King Solomon paces back and forth in the meeting room occupied by himself, the head priests of the temples of Life, Death and Fate, and Love, and as the door is finally opened and shut for the last time before the meeting, his daughter Marietta as well. He waits for everyone to find a comfortable seat, but doesn’t take his throne-like chair at the head of the table. He wants to stand, to pace, to have active blood-flow to his body for this one.

“Marietta… Could you start explaining why you couldn’t share the contents of this most recent vision in your usual letters, and more importantly, why you asked me to gather every high-ranking priest and powerful cleric I could find for it?” Solomon isn’t asking, and everyone in the room knows it, but he does phrase it as a question for no other reason than politeness. He winces when he hears the first nine words out of her mouth.

“Because the knowledge could be dangerous just to know.” Marietta stops, and looks at each of the priests. “I am Princess Marietta Riverta, and a Bearer of Prophecy, pleasure to meet you three.”

“I’m Bruca Tor, archbishop of Life.” Bruca, an elderly man in a dirty white clerical robe, is the first to introduce himself, and as expected of a lifepriest, lacks all formality and decorum.

“Iere, senior priestess of Death and Fate, a pleasure to meet you, reader of fate.” Iere does not state her surname, nor does she move her mouth when she talks, but being a deathpriest, no one comments on this.

“Reyhan Hoenheim, Thrice-Loved Bishop. A pleasure to meet you, Your Highness.” Reyhan adds perhaps a bit much panache and pomp to his voice, but a priest of love’s proclivities typically go unquestioned, for the opposite reason deathpriests’ do.

“A pleasure to meet you all, one again. To begin… father, please use your [Cone of Silence] spell, I will extend the duration with [Arcane Dilation].” Marietta looks at Solomon, and he simply sighs, and starts to work through the calculations for the spell.

“[Cone of Silence]. May I ask why all the precautions?”

“[Arcane Dilation]. As I said, simply knowing what I’m about to tell all of you is… Let’s just say if anyone that wasn’t a trusted and responsible priest were to share this information…” Marietta pauses, and waits for the [Cone of Silence] to finish expanding over them. [Arcane Dilation], Solomon knows, is a masterpiece of a spell when it comes to altering existing spells, at the cost of drastically increasing the time it takes for a spell’s effects to manifest. “To cut right to the chase… How much do we know, on hand, about the system names of different gods?”

Solomon swallows, and he sees the gears turning on the three priests. The look on all of their faces is the exact same ‘ah, that’s why we’re here’ clarity that Solomon would usually only expect from scribes finally having something to do.

“Ah… the God of Life’s is [The Allmother]. I don’t know any more, it usually doesn’t come up for us.” Bruca’s answer is straight and to the point, something Solomon appreciates. It appears however, that Iere is to be skipped in the talking order, as the look on her face is one of deep contemplation.

“[The Twins: Love and Fertility]. Weird to point out the link between the two of them when it’s said out loud, though.” Reyhan’s seductive allure is notably absent from his voice now, replaced by a cold, mechanical seriousness that Solomon thinks is probably who he was back when he was an adventurer.

“Ah, fuck it… [Father of Eternia]. We’ve been trying not to let that get out, so keep it a secret, please.” Iere adds her rather disturbing revelation to the growing pile of system jargon with a small prayer gesture accentuating her request.

“Why did you ask that?” Solomon pulls his chair out, and starts to sit down as he waits for Marietta’s response.

“Do any of you know what deity the system name [The Foreverqueen] is referring to?” Marietta asks after a long pause to take in the information. After not getting a response after over a minute of everyone at the table looking confused, Solomon included, she continues. “Ok, then does anyone know what type of being one would need to be in order to understand that I was watching through someone’s eyes from the past? That undead could tell. We’ll start with that.”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Solomon freezes as he realizes what’s about to happen, and he turns his gaze to the priests. Iere has a look of pure rage and disgust about her, and the two male priests just look somewhat saddened.

