“I’m going to kill them.”
“I’d like to suggest finding an option that doesn’t get you imprisoned or executed.”
“Thera was a mess when she got back Myriad, I’m not exactly in the mood to be polite about it when I’m already putting in so much work trying to get this village to a semi-manageable state. So what happened?”
She’d been in no mood to talk when she’d returned and Ben didn’t force the issue, instead trying to comfort her until she’d fallen asleep and then quickly passing out for the night himself.
Unfortunately Myriad didn’t have an answer for him either. “I had been focusing on other things since I thought Sachel had everything well in hand, but it looks like that was my mistake. Still, I would like to understand myself, shall I bring her here?”
“You can have multiple people in your realm at once?”
“It’s not hard, I just usually prefer to provide one on one attention.”
“In that case sure, just set something up for me first.”
----------------------------------------
As Sachel came to consciousness she found herself in a place she’d long grown used to, her god’s realm. With how the night had gone she’d expected it, though what she hadn’t been expecting was the change in setup. While normally it was a rather featureless expanse, at the moment she was at the base of a large, slanted platform, at the top of which floated her god, with Ben sitting down on a dark chair, legs crossed and staring down at her, thoroughly displeased.
Maybe it was bullying the girl, but he was in no mood to be friendly and he wanted the atmosphere to reflect that as he looked her in the eye and watched her nerves start to fray.
“So, what happened?”
“Um, how much have you heard?”
“Tell me from the beginning,” He ordered as he drummed his fingers on the chair arm, staring down without a hint of kindness in his voice or eyes.
It only made her more worried but she did as she was asked, recounting the events of the night that ultimately ended with Thera parting ways from the others and ending up alone at home.
Ben could see the panic form on her face and she wouldn’t meet his eyes, leaving him to sigh and direct a thought to Myriad.
Okay, maybe I went too far with the theatrics. Mind lowering everything and giving her a chair?
“Alright, alright, calm down I’ve had my fun. Now Sachel, I want to hear your honest opinion. What do you think about what happened, both last night as well as when Thera was dealing with Roan?”
“Um, well last night, I understand why she was so unhappy, although breaking Skoe’s knee still seemed to be a bit much.”
Oof, didn’t realize she broke it.
Oh well, she healed him up so it doesn’t matter to me.
“And about the time with Roan?”
She shifted about awkwardly, still avoiding his eye as she thought about how to answer. “I… I know we were in the wrong. Skoe never saw much of it, but Ralia and I were well aware that he was a creep. It was hard not to feel a bit bad for the guy when it became clear he was losing his mind, but we should have tried to help Thera when he was bothering her, not just leaving things to work out like they did.”
He cast a quick glance at Myriad, who gave him a nod, or at least the floating cube equivalent of one.
Great, gotta love an idiot with charisma.
“Alright, so what will you do now? Unless you plan on thinking of another way to deal with the bats, you’ll need Thera to draw them in for you. I guess there’s also the option of giving up here to try and complete the quest somewhere else, though it’s up to you.”
“Do you think you could try and smooth things over with Thera for us?”
She was finally looking him in the eyes and absolutely begging for his help, but he turned her down immediately. “No. I told you when I gave you the plan, you’re in charge. If you want to make it work, you’ll need to come up with a way to get her to work with you willingly. Smoothing over problems in a team is just as much the job of a leader as planning out attacks, right?”
“Aah, okay I’ll do my best,” She didn’t seem thrilled with his answer, but could tell he didn’t plan on budging, and with that her time in the realm ended, leaving Ben alone with his god again.
With her gone, he immediately deflated into a ball of stress. “Why can’t things just be easy Myriad?”
“There there, I’m hopeful things will work out fine. Sachel was feeling discouraged over everything that happened, but also committed to making it work. We just have to wait and see.”
“Alright, the sooner this is sorted the sooner there’s someone else to fill these sorts of roles for your faith anyway, I’ll just cross my fingers and hope she actually completes the quest.”
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“I’m feeling confident, her devotion and desire are both strong, she’ll do her best. As for completing quests though, you asked about how to earn me a bit more faith, yes? I’ve got a solution for you. Wait here.”
At that Myriad disappeared for a few minutes, leaving Ben alone in an empty void until he returned with what might have been mistaken for a tree at first, if not for the divinity radiating from it and a most unusual trunk.
With thin leaves, some sort of violet apple-like fruit, and smooth golden branches, it wasn’t until the eyes drifted farther down that it could be seen that all of that was simply growing out of the head of a goddess, with her face and body having a more human-like form, though completely covered with the same golden bark as her upper branches.
Even though it was an appearance he wouldn’t have expected, it made more sense to him than seeing Anailia had, considering the race he was sure she represented. “Jagal I take it?”
“Indeed apostle of Myriad, your god has made me quite the offer, I’m sure we can be of help to one another.”
He looked to his god curiously, so he went on to explain. “Given the dryad’s history and their delicate situation in the world, her race lacks craftsmen and artists, instead focusing almost entirely on training their plant magic to protect the health of their forests. It’s understandable, and she can’t just ask one to take up their valuable time mastering an artistic craft, but it means that the statues that exist of her are few and old. Gifting the village a representation of her should help improve their opinion of you and I, possibly being enough for you to complete your quest while at the same time giving her something for her people to direct their faith to. It would probably help the village as well. While plenty of dryads make their way to her head church as a pilgrimage, it wouldn’t be surprising if any went out of their way to see the best representation of their goddess to exist in the past few centuries.”
