Although it’d be foolish to say Mia was acclimating at all to the world, she was hardly expecting a full out magology (at least, that’s what they called it) and theology lesson coming her way. She’d not given the full details of what her whole situation was, but they seemed to be so surprised at her ignorance that she’d never been asked about it, either. Frankly, Mia was fine with that for the time being. She’d rather not be outed as some sort of heretic or crazy spider-person from the get-go.
“Okay, so…what DO you know about magic?” Junia started. They were now back at the lake, as the sun started to dip down beyond the treeline.
Mia frowned and looked away. It felt embarrassing to admit it, even if she knew there was nothing to be embarrassed about. “Just…assume I don’t know anything, okay?”
“Wow.” Junia did NOT hide her amazement. “Alrighty, gonna get back to that later. For now, let’s just start from the very beginning.”
Mia chanced a glance over at Marcus, who- to her surprise- seemed almost entirely checked out of the situation, simply sitting on a rock, leaning back mostly and looking to the sky in apparent boredom. She wasn’t sure why he suddenly seemed so calm in her presence. Was he really that trusting, or that confident? She wasn’t sure, and part of her was rather frightened to find out.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” Junia dismissed. “Anyway, starting from the beginning. Question, then. Do you know about the Gods?” She was met with a blank stare. “...The Holy Twelve? Church of Seven?” Still blank stares. “...goodness, you…”
“I DID say assume I don’t know anything,” Mia said flatly.
“...true. Alright, then. So!” And here she took a deep breath. “Getting the full history of the world and whatnot is…not quite what I’m good at, but I’ll give you the major points. The primary religion in this world is the Church of Twelve. Of these, the important ones are the High Seven, as those are the ones that played a part in the shaping of the world. There are the Lower Five, who came later with the onset of civilization. With me so far?”
“Yeah.” It sounded simple enough.
“Good,” she continued. “Not all are required to be worshipped in the service, only the High Seven, as I said. The Lower Five can be worshipped as you prefer. Now, if you’re NOT in the service of the Church, you generally pick one or two High Seven and one of the Lower Five to revere. The High Seven are Irelia- Goddess of Life and the First, then Moreo- God of Nature, Meana- Goddess of Beasts, Abena- Goddess of Love, Streaz- God of War, Orel- God of Wisdom, aaand Prunal- Goddess of Death.” Pausing to take a breath, she glanced at Mia again. “Got all that?”
“...I think so,” Mia admitted. It’d be likely she’d need a refresher, but she got the basic idea, at least.
“...right, then. Moving on,” she decided. “The Lower Five are Jurin- God of Intelligence, Kayle- Goddess of Creativity, Cor- Goddess of Vengeance, Avo-Lor- God of Sickness and Healing, and Jairmin- God of Dreams and Nightmares. That’s the pantheon.” she concluded.
Mia almost let out a sigh that it was over. That was… a lot of names for her to remember. “Okay, so…I need to pick one or…three?”
“Oh, no no no,” Jania said easily. For a moment, Mia DID let out a sigh. “You don’t have to, it’s just a good idea if you ever want to do serious magic.”
THAT got her attention. “Wait, really? How?”
Almost as if recognizing that she was hooked properly, Junia grinned. “Allow me to introduce you to the wide and elaborate world… of Godspeak.”
What Godspeak WAS, in point of fact, was a number of different pieces of information all relating to each other. Mia could understand that there was a language that the Gods spoke. It felt familiar enough to her. The idea that magic was done via Godspeak made sense. However, what she was particularly surprised to learn, was that it was both verbal AND written. There were specific letters and symbols meant to evoke different aspects of a god’s power. This was, in fact, what all the symbols and squiggles on Mia’s robe were; specifically, entreaties to the gods Irelia, Moreo, and Avo-Lor, whom she revered.
Furthermore, they apparently had preferences. And by that, she meant as in specific ways to actually phrase the lines that imbued the blessing or skill, whether it was vocally or in ‘text’. For example, anything calling on Irelia was best done in simple, rhyming poetry. Moreo was far more direct and considered the simplest of all of them to invoke, usually with extremely basic one or two word lines for the simple things, so long as ‘you put enough energy into it’. He was the most commonly invoked god for that reason, apparently. Avo-Lor, on the other hand was…complicated. “He’s the God of Sickness AND Healing,” she explained, “as in he causes BOTH. So he’s also known as the 'two-faced god'. Essentially, you have to appease both sides of him before he grants you anything. That usually takes the form of 'you have to ask what you want politely, but at the same time be really snippy or backhanded about it'.”
Mia could only blink. “Wait…how does that work?” Her reaction? A shrug.
Great.
They both just decided to move on. Orel, the god of wisdom, liked brief summaries of fables, or simple yet clever sayings about life or experience. Generally something related to learning something new, even if it was a short sentence. Prunal, the Goddess of Death, was another one she was blindsided by.
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“Jokes?” She still wasn’t sure she heard right. “The Goddess of Death best responds to jokes?”
