Oscar immediately asked Agra to show him the way, which she did. Amon needed to talk to Oscar, but wanted to wait until after he had visited the survivors. Amon decided to shop around for essences at the bazaar, he needed to get stronger for what he needed to do.
“Do you know the name of everyone who lived?” Oscar asked
“Not many-” Agra responded “As far as I am aware, only 6 people lived, you two and four others.”
Oscar knew the next question he wanted answered, but didn’t have the gut to ask it, he wanted to know if his father was alive. He needed his father to be alive, he was sure that the thing that abused him that night wasn’t his father, and he was confident that the poor facsimile of his father was the reason for the strange happenings.
The churches were on the very outside of the ruling district of this city, forming a massive ring of faith around the important buildings. The Church of the Healer was the closest to the Adventuring Society Branch, something that Oscar noted as most likely intentional.
The church of the healer looked less like a cathedral and more like a campsite. There was a two story house in the center of the plot, but around it was a small village of tents, many people bustling from tent to tent, and occasionally entering the building in the center. Agra took him into the building in the middle behind a desk was a man who looked to be in his mid-40’s he had dark brown hair with gray streaks in it, Oscar thought he was slightly short, however quickly realized he was tall, just hunched over and he was unreasonably attractive, the only person that matched his looks that he had ever seen was Bellan Oreth from the Adventuring society.
The man didn't have a nameplate on his desk but Agra quickly introduced him as “Archbishop Rhys Graff” The man quickly looked up and looked at Oscar, Oscar noticed the man's eyes looked tired as if he hadn’t slept right for days. Rhys raised his palm to Oscar and muttered something he couldn't quite hear. The low hum in Oscar’s cheek stopped, the scratching at the back of his throat from when he shot his vocal cords healed, and even his exhaustion from the last few days subsided.
Rhys spoke in a soft tone, yet his words were carried by the air, delivering them to Oscar's ears.
“You are the boy that Amon mentioned, yes? I believe he said your name was Oscar” Rhys said, Oscar flinched slightly at the sound of Amon’s name.
“Take a walk with me” the archbishop said as he was getting up from his chair. Agra opened the door for him and Oscar, but left towards the adventurers' society to give them privacy.
“I’ll cut right to the chase, there’s 6 people from your village that survived the attack, you, Amon and Dresk Keybalar and Savvis, Evi and Mivas Baraki” , Rhys said. Oscar knew all those people, the Baraki’s were Althea's mother, older brother and younger brother. The name that surprised him the most was Dresk, apparently Amon’s father had survived.
“Not Emryll Wyvern?” Oscar had already known the answer, but there was a chance that he was still alive.
“Your father died a hero-” Rhys said to Oscar’s horror “-According to the story i was told from the Baraki’s that Dresk wanted to flee and close the gate after him, trapping everyone in the town while he could leave, your father didn’t let that happen, instead keeping the gates open, and guarded it, for a normal rank, holding off three iron rank monsters for any amount of time is a monumental task in and of itself, let alone doing it long enough for 3 additional people to escape”
“So you’ve seen my father’s body?” Oscar asked
“No, we told the heroes entering about him, but when they sent a message back to us, they couldn’t even find a drop of blood” Rhys said, they had circled the cabin by this point, and had wound up at the tent the Baraki’s were staying in. He turned around and noticed it was the closest tent to the cabin, the whole walk they took was both perfectly timed, and completely useless.
“Where is Dresk” Oscar said, seething with rage, “I need to talk to him.”
“Greet the Barakis first, I will bring you to Dresk when you have calmed down”
Oscar raised half of the tent flap and ducked through, recognizing the mother of one of his friends. Everyone in the village had assumed that Althea would either marry Oscar or Myles, Althea's mother never disliked Oscar, but always secretly hoped it would be Myles. Savvis liked how much Oscar respected the traditions of the village, but his mouth was always getting him into trouble, trouble Althea would end up saving him from, always cleaning up his messes. Myles on the other hand was always passive, he also tried to get Oscar out of trouble, but was never as helpful as Althea.
As Savvis looked Oscar up and down she started crying, she felt personally responsible for his fathers death. Oscar sat down on the side of the cot she was on, noticing that the blanket didn’t protrude the way it should have past her left thigh, she had lost a leg, she also had a few other bandages on her body, one over her right eye, forming a makeshift eyepatch.
Oscar wasn’t good at comforting people, but after she explained through sobs that his fathers death was her fault, and saying that she should have died instead of him, he had no choice but to help her,
“My father was a great man, he made his choice to save you, and understood he would most likely die due to it. Evi and Mivas are still alive, if you cannot live for yourself, live for them” She didn’t stop crying but Evi and Mivas were comforting their mother at this point. Oscar stood up and started to the tent flap, where Rhys was still standing.
