There was a lot to be learned from Silver while the man had some free time to chat. He wasn’t exactly an open book, so Razlok had to read between many lines, but the information was there, either given directly or hinted at.
Every tidbit of information was traded, however, so Razlok had to establish their backstory, or at least the story they would be telling any curious minds.
Silver was from Djamícte, born and raised within the city with family who worked on the other side of the River Dolýna. The urban population of Djamícte was composed of a very different culture than the rural population.
The Guild’s influence made the city diverse, with its own unique dialect of the local tongue.
He knew where Razlok was from based on their accent (Àrd-Tìreach) but asked for specifics.
Razlok the alleged human fumbled something about living in Djamícte and working for the Guild more than twenty years ago. They were back in the city, back at the Guild to see if there was still a place for an old fossil.
Technically, it was true. Razlok just wasn’t sure if they could get fired or hired. This divine thing was a permanent gig.
According to Silver, the Guild was running smoothly with the occasional hiccup if a bureaucrat didn’t like how a particular member handled certain events. It helped that Auron was widely approved of by most people on the continent, but sometimes there were high-ranking individuals who simply didn’t take to Guild members.
The bartender refused to elaborate, instead changing the subject back to Razlok, but the deity knew who he was referring to.
The current Seat of Fire, Neous, was rather infamous for not getting along with other people and there had been multiple clean-ups of his temper tantrums. Fire magic was a strong deterrent and picking fights with Neous was legendarily dangerous, so any recourse ended up being established through formal avenues.
Namely, bringing it up to Auron personally.
(Razlok was not aware of the politics at play here, but they knew of Neous’ temperament. He was the only logical thorn in the Guild’s side, or at least the only one with enough sway to annoy a bureaucrat.)
As for the trade of information, Razlok had to answer the obvious question: what was their old job at the Guild?
Engineer, mostly. Their pretend specialty was mechanics and magical systems at the intersection of lightning and metal magic.
That seemed to pique Silver’s interest, leading to a long discussion about the different practical applications of metal magic as used by the Guild’s members. It answered some of Razlok’s burning questions about Silver – the man did use finesse weapons, preferring daggers if he absolutely had to fight, but the use of metal magic with his hands was usually applying tiny particles of metal to certain sides of dice in order to roll the needed numbers.
That little detail took plenty of prying, as Silver was the current ‘face’ of the Guild to the public. He had more sense than to openly brag about crimes to strangers, but Razlok had a way of getting into people’s good graces.
It was fire magic, really.
For all that the Dark had grim implications to the world at large, every civilization circled back to fire as necessary and good.
Just as Auron radiated a calm, cool demeanor and was very fluid in his reactions, Razlok was a warm and friendly soul. Time spent near the Dark Deity tended to soften even the prickliest of humans.
Razlok could be sharp and wild, but they wanted nothing more than to avoid unnecessary death and conflict, to choose compassion and de-escalation first.
The conversation between Silver and Razlok was warming up, getting louder and dipping into casual use of expletives like they were filler words.
They’d landed on a demonstration of Silver’s tricks of the trade. Not the good stuff, not the magic suited for a high roller, but games involving sleight of hand.
Razlok was in the middle of explaining a problem – how they would love to see it but, you know, the blindness inhibited some of their understanding – when the other Guild members began arriving home.
Ah. Well, the fun was good while it lasted. Today was a solemn day for the Guild; this had only been a temporary reprieve.
Razlok nursed a drink while Silver stopped a pair of crying ladies, who announced the bad news.
Auron was dead.
Silver was shocked too, as shocked as everyone else in those few cursed moments when the world stopped turning and no one could breathe.
Did any of these mortals know that a divine could die? That a deity’s human form could be killed?
No, they were unaware, that much was clear. Perhaps the scholars knew, maybe the Seats who were much closer to Auron, but for the most part, Razlok believed that the world was alarmed by this new knowledge.
Razlok had to let it go, had to distract themselves somehow. There were more people arriving and Razlok’s anxiety was pulsing through their veins.
If they let their mind linger on Auron and the grief surrounding him, it would be hard to maintain the faux stoicism that was letting Razlok exist among the humans now. The Dark Deity wanted to shove all those sad feelings into a box and only open it when Auron was around to help soothe them.
It was frustrating to be a divine in human form. It had so much reward and genuine moments of wonder and awe and delight, yes, but it was far more complicated than Auron (or Razlok) ever cared to explain.
The true Divines could not be contained in human bodies. No, it could never work. Auron and Razlok were parts of a whole, a piece of the larger Divines that could safely occupy human form.
The remainder of the Divines were unconscious, unknowable forces that guided the world, that produced the magic, that ensured everything behaved as it should.
In human bodies, their powers were limited, reduced to what was safely manageable. This was the restriction Razlok – no, the Dark – put on the Divines when they chose to take human forms.
