>>6345518You spend much of the day in silence as you follow a Lord Inquisitor who behaves rather strangely. Strangest of all would be the fact that he walks around instead of sitting on his ass all day. He directs you to training rooms, archives, hidden archives, secret training rooms, a break room, and, his favorite of course, the cafeteria. Though you meet many new people there’s always that weird feeling at the back of your mind when you’re traversing the underground labyrinth of the cathedral. It's strange mix of alien architecture and more familiar ones easily leads to confusion. Though you suppose the Inquisitors you meet with are equally as strange. And no, you don’t mean in that way- well, mostly.
“They’re a brooding bunch, the lot of them,” The Lord Inquisitor says through a mouthful of pheasant once you’ve taken seats at the cafeteria for dinner, “Paranoid, deceitful, and eccentric. Exactly what we need them to be.”
“It must be a challenge for you to coordinate them all. Especially during a large operation.” Not even mentioning what you’re preparing for, you remember your first meeting with Asher when, in the span of a few hours, the Inquisition was able to put the capital on effective lockdown. Granted, it was the dead of night, but that is still no easy feat.
“Oh, surely, but when you’re in the game for as long as I’ve been, you become at least adept at it. Doubly so when you’ve known many of them since they were but children and have been one of their only guiding influences in pivotal stages of their development.”
You nod, “That makes a surprising amount of sense.” It is not a disimular practice to that of knighthood, where a noble son or daughter is sent to their feudal lord’s retinue to apprentice during their formative years. Only, instead of selecting from noble stock, the Inquisition makes use of the lowest stock possible, common orphans. But, like with knighthood, there are exceptions to the rules. You’ve met with quite a few today who broke those rules, such as the case of Inquisitor August, a thirteenth son of a noble house who joined the Inquisition as a boy in a similar way as children of little inheritance decide to become a knight’s squire. As August seemed to be a dour and moody man, you can see how he’d come to the decision; knights with such expressions are never truly popular in their cohorts.
“It must be harder than when the Inquisitors age and become less reliant on your approval. As there are no oaths to distance themselves from friends or family like in some knightly or monastic orders, correct?”
The Lord Inquisitor hums as he swallows his salmon, “I wouldn’t say so. Sure, perhaps you could say that Inquisitors who survive into middle age become more independent, but that alone also has its positives. They're easier to send on solo quests and not many suspect the cobbler on their street with five children to be an asset of the Inquisition,” He waves a turkey’s drumstick at you, “That includes Strangers.”
