Chapter 89 - The Plot Thickens

Professor Kal leaned back in his expertly upholstered chair. With either hand on the armrests, he tapped his index finger in an uneven tempo. His face was a mask of neutrality, neither Ryan nor Leonard was able to infer what the man was thinking. Professor Kal abruptly shot forward, rocketing to his feet, causing the portly Leonard to take in a sharp breath as he fell backward due to surprise.

"Nope, I'm positive that I've never met you before today." Professor Kal stated simply as he produced an iron contraption, covered in rust, and boasting a menacing corkscrew on one end.

"Oh, uh, what? Uh, of course we've never before met." Leonard stammered out as his eyes tracked the tetanus riddled took the Priest held in his hands. "Wh… what is that for, if I may ask?"

"Isn't it obvious? You are clearly full of shit, and this tool here will help us get to the truth."

Fear quickly replaced Leonard's confusion as the pale looking priest closed in on him. As his eyes followed the truth-finding tool, he was able to tell that it was not rust covering it, but a thick layer of dried blood. He attempted to get up, but a quick shove from the priest easily forced him back down. As Professor Kal was about to pierce the trembling merchant's thin skin, a voice of reason sounded out.

"Professor! You can't do that!"

Stopping, the professor stood up and looked at the worried paladin. "What is it now? Don't tell me you have a soft spot for overweight slavers?"

Ryan quickly shook his head. "No, it's just that I don't think a hotel room is the best place to get him to talk. The walls are probably pretty thin."

Leonard's confusion only grew, but he was crafty enough to know that his life was in danger as the two church members discussed the best place to conduct his torture. As nervous sweat rolled down his face, he built up his courage before yelling out for help.

"HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

Startled by the man's sudden outburst of ear-piercing pleas for help, both Ryan and Professor Kal scrambled to quiet the man. Tripping over a poorly placed end-table, Ryan, in his heavy stark-white armor, fell headfirst into the screaming man. The chair, unable to manage the already substantial weight along with the heavy impact from the flailing Ryan, broke apart and sent Leonard tumbling across the wooden floor.

Seizing the opportunity, Professor Kal jumped atop of Leonard as he struggled to stand. As the professor straddled the large man like a cowboy breaking in a bucking bronco, he attempted to shove a rag into his mouth. It was surprisingly difficult to shove something into another person's mouth as they thrashed about, screaming. After several failed attempts, he had finally succeeded, only to have his finger nearly bitten off at the first knuckle.

Pulling his hand back, Professor Kal cursed as the fat man continued to scream. "Kick him in the head!" He yelled. "Knock him out!"

Not knowing what else to do, Ryan quickly got to his feet and carried out the order. With a heavy leather boot, he struck Leonard across the face, breaking his nose, but failing to render him unconscious. Ryan kicked him again, and again, but still the man screamed, only with blood trickling out of his head. He was about to kick him once again but was stopped by the merchant himself.

His screaming had turned into incoherent moans. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, showing only the whites as Professor Kal and Ryan looked down at him. He clutched his chest in obvious distress as his face grew pale and his lips turned blue. After several long seconds, Leonard ceased moving altogether.

Ryan and Professor Kal looked at each other, then back down at the merchant, then back at each other.

"You killed him, way to go." Professor Kal said, breaking the silence as he stood up from straddling the now dead merchant.

"Me? I didn't kill him, you did!"

"I wasn't the one kicking the poor man in the head!" Professor Kal retorted, shoving all the blame onto his student.

"You could have just used some magic to restrain him!" Ryan pointed out with a forceful voice.

Rushing to the door, Professor Kal opened it and poked his head out. Looking down the hall and seeing nothing, he shut the door behind him and locked it. "I don't think anyone heard anything. We should be alright."

Plopping down on a plush sofa with a floral pattern embroidered into the fabric, Ryan let out a deep sigh. "Why didn't you just use magic? I mean, now he's dead and we didn't find anything out."

"Have you tried to use magic since inhabiting your puppet? Go ahead, let me know how it goes."

Furrowing his brows, Ryan set about moving his mana around in an attempt to cast a spell. He was able to instantly feel that there was a massive issue. In his own body, he was able to manipulate mana like he would his own hands. It was intuitive, as natural as breathing. Now, inside the paladin's body, it was like he was trying to blow tar through a straw. He could feel the mana moving, but it took all his concentration to just get it to flow in the right direction.

Giving up, Ryan turned to Professor Kal who was currently rifling through the merchant's possessions. "Isn't this going to be a problem? We're defenseless without magic; unless you know how to fight?"

Tossing away a piece of parchment, Professor Kal never stopped searching for any information as he answered. "Of course I know how to fight, but it shouldn't come to that. We just need to fix his face up a little and lay him on his bed, his heart gave out anyway, so they'll just chalk it up to natural causes."

"Aha! Found it!" Professor Kal exclaimed as he pulled out a small, leatherbound notebook. Rapidly flipping through the pages, he eventually stopped on a page near the end of the book. Ryan watched as the Professor's face gradually morphed into one of understanding, then immediately into one of confusion.

"Have you ever heard of the 'Golden Dragon Merchant Co.'?" Professor Kal asked as he tucked the little notebook away into his chest pocket.

Ryan, still seated on the fancy sofa, shook his head after some thought. "No, I haven't. My father has dealt with almost every other merchant company in Amine, and he's never mentioned them before, are they from Säravast?"

"His ledger says they're based in Amine. Apparently, they paid him a hefty sum for 'consultation'." Professor Kal paused as he grabbed onto the dead merchant's legs. "Come help me with this."

As Ryan grabbed ahold of the other end he continued. "The only thing I see this man giving advice on is where the best places to eat are. So, I'm assuming someone has paid him to come here and spread lies."

With a little bit of a heave, and a whole lot of hos, the two of them managed to get the extra-large corpse onto the well-built bed. Taking a kit out of his ring, Professor Kal began too expertly cover up the damage done to the man's face. After a few minutes, the merchant looked almost as good as new, except for the fact that he was very much dead.

"Won't they see the makeup on his face?" Ryan asked the obvious question.

Shrugging his shoulders, Professor Kal didn't seem too concerned with that fact. "Well, it'll be a while before they even find him up here, and even longer until someone qualified takes a good look at him. By that time, we should already be back in our original bodies. What we really need to do is figure out who runs this 'Golden Dragon' business, whoever it is, must not want to live for much longer."

…..

Amazingly, no one inside the inn had noticed the loud commotion occurring on the second floor. It could have been because they truly hadn't heard anything, or it could have been that they just didn't care. Either way, Professor Kal and Ryan both left the inn without issue and made their way back to the large cathedral they had come from. Finding themselves in front of the towering statue of the Goddess of the Dawn, they took a moment to gather their thoughts.

"So, we have about a week's worth of energy before our puppets become completely useless. I doubt we'll need that much time, but you never know, so keep that in mind." Professor Kal lectured quietly.

"All we have to do is turn in the report you wrote, right? Why are you talking about a whole week?"

"When will be the next time we get a chance like this? Can you imagine what secrets are hidden behind these walls, the magic they're hiding from the rest of the world? We'll need some time to thoroughly search this place."

"Alright." Ryan nodded, not against the chance to learn more about magic. "What about the inn though, and what do we do when we do have to go back? We can't just leave our puppets laying about, they'll blame you no matter what the report says."

"Who cares about the inn." Professor Kal said dismissively, brushing off Ryan's annoyed look.. "And when we do need to return to our bodies, we'll just arrange some small misfortune to occur, they'll never suspect a thing."