Chapter 302 - The Bell Tolls

Claire walked along Temple Street with brisk, confident steps. The gods’ domains were as hostile as ever. Their divine auras radiated out from within their temples and threatened to squash her beneath their almighty weight. But though they were heavy, she no longer had any difficulty resisting them. They were less oppressive than the ether’s ever-persistent backlash, only lightly prickling the skin beneath her scales.

It was in her true form that she marched down the road. She was still shorter than the whales and lobsters mingled in with the crowd, but she was no longer so tiny that she could only ever see their feet. It helped that Temple Street was less crowded than the rest of the city. The solstice was still a few days off, and there was no explicit reason for the average citizen to visit until the longest day had come to pass. The only people still wandering around were those that had built worship into their habits.

The sparser crowd allowed the spider to follow behind her, scuttling just quickly enough to keep up with her regular pace. His eyes were hopeful, but only because he had misunderstood her intentions. Claire was not visiting the goddess of war. She was scanning the street instead, in search of a temple whose identity she was unable to deduce.

She didn't know every deity that had set its roots in Tornatus, but generally speaking, guessing was hardly a difficult game. Different gods were worshiped in different regions. It was the people’s need that drove their worship; mortals could only be bothered to pray to deities whose concepts affected their lives. Case in point, Flux was largely unknown in the northern lands. As far as Cadrians were concerned, the cycle of souls was irrelevant, for the people never wished to be returned to it to begin with. The greatest honour was to enter the Hall of Heroes, to be claimed by the goddess of war so that they could await the moment that she required their power. Nothing else mattered. There was no other outcome for which they would rally their banners.

They did worship all of the primary gods and goddesses, of course. Regardless of nationality, all farmers prayed to Primrose so that their harvests could be rich and bountiful. Likewise, the goddess of order, the goddess of the sun, and the goddess of the moon were inevitably impossible to ignore. They were just as self-evident as the god of death and the divine collective of art and song, among others.

Beyond the standard fare, Cadrians in general had the tendency to worship the goddess of the frozen wilds and the god of the inner flame, but each local group had its own preferences as well. With so much conquest in its past, the continent’s northernmost nation was not strictly a religious monolith. It was impossible to say for certain who did and didn’t have a temple in the Pollux march, but Vel’khan was a faraway land. There was bound to be some god or other not praised in the centaurs’ land.

After about ten minutes of searching, Claire eventually settled on a massive temple with an angler’s rod extending from its facade. Ignoring the protesting spider, who was desperately signalling at her with his webs, she took a deep breath and stepped through the gate. She was on high alert. Over half the eyes scattered around her body were open, carefully observing her surroundings for a potential attack. But none came. She was left to her own devices, even as she wandered towards the temple’s entrance.

The stairs didn’t lead up, as they did in nearly every other case. Rather, they pointed down into the earth, into the soil beneath the chapel-plastered cliff. There were hundreds of steps in the flight and not even the slightest hint of illumination to guide a prospective believer.

At some point, the downward spiral led into the water. While some might have judged the barrier an impasse without some magical device or other, Claire didn’t need to breathe. Unperturbed, she closed all but her two primary eyes and slithered deeper into the sea.

“Welcome to the Church of the Darkest Depths.”

A priestess greeted her at the end of her descent. The holy woman was of a race that Claire had only seen further east of the capital. Technically, she was a subspecies of arachne, like the goddess the lyrkress was actively avoiding. But while Vella was based on the spider, the priestess was more of a crab, albeit one with strange proportions. Her thorax was fairly small, only about twice as wide as her human-like half, but each of her legs was nearly as long as the caldriess’ body. She would have been well over ten meters tall if she stood on the tips of her toes.

A previous assassination had informed the halfbreed that the crab people were equipped with hidden stingers beneath their tails. They were fairly common in fully aquatic cities, particularly those too deep to see the light of day.

Far more intriguing than the woman of the cloth, however, was the strange cathedral that contained her. Unlike most of the other temples, which were well decorated with silver and gold, the church of the darkest depths had next to nothing at all. There was a lonely platinum statue seated at the back of the room, but everything else was carved directly into the cliff. It was a haphazard construction. Not every piece of the floor was on the same elevation. There were occasional gaps in the rock, and it was not nearly as clean as any of the other churches. Adding to the impression of filth was the black, algae-like substance growing all around, but no one seemed to mind.

“Hello. This is my first time here,” said Claire. “Can you tell me about your church?”

“Oh, of course!” The priestess happily clacked her feet. “We are the humble servants of Ira, the god that governs the depths of the ocean through his mastery of darkness and isolation. If you’re not uncomfortable here, then I suspect you will fit right in!” she said, with an audible clack.

“Why would I feel uncomfortable?” Claire tilted her head.

But while she was confused, her response only earned another happy click. “Being a part of his realm, this church feels just like the deep sea. If nothing seems off, then it means you’re one of us!”

