I don’t know what I expected when I entered the audience chamber, but it certainly wasn’t the sight of three tired and haggard-looking old people slumped down on a couch, seemingly in a daze. They barely noticed me when I got in, and one of the various aids lining the large room had to nudge them into action. It was only then did one of them moved, the woman in the middle, and her attention returned back to the present. She seemed so tired that even moving upright was a struggle, and the aids had to help her up.
“Ah, Ashwin,” the woman, an old, frail thing that had locks of snow-white hair and a withered look, rasped, “I apologize for not greeting you properly and for my companion's silence. Unfortunately, most of our efforts are concentrated on the barrier at the moment, and we cannot allow any lapse in concentration to occur.”
She frowned again and winced, as if something invisible plagued her, before continuing. “You look well.”
I nodded, unsure how to continue. Noe, any idea who that is? And just double-checking, but there’s no way that she always looked like that, right?
“You are correct, my Host,” she replied, “And that individual should be the Conduit for the god of Light. The records indicate that she is always addressed by her title. A Lord Conduit or High Priest would be appropriate forms of address.”
“Lord Conduit, you look…” I said hesitantly.
She chuckled. “Like shit, I know.”
Huh, she seemed more easygoing than I thought… did that mean that I should act more casual as well? I didn’t even know how familiar the real Ashwin was to this person, but let’s play it safe for now and be more formal. The current situation warranted being more serious regardless of past interactions in any case.
“But that is the state of affairs at the moment unfortunately,” she continued, “And although you appear fine outwards, I can feel the lingering effects of your stay at the enemy’s dungeons. You don’t need to explain, Chosen, your companions filled us in on the important details already. I wish we had the time to examine you properly, but all of our priests are either helping maintain the barrier or are dead.”
I only nodded again, unsure what to say in such a situation.
When the woman saw my silence, she only sighed. “I know, coming back after what you’ve been through only to see our home left in this state can’t be easy, but unfortunately, I’ll - no - all of us will need to borrow your strength again. This might be our last hope, but what remains of our oracles and prophets intercepted messages from the other cities and countries, and they might have found the cause of the rapid spread of the Void.”
I raised an eyebrow. “They did?”
“It’s the Calamity,” she explained, “I’m not sure if you’re aware, since you were not originally a part of this world, but it was a beast created by the Enemy eons ago, sealed forever under the Fate god’s domain, but it had escaped recently, and it might be the cause of the rapid acceleration of the Darkness. Marcus must have already told you, but our initial estimates of the time we had left were wrong, and we believe that this beast is the cause of much of those inconsistencies.”
I frowned again. That beast was certainly the stupid scaly fat dragon thing that we beat up earlier, but Molly swore that she cursed it and it should have been captured quickly.
“Can you tell me more about this Calamity?” I asked.
“We don’t have the time to go into the history of its creation, so I’ll skip over that part,” she answered, “But what is strange is that our reports say that the creature has… morphed or transformed. How, or what happened, we do not know, but every account of its form and might have been the same: it has grown exponentially stronger, and it seemed to have harnessed, at least in part, the power of the Void. Even its appearance has changed.”
Well… guess Molly’s curse didn’t exactly pan out. I think I already knew the answer, but I had to ask anyway. “What does it look like now?”
The old woman concentrated for a second before lifting a hand up and conjuring an image in her palm, kind of like a 3D projection. I saw what looked to be an enormous blackened thing straight out of nightmares. It had hair-like protrusions coming out of its body, and more of that stuff came out of its massive meaty maw. I didn’t need my full memories to know what those tentacle things looked like, they were the same as the stuff that coursed through Molly.
Well shit, it seemed like we inadvertently gave the stupid Calamity a power-up instead of weakening it. End Bringers was right…
“That’s not good…” I half muttered to myself.
“It is not,” she agreed, “Which is why we must send you to at least halt its advances. Even doing that much can give us much-needed time; if the populace sees some improvements in the near future, then maybe, just maybe, their faith in the gods will be enough to stave off the worst of the strain from our priests.” A sigh escaped her cracked lips. “With so much of our time devoted to the barrier, we are unable to do much more than survive at the current state of things, let alone fight back against our foes.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“I see…” Wait a second. I couldn’t just pack up and leave the city right as I arrived, not when I needed to investigate the Trash Matrix and especially that strange distortion in the underground. “When do you need me to leave?”
“Now, if possible. The journey to the Calamity’s location will take time, perhaps a week or even more given the geography and weather, and we cannot afford to waste even a second.”
