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A sorrowful silence had descended upon the room of cages Phoenix and her friends were currently being held in. As she contemplated the pile of blue ash against the far wall, she continued thinking of ways to kill herself. Not in the permanent suicidal way she had constantly been told to avoid while growing up in a hospital full of dying children but in the more practical game-exploitation way.
She couldn’t keep her thoughts from spiraling, however, wondering what might wait for her if she ever did pass beyond the Veil and died for real. Would she get sent to another reality because she was a Wayfarer? Would she become like the Familiars and get to live more lives again? Or would she join the other souls? Did they go to some realm of judgment for eternity? Get reincarnated like some theories?
“Do the gods here affect what happens when you die?” she found herself asking.
Most of her friends shrugged or looked at her in concern. Her brother questioned in turn, “Why would you ask that?”
“I can’t help but wonder,” she softly admitted, “Fen and Uriel both explained about what happens to Familiars, but nobody seems to know what happens to the rest… It made me remember some of the theories from my old world. Reincarnation, nothing, getting your own planet to rule over, or getting sent to some kind of heaven or hell.”
“I’m not familiar with that last one,” Dazien said with a subtle spark of curiosity in his gaze, and she wondered if she was actually helping to distract him from the grief and wrath that finding his mother had caused.
“Basically, in a few religions, they believed if you were a good enough person, followed all the rules, and worshiped their god, then you would go to heaven where you would be eternally happy. A place with no sadness or pain. Hell was basically the opposite, a lake of fire where you would burn for eternity in penance for the sins you committed in life,” she explained.
“Sounds like extortion,” Everin said bitterly from across the room, “That’s a dictator’s logic: Bow down and obey me or suffer forever.”
“There were other religions that differed but had the general concept of ending up in a place, good or bad, based on your actions in this life.”
“You mean karma?” Dazien clarified, “That is something I’ve heard of. It usually goes with the reincarnation theory, though. None of the gods here promise gifts for the afterlife, but some people believe that their actions in this life will influence their starting point in the next.”
She turned to Everin and asked, “If you’re not expecting rewards for the next life, whatever form that takes, why do you worship any of the gods? Was it just for the blessings?”
Everin gave a half-shrug, “Some people serve for the potential power. Many of those kinds never receive it, though. Most like me do it because we believe in promoting the concept. Trying to make the world better in the way we think is most beneficial.”
“I guess that could be said for a lot of the religions in my world, too, even the ones with judgment days,” Phoenix admitted, “Most of the rules they would preach about were centered around love and kindness… not all, though,” she added, “Some groups spoke a lot of hate towards people like me.”
“What do you mean? Like hating on redheaded women?” the rainbow voxen asked.
She snorted a laugh, “I don’t think the red hair had anything to do with it, but they didn’t like the fact that my body was masculine while my soul was feminine. They also would have torn Daze and Uriel to shreds for being together romantically.”
“Wait, so they promoted love but would hate our love?” Dazien clarified, “Why?”
“Because you’re both men, and that was considered a sin,” she tried explaining, “It never really made sense to me either that they would say ‘love one another,’ but only in a specific way. It was really confusing, honestly, considering they seemed to ignore a lot of the other rules listed next to that one. Like eating a cheeseburger or wearing mixed fabrics.”
“Chains to control the masses with,” Everin said with a scoff, “Ordering someone not to do something they enjoy that doesn’t hurt anyone else is simply a play for power. Make them feel guilty. Gaslight them into thinking they’re in the wrong. Make them focus on not getting punished rather than why the rule exists in the first place.”
“You know, for a priest, you’re sounding rather anti-religious there,” Phoenix pointed out.
“I’m anti-authoritarian, and blind faith is both a tool for control and a fool’s addiction,” he retorted, “I’ve seen people relinquish their agency in service to other gods, then shove off any blame for their actions. ‘The Torturer made me hurt them!’, ‘It was the Trickster who whispered lies!’” Everin mockingly quoted in a higher pitched whine before saying the last with a snarl, “‘The Purifier said they were evil, so I killed the children in his name!’ Blind bigots that merely seek an excuse for their hatred.”
“But you still rely on your goddesses,” Phoenix pointed out, “Doesn’t praying for a miracle require a bit of faith?”
Everin shook his head and sighed before leaning forward to get a better look at her, “I’m sorry, let me start over a bit calmer. I don’t want you to think I’m against having faith. My ire was with the blind part. I fully support anyone who joins a good clergy with their eyes open and knowing what exactly it is their speaking out for. It’s wonderful to find purpose like that. It saved me during a very dark time in my own life when I felt hopeless and lost without any free will to control my path.
