. Whatever Bellit had given him numbed the pain, but only by a touch. His head still throbbed, and the rest of his body was still in misery.

The door opened. A tepid rush of air blew against his face, and with it came the scent of perfume.

What had he done to deserve such a fate? What awful thing in his past did Inera see fit to repay him for? Well, he could think of a few, but this was still unfair.

Her steps shifted from his right ear to his left as she walked, then ceased.

If I pretend to sleep, will she go away? It wouldn’t be much of a stretch, either. His relationship with awareness was tenuous at best.

What had to be papers began to rustle, and then the humming of a song that Volsten couldn’t quite place.

“Hello, Sir Volsten,” she said after a time. It was dripped with the usual cheeriness of a guildmaiden, a cheeriness that Volsten believed with all his heart was false.

He closed his eyes.

She laughed. “Too late for that, I saw them already! Besides, Master Bellit assured me that you would be with us by now.”

His eyes opened with little enthusiasm. “Perhaps, but he told me that I needed to rest. Now seems a wonderful time for that.”

“I am deeply sorry about interrupting your rest, given the state you’re in, but Guildmaster Arel thinks you’re the most important person in the city right now. Following that, I would be an awful guildmaiden if I didn’t carry out his request to speak with you as soon as possible.”

Deeply sorry. Volsten didn’t laugh only because he would shit himself if he did.

“I promise to be quick in my questioning,” she carried on, “but sir, this is a two-way conversation. I can only be as quick as you’ll allow me to be. If you aren’t forthcoming, I may be here longer than necessary. And I will stay as long as needed.”

Her cheerfulness belied the threat that her words posed to his well-being. But such was the way of these women, and such was his disdain for them that he considered obstruction a noble pursuit, even if it killed him. “Yes, of course. What would you like to know? I am, now, an open book to you.”

“Firstly, I should introduce myself. My name is Jessa, and it’s a pleasure to speak with you.”

Unlikewise. “Sir Volsten, of Camara. Which I suppose you already knew. And…how, exactly?”

“When the collectors picked you up, the lady with you gave them your name. This was then given to me, Sir Volsten.”

Collectors? They thought I was a corpse! “Inera, I was that rough?”

“Your body was given to the Sisters of the Church and everything. You gave one of them quite the fright when she noticed you still breathing! Or so I’ve heard, that is.”

“And instead of allowing me to rest and recover in a place of medicine, you’ve brought me here.”

“The guild is full of powerful knights and mages. There are eyes everywhere, including us humble maidens. It’s the safest place to be for you and your lady, given the absolute horror that you’ve both experienced.”

Volsten turned his weary head to Jessa. She was as typical as a woman from the middle of the kingdom could be, with curly brown hair poking from beneath her feathered guild hat. One gloved hand held a pen poised over an open book.

“I suppose that makes sense,” he said. Of course, she lied as naturally as she smiled, but the logic held. “Where is Maren, if I may ask?”

“On the other side of the guild. I can tell you that she is fine and healthy, but she hasn’t spoken a word since stepping foot in this hall. She looks deathly hollow, poor thing.”

For good reason, that. “That’s well to know. I take it that you bothered her as well?”

Jessa tapped her pen against a page. “I wouldn’t call it bothering. But I did try to speak to her, yes. As I said, she wasn’t very forthcoming, which is why I am here.”

“So you’ve told me.”

“Oh, don’t be like this,” she said with a flick of her wrist. “It’s our duty to be curious. It helps you, us, and the city as well. Who wouldn’t want the truth of things?”

Volsten laughed, but inwardly. “A dishonest man.”

“And I don’t think a knight is capable of being that, not the ones I’ve had the pleasure to know, at least.”

“Uh huh.”

“So there’s nothing to fear!”

Bullshit!

“So, if you could tell me what happened that day? Starting from when you first woke, sir.”

Tell her the truth? The most sensible thing. Lying to guildmaidens wasn’t something the guild took kindly to. Experience taught him that.

Experience also taught him that maidens twisted words better than any thief, so to the narrows with this wench!

