The Priesthood

Classes continued normally. Oidus was once again their primary teacher, and they mainly focused on honing their understanding of Advanced Magic and Coding. During class, the fact that they were under investigation was never mentioned; it really wasn’t the time or place for it. Everyone had better things to do, especially Oidus, who almost couldn’t be asked to be there.

Their own investigations into the murderous deeds weren’t very fruitful at first. They only knew that the graffiti was mostly located on the north side of the campus, and there were only a couple of times when it had been found on the southern side. But the ones on the southern side had apparently been different in how they looked and even how they were created.

Since the graffiti that they were investigating was most likely created with magic, this at least gave them some direction: they were dealing with someone very talented with magic, so just based on that, it was unlikely that Tarin, the very dead girl found in Kanrel's room, had anything to do with their creation. Unless she had worked with someone.

Mostly the people that she used to spend her time with were other novices, so they interviewed them but didn’t get much information about her. Apparently, she really liked cats and tea; she was from a rich merchant family, and that was about it.

She never talked to anyone about her beliefs about the graffiti; she didn’t seem to be different from anyone else. Tarin was just another boring novice at the academy. There was nothing special about her, just the fact that she had once spoken to Kanrel and, of course, the fact that she was very much dead.

A week went by with no new information, so they started to investigate the other people who had died. Yviev gave as much information about her now-dead husband-to-be as she knew. His name was Jeso Lewnrer, a member of a very rich noble family that had a great relationship with the Sondrar family. Something about their businesses being beneficial to each other.

Based on the information given, he seemed like another rich noble that Kanrel would have hated before the Ritual. Had the Ritual made him more understanding? Or just more tolerant? He wondered as they investigated the man in question.

At first, not many were willing to part ways with the knowledge that they had; rumors had spread well and far. Apparently, most of the upper circles of society were already aware of the things that had happened at the academy.

The Herald’s authority was brought into question, as were her ways of raising a child. The Lewnrer family blamed not only Kanrel but also Yviev and her family for what had happened. Beneficial friendships can sink so easily.

After about a week of questioning people who were somehow related to Jeso Lewnrer, they in the end found nothing of use. There were more rumors about why he had been killed. One of the more popular ones was that Yviev wanted her husband-to-be dead so that she could get married to Kanrel, thus forming a much more beneficial partnership for her family.

Other rumors were more or less equally outlandish.

Another week felt like it had been wasted, so they went on to investigate the second dead girl, the one found in Yirn’s room. Another noble, this time of the Ushien family, was named Henan Ushien, and based on the tales that Yirn told about her, she seemed like an outright terrible person.

Calling the things that she had done "brutal" might’ve been an understatement on Yirn’s behalf. Apparently, Yirn, since a very young age, used to work as an in-house servant to her, but the way he used to serve her was very particular; his job was to get beaten in her stead whenever she did something wrong.

And she did something wrong quite often. Sure, that was just his job, but she had made it very clear to Yirn that she did so intentionally. Apparently, she didn’t want a "nameless mutt" to "stand anywhere near her shadow, let alone the proximity of her sheer existence."

Yirn only escaped such treatment when he used all the pay that he had received to fund his education at the academy. "It was well worth it, and I’d do it again," Yirn added. Apparently, the Ushien family paid handsomely for his services.

But after just a few days of questioning her close friends, they only found more rumors, this time about Yirn: how he had either taken revenge on her or they had been lovers and she had cheated on him, which then angered him to the point that he had ended up killing her... Which made as much sense as the other rumors and "theories" the other students had about the murders.

Thus, there was only one thing that could actually give them useful information and clues that they could follow: the bodies themselves.

They would have to politely ask Professor Forsvarn to either share with them her findings or let them investigate themselves.

"Absolutely not; I will not aid anyone of you, nor will I let anyone of you even near the bodies."

"This is what I’ve been instructed to tell you, and I plan to abide by the instructions given. This, of course, doesn’t take away the possibility of you breaking into the morgue and studying the bodies yourself later this night—you know, when the place is closed for visitors and such."

It was always difficult to tell with her if she was trying to be nice or if she was trying to trap them in some way. She was truly seldom nice, and she did love to trap her students in ways that would cause them significant amounts of suffering later on.

It was possible that she was going to use this as ammunition to make all of them come work under her after their graduation. No one would put that past her; she was more than capable of doing something like that. Not to mention, she probably wouldn’t even care if they had been behind the murders; she cared only for the future of medicine.

