>>6174706Any softness in Beneger’s face vanishes when you say the name of your mentor, “Pah, Asher,” He grunts, “He was a pet project of mine decades ago, along with the Lord Inquisitor, to see if Strangers could be trained. They could, we found out, more or less. He turned out stable enough to be made an Inquisitor, though, like all Demons, I advise caution when dealing with him. The fact he’s still stable after what I put him through means he must have excellent cunning, cunning enough to be made an Inquisitor in a word that hates him. He is dangerous. Your Highness is one of the most dangerous I’ve seen a Stranger be.”
“So you did train him then?” He grunts, “Then his fighting style? The way he moves like a… to hell with it, it’s like watching a feral street cat fighting off an entire tavern of purse-makers desperate for his hide. That was all you?”
“Indeed, it was,” He states simply.
“Then would it not make more sense to have given him actual training? So he could be more stable than he is? I doubt it would be a pleasant sight if he were to snap all of a sudden.”
Beneger makes a sound almost equivalent of a growl after you say that, “And teach the revenant who shall never no death exactly how to deal it to others? No. It is better for the world that he tetters on the edge of insanity than unleash such a being upon it. I taught him no magic, no defense, nothing more than the basics of combat and set him upon the Demon Wastes when his adolescent body was capable of withstanding it so that he may never learn enough to become a threat to us. Was I harsh? Yes. But that was for the sake of the Kingdom I love. I will not tell you to answer but simply think. What if I brought him up to be a skilled fighter? To be a legendary duelist? What if that gave him an ego? Ambition? Then what could possibly stop him?” He looks you dead in the eyes, “What could?”
You search for something to say in response to his spirited monologue but find your mouth unable to speak any words. There was not even a hint that Inquisitor Beneger did not believe what he said. He meant every word, and you know there will be nothing good with arguing with an elder set in their ways. The only thing that manages to actually come out after painful moments of your mouth being agape is, “Cane sword?” with a point.
“Of course,” He says with resolution, there’s no use to a cane without a practical purpose for it. As he says that you also spy flashes of silver hidden away in his outfit, perhaps him and Asher are more alike than either thinks, perhaps you are too.
