15. The Interrogation, Part 2

“AH!” the Mysticet shrieked.

“SH!” Rosalyn shushed as she felt herself resolidify, the spell finally fading. And trapping her in Brumehold Prison. “Keep your voice DOWN!”

Then Deerin’s fear faded away. “...you.” he hissed. “YOU put me in here! What the hell are you doing here!?” he spat. Rosalyn could see that he had been changed into a white prison uniform, accompanied with chains on his hands and feet.

“I said SHHHH!” Rosalyn said, rising to her feet and wringing out the water from her cap. “I’m trying to help you, okay?”

“Relax, all the guards are too lazy to come up here anyways. And they’re all mostly deaf anyways from playing around with their dumb guns.” Deerin jeered. “What the hell do you mean you’re trying to help me? Don’t you remember that you-”

“Yeah I know I remember! But you also tried to cut my throat, so call it even.” Rosalyn hissed. “Just listen to me, okay? I didn’t get to finish talking to you about Elliott Ahab.”

Deerin laughed as he sat down on his tiny, frigid cot in the corner. “HA! You came all this way just to interrogate me? I thought you were just gonna kill me. You think I want to help you?” he said, still chuckling. “I’ve heard from the guards all about your plans for Fogport. Killing the last of the Mysticet, throwing us in prison if we try to stop you. All over one crash?”

“Whoa whoa we don’t want to kill you! A-And I don’t want to kill anyone, actually.”

Deerin groaned. “The Mysticet are the Whales, dummy. That’s their name. You just call THEM ‘Ghost Whales’ and US ‘Mysticet’. Their original name isn’t ‘Ghost Whale’, that’d be dumb.”

“Fine, sorry.” Rosalyn said, thinking back to the old texts she read in the Chapel. “Yes, I know about Catherine’s hunt. I know I was with her when we caught you, but I’m trying to STOP her this time. I’m trying to make her see reason.” Rosalyn explained as she slumped down on the opposite side of Deerin’s cell, exhausted. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. Really. I just wanted to find Elliott… I like the Ghost- sorry, the Mysticet, and I want to help them. I want to help your Church.”

Deerin raised his eyebrows. “R-Really? You’re bullshitting. What the hell kind of sting operation is this?”

“I wouldn’t climb all the way up this stupid tower if I didn’t mean it, Deerin.” she said. “I know all about Elliott and his girlfriend in the Church. I know he sympathized with you and the Ghost Whales, maybe he was even a practicing member with you two… but I need proof. I need to show it to Catherine so I can convince her to stop this crusade!”

Deerin paused. “You really are a Detective, huh? Wow.” he said, before returning to pondering. While Rosalyn stared up at him, with pleading eyes. “Fine. I believe you. What do you want to know?”

Rosalyn pulled out her journal from her handbag (still waterproof) and flipped to a page showing a sketch of the girl in the portrait, wearing the necklace of bone and pearl that had been found with Elliott’s ring. She was striking, with silver hair and sharp, beautiful features that surrounded two bright blue eyes. Like diamonds in her eyes. She wore a long gown decorated with sigils and insignias, the kind Rosalyn saw in the Chapel.

But the most striking thing about her was her bandages.

What parts of her legs that weren’t covered by the cloak were covered in bandages. Bandages covered other parts of her body too - her hands, some on her face… but despite that, her countenance remained strong and confident. “Is this her?”

Deerin sighed… and nodded his head.

“Issa Ta’ryn. High Priestess of the Church of the Mysticet.”

Rosalyn’s eyes widened in shock. High Priestess? “How long have they been together?”

“Four years. I introduced them. I was surprised, but they got along instantly. Elliott was always a bit hyper for his own good, and she’s as stoic as the sea. She made him focus, and he made her laugh.” Azary said, his eyes starting to well up. “I can’t believe he’s really dead. She’s going to be devastated, if she hasn’t found out already.”

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“Where is she? Where can I find her?”

“It won’t do you any good, Detective.” Deerin spat. “You won’t be able to see her.”

“Why not?”

“She doesn’t take visitors. Only her family and Elliott have been allowed to see her these past few months. And you aren’t either of them. She won’t speak to you.”

“Everybody speaks to me.” Rosalyn insisted. In response, Deerin took Rosalyn’s journal and held it up, gesturing at the bandages.

