Pandora Unchained - a Cultivation Progression Fantasy

A half-hour later, Gareth had significantly calmed down. Lorimer had shown no signs of acting up during this time, but Sorin agreed that precautions had to be taken. "I understand that he needs to be watched, Gareth. I'll keep him with me most of the time. But please understand Lorimer has rat things that he needs to do. He needs regular exercise. Otherwise, he'll get antsy and cause all sorts of trouble."

Gareth grimaced. "Fine. I can allow him to go out for an hour a day, supervised. I will supervise him. Hopefully, nothing bad will happen during so little time."

"You know, you guys can stop it with all the hidden messages," said Lawrence. "In case you've forgotten, my ability lets me see and now hear everything perfectly—or almost perfectly—within a few hundred feet. You've obviously got a corruption problem, Sorin, and Gareth is keeping an eye on you. Now he wants to keep an eye on Lorimer but is afraid of letting you go unsupervised."

Gareth sighed. "I suppose it was only a matter of time before it slipped out. Does anyone else know?"

"Not to my knowledge," said Lawrence. "I heard you say the words 'purge' and 'kill you myself' a few times during your secret conversations, so I thought it would be best to keep it a secret."

"Good call," said Sorin. "We wouldn't want the Spanish inquisition coming by for a visit."

"Are they a real thing? Because I keep hearing about them, but no one has ever confirmed a visit," said Lawrence.

"The Spanish inquisition is real, but you should never expect them to appear," said Gareth. "And since Lawrence is in the know, let me cut to the chase. You've changed, Sorin. Lorimer has as well. Something is going on with the corruption in your body. I don't know how or why it happened, but we must keep on top of this."

Is it Azrakul? Sorin thought with a frown. He hasn't been so active since Mildred, though. I thought he'd been weakened or given up. Maybe that's not the case?

"Changed how?" asked Sorin. "Don't hold anything back for my sake."

"Truth be told, you've been changing steadily over the past five years," said Gareth. "At first, it was small things like being pushy with your patients and encouraging your students to take extra risks, with the occasional spat with local clans that kept them from causing problems.

"You've calmed down lately, but not in a good way. You've become cold and calculating and itching for a fight. Before, you were aggressive and showed little regard for very real risks. Now, though, there's a method to your madness. What's more, corruption in your body is increasing quickly. By my count, it's gone up by 50 percent since Mildred and has started climbing rapidly ever since our arrival in the city."

Sorin frowned. "That doesn't make any sense. I haven't consumed any cores of corruption. Not in Mildred, not here."

But you did ask for help, didn't you? What, did you think this kind of power came from nowhere? Did you think you could turn back?

"Sorin, this is a very important question," said Gareth. "Have you been hearing voices?"

Sorin's heart fell. "What kind of voices?" He'd never told Gareth about Azrakul. The fact that he had a herald-level entity sealed in his body by a deceased god was not something he wanted to advertise.

"Voices that tempt you," said Gareth. "Voices that hint that you should embrace corruption and its benefits. Agents of corruption use such tactics to confuse and tempt people with high levels of corruption. They do it to twist your morals and shift your bottom line until you eventually embrace ideals that embody your corrupt aspects."

"I sometimes hear voices," Sorin confessed. "But I try to ignore them. They seem like they're up to no good."

"Have you ever given into the voices?" asked Gareth. "Even just once?"

"I haven't," Sorin lied. "It seemed like a bad thing to do."

Gareth looked into his eyes for a few seconds before nodding. "Then it's as I suspected. Your status as a God Seed is protecting you. We've always known that God Seeds can withstand a huge amount of corruption, so this shouldn't come as a surprise."

Sorin gulped. "So, it's not time yet?"

"It's not time yet," Gareth confirmed. "Mostly because I see you doing more good than harm in the short term. You can continue as you've been doing. The only change I'm going to make is that I need to always be near you at all times. Compromised individuals aren't always fully aware of their actions. That's especially the case when Madness is involved."

