Well. That's weird. 

"Oh. Hello, citizens." The armored man said. "I, uh, didn't think anyone would be up this early." 

"Oh, uh, y-yeah, hey." I said.

"Wait, you loudly slam doors and scream at the top of your lungs when you think people are asleep?" Sis asked.

"Well, I mean... Yeah, basically. The people in this town are generally heavy sleepers, and nobody really stays at the inn much, 'cept for fishermen who are usually out on the river at this point... It's never been a problem before." The man explained. Man, his voice sounds like the main character in every gritty action movie. Sorry, unrelated, it's just been bugging me.  

"Really? Huh. Alright." Sis conceded. 

"So," "what's" "the" "deal," "Cap'?" The guards asked. 

"First of all, I'm the captain of nothing." he said, "Secondly, by the light, there's been a strange presence in town the past few days. I've yet to make sense of any of it. I've been studying the scriptures for answers for days now, but to no avail." Oh, he's a holy man. Makes sense, given the church and the crusader-y stuff. He sure has the voice of a preacher. Or, like, a preacher who works part time in exorcism and holy assassination. Whatever the heck that means. "Figured it was best to warn the townspeople. Or, at least you two." He explained, looking over at the guards. 

The guards looked over at me. "That" "have" "anything" "to" "do" "with" "what" "you're" "on" "about?"

I shrugged. "M-maybe? I have no idea." I explained.

The armored man looked over at me. "Boy, have you felt it to? The divine energies?"

"Uh... Pff, maybe, I-I dunno." Does directly holding a conversation with a divine entity count as 'divine energy'? 

"Hmmm... Well, regardless, all of you, inside. We must discuss this further." He said, ushering us inside the church. 

The church was pretty big. Overall, I think it was the biggest building in town, though Charolette's place might have more in terms of actual square footage. The church was basically just a big, rectangular room, with a lot of pews in neat rows, facing towards a stage which had little more than a small scale altar on it. There was also a door on the opposite wall of the entrance. Not sure where it goes. What stood out to me the most, though, was the sheer amount of pews. Seriously, there's, like, 2 or 3 pews for every citizen. 

I mean, it's far from the biggest church I've ever seen in my lives, and, actually, by most standards, this would most likely be considered rather small, but given the population of the town this place might as well be gargantuan. 

Anyways, now, instead of awkwardly standing around the doorway and discussing weird crap, we were awkwardly standing in a corner of a stuffy old church, discussing the same crap. Cool stuff.

"So," "what's" "going" "on" "cap?" The guards asked. 

"I'm not-" He began, but quickly paused and moved on to another thing. "By the light, it all started about two days ago. Around when the sun was at its peak is when I first felt it." So, around noon? Wait, I feel like something else happened around that time. Man, what was it... He continued, "Such powerful, oppressive vile energy began to overwhelm the town. It was as if the dead had begun to walk again. I didn't want to incite panic, but I made sure I was ready. I stood at the door, scriptures in hand and tools at the ready." Tools, in this case, probably means instruments of incredible violence, I wager. "And yet... Nothing. I stood at the ready for hours, but it just... Disappeared. There one moment, gone the very next."

"That's" "odd." The guards said. Now, normally I couldn't agree more, but, this whole scenario feels... I dunno, familiar somehow? Crap, I swear I've just about gotten it...

I noticed Sis chuckle quietly to herself, for just a brief moment. 

"But, by the light, that's not even the strangest part." He continued. "I thought I might have just imagined it, but, soon after, late, late into the night, it returned. And it stayed, all throughout the night. I waited. Once again, nothing."

"When" "was" "the" "last" "time" "you" "slept," "captain?" The guards asked. 

"Unimportant!" He loudly responded. It's probably been a while, I wager. "Yet, stranger even still, was the morning. As the light returned to the world, another immense otherworldly energy descended upon the town! Along with the still present dark presence!"

Wait a minute, otherworldly? Is he talking ab- Oh crap everything just clicked. Ohhhhh...

"None of it makes sense! And, what's more, they just kept disappearing and reappearing at random intervals all throughout the day! And yet, nothing's happened!"

Yep. Yep. It's me. I'm totally the dark presence. I mean, I'm a dark magic guy, and I am also literally a risen dead. And, all this began when I arrived, and the reason it comes and goes out of nowhere is 'cus of my teleporting. I'm the culprit. And Sis is probably the otherworldly presence, given, well, yeah. 

Though, I guess I should also be 'otherworldly', right? Because, y'know, I am. Eh, I guess, in my case, the dark stuff is stronger, probably just covers it, or something. That's cool as heck.

