Wayne could feel his condition improving rapidly. His mind was growing clearer, and his control over the body had reached the point of moving freely, so he finally had the energy to pay attention to the girl still being held at swordpoint.
"So... what's the story here?"
The half-elf girl had been doing her best to minimize her presence, hoping these House Seawright members would be so overwhelmed by the shock of "meeting the ancestor" that they'd forget someone had been digging around in their ancestral tomb. But before she could find a chance to slip away, Wayne turned his gaze toward her. The unlucky thief could only shrink her neck and put on her most pitiful expression.
"I just wanted to find somewhere to hide..."
"Hiding requires you to burrow all the way into the deepest burial chamber?!" Hestia immediately glared, then turned to Wayne. "Great Ancestor, it was this despicable grave robber who desecrated your resting place and disturbed your slumber!"
Wayne paused, and the look he gave the half-elf girl turned rather odd. "So you're saying... you're the one who 'woke' me up?"
If human anatomy allowed it, the thief would have retracted her head straight down into her pelvis. Her voice trembled.
"I really didn't do anything! At first I honestly just wanted to find a safe place to hide, but after I got in here my professional instincts kicked in and I ended up in the burial chamber, but even then I didn't actually, "
Wayne thought for a moment, then said with perfect sincerity.
"I see. Well, thanks anyway."
The thief: "...Huh?"
Everyone, including Rebecca and Hestia: "...What?"
"Ahem. Let her go, four grown men holding a young girl at swordpoint isn't a good look," Wayne said. He'd realized something was off the moment the "thank you" left his mouth, but it was too late to take it back, so he pressed on. "It's not very chivalrous. Yes, chivalry."
Hesitation flickered across Hestia's face. "But Great Ancestor, she's a-"
"I'd actually like to thank her for waking me from my slumber," Wayne waved his hand. "I don't have a problem with it, so why should you?"
Ser Byron gave this "Seawright ancestor" a strange look, but at Hestia's subtle nod, he withdrew his longsword. The three soldiers stepped back as well.
The half-elf girl looked around carefully, making absolutely sure this wasn't some kind of cruel joke, then cautiously rose to her feet and confirmed with Wayne.
"Um, you're the elder here, so your word is your bond, right? No take-backs!"
Hestia's eye twitched. It took every ounce of noble composure she'd cultivated over the years to suppress the urge to beat this grave robber senseless.
Wayne looked at the girl with curiosity. From the memories he'd just inherited, he could tell her race was half-elf.
"What's your name?"
The half-elf girl blinked.
"Amber."
Wayne stroked his chin.
"Amber? That does have a certain Wood Elf flair to it..."
At that moment, Hestia suddenly spoke up, cutting off the exchange between Wayne and the self-proclaimed Amber.
"Great Ancestor, I must interrupt, now is not the time for idle chat. We are not safe!"
Wayne did his best to settle into his new role. He looked at Hestia with a grave expression. "What happened up there?"
"Monsters!" Rebecca, who had been silent for a while, blurted out. "Monsters that came pouring in from the direction of Silent Pass and the mines! Our territory's soldiers and militia were no match for them, by now the surface has probably been completely overrun..."
"We organized as much resistance as we could, and before the situation completely collapsed, we had Ser Philip lead a group of soldiers to escort civilians to safety," Hestia added. "But before the second evacuation party could depart, those monsters destroyed the drawbridge. Rebecca and I did not disgrace House Seawright’s name, nor did these brave soldiers. We fought in the castle until the very last moment, only when the inner keep’s gates were breached did we retreat down here."
Wayne asked several more questions and finally pieced together the full picture.
This was the ancestral territory of House Seawright, passed down since the first patriarch. And the girl next to him, the one carrying an iron staff and looking for all the world like a high school student, Rebecca, was in fact the current lord of these lands.
When the monsters attacked, this young lady had done her best to organize a defense, but clearly it had failed. The monsters ultimately destroyed all defensive forces and slaughtered every human in their path. After the first group of survivors was evacuated, Rebecca, dutifully fulfilling her obligations as lord, was trapped in the castle with the last of her soldiers. They held out for a long time, but eventually the castle was breached too, and they had no choice but to retreat into the ancestral crypt beneath it.
And then they happened to run into him rising from the dead... well, possessing a corpse.
As for the beautiful lady named Hestia, she was actually Rebecca's aunt.
But these generational relationships meant little to Wayne.
They were all great-great-great-great-granddaughters anyway. One more or fewer "great" made no difference.
As for the half-elf named Amber, she was indeed a thief, but this time she really had come looking for refuge. It was just that this thief's professional skills were truly exceptional, she'd managed to burrow all the way into the deepest chamber of House Seawright's ancestral crypt...
