Chương 294: Belisa Roadaway

"It's been about a year," I told her, as she spooned soup up into her mouth with a desperate rapidity.

"You're sixteen now. It's the first Oneday of Springopen. I think you're enrolled as a second-year student but I'm not actually sure how that works, since you've only been attending one class per day. You've been a captive of a lich for a long time."

"I'm not hungry," she said, staring down at the bowl that she had already eaten halfway down.

"I just... I just feel like I desperately need to taste something. I've got this huge gray space in my mind, it's all drab and blank. And then, and then," she shuddered helplessly, "and then there's this long road of dry jagged memories that just goes on and on and on... Gods, what happened?" As I suspected, she has inherited his memories. What she can do with them, we've yet to find out.

"I'll give you the best summary I can," I said.

"We'll catch up a thorough explanation later. So, I believe it all started when I stole the box of blackmail information from Kudder of Byeview. I handed that off to you, and somehow that led to you being captured and experimented on by the lich, the former Duke Meadwhite."

"My family," she interrupted, staring into the middle distance. Her spoon stirred around in the soup. We were crouched in the far corner of the Roadaway Depository, where we had built the trap set for Meadwhite with her as the bait. Duke Septimus and his people were bustling about on the other side of the room, keeping busy. From here, it looked mostly like they were bundling up the broken lich-corpse for transport while trying to keep it intact for study.

They were taking samples from all around the room, and sweeping up any residue they could. Notes were being taken, and someone else was trying to rearrange the place and conceal evidence of what we've done.

"Your family?" I prodded her. Right now, there's a lot of surprises. One of the ones that is really standing out to me is that her status has not changed. Now that she is back to herself, she is not [Belisa Roadaway: The Tragic Damsel], she is still [Belisa Roadaway: The Broken]. She is still an [Antagonist][Love Interest]. So even though she is back to being herself, she's not in Nathan's list anymore.

"That's the 'somehow'," she said. She still barely glanced at me, she was seeing something inside herself.

"When I gave my family the box, and my great-uncle read the contents, he got... so pale. And he asked me if I had opened the box. I had, but I only read a little, and nothing that seemed important. He did not believe me. His guards seized me. I was held, tied, and... delivered." She shuddered again.

"Soup," I reminded her. She started gratefully gulping down savory broth, as if the experience of flavors was bringing her back to life. As someone who splits her time between being a living girl and an untethered soul, I'll say that there is something to that. In my ensouled form, I have vision and hearing, a sense of tactile texture and touch. But the closest to a sense of smell or taste, is a sort of sampling sense that lets me evaluate and analyze materials within my billows.

In a way, the sensation that differentiates the whole and complete person from the experiences of their essence, is flavors and scents.

"Septimus and I will have many more questions about that later," I told her, looking around the kitchen-space for anything else to feed her. The soup was thin but nutritious, but she was eating out of a compulsive need to experience things, not from real hunger. I looked for something light, and found crackers. I scooted the waxed-paper bag over near to her.

"But I want you to have your own footing before we charge into interrogations. In any case, Meadwhite had found a way to compress a human soul down inside of a tiny container, so that it would remain inside the body and mind and keep them alive, but without interacting with them, allowing the shell to act as if there was no soul but without being killed by the lack." A cracker snapped between her teeth, and she whimpered soulfully at the salty-brittle tidbit.

She shoved two of them into her mouth at once with trembling hands, but then modestly hid her mouth behind those hands as she spoke.

"I can remember bits of that. When you say it, it connects to some of those dry dead thoughts that stretch back in my mind. Why is that? How do I know this?" I put my hand between her shoulder blades and and rubbed in circles, trying to comfort her but also encouraging her to keep snacking.

"Presently, presently," I promised.

"While you were trapped apart from yourself, he experimented. Sigils, mostly, it is his magical practice of preference. You've, um, been tattooed. I have not yet seen how extensive, how it looks. We can discover that together." She turned towards me, her face writhing in disgust, a contortion of revulsion.

