“When you thrust, step in with your opposite foot,” Lex explained as Gregory mimicked her motions, “you’ll want to twist the spear slightly as you do, this’ll help you maintain a grip and provide better leverage.”

Gregory simply nodded along as he slowly stabbed out with the replacement spear Lex had given him. Apparently the convoy had quite a few, as they were expect to break or be thrown in usage, so each of the half dozen wooden carts had a few stashed in easily reachable locations. Rather than the steel tip that was all that remained of Gregory’s previous weapon these had cheaper iron ones, more prone to chipping but far cheaper.

Over the last couple days he’d gotten to know the various groups in the caravan, many were traveling traders, largely independent family owned carts but two of the wains were owned by a larger merchant’s guild that operated out of Templeholm. The differences between the two were easily noticeable, the guild carts led the caravan, had more horses, better maintained wagons and more goods in large wooden crates that bore a variety of official looking stamps. They were also the ones who’d originally hired people to serve as escort, with other traders pitching in so they could share the protection. Once word that a priest of Dalvos was taking part the size of the caravan had nearly doubled, apparently.

Not only did her presence offer greater protection than a handful of armed guards, but it have the convoy an air of legitimacy that some of the more conservative traders considered important. Open banditry wasn’t common, if only because of the threat of monsters, but each of the more cautious traders had stories of people who joined an ‘official’ caravan only to be robbed and left for dead by those who had created it. A priest of Dalvos made that impossible, since He would never allow such a perversion.

Gregory’s question about hiring a fake priest was laughed off by the traders. Later Lex explained to him that the god of truth had what sounded to him like an inquisition that hunted down those who pretended to be priests and, with rare exception, the clergy of every other god assisted them.

“No god wants their name tarnished,” she’d explained while implying that being targeted by this inquisition was to be marked for death. It didn’t matter how careful one was, if you falsely claimed a blessing, especially if you used that claim to mislead others, they would find you.

“Thanks,” Gregory said as the training session drew to a close, in the evenings Lex had begun teaching him the basics of how to fight with a spear in addition to lending him a spare.

“Last time I fought another ascender he,” Gregory paused, wondering how to describe it, “he won. Without much difficulty.”

“You’ll need more than some basic fighting skills to fight another Ascender,” Lex smirked at him, handing him a water skin after taking a long pull from it herself, “have you been testing out your abilities?”

“Ya,” he nodded, “I’ve found a couple of commands I can give that work. Like on that wolf… thing.”

During the day Lex had been busy with her escort duties, being the strongest local present, and the most trusted thanks to her status as a priest, people often turned to her for help. The rest of the time she would be scouting out the road ahead or ensuring everyone was keeping up. Occasionally she’d stop by and chat with Gregory but clearly took her job too seriously to slack off. So during that time Gregory had been messing around with his aura ability, and it’s apparent power to enforce his commands.

There were rather significant restrictions on what commands he could give. Most notably he could only manage one-word commands, and they had to be short words at that. The kind of thing he could bark at someone in a single breath. But they also had to be simple, the ones he found easiest were ‘stop’ and ‘come’ which arrested the movement of something or forced it towards him respectively. The command only lasted a few seconds, depending on how heavy what he was commanding was and how much it resisted. He could also tell that issuing commands in rapid sequence would reduce their effectiveness.

“That could be useful,” Lex noted as Gregory finished his explanation, “proper use of that ability could give you an edge.”

“I… don’t know,” Gregory replied, “seems too situational for regular use.”

“Hardly, I think it’s a very powerful ability,” she countered, “telling an enemy’s sword to stop, even for a fraction of a second, could turn around a fight. You could throw your spear and then order it to come back, or pull someone off balance.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” admitted Gregory.

“Never look down on any ability you have,” Lex told him, “every ability, no matter how minor, is an expression of your soul’s power. Your nature will guide you in how to use it, but to evolve it you must make it your own.”

\*\*\*\*\*

The church of Guidance looked almost like an afterthought, compared to the various grand cathedrals that covered the top of the massive stone of Templeholm. A small previously unused annex that had been converted into a proper, if small, church.

“The Church of Guidance isn’t very active this far from the World Wood,” the priest explained, “their presence here is more token than anything.”

“Easily the smallest,” Nathen nodded, then gestured over his shoulder to a cluster of six steeples that towered over the rest of the buildings, “especially compared to those.”

“Those are the temples to the elemental deities,” the bishop explained, “there weren’t many gods of man when Templeholm was founded, but those were, and remain, the most powerful.”

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

“Gods of man?” the ascender asked.

“Like the one you visited, they are aspects of man. Compared to the Gods of Nature, or the elemental gods, who represent the six foundational aspects of the world.”

“I thought there were only four classic elements.”

“Perhaps in your world,” the bishop chuckled, “here we have six, fire and water, earth and air, and light and dark. I am one of those few blessed by the god of air.”

“Shouldn’t the more powerful gods have more people with blessings?”

“The Gods of Nature aren’t like the Gods of Man, they don’t require worship. If every human is killed the Gods of Man would fade away but not the Gods of Nature, so long as the world exists so to shall they. This makes them powerful, but also unconcerned with the affairs of mortals.”

“So why hand out blessings at all?”

“Because of the Tempest King, have you not been told of the pact he made?” the older man looked at Nathen in confusion, “if not I suggest you ask your lady friend about it, or perhaps another member of the church of guidance. I’d tell you but I fear my views are somewhat biased.”

“Eh,” Nathen shrugged, despite his curiosity he figured this was all just lore. The Tempest king was just some historical figure on which aspects important to the setting could be based. Interesting to the lore of the game but not critical to his playtest.

