Thankfully there was no crowd when we left the lumberyard, though every person we passed stopped to look at me. Every one of them were curious, some of them had worship in their eyes.
During the several mile walk to the temple, my instincts pointed out several gazes that seemed hostile for one reason or another. None of them worried me much, they were either non-combat classes, or too low level to harm me.
There was one person who did worry me though, my instincts didn't warn me about him, quite the opposite. He attracted my attention immediately, and when I looked at him, it felt like I was looking at a childhood friend that I somehow didn't recognize. The man smelled of the forest, he also carried the mixed scents of several beasts. My instincts pressed me to go to him, but I narrowed my eyes.
Level 245 Beast Tamer
With more effort than I care to admit to, I tore my eyes away from the man. I had to resort to tugging on Proud in order to insulate my mind from what I was assuming was the man's passive aura. I repeated “I am not a beast to be tamed” in my head, until something shifted in my perception of the man's aura. The man's aura swiftly became a source of irritation, it took every bit of willpower I had to keep the snarl from my face when I realized that he was actually following me.
It didn't take long for me to hit my limit, I sent Thorn a quick message to head back to the adventurers guild compound, and be careful of the tamer. After he acknowledged my message, I threw myself into the air, shifted, and flew away as quickly as my wings could carry me. I hadn't been sure if I wanted to reveal my other forms to the general public, but it was better than publicly snapping at a man who didn't look like he was doing anything more than walking behind me.
When I landed at the temple I shifted to a version of my true form that was just small enough to fit through the temple doors. I made a vain attempt at shaking myself to settle my fur. Not only did shifting tend to cause it to go a little wild, the remnants of my agitation with the tamer had me struggling against the instinctive need to look larger by fluffing it out.
After a few moments of largely useless attempts at grooming, I reached a paw forward to gently work the latch on the large temple door. It would have been much easier if I'd chosen to return to my demihuman form, but in my already irritated state, the possibility of encountering the Voice had me too on edge. A part of my mind was itching to do battle.
I had scarcely opened the door when a girl in a pale green robe ran to hold it for me. I nodded to her in thanks, and asked her if she knew where the rescued adventurers were. Her eyes widened as she received my message, but she quickly collected her wits.
“I'm sorry, they are not in this building, sir. I can take you there if you like?”
I nodded, and a smile flashed across her face before she schooled her expression to something that I was sure was an attempt at calm serenity, but looked a bit more like constipation to me. She led me around the building under an arch to a large green space that was hemmed in by two story buildings on all sides.
It looked almost exactly like a public park from Angela's life, complete with a playground and several picnic tables. I heard young voices whispering in one of the buildings, and turned my head to see a score of little faces pressed against the second floor windows. They retreated quickly when they saw me noticing them. It was late, they were likely meant to be in bed, so I wasn't as saddened by their departure as I might have been.
The girl who had been leading me must have turned to look at me, and seen where I was looking.
“Those are the living quarters for the children whose parents were drafted, along with the orphans that are in our care. We all take turns caring for the littles. They should be in bed right now, but you know how children can be.” She pursed her lips, and her eyes widened. “Or maybe not? Is it different for beasts? I'd assume so, there's no real schedule in the wild, right?”
I let out an amused huff, I wasn't any more versed in the subject than she was. Thankfully I was spared having to answer by the opening of a door. A harried looking woman stuck her head out of the children's dorms and shouted at us. Though it stung my pride a little, it was a little refreshing that she barely had her eyes on me for a second.
“Jenna! Take our guest inside, his presence has stirred up the children something fierce and I do not think they are going to settle as long as he is just outside their windows.”
I couldn't help but notice a few little eyes peeking at me, apparently they were a lot more brave in the absence of that woman. I didn't blame them, she carried a stern authority that made me want to hop to obey her. I looked at the children out of the corner of my eye, and decided to put on a little show for them.
I crouched low to the ground, and covered my face with my paws, shaking like the woman had scared me, then I shifted. As I shifted I broke a shadow crystal and asked the mana to conceal me from above. It didn't take much for the mana to draw shadows over my tiny squirrel form. I heard the kids chattering rather loudly at my apparent disappearance.
I heard a huff as the door slammed shut, moments later the girl, Jenna, let out a giggle.
“You're as bad as the boys,” She whispered. “They'll be up all night talking about how you vanished.”
“Wouldn't they be up all night chatting about the glowing beast they saw anyway?”
The girl jumped, and let out an undignified squeak. Her eyes scanned the area frantically, she obviously couldn't see me under my impromptu cloak of shadows.
“What did you do? I almost thought you had teleported away. I, uh, know that no one can do that in a tier one area, of course.”
“I made myself small, and asked the shadows to hide me. But let's get back on task? I came here for a reason and I'd really like to get back to the guild for dinner.”
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Of course.” She said, and she marched to the building opposite to the one that housed the children.
I followed along, feeling uncomfortable as always on the ground in my squirrel form, I resisted the urge to hop onto her shoulder. Not only was I afraid of accidentally cutting her with my claws, it occurred to me that I had no idea how much I weighed.
Once we walked through the door into a well lit hallway the shadows hiding me lost their cohesion. The girl was already walking ahead, and instead of enduring another moment on the floor as a squirrel, I shifted to my demihuman form. Something about the interaction with the children, limited though it was, had pushed away the stress I had been feeling. Jenna didn't seem to notice the shift, and I followed quietly behind her.
