The trip back to the temple district took half the time, but it was almost completely dark when we arrived. The only light was provided by the sconces set in the walls, a yellowish glow to guide our way. Well, Eliandra and Haltir's way.
Looking around, I could see almost as well as during the day, just in grey tints, and I was enjoying my night vision a lot as I gazed to the left, down into the city with its innumerable small flickering lights.
Eliandra and I were still walking side by side, our hands clasped firmly, but she hadn't said much after I’d finished my tale. As soon as we started heading back, she had become quiet, and the closer we got, the tighter her hand clenched mine. Ahead of us was the brightly lit Alliance Headquarters, and as we passed it, laughter and cheering came from inside.
Haltir had also been quiet the whole trip, and as he stopped before the entrance, he finally spoke. "You kids, go on ahead. I'm going to see if I can find some old friends!"
I wondered if the whole thing with Darlo was bothering him or if it was something else.
"Alright, come find us tomorrow?" I said, deciding to take him with us to see Lark the following day. Haltir responded with a brisk nod and hobbled off.
When he was gone, Eliandra sighed sadly.
"What's wrong?" I asked, turning to look at her.
"We need to find him a healing potion or something else. He isn't going to last like this."
I could hear the worry and slight pain in Eliandra's voice, and it surprised me. I knew the two of them had gone through a lot on the trip here, but I hadn't expected her to take to Haltir like this. As I looked at her, I remembered the last time she had had this look. It was shortly after her father died of cancer.
Wait, Haltir does look a bit like her old man, I thought. It made sense. She never had a chance to say goodbye to him. "Don't worry. As soon as we get back out of the city and into the wilderness, I'll heal his leg," I said with as much conviction as I could.
Eliandra snapped out of her mood and raised an eyebrow as she examined me. "Another gift from Rathica?"
"Indirectly, yes," I replied, deciding explanations could wait for another time.
We began walking again, taking much longer strides now that we didn't have to wait for Haltir and reached the temple of Flowheart quickly. I wanted to stop, but Eliandra pulled me along.
"Shouldn't you go back here?" I asked, surprised.
She shook her head, keeping her gaze pointed straight ahead.
Now what's wrong.
I pulled her a bit closer and felt how tense she was.
"What is-"
"Not now," she whispered, quickening her pace.
Getting worried, I followed her to the dark entrance of what was to be Rathica's temple. The massive trunk lay against the wall, and the cart was gone. Looking inside, I saw a few lights flickering in the grey.
"You need to start now," Eliandra said, glancing at the tree. She was about to move inside, but I held her, forcing her to stop. I gazed into her eyes.
She looked back and seemed to struggle with something. Her mouth opened as her eyes unfocused. Then she clenched her jaw, and her eyes shone as she stared at me intensely.
"Can't yet. Finish the statue… fast," she whispered before ripping her hand free and almost running inside, leaving me to stare after her in confusion.
It has to be Flowheart, I thought, turning my head to look back at the blue-lit temple. A slow, simmering anger began burning inside me.
Seriously? I had finally found her again, but some deity with relational issues was still messing about? My hand tightened around the ax handle, and I wished there was something to fight. The feeling grew stronger, fast until I had the intense desire to hit something until it stopped moving, something that was forcing Eliandra to do things against her will.
I closed my eyes and reigned in my fury. No. Now wasn't the time. The look Eliandra had when she ran inside played through my mind. I needed to get the statue ready.
I put my ax inside the opening of the temple and turned to the massive log. All four of my hands clenched as I channeled my worry and anger into action.
Surging forward, I slammed all four hands below the log's far end and began lifting it. Previously, I had lifted it together with the two minotaur guards, and it had been heavy. Now it was almost too much. Using my anger, I gritted my teeth and snarled, pouring it into force. With popping tendons, I raised the massive log to my knees, switched grip, and brought it to my chest. I needed the thing to stand on its end!
With one end resting on my chest, my jaw almost shattering from how hard I was clenching, I began pushing it forward. In slow motion, the log rose further into the air. Shuffling forward, my hands edged down the rugged bark as it straightened to stand on end, I almost whooped when it finally settled on the chopped end with a thud.
It wobbled precariously, and I rushed around and held it in place. When it finally stopped wobbling, I was sweating profusely, but my mind was a bit clearer. I could feel the rage simmering below the surface, ready to burst up at any moment, but for now, it seemed reigned in.
