Tormillo, it was a town north of Zorn, in later years it would become a principal rail station for Zorn itself (due to the mountains surrounding Zorn and concerns for safety no direct rail lines connected to Zorn Proper). Back when I first arrived there it was a caravan hang out, run by a couple trade bosses who didn't like each other. Since it was a waystation it was great for picking up goods cheap before they found their way to Zorn store shelves (if you knew the right people, sometimes these deals were not exactly legal). Also because of all the trade and potential for theft it had a fairly large Red Hand authorized police force. Tormillo was actually quite well known for its lawmen, using a combination of magically inclinded and just nasty people, breaking the law in Tormillo was not advised for anyone (which made the prospect of murdering someone well a little bit harder).
I came into Tormillo at nighttime (I had arrived earlier in the afternoon but figured it best to not arrive in daylight to try and find fake me), the weather was with me as a nasty rain storm had come in, so the streets were mostly clear and I didn't look weird coming in with my hood up. I went to the first lighted sign promising drinks and ducked inside. The bar was a two story wooden affair, there was a piano player plinking away badly and a couple sorry looking drunks working their way through watered down liquor (The watering down was for the drunks benefit, the police force was not known for their kind arrest procedures). When I stepped inside people looked up briefly and then went back to their depressing boring lives (look they weren't there on a mission from an undead spirit historian all right! Their lives were meaningless). As I got closer to the bartender he gave me a rather nasty glare.
"Thought I told you to never come back here." A phrase I'm all to common to hearing, but this time I hadn't recalled ever being in there. See prior to this I was assuming the fake me looked like me in general, something I was about to find out was not entirely accurate.
"Excuse me? This is the first time I've ever been in here." Drunks started to sit up and take notice, the potential for a fight was brewing.
"Lorentino you are a terrible liar, now you get out of here before I make do on my other promise." He took a nasty looking club from under the bar. I suddenly noticed how big the bartender was, and how nasty that club looked.
"Calm down Jeb, I'm sure Trezlan was just stopping in to see me, weren't you Trezlan." The new voice was behind me. He was a tall thing looking guy, I didn't see any weapons on him, but noticed the badge on his chest proclaimed him the local head of the police. I again had never been to Tormillo, but Valrya had, I had a vague sense of knowing this man, but could not place his name and face together.
"Yeah uhh good to see you." If you can't figure it out, I'm terrible with playing along with others. The chief lead me out of the bar and back into the rain. I put my hood up back up and we walked in silence to his office a couple dirty streets over. It was surpingly empty, I guess the rest of the group was out for the night or were told to stay away, never a good sign to come to a police station empty.
"You're early, I figured you'd take a couple days to scout it out, figured one of my boys would catch you on the outside and we could keep this quiet." To say I was really lost here was putting it mildly.
"I uhh don't understand?"
"Who do you think drew you the map?" He smiled, something in his eyes I didn't like, something dark that wasn't in the color, "Honestly I don't know what deal the Archivist has working with you and I frankly don't care, you're here and you can take care of my issue off the books and thats good enough for me." I tell you two Trezlans apparently really angers everyone! I had no idea.
"Is another me really that much of an issue?" I was sitting down in a wooden chair, the chief was sitting at his desk across from me, I felt like he was measuring me up for something, hopefully not a coffin.
"Based on the reports I've seen about you, yes two of you is one too many, probably could do better with none of you, but that's not my place to say." He leaned back in his chair and chewed his bottom lip, "It's also not that it looks like you, it could look like anyone, the problem being until you got here I didn't know if it really was you." Mimics, nasty creatures never fully killed off despite many attempts. As one can imagine its almost impossible to kill off a creature that can look like anyone.
"A mimic? But I was under the impression this was something your people set up?" The Red Hand despite being spread all over usually maintained a uniform purpose. It was the one thing they were good at, well that and murdering people in horrific ways, so two things.
"My people? Who do you think I am Lorentino? The Red Hand is just the government now, they won't be always, I work with them, but not for them, understand the difference." I heard this a lot prior to The Red Hand's collapse, its partially why they collapsed, theirs was an empire based on fear of a central authority that didn't really exist in actual practice. "Whoever brought that thing into my town is going to pay, but for the moment I need you to take care of it."
"How do you know I'm me and not it?"
"Because I've been watching it all day, come I'll show you." He lead me upstairs to a panoramic view, I thought at first it was probably a dumb thing for security until I noticed the glass was only one way, we could see out, but people couldn't see in. He handed me a scope and pointed across the town at a shop. And there I was sitting there, it was off putting. I mean I knew where I currently was, but I could not tell the difference between fake me and real me.
"Ok thats alarming, how did you even know he was a mimic?"
"Murders in town, I went to the archivist he owed me, mimics tend to feed often, prefered food is someones inner organs, you don't want to see how they eat."
"And when you went to the archivist he told you that there is a real Lorentino and he wasn't some kind of organ eating fiend."
"Yep, then he told me that if I collected information on the creature he'd send someone to take care of it, I just happened to figure it would be you based on what information I have on you."
"Oh you've got some stuff on me? That's nice." This is even worse now, three hundred years of blundering through the world has left quite a record of my failures. "So how do we kill it?"
"You don't know? I thought you were some big shot monster hunter?"
"Heh that was my aunt, I'm a blundering moron compared to her, I've always liked fire though." The chief smiled, and held out a sliver of ice from no where.
"Been partial to ice myself, guess we were destined to be opposites." We both sat in silence in the room for a time. I could hear the patter of rain on the roof above as the storm got worse. The storm was a precursor to the problems me and the chief were about to face, unfortunately for me, my storm was just beginning. Apparently killing yourself, harder than I had previously thought!
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