They say information is power.
In my case, information is debt with compound interest.
I woke up to the unpleasant sound of coins being dumped onto the tavern table — not by us, of course, but by someone who clearly had more luck in life.
"One hundred coins for an incomplete map," announced the auctioneer, with the voice of someone selling counterfeit miracles. "An original fragment from the ruins of Pyraem, where the Seventh General disappeared two centuries ago!"
Liriel raised an eyebrow. "Pyraem. Zephyron's last refuge."
Vespera was already glowing with excitement. "Fragments! Ruins! Potential explosions! I volunteer!"
"You always volunteer for explosions," I muttered.
Elara, ever the sensible one, looked around. "Maybe we can buy the map… if the price isn't absurd."
I looked at our coin pouch. The sound it made when I shook it could be described as "audible misery."
"We have… two and a half coins," I said.
"Half?" Liriel asked.
"It's a copper coin broken in half."
"Charming."
Even so, we didn't leave. Something about that map drew me in. It was as if the ancient lines and markings were… pulsing.
The auction continued, and when the price reached thirty coins, someone behind us spoke:
"Forty."
I recognized the voice immediately — cold, precise, bureaucratically irritating.
Celine.
She wore simple clothes this time, but her divine aura still made the room feel suddenly too clean.
"You?" I asked, unable to hide my disgust. "Came to buy the map to destroy what's left of Zephyron too?"
She didn't answer right away. She just gave us a quick look, like someone evaluating ants trying to buy a castle. "The Seventh General cannot be released. You don't understand the risk."
"Risky is letting you handle anything," I muttered.
Vespera raised her hand. "Can I shoot her now or do we wait for the price to drop?"
"Wait for the price to drop," Liriel advised, crossing her legs with lethal elegance.
The bidding got intense. When the auctioneer announced "fifty coins!", an idea as stupid as all my ideas lit up in my mind.
"Let's gamble," I whispered.
"With what?" Elara asked.
"With what we have best: our questionable luck."
Vespera clapped. "Ah, this never goes wrong!"
Within minutes, we were standing on the stage, offering our services to the auction owner: protecting the delivery of the map to Pyraem in exchange for a copy of the information.
It sounded like a good deal.
Until we learned the name of the buyer.
Celine.
"You will work for me," she said, with that smile rehearsed to look human.
Liriel nearly choked on her wine. "I'd rather lick the runes of a demonic seal."
"Offer refused," I added.
"Offer accepted," Celine replied, throwing a scroll onto our table. "Automatic signature."
The ink jumped out of the bottle and wrote our names before we could protest.
"You used contractual magic on a group of drunk adventurers?" I asked, incredulous.
"Prevention of unforeseen events," she said, already standing. "We leave at dawn. And try not to set anything on fire."
---
We left at sunrise, and the mood was heavy. Liriel and Celine kept a strategic distance, exchanging occasional barbs. Vespera sang something about "divine servants and mortal debts," and Elara… tried to stop me from throwing the contract into the fire.
After half a day of walking, we reached the Ash Canyon — a deep rift surrounded by ancient ruins. There, the rocks had spiral burn marks, as if the ground had memories.
"Pyraem lies beyond this," Celine explained. "But be careful. There are echoes here — fragments of the Seventh General's memories."
"Memories?" I asked. "Like ghosts?"
"Like… conscious echoes," she replied. "They try to repeat what they can't remember."
Minutes later, the air changed. A red mist covered the path, and ancient voices began to whisper:
"Why did you forget me… why did you erase the fire?"
Elara trembled. "Takumi… this is—"
"Yes. Poetic ghosts. My favorite kind of day."
The shadows began to take shape: faceless warriors made of embers and ash. They didn't attack — they only watched us.
Until one of them spoke with a broken voice:
"Zephyron… still burns…"
The voice pierced my mind like a living spark. For a second, I saw flashes — a figure in golden armor, crying before a burning altar.
When I came to, Liriel was holding my shoulders. "Takumi! Focus. These are memories, not your visions."
"Easy for you to say. Your head is already a divine mirror," I muttered.
Celine approached, serious. "He reacted to the echo. The bond has begun."
"Bond?!" I asked.
"Zephyron is trying to remember who he was. And he chose you as the focus."
Wonderful. Now I was the spiritual mailman of a forgotten demon.
With some effort, we managed to leave the mist. When the sun began to set, we camped near an ancient stone marker — an extinguished torch embedded in the ground.
Liriel sat beside me, her gaze lost in the embers of the fire. "Zephyron was a warrior of light, Takumi. Before he fell. He was corrupted by a flame he created himself. A flame made of memories."
"Sounds… way too poetic to work," I replied.
"It's the kind of tragedy the gods love to write," she murmured.
Celine, on the other side of the fire, watched in silence. Maybe there was a trace of humanity there.
Or maybe it was just the reflection of the fire in her cold eyes.
---
The next day, when we woke up, the stone marker was burning again — a blue flame, silent, impossible.
Vespera pointed, amazed. "The seventh flame has rekindled."
Celine stood up, tense. "The seal is breaking."
Liriel just smiled. "Then the game has begun."
I sighed, adjusting the sword at my waist.
"And I bet that, somehow, Brom's bill is going to end up in the middle of this."
And so our second journey began — not only to face a fallen general, but to pay, once again, the price of memories.