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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerulean_Wings" data-source="post: 3967585" data-attributes="member: 55060">Chapter 5 Path of the ShamanNeither Gilliam nor Vincent spoke then, stunned as they were by the woman's proclamation. The rugged-looking half-elf appeared to be waiting for either warrior to say something.“Since you are fine now, I will be going my way” she said, getting up from the ground and moving her hair to one side of her face. The shack's flames were still burning intensely, and thanks to the light they provided Vincent was able to see that the woman had a scar where one of her eyes had once been.Seeing this,  the squire jumped. “Wait, my lady, where are you going, all by yourself?”.If Gilliam had had the strength to get up as well, he would have, but the near-death experience had depleted him of his energy for the time being. “True, you have just saved my life, and now you're going away, just like that?” he managed to ask from his sitting position.The woman stopped walking and glanced over her shoulder with her good eye at the two men. “My house is about to turn into ashes, as you can see, so I must look for another place where to live”.Gilliam and Vincent looked at each other briefly before the mercenary pressed the matter further. “In that case, would you be able to tell us where the hermit's shack is? We were told he lives in these lands, by the Rainbow River”. “That much I can do, child” she said, slowly turning to face them. “The location of the hermit you seek is, currently, right in front of you”.Vincent would have laughed, had the whole situation been more cheerful. “You are the hermit?” he asked, confused. “I had heard the hermit was a man, back in Seawall”.“I didn't know hermits could shape shift” Gilliam muttered under his breath.“Truly?” she responded, not sounding offended in the very least. In fact, her voice hadn't changed from that serene tone she had used from the very beginning when she healed Gilliam. “An honest mistake, I am sure” she smiled a little at the squire. “In any case, why is it that you seek me, travelers?”.  “Ah, yes, of course...” Vincent placed the backpack on the ground hastily, rummaging through its contents until he found what he was looking for. “Here, this is for you, ahem, madam...?” he said as he offered the plain wooden case at the woman.“My name is Kahleen of the Wind spear tribe” the hermit responded, grabbing the case with both hands. “From House Kashtar, I presume” she added while opening the lid. Somehow, she had expected this.Vincent cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed that he hadn't presented himself. “Yes, that's correct: I am Vincent Ender, squire of House Kashtar” he straightened and gestured towards Gilliam “And this is-”“You may call me Gilliam, currently the bodyguard of Vincent, here” the mercenary interjected, taking a small step to stand next to Vincent. He had somehow been able to stand up and looked quite pale, almost about to collapse on the squire for support. “Go easy on your body, child” the wise woman instructed Gilliam. “You have not fully recovered from the wound yet”.“I'll be fine, thank you” he replied dismissively. Kahleen had taken out the folded scroll from the case and was focused in reading it, using the burning shack as a source of illumination. There was something odd with having the owner of a house reading a message as the building slowly burned down. It didn't take her more than ten seconds to read through the scroll, apparently.“It's blank”.“What” Gilliam exclaimed, unable to believe what he had heard.Vincent seemed nervous, unable to understand how this could be. “Here, Kahleen, let me see the message, maybe you opened it on the wrong side...” the squire asked, standing next to the hermit in order to look at the message. Gilliam patiently waited for Vincent to confirm the scroll's content, his expression a mask that betrayed no emotion. “It-it's blank. There's nothing on the scroll” Vincent declared after having double-checked the scroll by himself.“Just as I said” quipped in Kahleen.“Decoy”.Both squire and hermit looked up at the mercenary at the same time.“What?” Vincent asked.“We are a decoy, Vince” Gilliam explained, his voice quite calm, even though his insides were on fire “There's no message to deliver. None at all. But they made it look like there was one, alright”Vincent stammered a reply, then tried again more slowly, but his words still came up in a jumble. “It seems like, for some reason, House Kashtar wishes to see if there are enemies lurking in the shadows” Kahleen explained to the confused Vincent.Gilliam pointed a finger at the hermit. “Exactly”. He took a breath to steady himself before going on. “They sent you, a member of the House, with me, a bodyguard for your protection, carrying a scroll inside a wooden case, all to see if we would lure out the assassin's that were interested in the information that wasn't there in the first place”. While the bodyguard took several more breaths to recover from the long sentences that had used the better part of his energy, Vincent simply stared at him, looking like a frightened child that had just been taught that people eventually died in this world. He was holding the scroll like a lifeline, something to keep in touch with reality, or at least what was left of it.“No, I don't believe it”.Kahleen didn't say anything, and Gilliam stared back at Vincent in silence. “I don't believe any of it. My House would never deceive me in order to trick our enemies into jumping out from the darkness!” he shouted, sounding more desperate by the moment.“I'm afraid that that's what they have done, Vincent Ender” Kahleen explained in a comforting tone, placing a hand on the elf's shoulder pad. “The evidence is all too clear”.“NO!” With a fast jerk, Vincent moved Kahleen's hand away from him. “It's all a mistake, the scroll they've given me is the wrong one, the real message must be back in the city-”.His desperate cry for salvaging his House's image was violently put to death by Gilliam's fist smashing Vincent on the side of his face. Vincent staggered backwards, stunned, holding one hand on the spot that he had been hit.“You are a bigger fool than I had thought, Vincent” Gilliam took a step forward, his ire giving him sufficient strength to remain standing after having attacked his companion. “Not once, but twice are we assaulted by strangers, first Barbarians, now some sort of trained assassins, and after seeing that there was no message, you still believe it was something else than an elaborate ruse?”