Quies had never experienced a day quite like this one. What he expected to be another uneventful day of fishing and gathering turned out to be life changing… and egregiously tortuous.
Not that he hadn't experienced anything worse.
'Let's see here… First I caught what seemed to be a giant humanoid shark which proceeded to rip me to shreds and mangle my body beyond recognition, if anybody would even recognize me in the first place…
Then I woke up in a cathedral made for crazed worshippers who stored blood in lanterns which all conveniently shattered when I touched one of them, which all turned out to be a dream…
And then when I woke up from the dream, I found myself on a boat with a modestly attractive lady, which was probably the only minorly positive thing today, because she then proceeded to interrogate and torture me for information I knew nothing about. Oh! I almost forgot that she did it for fun!'
That last part was probably the worst part of his day so far. And that is conveying magnitudes considering he nearly died from that creature-thing. He would have died right then and there if not for Valerie and what she deemed his 'little blood ability'. Quies was rather confused about that last part. What 'little blood ability' was she talking about? Sure, he did have a dream about being inside a blood cathedral, but other than that he was on to nothing.
'I should probably ask her. She probably knows a thing or two about magical powers or whatever. I mean, she literally conjured a gigantic whirlpool just to get information out of me!'
Quies still sat in the same place as he was before. After their brief post-torture conversation, Valerie went and prepared the boat to start sailing again. Quies was still tense. Questions flowed through his mind like a rushing river, but he feared that asking all of them in one sitting wouldn't be a good idea. With someone like Valerie, he could get a lot out of just one question. Right now, she stood at the stern of the ship and controlled the rudder.
"Uhh… Miss Vale-"
"Yeah? What do you need… Wait, what was your name again? Quint? Queen? I know damn well it started with a q…"
Valerie stared blankly at the weathered wood of the deck, trying to remember what the young man's name was.
"It's Quies. Anyways… you mentioned earlier about my little blood ability thing. What exactly was that about?"
Valerie seemed to tense at the mention of his blood ability. Her usual aloofness, or at least what Quies knew about her, seemed to waver.
"Oh, that. I think I should tell you what happened from the start, as in when I was on my boat and saw that giant megalodaunt coming out of the water."
'I guess I was unconscious for half of the fight she had with the megalodaunt…'
Calm waves washed and glided across the side of the schooner. From what Quies could tell, a mastered artisan had built it with careful intent, despite the austere exterior.
"I had just passed the highway gate that separated the city of Etris and its territory from the rest of the luminant, or region. As I was passing by, quite some distance from the shore of Erisia, I saw that megalodaunt just rising out of the water."
A sudden gust blew, throwing the small schooner slightly off course. Valerie adjusted the rudder a bit, then continued.
"I was going to let it do its thing. I mean, what place does someone as strong as me have in bullying fodder creatures? But, I had been starved of any meaningful combat action for the past weeks. I guess I didn't want to let this opportunity slip past me, so I said 'ah whatever it'll only take a minute at most'. Obviously, I was wrong about that a minute at most, since now I'm sitting here two hours later with an extra person on board my ship."
She tossed a quick glare at him, but then took it back.
"I can't really blame you though, I… definitely got a little carried away."
At this point, Quies had gotten somewhat of a grasp of how strong Valerie was. And she was much, much stronger than he had anticipated.
'She talked about that creature as if it was just a pest, and even felt bad for it! Who the hell is she?!'
"we're almost to that part of the story. Anyways, I fought the sharko, blah blah blah, used a little lightning here and there and finished it up relatively quickly. I was even able to scavenge some of its skin! You know there's huge demand for that in the armory market, right? Ah, but before I could've done that, I noticed your mangled body on the other side of the shore. That kick must've hurt!"
'Yes lady, a kick that felt like a giant boulder ramming into my chest hurt… a lot.'
"And then I noticed the blood. I noticed it moving, crawling back towards your lifeless body through an invisible will. I've only ever known about one other person who could manipulate blood, and manipulate it well at that. Knowledge of such a technique is forbidden, and even demonstrating the smallest affinity towards it will certainly get you killed, which I could've done right then and there."
Her gaze shifted from the horizon towards Quies. As Quies held that gaze, he felt a subtle pressure pressing on his soul grow stronger by the second. Eventually, he broke that gaze. Meanwhile, Valerie didn't even stutter a single word she spoke.
"But an encounter with someone with an affinity to blood, especially out in the open like this… has never happened. So! I thought it would be more beneficial to me to take you hostage and squeeze more information out of you. I restored your body enough to where you're not in constant pain, but not enough to where you could overpower me. In layman's terms, I was min-maxing interrogation."
Quies didn't know what min-maxing meant, but finding out that she healed him for the sole purpose of interrogating him made him even more wary of her. He had never encountered someone as strong as Valerie directly.
"And then, as said earlier, concluded halfway through that you weren't even aware of your affinity to blood, assuming everything you said was true."
The wind that propelled the small schooner forward had shifted slightly, so Valerie had to leave her post and adjust the sails.
"To be honest, I don't know much about the properties of your abilities. In fact, nobody does."
She began adjusting the sail and continued to speak, her suffocating gaze no longer on Quies, giving him a moment to breathe.
"But I do know how to resonate with the source that gives you such an affinity. Look at me, for example, I've been training my thundercall for decades. When I stepped onto that shore, I could feel the presence of your power source, loud and commanding. But it was dissonant, lacking order. You could say that I know how to attune a soul to their specific resonance."
As she finished adjusting one part of the sails, a burning curiosity spread throughout Quies' mind.
"Alright I get that and all… thanks for not killing me by the way. But, what exactly is this power source you're talking about? I see that it did all sorts of wonders for you."
She shot a weird look towards Quies, pausing her actions before resuming them a moment later. She spoke as she walked back to the stern of the ship.
"What else could I be talking about? I'm talking about the song of course!"