Despite his shock, Valen did not have much time to dwell on the revelation. He still needed to interpret Cairo's words, but he could not give an exact interpretation. The Guard Captain should still have a means to tell the truth from lies, but Cairo's response would raise too many questions in a sensitive security investigation, it might get all six pathfinders killed. Considering his words carefully, he twisted the response as much as he could.
"He obtained it from a faraway realm, one that should not have been found by the people of this world yet. However, there was a disaster and he was warped away through unknown means." Valen tried to divert the Captain's attention from the "faraway realm" to the "disaster" portion. Valen had some preliminary knowledge of the actual disaster that occurred, which meant he could manipulate the truth much better, and he wanted to know more about Cairo's initial path.
"A Disaster? A Space Warp? It truly is a fragile time in this world…" The Captain's tone was abnormally grave, he was normally very bubbly and flamboyant despite his strict behavior and wariness, so the sudden shift raised alarms in Valen's head. After a deep sigh, the Captain speculated out loud, "It is strange to find this many foreigners in the forest at once. This place is rather secluded by the forest. If similar refugees have been scattered across the world, it would make sense that a massive catastrophe occurred in the Uncharted Lands…"
"I think we should check to see if the remaining ones also come from other lands, Sir." Atlan reminded the captain politely.
"Indeed. Help Valen come back this way, we need him to check if the others speak this other land tongue." The Captain instructed decisively as if he felt confident in his deduction.
'Really? Is he trusting the truth that easily? Just what has been happening in this dying world?'
Valen had mentally prepared himself to step into a world he knew nothing about, but he had no means to expect or understand what the current situation he found himself in, the pile of questions seemed to proliferate faster than they were eliminated. As Atlan gently guided Valen in the direction they had just come, placing his hands on Valen's seemingly frail and malnourished shoulders, Valen mentally scrambled together a plan to try and gain some form of control over the situation.
'If the other four have also been pulled into this pathway, I need to understand who I'm capable of manipulating and who could potentially be an enemy.' Valen had long since discarded things he felt would restrict his success, like empathy. His mentality was that of a sharp knife, a strong tool in the hands of the wielder, and a danger to whoever it was pointed at. 'Thankfully, the kid named Cairo seems promising and not openly hostile. He also isn't a member of an influential family which is a plus. If my path has pulled them here, I need to treat them as my tools to success, proceeding alone would be a death sentence.'
Despite his increasing surplus of unanswerable questions, Valen knew better than to underestimate a path. Those who underestimated their paths, or took key details at face value, weren't the ones who would survive, or they only survived by sheer luck. Valen had no choice but to play the game that was put in front of him, and knowing how to use his pieces would be necessary to win. However, he had no thoughts of relinquishing his control to anyone else, he had to make sure that his pawns remained just pawns.
After coming to a stop, and waiting for the Guard Captain to make a few attempts to communicate with the survivors in the holding cell, and failing, the Guard Captain sighed once more and handed the task back to Valen. "Confirm their names, how they got here, and whatnot. I'm starting to get a headache thinking about all the paperwork this whole mess is going to get me."
Wasting no time, and trying to keep a stranglehold on the information available, Valen quickly introduced himself to the remaining "refugees". "If you can understand me, tell me your name one at a time, and what happened to get you here. There has likely been an anomaly in your pathways leading you here. Do not lie, the Interrogator has a means of knowing truth from lies, likely regardless of language."
Valen could not see it, but he could hear the uncomfortable shifting of the remaining detainees as their worst worries seemingly came true. No one truly knew what anomalies meant, but seeing as there were no records in any of their study material, the likely outcome for their predecessors was death.
A seemingly uninterested and uncaring teenage male voice cut through the tense air, with no regard for the other's opinions. "Name's Akkod, Son of Priece. As soon as my path began to move me to my next destination, it suddenly changed and pulled me out of the world. I woke up here before scouting the forest. I do not know what happened after I entered the forest." His tone was flat, like he was bored, and he told his story like he found it was stepping in a puddle.
Valen tensed his lips to keep himself from smirking. 'Straight to the point, with a healthy dose of apathy. I like this one. Son of Priece? I wonder…'
Before Valen could continue his train of thought, he noticed the sound of quiet whispers between two of the other detainees, their voices were just quiet enough to not be understood, but everyone present knew they were talking. A vein bulged on Valen's forehead as he waited for the two to stop talking. 'What part of my instructions were unclear? Did I forget to mention that there is an interrogator? Do they really think their behavior isn't suspicious?'
Little did Valen know that the Guard Captain couldn't care less about what the refugees were conversing about. Outside of their strange garments, and mundane weapons they had confiscated, they were far less interesting than the first two he questioned.
'I'm surprised that this Valen can translate this seemingly lost language, and the other one seems like an Artisan prodigy. The Margrave and the Baron always stress the importance of cultivating new talents, we must not become another Lost City. The Great One's protection may help us against the monsters, but we also need to do our part to save ourselves.'
While the Guard Captain was lost in his thoughts, simply waiting for Valen's translation, Valen was quickly losing his patience. Just before he was about to snap and lecture the idiots who were risking ruining his plan of gaining the Guard Captain's trust, a different voice spoke out, interrupting the other two's side conversation.
"Illua Trevheart. I was also pulled out of my original path's world and brought here. I was attacked by something unknown shortly after entering the forest, and woke up here."
All of the pathfinders remained silent after the young woman's introduction, while some were mentally rejoicing, Valen was on the verge of bursting into tears as his frustration slowly grew.
'Trevheart?! Could this get any damn worse!' Valen's extensive vocabulary didn't betray his ability to curse his own bad luck. 'Daughter of Tarrion Trevheart?! That means she is from one of the strongest Trailblazing families! Not to mention her father is considered a force on par with the current Founding Family Patriarchs. How the hell am I supposed to deal with a family of pathfinder prodigies?!'
