Jolting up ramrod straight, you try to blink the grogginess away from your mind so you can focus on your panicking friend. “Murderer? How do you fig—”

Umeso launches the book and scroll at you, the former thumping into your chest and the latter hitting the bed where it starts to unspool. A glance at the book makes you certain that it’s the one Radestro used to have. “That book is dangerous, Biat!! So dangerous! There are all sorts of terrifying spells in that thing…” Umeso says, scraping their fingers through their greasy hair and barely looking you in the eye. “And there are two ‘Umeso Arestrans’ on that scroll, Biat! Two! But one of them is dead!!”

Dead? You reach for the scroll and start running your eyes over it. “Sorry, I’m still waking up… You said there are two people with your name on here? Is your name uncommon?”

“It is!” Umeso shouts, prompting your mind to briefly wonder if any of the noise you two have been making has woken Ruem up. Eh, if so, she’ll come over and yell at you about it soon enough. “There are only two ‘Umeso Arestrans’ on the scroll, and it goes back at least a century! But the other one died and I must have killed them!!”

You glance at Umeso, taking in their haggard appearance, particularly the bags under their eyes, then resume reading through the scroll. “Not to be insensitive, Umeso, but I… don’t really follow the logic on that one. And how long ago did this other Umeso die, anyway?”

“I, um…” Umeso’s face scrunches. “I do not remember. A few years ago?”

A moment after they say this, your eyes finally alight on the second instance of Umeso’s name. The entry doesn’t provide much detail, simply noting the student’s name, date of attendance, GPA and date of death, with no description beyond “Died while attending. School determined not at fault.” Of particular note is the fact that the date for both attendance and death is not simply years, but decades ago.

“This person died well before you were even born, Umeso,” you say, holding the scroll up towards their face. They glance at the scroll, their tense pose slackening.

“O—oh.” Glancing at the floor, they frown. “Well what if I am older than I thought?”

Sighing, you push the scroll away to make room, then turn, pressing your back to the wall. You pat the bed next to you, and though they look a little reluctant, Umeso does climb up and take a seat next to you.

“Alright, so, can I walk through your theory then, as I understand it?” Umeso nods. “So you think you are, what, 50 years old at least, and that you killed someone ten years before you were born.”

Not looking you in the eyes, Umeso says, “Well perhaps I was a child then, so I would now be in my thirties.”

“You understand how the idea of you killing someone when you were a child is not less absurd.” Umeso does not respond. “So anyway, you killed someone, in order to… what, take their identity? But for some reason you waited decades before actually doing that? How does any of that make sense?”

Huffing, Umeso crosses their arms. “It does not!” They look at you, more haggard and lonely than you’ve ever seen them. “But none of this makes sense, Biat! My memories do not have room within them to account for all this business with Roddie, or to suggest why I would want him to steal things for me.” They throw their hands up. “My parents enrolled me at this school, why would I need to steal an enrollment form!?”

Picking up the book, you start flipping through it. “I don’t know. But I also can’t imagine that you went and murdered someone, no matter the reason. You don’t even like it when I kill bugs.”

“They are just trying to live their lives. If you do not want them there, then take them outside.”

“Exactly, you’re just proving my point,” you say as you continue flipping through the book. “Now what spells in here have you worried, anyway?”

“Many of them!” Umeso says, slumping against your shoulder. “There is a heat spell that could be used to boil a person’s insides, and a spell for poisoning things like bugs and rodents that could hurt a person if given enough power… Oh, and there is one that could put a person to sleep forever!”

“You wouldn’t use any of those, though,” you say with confidence. As you keep flipping, Umeso goes quiet for a bit. But after a minute or two, you start hearing sniffling. You turn your head, but from this vantage point you can’t see their face. “Umeso? Are you okay?”

“No…” Umeso says, their breath hitching. “But your trust in me… It helps.”

Though your immediate desire is to comfort them via hug, you’re wary of touching them in ways they might not like, especially given how fragile they seem right now. “May I hug you?” you say softly.

“…Yes.”

And so you wrap the arm they’re leaning against around their shoulder, and pull them into a hug with the other. They don’t really return the hug, but their sniffling does lessen. After a moment or two you release them, keeping one arm around their shoulder as you look back to the book. Your eyes roam over the page you’d flipped to right before getting distracted by your friend. A spell about… memory alteration? Now that could be something. You start scanning through the spell’s possible uses, but you don’t get far before you are yet again distracted from your task.

A loud noise, like a freight train smashing into a brick wall, reverberates through your room and through your body, causing both you and Umeso to jump in surprise. Scrambling off the bed, you look through the window, but your view is mostly obscured by a massive cloud of dust. Still, the way the light shines through the wall between the school and the town makes it pretty clear that something just created a new hole in said wall.

“Wh—what is happening…?” says Umeso.

“I don’t know, but—”

A raspy voice screeches from somewhere outside — an unnervingly familiar voice. You can’t tell what it’s saying but you know what you have to do. Hurrying over to the bed that’s got a mound of junk on it, you scoop your hand into the circular groove that’s been made at the top. As you lift up, a familiar sphere appears in your hand, big white eyes glancing around groggily.

“Wha happen?” How in the world she’s managed to sleep through everything, you’ve no idea.

“Trouble. We might need to team up,” you say, heading for the door. Excitement blooms in Ruem’s eyes.

A moment after tossing the door open and taking your first step into the hall, Umeso’s voice halts you in your tracks. “Sh—should I go?”

You turn toward them. “Up to you! It’s not necessarily any safer in here than it is out there, if walls are already being broken again. But please stay back, at least, I don’t want you getting hurt!” They nod, kick off the bed, and follow after you as you race down the hall.

