Octidi 8 Brumaire 233
Every Octidi there is a market going on in the city’s main square. The protests have not stopped this. It was a nice day out and I could do a bit of shopping.
There was a report that someone was trying to sell Scipio’s Helm at the market. There was no way that this was true but I decided to investigate this on my own.
I bought the pilot helmet shaped “helm” from the vendor. Obviously it didn’t work as a VR headset despite its appearance and I had no intention of wasting one thousand denarii on a fake. I turned around to return it to the vendor but he was gone. The man had taken off running until I caught him off in a cul-de-sac.
The vendor pulled off the skin of his face to reveal that it was just a disguise revealing Dalton’s grinning face.
He tried to cast his smokescreen by throwing his magic ring towards the ground but I interrupted the magic by destroying the ring mid air with my own fire bolt spell before the ring hit the ground.
“Even if you capture me, it will be of no use to you mage.”
I put the silly magic aside and tackled him to the ground but that was not enough to prevent him from ingesting a pill of some kind.
I feared for the worst, that he had killed himself to take his secrets to his grave but instead nothing happened.
“Help! Help! Help!”
Dalton started screaming with an unforeseen intensity. A few passers-by appeared but quickly scurried away like it was not their problem. Before the City Guard appeared, I had a few questions of my own for him, namely about his interest in me.
I knocked Dalton out the old-fashioned way and then cast a spell to reduce Dalton’s weight.
I wore the helmet and carried Dalton to the Central Hospital run by the Crown Prince’s faction. We tried questioning him about his motives but soon found out that he was an amnesiac. The Royal Physicians working at the hospital concluded that the pill Dalton had taken induces a temporary amnesia rendering Dalton useless until they found a cure or the effects wore off.
All the while I had been wearing Scipio’s Helm because that was the easiest way to carry it around.
Of course I had assumed that it was just a prop to lure me out but then why did he run away? Was this some kind of trap?
As these thoughts wandered through my mind I noticed someone who should not be there just casually prancing about the hallways of the hospital.
I discretely followed this figure around the hospitals hallways and corridors until I was led to a trap door.
The figure was nowhere to be found so I assumed it had gone down the trap door.
The trap door was magically locked.
Silly buggers. If it had been an ordinary lock I would have more trouble but thanks to my cheat powers I was able to quickly open the lock by channelling my mana into it.
Down the staircase I came across a coffin-like translucent glass container filled with red roses and on that bed of roses laid a naked girl. To cut the chase short, that figure I followed and the body that I saw both belonged to Ria. Well, it was true that they had not yet found a way to bury her since the King’s faction were worried her grave would turn into some kind of rallying point against the king. However what was strange was that right next to her body stood another Ria in a white gown and barefooted looking down at what was presumably her own corpse.
Not gonna lie, even if this was just a game, it was kind of spooky, so I bailed out without calling out to the figure.
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