“And she’s not mad about the whole converting Sachel away from her faith thing?”
At this, the goddess laughed. “Child, I’ve had many people convert to me as well. While no god is happy to lose a believer it is the nature of faith in such a cluttered world like this, I have no grudge against you.”
He stared at her and she met his gaze before he shrugged. “Works for me. Myriad do you think you could make me something like a pen and paper so I can make a few sketches? And Jagal, if you want to take a pose for this, do whatever is comfortable, but try and keep it in the realm of what it would be possible to make,” He was going to be crafting with whatever large, solid block of stone he could find after all, he couldn’t do anything the would create any weak bits that might lead to it falling apart.
She thought for a moment before conjuring a tree stump into existence and taking a seat. “How is this?”
“Looks great,” The goddess before him gave off an air of serenity, not something that he should be surprised about given her ties to nature, but it was easy to get sucked in and made him want to capture the feeling if he could.
Myriad created the pen and paper for him as he asked, but asked a question before Ben got to work. “Are those necessary? You won’t be able to take them when you wake up.”
“It will help me remember it better when I do though. Besides, you’ll still have them, right? I can refer to them later if need be.”
With that he got to work, making sketches of her at various angles and trying to capture her expression the best he could. It was fun, planning out a large statue like that, something he doubted he ever would have been able to do on earth, and while he worked he took the time to get an answer to a question that had been on his mind as well.
“So just out of curiosity, why do dryads breed with trees? It struck me as odd that you have such a distinctly female race alone when most others seem to go for the male-female split,” He was aware of a few races with more than just the two sexes he was used to, and also that there were a few hermaphroditic ones as well, but that just made dryads stand out as an oddity all the more.
“There’s no distinct reason, when I came into being on my world I could have simply uplifted one of the animals present to sapience like so many others did, but I found creating them from the trees was more satisfying to who I am. Of course, I did create both females and males at first, but after I had to destroy the men back in the height of my power it was simpler to slightly alter the remaining women to make it possible instead of creating an entirely new group of peaceful males from scratch. Perhaps I should have produced a few though, now that I’m too weak to do it, it's a shame to constantly see my people shrink unless they maintain their forests.”
He tried to keep his thoughts in line, going back to focusing on the drawing and anything else he could think of to distract himself. That was a lot to unpack, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it in mind-reading range.
“I bet,” He said casually, hiding his worry with a different bit of curiosity. “So were the dryad’s produced from fruit trees, or is your form unrelated to theirs?”
“Ha, a curious boy, it’s a good trait. My form is distinct, there was no plant like it on my homeworld. After all, a god is something to be strived to, not found around every corner,” With that she got up to look at the various drawings he’d made and comments he’d written down and smiled approvingly, reaching into the branches above her and plucking a fruit before handing it to him. “A reward for all you’ve done for the village so far. I look forward to seeing how the statue turns out.”
With one final smile and a nod to Myriad, she disappeared.
“You can relax now,” His god told him, seeing just how tense he was at the end of their meeting.
“So some gods just eradicate half of their race, huh?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yes, back in the distant past when we were at our full power we were more free to act, though that wouldn’t have been nearly as easy as she made it sound.”
“Any chance you could fill me in on why though?” He was incredibly curious but didn’t want to risk the wrath of any god that would go through with such a thing.
“It’s a long story that involves some forces I’m not allowed to talk about with mortals, but the short answer is that a small group of men from her world created a spell to distort the minds of the rest and almost destroyed the harmony of her planet as a result.”
“What, come on, why can’t you tell me whatever bit you’re hiding?”
“As a rule, there is some knowledge considered too dangerous for mortals to know, lest they decide to actually use it. About one in a hundred of the races in this reality have a point in their history when they nearly destroyed their world by knowing the wrong thing, and even more succeeded. You’d be shocked how many dead worlds there are in the galaxy that had nothing to do with the invaders,” He could tell that had just made his apostle even more curious, so he quickly changed the topic. “Anyway, since she gave that to you, you should eat it already.”
“Um, is that really okay?”
“Relax, it’s the fruit of a nature goddess, it isn’t going to harm you. You can think of it as an incredibly minor blessing. It won’t show up on your card like mine or Anailia’s did, and it won’t have the effect of improving your growth as a whole like ours would either. Let’s see, from the look of it, I would say it will up your mana by a couple points, around five. She must have watched the way you do things a bit after I asked and noticed you struggling. Think of it as a payment for helping her people.”
“Oh sweet, in that case don’t mind if I do,” He took a bite and felt a small amount of energy fill him, like he was being invigorated by the fruit. The taste was oddly familiar, like a memory of some of the best ones he’d ever experienced in his homeworld, he would have loved to get another to snack on.
“No thinking about how tasty gods are. Nothing good will come from it.”
He stopped for a moment, waiting before replying. “No notification about a new sacrilege level so it’s fine. Are there any other nature gods willing to let me have a bite?”
“I swear, the fact it didn’t level up for you isn’t from lack of trying.”