“In any case, here we are,” the bishop said as they reached the entrance to the church of guidance. While it was smaller than the church of freedom it was much better tended with a well-lit interior and clean floors. The bishop said his farewell and left as Nathen strode into the small building.

“Nathen!” the woman he’d escorted shouted, waving to him as she emerged from a side room with a leather pouch, “here, your payment.”

“Ah, sweet,” he replied, opening it to inspect the various odd coins present, “what about that sword thing?”

“Oh, the sky blade?” she asked, looking uncomfortable, “about that…”

“It’s more complex than just scouring the archives,” another voice carried from the room the woman had emerged from and soon enough a middle-aged man emerged, wearing the same plain brown robes as the woman and a shiny, bald head.

“The Vault of the Sky Blade moves around, if legend is to be believed,” he continued, “it is also supposed to test those who do find it, only allow those worthy to wield the weapon. Many have gone searching for it, yet there have only been three confirmed instances of it being used since the Tempest King ascended.”

“I thought there were more,” the woman replied.

“There are dozens of people who have claimed to either have it or have seen someone who had it,” the man corrected, “but there are only three times it’s been confirmed. All we know about the vault, that is confirmed anyways, is that it is found in places with lots of monsters, tends to be atop large hills or mountains and is very difficult to breach. If you have only just arrived in this world I recommend you get stronger before you go looking, as simply finding the vault can be dangerous.”

“Mmmm,” Nathen hummed as he thought, with all of those qualifiers and lore the sky vault sounded like a high-level dungeon, the kind of thing you weren’t supposed to seek out until you reached level cap. But so far he’d seen no evidence that there was any kind of level, it could have been hidden behind the facet system but that seemed unlikely.

“Indeed, I would like to hire you for a job, seeing as you’re already involved,” the priest continued, “the claim that young Elizebeth here is of royal blood is concerning to me. If true it could cause trouble with our temple, but I have heard nothing that would indicate one way or the other.”

“It’s not true!” the woman insisted.

“And I tend to believe you,” he assured her, “but if we are to shelter you here we need to be seen at least making an attempt to ascertain the truth. If it is false then we can provide protection under the guise of protecting one of our own, but if it does turn out to the true then we can signal that you wish to withdraw your claim and are simply keeping you here to ensure you can’t be used either way.”

“If you can shelter me either way then why do you need to know which it is?”

“Because if we admit we don’t know, and aren’t attempt to look for the truth, then it looks like we’re deliberately interfering with kingdom politics. The protections afforded by the nature of Templeholm are great, but not infinite. If they can claim we’re interfering in secular politics they can demand we hand you over, or attempt to have us sanctioned.”

“That’s…” Elizebeth started, but didn’t argue, looking at the ground in despair.

“Which is why I’d like to hire you to investigate, Master Nathen,” the priest continued, looking at the Ascender, “you are already involved, giving you at least some insight into the matter. I also understand you may have offended the Holy Kingdom of Norwach, by taking on this task you might be able to regain some goodwill, as I’m sure many of their nobility are also interested to know the truth. At the very least they’ll be forced to accept that you mean well.”

“Please Nathen?” Elizebeth pleaded, “I just want them to leave me alone.”

“You will, of course, be paid for your service, either way,” the older priest added, “Guidance might be a small church, but we have plenty to offer a newly arrived Ascender.”

“I think I’ll pass,” Nathen said after a long moment’s thought.

“But you-,” Elizebeth started only to be silenced by a glare from the priest.

“Of course, we understand,” he said, “It’s late, so feel free to stay the night if nothing else.”

Nathen ended up taking them up on the offer, enjoying a night in a proper bed and a couple meals before leaving the next morning. The whole time Elizebeth avoided him, seeming either angry or ashamed, but Nathen didn’t think too hard about it.

In truth, the whole ‘investigation’ thing sounded like a puzzle quest of some kind, lots of traveling and working through dialog trees. Given there were no dialog prompts in this game, being very freeform, that promised to be even more tedious. If there were walkthroughs available then maybe, but it just sounded annoying. The quest for the Vault of the Sky Blade sounded much more exciting. He’d seen mountains north of the city, and he’d bet anything they were teaming with monsters. That sounded like exactly the kind of place the vault would be, the only clues given were that it was found around monsters and atop mountains.

Now that he had money from the escort quest he could stock up on extra weapons, since the durability system here was rough, supplies incase the drops didn’t favor him and perhaps even a proper set of armor. The leathers he was wearing were fine but more in line with rogues than warriors using long blades like him. There was no shopping to be found atop the massive pillar, so he made his way to the lift they’d taken to get up.

On the way there he ran into a familiar face, just getting off the lift.

“Oh, hey!” Nathen waved to the other Ascender he’d fought, “fancy seeing you here!”

“Uhhh…” Gregory looked panicked as their eyes met, the woman next to him looking confused.

“Sorry about that quest, PvP happens,” Nathen smiled, “No hard feelings?”

“Sure,” Gregory said slowly as Nathen stepped onto the elevator platform.

“Oh, the blessing system might not be working,” Nathen called out as the platform began to lower, “just word of warning.”

“What?” Gregory asked, but Nathen had turned to look out over the lower city as the platform took him down.

“You know him?” Lex asked.

“That’s the other Ascender I met… and fought.”

“The one who beat you?”

“Yup.”

“He seemed friendly enough.”

“What did he mean about the blessing system not working?” Gregory asked.

“No idea,” Lex shrugged.