. The mercenary advanced one more step. “Your House did what anyone else would have done in a situation like this: they send an 'important message' to someone and see if someone else jumps to the bait. It's what Noble Houses do when they need to figure out who's on their side and who's not”.Vincent had managed to regain his balance, but he wasn't about to move from the spot he was or retort  to Gilliam's words.“Remember the savages we encountered on the road, who coincidentally knew we were after the hermit, here?” he pointed at Kahleen while his gaze focused on the squire with intensity. “They were carrying weapons with the symbol of House Grugarch, something that should ring a bell in your mind and wake you up from the dream-state you've been since you joined your House!”. Gilliam had to pause for a quick intake of air before going on. “They thought the scroll was so goddamn important, that they took the trouble of sending Barbarians after us, provided with brand new weapons”.“But it doesn't end there, oh no: the archer we just killed a couple of minutes ago, remember him?” Gilliam didn't bother to point in the direction of the corpse. “He KNEW that you were from House Kashtar, and that fact lead him to try to kill us both”.  “But, hey, if that still isn't enough to force you to grasp the facts and accept you've been used as bait, we can always have a friendly chat with whoever sent you, back at Seawall, and see what they have to say about this”.Either Gilliam's words had struck true, or Vincent's outrage prevented him from saying anything in his defense. The squire nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed as he looked at Gilliam in the eye, and said “Very well. We will confirm this matter with Master Ender, once we reach the city”.And with that, Vincent started walking in the direction they had come from, the road that lead home.“We should hurry, Gilliam” Kahleen suggested, unaffected by the argument that had taken place.The mercenary almost started to walk after his companion when he noticed something odd in Kahleen's words. “What do you mean by 'we', hermit?”.The lady didn't seem to grasp what was wrong with including herself as part of the group, at least in Gilliam's view. “I mean that I will be accompanying you and your friend back to Seawall” she replied, her tone not even hinting of condescension towards the mercenary. Kahleen thought the issue settled and begun walking after Vincent.More than anything, Gilliam wanted to scream at the heavens above and demand that the world settled down, just for a single instant. He had to resign himself to tailing the hermit woman, forcing his legs to move in spite of his weakened state.He had managed to catch up to Kahleen when he spotted Vincent, who had somehow managed to displace his heavily armored body farther than he had expected. “Your friend's expectations, albeit naive, have collided with the harsh reality of the world. He will adapt or blind himself to the truth, but either way, he shall suffer greatly” she said to Gilliam in a low tone, so that Vincent couldn't catch what she was speaking of. “You speak the truth, unfortunately” Gilliam sighed heavily. “But in any case, there are some matters that I need to settle with you, mostly to understand who you are and why you are doing certain things”.“Such as why I decided to follow you two after having met with you less than several moments ago?”.“That's one. It's not that I don't trust you; you did heal my wound, after all” Gilliam grasped the open hole in his armor with a hand as he said the words. “So tell me, wise one, why are you intending to go with us?”.“If House Kashtar sends a mere squire to draw out enemies, then they must be in need of assistance”.“And so you go to their aid” Gilliam stated rather than asked. “I take it you have some ties with the House?”.Kahleen nodded. “Indeed. I had once helped a Kashtar noble survive in the wilderness. It was long ago, close to a decade, but the House has a good memory, and a noble heart, too” she seemed pleased at recalling the event.“So that was you, after all” Gilliam said to himself “Tell me, Kahleen, how was it that you healed me? I have seen priests working the magic of the Gods, but I've never seen a... hermit?” he asked curiously, unable to decide how to address the woman.“I am a shaman, if that's what you wish to know, Gilliam” she replied without further introduction. “I deal with the spirits of our world, which permeate our lives in more than one way. My connection allows me to exchange my energy for spiritual essence, which in turn allows me to do certain things, such as repairing a breach in a being's essence”.She made it sound simple, since she wasn't relying on many complicated terms, but Gilliam couldn't help but feel a little lost. “What do you mean when you say 'repairing a breach in a being's essence'? Are you referring to healing my soul?”.  The shaman shook her head slowly and raised a finger pointing upwards. “Listen carefully, mercenary: every being is formed, rather than combined, with an essence. There are multiple things added to it, like organs, blood and a soul, just to name a few. The essence is that which constitutes the most basic form of every living and unliving being”. Kahleen made a pause for Gilliam to digest all of this. “The spirits allow me to alter the essence of  beings of this world, including my own”.“That's how you turned into a wolf!” Gilliam exclaimed triumphantly, feeling like he grasped the concept that the shaman was talking about.“Exactly. You are a fast learner, even though your expertise lies in the material, not the spiritual” she appraised, although her facial expression didn't change from her serene look.Gilliam took that as a compliment and remained silent, realizing that the less he talked, the more air he could preserve for his battered body. The pain from the ghastly wound was gone, but the scar would remain in his chest. Vincent was still several feet ahead of them, a dark figure on the road, oblivious to their talk about spirits and essence. The mercenary wondered if his companion would be able to handle the truth, at least in the long run. He had four days of traveling to ponder on it, after all.Almost as an afterthought, Gilliam glanced back to the shack, which was by then a pile of blackened wood, with a few embers still flying around. He found it hard to believe that Kahleen had left it without so much as a sigh or a tear. Maybe it was true, to an extent, that those who focus more on the immaterial rather than the physical lose the attachment to material goods. Gilliam hoped that Kahleen's eye had been taken from her after she had let go of her attachments to her body.</blockquote>

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