Sally advanced towards me; a stern expression etched onto her face. Her battle junkie eyes gleamed with murderous intent.
My dragon’s eye allowed me to see a glowing red aura that covered her blackened, ink-stained body. She looked like an anime character mid power up.
That was not a good sign.
“I did everything I could Sally,” I pleaded, raising my hands in surrender and taking a few tentative steps backwards. “It was the kraken!”
“Yeah Sal, it krak-end the ship in two,” Panda laughed from my side.
Bad move.
Sally lurched forward with terrifying speed and booted Panda like a football. My fury familiar flew into the air and I half expected to see a little glimmer in the sky and hear words to effect of “blasting of again.”
In lieu of that, he flew a few meters backwards and landed hard in the middle of the large group of onlookers and in the back of my mind I imagined Bell’s gleeful voice yelling “goal!”
“What was that?”
“An angel?”
“Angels don’t fall from the sky you berk.”
“He looks like…”
“A prophet?”
“The prophet.”
Various members of the group spoke in awe, as if Panda was some magical being that had been delivered to them from the heavens. Hadn’t they just watched Sally kick him at them like a furry, screaming beach ball?
Taking any excuse to flee the ink covered catonid, I jogged towards Panda and attempted to pick him up. However, a line of swimsuit wearing locals blocked my path.
“Hold up stranger, this is our prophet, not yours,” a muscly human man said in that typical peasant accent from literally every high fantasy movie ever made.
“Actually,” I replied calmly, “I think you’ll find he’s my familiar. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
I forced my way through the crowd who were either too powerless or too taken aback to stop me.
Score one for investing in my strength stat.
In the middle of the group Panda was in the lap of a beautiful catonid woman in a golden bikini. Her hair was tied up in two perfect circles on each side of her head.
“Look Kaleb, I’m Panda The Hut,” he said dazedly, gesturing towards the poor girl as his pupils danced in and out of focus.
“I can see that,” I replied, placing my hands on my hips and shaking my head. “Are you alright?”
“Of course he’s alright!” The same, obnoxious man from before said from behind me. “He’s the prophet, and we’d be happy to see to his every need whilst you stay here. Assuming you do plan to stay for a while.” He raised his eyebrows, gesturing to our broken ship.
“Well, it doesn’t seem like we have much choice in that,” I sighed.
“Perfect!” He replied clasping his hands together.
“My dear adventurers,” the catonid man from earlier said as he approached from behind me with a furious Sally in tow, “perhaps I could show you to the local inn? Your friend looks in dire need of some rest and, of course, we can look after the prophet for you whilst you get settled in. I believe he would like this fixing?” He held out the fractured pieces of Panda’s bamboo pipe and my familiar looked up at him in awe.
“You can fix it?” He said, sounding just a little bit concussed.
“Of course Prophet, we are yours to command.”
“Kaleb, I’m going with these guys for a bit,” Panda said, looking around the group of his adoring fans, “Miss Golden Bikini, please carry me to the closest bookstore whilst my new friend fixes my most treasured possession.”
Well that was quick concussion.
“Of course Prophet, as you wish,” the woman said softly.
I wasn’t sold on the idea of Panda wandering off with these over-zealous idiots, but they seemed harmless enough.
Bell stirred in my arms, reminding me that she was still unconscious. I’d almost forgotten I was carrying her. She needed a place to rest and we needed to find someone who could fix Sally’s ship, before she murdered me.
“Who do you worship to believe that the furball is a prophet?” Sally asked the catonid man, seemingly regaining some of her composure.
“Why, The System of course,” the man replied with a wide smile, “who else?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
The System? I thought, glancing up.
***
Shortly after our arrival, Panda was whisked away as the odd locals fell over themselves to languish upon his every need and desire.
Meanwhile, the catonid man, who seemed to be a local leader of sorts, guided us through the small resort town to an inn.
Asquith Town was an odd-looking place.
The small island in which it was located was supposedly known for its golden, sandy beaches, and as such the entire town was set up as a resort for tourists.
Their entire economy was based around providing services and, to that effect, there were shops and stalls everywhere.
On the beachfront stood a magnificent, modern-looking hotel that could easily have been pulled from a holiday brochure back on Earth. Its whitewashed walls and myriad of apartments and balconies gazed out over the beautiful turquoise sea in picturesque tranquillity worthy of a postcard.
Sadly, that view was a little tarnished currently as our broken ship lay marooned on the sands. Then again, considering the blackish hue tinging the sea from the corpse of the dead kraken, perhaps the ship was a blessing in disguise.
It was behind the hotel where the town really started though. Colourful stone buildings lined the cobbled streets in perfect blocks which all led out from the local religious site.
It was a magnificent cathedral whose spires added a certain gothic flare to the otherwise cartoonish town. Stained glass windows projected a purple tranquillity to the natural light that passed through it and at the very tip was a symbol that reminded me of computer coding.