"Tattooed? He marked me?" I opened a small portal and pulled out some citrus-and-ginger candies, handed them over.

"This is going to get worse, I'm afraid. All of this was done with the intention of taking your body for his own. He had discovered a method to transplant a lich's mind into a living body. And he-""And it worked," she said.

"I remember things. You," she said, the candy still half-unwrapped in her hands. She was trembling again.

"So many memories of you. He learned- was he experimenting on you as well? Did he make you-" I could see how fast her pulse was tapping away in her throat.

"Not him," I said carefully.

"He was reverse-engineering something that a goddess did to me. And I am very sorry that I played any role in what was done to you."

"You should not," she said, and the candy clicked against her teeth as she sucked at it in her cheek.

"Oh, gods that is so good. No, he had such hate for you. And such pride at having stolen secrets from you. I know that you played no role in this. In.. whatever this is." I glanced over my shoulder. Septimus and his people had finished anything productive, and now they were pretending to stay occupied so as not to look like they were waiting for us. I looked back to her.

"Thank you. Anyway, his intention was to take you as his vessel, so he could experience life again, and then take another body after that, and so on. We do not know how far along he was, really. And he had secrets, things he knew. Leverage to keep us from killing him. I think I will let the marquis explain that. And-""The marquis?" she said, glancing over. She spotted the middle-aged man with his side-parted hair and tidy little mustache and his understated Ebonder livery.

"The Marquis Ebonder!? He- he answers only to the throne! He's - I should-""Relax," I said.

"He's not going to ask you to run over and curtsy. Recover yourself for now. Now then, as I said: he had secrets that we needed to know. And we could not harm him until we knew them. So he would not tell us. A stalemate. So, we destroyed his body, and he migrated to your shell, only for a second. And then I destroyed the prison that held your soul." We both looked down at her torn skirt. Her left knee was healed now, one of the special-ops ghouls was a healer.

But there had been some blood and screaming getting that barbed thorn out of her flesh. It was buried an inch deep, and that's quite a bit for a joint area like that.

"After that, your soul destroyed his, and now he's quite dead," I said.

"But, his soul had brought his mind with it. His memories, at least. And your body contained both of those minds when your soul destroyed his soul. So, what he knew, you know. And as soon as the Marquis learns where the dragonhide is, we'll be able to leave this place and help bring you back to your own life." Her hands clenched into fists. The soup spoon bent at a right angle but she did not seem to notice.

"I shall not," she declared hotly.

"I was betrayed, sold, delivered! It was my family that smuggled the flesh of that creature away and sold it to the necromancers... I can have nothing more to do with them!"

"Very well," I said.

"We have resources. We will find an alternative." I turned over my shoulder, and called out across the room.

"Lord Marquis? The Roadaway family was smuggling the dragon's flesh."

"Gods dammit!" the man shouted, stamping his foot.

"Some of our most trusted partners! How could they do this!?" He was really quite angry. He had thought that this girl was taken and tormented because of him. Her patriarch had told the Marquis that Kudder's blackmail material was the link between Roadaway and Ebonder. But really, it was the link between Roadaway and Ebonder's enemies. Betrayals and lies stacked onto betrayals and lies. He's the only person I know of who's been backstabbed and deceived as thoroughly as I have.

"Because they're some of your most trusted partners," I pointed out.

"Anyone who is not trusted could never have pulled it off."

"Gods dammit!" he repeated, stamping his foot again.

"You're entirely correct!" This man had magic that could vaporize this whole city block. He stomped like a toddler with a tantrum. It was oddly amusing. I am starting to finally understand why Larianne calls him Uncle Septy. He was grumbling as he pulled his people together, clearly getting ready to take his portion of Belisa's debrief. I patted her hand.

"We'll see you taken care of. If he does not do right by you, I'll do it myself."

"You will? But how? I know you are only a student as well! You have- oh, yes, you're Nathan's sister," she said, looking into her own memories.

