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Indeed. I suspect a lot of inmates just stop bothering after the first few months. As much as John aggravates me, at least he's the only warden to have done so.
Astarion laughs quietly, and gives the ball another little redirect which makes Mae bark at it before haring off across the deck.
"Whatever did he do to deserve that?"
He assumes, naturally, that it was deserved. Jacob's judgement is flawless.
"Gods below. You should have shot him. Some people just don't learn any other way."
Has Cazador said something similar to him? Yes, probably several times! Oh well.
Astarion blinks at Jacob. Saga is evidently being the fun police in this story, but-
"She dropped him how? What was that word?"
"Ahhh. I can do that with magic," Astarion says brightly. "Though a knife is generally more fun if I want someone 'dropped'."
"I suppose that's important sometimes. We don't really have - what do you call it? 'Forensics'. Though necromancy can be helpful in solving murders."
"Do you talk to the dead?"
"I have done," Astarion says quietly. "Even if you're not magically trained, you can use spell scrolls - that is, scrolls imbued with the magic to cast a particular spell, once. I myself don't know any necromantic spells, but I've used a scroll to question a man about his death."
"Strange," Astarion says. "It's a very...limited form of necromancy. The body is animated, the memories within the mind can be used to answer questions, but the soul is still gone. There's no true intellect remaining. It's the difference between being able to read a book and question its author, you might say."
"Did you get the answers you wanted?"
"We got enough to embarrass a local criminal investigator by doing her job for her. It was ultimately helpful."
He decides not to try explaining what Valeria is beyond her job. Hollyphants are...certainly something.
He whistles and Mae returns, panting and exhausted. She lies down at Jacob's feet and he kneels down to pet her. "That the only time you did it?"
"Me personally, yes. One of our companions questioned the father of a girl we found looking for him and her mother, out in the wilds. I don't really know why. Knowing who killed them didn't make them any less dead, and we weren't going to tell a young girl about her parents' violent murder."
"What did you learn?" he asks.
We have no say, as I understand it?
"They were part of a group of refugees we encountered earlier in our travels," Astarion says, for context. "We found that their leader had abandoned them, the group had scattered, and the two of them were murdered by a little coven of undead nurses."
There's something very tired and 'it's a long fucking story' in Astarion's expression.
"Arabella, their daughter, didn't take their passing very well but I imagine she's outlived me."
"I can't say that the undead shocked me very much at all," Astarion says, bone dry. "And Baldur's Gate has seen more than its fair share of magical drama over the last two centuries, even if I only saw it from a distance.
"That being said? I certainly didn't ever think I'd be fighting against the manifestation of a god, or alongside the child of another. I didn't expect to travel between planes, or make deals with a devil. I knew these things were possible, but simply...existed outside of any life I'd ever live. "
Ha. Don't you know that we can't be trusted with autonomy, darling? Of course we have no say.
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