Chapter 26: How People Usually Seek Knowledge
The next day Nara did as Redell suggested, taking a day trip out to the divine plaza of Sanshi. The plaza was large. Temples surrounded a circular plaza with a vertical and horizontal spokes, like a plus sign intersecting a circle. The ground was elaborately tiled, beyond what normal Sanshi paths were, even in the nice city center. Designs of ornate stone in between marble and jade, cut and laid in exacting geometric patterns.
The temples all varied in appearance and atmosphere. Some were simple and comforting, but still crafted with meticulous care. Others, large, imposing, and domineering, like the throne of a tyrant emperor personified into an entire building. Not all of the temples were in the plaza. The temple of lust and the temple of fertility were usually on the outskirts of cities, due to their particular services. There wasn’t enough room for all of the temples of all of the gods in the city center. For a city, their most important gods had a place in the divine plaza, their pantheon.
She chatted with a few locals until she figured out which temples were the temple of knowledge and the temple of the traveler.
“What do you think Thanatos, which one should I try first?”
Thanatos inclined his head and offered no opinion. She couldn’t help but find his gesture adorable.
“I am ostensibly a former engineer so shall we head for the temple of knowledge?”
Thanatos barked in agreement.
The temple of knowledge predominantly featured white, grey, and dark blue. From a distance, priests strode through the temples ground, walking with purpose. Their robes were a rich royal blue, a thick silk hemmed at their ankles. The robes were embroidered with scrolls and books, indicating them as the temple of knowledge’s clergy and differentiating them from other clergy which may have blue robes. The temple ground itself was meticulous, flowers, trees, and hedges weeded and trimmed in perfect shapes, but without losing the life of what made nature appealing. The temple seemed to exemplify making order of chaos, without ridding of it entirely.
As she stepped close to the temple of knowledge, a Guide notification window surprised her, causing her to stop abruptly in her tracks.
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-You are about to enter the [Spirit Domain] of [The Goddess of Knowledge].
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She couched down on the spot absentmindedly mulling over the notification.
“Spirit Domain? Domain? If my Astral Domain is anything to go by, that’s one hell of a loaded word. Is it a coincidence?”
Thanatos softly barked.
“You don’t know anything about it either? That’s okay bud, thanks for trying.”
Her Guide gave no answers; whatever a Spirit Domain was, it wasn’t common knowledge.
“Do you think this is some outworlder perk?” Nara wondered, “I get to literally know what I’m stepping into, nobody else does? Or is this a thing priests know about and nobody else?”
She would have liked to see a “You are about to step into the world of Erras!” Notification if that was the case, but she had seen a golden gate. Maybe she was asking for too much.
She debated between returning to Redell to ask him about the strange notification and entering the temple grounds anyway. The priests and ordinary folk coming and going seemed to have no issues. But maybe there was an issue with being an outworlder? She had her inherent biases against gods and religion as well, even if they did not function the same way in this world. The religion of Erras was polytheistic.
Before she had made her decision, a shadow loomed over her, surprising her. She looked up, her eyes locking eyes with a stranger, staring down at her.
The man was average height, and looked every bit like the locals around him, except at a similar handsome level as Sen, which meant he was too beautiful to be normal in a world without Botox and plastic surgery. He looked older, in his late thirties, with dark black stubble and black hair loosely tied in a long ponytail, hanging over his shoulder. His skin was tanned like someone who spent a great deal of time under the sun, but without the corresponding sun damage. He exemplified the casual, gritty charm Nara associated with characters like Indiana Jones and Han Solo.
“Can I help you dude...? You’re blocking the sunlight.”
His wide brimmed straw had had indeed blocked the sunlight, along with his long, wraparound grey cloak that seemed to flutter in the wind when there was none.
He crouched down, joining Nara in the same position to peer into the temple of knowledge.
“Blocking the sunlight is indeed a grave crime. What’s got you in a knot, miss?”
She arched an eyebrow, “You want me to spill the can of beans of the worries of my heart to a complete stranger?”
“Sometimes strangers are easy to talk to,” he said, shrugging.
“I’m just being dramatic. It’s nothing that serious.” She pondered for a bit, before asking the mystery man a question, “How do people here usually seek knowledge?”
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“Do you mean knowledge in general or Knowledge the goddess?” He said, making a pointed clarification about the current location outside the temple of knowledge.
“Both, sort of. When do people go to ask...Knowledge, her name is just Knowledge? That’s straightforward, I guess,” She muttered. “When do people go to ask Knowledge for knowledge? Is it when researchers hit a point and they get stuck? When an author gets writer’s block, and they need a little divine inspiration?”
He chuckled at her meandering question, “Knowledge knows all that the people of this world know.”
“So, she wouldn’t know the answer to unsolved research.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“But if people don’t know dimensional travel...then she wouldn’t know? Isn’t this all a wash, then?”
“Now, now, now I didn’t say that,” he said, holding his hand up to pause her. “Not only does she know all that the people in this world know, but all that people that enter this world know. Do you think that you’re the first and only dimensional traveler to enter this world? Some travel to this world a more proper way.”
Nara narrowed her eyes in thought before her mind snagged on one of his words, like a sweater on a doorknob, “Wait, you know I’m a dimensional traveler?”
He rubbed his chin, “Anybody silver rank and above can read your aura and sense your race.”
“That seems so oddly racist.”
“It’s not about the race it's about the magic of the soul. Race is just the foundational blueprint. You need a canvas to draw on before you can paint.”