As humans – there would be no worldwide earthquakes or wildfires that reached the edges of the continent, there would be no floods, no ground-shaking thunderstorms. Their powers as deities could not extend that far in their human bodies, even if they wanted to.
Auron could pick out pieces of history or ascertain the future, but as a human he could never see the infinite timeline all at once like his Divine self did.
And Razlok, they could stave off death for a few seconds, push the limits of a dying creature in hopes that Auron might arrive to heal, but they could not stop death in its tracks, nor could they walk the line of life and death for very long themselves.
And that wasn’t even mentioning the humanity the pair internalized over the years. They started out as pure darkness and as pure light in people-shaped figures, but now?
Auron expressed his joy in such a human way, hands waving frantically, impassioned into motion. He found comfort in humming a few select notes repetitively, with no desire to be musical.
Stolen story; please report.
Though attentive and sincere, the Light could find himself completely lost in a text for hours and lecture the nearest soul supportive of his delight.
He hurt in the way that humans did, their bones sore in the rain, their joints complaining with too much use. His body rebelled when a sickness was upon him, forcing Auron to retire frequently to his quarters.
The Deity of Light was a healer, but he was not immune to being the patient. He theorized that the sheer magical pressure of Divinity encased in flesh and blood caused stress on their bodies.
This was true for Razlok, as well.
They could push their physical form past human limits, denying death in order to see their tasks complete, but their mind suffered for it.
They were prone to nervousness and moodiness, as well as tending to distract themselves from emotional problems with vices rather than confront them head on. When they avoided their problems for too long, the burden of existing could invoke visions and hallucinations.
Yet, Razlok acquired many good things from humanity.
They found passion in nearly everything, whether that meant sheer enthusiasm for performing, a drive for sparring, stretching their physical limits, or literal passion in romance and sex.
They took human selfishness and extended it into divinity – in that they wanted things their way, all the time, and they would fight to the ends of the world to keep things as they liked it.
Razlok remembered that being human had been fun and very fulfilling. They knew that they were never able to experience the depth of humanity as a Divine. This truly was a formative experience.
And neither Razlok nor Auron ever wanted to leave.
Yet they had, and they still did.
It was called the In-Between, though Razlok might start pettily referring to it as timeout due to their prolonged absence.
The In-Between was where the deities went when they died, where their consciousnesses resided while they waited to regain a human form.
Auron was there now. It was not a place, not really, but instead it was a state of being. Neither human nor truly Divine, but something, well, In-Between.
Razlok couldn’t remember what they did in their long absence, how they’d spent their time away, but Auron would be able to recall his actions when he returned.
A benefit of having domain over memory. They were able to observe parts of the world, not all of it, but small sections as if looking down on a map where people and creatures continued their lives.
The partial Divinity gave them a tiny portion of power, and Razlok knew they nudged people together even during their absence, made little moments of chaos force two individuals to meet.
How it happened, they were unaware, but Razlok knew that they absolutely chose the Seats of Darkness over those long years. Maybe Auron could fill Razlok in on the details…
The Guild was becoming busy as more people arrived.
While Razlok mused on what it meant to be a deity in modern times, the members of the Guild were hovering in the front hall and the wings, waiting for the Seats to arrive and give them answers.
Razlok was thankful they’d chosen the seat close to the wall, as one side was blocked off and the other wasn’t much trafficked once it was occupied by someone wanting to drink. With more auras in the room, they could relax their perception and retract their own energy. It would help hide their true identity, as well as giving Razlok a break.
Perhaps it wasn’t terribly difficult to maintain their own area of perception, but it’d been a very, very long day after many years of not being human. The gears were a bit rusty even as they were put in motion.
A flurry of whispers bounced around the front hall, travelling from person to person and breaking up the muffled mourning of the Guild.
Something was happening. The Seats arrived, a little later than those who walked on foot.
Though Razlok was facing the countertop seemingly preoccupied with their drink, the auras of the Seats made it near impossible to not notice them. The air instantly felt heavier as the room recognized that these were the people who might have answers, who could tell them what they had to do now to keep moving forward.
Neous was absent.
Razlok guessed the Seat of Fire was assigned to deal with the assassin and the city guard, since it was hard to imagine Neous being the reassuring type.
The Guild was not a governing institution, but more akin to a community center or an academy. It was a place of companionship and support, a place for pushing your own personal limits, a place to connect with the divines.
The ministry of Djamícte would be the organization to decide what happens to the assassin, though Razlok had to presume that they would wait for Auron to return before proceeding with any decisions.
A hush fell upon the room as Kian stepped forward to speak, her expression weary but steadfast. Razlok canted their head at her, mostly out of curiosity.
