(Marty)

"Nies?"

Yes?

"Are you only in my mind right now?" I ask, and Noah gives me a funny look.

Yeah. It's only been six days. I agreed to seven.

"Would you mind looking at where I am right now?"

Why?

"A pleasant surprise."

Okay. Looking… IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?

"Ow!" I put my hands over my hears. "You just yelled right in my head, Nies!"

Yay! I'm so happy! Someone made me an altar! And it's a whole shrine! That is so cool!

"He likes it," I tell Noah, who snorts. "Do you like our offering, too?"

SO MUCH FOOD!

The food vanishes off the altar.

"I can tell," Noah chuckles. "I heard that one."

"He's happily chowing down on it," I tell Noah. "I can hear it."

THIS IS WHY YOU DIDN'T WANT ANYONE SEEING ANYTHING! Nies yells again. I LOVE THIS SURPRISE! Oh! That's why you think it'd draw Gavin out, isn't it? I keep telling you about Gavin's promises of food offerings to me, and so you know that if word got around that there's a shrine and an altar to me, he'd come and make offerings. It's so clever!

"Thanks, Nies."

I knew picking you was the right idea! Now to wait it out…

A pair of tigers appear in the cave, sitting to either side of the altar. A moment later, they turn to stone, and the smoke from the braziers vanishes entirely, the air becoming crisper, cleaner, refreshing.

At the same time, a power akin to what I felt when Nies approached me fills the cave, and Noah and I look at each other.

"Nies?"

Yeah?

"What did you just do?"

I approve of your shrine. It's now a Blessed Shrine, that is, a real one. The tigers will act as watchmen. Gavin shows up, they'll let me know. I'm going back to eating this food, then gonna take a nap. Bye.

"Huh," I say. "I didn't know that was a thing."

"What was?" Noah asks. "And is that his power I'm feeling in here?"

"Yes," I look around. "It is. This is an official shrine to Nies, and he's given it his blessing. I think he's mostly happy that he's got an altar again, and that it'll probably draw Gavin out."

Noah nods, and we return to town, heading to a restaurant to eat our first good meal after starting the altar, especially since all of the good food we harvested or hunted went onto that altar.

During dinner, we tell a couple of adventurers we know from the Quest Board about the shrine to Nies, and that he likes good food. Though no one here was particularly religious before Nies showed up a year and some months ago, they do believe that offering up prayers to Nies might grant them good luck on Quests.

An actual offering? There will definitely be trips to the shrine, and not infrequent ones. The people of this region of the world favor quests, and now that they can do Quests, it will be a huge thing. Nies giggles up a storm quite a lot about his sudden influx of followers.

It could be temporary, but seeing as he's a god of quests, and the people here like quests, it's unlikely to fade anytime soon. Even if this is temporary, he's still happy, and that makes me happy, in more than one way.

We finish dinner, then make our way back to the temple and meet up with Sensei.

"Marty," he says. "Gavin. How did your adventure the last week go?"

"Pretty well," I answer. "And I think Gavin here has calmed down a fair bit."

Noah shoots me an angry look, but it's true. Working on the altar and shrine helped him to calm himself and focus himself. He needed something to focus his mind in order to calm down. Yeah, he'd get mad, but it only made him want to work on it even harder.

Meditation and martial arts training isn't the kind of thing that could do it to Noah. He needs something he can do to prove to himself he's better than it at, something that doesn't really involve people.

Working as a team was awkward at first, but we got a rhythm down, and managed to complete it a day sooner than I expected. It isn't often a calculation of mine dealing with stuff like that turns out wrong.

"I wasn't going to lose to the tools," Noah states. "I'm going to go lie down."

"Same," I say, then look at Sensei, handing him a slip of paper. "This is the location of the shrine, it's just a few hours outside of town, in some caves. Nies won't be happy if someone sets up a settlement around it, so I located it where someone can get there and back during the same day."

Sensei takes the slip, and I head to the room to sleep.

