Previous:
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=Path%20of%20the%20ExorcistWith no small amount of bitterness, you're coming to realise that the world is not as simple as you once thought it was. Your world exists more in shadow than in light, and the shadows are teeming with those who would claim to know its secrets. The centipede cult of the necromancers, the priesthood of Sheol... the academy itself, even?
But men can claim many things. Making claims is easy, the easiest thing in the world. Finding the truth is much harder.
Either oblivious or indifferent to your dark thoughts, Johannes reaches down and scrapes a handful of loose pebbles from the ground. Weighing them in his hand for a moment, he starts throwing them, one at a time, at the courtyard wall. The hard click of stone against stone is the only sound for a long moment, before he finally speaks.
“I just realised something,” he begins, a brooding anger in his voice, “That woman, that forester witch, was able to banish a spirit.”
“You said as much,” you agree, “So?”
“So how exactly was she able to do that?” Johannes asks, glaring at you as if in accusation, “I find it hard to believe that she was able to call upon the Sun King's power like we do.”
You're silent for a long while, your thoughts drifting back to Clarissa and her abnormal act of banishment. If not the Sun King, then what power had she called upon then? Johannes' gaze never wavers as you think, the weight of his stare finally forcing you to speak. “The foresters have a strange relationship with the spirits,” you offer, “Not like ours, not at all.”
He considers this for a moment, then grunts and dismisses the subject with a shrug. “I have to deliver my report to Master Brehm,” he decides, “Come on.”
The conversation might have shifted, but you can still sense his anger, his moral outrage. Watching the heavyset man with cautious eyes, you follow him back to the dormitory. There, the dark clouds of his foul mood seem to be washed away by a sense of good cheer. Fluttering about like an excited bird, Harriet immediately hurries over to greet you.
“You won't believe this!” she starts, her voice breathless with wonder, “It's Clarissa – you won't believe what she's doing!”
Immediately, your thoughts go to the darkest of places. “Slow down, will you?” you plead, “What's this about Clarissa?”
“Well, that important business she was talking about? Those important people she had to meet?” Harriet explains quickly, “She didn't want to say, but I managed to coax it out of her – they're some of the Regent's people!”
“She's actually going to the palace,” Persephone adds in a lazy drawl, “I shall pretend that I'm not madly jealous, just this once. Aren't I such a good friend?”