Stepping back, I examined the log while unwrapping the knife. I tossed the leather bindings beside my ax and placed my hands on the rugged bark. That had to go first, so I knew what I had to work with. I hadn't made anything detailed of this size ever before, and I wondered if I could even do Rathica justice. The worry lasted for only a moment before the crystal clear image of the ax-wielding deity appeared in front of my mind's eye.
Casting Soften Wood, I began scraping the dark grey bark off as if it was cardboard. Even then, it took me at least an hour or two to strip everything off without damaging the wood below. The wood below wasn't the golden color I had imagined but a dull copper color. Taking a deep breath, and without knowing exactly how, I projected the image of Rathica across the sculpture, seeing it sink inside. An outline remained, indistinct, but enough, and I began cutting away at the wood.
Chips fell down, thudding on the ground as my mind fell into a haze. Cutaway here. Slice there. A small chip here. A large section there.
When I hit the zone, I don't know, but at some point, my hands were moving by themselves while I was humming and working. Time flew past as the stack of curled-up wood, splinters, and chips below me grew. I thought I heard talking at some point, but it didn't register enough to make me stop. When the face and the hair were taking shape, the morning sun cast its first rays over the wood, and I felt more energized than I ever had before. Barely thinking, I continued removing the now thin layer and small pieces that still marred the perfect image below the wood.
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When I finally chipped the last piece away, a small sliver on the cheek, creating the scar she had received recently, it was as if a weight dropped from me. A warmth radiated from the statue, whose eyes seemed to look at something a bit over my head. A notification came from my status, but I barely noticed. Taking a step back, I suddenly realized I wasn't alone.
Turning around, I saw a massive crowd of people silently staring at the statue behind me. Their eyes were wide, their faces slack, and I saw a few tear up.
"They've been watching you for hours, more and more arriving as word began to spread."
Eliandra sat in the temple opening, staring at the statue as she spoke to me. A small smile played around her lips, and when she looked at me, she smiled, bright and happy.
"Let's get her inside, fast!"
She scrambled up and walked up to the statue. Then she hesitated.
"Can I?"
I blinked, then felt a smile creep up my face. I moved beside her and put my hands on Rathica's shoulders, casting Harden Wood. I continued, five times, ten times, and slowly it dawned on me that there was no drain. At least, not on me. When I felt no change in the wood, I stopped to admire the gleaming copper statue. It looked almost cast in metal, although the wood's grain remained slightly, especially in the hair.
I walked behind the statue and looked at Eliandra. "Push her. I'll catch."
Eliandra's eyes went slack, her eyes fluttering. Then she blinked, and a strained grin surfaced. "You had better. I don't want to have beef with some deity!" Putting her hands on Rathica's waist, she pushed, grunting with the effort.
An outraged shout came from the crowd, but I ignored it. I braced myself, four arms up, and caught the statue. It was heavy, very heavy, but not nearly as heavy as the log had been, which wasn't strange seeing the carpet of woodchips that lay around us on the ground.
Eliandra raised the statue's legs as I held the shoulders, and carefully we carried her inside the temple. A mutter came from behind, and I could hear some people talk about going inside and paying tribute.
Yeah… I wonder how that would work, I thought as I moved through the corridor and into the center room. Laurel moved from one of the smaller side rooms and gasped as she looked at what we were carrying.
I heard her mutter something but ignored it as Eliandra and I focused on putting the statue on its feet. As I did, I realized I should probably have made some kind of platform below the statue's feet so it wouldn't be this easy to tip over.
"Now what?" I asked as I looked at the beautiful statue.
"I don't know," Eliandra replied. She sounded both annoyed and worried at the same time.
Thinking for a moment, I recalled my status warning and quickly called up the window.
> Using divine inspiration, you have gone far beyond your normal skill and created a unique piece of art
> Due to insufficient Karma, the creation has taken its toll
> Karma 0
> Woodcrafting decreased by 1
> Woodcrafting 3/10
"Motherfucker," I whispered in disbelief. It was that stupid Karma again!
"Hey, mind your words!" Eliandra shot back.
I just shook my head as I stared at the statue. This had better be worth it, I thought, disgruntled. Raising my woodcrafting from three to four had taken a lot of effort.
