Chapter 23 – In which jailbreak happens for real
“Priest Phlox… Are you going to be okay?”
“Thank you for your concern Geod, but a few hours of begging for forgiveness while laying on the floor is really nothing. I once had to stand on a pole for a few hours, while a storm was raging above me, to calm down one angry god.”
“By standing on the pole, were you proving your determination or something?”
“Oh no, it was just a god, who thought that the ground is lava, so if you were on the ground, you were treated as dead, and dead weren’t supposed to speak, so if you wanted to talk to them, you had to stand on something. Also, it was a desert and I forgot to bring anything else besides that damn pole.”
“... Priest Phlox, you can be quite scattered minded, huh?”
“We were all blessed with good and bad traits, and so we must be loved for all of them!”
“... I wasn’t questioning that.”
Alexandrit was starting to have second thoughts if it was a good idea to leave Phlox and Geod to do ‘the thing’ while he would be looking out if anyone was coming .
Their conversations were becoming more bizarre minute by minute.
Currently, the three of them were in one of the secluded gardens located under the walls surrounding the temple territory.
Their goal was to temper with the protection formation.
Formations were a mix of holy symbols and natural sources of the divine.
Holy symbols were usually formed from letters, numbers and geometric shapes, put together to connect to ‘forces beyond’.
In some ways they resembled mages’ magic circles.
Natural sources of the divine could be described as special environments.
For example, a place surrounded by mountains from four cardinal directions were considered a special environment.
The Universe Temple had two divine sources.
One, the movement of the sun.
The temple was built in such a way that during the day, the right side of the temple was always in shadow, even when the sun was on the right side .
But during the night, the left side was always basking in the natural white light of stars and the moon. The left side during the night was so bright, no lamps were needed.
Two, the underground headwater.
Apparently underground, under the very center, there was a source of eight rivers, which split the ground under the temple into eight equal parts.
This way, even if the sky was dark and there was no light to shine on the temple, there were the underground rivers.
And if something happens to rivers, there is still light above.
In other words, the temple would remain protected in 99% of cases.
That genius design was said to be the creation of Purplus Great Ruler, Amaranth.
Though the temple went through many renovations since Amaranth’s death, the core design was the same.
In the first place, it was a design which was hard to temper with and change.
What the Saint told them to do wasn’t to interfere with that. Their target were holy symbols.
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The holy symbols were spread through the entire temple.
If divine sources were vital organs, then the holy symbols were veins.
Those veins had their own effects and applications and if one knew enough about the entire formation, they could manipulate them.
Alexandrit glanced back for a second and saw Phlox carefully put a stone, carved with a specific symbol on one of the sentences carved in marble, covering a specific letter.
From Alexandrit’s perspective she just replaced ‘a’ in ‘coal’ with ‘o’, changing it into ‘cool’.
But according to their Saint, it would create an effect of ‘delayed warning’. So when they break the formation in Seven’s cell, the alarms wouldn’t activate immediately.
They couldn’t not active alarms, because that would imply that Seven had a helper inside of the temple.
“Okay! That’s done. Now let’s get that heretic out.”
Phlox stood up, her eyes burning with enthusiasm…
There seemed to be a weird desire to set something on fire there, but it had to be Alexandrit's imagination.
*-*-*
Phlox moved through the dark corridors of the prison under the Universe Temple.
‘There is such a sinister place in the holy place!’
Her spiritual senses were setting off alarms as the cold sensation of cruelties committed here in the past seemed to touch every inch of her body.
Even though everything looked spotless, the irony scent of blood lingered in the air.
“Can you smell blood?”
She asked Alexandrit who was guiding her.
Amara figured out that it would be better if someone guided her there, less she lost her way or got distracted.
“Not with my sense of smell.”
In other words, could he smell it with some other sense?
But it also meant that what Phlox smelled here wasn't a real scent of blood, but a hallucination created by her spiritual sense.
If she didn’t distract herself by digging her nails into her skin, she might have fallen into visions of the atrocities committed here.
‘His Excellency has better spiritual sense than me. It would be much worse for him.’
When Amara came back from his visit in the prison, he was a bit pale, but Phlox thought it was because he was exhausted.
A grave oversight.
Phlox promised herself she would repent after completing her mission.
‘The head priest bastard is much more corrupt than I thought… To allow for such a place to exist… No, he probably uses it himself…’
As Phlox cursed on Rasin, she and Alexandrit reached their destination.
Phlox saw a man in the corner, multiple injures covering his body, together with a sour smell of filth.
Assassin nicknamed by Amara Seven.
In fact, Phlox felt a bit complicated about saving him, but it was only because she thought he deserved a punishment.
She didn’t wish him dead, nor did she wished for him to be tortured for the rest of his life, or spend his days in a similar dark cell.
She just wished he would repent for his crimes.
“Whoa, finally someone who has a proper look in her eyes. I thought everyone in this temple was crazy.”
… Did that heretic just call their Saint crazy?
“Heretic.”
“Yes priest?”
“I’m going to destroy the formation now. Stay completely still.”
It actually didn’t matter if he moved, but Phlox thought that she may try to punch him if he twitched his mouth even a bit more.
She got down to work.
And a few minutes later…
The formation was broken.
Phlox felt a familiar energy scatter around. She waited for ten seconds, making sure that alarms didn’t go off.
“Done. Let’s go.”
“Um. Priest Phlox, I’m happy that formation breaking was successful, but… what about the door?”
Alexandrit looked at the heavy door with a dubious expression.
Phlox stood up and without a word took out a few of her hair pins, and after toying with them and the lock for a few clicks…
The cell door opened.
She heard heretic mumble:
“... I thought priests were supposed to prevent crimes, not commit them?”
She had no idea what he was talking about. She had never committed a crime.
“Alexandrit, I’m sorry to ask you, but can you help that heretic out? I’m afraid if I come close to him, he will get purified.”
“... Yes, Priest Phlox.”
Fifteen minutes after midnight, Phlox, Alexandrit and Seven met with Geod, who was keeping watch around the prison.
Soon, all four of them escaped the walls of the temple and headed towards the Brook District, and the Temple of Forgotten and Dead Gods in it.
*-*-*
At the doorstep of the Temple of Forgotten and Dead Gods, Perlliar and Cotteo were waiting with soft smiles on their lips.
“We were expecting you.”
They said, unsurprisingly.
Seven who was following them without a word stiffen when he saw the two priests. He even took a step back, but Alexandrit caught him and quietly said:
“Calm down, they promised not to hurt you. They’re here to help.”
In the meantime, Cotteo pushed a bag of freshly baked bread into Geod’s hands, saying:
“Eat it on your way back, or share it with someone if you can’t eat it all.”
And Perlliar handed Phlox a small box, saying:
“It’s an ointment for a hurting back, I thought it may be of use for you.”
“Oh! Thank you!”
Then the two priest simultaneously turned towards Seven.
“And you, come in, we prepared a bath for you.”
“Don’t worry. We didn’t use holy water.”
The two of them continued to smile gently, but Alexandrit, Geod and Phlox all felt a shiver run down their backs.
*-*-*
Soon, the two attendants and one priest returned safely to the temple without anyone noticing.
The prisoner safely escaped his prison.
And a few hours later, an alarm about a broken formation rang.
As Amara stopped the rite he was leading and listened to the ringing of the bell, he thought:
‘I hope that Phlox didn’t forget about the stone.’
But Amara’s hopes rarely came true.