"But, also-" her face darkened as she looked into the other memories as well. More recent memories, crueler memories. She was catching up, but it was an unpleasant process.

"Legally, I'm now Nathan's elder sister, and the heir apparent to Meadowtam duchy," I said gently.

"I'm also independently wealthy many times over, with many profiting investments and properties. I can take care of you if nobody else will. You are of age and emancipated, so all you should need is someone to pay the balance of your tuition."

"And to keep me safe from my family," she hugged herself.

"Gods know what they will do if they find that I am free again. I was made a lich's slave for the sake of those secrets, and now I have many, many more secrets, some of them even more dangerous." I smiled again.

"Ah, here we come to the part where I can offer you good news at last. You're going to find it quite easy from now on to keep yourself safe from would-be assassins or kidnappers. You need not fear your family's reprisals any longer."

"Why is that?" she asked, curious.

"Everything about this just gets stranger and stranger," she said from behind me, but this time I did not jump or startle very much. Her debrief with the Marquis had gone quickly and easily, thankfully. He was asking only the kind of questions that she could answer quickly without immersing herself in the lich's identity. The dragonhide was not kept in Meadwhite's main lair, he had it secured at a different location as I had thought.

Too paranoid to keep the key to his continued immortality too close to himself, afraid that he would be killed and lose his golden ticket at the same time. Once Septimus had the location he had bustled off with the corpse and all of the physical evidence, promising us that he would "see to" the rest of the Roadaway clan, and also the Academy insider who had been keeping Belisa prisoner, and collecting and relaying information about how my powers interacted with her.

The marquis promised he would keep her posted, but not to worry. After all, she was likely to inherit the majority of her family's holdings and contracts. A rather roundabout way of saying "hey I'm gonna go kill everyone you've ever loved, but they betrayed you so you're probably not too mad about it, and their crimes have earned their deaths many times over". She seemed to understand the score. We still have not left the warehouse area. I have figured out the restroom facility situation.

It was not, in fact, three seashells. And she is still enjoying the new benefits of having magical powers scribed into herself.

"Yes, Miss Roadaway, it is quite strange," I agreed.

"From my perspective as well. But really I was worried you would have much more trouble adapting to this. You've been through quite some trauma. I would refer you to a good therapist but I do not believe there is a single one in the city. I could refer you to a spectacularly bad therapist if you're interested." She reappeared directly in front of me, leaning in so close that I was awash in citrus and ginger from her breath.

"Your eyes don't track me at all," she said, staring straight into my eyes from inches away.

"And if I stay too close for too long you just sort of go blank, like a fugue."

"To be entirely fair," I said, taking a step back for personal space, "that may not even be the magic at play. I'm quite introspective, and I'm rather prone to turning all my attention inward to my thoughts. I zone out at a moment's notice, even when mildly interesting things are happening."

"That sounds like fugue states," she said, holding very still and watching me.

"Have you had rather strong trauma experiences before?"

"I have a cousin, a teacher, and a student council president to introduce you to," I said with a wry sour note.

"They all like to psychoanalyze me as well." Great. Now the girl who was introduced as the Tragic Damsel is worried about my traumatic background. Not a great sign. Also, she is now known as The Broken and she thinks I'm not entirely compos mentis. After I've saved the world I'm going to let myself have a really great breakdown.

"I appreciate your offer to maintain my tuition, by the way," she said from right beside me. Hopefully she gets this out of her system soon. She's experimenting with her new powers right now. I'd do the same thing in her position. From what I recall, she was rather tranquil and demure by nature, as soon as the novelty wears off she will start sitting still and stop messing with me. I'm sure of it. She leaned over my other shoulder.

"I don't think I will need it, from what the marquis said about my inheritance prospects. But it was kind of you to offer."

"Seems the least I could do, since it was my actions that set off this chain of events." When I killed Kudder years early, I thought to myself. When I delivered the tin box of documents far ahead of schedule. When I bypassed all the intermediate steps to free her from the blackmailer's influence and just jumped straight to the part that gave the big XP rewards early.

