Once the group was brought to Zikeal proper, further identification only took moments and went without any trouble.
All it took was for the priests from the local temple to take one look at the [Progenies of Yore] before everyone had to convince them not to prostrate themselves before the group. It took Esperanza undoing her aural camouflage and flaring her presence to get them to regain control over themselves. Of course, that also made them try to prostrate before her instead.
Apparently, if Esperanza wasn’t doing her damndest to keep it under a lid, her presence was so filled with the blessings of Oldies – or the Deities of Yore as the locals insist – that it was almost palpable to people attuned to it. Naturally, as priests worshiping the Deities of Yore, the local clergy was very attuned to such a feeling, which made it impossible for her to hide it.
Fortunately, that also gave her a lot of clout with the locals who viewed her words as ones that came straight from the mouth of a messenger sent by the very Deities they worshiped. A direct command from her eventually stopped all the attempted worshiping and genuflecting that her very presence seemed to inspire in the members of the clergy.
While all that went without any real trouble, it was still a bit bothersome and a little frustrating that she had to resort to giving what was basically considered a divine command to these people just to stop them from treating her like some god. Of course, Esperanza was well aware that the locals saw her exactly that way, as some sort of divine messenger, but it was still something that she found hard to get used to.
After a quick, abbreviated tour of Zikeal, they learned that apparently the large cavern they emerged to was just the main and largest one, and there existed around a dozen smaller caverns each with their own settlements in the complex. Some of those caverns were even situated underwater to accommodate the Gour-ug’rech members of the community, while other than the settled caverns, another couple dozen caverns were used as farms and ranches by the ingenious locals.
The inhabitants of Zikeal grew various kinds of tubers and certain vegetables that thrived even in the darkness of the underground caverns, as well as various forms of mushrooms, lichen, and fungi. Some varieties of what they grew were either inedible to people as a whole or had inedible parts, but still served as acceptable fodder for the creatures the locals ranched.
Some of those creatures resembled giant mole-rats that had scales instead of fur, which the locals apparently use mostly as beasts of burden and to expand their cavern complex as living, breathing, digging machines. On the other hand, the main creature they ranched for food purposes were gigantic worms as thick around as an adult man’s thigh.
It made sense that giant worms weren’t the most picky when it came to fodder, Esperanza guessed.
The aquatic members of the community also ran several maricultural projects in the underwater chambers, where they farmed things like edible seaweeds as well as seafood that could be easily harvested like oysters and other shellfish. Some bottom feeders like crabs and lobsters were also reared in large quantities in those underwater chambers.
In the end, those farms, both the ones underwater and the underground ones, ensured that Zikeal managed to remain a mostly self-sufficient community to the point that they had no need to leave their safe abode in order to hunt outside. What few necessities they were unable to produce within the cavern itself, they acquired through trade with Gour-ug’rech communities they have contact with in the nearby seas.
At the very evening of the day Esperanza and the rest of the group arrived in Zikeal, the locals threw a massive feast to celebrate the arrival of the “Divine Messengers”, which was apparently the first time Oldies had shown a direct touch in the world for many, many centuries. Given the enthusiasm shown by the locals, Esperanza didn’t have the heart to say no, and left them to their merrymaking.
It was quite surprising to see the locals seemingly conjure the setting for a grand feast in a large clearing – a rarity, given how space was at a premium in the underground – at the center of the main cavern. At least a couple thousand people gathered to help prepare the feast, which would likely feed so many people that just about everyone in the main cavern would get a share.
Esperanza had to admit that some part of her nearly recoiled when she saw the locals carry the carcass of several giant worms on their shoulders and proceeded to chop them up into smaller pieces for the feast. They had already butchered and cleaned the worms before transporting the carcasses, so all that was left was to process the meat into food for the feast.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
In the end, after it was processed, meat was meat, and as long as she ignored the fact that it’s worm meat, it’s not really something that bothered her. None of the locals seemed to be the least bit bothered by it either, but then again, worm meat was likely part of their dietary staple given how it was one of the few creatures that could be raised and harvested effectively in the underground.
The food was a bit similar to the fare they had back in Agur-Bas, though with a greater proportion of self-produced ingredients. Agur-Bas had mostly thrived thanks to the sea, while Zikeal was deeper inland and far less reliant on the oceans for their livelihood. As such, the foods they harvested from the underwater caverns were more often than not used as accents or flavorings rather than as the main ingredient in their cooking.
Which resulted in stuff like a salad analogue where the main ingredient was large amounts of thin, thread-like mushrooms with tiny caps the size of a pinhead. The tiny mushrooms were mixed with a good amount of lichen and what looked like shredded seaweed before the locals doused it in dressings of sorts that reminded Esperanza of vinaigrettes from her previous life, as it was oily and tangy.