Over the next week, word goes around about the shrine, while Noah and I relax from our work, but also practice our arts as Chain Monks. We've both been so active the last year or so, it's hard for us to be idle, and we agreed to not take on Quests for a week after completing it.

Nies is happy as can be the entire time. I can't go an hour without hearing his giggling in my mind. He even has a tiger roaming the streets today. It isn't taking people trying to touch it, but only snapped at me when I decided to pet it. Then, he just nuzzled his head into my hand and purred.

Champion of Nies earns me points with his sacred animal.

"Nies?"

Yeah?

"Are tigers considered your sacred animal?"

Of course! I made them for Ultarna forever ago!

"Ah," I say. "The beastborn goddess you were telling me about?"

I don't remember telling you, but yeah! And after Gavin helped her out and did her Quest and freed her chosen people, the ones who actually worship her and have for thousands of years, she's been in a super-good mood! We're cuddling right now! She keeps tickling me with her tail! She also-

"I don't think I want more details on that," I say. "Sorry."

That's fine! By the way, your stats say you're eighteen. When was your birthday?

"My birthday doesn't matter much to me," I tell him. "Though it wasn't that long ago."

Gavin's birthday wasn't that long ago, either. His birthday doesn't mean much to him, either.

"You mentioned it to me," I say. "You actually talked about his birthday on it. You wanted to give him a present."

I did?

"Yeah," I nod. "You wouldn't tell me what it was, though. Gavin and I share a birthday, actually."

Seriously?

"Yeah," I nod. "And we're the same age, too. Are you going to name any official priests or other Champions or such who share our birthday?"

Uh… I didn't know your birthday when I did that. Nor did I know Gavin's when I named his. It's the random odds from probability that did it.

"It's… the what?"

The random odds from probability. The universe and all of existence is one big mass of chaos. Everything is determined by probability, the odds of something happening, as a result of free will and flexible rules. Otherwise, everything that happens would be the exact same. Random. Chaotic. Probability. Probability is the odds of something happening.

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"Like your Hero and I sharing a birthday," I say. "Or someone who could be mistaken for your Hero having the same name as him."

Yup! I still can't figure out… his name isn't Gavin, is it?

"No, it's not," I snort, and Noah looks at me. "He figured it out."

"Ah," Noah says.

"Nies," I say. "Your Hero paid him to call himself Gavin."

When Gavin returns, I'm going to throttle him.

"You're going to throttle your own Hero?"

He'll be fine. It's not like… huh. I just noticed, but while I was in the blackout, Gavin removed the time limits from his Quests. How did he even figure out how to do that? Seriously?

"Remove the time limit from his Quests?" I ask. "What do you mean?"

I did that to the Blood Quest he had, Nies explains. And while I had the area in a blackout, Gavin apparently did something to cause the same circumstances. He no longer has a time limit on his other two major Quests. He did show up. Did you see him? He'd have needed the altar for it.

"As soon as we finished the altar," I say. "We put the food on it. I contacted you right after that, Gavin-Noah and I were there the entire time."

Crap.

"What?"

You left after that, right?

"Yeah."

I was still in the blackout. I know you only wanted it until you finished, and that was the true intention behind it, but I figured, do it for another day, since that was the agreement. Gavin must have snuck in there during that.

"You were still in the blackout?"

Yeah. But I didn't tell you that, 'cause I figured you'd think I wasn't anymore.

"Yeah, I did," I tell him. "So Gavin knew, and slipped in to do that when you weren't looking?"

Yeah.

"And you didn't have to approve of the change?"

No, Nies answers. Since they were regular Quests, I didn't have to. His offering was good enough, as well as the sacrifice he wished for them. Actually, the idiot went overboard, and didn't need to go that far. Blood Quests or Divine Quests, yeah, but those were just weird Quests that spawned him out of nowhere. The System is still trying to figure out how that happened. I keep telling it's because Gavin's probably going to become a Divine. High Quests usually only appear on people who-

"He's what?" I ask. "He's going to become a Divine?"

