“You can’t just casually drop something like that on me and pass out Raelitha, you made me worry.” The Cleaver was carrying the tiny Laraweian on her back, covered by Fiannah’s coat.

Raelitha had just woken up, she yawned. “Where are we Lady Fiannah? I remember us having a conversation and then everything faded to black…”

Fiannah made an upwards motion, tossing Raelitha further up her back to adjust her grip and focusing the translator’s weight on her good leg. Then, she replied: “Well, Lady Raelitha, you were just telling me about how your mentor and his pals had, you know, killed a god when you suddenly collapsed of exhaustion. Now we’re crawling through this corridor looking for more stuff that I can give my pet nerd when I find him, and also said nerd."

“That is what they did, yes.” There wasn’t a drop of irony or grandeur in her voice, then her eyes widened with realization and she said: “I’m not a lady, Lady Fiannah!” To which the blonde warrior replied:

"Yeah, well, if you hung out with me you’d realize I’m not one either. It’s just a dumb title. Just call me Fiannah, Fia, Fin, Annah, Fuckface. Anything but Lady Whatever. Oh, also you can’t use Fifi, that’s for my parents.”

Raelitha laughed. Fiannah thought: her third real laugh, I’m glad. “Oh Fia, how could I not steal your parents’ nickname? Fifi is adorable, especially when contrasted with a large woman like you. Also, feel free to call me any nickname you like, I never had one.” Fiannah thanked the Wrathful Eye that this ancient woman I found in these ruins of the Torments couldn’t see her blush while Fiannah carried her. Not the time, Fifi.

“AHEM, anyway umm, Litha? No, I’m gonna workshop that. Back to the matter at hand, one, what the Torments with the whole killing god thing? And two, please hop off my back now that you’re awake, my leg is throbbing like a bitch.”

“Oh, I’m sorry!” Raelitha slid down her - for all intents and purposes - rescuer’s back and patted herself to shake loose anything stuck to her clothes. There wasn’t really any substantial amount of dust, it was a completely instinctual motion.

They reached a musty room. It smelled of mushrooms and rotting meat. Crawler hatchlings lay on the floor, dead. Killed by Durkhann I’ll bet, Fiannah thought. Raelitha talked as Fiannah nonchalantly examined the corpses. “My mentor was an official runeweaver for the council. Not the only one, there were always thirteen. If any one of them died or retired, another highly praised runeweaver was promoted.”

Without looking away from the crawler corpse, Fiannah commented: “I’m honestly surprised they had the option to retire. The way you described this council made me assume it was a ‘for life’ sorta deal.” And dropped the carcass while wrapping a chunk of its meat with her scarf. Nothing useful to us other than this… She couldn’t parse any information about Durkhann’s (or whoever it was who did this) methods.

“Well, retirement really meant exile and only actually happened if they committed heresy or disrespected the council’s authority… Which was pretty much considered heresy.”

Fiannah’s left eyelid twitched. “I see, so I wasn’t that far off.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Raelitha sighed. “No, you weren’t. So, my mentor gathered another five of the Council’s runeweavers - friends of his he knew he could trust. Together they worked in secret, to devise a plan to find, and murder God.”

Fiannah still hadn’t gotten used to how casually this woman talked about killing divine beings. “Say,” she started, “the gods I know of are pretty uh… Sturdy, I’d say. How could six guys with runes be enough to even find one, let alone kill them?”

Raelitha started emulating Fiannah’s behavior and was examining the room as they talked. Using the light orb to illuminate it. She didn’t seem to have many qualms about touching the dead crawlers with her bare hands and was lifting them to see if she could find out what sort of room they found themselves in. It looked like a research station - used for registering and analyzing new runes or chemicals - to her, but there was way too much crawler guts to tell for sure.

Finally she replied: “God lived in the ‘deepest hearth of the world in a cave that spits fire and earth.’” She put on a mock aristocratic voice. She’s cute when not trembling in fear. Fiannah Smiled, Raelitha continued. “That was just code for a volcanic cave, I think. I hadn’t actually seen it, but my mentor and his group managed to track the right one down. This took several years, especially because they had to do it under wraps to avoid being executed.”

Fiannah felt her pain and tiredness get to her, so she cleared up a little corner of the room to give enough space for her and Raelitha to sit down, making a pillow with her coat again. “Itha, let’s rest here for a bit. I’ll set up traps on either entrance and we can sleep without issue… Nope, that nickname’s trash too.”

The translator wordlessly sat down on the pillow-coat and grasped her legs as she continued: “Then they made a machine I'm not too familiar with, using runes they hadn’t shown the council, and murdered the divine bastard. They marked themselves with the same scar they gave God, and started calling themselves ‘The Scar Upon the Back of God, as they brewed a revolution against the Council. I don’t know how that ended… Due to, you know.’”

Fiannah did the thing she always does when confused, two slow blinks. Scar Upon the Back of God? Didn’t Durkhann have a scar on his back too? The Cleaver kept that thought to herself “That’s it? They just used runes? Must be some really kickass runes then.”

Raelitha responded that “well, like I said, I don’t quite know how they work, I was petrified before I had a chance to start my apprenticeship.” Her eyes looked desolate again. “I don’t even know how that happened, Fia. I don’t know if there’s some petrification rune or something like it out there. I’m just a servant.”

Fiannah felt a tingle on the back of her neck. She had a sudden memory of how her family, and her when she was younger, used to treat their servants. She still felt guilty, but hadn’t had the guts to do something about it. She was ruminating on her own weakness in the back of her mind. “You’re not just a servant, Rae. You don’t have to be. When we leave this place we’ll get you a good job.” And maybe I’ll use my status for something worthy for once.

“I like Rae!” Rae smiled, wide, for a second, then her mood soured again: “alas I am afraid of coming to the surface. I don’t even know how long I’ve been… gone, it seems the world will be unrecognizable to me. Oh!” Her face lit up. “You said there were two of us here, right? I just remembered that.”

Fiannah was struggling to stay awake, her body was trying to shut down, but she was powering through it. This is my chance to make sure my gut is wrong, Fiannah pondered, hoping Rae wouldn’t recognize the name: “Yeah… Some shirtless asshole. Called himself Durkhann. Probably cracked two or three of my ribs.”

Rae added shock to her array of expressions in this conversation: “Durkhann? That’s my mentor!”

Fiannah rubbed her eyes with her index finger and thumb. “Oh for fu-”