“Yup,” Junia confirmed. “And not like, dark or morbid ones, either. Actual silly, nonsense jokes. Because Prunal hates her job, but she has to do it, right? People can’t just…stick around forever. So she takes whatever levity she can get. If you can say or write a joke that’ll make her laugh, or even just grin, that’ll be enough to get you some serious power from her. She can be a tough audience, though, and bad jokes…backfire. Badly.” She cringed a bit at the thought, and so did Mia. No jokes from her, then. “But, that’s the general idea of it! I couldn’t really help you much with learning any, though. It’s complicated.” She paused. “Well, unless you wanted to try Moreo. EVERYONE knows a few basic words for him. Even Marcus,” she turned around to squint at him. “And he almost never uses any actual Godspeak except for lighting his sword up.”
“It’s all I need!” he complained, sitting up. “Besides, Loren has my back anyway.”
That was a new name. “Loren?”
They both looked at her in surprise…and then Junia slapped her head. “Ugh! I forgot to mention the Guardian Spirits!”
Guardian Spirits? For some reason, that sent her head ringing for a brief moment, but it was easily shaken off. “W-what are those?”
“Oh, those are basically the paragons of the civilized races,” Junia quickly explained. “They’re demi-gods, lifted up to the Everfields by one of the Gods to watch over that race and help guide and protect them from whatever might harm them. They’re capable of imbuing some level of magic, too. Defensive, offensive- depends on your race. Humans get extra durability and stamina, Elves-”
There were other races?! Mia’s mind boggled, missing at least two others, though she reoriented herself for the last one. “-and Juju is the Goblin Guardian, who grants clever enough goblins with supreme inspiration and ‘sight beyond sight’. Dunno what that means, though,” she shrugs. “Haven’t learned beyond that, yet.”
Huh. That brought to mind something, however. That voice… “...do you think I’d have a guardian spirit?”
The both of them got quiet at that, before looking at each other. “Do you think…?” Marcus started.
“I mean…maybe?” Junia hedged. “I’ve never seen or heard of a spider-person Guardian Spirit. But then again, I’ve never heard of a spider-person before today at all.”
“...that’s weird,” Mia admitted. “I…” she paused, briefly. True, she had just met them, but…well, would it be worth it to admit? Would it be costly if she DIDN’T? She had to make a choice.
And so she did. “There’s a cavern…I don’t recall EXACTLY where it is, but it’s past the forest, in this direction,” she pointed roughly the direction where she came from. “And down there…well, I don’t know for sure, but I think it’s where more like me used to live. But…well, it’s just me, now, I guess.” The thought that maybe there had been others like her before, but now weren’t…felt like a hole itself had been blown open in her abdomen. Still, what they had revealed quite possibly answered some questions she’d had. “I’m pretty sure I was sleeping a long time, or something. But I remember, there was a voice.” She hadn’t even realized that the two were hanging on her every word now, leaning forwards in curiosity and not a little pity. “I need to find a temple. HER temple. I think…maybe that was the Guardian Spirit for, for…whatever I am,” Mia lamely finished. “I’ve kinda got no clue where to start, though.”
Another moment of silence swept through the lakefront. She noticed that happened often.
After a few moments, however, Junia quickly marched over to Marcus, turning to Mia with a quick ‘stay there’, and just as speedily began to drag Marcus away a distance- though she noticed they clearly just went along the lakefront, not into the forest to escape, as Mia had worried for a moment.
Whatever they were talking about, it seemed intense for a few moments…and then they both began nodding, their backs turned to her just to make sure she couldn’t see. The next few minutes were agonizing, but eventually they turned back around; and to her surprise, they both looked fairly pleased. ‘Just what went on over there?’ she wondered.
“We’ve decided!” Junia said with all too much cheer.
“We’re going to Halevin,” Marcus explained. “It’s the capital of Verasil- uh, the country we’re in?”
Mia decided to just nod in order to spare herself any further embarrassment.
“If you wanna come with us back to the capital, you can!” Junia finished. "We gotta turn in the quest that we got on the way here first, but after that, we're gonna head straight there!"
Marcus nodded before Mia could even begin to voice a complaint. “Yeah! If there’s ANYONE ANYWHERE that might have a clue about what you are or the Guardian Spirit or anything, they’re gonna be in Havelin!” Marcus seemed awfully confident about that, Mia thought.
“Not to mention, if you ARE a lost or forgotten race, then it’s likely that the King will wanna know about you,” Junia added. “He’s pretty old himself, and he knows a ton. He’s always trying to collect more history, too. If you remembered anything from your past, or even just pointed him towards where your cave homes are, you’d be a rich spider-lady really quickly.”
Huh. That didn’t sound…bad. “What’s the catch?”
“Just so long as you’re honest,” Junia assured. “King Yarrick’s really really nice- he’ll let anyone see him these days as long as they have an interesting story to tell.”
“Not much more interesting than you out here, that’s for sure,” Marcus added on. “And we’ll do our very best to keep you safe all the way there! So whaddya say?”
It sounded…very good. Almost too good. And so she had to ask. “Why go so far out of your way for me?”
At that, Junia had the good grace to blush. “Weeelll…truth be told, King Yarrick is…well, he’s really generous, too. Anyone who brings anything of interest to him gets a reward!” Ah. That’d explain it. And yet, Mia found it hard to be offended. If she really WAS the last of her kind, yeah, that’d be as interesting as it got, like Marcus had said.
Really, this was pretty much the ideal situation she’d found herself in. She’d be silly to not go for it. “Alright, then. I…guess I’ll be traveling with you?”
The two cheered, and to Mia’s surprise, she felt lighter, too.
Maybe she’d finally taken her first real step in discovering just who and what she was. It was good.