“I see.” Claire took a moment to feel her surroundings. There was a little more pressure than usual, but she could only feel it if she went out of her way to pay attention. “What kind of god is he?”

The priestess bubbled happily. “I’m glad you asked. Ira doesn’t really fit in with the image that most people have of the pantheon. He’s from the deepest part of the ocean, like the rest of us, and believes that people should largely be self-sufficient. Some people have taken to calling him the god of monks and hermits, but that is not necessarily correct. He doesn’t hate companionship, like some of his followers may have assumed, he just doesn’t think it’s strictly necessary.”

“I see,” nodded Claire, unfazed by the priestess’ fervour.

“If you do intend to take your worship along those lines, then it’d be far more correct to refer to him as the god of meditation. Of course, how you practice that exactly is entirely up to you, but Lord Ira can certainly help you along.”

“Okay.” Claire paused for a moment. “I’d like to visit the atrium.”

“Of course.” The priestess raised one of her legs and pointed to the right side of the underwater building. “It’s at the end of that hall over there. You can’t miss it,” she said.

Thanking the crab lady, Claire proceeded as directed, passing the plain decorations to arrive at an equally plain chamber. There were a few people inside already, gathered around a large stone tablet with their hands together in prayer. It had to have been the altar. It was the only thing in the room.

Curiously, the monolith featured no text, nor any ancient drawings etched into its surface. It was simply a rock, a shiny black rock with a well-polished exterior, but a rock nonetheless. Claire moved towards it in spite of her confusion and picked an empty spot to take a seat. In any other form, she would have sat on her knees and prayed like a Cadrian priestess, but as a stretched qilin, such a feat was effectively impossible. Her legs didn’t quite fold under her body as neatly, and she was too long. She surely would have driven her head straight into the ceiling if she decided to straighten her back.

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After a moment of contemplation, she settled for curling up like a snake. She formed a large circle with her head at the center and closed her eyes. She didn’t know much about Ira, save for everything his devotee had listed, so she kept her prayer short and simple.

“O god of isolation and darkness. I beseech you for a task worthy of your favour.”

She could feel his presence, but when she opened her eyes, she found the environment largely the same. The only difference was that the other worshippers were gone, leaving just the moose and the monolith behind. The rock started to shake after a brief delay. A purple flame flickered to life within its core. Oddly, the fire’s light didn’t radiate into the surroundings. If anything, it almost seemed to darken the area around it, obscuring even the caldriess’ night-agnostic eyes.

But though he made himself known, the god remained silent, and Claire did the same. She was awaiting his response, and as far as she could tell, he was simply nervous.

“I don’t really have anything for you.” He eventually broke the silence, speaking in a whisper. His voice was boyish, sounding much closer to a preteen’s than that of an ageless god’s. “But Flux told me to give you a quest.” There was another awkward pause. “I have a tough dungeon in Kryddar, but people don’t really seem to like it. If you can clear it and tell me why it isn’t getting any visitors, then you can have my blessing.”

Log Entry 849116

You have received a quest - Crimson Rock

Primary Objectives:

- The dungeon known as Crimson Rock is cleared.

- Provide feedback detailing your experience.

This quest’s completion rewards a minor blessing from the god of darkness.

Claire furrowed her brow. She didn’t mind the task’s contents, but the location was problematic. Kryddar was one of the nations that shared a border with her homeland. Visiting would only bring her closer to the place she never hoped to return. It was also for that reason that she had avoided taking any commissions that took her beyond Vel'khan's northernmost border. Still, she thanked the god with a nod of her head and spun around. Only then, as she set out to leave, did the deity finally speak again.

“I have a question,” he said.

Claire cocked her head, silently asking him to continue.

“About your services,” he said. “Do you accept gods as clients?”

The qiligon stared at him for a few moments before slowly nodding her head. “Yes. But the same rules apply.”

It was the flame’s turn to cast a curious gaze.

“I’ll investigate everyone involved in whatever problem you present and kill all parties that deserve to die.” She narrowed her eyes. “Even if one of those parties happens to be divine.”

The god was, naturally, put off by the blatant threat. It took him a few moments to recover, with the cave brightening until he started absorbing the light from his surroundings again. “Of course,” he said. “It’s only fair.”

It wasn’t so much that he was being magnanimous and simply allowing her insolence, but rather that he was so taken aback that he didn’t quite seem to know what to think. Claire wasn’t done, however. She put on her most receptionist-like smile and hit him again when he was down.

“Please refrain from explaining your request at this time. Unfortunately, we’re closed at the moment. You’ll want to visit the shop between ten in the morning and six in the afternoon. Please be aware that we do not take requests put in through proxies. You must show up in person while we are open. We can discuss the problem in detail as well as determine the appropriate remuneration once you’ve paid us a visit.”