“She won’t speak to you because she can’t Detective. She’s dying.” he said, causing Rosalyn’s eyes to widen. “She’s been bedridden for months. Half the days she doesn’t even wake up. The other half she’s in constant pain.” Deerin responded before tossing the journal back to Rosalyn. “Just another reason their love was fucked from the jump. His big sister didn’t make it any easier… Elliott told me she never would have approved.”

Rosalyn stared in disbelief at her own drawing. “Deerin, I need Issa’s help. If I can just wait until she wakes up, then-”

“I want to help you Detective, for Elliott, but it’s not that simple.” Deerin said sadly. “Just because she’s dying doesn’t mean she isn’t powerful. I nearly killed you in that cellar, so oh booooyyy you don’t want to even LOOK at Issa. She has enough charms surrounding her, even when she’s unconscious, to keep her safe. And if she wakes up and freaks out, you’re dead.”

“What’s killing her? Maybe there’s some kind of cure?”

“Yeah nobody’s thought of that before.” Deerin said sarcastically. “She’s dying BECAUSE she is powerful. She’s cursed with power. Connected to the Mysticet in ways that you or I never could be, and it’s destroying her body. There is no hope. There is no cure.” Azary sighed again, defeated, as he slumped back in his bed. “It’s like I told you a few days ago… Fogport’s done for.”

Rosalyn struggled to find the right words. “No. No there’s some way, maybe I can-”

“You sound just like Elliott.” Deerin chuckled, before wiping away his eyes. “He was always trying to find a way to make his love work. Despite his job that he hated, his sister who would have hated his girlfriend, his girlfriend who was slowly dying… he’s a strong motherfucker, holding out for this long. But in the end… reality caught up to him.”

“Is that why… is that why he left? And he didn’t take Issa with him?”

Deerin nodded. “Yup. I can’t blame him. It was one night with Issa… she was in awful pain, he told me. She knew it was going to be over soon… she didn’t want Elliott to see her like that.” he explained. “After work one day, they each buried something close to them, together on Communion Beach. A ritual of love. And then… well Elliott told me he was getting on the first ship he could out of Fogport. Then it sank.”

Rosalyn sat in stunned silence. The whole picture of it, finally, laid out in front of her. A boy loves a dying girl who his family would never approve of, and he tries to escape to the sea… and dies. “God… that’s depressing.” she eventually mustered. But from hearing that story, Rosalyn gained a newfound respect for Elliott - which meant she couldn’t give up yet. “But I can’t roll over. Catherine’s going to try and kill the Ghost Whales, and if she succeeds then-”

“It’s war. I know.” Deerin said. “But there’s nothing we can do. No way in hell am I getting out of this prison, and you probably aren’t either.”

“Can’t you phase through walls?”

Swim the Beyond

Spell Class: Ghost Whale Miracle (Basic)

The caster disappears into an alternate dimension, the Astral Ocean. From here, they can move freely, safe from danger, until reappearing in the main dimension in a new location. However, the caster can only swim through the beyond so long as they can hold their breath, and swimming here is incredibly physically taxing. Exhausting oneself and breathing in any of the Astral Ocean is fatal.

Ghost Whales travel through the Misty Sea in part by teleporting via the Astral Ocean, allowing them to move their massive bodies longer distances without actually swimming them. Ghost Whales have also sometimes been known to draw humans and other animals into the Ocean with them, to play and communicate. But while humans are under their protection then, this protection does not extend to when Clerics travel alone, leading to many being lost permanently in the Beyond.

“Oh great yeah, I’ll teleport out that wall and then fall to my death. Or I’ll teleport out of my cell and get my head blown off by a cannon.” Deerin said mockingly, before holding up and jingling his strange handcuffs. “Do you see these? Some sick fuck on this island built them - if I get the blood pumping too much, they’ll explode into a bunch of ice crystals and cut my fucking hands off. The ones on my legs will cut my feet off.” he said, gesturing to his ankles. “You almost killed me when you flopped in here, by the way. I almost shit myself.”

Henry built these? I mean, who else would it be? God damn him, I’m starting to like him less and less… Rosalyn thought. “Well, I’ll figure something out, okay? And I can figure something out for Issa too.”

Deerin raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You really think so, Detective? If I tell you where Issa is, you think you can get out of here, get to her, talk to her without her killing you, and then stop all this?”

After a moment of hesitation, Rosalyn nodded.

And then, they began to hear footsteps up the tower.