[For Liem, given his training and education, it takes no time at all to realize exactly where they are or what this house truly is. If the stench in the air and the infernal imagery weren’t enough to make him certain, the aura of evil hanging thickly over everything certainly would. Here of all places, his ability to detect evil is utterly useless, because even the fabric of the plane itself is rife with it.
There are only two people whom he imagines this place could belong to, but it becomes obvious quickly enough which of them it is. He knows almost nothing about Raphael—but the man is his ally, or at least his colleague. Obviously, he should find out more about him.
He is a few hours into this occupation, having snooped through quite some number of ostentatious statues and paintings and talked to quite a few less-than-sane residents by the time he returns to the feast hall to spy Fane with his dish of foul-smelling food. Liem can only be glad that hunger doesn’t seem to touch any of them during this oracle trial, because certainly he wouldn’t trust anything in this house to be edible. He wouldn’t expect Fane to disagree.
The mystery of what the skeletal man is doing with the food is solved shortly, though. Liem watches a handful of it splatter over Raphael’s larger-than-life likeness, and appears at Fane’s side with amusement tugging subtly at the corner of his mouth.]
No, I couldn’t. [No matter how much he might wish to, everything in him flinches from the prospect of personally defacing property.] I think you’ve improved it, though.
ii
There are only two people whom he imagines this place could belong to, but it becomes obvious quickly enough which of them it is. He knows almost nothing about Raphael—but the man is his ally, or at least his colleague. Obviously, he should find out more about him.
He is a few hours into this occupation, having snooped through quite some number of ostentatious statues and paintings and talked to quite a few less-than-sane residents by the time he returns to the feast hall to spy Fane with his dish of foul-smelling food. Liem can only be glad that hunger doesn’t seem to touch any of them during this oracle trial, because certainly he wouldn’t trust anything in this house to be edible. He wouldn’t expect Fane to disagree.
The mystery of what the skeletal man is doing with the food is solved shortly, though. Liem watches a handful of it splatter over Raphael’s larger-than-life likeness, and appears at Fane’s side with amusement tugging subtly at the corner of his mouth.]
No, I couldn’t. [No matter how much he might wish to, everything in him flinches from the prospect of personally defacing property.] I think you’ve improved it, though.