Ones and zeros combined together to create an S that took pride of place over the system worshipping residents.
The local inn reminded me of a quaint bed and breakfast, the kind found in any English seaside town. It was simple and homely with a few amenities and basic rooms.
I placed Bell delicately in a bed and left her to her slumber as Sally talked with the catonid man. We discovered his name was Clive, it suited him… though for some reason I had a sudden urge to joke about his wife, despite being pretty sure he didn’t have one.
His clergyman robes of golden thread didn’t project that of a married man. Though perhaps that was my Earthen bias showing through since men of the cloth often didn’t wed where I came from.
“How is she?” Sally asked as I returned to the foyer.
“Sleeping,” I replied, “I don’t think she’s injured, probably just used too much mana sending that massive fireball at the kraken.”
“Probably,” Sally said half-heartedly.
As the day began to wane, and with no sign of Panda, Sally retired to her room to shower off the ink which plastered her skin, and I decided to have a drink with Clive.
He led me down the cobbled streets of the quiet town to a little rooftop bar which sat in the purple-orange glow of the cathedral.
“So, tell me about why you worship the system.” I said, curiosity finally getting the better of me as we sat at a small, round table on the edge of the bar.
“I’d be glad to,” Clive said with a smile, “The System is the one true god of this world. That is a simple fact that many seem to overlook when choosing their patron.
“You see my boy, there are many false gods in this world. Gods such as Athena, who take the name in vain. They are powerful of course, much more so than you and I, but there can only ever be one god.
“The false gods gained their power through the benevolence of The System, as do we all to some extent. The System guides us through the holy interface and the quests which it so lovingly imparts onto us.
“If the false gods can only gain their power from another, more powerful being, then they are really no gods at all. Thus, we here in Asquith Town have chosen the righteous path of following The System, the one, true, God.”
His speech sounded practiced as if he’d given it thousands of times before. I struggled to find fault with his argument, though of course the entire debate hinged entirely on semantics.
The idea of worshipping The System was amusing to me. The same system that made terrible jokes, gave uninformative notifications about the world around us and, who was unironically nicknamed, by yours truly, the passive aggressive Pokedex.
It was just comical.
“I see your point,” I began measuredly, “I’m an atheist myself though.”
Clive balked at that, furrowing his brow. His eyes seemed to flash with a strange… anger, for just a moment.
“An atheist?” He said incredulously, “how can you deny the existence of God? Do you not have a holy interface? Do you not commune with The System though his most blessed notifications?”
“Of course I do,” I replied lightly, “I’m not denying the existence of the system, I mean it’s right there in my head twenty-four-seven. I just don’t believe there is a such thing as gods.”
“Blasphemy!” He cried suddenly, causing me to jump back a little, “please, have some respect for our lord young adventurer.”
He caught himself and coughed politely, covering his mouth with his fist.
“I think you’ve confused respect with subservience,” I replied casually, “the entire concept of blasphemy is based on the idea of placing someone, or something, else above you in some kind of divine pecking order. Respect should be mutual, and I believe we are all born equal. Gaining power over others might make us stronger, but it doesn’t make us better or more worthy of respect.”
Clive scoffed, shaking his head as he considered his glass of green, glittering liquid. The juice they served here was truly divine, forgiving the pun and I was enjoying having an intellectual chat about faith and religion.
I usually tried to stay out of such things, especially politics, though I seemed to keep getting dragged into it anyway, but talks like this were harmless. No god was going to smite me down or anything, so what was the harm?
“If we are all born equal,” Clive began in a, once again, measured and practiced tone, “then why are we so different from one another? To deny that difference in favour of forcing an agenda of equality is rather ignorant, wouldn’t you say?
“For example, in a crowd at mass where the flock gather to watch the priest deliver his sermon, can you really say that the dwarf, who cannot see past the taller humans blocking his path, is equal to them? In that regard, I would say he is rather unequal by mere right of birth.”
I considered his argument; I’d heard something similar before.
“I think that comes down to your definition of the word,” I began, a slight smile appearing on my lips, “you’re thinking in literal terms like rich versus poor, tall versus small etcetera. However, I believe that equality is simply a mutual respect and acknowledgement that no man is better than someone else, regardless of stature or luck of birth.”
“And thus you have handed me victory in this battle of wits young man,” Clive began triumphantly, “for The System is no man.”
There he goes with his fallacies again, I thought, suppressing the urge to laugh.
“That’s just semantics,” I replied, “but maybe we should call it there, it’s getting late and I’d like to explore the town tomorrow.”
“Of course,” he said, bowing slightly and still wearing a triumphant smile on his face, “I think you’ll find our humble town to your tastes Kaleb, and should you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to ask. I am certain that by the end of your stay here you will believe in The System as I do.”
There was something oddly malicious in his eyes as he spoke those words, but only for a second. My dragon’s eye ached slightly as a light purple hue glistened on Clive’s skin during that moment and then faded away like dying embers.