"Alright," said Sorin. "I'll mark you down as a high-level guard and apply for top-level security clearance. What about you, Lawrence?"

"Me?" said Lawrence. "I'm mostly hanging out till we go out adventuring. Why? Did you need me to do something?"

Sorin nodded and took out an information jade. "I'm looking for any information you can rustle up on the individuals shown here and investigate their current situation. Please find out what relationships they had with the Demon Hunters Association.

"In addition, I'd like you to look into any transactions they might have had with the Kepler Clan. Include all deals, including those involving my late parents."

"Got it," said Lawrence. "So we're starting operation not-so-secret revenge for Sorin's parents."

"It's not a revenge operation until we clarify what happened," Sorin corrected. "But yes. How did you find out?"

Lawrence rolled his eyes. "Honestly, everyone in the team knows. Even Lorimer."

"Reee!"

Sorin looked to Gareth, who averted his eyes. "It was Daphne who speculated that might be the case," said Gareth. "Evidence kept building up, and at this point, we were just waiting for you to straight up say it."

Lawrence had already taken the information jade and was shaking his head. "This is a tall order, Sorin. Also, who collected this information? Let me guess, Elder Marik? This information is a huge mess. A well-thought-out mess, but a mess nevertheless."

"Not just the Kepler Clan," muttered Lawrence. "The amount of open ends he didn't pursue is unreal. There's nothing that could have warranted backing off like that except for a stern warning from a very powerful entity."

"So you can't do it?" asked Sorin.

"I didn't say that," said Lawrence. "It's just going to take more time since I'll have to go about it in a roundabout fashion. Out of curiosity, do you have any suspects?"

"I suspect a few high-ranking members of my Clan," answered Sorin. "The Mockingjay Branch stood most to gain out of all this, and their actions after the death of my parents were precise and well-timed. As for other suspects… call me crazy, but I'm suspicious of the Grand Elder."

Gareth frowned. "You mean the one who's been supporting you this whole time? The mysterious Grand Elder that forced Elder Simon and the others in Delphi to listen to you?"

"The same Grand Elder who just had a private conversation with me and told me how much they wanted me to become a demigod," said Sorin.

"The Mockingjay Branch, I understand, why the Grand Elder?" asked Gareth. "I'm asking because he's your pillar of support in the Kepler Clan and a demigod to boot. Lawrence might have survived two demigods, but that's only because he didn't do anything that threatened their interests."

"It's just a hunch," said Sorin. "No need to focus on it. See what you can find about him, but don't force it. While you're at it, see what you can find about my parents. I have it on good authority that their records weren't so clean as I was led to believe." Specifically, he had a large amount of empirical data from the human experiments his father had conducted.

"So you're thinking they upset someone and that someone killed them," said Lawrence. "Reasonable."

"I just don't want to leave any stones unturned," said Sorin. "As for rewards… let me think about it. Between tinctures and divine crystals, I'm sure we can figure something out. Speaking of divine crystals, I got three from my family just now. There's one for both of you, but there's something wrong with them. I'll be holding onto them until I figure out what that something is."

"Don't worry about compensation," said Gareth. "You've always done right by us, and we'll be going to the Infinite Dungeon soon, right? I'm sure we'll find plenty of nice things there." The Infinite Dungeon was the only source of divine crystals and, therefore, the only way to advance in the Flesh-Sanctification Realm.

"According to Stephan and Daphne, there was something called an eruption in the Infinite Dungeon a short while ago," said Sorin. "They said the best time to go would be around a month from now when the next eruption occurs. Going any earlier would be a waste of time.

"In the meantime, I'll be starting up a new clinic and doing experiments in the laboratory. You're welcome to tag along as a security guard, Gareth. As for you… Lawrence, if you so much as get within 300 feet of any of my patients, I pin you full of needles, strip you naked, and hang you outside the city's seediest brothel."