26: Faithless Fates

The group headed back into the main building and looked around a bit, trying to find Felinia’s office. Eventually they found Gallen waiting for them, leaning against a wall, and he had a not so innocent look on his face.

“Having trouble finding something?”

Garion glared at him. “Yes. It feels like the walls are moving around on us!”

“Imagine that. What are you trying to find? None of you seem ill, so I doubt it’s the infirmary.”

Drenak simply answered “Felinia, or answers from you is you do not wish for us to disturb her.”

Gallen paused. “Really? What questions do you have?”

“It is about the fate of the Faithless. If people go to the Gods they follow, or other Powers that fill the roll, what happens to the Faithless, and possibly others who faith to make the standards to afterlives.”

Gallen got serious. “Ah, that is important. Are you talking about the Faithless and Failed from the system we have here? Or maybe souls we rescued that are not in the system yet? Or do you mean getting them in the first place?”

Drenak was stunned!

“Actually, all are very important!”

Gallen shook his head. “This is too much to talk about here. Let’s visit Felinia.”

He led them to her door, and she called out for them to enter.

Drenak was about to speak, explaining the situation, when Felinia stopped him. “I heard everything you said. Tell me, why are you interested?”

Drenak frowned, confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Felinia just looked him in the eyes. “You are against getting caught up in politics, yet here you are, asking about another group of people. What is your interest in them?”

Drenak was stunned she was actually asking this “I want to know.”

Felinia was simple in her directness. “These are souls that some may consider easy prey for people as normally no deity protects them. Why do you ask about them?”

Drenak reeled back as if he had been slapped across the face! “What? You suggest I would ask to harm them? NO! I would never do that!”

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Getting angry he added “Use the magic you have to see if I am lying! I was asking because I am worried about them!”

Felinia judged him silently, and relaxed, smiling “You gave the only good answer you could have given. Now, why do you ask about them?”

The group was surprised, but Gallen was looking a bit interested, so Felinia explained “You have a reason for being interested in them. You do not consciously know it, but it is there. I want you to think about it.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“No. This is something you must discover for yourself. It can shape your future, for good or for ill.”

Drenak nodded slowly “I see.”

He thought for a bit and said “I am worried about them. Others have Gods they chose to watch over them, but they don’t. I have seen too many such souls harmed. I don’t want that to happen here.”

Felinia asked “And what about the Unfaithful? Or the Failed who try to earn their entrance to the afterlife but were denied? Or the Forsaken who were denied possibly from no fault of their own? Or the Faked, who followed beliefs that were fake?”

Drenak sagged into a chair as he fell deeper into thought. “I had not thought of that. I really don’t know why!”

Felinia calmly told him, “Think of each group and why you thought that about them.”

He reluctantly did so, but got calmer. Eventually he got something. “Choice. Unfaithful chose a Deity, and knew the risks. So did the Failed. The Forsaken had chosen a faith, but not one that accepted them. The Faked chose to believe a faith, knowing the risk it was false. The Faithless did not believe! Often they just don’t know what to believe and thus don’t believe in any.”

Felinia nodded. “And yet there is more. I can feel it in you.”

Drenak was silent and said “They chose not to get involved in the religious fighting, like me.”

His head shot up and he said “I wanted to help them because they also chose not to get caught up in politics!”

Felinia smiled a bit. “Good! That realization has just unlocked the potential to get a rare sub-domain for Psychopomps, and a potential job from me.”

“Job? From you?”

Felinia went to a cabinet and took out from there 4 buckets, given them to each of the group. “Trust me, you will need these!”

“I started this place with many goals in mind. First was training potential Powers as in my world I discovered many were not. They were learning on the job as they went. In fact, many minor ones came to me to help settle disputes when I was not even 6 months into being a very minor Power.

“One chance I saw was to help them learn to convert followers by letting them do it to Faithless, thus saving their souls. Here souls that are part of the system and not claimed are dealt with by the system in different ways. Outside is a different matter. Some are destroyed for many reasons. Some find ways to hang around. I know that in one world a Neanderthal’s soul keeps managing to self reincarnate over and over, learning more magic and resources as time passes.

“Some change in different ways, if there is strong emotion, including trauma, shock, or obsession. Then some become what is called Lost Souls.”

She took a deep breath before going on. “A Lost Soul starts to disperse. It loses its self identity, it’s ID. They break apart and dissolve. The less mentally aware someone is, or more fractured their mind, the faster they dissolve. Sometimes animals can hang on, as they know what they are. The worst and post pitiful cases are babies.”

That shocked them, and Felinia nodded “I have seen the souls of Babies dissolves and break up.”

There was puking into the buckets and all 4 of them were now mostly full!.

Everyone realized how serious this was!

She told Drenak “I will have to offer this position to anyone who wants to try for it, but you are the only one so far who has shown interest in those souls. I will announce it as dinner tonight.”

Crinkling her nose at the smell she added “Without fine details. We don’t need more of that at dinner!”