"So I wake up and it's already this big of a mess..." Wayne rubbed his forehead, thinking about how to resolve the current crisis while searching through the memory banks in his head for anything useful. "So what you're saying is, those monsters have completely taken over the surface, and going up means certain death. By the way, you keep calling them 'monsters', what exactly are they?"
"My guess is some subspecies of demons," said Hestia. "But demons haven't appeared in our Prime Material Plane for many years, let alone in such numbers. I can't be certain."
Rebecca gripped her staff and stared at Wayne with hopeful eyes. "Great Ancestor, surely with your power you could deal with those monsters out there?"
Wayne froze. "Me?"
"Yes! Aren't you supposed to be the greatest knight in the Kingdom of Andraste, no, the entire Northern Reaches, according to legend?" Rebecca's eyes were practically sparkling. "They say you once slew the wildling Grand Warlord Gendel with a single sword strike..."
Wayne hurriedly searched his memories, and was stunned.
Gwayne Seawright had been a figure of truly legendary caliber!
He was the greatest hero of the Kingdom of Andraste's pioneering era, and one of the earliest pioneers of the period known as the Second Expansion.
In the dark age following the collapse of the ancient Gondor Imperium, when Gondor's survivors were cast back into chaos and barbarism, and the light of human civilization was gradually being devoured by the tide of dark magic spreading from the continent's interior, this Gwayne Seawright and a group of other extraordinary individuals led the surviving humans in fleeing the crumbling imperial ruins, striking out in four directions. The group that headed north became the forebears of the Kingdom of Andraste, and Gwayne Seawright was among them.
His life was extraordinarily brief, yet blazingly glorious. he set out at fifteen, becoming the youngest pioneer knight of his generation; alongside the other pioneer knights and the first High King of Andraste, he spent ten years carving out a new nation in the northern reaches of the continent, pulling humanity back into civilization and order; after Andraste's founding, he became one of the Kingdom's Seven Generals, guarding the southern frontier, repelling over a dozen incursions from the Dark Tide without a single defeat...
But such a brilliant life burned like a candle lit too fiercely. This legendary figure lived only to the age of thirty-five, dying of exhaustion in his final battle against the Dark Tide.
The inherited memories ended there.
That was the sum of this great man's life.
Wayne felt a vein pulsing at his temple.
I've possessed someone incredible!
There was no gloating, and no panic, after a brief moment of shock, his actual reaction was... a lack of confidence.
Rebecca was gazing at him with hope. Amber wore the same expression. Even Hestia, who appeared the most mature and composed, was looking at him with eyes full of expectation and trust.
But what they were looking at was Gwayne Seawright, not Wayne.
Wayne looked down at his hands. They were a warrior's hands, broad, thick, calloused, but he had no idea how much of this body's strength he could actually bring to bear.
Yet this uncertainty didn't last long, because Wayne's own memories stirred to life. Memories spanning tens of thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands of years. Though their actual substance was perhaps not much, they were enough to swiftly steady his composure and fill him with confidence.
He admitted he'd been momentarily shaken by the legendary life of Gwayne Seawright, but what he needed right now wasn't shock or hesitation, it was resolve.
The source of his confidence was simple.
Long before the intelligent beings on this continent had even learned to walk upright, he had already been watching this world!
He knew these memories wouldn't be of any practical help, but right here, right now, all he needed was to psych himself up.
Then, riding that momentum, find a way to survive.
And once he calmed down, solutions would naturally follow.
He quickly found some useful information among Gwayne Seawright's memories.
"Fighting our way out isn't realistic," Wayne said, stroking his chin with a serious expression. "I've slept for too long, I may not be able to muster much of my former strength. And we can't be sure just how powerful those monsters might be. So our best option is to find a route that bypasses them entirely and get to somewhere safe."
Rebecca: "But the drawbridge has been destroyed, and the other routes are all blocked..."
Wayne raised a hand to cut off this however-many-greats-granddaughter of his.
"Underground. Seawright territory was once part of the Kingdom's southern defense line. There's a secret tunnel system beneath it, blessed by earth elementals, it won't collapse even after a thousand years. And the entrance to this tunnel is right below the castle."
"There's something like that?!" Rebecca's face lit up with excitement. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's go find the tunnel! Great Ancestor, you lead the way!"
"There's one problem, though," Wayne spread his hands. "I only know the route starting from the castle. I don't know how to get there from the crypt."
Rebecca stared in disbelief. "You've been living here this long and you don't know your way around?"
Wayne: "..."
Ser Byron and the soldiers: "..."
Hestia's face went pale, fairly certain the Great Ancestor was about to be killed a second time, this time by sheer exasperation at his hopeless descendant...