Once again, you wake up to the sound of your mother’s rustling armor-- a frustrating disturbance that reminds you of one of the biggest reasons you moved out in the first place. This time, you go for a walk, as they always help to clear your head. When you go to grab your grimoire, you notice that the golden choker you gave Erden has had its chain broken by what appears to be a cut of some sort, but may be due to poor material usage.

Since it serves a practical combat function for him, you decide it’d be best to simply get it repaired for him now and ask about it later. The market streets are covered in a thin fog, and your route to the goldsmith’s guild is blocked off by several brass blades who have sectioned off part of the city as a crime scene.

In the early hours of the morning long before the sun arose, a figure shrouded in darkness ran through the streets after Fyrgeiss, the chairman who fined you last night. In doing so, he not only killed the chairman himself, but also a handful of brass blades who were charged with escorting him.

Reportedly, the individual in question was so obscured by the shadows that no traces of their identity could be seen, save the fact that they are capable of bleeding, as one of the guards managed to land a cut by swinging wildly at them. Most of the time, however, the darkness was thick enough that even the vague impressions of a person could not be observed.

Members of the thaumaturge’s guild have identified that the blood in question does not belong to any voidsent, lending officials to suspect this was a more standard assassination. The primary suspects are any of the hundreds of those employed by Fyrgeiss’s company, as many of them desperately work to pay off the cost of migrating to Ul’dah after being displaced by Garlemald.

Incredibly, you are never suspected at any point during all of this. Nobody ever pulls you aside to ask you questions, or throws around any crazy accusations, as Ul’dah is simply too big and busy of a city for anyone to notice that you had any motive at all. For the time being, you are simply grateful that the latest development in the endless trail of murder that follows your every step was not done by Halone’s Champion.

Well...allegedly. The person was not seen, and Her champion has always operated with a great deal of shadow-y magic, so it’s entirely possible that this was the same person. The question really comes down to...why all the secrecy? Her champion was never so concerned with such things before-- in fact, it even seemed like there was some deliberate degree of showmanship to his actions, but not this time?

Mizu is in good health, just as you anticipated. She has made a full recovery overnight but is still being kept down by literal straps and a straightjacket so she can be observed for unexpected side-effects of expending so much aether at once. When she sees you, she stops struggling to break free from her bindings and resolves to chatting instead.

You tell her the situation that evolved while she was unconscious, and she immediately squirms to try and grab her gil pouch, but in doing so falls over. At her demand, you take her pouch and count out the difference in gil before returning the pouch to her. You feel a bit guilty, given that she probably can’t even afford lunch afterwards, but she has never been one to keep her money for long anyway.

How exactly Mizu gets paid you aren’t sure, but you do know that the thaumaturge’s guild loves investing in her due to her reckless abandon with spellcasting and do-or-die attitude towards, well, everything. She apologizes that she wasn’t awake to kill Fyrgeiss herself, which makes you nervously look around to make sure nobody else is listening to the conversation.

Mizu starts asking how Erden felt about the display, which you insist that she asks him herself, but you also point out that no matter how impressive the action was, the fact that it can only be cast while putting yourself in grave and immediate danger while also rendering yourself completely unconscious is not a great selling point. If you hadn’t been there, she would be dead right now.

“But you were there and I am not dead now, all according to plan!” She declares triumphantly. You bonk her on the head.

You tell her about Himoto and the gang’s plans to investigate Sil’dih, and invite her along to join you, which she happily agrees to. She even manages to set up a deal with the thaumaturge’s guild to get paid to investigate the ruins further, making the arrangement much more worth-while-- you plan to leave once Erden is ready, though to be fair you haven’t actually checked in with Himoto since you don’t know what his room number is.

You leave Mizu to return to your room so you can check up on him, and she pleads that you release her from her prison before you go. You will, of course-- right when everyone is ready to go and she is sufficiently healthy and rested. You cast Rejuvenation on her as you walk out of the guild, and she shakes around in her straightjacket as violently as she can, growling and snarling all the while.

The repairs from the Goldsmith guild are easy and cheap enough, but Serendipity points out to you that the only thing that could break it like this would be a cut from a well-sharpened blade. Gold is, of course, not very physically durable, so a blade slice could do it if there’s enough force behind it.

To make conversation, she asks if you’ve had any run-ins with bandits or something like that since she gave it to you. You pause for a moment before saying yes-- you and Erden had a run in with some bandit-types just yesterday, so here you are getting it mended today while he’s sound asleep.

She sighs with a shrug and says that thievery has been going up recently, and the incident this morning is evidence enough that violent crimes are going up as well. She wonders aloud if it’s in the guild’s best interests to hire some adventurers to keep a close eye on their gold stock.

Once the work is done, you head back to the room-- Erden is still out cold despite the fact that he went to sleep before you. With a closer look at his neck, you can see a shallow cut, tall and thin, along his neck. You carefully place the choker down on the nightstand and walk to the other side of the bed. As you do so, you cast Rejuvenate on him and watch as the wound on his neck slowly seals itself up.

When you were younger, your mother would always read bedtime stories to you and Mizu whenever she slept over. Ace would sometimes listen to them, but more often he’d be bored by them and go do something else like train or draw. Mizu’s favorite genre, and consequently the type you heard the most of, was on the topic of voidsent possession.

The topic has always been fundamentally fascinating to you and to her, so it’s of little surprise that this led her to investigate thaumaturgy and all it entails. Voidsent are of course a very well-documented thing, and any skilled mage will be able to feel their unnatural, otherworldly presence if they are occupying someone’s body.

The thing that always struck you as funny about demonic possession stories is the fact that the victim can perform any degree of horrendous actions without any long-term consequence. More than anything, you want to be able to tell him what he has done, and have him be shocked by the revelation. “I did what? I killed all those people?” Then, you could return to Limsa and live out a happy and quiet life.

Deep down, you want some kind of simple explanation, a clean story with a bow tied on top that makes it easy to share your story with others. “Yes, he hurt all those people-- but he was possessed! Doesn’t that happen to the best of us?” That is not what you have. Instead, you have a man who cares about your well-being so much that he pays any cost as long as you feel happy and safe at the end of the day. A man so devoted to you, that he could not rest for even one night while one of the many cruelties of the world dared stand in your way.

You lie down in bed, right next to Erden, who is still soundly asleep. For a while, you watch him peacefully breathe in and out, but can’t manage to fall back asleep yourself. Your eyes trace his skin as the seconds tick by, as you run the facts through your head a thousand thousand times. What lies underneath?