Spriting outside, that familiar voice shouts again, making it easy to find the cause of all the commotion. Not that you’d be able to miss it, just by glancing that direction. As you’d feared, Eeozi is here, shouting out for “the defender’a the school” to show their face. But perhaps more worryingly, she’s riding on the back of another familiar face, though not one you’ve ever spoken to directly: that big brute of a person you saw in Imxach’s castle. The impression you’d gotten from their brief interaction with Ellemenie was that they are rather gentle, despite their size, but given the hole in the wall that you can now clearly see behind these two, you think you shouldn’t underestimate their capability of violence.

“Eeo—” you start to shout, before realizing you do not look at all like you did when the two of you last spoke. “H—hey, you! Who are you and what’re you doing here!?”

The brute and the goblin both turn their gaze upon you, the former’s face passive, the latter’s face splitting open in a wide, sharp-toothed grin. “Oh hi, girlie! You’re the first ta show their face! So I’ll answer your questions! The name’s Eeozi, an’ this here’s my friend Zujii!” The brute raises a hand in a sort of half-hearted wave. “As for the other quest—” Her voice cuts out and her eyes go wide, staring not at you, but at something behind you. A glance backward makes your heart skip a beat. The only person there is Umeso.

Leaping off Zujii’s shoulders, Eeozi drops to the ground, then points one clawed finger at your friend. “There they are, Zujii, I told you!”

The brute turns their eyes upon Umeso. With a soft smile, they say, “Hello, Shade.”

“Shade??” Ruem shouts.

“It’s been awhile!” Eeozi shouts, throwing her hands up excitedly.

Utterly horrified, Umeso gawks at the two people who claim to recognize them. Face contorting with both rage and fear, they shout, “I am Umeso! UMESO!!!”

Both the intruders look taken aback, especially Eeozi. “Uh, sure, okay, you gotta new name. But how come you’ve been hidin’ here? We missed you!”

“Eeozi, was it?” you say, trying to get the goblin’s attention away from your friend. She glances at you, visibly irritated, one eyebrow raised. “They don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever past you had together, they don’t remember.” Eeozi’s eyes narrow, her lips forming a pout. “Also, I’m the school defender that you’re looking for, so—”

“What’cha mean they don’t remember? How could they forget me??”

You falter for a moment, having expected your claim about being the school defender to get some sort of reaction. “Oh. Well, we’re not completely sure, we think it has something to do with a memory spe—”

Smooshing her hand against your face and giving you a light shove, Eeozi says, “Yeah, no, actually it doesn’t matter. They served their purpose an’ we’ve got our own orders ta follow.”

“Purpose!?” Umeso shouts, taking a step forward, tears streaming down their face. “What are you talking about!? I am not some sort of machine! I am a living, breathing person with my own wants and desires! What purpose could I possibly have!?”

Eeozi crosses her arms and frowns. “Well I mean, you actually failed at your original purpose. But you’ve succeeded in your new purpose as eyes an’ ears for Imxach.”

“Can we shut her ass up now??” Ruem says, growling.

Though part of you wants to do exactly that — to tackle Eeozi to the ground and cover her stupid mouth so you can spare your friend at least a little of this ongoing pain — something else within you keeps your feet rooted to the spot, desperately waiting for Eeozi to explain herself. Umeso looks as though they might be waging a similar internal battle. Eye twitching, they say, “Wh—what…? How…?”

“I’m glad you asked!” Eeozi says, grinning and baring her teeth again. “Your old job was ta scout the planet for concentrated areas’a spiritual activity! You know, so Imxach would have souls ta experiment on or whatever. An’ I mean I guess you found a good spot, but you never reported back, so…” Umeso’s hands once more start clawing through their dark hair. “As for your new purpose… Well, a couple’a weeks ago I snuck into your room an’ cast a mirror spell on you! Same one Imxach had on the Xagnoli before, that let him see you were here at the school! So thanks ta you not noticin’ that, we knew today was a good day ta do this, ‘cause your headmistress lady is gone!”

“S—someone is… looking through my eyes?” Umeso says, voice shaking as they stare at their hands.

“An’ listenin’ through your ears! Or, well, he was doin’ that. He’s got the spell on Zujii now. There’s only the one mirror.”

Umeso collapses to the ground, head in their hands, shaking from side to side. You want to reach out and comfort them… but you also know Eeozi said she has a job, and every second that passes makes you more and more certain you need to stop her from doing whatever that job is. Apparently on a similar wavelength, Zujii speaks up.

“Eeozi, we need to get a move on.”

Rolling her eyes, Eeozi waves a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Sheesh, can’t even enjoy my one day outta that damn castle.” Sighing, she looks in your direction. “You claim ta be the school defender, right?”

Oh, she did hear you? Clenching your fists, you nod. “That’s me.”

With one massive backflip, Eeozi manages to regain her seat upon Zujii’s shoulders. That had to be magically enhanced, you can’t imagine anyone could do that naturally.

From high atop her muscled throne, Eeozi crosses her arms and grins imperiously down at you. “Alright, Zujii! Pound her into paste!”

“Finally!!” Ruem says.

A massive fist comes hurtling toward your face, ready to do exactly as instructed. Fortunately, you’ve got an eager ace up your sleeve. Or, well… on your shoulder. Grabbing her, you pull her to your chest, then launch an arm out.

Our arm grows large enough to nearly match Zujii’s fist, which we catch, completely halting its momentum. The brute’s eyes go wide, but not as wide as their goblin friend, whose eyes look ready to burst from her skull.

“BIAT!?” the goblin screeches.

Exceedingly

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