I frowned again. Yeah… that wasn’t happening, but how would I talk myself out of this situation without blowing my whole cover?
“If your reports on that beast are true, then I am not sure if I will be able to slay it given my current condition,” I said tentatively, “I’ll need more time to rest.”
She gave me a pitying look. “And I wish I could give you that time, but at the current state, we cannot guarantee that our efforts can maintain the city’s shield for even the amount of time it would take you to reach the beast, but we will try nonetheless. We will provide you with the last of our resources, our best healers, and the last of the able Paladins, but you must go. Rest on the trip, and remember, you only have to halt its movements, not kill it entirely.”
Shit, I couldn’t see a way to refute her words, and the Absolute Luck skill wasn’t doing much to remedy my situation right now either. I don’t think I had even a fraction of the charges needed to influence such a huge event, and it wasn’t like I could just blow all of my Luck Charges all at once even if it was an option. I’d need Noe’s skill when I actually went about slouthing.
Well, Noe’s ability always relied on me doing most of the work, and the more favorable of a situation I could present myself in, the less expenditure I would experience. That meant that I didn’t need to delay the trip indefinitely, but just for a few hours so that I could place myself in a spot where only a few hundred charges would do the trick to delay my departure. Worst case scenario, I would just gamble it all that I’d find what I needed in the weird basement, and blow my Ashwin cover if all looked lost, but hedging all my bets on something so uncertain wasn’t something I’d want to risk, especially if it was someone else who would take the fall if I failed this time.
Alright, so let’s try plan A first. It was worth a few Luck Charges to ensure this went well. “I’ll need a few hours to prepare. I know that we don’t have the time for such things, but I’m sure that you’ve noticed, but I can’t use my weapon at the moment. Something the cultists did must have cut off my connection with the artifact, but I think I can cleanse it here, where the god’s powers are at their strongest.”
I was expecting my charges to go down, but apparently I didn’t need to. It seemed that everything I said, given my limited knowledge of the situation, was already the optimal outcome. I’ll take that as a win for my bullshitting abilities.
The old woman thought for a moment before nodding. “I see, normally one of us would do that for you, and while we still could, if nothing else works. However, the consequences of diverting our attention even could be disastrous. Are you sure that you can fix things on your own?”
“Positive.” I nodded.
“Come see one of us if you cannot,” she added, “Although it would not be ideal, you are our last hope, Ashwin, and we can’t allow you to go without the divine weapon. I pray that you are able to resolve the issue on your own.”
“Thank you, and I will resolve to do my utmost for this world.”
She gave me a weak smile. “Good, that is all any of us can ask for. We will give you four hours to resolve the issue. If it is not done by then, then seek out one of the councilors again, and we will look into it.”
“But the barrier-”
“The barrier will be weakened, yes, and perhaps it will speed up our demise by days,” she said with a shake of her head, “But it will persist still, at least for the short term. However, that cannot be said if you fail your task. I think we both know which of those options are worse.”
Yeah… I don’t plan to actually go at all, but I was starting to feel mighty guilty about what we did to the people here. I just hope that finding out what Origin was up to would fix the mess we made here, but if the main cause of the rapid spread of that horrible darkness was due to the Calamity that we unleashed, I could let Molly know to keep track of it in case we needed the thing to stop for a while.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t tell her to outright stop the thing, for one because I don’t think we should mess around in the mortal world anymore given what we’ve done already, but two, if I didn’t find the cause of the disturbance in the underground, then the only other thing I could do was to force Origin to act when its pet dimension was about to end. Let’s hope that I found what I needed in the initial exploration, for the sake of all of the people here.
“I understand your concerns,” the woman whispered, thinking that I was contemplating an altogether different situation than the one I actually was, “but those are the cards that we have been dealt. Now go, time is precious, and we will need every minute of it if we are to succeed.”
I gave the members of the chambers a polite bow before turning to leave. Mark greeted me just outside, and we took a silent stroll back to my chambers. I thought the physician would take me to Ashwin’s actual quarters, but he had said that the stability of the current political landscape, especially after the terrorist attempt, didn’t allow me to be out in the open. That left me alone again in the dingy room with my thoughts. I needed to figure out just how to delay the journey, and I had a scant few hours to do so.
Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. Hey Noe, I know you said that you didn’t have full use of all those other Shards you collected on your own, but surely you could use a bit of those abilities on a small scale, right?
“I can, my Host, with the exception of the Domination Shard that has not begun to undergo integration.”
But Perception’s A-okay?
“On small scales with limited effect.”
That’s all I need. I think I have a plan.