Valen's inner turmoil remained unknown as one of the last two detainees finally decided to speak to the group.
"Thank goodness, it is a relief to be in the company of the heir of Trevheart. My name is Larion Darege, and my companion is my family's vassal, Lady Fleur Arstice. We had a similar experience, being randomly pulled into a space warp, landing just outside the forest before being attacked when we entered." The teenage male voice was worse than nails on a chalkboard to Valen, who nearly lost his mind after hearing the youth's name.
'Why me?' Valen's attitude shifted violently, from despair to fury, ending in dejection. 'What did I do to deserve this? All I wanted was a few amateurs who didn't know any better. These aren't pawns! These are goddamn liabilities! How the hell am I supposed to manipulate literal child prodigies that have been groomed for this since their birth?!'
Once again, Valen's inner conflict remained unnoticed by all parties as his inner monologue was cut off by the annoying voice that was currently haunting his mind.
"And who might you be? And how do you know both ours and their language?" Larion Darege's questions burned holes into Valen's ever thinning patience.
Gritting his teeth to prevent himself from lashing out in frustration, he responded in a short manner. "I am Valen, Son of Agnes. There is also one more named Cairo, Son of Alder and Bram. I can speak their language because I am proficient in otherworld languages."
Valen didn't care to explain any further and decided to end their discussion promptly as he informed the Guard Captain about the names of the remaining "refugees" while repeating their stories in the same cryptic way he explained Cairo's.
"Well then, Atlan, Errin. You can remove their bindings and blindfolds. Tauri will come with me to write a report. Take them to the Foreigner Affairs Office, Valen here should be able to translate for the lot of them in the meantime. Once they finish there, have them meet me in my office. We can't just let foreign refugees, who don't even speak the language, starve in the streets." The Guard Captain instructed the Whispering Men, leaving Valen even more confused.
"Huh? That's it? I thought you still needed to make sure we weren't possessed by that monster?" Valen was having a hard time understanding why the Guard Captain was acting so naively, believing everything Valen said at face value. Even if he was telling the truth, if the monster was just as elusive and intelligent as he had been anticipating, the Captain's sudden lack of paranoia was baffling.
"Oh! No worries there my friend, Valen." The Guard Captain's voice was void of any worries as he removed Valen's blindfold, overwhelming Valen's eyesight with the sudden influx of colors and light. "You see, all you and the rest of the refugees spoke only the truth! A very wise decision on your part. It makes it very easy to differentiate between the possessed and non-possessed."
"Why is that?"
"Well, that's because the monsters that reside in the forest can only speak in sentences that contain a truth and a lie! Like if I said: 'My name is Rallo Arbiter, and I'm not hungry in the slightest.'" The Guard Captain's stomach rumbled as if it had heard its cue. "The fact that my name is Rallo Arbiter is the truth, but the lie is that I'm not hungry, in truth I'm absolutely famished right now!"
'Huh.' Valen was at a loss of words. He felt like his paranoia had betrayed him, after such a simple trick had been revealed to him, all the effort to be cryptic seemed all for not. 'It still would have been difficult to explain our predicament regardless, I guess. It makes our intentions seem less suspicious. But, did it really have to be so simple?'
The past few minutes had mentally drained Valen of all the energy he had. Not to mention that he was still overwhelmed by the amount of information he had still to process, and he hadn't even taken time to look around yet, as his eyes were still adjusting to the sudden reveal.
"Okay my friend, These are going to be your three liaisons for the time being." Rallo waved his right-hand, gesturing at the three blurry figures that Valen couldn't make out yet due to his unfocused vision. "Atlan here is the Patrol captain, Errin and Tauri here are Part-Time Patrolmen."
Valen blinked a few times as he squinted to look at the Patrolmen, still struggling to see with the rising sun shooting his poor eyes with its beams. Atlan was a sturdy man standing a few inches taller than 6 feet, his shoulders seemed weighed down due to a lack of sleep. With his hazel eyes that were filled to the brim with questions, and his short and rugged brunette hair, he looked like a man who would rather have an early retirement than deal with another mishap on his patrols. His lightly tanned skin made him look more like a farmhand than a fighter, with his rugged and scarred hands, it was likely he was only a few years over 30.
Errin and Tauri looked like strapping young lads who hadn't faced the cruelty of the world in comparison. Errin had long shoulder-length dirty blonde hair that was tied back in a pony tail, with a thin frame missing any signs of hard work; his emerald green eyes seemed to suck in life from the vegetation . To Valen, Errin looked like a failed painter who was conscripted to the City Militia to keep himself out of poverty. Tauri looked like he had been blessed by the sun, his bright blonde hair bathed in the sun and his bright blue eyes were the same color as the noon sky. His well tanned skin didn't betray his sculpted physique, but his clear skin alluded to his lack of experience and struggle.
"Part-Time?" Valen asked, to his knowledge, most Patrolmen and Guards were considered Full-Time positions. Between their training and duties, there should be little time to work on another profession.
"Yep, most of the Patrolmen who venture outside the city walls are all part-timers." Rallo nodded as he explained further, "It's a paid volunteer position that many of the young folks take on to get some experience before they choose their future position. The Forest is usually full of dangerous monsters and beasts, it wasn't until a handful of months ago that all the horrors in the forest were replaced with the 'Possessor'. Now there isn't much to do besides finding unfortunate folks like you guys."
"How many months would you say it's been exactly?"
"Hmm. I'd say it's been about four months since the Possessor first appeared, and three months since it killed off the inhabitants of the Forest."