So, how does one break into the morgue of a hospital? Of course, it would be difficult, and a lot more difficult if they had to first break into the hospital itself, but again, Forsvarn helped them in her ever-so-subtle way; she offered them a room to sleep in during the night and then gave instructions on how to get to the morgue, just to add that they really shouldn’t go down there…

So they spent the night at the hospital. They loitered for hours in the room that they had been given, waiting for the lights to go out. And when they did, the trio navigated their way in the silence of the hospital, going down one flight of stairs that was near the entrance that would lead into the city surrounding the academy.

There in the dark, they searched for the door that was conveniently marked as "The Morgue".

No one of them had ever visited one, not to mention during the night, in the middle of absolute darkness. Who would really want to visit a place filled with bodies? Like ever? It didn't matter if it was dark; even during the day, one would have to be a special kind of individual to visit a morgue.

Sure, they had their reasons for it, those that were investigative in nature, but even in their perceived lack of empathy, it felt very wrong to do, almost disrespectful. But they did it anyway.

They lit the lights in the morgue and, one by one, opened wooden cabinets that had caskets within them. For all of those bodies, there were only two possible places where they could end up: the cemetery or an incendiary.

They had to open most of the cabinets and caskets to find the bodies they were looking for.

Tarin was a rather tall woman; her facial features were those of a beauty queen; her hair was long and blonde; and her very dead eyes were blue. And it seemed that all of her body parts were where they were supposed to be.

Jeso was a handsome young man, or he would’ve been if his ears weren't missing. He was tall, and sadly, there were clear wounds on his limbs on the spots where he had been pierced with stakes.

Henan, on the other hand, seemed like she had gotten the worst treatment out of the three; not only were her eyes missing, but if one studied her back, one could clearly see signs of torture. When the body was first found, they weren’t able to see that.

Only one of those bodies wasn’t missing a thing, so Kanrel did what any other man would do; he went ahead and opened Tarin’s mouth, just to find the tongue gone. Somewhere inside, he felt a little bad about all this and quickly returned her body to her eternal rest.

Before leaving, they put everything back where it belonged, turned the lights off, and returned to their shared room up the stairs. They had much to discuss.

They had all written down some things that they had noticed and thought of during their investigation of the bodies, so they first shared their observations.

"It is almost certain that they all were killed by magical means; in this world, there is no way to cut someone's tongue or ears so cleanly without the help of magic." Yviev began with her findings: "Maybe only the marks on Henan’s back could have been caused by physical means. Either way, I believe that the murder suspect is someone very proficient with magic and coding."

"Remembering the states in which the bodies were found, the lack of blood further proves this point, as does the fact that the murderer would have to be able to place the bodies into our rooms, which is no easy task." Yvive further pointed this out.

Kanrel nodded. "I keep thinking about how Hennan was positioned in Yirn’s room; her eyeless gaze was downwards... So I can’t help but wonder if the murderer is trying to tell us something by the artistic way they have positioned the bodies."

"Gazing down? Well, there are the cellars; it wouldn’t do much harm to check them out." Yviev said.

"What about the other bodies? I never really saw how they were positioned." Yirn asked.

Kanrel then recounted how the bodies had been positioned: the girl on the bed had looked up at the ceiling, and the man had looked at anyone who might walk into the room, thus making him gaze northward.

And how they were actually positioned wasn’t much help; they just seemed like interesting or horrific ways to showcase someone dead. Just twisted ways of making murder into "art".

There was, of course, the theme of bloodlessness and the rose petals that were there instead of the blood. So they at least knew that the suspect that they were looking for either grew the roses themselves, bought them, or stole them.

This was something that they could investigate, but this person might have gotten the roses outside the academy, so somewhere in the city, and they weren’t, for now, allowed to leave the campus.

So the only clues that they could follow were directions: down, up, and north. So they’d investigate in that order when they had the chance to do so.

Because of certain difficulties in leaving the hospital, they ended up spending the night there; it just wasn’t very comfortable to share one bed with three people, so none of them got much sleep. The next morning, they all had to attend the classes normally.

Later that day, when they went back to their respective rooms, they were questioned by the suddenly very curious and talkative Inquisitors about where they had spent the previous night. But a common activity among the students was enough to sway them from questioning any further.

Skinny dipping in the moonlight didn’t seem to be a new tradition at the academy, even in the late fall.