Isaac rubbed his brow and gathered his thoughts.
In short, an important figure of presumably high status behind Fenn had set his sights on Isaac's collection of books. Meanwhile, Carlo had swooped in midway and taken the books away. Then Carlo had deliberately brought Isaac to Amorton Manor and put him in contact with Fenn.
What was the purpose of all this? Isaac hadn't figured it out yet. Could it be... some kind of hiring test?
Thinking back to Carlo's earlier mention of "recruiting," Isaac had come up with this rather absurd-sounding guess. But given the clues he had, it was a relatively plausible explanation.
Fenn watched Isaac frown in thought and curled his lip. "That's the situation. You can report all of it to your superior exactly as I told you."
Isaac came back to his senses and was about to say something when a voice broke the surrounding silence.
"Are you two finished talking? If so, we can move on to the next stage."
"That voice... damn it!" Fenn tensed instantly, drawing his short sword and frowning.
Isaac recognized the voice too. He had only heard it that morning. It belonged to Carlo.
But... it didn't seem to come from any fixed direction. It was more as though the voice hung in the air around them, impossible to pinpoint.
A few seconds later, Carlo spoke again from somewhere unknown. "Then let's make a check. Will Isaac Lessing and James Fenn encounter a wraith on the third floor of Amorton Manor? Hmm, since Isaac Lessing is carrying a Holy Relic associated with the Church of the Golden Bough, the probability increases significantly, and the check becomes more difficult. Let's set it at... 30."
Isaac and Fenn both froze, but before they could fully grasp what he meant...
Clatter, clatter-
Two staggered sounds rang out. Isaac and Fenn looked over at the same time to see two dice falling from who knew where, bouncing on the floor and gradually coming to a stop.
They were two ten-sided dice made of dark golden metal, with numbers engraved on their surfaces. One had recessed numbers, while the other had raised ones.
...Dice? And two of them?
Isaac tightened his grip on his revolver, staring at the two dice. "Those aren't the die you saw before, are they?"
"No. Both the number of sides and the material are different." Fenn held a sword in one hand and a gun in the other, equally on guard.
Isaac frowned. Dice made of a different material and with a different number of sides from the one Fenn had encountered?
Putting what Carlo had just said together with Fenn's experience, the dice had to have some special effect. For now, Isaac guessed that the previous die might have been what caused Fenn to be attacked and knocked unconscious before he could react. So what did these dice mean?
"Mr. Fenn, what numbers are on those dice?" Isaac asked.
"These things feel pretty creepy..." Fenn had already lit the oil lamp on the table earlier. Now, being closer to the dice, he hesitated before leaning in for a look. "The one with raised numbers is a two. The one with recessed numbers is a four."
Isaac nodded. Two and four. Were they added together, or... no, given that the man had said thirty, could one represent the tens digit and the other the ones digit?
Carlo's voice soon answered his question. "Oh, forty-two. That was close, that was close. You almost avoided it. Too bad it wasn't a critical failure. I was rather curious what would come out in that case."
As Carlo's words ended, the surroundings fell abruptly silent for a moment. Then faint crying came from the end of the corridor, intermittent, like a woman sobbing or a child murmuring. Even the temperature seemed to drop a little.
Fenn's expression turned grim, and he cursed under his breath. "Damn it, it really is haunted?"
Isaac didn't answer. His attention was fixed on the doorway. The crying was drawing closer, now distant, now near, as someone dragged their feet back and forth along the corridor.
"That rumor about the haunting you mentioned earlier-was it true or not?" Isaac asked in a low voice.
"Fake! I made it up!" Fenn said through gritted teeth. "How was I supposed to know we'd actually run into something like this?"
Fenn had made up that story on the spot, yet a matching wraith had actually appeared?
Isaac took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Being afraid wouldn't help; he needed to think of a solution.
Fortunately, though Carlo's words had served to put them in a bind, Isaac had also picked up a hint from them.
"Since he is carrying a Holy Relic associated with the Church of the Golden Bough, the probability increases significantly."
Why would a Holy Relic of the Church of the Golden Bough increase the probability of encountering a wraith?
The Church of the Golden Bough was the mainstream faith in the Western Territory, dominant in major cities such as Vista. But Palmer's official church was the Blackthorn Church.
Although both belonged to the orthodox churches, they had many disagreements. Their relationship could hardly be called hostile, but it was far from harmonious. On Palmer's soil, a Holy Relic of the Church of the Golden Bough might not provide the protection it should, and might even trigger some kind of "rejection reaction."
...No, however strong the rejection, surely it wouldn't just produce a wraith?
As Isaac's thoughts reached this point, a pale figure appeared outside the door.
Its form was massive and bloated, almost filling the entire doorway. It was made up of several twisted bodies piled together, with several human faces embedded in it. Some had their eyes tightly shut; others had their mouths half open. The faces of a man, a woman, and two children could be seen, crammed onto the same body at unnatural angles. Several arms hung at its sides, and its entire body was somewhat translucent.
A curse escaped Fenn's throat. "A spirit-type aberration... tsk, the hardest kind to deal with."
He wasn't slow to act, though. He slipped his revolver back into its shoulder holster, then pulled a small glass bottle from his waist. It contained clear water that shimmered faintly.
He pulled out the stopper and poured the water evenly over his blade, muttering, "Yarn bless me."
Apparently he was a believer in the Church of the Forging Hammer. He carried holy water and probably had relevant combat experience... Isaac kept his eyes fixed on the wraith, his finger resting on the trigger, but didn't rashly raise his gun and fire.
The wraith slowly moved forward. The eyes on its faces opened, revealing murky whites, and all looked toward the two men in the room.
Fenn lowered his center of gravity, his sword tip angled toward the floor, ready to lunge. "I'll hold it off. If the bullets in your gun are holy silver, find a chance to shoot. If not, stay out of the way."
Isaac nodded, watching the wraith's movements, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Although the wraith gave off an unsettling chill, its slow movements showed no clear intention to attack. The expressions on its faces were neither angry nor resentful, but more bewildered, even somewhat... expectant?
"Wait." Isaac put a hand on Fenn's shoulder. "It doesn't seem to mean to attack."