She opened the door to what looked to be a large common area. There were several people there, but my eyes were drawn to the lady in dark green robes who pulled on kind in a way that brought it to a fully active state. My breath caught as the Concept flooded my mind. I'd experienced times when my Concept resonated with things before, but this was on a whole different level.
I could probably have gotten it under control, but I had no will to fight that particular Concept. I turned to Jenna, and bowed my head.
“Thanks for taking me here. I'm sorry you got yelled at. Please let me know if you ever need my help with anything.”
“I uh, no problem sir. I'll be going back to the temple now, I have duties.” She blushed as she retreated with haste. I wasn't entirely sure what I'd done to prompt that, but I felt terrible. I almost chased her down to apologize, but a hand touched my arm, snapping me out of it.
“Hello again. These people have been asking to see you.”
Hearing her voice, my mind finally caught on to the fact that the kind woman was the one who had spoken to me after the keeper incident. I didn't have kind when I met her, and I had barely begun to understand Concepts. I'm not sure what I would have made of her Concept at that point anyway. I did remember that I had told her that I would ask Belua a question for her, and never came back with the answer I received.
“She doesn't want her name to be forgotten. She would be happy if it was used more often.” The words flew out of my mouth as if they had been contained under pressure. I felt like the world's biggest asshole for not following through with her. “I'm sorry, I asked her, but I didn't want to see that keeper again, so I never came back to tell you”
The lady looked confused for a moment, and then her eyes widened. “That is drastically different from tradition. Though, I'll admit the use of her name isn't explicitly covered in the actual doctrine. I wonder why her Voice never mentioned it?”
“Maybe she never thought to? I think she tries to keep her distance so people can grow without too much of her influence. Her direct interest can be pretty… intense.”
The woman's eyes widened, and she nodded a bit too enthusiastically for someone who had never been exposed to her goddess.
“Yes, I have seen the effect a single night in her realm can have. That keeper you were avoiding is a changed man, nothing like the person you met, even his class has changed. He ran off to Vidare like there were hounds chasing him. Said it was a goddess given mission.”
I groaned, of course that was the keeper she had sent.
The woman patted me on the shoulder consolingly. “He really has changed, I doubt you would even recognize him.”
I grunted, I didn't want to burden her with the fact that just thinking of the suppression the man had put me under made my fur stand on end. It was easily filed under the top five worst experiences of my short life.
“Hey,” she said, “I don't think you came here to talk about that. I'll introduce you to the people you saved.”
The next hour was filled with handshakes and small exchanges of words as they mostly wanted to thank me, and I really only wanted to know that they were doing okay. A few of them were well enough that they would be presenting themselves to Samuel for official admission to the Brightwood guild soon.
One or two spoke of heading home, though they told me tearfully that they knew that their time as statues had likely stolen their previous lives as surely as if the tree had killed them. They had had children before the tree had interrupted their lives, and they hoped to find out what had become of them.
I wished them well, and asked if they needed anything, but the Sister was quick to say that the church was seeing to their needs. They shook their heads vehemently, either way, saying that I had done enough by ensuring that they were “brought back to life.”
I was glad kind was so activated in the presence of the Sister, because it seemed to push all other Concepts away. Proud, would have almost certainly been a weight on my shoulders with so many people singing my praises.
I did worry about how that worked, it made me more than a little afraid of running into someone who shared a less palatable Concept with me. I hadn't felt that way around Randy, but Randy wasn't a good being to use as an example of how things normally worked.
The Sister told me that the next set of people I was to meet were not in any condition to speak with me. They were conscious, but unmoving, it was as though their minds were still those of statues. They were mostly those who seemed to have been under the tree's influence the longest.
However, contrary to her warning, when she took me to the large room where they had been placed, something dramatic happened. All twenty people sat up and looked at me the moment my aura touched them.
My little turtle friend was standing by one of their beds with his eyes wide in shock. It didn't take me long to figure out what I had done. I could feel the remnants of the tree's Concepts in their bodies, Concepts that I now possessed. My charisma milestone pushed my versions of what had effectively been the tree's curse into them.
Without something to maintain their definition, they took on mine. It almost felt like the people were grabbing at my Concepts for dear life. I happily helped them connect with me. It was like what had happened with the demihumans, but without the spirits to enhance the connections. I wasn't sure what the long term effects would be, but I could see clarity returning to their eyes.
Everyone began to speak at once, it was pandemonium, the Sister told me to stay put.
“I'm going to get help!” She said as she ran off.
Islon and I tried to calm the very confused people, but the poor turtle seemed to be causing more confusion than he was solving.
“Can you get the others who woke up? I'd bet they can do better than either of us.”
“Of course, savior, you are wise.”
I didn't have time to cringe when Islon said that word again. I was too busy trying to explain to a person who barely seemed to speak the same language I did that the clergy would be here soon to help answer everyone's questions.
The other rescued adventurers helped quite a lot when they came in. I hate to admit that I practically ran out of the building once everyone seemed to have someone to help them. It had all been a bit too much for me, I winged it back to the guild, aiming for where I felt Torill was through our connection.