I spent the morning together with Bael, much to my own displeasure; the two of us sitting in the guild hall.
I needed to figure out if Bael was hiding anything, but he wasn't exactly good company; being beyond sycophantic he was constantly trying to ingratiate himself with me. I wouldn't normally mind that kind of behavior, but his idea of 'favors' was incredibly disturbing to me, pointing out random passerby's from the guild and asking how much I liked them, in what way he meant I could only take a few dark guesses, afraid what he might do if I actually reacted. Not to mention his fake smile and the clammy looking skin that hung from his face, almost like he was wearing another person's face as a mask. Just looking at him gave me the creeps.
Ignoring his strange mannerisms, I got to the point. Posing him the question I had been meaning to ask.
"Bael, I've got a name for you. Tell me if it sounds at all familiar."
The fake-looking guild master just smiled, watching me indifferently with his dead looking eyes.
"Renout. Ring any bells?"
His smile instantly replaced with a hostile and disgusted look, reviled at the mention of his own name.
"I heard that was your name? Am I right about that?"
The man taking a sip from his wine-skin as if he needed to cleanse a bad taste from his mouth, pausing before answering me.
"I'd prefer you not call me that, my name now is Bael," the guild master replied, his demeanor slowly returning to a calm.
"Call it my curiosity, but why are you using an alias? I can't see any reason why you would hide your name from me? It's not a difficult thing for me to verify, you know."
"Mr. Keaton, I truly meant no offense. The name Bael was given to me when I joined the church, you can think of it as a sign of my religious devotion. I much prefer that name over who I was before my initiation... there are no fond memories from before I found salvation," Bael looking unruffled by my probing questions as he settled back to his plastic fake smile.
So it was a religious name? I didn't really know much about the church, but it sounded as plausible as anything. My suspicions satisfied for the time being.
Just based on appearance and mannerisms, he wasn't exactly an easy person to trust, but I hadn't caught him any outright lies yet. The only thing I couldn't figure out was why everyone treated him so well.
The adventurers should have all been rather annoyed with him, seeing how he had all but abandoned this office for the past years, but within hours of being in town he managed to convince two people he had never met before to stake their life on a duel with me. One that he knew for sure they would lose. It was a suicidal deal that they didn't benefit from in the slightest. But even so, those that suffered from his actions held no animosity and were basically eating out of his hands. Even the spurned Nate, who looked like he had swallowed nails after I stole his spear and killed his party member, became obedient and docile when approached by Bael. The man managing to reconcile Nate's blood enmity with me just as easily as he had created it.
It was like the towns-folk were falling over themselves, desperate to do anything they could to gain his favor. Something that I could explain through the existence of a skill.
Bael did fit the profile of a system user, his personality was confirmed to have changed. Tammy never remembered him being even remotely like how he was now, and if another soul had taken his place then they were completely different people after all. The only thing that bothered me with this assumption was his total lack of regard for his own life. No system user would offer to kill themselves to prove their loyalty, they were far too valuable to do so. Maybe there was a skill he could use to fake it, but I was skeptical even if that were the case. There was just too little I knew about system users in general.
Content with his answer for the time being, I let him know about the current situation. Making him wait a few days for the execution for Gawn and lazuli shipments for Marcella. He wasn't happy that we weren't leaving immediately, but I was supposed to be the important figure here. As far as I could tell, he expected people like me to act somewhat tyrannically, and if I was too considerate of his situation it even be somewhat suspicious.
Remembering one last thing before taking my leave, asking about the coin just in case. I trusted Cal, but I wanted to be sure that coin made it back safely. It had of course, leaving me to wonder what he had actually used it for.
Heading out of the guild office, I started making my way back home passing the city gates into the protected farmland beyond, almost reaching my destination before stopping cold. If I went home now, there really wouldn't be much to do. While I enjoyed spending time with the girls, this could be the last time I would be on the frontier for months. The uncertainty of it all, leaving me with a strong desire to hunt while I still could.
Breaking out in a grin as I decided to just 'wander off' for the afternoon, doing a little bit of secret exercise before the trip couldn't hurt.
Eyeing the outer walls in the distance before breaking away from the road, cutting through fields at a dead sprint, making it to the wooden palisades in under a minute, the ones that surrounded the entirety of the farming area. Surveying the wall to assess a path up, feeling the wood with my hand.
They weren't terribly tall as far as walls went, the point wasn't to make them defensible against humans after all. Just enough that they could deter most of the weaker monsters. After all, if anything stronger came along wooden walls wouldn't deter them no matter how tall you made them. Deciding to test out my [soft steps] ability that I had been practicing yesterday, taking some enjoyment in the challenge.
Finding a groove between two posts of the lined timber to place a foot. Not exactly a secure foothold, but with the passive in effect it was like I wasn't putting any weight on it at all. Able to crawl up the wall easily enough, so long as my feet were touching the wall it was like I didn't weigh anything at all.
The skill was certainly a strange sensation, especially now that I wedging my feet between the logs, no matter how much force I put into my legs the feedback of touching something was barely there. The force I could exert through the soles of my feet seemed to be capped at a certain threshold, so long as I my feet were touching something then no matter how much force I applied downward, it was neutralized and felt only like I was applying the most gentle of force.
Shimmying up to the top of the logs and pulling myself over, dropping down the force of the fall was neutralized all the same. Feeling almost nothing when I hit the ground, but even so, I couldn't help but reacting when I hit. My body expecting the impact and reacting accordingly, even if I knew it wouldn't happen.
Looking across the grasslands with a grin. No witnesses, need to hold back.
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