[IMG]http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u79/SharpshooterJack/markerGerald_zps253683a8.png[/IMG]
[h3]Duchy of Pelgaid, secluded pond[/h3]
If Jillian had not continued immediately onto a subject he was interested in hearing more about, she had easily earned herself a furious tirade for that absolutely horrendous assumption that he had gotten off easy because he was a Remdal. There was so much wrong with that statement that it was infuriating to him, enough so to make his lips draw back momentarily to reveal his teeth in a murderous scowl. Firstly, the fact that she called him a Remdal was borderline unforgivable; he was not and had never truly been a Remdal, no matter how much various Zerulics might claim otherwise. Certainly, to an onlooker it might have seemed like the house of Remdal was a wonderful thing to be included in for a mere commoner, and the story of Count Remdal himself falling in love with and marrying the hired maid, single mother that she was, seemed like something out of a fairy tale. And indeed, Gerald had enjoyed the game while it lasted, living as the stepson of a wealthy nobleman, getting to study at the academy... he might even have felt affection for Dennis for a time, until the masks fell away and the rug was pulled under his feet.
Secondly, it was a gross mistake to think that his exile had been a mercy. Mages were a valuable commodity, especially ones as skilled as Gerald; it was not unusual for magi, especially young ones, to look into the forbidden arts at some point of their lives and being discovered, only to get away with little more than a slap on the wrist and some harsh words. Even full-fledged necromancers, witches and summoners had at times been pardoned in order to not lose precious sorcerers, receiving little more punishment than an admonition against ever using the forbidden arts again and a demand that all of their research materials be destroyed. That Dennis Remdal had recommended the duke to exile Gerald for practicing necromancy was not a show of mercy, but of vengeful desire to get rid of him and save himself from the embarrassment of having a member of his family as a practitioner of outlawed magic. Whatever fondness there had once been between Gerald and Dennis had evaporated on that day, when Gerald’s crimes had been discovered. If it would not have been an even greater spectacle that would have disgraced his house even further, Gerald had no doubt that his stepfather would have made an effort to have him executed.
Dennis Remdal... Gerald had learned much of the man that he had called “father” since being banished from Zerul, some of which were mere suspicions but others that he had managed to confirm. He was a man driven by ambition and greed, not unlike himself, but more indulgent, more reckless. He was a powerful wizard, and both Gerald’s mother and half-brother loved him... but someday, eventually, Gerald was going to make that man face the consequences of his sins.
Power demands sacrifice; it was high time that Dennis Remdal did some of the sacrificing.

Hearing about the Voice of Reason was what ultimately calmed the necromancer’s ire, and he listened to her description of the group and the events that lead to her current situation with great interest. The extreme measures taken against the group was... not unusual, to be honest. A single magus could get away with practicing the forbidden arts with hardly any consequences besides being watched more carefully in the future, sure, but an entire group of them? A [I]coven[/I]? That kind of thing called for a much harsher reaction from not only the ones deciding punishment, but also from the force sent to capture them. And if the members of the group were indeed influential and determined to peacefully legalize the forbidden arts... well, there was one person in particular who would see such a group as an immense threat to be destroyed at any cost, who hated the forbidden arts deeply and who had no qualms bending the law to his own purposes and even had the influence to do as much.
Dennis Remdal.
It was more than just a suspicion, too; the series of events she described was simply not possible without some kind of foul play at work. The cells in the dungeon of Zerul used for holding criminal mages were warded against magic to prevent escape attempts to be made like this. Someone had sabotaged the entire thing somehow – either someone had tampered with the wards to allow at least one prisoner to use magic or, more likely, someone outside the group had started the fire and the prison break – to have an excuse to use deadly force to stop them. Legally the Voice of Reason would probably not have been subject to death penalty and some of them, depending on just how influential they were, might even evade banishment and suffer little more than some harsh fines, so doing things like this was the only way for them to lawfully murder the group.
How many of them, he wondered, had realized just how dangerous their group was? It was one thing to seek to change ancient laws, but to furthermore try to change something that so many powerful people felt passionately about? And in a manner that could, eventually, potentially succeed? What they had experienced was a legal political assassination, the consequences of which could all be blamed on the dead and a faulty ward in a destroyed cell.

He did raise an eyebrow when Jillian concluded her tale, though, by telling him that her fellow escapee, Vince, was killed by witch-hunters, and with the silver sword she had been dragging around all this time, no less. What puzzled him was that he strongly suspected that her “Vince” was the Vincent that the Grand Master had mentioned, her teacher, and that the demon had claimed that it was not witch-hunters that had killed him, but rather her own magic. Granted, she had protested at the time, but even now Gerald could not imagine why the Grand Master would have lied about it, considering that what he had told them about [I]him[/I] had been completely true.
Not that he was about to call her out on a lie, of course; she seemed much too upset for that to be appropriate. Did she expect him to feel sorry for her, he wondered? To show compassion, to comfort her and assure her that she was not so bad or some such gibberish? To mourn this Vince with her? Or maybe even to be shocked at the revelation of her past?
“I see,” was all he could spare in that regard, sipping his tea. “And then you came to the Anaxim Forest, looking for me.” He frowned. “That’s a pretty big leap, going from peacefully trying to change the country to fighting armies of cultists and demon lords to save the world. I realize that you just wanted to learn necromancy at first, but even then...”
He shook his head. “What about your family?”