“I can think of only two. [Untouchable]s and [Curse of the Shattered Crown] would both have enough of a distortion effect on other deific magic to allow that.” Reyhan’s response is not the one Solomon expected to hear first, but the mere mention of the word [Untouchable] sends a shiver down his spine. As in that [Untouchable]? Surely-

“If he was a [Claimed] of the forgotten king, Marietta would have known… so…” Bruca looks down at his shaking palms, which reminds Solomon to try and gain control of his own. “We have a walking god-killer among us, in this day and age… Fuck…”

“Could you tell how many it’s… Do you know what [Untouchable]s are, Marietta?” Iere starts the moment she calms, but waits for Marietta to shake her head before continuing. “Whenever one kills a priest or cleric… They sort of… warp that person’s deity’s magic around them, it’s weird to think about, but you’re a sorcerer, right? Imagine if you tried to cast a spell against someone, and it just didn’t do anything. Not the spell failing, or being resisted, you huck a lightning bolt at someone, and they don’t even notice you did anything. If that undead is an [Untouchable], once it’s killed a priest of life, for example, it’d just be straight up immune to magic originating from the God of Life, even if the God themself was the one casting the spell.”

Solomon shakes at hearing the word’s context clarified out loud, and he can see Marietta’s eyes go wide at the shock of the information. Ah… I’m sorry, daughter… I should have told you about something like that sooner.

“They’re god-killers. Or they can be, that’s what the legends say, at least. I’ve only heard of four others, and… well… there’s a reason [The Forgotten King] isn’t the god of anything, right?” Bruca’s addition to the conversation is… concerning, even to a man as powerful as King Solomon. “But… What Iere meant is, do you have any clues what god’s it’s got the immunity to, from the vision?”

“No idea… The reason I asked about [The Foreverqueen], a skill or something called Foreverqueen’s Shroud was blocking my ability to focus on the two of them. I didn’t realize it before when watching through Violet’s eyes, but it was sort of like Crimson Mist’s ranger, I could tell that they were an undead and an elf, but I couldn’t look at them. At the very least, I could tell why I couldn’t look at them, though.” Marietta’s explanation actually calms Solomon a little, as that’s more knowledge that could be used to identify their two calamitous individuals. Sure, an [Untouchable] and someone like that ranger are utterly terrifying on a deeply instinctual level, but it makes them very obvious under even the slightest magical scrutiny.

“[Foreverqueen], [Foreverqueen]… If I had to guess, based on the name, its one like [The Forgotten King], a god which either did exist, but doesn’t any more, or a god that will exist, but doesn’t yet.” Iere’s convoluted explanation makes Solomon’s head spin a bit, but he manages to work his brain through it faster than Marietta’s face implies she is.

“Ok Iere, stop with the fate-y speech, all it really means is that this [Foreverqueen] is probably a god, just not one we know anything about.” Bruca simplifies the explanation down to something more manageable for both of the non-intelligence focused royals, something Solomon nods his head in approval at, before he hears Reyhan’s opinion.

“Why an [Untouchable] is considered a tamed monster to someone with a deity’s, former or otherwise, personal ability is something I think we might want to look into before any of us makes any more statements here, right?” Reyhan nods to his fellow priests, who nod in turn to him, before he adds something probably unnecessary, but ultimately not surprising. “Anyways, Iere, want to try me on?”

Solomon facepalms as he sees Iere nod in affirmation for some literally ungodly reason, and waves his free hand to stop Marietta’s distracting chuckles.

“Alright. If you have nothing you can say to help us now, then-”

“Whoa, I didn’t say that, Your Kingliness, there’s something I can do to help.” Bruca shifts in his seat to better face Marietta and Solomon, and holds out a hand to the center of the table. Light erupts from it, quickly taking various shapes and colors.

Silent Casting is a skill not even Solomon has, despite being a bard specialized for subtle magic, so it is something to behold before he realizes exactly what spell this is. The lights form a blurry image, which slowly starts bleeding into an actually readable picture. The [Greater Scrying] spell is centered somewhere high, high up in the sky, and Solomon swallows as he realizes he can see the world, its features, and even make out the great wall to the far south from here. The priest zooms the image into something more familiar, a view of the kingdom and its surroundings, then the image cracks, and the spell fails abruptly, slightly shocking Solomon.

“Well, I honestly thought I’d be able to get a bit more zoomed in before it broke, but there you go. That should be proof that there is an [Untouchable] in the kingdom, and at the very least, Iere’s example about priests of life was a more accurate future sight than anything I’ve ever seen. It also means I, and all of my priests and clerics, are completely useless in stopping that undead.”

Solomon lets his fist fall on the table fast in anger, and all of the various other exclamations of frustration from the three others offer him some comfort in numbers.