“Poetic. You’re talking about essences?”
“You get my drift.”
That meant hiding she was an outworlder was probably pointless. All those more powerful than she immediately knew. Or should know, if they’ve seen an outworlder before. Since they had a name for it, Nara guessed that she wasn’t the first one.
“Strange, then why hasn’t my world had an outworlder?”
The man demonstrated with his hand, his fingers following a trail from one end to another, like it was traveling a path or through a tunnel. “When outworlders get caught up in magical phenomena, they’re sucked into the world with the stronger dimensional membrane between the two. The more robust the membrane, the more magical phenomena it can withstand without breaking, bearing the burden for the other world.”
“That would mean the dimensional membrane of my world is so fragile we don’t get outworlders.” Nara said. She recalled the astral magic theory Chrome taught her, “Lower magic worlds have less magic due to a weaker membrane. The membrane cannot handle the permeation of higher quality and quantities of magic without breaking. If my world is magically barren, then it is the most fragile of dimensional membranes. That’s an issue.”
“The issue is, you need a dimensional crossing method that isn’t too damaging nor intrusive to the dimensional membrane.”
“You know your fair share of astral magic, stranger.”
“Please, call me Traveler.”
The moment he said his name, something in the air seemed to change. She felt an invisible pressure, different yet similar to the aura suppression she felt from Laius. It was as if being named held power.
Her hand reflexively went to her face, planting her face to her palm, “Shi--… shoot. I assume the naming scheme of gods in this world is...consistent.” She peeked at him through her fingers.
“That would be a correct assumption,” he said, his eyes and expression as if a slow friend finally understood a joke, teasing and joyful.
She looked the god up and down, “You know you’ve almost nailed the wandering bard aesthetic, but you don’t have an instrument on you.”
“I’m Traveler, not Musician.”
“Fair enough,” she said, feeling a little lightheaded despite her carefree response.
“You know, miss,” He said, stroking his stubble, “I’m a little offended you chose to see Knowledge first.”
She pointed at the temple grounds, “I technically haven’t actually gone to seek Knowledge yet.” She was really banking on this technicality here. Redell had said people couldn’t read minds, but did that apply to gods?
“You were going to,” he said, pointing to the temple grounds and mimicking her pose.
“You don’t know that. Wait, can gods read minds?”
“No. Does that make you feel relieved?”
“Yes,” She admitted, then hurriedly asked, “Why would you be offended? Fake gods are one thing, but I don’t really want to offend a real god. I know enough about Greek mythology to know that’s a quick way to have a tragedy written about you and acted out entirely by men.”
“I’m the god of Travelers, Traveler,” he said pointing to himself with an innocent expression, “Outworlders are my favorite. What greater traveler is there than one that traverses dimensions?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be the ultimate traveler? The God of Travelers?”
“I am, ironically, restricted to this world,” he said, then leaned his face in uncomfortably close, “Unless, you wish to become my priest? Bring me back stories and experiences of the beyond?”
“Sorry,” she said, holding a hand up as if to push his face away, but stopped short of doing so, judging that she didn’t want to learn the ramifications of physically pushing the face of a god, “I’m an atheist and I’m way out of my depth.”
“Shame,” he said, his lips in a joking pout, “I think I’m one of the more fun ones.”
“You can’t possibly be more fun than Fun?”
“There is no god of fun,” he said, “Not on this world. On another world? Well, who knows?”
“Well, that’s no fun.”
She was wondering how to elegantly exit this engagement—even inelegantly would do, she was feeling her desperation rising—when the god solved the problem for her, disappearing with the blink of an eye, vanishing as if he never occupied the space to begin with.
She collapsed from her squat onto her butt, not caring about the stares she received from her surroundings. No one else had seemed to notice or feel the god. He came as he went, invisible like the wind but leaving a building pressure. Ever since the god revealed he was Traveler; she had felt the tension rising.
No, she felt his aura.
It was the second most powerful presence she had ever experienced, behind the possibly-eldritch-outer-god that had plucked her soul then tortured it. She didn’t feel animosity from him, if anything, he had been benevolent. She could only describe the aura as divine; she had no other words for it. The caress of the breeze on a path, the persistence to keep moving, the infinite branches of paths that closed off and expanded with every step; That was Traveler.
She closed her eyes, trying to focus her aura she felt was wild and fluctuating, bucking like a stallion. The god hadn’t done anything, but just being near her shook her, even when he was incognito. She steadied her breathing, tapping into the meditation techniques Redell had told her, pulling her mind from the worshippers, the priests, and her questions into peace and calm. Her aura stilled, and she pulled the membrane of the astral around her like it was a protective blanket. Then, she let herself fall backwards into the ground, through the dimensional wall and into her Astral Domain.
Thanatos had sunk into her shadow without her prompting, popping out to lay his head across her stomach where she sprawled out onto the ground, the grass of her Astral Domain tickling her skin. She was in a park within her Astral Domain, which had been slowly undergoing its own changes that she paid little direct attention to yet. It was a part of her soul; as her soul changed, it changed. The changes to her Astral Domain didn’t matter to her at that moment, but she didn’t need to observe them to know. It was her soul; she knew.
She had more questions than before. But she had one, pressing observation she had to eject from her head before it threatened to explore her head like an overfilled balloon.
“Holy shit! Gods are real!? What the fuck! Oh my god. Oh dear lord—”
She of course, compensated by blaspheming in a god she didn’t believe in, using his name only in vain.