"Okay," "but" "you" "did" "sleep" "yesterday," "right?" The guards asked the man.  

"Be silent! I've more important matters than sleep!" The man shouted. Then, he seemingly took a deep breath, though it was hard to tell, what with all that armor covering him. "Regardless, though nothing has occurred as of yet, the energies still persist. In fact, I can safely say that they're actually far more powerful now than they were before." Gee, wonder why. "Something will happen soon, I'm sure of it." 

. . .

"So... Any ideas? Because I'm fresh out." The man concluded. 

The guards just kinda shrugged at each other, they didn't seem to know or really care all that much about this stuff. I, however, have a couple of things I need to think about. 

Or, at least, should think about, but, frankly, I'm clueless. 

I could question what this guy means when he says that he can feel 'divine energies' or how he's able to do that, but, honestly, I don't think that's worth questioning. It just seems like something he should be able to do. Anyone would probably say the same thing if they saw him. Something about it just feels right. 

But, probably more important than that, I should try to think of an explanation, or, at least a diversion, or something. If he starts asking around, he could probably pretty easily find out that his story perfectly coincides with my activities, and I don't really know how he'd react to that. For all I know, he's the thing DYN2 warned me about. So I need to play this incredibly carefully so that I don't make myself look sus-

I felt someone poking at my arm. I looked over, and saw that it was Sis, which, now that I'm thinking about it, should have been immediately obvious to me, given the direction I was being poked from. She subtly handed me what looked to be a folded up sheet of notebook paper. Naturally, I grabbed it and began to subtly unfold it while the others were distracted by their continued shrugging at each other.

Not sure why, though, since I'm illiterate, unless the instructions are, like, drawn, I won't have any use for th-

Oh, it's written in English. Huh. I, uh, guess I kinda forgot that I'm not actually illiterate, I just can't read this worlds language. 

Wait, where is she carrying a notebook? And why is this written in crayon? Oh, whatever.

'Say something like vague, like 'It is not our place to try to interpret signs from above, we must simply remain vigilant' or something. Make sure to appeal to his sense of holy-whatever.' The note read.

How the heck did she write all of that without anyone noticing? And with crayon, no less.

Well, regardless, not like I have any better ideas, may as well roll with it. 

I shoved the note in my pocket and began rolling with it.

"Uh, m-maybe we shouldn't try to, like, interpret signs from above. We should just, uh, remain, v-vigilant?" I said. "Oh, and, uh, far be it for us mortals to, like, understand the... divine... stuff." 

Well, close enough. 

I could see Sis shoot me a thumbs up, though I could tell it wasn't very enthusiastic. Like, C+ work, at best. 

The man seemed to ponder that for a moment. I think, at least. The armor, again, makes it a little hard to tell.

"Mhm... There is wisdom in your words, boy." The man said.

"Oh, and you should also, like, sleep a little bit. S-so that you can remain strong i-if something happens. The, er, 'light' would probably be displeased i-if you were too tired for... Things." I added.

Sis put a little more enthusiasm into her thumbs up. I'm at, like,  a solid B or more at this point. 

The guards also shot me a quick thumbs up. Extra credit, baby! 

The man paused, for a moment, and seemingly spent a longer time in thought. "I-I..." He stammered, before pausing once more. Eventually, he sighed. "Indeed, what you say is true. By the light, I'll... Take a nap, or something." He said, seemingly reluctantly. 

"You" "can" "trust" "us" "to" "keep" "a" "watchful" "eye" "out," "capn'!" The guards said, enthusiastically. 

"I'm not- Ugh. I'll leave it to you. I'll be in my chambers. If anything, anything, happens, arise me from my slumber." The man sternly told the guards. "Regardless, I shall return when the light fades." He turned over to Sis and me. "And you two as well, be careful. If there's any trouble, leave it to us." He said. 

Actually, if there's any particular trouble, I'd much rather leave it to a certain sand obsessed battle hungry lunatic, but, "Yeah." I said.  

The man seemed to hold his stare at me for a bit longer, as if he was going to say something, but, after a moment he turned away. 

Crap, is he onto me? 

... Eh, I'm probably just imagining things. A little paranoid. 

"Well, I'll be off then." The man said. "Light guide you all." He said as he walked off towards the back room.

Where, I imagine, he slept. 

. . .

Wait, he never took off his armor. Does... Does he sleep in that? 

N-Nah, surely he probably just took it off in the room, right.

Yeah... Probably.