Chương 66: Book 2: Prologue

MORTIMER The rain on this world fell harder than it should. Precipitation measurements were well within documented parameters for Alpha-23's more temperate northern climates, but something about it felt off. Perhaps it was the coldness, the bone-deep chill of it, or perhaps it was just the limitations of my new sensory bandwidth.

I tried not to shiver, pulling my vestments tighter around me to press away the biting wind that whipped at my face, but with only two weeks to adjust to this body I was finding I still had very little control of it. The mortals in our delegation seemed largely unaffected, riding through this downpour for hours without obvious discomfort, not even slowing the conversation which seemed to me an endless stream of barely intelligible but still fascinating nonsense.

I watched them every moment, their hunched shoulders, tucked chins, the way their weight shifted in the saddle - a thousand tiny, unconscious adjustments performed without thought. I remained a student of the obvious, my first field assignment a sensory assault that no amount of reading could have prepared me for... not that I hadn't tried. For all the precision of my research, toddlers on this world understood their bodies better than I did.

A fact that would have been infuriating if I wasn't so constantly distracted. Vorric rode at the front of the column a dozen lines ahead, his posture easy and unbothered, though I knew he had magic to aid him, tronics and skills that protected him from the worst of the elements. My connection to the System was still calibrating, a process my records said should have taken only moments but for some reason was stretching into weeks.

He laughed at something his companion said on the tarator next to him, a prelate in the light crimson of the fourth rung. I'd gotten his name at some point, but even my memory was fractured here, my usual exactitude slipping through my fingers like sand. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Behind me, Telemacus brought up the rear, the giant man's imposing face tattoos and flowing red robes an appropriate accent to his terrifying energy signature.

I hadn't actually heard the man speak, but then it wasn't unusual for members of the church's martial branch to take a vow of silence. We'd been on the road for ten days already, the regional survey of Alpha-23's outer sectors proving a slow endeavor. Not that I was complaining, I'd spent the last three decades in a cubicle, this was heaven comparatively... shivering cold and all.

Our final destination was a coastal Duchy in the far east where Vorric had business with a local lord, but at the rate we were currently travelling it would be another month before we reached it. I'd prepared thoroughly, as was my nature - census data, tithing records, harvest output reports, administrative correspondences for the last thirty years in local time.

The Duchy called Eastwatch was unremarkable by any standard I could identify, a mid-tier coastal settlement that had recently undergone a rather significant economic slowdown. It's overlord, a man called Thorne, seemed to have done an adequate job under the circumstances, but why the Archprelate himself would see it necessary to engage the man directly was a puzzle I still hadn't managed to work out.

Vorric was a middle manager, true, but he was still a sector supervisor - if this was an official assignment, I hadn't gotten the notification through the usual channels. The rain intensified as a small village appeared lit up in the distance, smoke from chimneys promising merciful warmth and some dry clothes.

"We'll stop here!" called Vorric from up ahead, his voice carrying easily over the rain. His eyes lingered on me for a moment, an unsettling feeling in my palms making the reins nearly slip from my hands. He turned away, the rain parting around him. As we left the edge of the forest, the land opened up into a wide valley, farmland stretching out toward a grey horizon. The village was closer now, I could see figures moving between primitive structures of stone and thatch.

Back on Alpha-1, the people here were considered little more than livestock, and I couldn't deny that their world was backwards, dirty and ignorant to an almost shocking degree... and yet, the way the people moved through their lives needled at me. It was purposeful and animated, full of subtlety that spoke of an inner life the sterile descriptions I'd studied had not adequately conveyed. We approached the edge of the village, wooden gate opening for the Hestian convoy without a word spoken.

Ahead of me a woman crossed the muddy road carrying a child on her hip, its tiny hand reaching up toward the rain, its stubby fingers grasped at something it couldn't hold. My job here was to observe, that is what a Chronicler did after all, documented the truth. So why did I feel like I was seeing something forbidden? I watched the child until the column carried me past, its hand still outstretched, rain splashing on a smiling face.