“You healed me by just raising your hand and mumbling something. Why are they not healed?” Oscar said
“You had a bruise on your cheek, and minor abrasions to the back of your throat, your own body would’ve healed them before the end of the week-” Rhys answered “-they on the other hand have massive chunks of flesh gouged out and entire missing limbs, if I put enough magic in them to heal them all the way from that it would most likely kill them. Healing them slowly over time is what they need, in addition there are some wounds that magic can’t heal, to which we have specialists. You were a good first step for the mother however, as my thank you for that, I will show you where Dresk is; under one condition, you must not attack him.”
“Then there’s nothing I want to say to him.”
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Amon was confused, a swell of emotions housed inside him, confusion, rage, sadness, and betrayal all played first chair in the cacophony inside him. He never understood his fathers actions but he knew that he was doing what he thought was best for the town. But he fled, and wanted the gate shut behind him, additionally his father’s whole reason for taxing the town was safety, but the town needed a savior, and it didn’t get them until too late.
As amon was contemplating his current viewpoint of his father a nicely dressed woman with golden hair and golden eyes approached him, breaking his blank stare on the cobblestone of the street.
“You are Amon Keybalar, correct?” She asked, her voice slow and melodious
“Yes. Who are you?” Amon responded
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“I am Eliza Jordan, a priestess of knowledge” Eliza said while giving a slight bow “I would ask you to please follow me, my lady will make it worth your while”
“Uhh, sure, can I ask where we’re going” Amon asked
“You may ask, but will I answer?” Eliza asked in response while raising one eyebrow at Amon as they were walking
“Oh but you just did.” Amon said deciding to have a game of wits with her.
“I suppose you could see my response as an answer, but what I said did not add understanding to our destination” Eliza answered thoughtfully
“Do all of your clergymen talk like this” Amon asked
“We do like… celebrating our academic gifts, however most of the time we only talk like this to the outside world, it's kind of funny to see how annoyed people can get” Eliza answered, dropping the act “Our destination is just right up there, Knowledge’s church”
The building that Eliza pointed at didn’t look like a church, more like an insanely huge library. Compared to the ramshackle church of the Healer, this was a bona fide mansion. The building was a cross shape, the building in the center of the land was a square with four floors and a domed roof making a 5th floor, a massive hallway stretches in each of the cardinal directions, only 3 stories tall.
Eliza chaperoned Amon to the top floor of the central building, the one with the dome shaped roof, at the top of the staircase was a large set of double doors, to which Eliza had no trouble opening it. Behind the door was Oscar, and the adventurers that helped him in his village Rodrick, Calida, Onwyn and Fenrir. 6 plush seats lined the walls and Eliza instructed Amon to sit down in the last empty before she got in front of the whole group
“My lady would like the 4 of you” Eliza gestured to the experienced adventurers before continuing “To teach Amon and Oscar to be adventurers, you must help them make final choices for their essences, collect awakening stones for them” The adventurers looked shocked.
“What are we training them for” Rodrick who had a few bandages and even a crutch under his right arm said
“I am not at liberty to say, but there are reasons you four were chosen to guide, and a reason those two were chosen to follow” Eliza said
Onwyn then said “this is obviously about what happened to their village. Knowledge wants us to make sure it never happens again. She’s hoping to use those two boys' anger and sense of morality to avoid paying them. She’s also hoping that the sunk cost fallacy will make us continue investigating the Nano-Wave”
Eliza’s face twisted in shock and mild anger before she calmed down and said “While you paint my lady in unfair colors, the end goal you talk about is not entirely inaccurate, the largest difference, is that she is, of course, willing to give you rewards” This got the adventurers attention
“How long will the training last, and what’s the reward?” Onwny asked.
“The latter depends on the former, and the former is very flexible. My lady wants a few key pieces, but other than that you will be very free to teach them how you want.” Eliza said
“What are those pieces?” Calida said, her voice wheezing a bit, her giant spell she cast makes it so her mana doesn't regenerate above the bare minimum level for her to remain alive for about a week. She’d heard that the spell doesn't really get larger as she ranks up, it just recharges faster. When she used it as an Iron rank it took her out for the better part of a month, and if she reached Diamond rank, she’d be out of the fight for only a few minutes.
“Most notably are: an understanding of the basics of ranking up on their own, passing the adventurer onboarding test, and giving them a full understanding of all of their abilities, including helping unlock all of them in the first place.” Eliza answered
The adventurers kept asking questions to Eliza who got slowly more and more annoyed, at the end the Adventurers asked for some time to think it over. Eliza barely gave them 10 minutes. While she left the room she also took the two boys. They couldn’t hear any discussions from inside the room
“It has to be the two of us?” Oscar asked.
