All across the snowswept forests and fields of the Kingdom of Celeduun the winter weather was beginning to wane. Though there was still a fair bit of snow in the higher elevations of the land the lower places were already seeing their seasonal permafrost begin to melt. Spring was getting closer by the day. It was still technically winter of course, though it was that time of winter where you couldn't help but notice the days lengthening and the winds have just a bit less bite to their chill.
It had been about two months since the party at the turn of the year and at least one month more since the confrontation and capture of the lich from a millennia ago. Truly life as a goddess only gets more full of excitement and other insane happenings the more the years pass by. If things keep escalating at this rate soon I'll be up to my neck in the madness we'll call world events. And I'm two-hundred feet tall! At least when not in my human form anyway. Then I'm the size of a regular ten year old girl.
That was something particular of note it was. Even though two full years had passed since I arrived in this world my physical appearance never changed as if I wasn't aging at all. There were adult goddesses so that was proof that I would eventually reach maturity, though how long that would take I had no idea. Maybe it would take thousands of years or possibly just happen one day overnight. It wasn't something I actively concerned myself with but it did sometimes pop up in the back of my mind. Clearly Sub-Chan cared somewhat and since she was my subconscious personified clearly I did as well.
What had I, Jenna the Goddess of Knowledge and Light, been up to in these last two months? I ask myself this question because truly the time was more of a blur than anything else. It makes me worry that the supposedly immortal life that lay ahead of me was already screwing with my perception of time as my divine body acclimated my soul. That worry aside though my memory is almost perfect due to the library I implemented in my “mind palace.”
As per my duty to my worshipers I've continued answering their prayers, when applicable at least. Like any other question or demand prayers were not all created equal and some are simply not morally answerable. Not that I could answer literally every prayer anyway. I'm a goddess not a wish granting machine. This didn't stop the humans from attributing absolutely anything and everything to my divine hand though. A habit I was constantly working to ease my worshipers out of.
This seemingly impossible goal was helped in great part by my high priestess and high priest both. Without mortal leaders among my budding apparent full religion there was simply no way for me to keep order to the masses. Well I mean there totally is, but its not really a good idea to stomp around the kingdom proclaiming my will. Besides like all good leaders, something I'm aiming to be father help me, having a distribution of duties is a positive thing.
Having humans help give out my instructions makes people feel more connected in a strange way. It is human nature to quickly adapt to both new things entering their lives and other things leaving. You could say that without me around constantly people adapt to life without me and almost forget I exist. My human leaders therefore remind them of what I actually want and not what they assume I do.
Miya continues to live in Doovlin and as high priestess oversees basically the entire northern region of the kingdom. Its quite a lot for the young woman to handle I know and I do my best to support her wherever I can. She decided she didn't want to travel around very much so she could stay close to her home and family. I allowed this of course and instead Doovlin was announced as a sort of site of pilgrimage. The ruins of that ancient temple in the mountains that I first met Miya at became the official religious site for me without any specific planning for it to be.
Not much happened in Doovlin in two months, not much can when you live so far out in the wilderness. With the announcement only being made about the holy site a short while ago and it being winter still meant there weren't to be any pilgrims for a while yet. Thus everyone in the village could continue living life as normal. It was a great relief to me that my growing popularity did not make them jealous. They were perfectly happy sharing their goddess with the rest of the kingdom.
Timothy meanwhile had his life as high priest change quite a bit in just two short months. With my solving of the undead menace and becoming friends with the crown prince to boot the temple was seeing ever increasing volumes of visitors. He had always had his hands full with the various outreach programs I had saddled him with in the capital city of Norlov, but now things were increasing to a fever pitch. Thankfully for both his and mine own sake he had a strong support network of friends and family around him to help him handle the added stress.
The Grand Temple of the Sisterhood once represented the deep rooted hatred the people of this kingdom had for goddesses. Now it was once again becoming a place of worship as it had in those long past days when goddesses roamed the world. With it being proven that a goddess could not only be not horrible but also kind besides many a mortal came to the temple. They all came to pay their respects and make their requests. Everyone wanted something from me. Wanted something from the people who represented me.
Thus it came to pass that my official clergy was formed for real this time. Miya and Timothy stood at the top of the organization as was only fitting with others taking up various positions beneath them. Up in the north it didn't matter as much as there were much fewer people living there that they could be allowed to choose for themselves with limited oversight from me. Here in the south however there were many major population centers with the capital city foremost.
Because of the vastly larger population there needed to be many more representatives of the temple. This process of selection had only just begun and would likely take a year or more. Not just anyone could become a member of my clergy. I had plenty of memories of horrific crimes committed in the name of my father in my old world, not to mention what was done in the name of all the other lesser gods of that world. Such abuse of power would not happen under my watch.
Thinking about such terrible crimes brings to mind some of the first prayers involving the like that I answered and the aftermath of them. Due to my position as a goddess I had been able to implement new laws to address some of the more horrific things large societies of history struggled with. Things like theft and murder were of course still illegal and were somewhat lessened with the presence of a goddess walking the land. Those I had never been too worried about.
No it was the banning of brothels that had been one of the more extreme changes I had made to the kingdom. Having been less than a year the ripples upon society were still yet to even fully form, but those that had were still more positive than negative. Crimes associated with that line of work still happened obviously but the centers of debauchery and filth that once stood in every city were now gone. This had the immediate effect of reducing those kinds of crimes drastically as well as devastating the spread of disease that had festered in those health violation meccas.
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Yeah sure plenty of people raged and complained about it but they could just stuff it. In the end this decision would be looked back on as a good thing. It was even having effects on the kingdom even I hadn't foreseen. With the love houses out of the picture people were involving in more personal relationships instead going to a building for a quick lay. Hookup culture was a beast all of its own and I wasn't here to make moral judgments on what happened between two grown adults. Human nature is what it is and at least this version was out in the open.
