image [https://i.imgur.com/SZibBh3.jpg]

Throughout our flight, Odum chanted in our minds. He didn’t react or comment about his villagers tearing apart his city. He stuck to the talking points about the virtues of servitude. Odum might not poll well with nonbelievers, but I had to admit, the demagogue-in-chief stayed on message.

When I heard chunks of stone falling beneath us, I earnestly worried. The building shook. I doubted we could get away and hide somewhere. Fabulosa and I still radiated green.

Fabulosa turned to me. “Is your Slipstream up?”

I checked my cooldown. It still had a minute left. I shook my head. I scanned the neighborhood for a neighboring building. They stood too far for running jumps. Only Slipstream could deliver us to the next rooftop. Assuming the structures could withstand enough pounding to let Slipstream’s 5-minute cooldown reset, we could hopscotch across the city.

“Wait, a second. Before we do this—where do we want to go?”

The building shifted.

Fabulosa’s eyes widened. “Anywhere but here.”

“Yeah, I know that. But we can’t come back to this building again. We’re burning our bridges as we move.”

The building shook as if to emphasize my point. The shock caused us to throw up our arms for balance. We scanned the horizon. The temple became the obvious answer. We could now enter it, and it looked stronger than other buildings. Besides, Odum wouldn’t want any Samsons bringing down his house, would he?

“What about the temple?” I asked, knowing of no alternative. As the roof vibrated beneath our feet, I counted a dozen buildings between our position and the temple walls. While it looked like we could reach them, the blemmies could surround and pound each one. That these weren’t proper buildings made it impossible to know their sturdiness.

Fabulosa gestured to the street. “Maybe we can kite them around town. That’s a lot more experience points down there.” Judging by the concentration of blemmies, her Fireball could hit dozens—each would lose about 5 percent of their health. If I took Fireball, we’d only need to cast 10 each to kill them in bunches. It wasn’t a crazy idea. By the time I hit level 23, I had three power points, and Fireball had been available for a long time—it practically begged me to take it.

I looked down. So many blemmies attacked below that our Fireballs couldn’t hit them all. Nor would we be efficient enough to land on the same blemmies as they chased us across the city.

A structural shift in the building interrupted my thoughts.

Fabulosa began casting Fireball on the rabble below us.

“Stop! No!”

She canceled her cast and waited for me to explain.

“Fab, this is going to be one long combat. There’s no Rest and Mend between buildings. Slipstream costs 30 mana a pop. We need to conserve if we’re making a dozen jumps. What’s your mana pool?”

“It’s 270.” Fabulosa frowned. For a dozen jumps, she would need 360 mana. My pool stretched to 320, so I could make it with a minor mana potion. Fabulosa could not.

We considered our options when we felt something heavy crash beneath our feet.

Fabulosa threw her arms up for balance. “Wait! The cooldown for potions is ten minutes. I can take a potion every two buildings. How many mana pots do we have?”

We counted two dozen between us, which solved our Slipstream issue, but we didn’t have enough to sustain a Fireball bombardment against the slobbering masses.

I recovered after the footing beneath my feet shifted. “My cooldown is up. Once we cross the city, the buildings we land on won’t last. Are you good with going to the temple?”

“I don’t see any other way. Let’s go.”

We Slipstreamed to the structure across the street. Unfortunately, none of the buildings stood next to one another, so we couldn’t hop onto adjacent rooftops. That would be too easy.

After we jumped, the blemmies focused on their new target with undiminished zeal. From our vantage, we could see the extent of the destruction. Their efforts mushroomed the previous building’s base. If we jumped onto a thin structure, the blemmies needed less time to collapse it.

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When our Slipstream cooldowns finished, Fabulosa and I jumped again. The blemmies followed.

We spent the next hour leapfrogging over the blemmies toward the temple, from one building to its neighbor, all the while enduring the booming voice. We suffered the self-aggrandizing announcements from The Almighty Odum—monotonous be His dialog.

“Immutable is the reign of Odum, blessed be His name.

Embrace the splendor of bondage,

Freedom from choice and worldly concerns.”

Ignite your unrealized devotion,

And cast yourself upon His ever-burning pyre.”

Fabulosa ran her fingers through her hair and yelled at the temple. “Argh! I wish you would hush up! Give it a rest, already!”

The hypnotic and distracting voice wore down my nerves as well. We listened to it while waiting for our cooldowns. The shaking building broke our reverie and prompted us to make the next jump.

I thumbed to the headless besieger below. “If I have to listen to Odum any longer, I’ll end up just like them.”

At last, we landed on one of the temple’s partial wall sections. Unlike standard castle walls, no ledges, handrails, or crenelations prevented people from falling. The sandstone barriers were decorative, not functional.