"It's no small matter, that school is really quite expensive," she said earnestly.

"My family holds no titles but they are quite well-off, and they had to budget around the price of this education." She's a very sweet girl, really. Soft-spoken and thoughtful. The kind that you really want to save from the terrible circumstances that haunt her. But in this life, I only know her as a shambling presence. Before today, less than a dozen words moved between us in person. I know her from the game, obviously, having romanced her a dozen times, saved her from Kudder.

Her family had never betrayed her then, something I've done has made things worse for her. Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Maybe that's just an [Antagonist] thing. Maybe the only relationships I get offered have to be toxic, one way or another. I'd really like a manual. A walkthrough.

"Well, even if you don't remember, I've spent a lot of time with you," I said.

"And put a lot of work into trying to bring you back. I'm not going to wash my hands of this situation right when things are looking up, am I?" She laughed at that, a fun clean sound. Last year I was going through this with Kurumi. A girl who barely knows me, divided between my brother and I, who is going to learn that I know her far better than she knows me. Still, unlike Kurumi, Belisa still does not have a romance tag for the protagonists. She's not going back.

What she's gone through now is too much for her to ever put her life back where it had been intended. Still, she's got superpowers from a lich now.

"And they are looking up," she said, moving very slowly so I can follow along as she moves to the stacked crates. She started taking them down from the tower she had built earlier, carefully handling the packed boxes that each weighed more than she did. Unlike my steel-borne strength, she had no extra mass or leverage, so she had to move very carefully with her balance, but as long as she was paying good attention she was able to move a lot of weight. Probably hits like a truck too, if she ever lost her temper.

"The strength is impressive," I admitted.

"And the durability, and the senses. But I've never even heard of anything like that invisibility trick of yours. Not on a single person, not mobile." In fact, the closest thing I've seen so far has been the Shimmer Gate at the entrance to the city, the secret path that is magically shielded so that only the royal family's most trusted spies can travel it. It is bound in thousands of sigils, and it takes a specialized magister to navigate the way for those who are expected and approved.

"That's because it is really difficult," she said, her voice soft and distracted.

"Sigils are very strictly defined, but people's thoughts and perceptions are varied and flexible. It takes a lot of work, a lot of ink, to hide even small things from a few people for a short time. To get the world to ignore an entire person? Nearly impossible. And you'd have to put it right on the body, just scribing a coat like this would make people ignore the coat." She made a face.

"I hate the way that knowledge feels in my mind. I know... a lot of things right now, and they all came from him. Reading the remnants of his thoughts... it's disgusting. I think I'd like to ignore all of that, for a while. A long while." That's a shame. I can tell you from adequate personal experience that having knowledge you're not supposed to have is the biggest superpower of all. I can't imagine what kind of useful lore is locked up in her right now.

What hideouts, account numbers, backdoors and escape routes she had exclusive knowledge of. How much scrivening genius she had on tap if she chose to use it. What kind of secrets, leverage, blackmail- Ah. That might be exactly why his memories are so repugnant to her. There is no way for me to know how deep that rabbit hole goes, how many ugly truths she doesn't want to face. It is best if I don't push this until she's ready.

She leaned on the last crate, both her hands flat on top of it, elbows flexed like a push-up. She stared off into the middle distance, just as distracted as I was.

"I'm going to finish taking out his allies," I promised her.

"He had a whole network. I've gotten most of them. I'm not done. We're going all the way to the top." Belisa turned to me, and there was no [Tragic Damsel] in her eyes.

"Bring me along," she insisted. We're not done fixing [The Broken] yet, but we've made a damn good start. [Quest Checkpoint Complete: Dazed and Con, Fused. 20 XP. Advancement: the Broken] Enough to hit thirteenth level. Time to invest more Charisma before I take my role as leader of the revolt.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I promised her, smiling.