“I speak this as truth, my maiden. I awoke from a deep slumber, the deepest any man could ever know without slipping into death. You see, as a knight, I must train daily to keep my command of the blade in its most proficient form. Ask any of those that work closely with the guild; they will tell you the same.”

“Of course, of course…” Jessa said, her pen setting the book ablaze with action.

Oh, this is fantastic! “So, after a night of rigorous training, I awoke. Sore from said training, for I had not done so in many weeks, despite my yearning to do so. You see, before I entered Tregar to see my dearest Lady Birith, for whom I lusted after in my weeks on the road, with her delicate and alluring frame fit to capture any man’s loins, I was far east.”

“…In Val Eneyas?”

“Not that far east. And what business would I have with monsters?”

“…Hinomotu?”

“Yes!” Volsten would have clapped had he not been so afraid to move.

A curious eyebrow raised on Jessa’s face. “That is quite far.”

“I was there for a reason. Or maybe I wasn’t. So much has happened that it’s all a little…fuzzy. Regardless, you may be wondering why I was so far east?”

“Not particularly, sir.”

“I’ll tell you. Ever heard of a Tenraki sword priestess?”

“I think so. They sing for the goddess yet fight like demons. So I’ve heard, that is.”

“You’ve heard correctly. Anyway, to come back to your original question, the reason I was there was simple. It was the way the winds had blown me that day. You see, I’m no guild knight that waits for you maidens to bring inquiries and postings to the guild. That’s far too boring. I’m a man of action. I prefer to find danger and adventure on my own.”

Jessa raised a gloved finger. “There’s a reason for that! The Adventurers Guild ensures that adventurers are paid fairly, and that only the right person is selected for a job. You wouldn’t want a knight answering a call for cryomancy, would you? And the benefits we offer-such as housing and priority physician appointments-would be hard to come by for new adventurers.”

She slipped into the usual guild spiel rather quickly. It was essentially their version of Artheon’s Code, only most knights aren’t as ready to recite as these maidens are.

“Oh, trust me, I know. But, back to the sword priestesses. Every word you’ve heard about them is true. These women are masters of the blade, in ways that would make many knights green with envy. Imagine my surprise when, long through my journey on the old imperial road, one of them darts from the bushes and accosts me.”

“Really? I thought they lived on a secluded mountain. Is that part false?”

“That is why I was surprised, Jessa. As I was saying, a sword priestess darts from the bushes, her garments in tatters, and nearly throws me from my horse. I look to her and, recognizing the traditional red and white garments of a sword priestess, ask what could be distressing such a formidable woman. She spills every word she can, about how one of her own sought to contact an ancestor. But she ventured too close to the divide, and a spirit with no allegiance possessed her!”

Jessa gasped.

“Exactly! She engaged in battle with the newly-bodied spirit, but what hope did she have against a reckless spirit combined with the knowledge and well-trained body of a fellow priestess?”

“I don’t know much about their customs, but aren’t they able to expel evil spirits?”

“I asked if she had sought the other priestesses, but she shook her head. Messing with spirits beyond their mountain temple was forbidden. They would be shunned from the order, and that was a fate worse than death. As for herself, she was a new priestess; a few months since joining, in fact. Her spiritual magic was much too weak to expel-”

“Sir,” Jessa said, tapping her pen against paper. “I find the Tenraki and their ways interesting, but I would love to hear more about your time in Tregar.”

“That will come in time, Jessa. As a guildmaiden, you know the importance of details. Am I correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you know that the mind relates things to other things, and to jump to a certain point may cause certain inaccuracies.”

Jessa said nothing. Did her mask slip? Guildmaidens were hard to read, even for him. Anger and annoyance may have been behind that smile. Goddess! The thought of that was almost as good as sex, almost good enough to distract from his growing weariness.

“Now, where was I? Ah, yes, have you ever seen a woman possessed? It is a harrowing sight, I can tell you. Come to think of it, that wasn’t the first time I’d seen a spirit overtake the living. What do you know of necromancy, Jessa?"