She stood almost awkwardly with her hip at an odd angle, as if her entire body weight was resting on one leg. The Seat of Earth rooted her power in her torso and her upper thighs, so Razlok could easily draw these conclusions as her lingering aura made it obvious.
The leg she was favoring was her mechanical one, a prosthetic limb powered by lightning magic. Hrm. That was concerning.
Regardless, Kian had a job to do.
“As you all know by now, Auron has passed on.” She left pauses in between her sentences, the grave nature of the explanation needing the respect of silence.
“It was- No one could have predicted the assassin’s actions, but… the Seats were aware that Auron was technically capable of death.” A murmur of surprise rose from the crowd.
There weren’t plans in place for this catastrophe, but there didn’t need to be, not when the Seats of Light and the members of their individual sects were already the organizational backbone of the Guild.
“We- The Guild will be closed for a few days, maybe longer. No visitors.” Kian stopped and sighed loud enough that Razlok could hear it. The deity imagined she was rubbing her temple or the bridge of her nose.
“Some visitors. Your partners and families are welcome. We wouldn’t shut them out. So limited visitors. Get approval from myself or Itto if you have questions.”
This… complicated things for Razlok, but they might be able to find a reason to stick around or get permission.
“Hartley and Silver, you have orders to turn away any ministry official or diplomat or nosy civilian who thinks now is the best time to pry for answers.” That put a name to Silver’s coworker, the one who ran the front desk with the bartender.
“Actually, anyone who can keep their temper in check is free to turn visitors away. Take the burden off reception staff.” Take the burden off the Seats, too.
Razlok didn’t know what Hartley looked like to check their emotional state, but they could tell that the other Seats weren’t handling Auron’s death as calmly as Gwenllian or Kian did. Itto was propping up Elias who clung to his husband… and someone else?
It was Rose, the Seat of Fire’s second-in-command. She seemed to be finding comfort in the pair’s personal space. Her hand gripped at Itto’s forearm as it wrapped around Elias’ shoulder. They were close companions, it seemed.
Neither Cas nor Gwenllian were present for these announcements; Razlok spotted them leaving early-on towards their personal quarters.
Kian continued: “We are all grieving, so find patience where you can. Auron will return. We know this.” Was that hesitation in the pause this time? Doubt, or something else?
“That’s all. Take care of yourselves.”
Ah, so it was hesitation. Razlok expected the Seats to mention the stranger who appeared on stage. No doubt there would be questions from the Guild, but obviously there were no answers. Kian refused to acknowledge it in these moments. Probably for the best, honestly. Everyone needed a break.
The Seat of Earth limped off to find a table, clearly in pain or having difficulties with her leg. Someone relinquished a comfortable armchair near a fire for Kian, whose fatigue became palpable as she lowered herself into the chair.
A rough day emotionally, paired with standing on a stage behind Auron for a length of time… if there was any fit error or mechanical problem with her prosthetic, it would have been exasperated by Kian’s need to look put-together in public.
Razlok didn’t know the woman, but they could tell just by listening to her that she wanted to appear composed and strong – Razlok could relate – however, her stubbornness likely led to more pain.
While the Dark finished off their drink, they mulled over what the problem could be. A mechanical error causing the joints or pistons of the leg itself to lock up, resulting in an awkward gait for Kian, which put stress on her hip and back. Perhaps the arcane pathways connecting power source to the structured enchantment were failing?
Or it could be a problem with how the nerves in her thigh bonded with the prosthetic itself, stuttering signals from nerves would be painful and make it difficult to control her prosthesis. Too many options. They would have to look at the device itself to see what was wrong.
Right. Except they were supposed to be keeping a low profile, biding their time. It would be monumentally stupid for Razlok, who wanted to remain anonymous for at least twenty-four hours to get accustomed to their humanity again, to simply waltz up to the Seat who had just said that there were no outsiders allowed in the Guild.
Yeah. It was logically and tactically flawed.
Yep. They were going to do it anyways. It was cruel to leave Kian in pain when Razlok could simply… fix the problem, here and now.
Razlok slapped a hand on the counter before giving the distracted Silver a little wave as a send-off. The deity stood and rolled their neck, gently extending their perception out as to not alert anyone sensitive to energies. They were lucky that Gwenllian was gone, as she was the only person here that knew what the hooded figure’s voice sounded like.
They were even more lucky still that Elias wasn’t present. Razlok knew that the Seat of Lightning was more than adept at reading others’ energies, and Elias could pick up on a sudden press of Dark magic in a room full of people who were incapable of using said magic.
This was the only time they might be able to pass through undetected and maybe their only chance to secure a temporary spot as a guest of the Guild for the next few days.
With newfound resolve, Razlok set off to help Kian… and to blatantly lie to her face about their entire life. Sometimes deception was necessary. Razlok would apologize another day. Maybe. Probably.