"Stupid Karma," I grumbled before looking for something that showed what I had to do now. There was no more information, and the realization some of my stats had lowered made me close it in disgust.
"What's wrong?" Eliandra said.
"Apparently, my skills just lowered because I made something without enough Karma, whatever that means," I said. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.
Rathica, I pray to you, get your divine behind over here, please! My annoyance tinted the request, making it more like a command.
As soon as I shouted the request in my mind, I cringed. Perhaps I might have gone about that a bit more diplomatically?
For a moment, there wasn't any response, and I was almost happy about it. Then an odd shattering sound came from outside, a bit like a plate falling to the ground. Golden light burst into existence beside the statue, and suddenly there were two Rathicas side by side.
"Divine behind…?" Rathica sounded slightly amused as she stared at her own statue. A sudden quiet hung in the room as the sounds from outside dimmed and vanished.
A feeling of calm and power flooded over me, and I felt myself basking in the feeling, in her presence.
"So, this is to be my first temple then?" she murmured and looked around.
"Not exactly what I had thought, but then again…" she raised her hand, and the walls changed as they built outward and turned rounder.
The movement swallowed the three corridors that led to smaller side rooms, and Laurel audibly sucked in her breath. Within moments we stood in a large oval room with a domed ceiling. Stone beams grew from the sides, and sconces sat attached to them. They burst with a reddish-golden light that illuminated the entire room in a burst of sun-like light.
In the back of the room, away from the exit, the stone crumbled and a high corridor with a round ceiling drilled further into the mountain. The rumbling lasted for a few more moments, and although I couldn't see what was going on, I had the idea rooms were forming beyond.
When it stopped, I looked away from the corridor and around the room. At some point, Rathica's statue had gotten a dais that raised it half a meter above the ground. The eyes glowed with a deep amber light.
"What do you think?" Rathica asked as she looked at me.
I wanted to ask her a dozen questions, none of them related to the new temple, but she shook her head before I could even start.
"First the temple, Est. It's my first, making it slightly more important than you seem to be realizing."
Looking around, I guessed that made sense. Seeing the empty grey room, I frowned. Before I could pinpoint what I thought, Rathica laughed.
"You are right, it's far too empty!"
A cracking and groaning sound came from the edge of the room, and the stone changed to brown soil. The smell of tilled earth filled the room, and then thick vines grew up, rising so fast they reached the ceiling in moments. They thickened to cover most of the lower half of the room, beautiful green leaves sprouting from them.
A row of half a meter tall stone columns grew from the floor at the room's left and right sides. Something appeared on the left, on the column closest to the exit, another statue. Roughly the same size as Rathica's, it had four arms and was wielding a massive ax.
I gazed at it, slightly slack-jawed, barely believing what I saw.
"Yes, that's you," Rathica said before suddenly bursting out in a peal of laughter. Startled, I turned around.
Rathica was staring at Eliandra, her eyes gleaming.
"Don't worry- I'll make sure he won't get too big of a head," Rathica said as she moved to stand in front of Eliandra, who was staring at her with an almost palpable hunger in her eyes.
"I know what you want, and the fact you can even form this desire is a testimony to your indomitable will. It is very, very rare for a Prime to desire so badly to be released from their deity's service."
Eliandra shivered as if slapped before she looked up in hope. "Can you help?"
I felt a pang of pain as the words made me realize just how badly Eliandra was hurting.
A rumble came from the top of the mountain, and the shattering of stone sounded out again.
"How dare you!" A cold voice snapped as a watery blue fog formed in the middle of the room. It coalesced into a beautiful, tall, and black-haired woman with blue-tinged skin and eyes like ice. She was scowling at Rathica.
Flowheart, I thought as I noted the silvery sword on her armored hip. She was wearing an unfamiliar type of scale mail and leather armor across a slightly built frame, and as she moved towards Rathica, all of her movements were the definition of grace.
In front of Rathica, she had to angle her head up, and I realized she looked like an adolescent in front of an adult. A buzzing, whistling vibration filled the air.
Are they talking? I thought as I saw the two deities face off against each other. I wonder what they are saying…
Something clicked in my mind, and all of a sudden, the whole world seemed to freeze as if time stood still.
Don't speak, just listen, Rathica's voice whispered in my mind. At the same time, she growled softly as she stepped towards Flowheart.
"Stop cursing at me like that!"