To Grand-Seeker Saimon Rumas

My dear friend, please know that I hold you and the other Heads in the highest esteem. You have been an advisor, a mentor, a rival, and a friend. I know that you have only pursued this course of action as you believe it is our best chance of survival. Once more I implore you to reconsider. The seers of the Void Summoner Guild are certain you will only speed our doom and create something near as dangerous as the chaosbound themselves. In the spirit of politeness, I will address the nature of your last communication. No, the Void Summoner guild will not add our support or power to your experiments with the Creed children. We will seek our savior with the same techniques and knowledge that has served us safely for a thousand years. In fact, should you refuse to cease this project I will have no choice but to remove The Void Summoner Guild from the Final Peak Alliance. We will retreat to a fastness known only to us and continue our own efforts to find the other side of the void.

I await your reply with bated breath, though I fear I know what you will have to say.

Atticus Zheng

Grand-Summoner

Chapter 45: Morality

Soren

Soren Creed was contemplating the nature of morality. It wasn’t that he was concerned his actions had been somehow incorrect; Soren had attained godhood, if barely; He was no longer subject to questions of right or wrong. Any action he took by virtue of his divinity was morally correct. While that meant he rarely took the time to justify himself before making a decision, looking back at the actions he had taken through a philosophical lens could be a fun exercise.

That was what he was doing now. Looking back at the last few days of his pilgrimage on foot. It had been a novel experience. Of course, even when he made no effort to avoid the natural obstacles of the area it was far from the authentic pilgrim experience. The mud beneath his feet and the way the plant life fought his steps was mildly interesting, but things like parasitic insects and dangerous wildlife actively fled his presence.

The family of farmers he had encountered on the outskirts of some little mucklander shanty town had been the sort of rural friendly that one rarely encountered outside of stories.

Soren had come stalking out of one of the heavily wooded swamps that gave the Mucklands its name onto land that was both surprisingly firm and well-maintained. Now with a little bit of distance from the river table, he was essentially on a plain of wet grass. The plain was divided up by primitive wooden fences turning it into a series of damp paddocks that played home to packs of geese and those little miniature hut things peasants raised bees in. At the center of the paddocks was a little cottage of mud walls and a thatch roof.

‘They really love their thatch around here. So primitive.’

The blonde god hadn’t known whether to think it was quaint or pathetic. Before he had much time to consider the idea he was accosted by a friendly greeting. A middle-aged man of tan complexion and brown hair exited the cottage carrying a covered basket.

“Ho Stranger.” He called before placing the basket on the back of a small cart sitting in the shade of a tree near the building. “ You picked the right time to visit, we are about to sit down for lunch!”

Soren tilted his head and watched the man approach like he was inspecting a pinned butterfly.

“Though from the look of you, I’m thinking you’d like to use the bath house first”

The man whose name was Veltek lived here with his wife and eleven-year-old daughter. The three of them made a living raising animals in the rare piece of solid land. The little family unit was in the midst of preparing to be away for a week so they could attend an event called The ‘All Isles Festival” where they would barter their wares, and enjoy the various festivities, which would include regional tournaments for both True and Trials Decks.

If Soren had to guess the event was what his god was leading him to. After all, it stood to reason that the most powerful people and Cards in this primitive land would be on display at such a festival. So he had requested to join Veltek and his family on the trip. Marveling at how little Soren ate they had gladly accepted, so long as he wasn’t afraid of a little hard work along the way.

The god had assured them he wasn’t and that it was the least he could do after they had replaced his robes and shoes. He hadn’t added that what they considered hard work was nothing to his fifth-rank form.

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So after confirming that some neighbors who weren't going to the festival this year could check in on the flocks while they were gone, the small family and quietly bemused god left the morning after Soren arrived.

The farmers informed him they would take their wagon to a small dock about three days' travel away. Once there sometime over the next few days, a barge operated by a family they had dealings with would take them the rest of the way upriver.

The trip had started off pleasantly enough even if the trio had proven themselves unbearably dull conversationalists. It was a little after the wagon had settled down for the first night in a thicket near the packed dirt the Mucklanders called a road that the trouble started.