Not everyone involved in such activities had been adults before my involvement however. That was something that troubled my heart even today and made me worry from time to time if I had done enough. Obviously the participation of minors in adult activities had been something I had come down hard and fast upon with the fury of a force of nature. These actions had even gone a might too far one might say with the mansion inferno incident being a prominent regret of mine.
Regardless of some of the more fiery responses this goddess had quickly put into place legal protections for the young in regards to sexual crimes. In fact my dedication to wiping out such nightmarish goings on had led to the creation of an entire task force that regularly went around the kingdom rooting out such crimes. This had made many of the rich citizens of the kingdom extremely furious with me, not to mention the vast majority of the nobility. As a result worship of me was not as widespread in the upper echelons of society and that was fine with me.
Goddess Jenna: the friend of children. Such a title had been given to me first by the rich you see. It was meant as an insult actually. “A child goddess to be the goddess of children” they said mockingly. What an interesting stance to take I said to them, perhaps with my eyes glowing a bit and my body on fire. The moniker however gained popularity with the rest of the population and its a title I'll always wear proudly. My portfolio didn't actually expand though. Its more of a side thing I suppose.
Thanks to me the children of the kingdom would soon have a lot more to do than just be victims of the powerful however. My schools were soon to begin construction all around the kingdom, first in large cities and then later in towns. All those teachers I had been training in my spare time had come along quite well in their education and would soon be ready to teach in these schools. Though they would still have to have lessons themselves from time to time as they weren't totally ready. I had handpicked men and women that were passionate about teaching though and I had good expectations.
Other adults would also need an education if they so chose it though and the task of seeing such a thing come to pass had been greatly eased in the face of my worries. Thanks to my growing renown many educated scholars from around the kingdom had taken interest in my “public school system” and had come to inquire how they could get involved. This boon was immediately capitalized on by me and I had set them to work on adult level curriculum. It would be a work in progress for a while and far into the future the schools would be constantly be evolving. Thus was my hope.
Among the most prominent scholars to be involved in my schools was none other than the dread Demon Mage of Henjuk himself. Barthenor the walking skeleton held together by the most minimal of mummified tissues and cursed magic. Having an actual millennium old undead in your repertoire of educators certainly was a new one for even my wildest fantasies. However the knowledge and power of a lich, when turned to good, is certainly not a force I would cast aside. Perhaps it was our shared obsession with knowledge that made it so, but I actually got along pretty well with him. He is a total turbo nerd after all. He dislikes me calling him that so I make sure to do it often.
Even over only a few months there was a friendship built between Barthenor and I, something neither of us really expected. As he helped me with my schooling project we talked a great deal about a great many things. We bonded over both knowing things and teaching things. I came to trust him enough to even allow him to live inside his castle up in the mountains again. There was supervision from me of course and I made sure he didn't go about raising undead armies. He even taught me some of that goddess binding magic as a sort of act of trust.
Also living in the castle again was the slightly insane, totally love crazed, vampiress minion of the lich. Neske had been a tough nut to crack as she had hated mortals and goddesses in equal measure at first. Much to my relief she had come over to my way of seeing things with the encouragement of her master whom she loved so dearly. Even though she had committed a great deal of crime herself I really didn't want to have to execute her. Her and Barthenor were sort of a package deal and though loathe I am to admit it they were needed for each other to be kept under my control.
Everyone deserved a second chance anyway. As a goddess I had committed some acts of violence one could easily condemn me for. If I'm to judge her then I should apply that same judgment on myself. Thus the conclusion was reached to teach her how to use her power for the good of others, a task she was excelling at better than she would dare admit. She still tried to put on the front of being disgusted by those she saw as below her and I would let her grow out of that naturally. For now she continued to help villages and other less developed settlements find sustainability and safety.
The first such settlement of course being Nova Bellumis. Gosh vampires and werewolves working together. Seems like some wild fiction from my old world, yet it happened here in this world. The villagers cursed with lycanthropy continued being very devout worshipers of mine and I continued giving them tips on how to integrate with wider human society. It was and will continue to be a long road for both sides to walk down but I had hope it would be seen to fruition. Besides having a bunch of werewolves as holy warriors would certainly be a handy card to hold close to my chest.
On the more magical side of things as a whole things were continuing to remain quite quiet. The mages of the kingdom kept to themselves still and didn't interfere with my activities more than the occasional interjection or complaints. Confrontations with mages basically never happened and it made their shady organization more suspicious than ever before. Thankfully I had both Ferherlyn and Barthenor on my side, both powerful mages who knew the inns and outs of that secret society. According to them I had nothing to worry about for now and I trusted them on it.
Other than the looming threat of the goddesses that would inevitably awaken and make claims to the world there weren't any major magical catastrophes. Yeah some strange and sometimes dangerous mystical beasts showed up here and there as very rare treats but they were taken care of easily. Not my adorable Flavio though! He was safe and sound in my goddess domain. The hydra was coming along well in his behavior too and was almost completely tame.
There was also this hideous hag living in the northern reaches of the Teforh Forest who I had to deal with recently. When I say hag I mean like literally a magical being taking the form of an old woman who lives in the woods. She knew the Goddess of Dreams Hala apparently and really didn't like me taking up residence in the area. Puddings to her though as I'm here to stay! With her experience with goddesses she knew not to push me and we came to an agreement, one that involved her never touching a child again and giving me the respect I deserve.
What other adventures would this new year bring? I had no idea and though I'm anxious about it I have faith that my father will help me see it through. The future is a frightening thing and yet it also fills you with such excitement. You never know what's waiting just around the corner.