“Yes. you don’t get a choice.” Eliza said clearly annoyed
“No negotiating?” Oscar asked. Eliza never said anything, and only sighed heavily, Oscar’s question was answered.
Amon remained silent throughout the exchange.
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The whole group thought they would see the goddess herself. They did not, after their choice was made the 6 people went to a nearby restaurant, it was actually more of a bar, but the food wasn’t terrible, if you were drunk enough. As people ranked up their poison resistance went up too, for most people their poison resistance equaled their rank, so for an iron rank to be affected you’d need iron rank poison. The same was true for alcohol. Bronze rank alcohol was rarely ever available in this town, as it required a bronze rank brewer to make it, luckily this bar was one of the handful in the city to have bronze level alcohol year round, it even had the occasional silver rank bottle which quickly went up for auction.
“Why did you decide to teach us?” Amon asked, Fenrir, Onwyn and Calida looked at eachother, as if trying to decide to tell them the truth ot not, Rodrick apparently missed the memo
“Didn’t really have much else to do” he said through half a chicken leg. The other three looked at him like he was crazy.
“What my pack member meant to say was that it was the right thing to do, and you deserve a competent teacher to nurture you from defenseless pups into the fine wolves you will eventually be.” Fenrir said
“Why the hell are you talking like that?” Rodrick asked “You never talked like that before, are you trying to be cool in front of the “Pups?””
Fenrir’s face turned bright red, even redder than the alcohol was making Onwyns. “No, I've always talked like that!” Fenrir stammered out tripping on the first few syllables. Rodrick continued mocking Fenrir’s forced bravado. Calida was trying to calm them down. Onwyn was drinking silently, and occasionally ate a few pieces of food, they seemed as if they didn’t even know it was happening.
“What's the next move?” Oscar asked
“We’re going to my teacher, he’s retired by this point but he can help make sense of our findings. He lives about a month's travel from here, so we’re hoping to get you to Iron rank before we leave, then train you from there.”
“Iron rank?” Oscar asked. The adventurers caught up in the argument paused. Fenrir’s arms caught by Rodricks hands, Calida trying to get between the two of them. All three paused in the middle of their movement and stared at Oscar.
“How little do you actually know?” Calida asked
“Everyone can absorb 4 essences. Some people have said something about a Confluence although I have no clue what that is. I’ve heard people say a bunch of medals and then rank, but again I have no clue.” Oscar replied. The experienced adventurers were shocked, save for Onwyn who just explained it.
“Essences are coalesced forms of magic. Everyone can absorb 3 and then in front of them forms a Confluence, the bridge between the other 3. After you absorb your Confluence you ascend to Iron Rank. Currently you’re Normal rank, next is Iron, then Bronze, Silver, Gold and Diamond.”
“How do you get to the higher ranks if you’ve already absorbed all of your essences?” Oscar asked.
Onwyn didn’t answer, they just kept talking “Every time you get an essence, you unlock an ability from it. But you can have up to 5 abilities from each, giving 20 abilities in total. You gain the extra 16 by using awakening stones. Each Awakening stone also has a theme, each one you use awakens an ability from a random one of your essences, and is given an ability in accordance with the stone you absorbed.”
Rodrick leaned over to Oscar and whispered: “They tend to get like this when you ask magical questions. Sorry.” Oscar nodded thoughtfully
“Each essence you absorb attaches to one of your 4 attributes: Power, Speed, Spirit and Recovery. Power: how easy you can throw others around, and how hard it is for others to throw you around. Speed: Flexibility, dexterity and obviously, speed. Spirit: Essence ability strength, and your senses. Recovery: How fast you can recover mana, stamina and health.” Onwyn ranted
Rodrick and Fenrir had begun arm wrestling, with plans to spar outside after the first to reach 10, Rodrick was winning.
“To reach a higher rank, you must raise each attribute to that rank, to get an attribute to that rank you must get the essence to that rank, and to do that you must raise all 5 abilities to that rank. After an ability gets raised to the rank higher than you are, it can’t move past the very beginning of that rank until you rank up. For example Calida has a Silver rank spell, but until she ranks up, it's going to be stuck at Silver 0. Every rank is split into 10 different levels, 0-9, when it would reach 10, it instead becomes the next rank. In total, the four of us have 7 Silver abilities… they have all 7, I do not have any Silver rank abilities as of now.” Onwnyn kept talking, even after everyone had left the bar, to see Fenrir and Rodrick spar. Fenrir won. Onwyn was alone in the bar. They walked outside and saw Rodrick being propped up by Fenrir.