Layaera dragged him away, it was personal and we weren't going to interfere with whatever happened. Eve and I had both respected him, Layaera loved him as family, his bigotry was a betrayal to us all and a collosal disappointment. We were the ones who had gotten him the assignment as a way to redeem himself, but he was clearly too busy beating himself up to grow in the slightest.
"Hope she doesn't kill him, she knows we need him right?"
"I did tell her, but he did try to try to kill her, sooo..." I shrugged my shoulders, then we waited. Five minutes ticked by, twenty minutes ticked by, then forty minutes ticked by and finally after fifty-two they returned with puffy eyes and blood-stained clothes.
Eve ran over and hugged her. "Layaera? Are you okay?"
"Course, I just needed to make a hole in his thick skull for things to get through." She chuckled with a few more tears.
"No one draws tears from my family freely Hasleth, your debt keeps growing, are you finally able to start working it off?" I asked as I joined the hug.
"Yes, I am. Sorry I have disappointed you all so deeply. I'll take you to the supply shop."
"Babylon. Apologies, I just made dinner your responsibility tonight."
"Will you two be joining us? You haven't done for a long time at dinner."
"Of course, we hadn't even noticed with everything that has happened, we just both kept missing our family even as you sat in front of us. Thank you for reminding us." With that I opened up a shadow gate to where we had left.
The distance made it an ordeal, but much more manageable than it would have been a week prior.
"Your powers are truly amazing. I thought I'd seen their scope with the wall."
"The wall was a parlour trick of a man carrying a fake core, The Black is far more powerful than what you call "holy magic" which itself is merely a pale imitation of The White. Now, cease the chatter and prove you're worth the breath I'm wasting."
He nodded with renewed vigour, standing visibly taller than when we had found him. As he stepped through there was a bit of surprise, but apparently Vedna had warned everyone we could now just appear from anywhere.
We then headed onward with purpose, winding through the flawless marble corridors of the cathedral and then through the streets of the city proper.
People were startled to see the three of us, everyone recognised Eve, by simple deduction they figured I was her mysterious husband, but they were in disbelief over the fact we were in the company of the disgraced cardinal.
"Lady Eve, a pleasure and congratulations on your marriage." One of many, many distractions.
We finally reached our destination more than an hour into our half-hour journey. A small and well established place on the surface, but potentially the den of a sleeping monster all the same.
"How should we proceed?" Hasleth asked as sat at a nearby cafe to get a measure of the place.
"Eve, are you in need of some venting?" I asked with almost musical cheer.
"No, so whatever you have planned, go ahead. I'll stay put here, I want to see if I can encase the building in The Black to block outside interference."
"Ooooo, fancy. Well then Hasleth, shall we?"
"You want me to come?" He asked with a note of joy.
"If you think I trust you at my wife's back you are mistaken. I literally couldn't trust you at your own sister's." The words robbed him of that note, but unlike before, he simply twitched and nodded without losing composure.
We strode into the shop and I jogged up to the clerk without delay and a guise of laboured breathing. "Apologies for the rush I need some supplies urgently; Two casks of fermented croo powder, four measure of critical hembredesia and seven measures of plotoxin."
The clerk in question quickly gathered the whole lot on the instinct and automatic action of one who had been in such a role for decades and was used to healers coming in for medical supplies for critical patients.
Halseth looked perturbed immediately as the shop keeper ran to a back room to bring the second item off my fake list. "There is no way."
As the item was placed on the counter I grabbed the clerk and paralysed him from the neck down, while letting same anti-mana crystal fall from my storage space. "See Hasleth? Sometimes all you have to do is ask and you shall receive."
"What are you doing? I'm a respected shopkeeper! You won't get away with this!" He said with all the arrogance he could muster, before it fell to disbelief as I laughed so hard I doubled over.
"Sorry... I guess I should tell you... I'm future king of Eden, a god, husband to Eve the ex-high-priestess and the pope's son-in-law. I think I could wiggle my way out even if I weren't in the right." His face completely dropped and fear began creeping in.
"How did you know, enemy of the true goddess?" His words inspired me to roll my eyes at the sheer pretentiousness I had just heard.
"I didn't until you just told me. I was simply arresting someone on the grounds of unlawful sale of an incredibly controlled substance."
"Indeed Critical Hembredesia, is restricted to two measures at most and you just doubled that with no idea of identity. He acted well within the bounds of a spot check and citizen's arrest as well. Then we both heard you admit voluntarily to aiding and abetting an enemy of both our state and our close allies across the continent."
"Now, I'm going to rip out your memories and have myself a little look-see. While I'm doing this, Hasleth can you mix those two casks, with the other ingredients for me, what the people of this era don't know is that in those quantities and in an area encased in divinity, when mixed they produce a curse that marks any enemy of the divine source who uses magic."
"But ther-" As if on cue, Eve succeeded in encasing the building.
"Now, it doesn't really matter what you were saying. Halseth, begin mixing please. Oh and just tear the shop apart to find a mixing bowl big enough..." Hasleth then saw fit to vent all his bottled-up frustrations on the shop that had earned him further disgrace.
The shop keeper winced with every crash, bang, crack and shatter. Then after a heavy cathartic sigh. "Oo! A bowl." Then he began mixing as I used divinity to purify the poison that was being concocted for the sake of the ruse.
"Now, I would rather not see that whore again, even if only in another's memories, so I will grant you a choice. Tell us all you know, the names of every agent, saboteur, spy, bard, mage, scholar, child, chicken and fly that you know is working for her. Otherwise, I go sifting through your memories, not just watching, but tearing them apart, shredding every single one as I go just to make sure it isn't buried beneath that adorable little protection she thinks stops me." My cold tone, already worked to chill his spine, but the bloodthirsty grin of satisfaction set him ablaze.
"Oh and of course with you a gibbering wreck and me in possession of all your memories, I'll then go and do the same to everyone you hold dear, even if I see no sign of their involvement. Then I will give you the memory of my doing so, so you can feel like you did it yourself."
"ha! You can't fool me! She said you're too weak to harm those you see as innocents."
"Oh my dear sweet little fool. That woman tried to kill my wife, nearly killed my daughter, my niece and others I cherish... On that note, Hasleth, how good are the sound enchantments here?"
"Very, to uphold the confidence of healers' patients." I nodded then pushed my hand into his back and pulled out a kidney before healing it and placing the removed organ in his lap.
"Now. you have about two minutes before you die and I have to bring you back and try again, oh, I'll be using this bit on the loved-ones I mentioned before as well." The man proceeded to give us so many names, locations and various other bits of information he didn't even realise he had been speaking for more than two minutes.
"Okay, now the family members you know of... Don't be stupid now. Tell me and convince them to cooperate and I will let them off with all the mercy left in me and I couldn't break a promise if I wanted to thanks to your "One True Goddess" or whatever the hell you called that psycho-stalker."
"You promise? She did say you wouldn't break a promise, that it was a weakness we could exploit."
"Yes, I promise to show all the mercy I have left in me to you and yours when I have everything I need from you and them."
"Fine... Come with me..."