What? Nies asks. Oh, yeah, that. Gavin's meeting the same requirements as the others who almost did, but they all died before they ascended to Divinity. I don't think Gavin subscribes to something as simple as death, though. Pretty sure nothing short of a Divine Smite could actually keep him dead, and there isn't a Divine Being around who'd be stupid enough to smite the protege of Chaos.

I am so confused right now.

"You can become a god?" I ask.

Theoretically, Nies answers, and I sense him nodding and stroking something that's not a cat, but similar. Ultarna, maybe? It's never happened for sure. Gavin meets the circumstances we believe are necessary for it. Others have, before, but they all died before ascending to Divinity. The only people to receive High Quests like those were the others who met the same set of circumstances Gavin does. We're not sure what the final thing is that's needed, but Father says Gavin might actually ascend to Divinity, unlike the others. He's watching them.

"Who's your father?"

Dad.

I'm not going to get an answer out of him.

"Go back to cuddling Lady Ultarna," I tell Nies. "I'll keep an eye out for your Hero."

Okay!

He falls silent, and I look at Noah and start to speak

How did you know I was cuddling her?

"You told me, Nies," I say. "And I could sense you stroking her tail and scratching behind her ears."

Oh!

I snort, and look at Noah.

"Nies is so much more energetic than he has been," I say. "I think he really likes having an altar."

Noah snorts.

We head into town to talk with people, quite a few of whom want to talk with me just because I'm Nies's Champion, and then I complete a couple of Quests before returning to town for dinner. Noah was helping repair a roof while I was collecting items, and meets up with me for food.

We talk about our activities, and over the next few weeks, fall into a routine. Mine mostly consists of trying to get away from the people wanting to get advice on Quests or on issues with a promise they made.

A month after Nies told me about Gavin possibly one day ascending to Divinity, a shift in routine occurs. A duo arrives in town, people unlike anyone seen here before. Word reached me, as the people figured that people who aren't normal might be people I might know something about.

When I go to look at them, I'm stopped in my tracks. One of them has black, triangular ears atop his head, bright blue eyes, a bushy, black wolf's tail, and black hair atop his head. He's got a guarded look on his face, a sword strapped across his back. He's dressed in all-black, and seems pretty dangerous.

The beastborn is definitely someone I'd not be able to fight, in my current form.

His companion has golden hair with a few strawberry highlights, his eyes a rich emerald in color. Beside his right eye is a swirling, raised green mark that has a sort of sparkle to it. Glittery. The fairy is dressed in a pair of dark green shorts and a dark blue vest with dark green cords tying the center together, loosely.

"Hello," I greet them, and they look to me from the woman they were speaking with. The beastborn looks around fifteen or sixteen, while the fairy looks around ten to twelve, at most. "How are you two?"

"I'm sorry," the beastborn steps forward, his piercing gaze attempting to stare into my soul. "We were speaking with someone. Who are you?"

"Marty," I introduce myself. "Hello, Gretel."

"Marty," she dips her head to me. "I will let you speak with them."

"Too young," the beastborn says. "To be a leader around here. Why is she – and others – giving you a level of respect? They seem to almost revere you."

"Champion of Nies," the fairy says. "The spirits are saying that he's the Champion of Nies. They're saying there's something weird about him, too, almost as if he's living a dual-life."

In an instant, the beastborn has his sword drawn, aimed at me.

"I don't care if you're a Champion of Nies," he says. "There isn't a chance in hell I'm going to trust someone the spirits can't read properly."

"So they can sense it, huh?" I ask, and he snarls. "I've undergone something akin to having my Access reset. I needed to calm myself down, center myself. I felt undergoing such a thing would help me with that. I wouldn't have access to all the power I'd acquired. Starting over from scratch, and training with the monks and doing Quests here has helped me immensely. Perhaps you should look into that, Michael? You seem to have a few issues."

"How do you know my name?" Michael demands to know.

"Appraisal, you dolt," Warren snorts, then frowns, looking at me again. "You suddenly looked annoyed."

"I have a god giggling in my head," I say. "Speaking of, Nies – you didn't tell me people from another region of the world were here. You said you were monitoring all travel."