Meanwhile minced bits of the worm meat went into a thick, oddly purplish stew with some tubers that grew in the dark underground and various mushrooms, as well as bits of prawn and lobster meat. The stew itself had a strong savory flavor from the organs and shells of those prawns and lobsters, which was used to flavor the broth that went into making it.
Finger-thick slabs of the giant worm’s flesh was directly cooked up over hot stones like slabs of steak on a grill. The meat turned a whitish-pink shade as it cooked up, and at a glance could have passed for a really big slice of sausage of some sort. It definitely did not look or smell bad, and the local – as well as the rest of the group – were devouring the worm steaks with gusto.
Esperanza decided to give it a try and sliced into the piece to find that her knife went through it almost effortlessly, the meat having a texture more akin to some sort of pudding rather than animal flesh. Yet it was firm enough to stay on her knife when she speared the small piece she sliced off with the tip of the knife and lifted it up.
At a glance, the cooked meat looked like a slice of poultry, but if she looked at the cut side, she noticed that the center of the meat wasn’t thoroughly cooked and still had some of its original pinkish color visible. That part resembled some of those really expensive meat with all the crazy marbling she saw on her previous life rather than poultry.
In the end, she took a bite and chewed on the piece of meat.
The meat crumbled easily even before she chewed on it, as the act of simply pressing it against the roof of her mouth using her tongue was plenty to break it into smaller pieces. The taste was on the rich and fatty side, with only minimal meaty taste, but she assumed that it’s what the sauce served on a separate platter was for. Everyone else dipped their meat into that sauce before they ate it, after all.
As she gave a second piece – this one liberally sauced – a try, she realized that the sauce had a strong meaty taste, despite how it was apparently made mostly out of several kinds of mushrooms stewed together until they become a thick sauce. She did recall that some mushrooms were supposed to have a meaty flavor, so the locals likely made use of those to make up for the lack of meaty flavor in the worm flesh.
The feast continued unabated – complete with folk songs and dances – until well past what would likely be midnight before the locals started to retire to their homes. Esperanza’s group was housed in the temple itself, where the clergy had apparently taken the chance to clean and prepare their guest rooms for the honored guests during the feast.
Once they returned from the feast, the somewhat inebriated group – the locals served up some alcohol that was apparently brewed from certain varieties of lichen and had a sweet, herbal taste to it – was led to clean, cozy rooms where they could rest for the night. It was not particularly luxurious accommodation as the temple in general was rather spartan in terms of decoration, but definitely plenty for the group used to sleeping out in the open.
The night passed uneventfully as they rested in the comfortable rooms. Perhaps it was the fullness from having just had a large meal, or the light inebriation from the alcohol, but most of the group slept through the night, whereas normally they would be more alert.
Some amongst them like Ani and Esperanza herself remained somewhat alert through the night, however, as they refused to take their chances. The locals of Zikeal certainly looked friendly, but one could never be too sure in this cruel world, and both of them favored to be prepared just in case something bad happened rather than believing that nothing of the sort would take place.
Fortunately their suspicion and worries were unfounded as nothing happened throughout the night. In fact, they were left unbothered until some of the group woke up and went to the bathroom for their morning ablutions near midday, at which point a young clergyman from the temple politely came and invited the group to meet with the Council of Zikeal, if they so pleased.
After the group refreshed themselves, they went to the temple’s largest meeting room, where the shakers and movers from Zikeal already awaited their presence. The Council had fewer members than Esperanza had expected, as there were only nine of them. She noticed Abr-Niz, the man who had led them to the city the day before, sitting amongst them calmly, clearly also part of the council in question.
Other than him, there was an old woman in the robes of the clergy that Esperanza assumed to be the senior priestess of the temple, an elderly – easily visible from his wrinkled skin – Gour-ug’rech who probably served as a representative of the underwater community, and several other people who all looked old enough to be her grandparent age-wise, coming from a mix of all races.
It was also notable that other than Abr-Niz and the Gour-ug’rech elder, none of the council members had any sort of combative classes, with only those two in question being combatants. That said, both of them were in their middle fourth tier, and Esperanza guessed that they could each probably take on Ani in a one-on-one duel if needed. The old priestess seemed to have a healer class, while the others either had some sort of administrative class or some regular profession like farmer instead.
“We bid you welcome to our humble abode of Zikeal, Honored Ones,” intoned the old priestess respectfully with a deep bow aimed towards Esperanza and the [Progenies of Yore]. “May we inquire to the nature of the message that the Extolled Deities have seen fit to pass on to their mortal servants and how we may be of assistance?”