Her part said and done, Claire lightly bowed her head and went off on her way before the god could sort through his thoughts. She casually vanished from his realm with a twist of the key and returned to the real world feeling more rested than she had been in the morning. She had nothing against the god of isolation. In fact, she thought he was rather amicable, but she had no intention of listening to someone rant about their problems outside of her working hours.

The moose exited the same way she came, greeting the crab lady with a nod before climbing the steps and finding Starrgort waiting outside. He waved at her and scribbled some note or other into his web, but she ignored him and went on with the rest of her day. It was not so much anything to do with the spider in question but rather a matter of principle. If she taught the goddess of war that sending her minions worked, she would never be left alone.

She crossed the street instead and scanned it for another candidate. It would be quite some time before she could complete the loner god’s task, so she decided to pick up another in the meantime. After some deliberation, she decided that she was best off avoiding the travel god’s temple. Likewise, she stayed away from his beloved wife, the goddess of consensual infidelity, albeit for a completely different set of reasons. Claire was at least fairly certain that she lacked a temple in Pollux’s domain. Her worship was banned in Cadria on grounds of obscenity, as it was her creed that women should be loyal to their husbands, and that the husbands in question should pressure their wives to have salacious affairs with other men so that they could watch as the events unfolded.

Opting for someone a little more tame, the lyrkress visited the goddess of order. She knew that Flitzegarde didn’t like her, but she also recognized that she was unlikely to be eliminated for stepping foot on her grounds. The goddess was fair if nothing else, as could be seen from the fact that Alfred’s temple still stood. Its construction was clearly a targeted attack, but according to the catgirl goddess’ adherents, she had never voiced any opposition to its purpose or lord.

The temple in question was just as she remembered. As was the case when she previously visited, the building was impeccably clean. The stones used in its construction were perfectly white, featuring individual bricks just as orderly as the line that stood in front of it. The guests stood in a perfect, single-file formation with precisely the same amount of distance between them, and the priests were likewise conducting their surveys in a perfect cadence; each of the three men noting the visitors’ purposes bobbed his head and worked his quill in sync.

Claire’s body changed as she joined the line, assuming her humanoid form even without her explicit instruction. As was the case during her previous visit, she was glared at until she set her feet shoulder-width apart and straightened out her tail. A series of vectors seized her as soon as she did and corrected her distance from the person right in front of her. She tried resisting them, just for the sake of sating her curiosity, but she found herself unable. They were even more powerful than Alfred’s.

A completely different sort of magic generated a set of writing utensils. Compelled by something or other, she filled out the form while her feet moved on their own, stepping in time with everyone else in the queue. Her legs led her to one of the three priests almost immediately after she filed the purpose of her visit.

“Thank you for waiting,” he said. He was a bipedal dog, like one of the individuals running the patisserie up the road from the shop, but his head was shaved. The look was equal parts clean and jarring. It would have seemed like undue torture, had the other two priests not joined in the bareheaded behaviour. “Your feet will take you to the atrium. May your prayers be heard and answered.”

He bowed to her as the scene began to shift—Flitzegarde pulled her through an almost invisible portal and warped her straight to her ultimate destination. Unlike the hermit god, the goddess of order did not keep her most sacred place beneath the earth. Instead, it was in an isolated location perhaps not even attached to the church in Vel’khagan. The sound of the city was gone, replaced by a cold mountain breeze. There was no one else around, only the lyrkress, a grand cathedral, and a white stone platform where she could voice her prayers.

Thinking that it was appropriate, given all the trouble she had caused, Claire retrieved a few coins from her purse and placed them atop the altar. She closed her eyes, sat on her knees, and clasped her claws together.

“O goddess of order, greatest of all deities and bringer of peace. I offer to you the one thing that I know will be of use to your people, so that it may perhaps be used to grant peace to the families that I have wronged.” The coins slowly faded from the table. She couldn’t see the process, but she could feel them being taken away. “If I may be so emboldened, I ask not only for your forgiveness, but also a means of earning your recognition.”

There was a moment of silence.

She could feel the goddess’ stare, even as she opened her eyes to find no one else around.

“I can’t just forgive you just because you bothered to ask,” echoed a voice, inside her head. “But I know what these are worth to you, beyond their value as money.”

Another moment of judging silence.

“She had a beautiful soul. I almost didn’t realise she was one of that pervert’s creations.”

She could practically hear the goddess’ conflicted frown.

“Come again some other time. You don’t have to bring any more offerings. They won’t make a difference.”

Claire nodded.

“But if you really insist, then I’d like a bit of a snack.”

With a standoffish meow, she left, removing not only her presence, but the entire cathedral as well. A somewhat disoriented Claire was placed just outside the church’s ground and left to contemplate the goddess’ haphazard response.

It didn’t make sense.

She found it simply impossible to peg the goddess that had spoken into her mind as the central figure that upheld the rule of law.