We sighed in relief when the blemmies stopped following us once we reached the temple walls. Forming along what I assumed to be the outer perimeter of the hallowed ground, the blemmies stood like well-trained dogs at the invisible boundary of the neighbor’s yard. They made no noises or gestures.

As we waited for our Slipstream cooldowns to expire, it surprised us to see the crowd dispersing. When the first few peeled off, I worried they were bringing missiles or summoning a priest that would grant them passage through the holiest of holies. Instead of reinforcements, they left.

I scanned the city streets. “Their job is done. They delivered us to Odum.”

“I hope they don’t mind us bouncing Odum into the air. We both have Compression Sphere this time. Remember when you did that to Tardee at the Lady of Balance temple?”

I smiled at the memory. “Let me go first. If the blemmies change their collective mind and rush me, I can reset Hot Air and escape.”

Fabulosa nodded and got a rope ready, just in case. I leaped from the walls. When I neared the ground, I Slipstreamed safely onto the sand. I looked up to Fabulosa to see if the blemmies reacted. She searched the city streets for signs of movement, shook her head, and shrugged.

I shouted to Fabulosa so she could hear me over Odum’s sermon. “Let me check out the temple first. We’ll see if that’s making them berserk.” I ascended a wide stairway leading to the yawning entrance. Before the Mote in Odum’s Eye debuff reduced us to living dolls, it came up to our chest, but now it seemed enormous.

Behind me, I heard a whoosh of air as Fabulosa Slipstreamed to a standing position. “The blemmies lit out for the city. The stragglers aren’t doing anything. I reckon we can take ‘em if they jump us.” When I gave her a concerned look, she rolled her eyes. “Check your combat state. We can Rest and Mend before checking out the temple.”

I did. The game log showed us leaving combat a minute ago.

Unlike the city buildings, the interior space of the temple looked realistic. The polished white and gold tiles reflected green light from a marble sculpture in the temple’s interior. The statue rested at the bottom of a recessed floor section, which a balcony overlooked.

We approached the terrace overlooking the glowing green sculpture. Below us, primitive paintings depicting war victories covered the walls, yet no stairs led down to the statue. The temple’s upper floor held only candelabras. Each brightened the temple’s corners, adding orange accent lights to contrast with the statue’s green radiance.

As our eyes adjusted to the glow, I studied the seated figure. Odum’s furry bench wasn’t a recliner but a headless, hooved animal whose facial features covered its chest and stomach. Hair matted its four stout legs.

Atop the beast sat a giant blemmy. From our 6-inch-high perspective, it appeared twenty-five feet high. No nameplate appeared over it, so we couldn’t judge its level or health. Behind the statue hung a giant gong and mallet. They almost certainly kicked off the boss fight.

I turned to Fabulosa. “Can you reach him with an arrow from here? Maybe we can cheese him from up here and forgo the whole boss fight.”

Fabulosa shook her head. “Even if I could damage someone without a nameplate, my arrow needs a valid target. It’s a statue.”

The expansive floor space seemed like a movie studio or an airplane hangar. Aside from a repeating pattern of marble tiles, the area with the statue looked devoid of decoration.

“Do you think the blemmies went down there somehow? Why is there so much empty room?”

Fabulosa didn’t seem overly impressed. “It’s a boss fight area. Maybe they toss one another down there when sacrifices to the specters get boring.”

We circled the balcony and contemplated the statue like our circuit around the city. We wanted to check out the temple from every angle before committing ourselves to the pit.

The temple’s top-level caught our attention, except for the candelabras. Fabulosa inspected them with unusual attention. The wrought iron objects had four candles stuck on metal spikes. Fabulosa picked up a candle and blew on the flame, but it wouldn’t extinguish. “Everburning candles. Let’s take these for Hawkhurst.” She held her hand over the flame as if it weren’t hot. Like the fountains surrounding the city, the light came from an illusionary fire.

The candelabra’s top wobbled on its base when she removed the candle. She shifted the top piece and seemed lost in thought.

“What’s up?”

“I have an idea for what we can do with them.”

I sighed with impatience. The candelabras would cheer up our town hall or make light posts outdoors, but we weren’t browsing for decorations. I wanted Odum’s chant out of my mind. We could collect souvenirs on the way out.

Fabulosa removed the candles and lifted the top piece off the base shaft. “The stick and candelabra are separate pieces. See?” As we circled the room, she disassembled it and placed its parts in her inventory.

As we circled, I sized up our opponent’s probable combat mechanics. I imagined how we would battle and how it came to life. We could reach the belly of the mounted mammoth, across which stretched its facial features. Fighting beneath a giant animal’s face wasn’t appealing.

The floor’s repeating tile pattern made it easy to estimate its space to be thirty yards square. We dropped a rope into the area and secured it to the railing. I could use my robe in a pinch to reset my Hot Air ability to levitate out, but I would probably need to reset something for the boss fight.