Oh, right. By the way, Gavin's two friends are looking for him. Well, his two closest teammates. By the way, the Fairy is actually nearly nineteen. Fairies just look like kids. Michael's about a year older than you, by the way – as a wolf beastborn, his aging slows during puberty, and after, too.

"Understood," I say. "I'm guessing you led them here?"

Actually, Michael knew how to get here on his own. He heard my name while they were passing through, and realized that Gavin might be around, though it's really because of you. He speaks the language here, Warren's using the Gift of Tongues from a Spirit to communicate. He can only do it in bits and pieces, though.

"Understood," I say, then focus on the two adventurers. "Welcome to this region of the world. If you're friends of Gavin's, I assume you have some relation with Nies?"

"Not like Gavin," Michael answers, still holding his sword. "Tell us what you know."

"I know," I say. "That if you hurt me, Nies won't be happy. I'm his Champion. I actually turned a quest board into an official Quest Board through his power. He's tasked me with locating Gavin. I recently built a shrine to Nies, with an altar within it. Nies believes that it will help lure Gavin out. It seems the Hero of Nies has been missing for nearly two years, now."

"He has," Michael puts his sword away, but still looks to be on-guard. "And we have stuff to deal with. This disappearing act of his is bothersome. I doubt you have Appraisal five or higher, how did you know Warren's name?"

"I communicate with a Divine regularly," I say. "How do you know I didn't already know his name?"

He doesn't have a response to that.

"Would you two like to see the altar?" I ask. "Perhaps make an offering to Nies? He's favorable to sweets."

Michael resists, but relents when Warren confirms that he would like to, as it might draw Gavin out of hiding.

We purchase some sticky rolls, then begin the trek to the caves. Noah is there when we arrive, and gives them curious looks.

"We have Fairies back home," he tells me. "I've never seen one with a mark like his, though."

"It's special," Warren smiles. "Using it, I can do some pretty dangerous things."

Noah enters the caves with us, and we walk until we reach the altar. The boys put their offerings on the altar, where the food immediately vanishes.

"Whoa!" Michael jumps back, sword in hand. "What just happened?"

"It's an official shrine," I explain. "Offerings immediately disappear into Nies's domain. He only likes food offerings, though will occasionally accept something else, I'm sure. The other day, he threw a fit because someone decided to be mean and put a basket of old fish on the altar. Soiled up some of the other offerings he had waiting for him to eat. He was not happy about that. That person… we'll not discuss it."

He got what he deserved. I'm taking a nap.

I snort, then look at Michael.

"Jumpy, are we?"

"You have no idea," he says. "What we've been through. Warren might be quick to trust others, but I'm not, and I will protect Warren. We both have a few choice words for Gavin."

"Why?" I ask.

"Other than simply disappearing on us?" He asks. "Warren and I both like Gavin, and those feelings have persisted. Gavin is different from others, even if he's got a vicious temper. Never, ever get on his wrong side. He has the power to destroy Demigods, I'm sure.

"But past that," he sheathes his sword. "Gavin's smart, he's intelligent, he's caring and compassionate, and loving. He's protective of those he cares about, and won't stand for anything to hurt or wrong them."

"Him being incredibly hot doesn't help," Warren shrugs. "Michael and I were both going to tell him how we felt, the next time we saw him, but when we contacted Nies last month, when Gavin still hadn't returned, he said that he was still alive, just… missing."

"Yeah," Michael nods. "And I was so wanting to tell him, too! Plus, he made Warren cry, and I want to beat some sense into Gavin for doing that!"

"Made Warren cry?" I ask.

"Yeah!" Michael nods. "Warren was crying when he found out Gavin was missing! How could Gavin just figure out a way to evade the sight of the Divine, and not at least tell us? And why wouldn't he return? It's been almost two years since he sent Tyler our way, so that his king could get stronger! I don't understand it!"

More like you want to be around him again. You should-

Formshift is now Level 2!

You can take on one additional form!

Total Forms Available: 1

You can now remove one more form!

Total Form Removals Left: 1

It's about damn time!