These people might be boring but they were kind and hard-working. So when Veltek had brought out a small idol and led the family in prayers around it Soren was a little bit crushed. He instantly recognized the little statue of Zoen The Fae. A similar if much larger one adorned the back left corner of the Hall of Dead Gods back home in the school of the Heaven-Seekers.

Not only was Zoen dead and thus unable to answer prayers, but the man had been an utter failure of a god. Hundreds of years ago he had gone out into the world at only Soren’s own rank and gathered followers from among the uneducated by convincing them a Walking God was the pinnacle of creation and that he was truly divine.

‘Tch”

Even with all the faith he had gathered from fools like this farming family, the man had been unable to cross the boundary to Rank Four and truly begin ascending the pillar of divinity. Soren didn’t remember many of the details of how Zoen The Fae had died almost seven hundred years ago but there was one fact about the dead god’s history that had stuck out to him. He had been slain by a Trials Deck wielder. An end so ignoble it was laughably far from divine.

Seeing people still worshiping Zoen more than five hundred years after his death was sickening.

Soren had initiated an exchange of ideas hoping to convince them of the error of their ways. It wasn’t that he wished to win them over to his own faith. The CreedBound had limited use for ones such as these. The idea of people’s faith being sent into the void to feed nothing at all was simply something he couldn’t abide by.

Crushing the logic behind their beliefs had been simplicity itself. Not only was their cult a scattered remnant of a thing that could hardly keep Muckland farmers well educated but Veltex’s understanding of debate techniques was more than a little lacking. Eventually, the farmer had kindly but firmly stated that his faith was his and his family’s business and no amount of logic even from such a learned young man would ever shift their beliefs.

That was when Soren had twisted the man’s head so it faced backward. Soren and by extension, the world had no use for the wilfully blind. Moving on to the farmer’s wife and daughter the former priest had attempted once more to make them see sense. It hadn’t worked and by the time the sun had come up, he was alone in the thicket.

The daughter in particular had stood out in Soren’s mind. She had known he would kill her and had been given a blunt and obvious choice between renouncing the faith of her parents or joining them in the afterlife. Setting her shoulders and taking a deep breath the child had declared she would never abandon her faith.

Soren didn’t feel bad for killing the girl, but as he sat at the end of the little wharf the farmers had described to him the god resolved that the next time he found himself in such a situation he would take more time with it. While scholars the world over agreed worshiping a dead god was stupid at best and extremely dangerous at worst they didn’t all agree how one should best deal with the deluded.

They absolutely needed to be stopped lest they infect others with their delusion, but Zheng had written that it could take half a lifetime to break the teachings of a whole one. Perhaps it had been unreasonable for him to expect the farming family to see the light so quickly.

‘If there is a next time I take them with me, at least for a while.’

He hadn’t been wrong, everyone who had ever placed a hand on the pillar of divinity agreed on that front, and other scholars simply weren’t qualified to comment. He was a god, morality flowed from his divinity into the world. While he wasn’t infallible, when it came to right or wrong in a moral sense Soren couldn’t make mistakes.

Taking the mule-pulled wagon he had continued the journey. It wasn’t a complicated route to the wharf the family had described to him. In fact, there was only one road so after another day and a half of travel Soren sat at the end of a little dock of rotting wood watching a flock of local birds.

The brown and white avians swarmed over the old-growth trees that shaded the edges of the wide green river he overlooked. Without taking to the air it was a little difficult to gauge but Soren was fairly certain this was the river that ran the length of the Mucklands and acted as the source of most of the hundreds of smaller rivers and streams that spread throughout this country like veins in a body.

Soren’s considerations were eventually broken by the approach of a barge crewed by a family of four. He was relatively certain it was the very boat he was waiting for and raised a hand to signal the vessel. Pulling up to the warf a boy of about ten leaped from the barge to tie it off. Moments later an older man with red and white hair came striding over.

“Veltek couldn’t make it huh?” Asked the man glancing around. Soren shook his head.

“I’m afraid he and his family had a crisis on the road, they asked me to take their wares on to the festival.”

The man nodded and offered a hand to shake.

“I’m Leshy Knots, and as long as you promise to be less boring to talk to than Veltek we will be happy to have you along.”