Chapter 4

North

Dellia Lucerne

The system takes. The system gives. Gods steer. Thus, some things were out of the hands of gods. The location of my temple was out of my hands. But Sweet Gale was a surprisingly thriving city for a collection of humans sequestered from a main road. The moss upon unkept thatched cottages was as glossy green as the leaves upon the myriad of magnolia trees.

One thatched building in particular did not yet have the opportunity to be ravaged by moss. Its thatch was new. Men and women crawled upon the roof and whacked at the thatch in a final pass before concluding construction. Farmland boulders delineated the property which was already a mile from city center. A mile that was filled with traveling humans.

Humans that were headed to the world’s first temple of Dellia Lucerne, the Planes Cutter. I flew among them—rather, over them—in a form that appeared as a wrinkle of air. I covered the distance of that mile with but a thought.

In the exact middle of the temple was a monument; upon it a basalt statue made in the imagined likeness of me. A carver stepped down from a ladder set against the monument. He tucked a polishing cloth into his pockets, then gathered his tools. A loot chest appeared before the carver, and when he cracked the lid open, a smile of light came from the opening to match the carver’s smile.

After depositing the loot chest into his private inventory, the carver found Brien among the Dream Cutters who stood prepared to open my temple to the public. The carver was paid. He went on his way home.

Brien approached my statue.

“My lady,” he whispered. “It is finished.”

A loot chest appeared in front of him for a moment before it blinked away. Then all the other Dream Cutters received a loot chest of their own as well. They each took the time to engage smiles.

“It is time,” Brien said to the Dream Cutters.

They followed Brien to the temple entrance where a patient but eager crowd waited. Dream Cutters stood aside to let everyone stream in: adventurers, parents, children, the elderly. Each and every Dream Cutter was sought out by these arrivals. My temple was suddenly filled with a sea of hushed voices. Conversations crested with sobs, excitement, or awe.

An old woman, too slow to find a Dream Cutter, wandered with a raised hand shaped like a request. It was her raised hand, high as a wrinkled face, that caught Brien’s attention. The man navigated the crowd and took the old woman’s hand. He adopted her pace and led her deeper into the temple where there was a bench to sit on.

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“Welcome to temple Dellia Lucerne,” Brien said.

“Oh I thank you; I have been waiting and I am patient…however impatient death is of my crossing.”

“Look at you, full of life and spirit. Age is only a number, after all.”

“Do not patronize me. I have not traveled roads and days to come here to be lied to. Age is real and it comes with pain.”

“I apologize. I meant no offense.”

“I am here because I want to visit the mausoleum. If I can see my daughter, it must be now.”

“Hawkin’s mausoleum,” Brien reasoned.

The old lady waved the name away like it was a thing in her eye. “I am grateful to whoever built the place, but it is urgent that I go there today.”

“It is not here.”

“Take me to it please.”

“We are to inform everyone that if they wish to visit the mausoleum, they must travel to Lavenfauvish to the Rose Quartz tavern on Rue St. Kinni.”

“What am I supposed to do?” the old woman said. “Hike there? I am too old for that sir. I came to see my daughter again.”

“You will need an artifact of your daughter. Her remains.”

“I am more prepared than you are. I have remains. You are telling me that the mausoleum is not here?”

“I am deeply sorry,” Brien said.

“I cannot make that sort of travel.”

“Do you not have family to go with you?”

“I did not know I was in the presence of a genius,” the old woman said with a lean away. “Of course, family!—How could I have forgotten? How could I have traveled two days to come here, forgetting the whole while that a family could have helped me.”

“No family then?”

“You are catching on too fast. Careful, you might hurt yourself.”

“My lady, I am deeply sorry that there is nothing else I can do in the meanwhile.”

Speaking as though to settle some matter private to her, the old woman said, “I will travel to Lavenfauvish. The journey will hurt.”

At that moment, the hush of voices became a rising murmur. Others were also being told that the temple did not have access to Hawkin’s mausoleum, nor to ethereal dungeons. Adventurers were disappointed. They cast their gazes upon their tired horses hitched outside the temple. Others began filtering out of the temple to search for the road that would take them west to the coast, and up to Lavenfauvish. I heard Hiccough’s name come up a few dozen times. Too bad for me that Potere was assigned to his quest path.

But my time was now. My influence was rising; spreading. People all over the world were coming to know my name. They had come seeking me out! They would continue to come!

But there was more to do. I needed to ride this rise as high as I could take it. For that, I needed more help from the Dream Cutters, Planes Cutters, and Hawkin.

I rose high in the sky. I gazed upon the northern distance because there was the matter of Thrush. Thrush was ethereal and he was cutting through planes like their walls were but sheets of paper. And if he could so easily go between worlds and cover infinite distances in the blink of an eye, were we—the gods—in danger?

Danger wouldn’t stop me from sending Dream Cutters north. Nor would it stop other travelers. Other seekers. Alchemists. Brewers. Planes Cutters. Dream Cutters. Collectors. Kingdom seekers. Grievers. Necromancers.