“But in my experience, it is the more vicious deities that demand unquestioning obedience and promote cruelty towards others. They will promise power or happiness and threaten retribution should anyone disobey or defy. No city was ever completely annihilated in the name of the Crafter. No war was fought for the sake of the Artist. People who don’t question their god’s intentions and learn the entire concept their deity promotes can often find themselves becoming enemies of the innocent.
“To circle back to your question, praying for a miracle isn’t the same as carrying out a task in the name of a deity. When I normally pray, I’m asking for help, for guidance. It’s like asking a trusted friend for advice. When I prayed for a miracle, that was more like asking my divine friend to come help me on a mission; they might join me if it’s within their capability to do so, but they could just as easily tell me no. Which most of them did, if you’ll recall,” he pointed out, and she nodded at the memory of silence in the air as Paul lay dying.
“Also, once I receive whatever advice they have for me, it’s my choice whether I follow it or not. I could have declined Caging Paul’s soul. Sometimes, I wonder if that might have been better. I could have chosen not to risk Falling from Rebel’s grace to attempt Scholar’s experimental plan. I chose the consequences I felt I could live with best.
“But prayer, even when I don’t get my way, reminds me that I’m not alone. That I have a purpose. That there are more powerful beings than I can sometimes comprehend watching over me and are on my side,” the Avatar added.
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She tried to glance towards her best friend, who was quietly sitting half-naked in his cell, as she said, “Uriel mentioned that the gods are always watching, even when bad things happen. It makes them seem… not so good in my mind when he put it like that,” she glanced around at their current situation and grimaced, “This doesn’t help me see them in a positive light either.”
“My mother used to pray when we were in this kind of situation,” Uriel surprised her by saying, “She said she was praying to every Radiant god for a miracle. To save us from the cultists that were hurting me every day. They never answered her prayers.”
“But you did get saved,” Everin pointed out, “You could argue that her prayers were eventually answered.”
Uriel glared at him, “The only prayer I ever saw answered was when the Destroyer showed up to answer my own plea for the power to kill. If only dark gods will answer, why should we bother praying?”
Everin gave him a sad smile, “For the times when our hopes are granted. For the day Scholar decides to take a risk to save a man’s life. For the moment when Hero appears to awaken a new Saint and save a city.”
He leaned back in his cage again, rainbow tails wrapping around him like a protective blanket, “We may not get every prayer answered, every wish granted, but prayer is proof that we still have hope that things can get better.”
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As the hours wore on, Everin scratched at the uncomfortable cuffs around his furred wrists, the silencing effects making him increasingly uneasy as it cut off his senses and made his magic feel strangled. The cage and stone room were worse, though. It reminded him of his parents locking him in a room for hours on end to train.
His tails were behaving now as they had back then, wrapping him in their warmth to try and shield him from his enemy’s ire, from his parents’ anger and disappointment.
He had never lived up to their standards. Apparently, his ‘best’ was never truly all he could give in their eyes. He needed to simply ‘put his mind to it’ and ‘work harder.’ Even if he gave up sleep to train more, he was obviously not applying himself enough. Lazy, selfish, spoiled, leech, entitled; They knew he could do better, so why didn’t he?
Never enough.
It took him decades to realize that, in their eyes, he would never be enough.
Now, he was finding himself struggling to not believe those lies again. If only he was stronger. If only he hadn’t been an arrogant fool. If only he had asked for help. If only.
Perhaps giving up everything to his goddess wasn’t enough, either.
He wondered what his parents might have thought if they saw him now. Would they still think being an Avatar of two deities was him being lazy?
Everin had tried being lazy for a time before. To embrace what they accused him of being. Why not if, no matter how hard he worked, they would never acknowledge it? He got yelled at and punished the same either way, so why half-kill himself and be miserable at the same time? At least when they claimed he was lazy during that time, he was relaxing on a beach, drinking colorful wine and enjoying the warmth of the sun.
He hated the cold. Despite being born a Moonsong voxen in the heart of the Winterlands, he never got that Ice Attunement that would help insulate them from the cold. He was lucky he hadn’t died as a baby from it. Another reason for his parents to curse his ineptitudes —if only he had been born properly.
Everin was stirred from his thoughts by the scratching sound of the door opening and the white-haired cinderen re-entering the room. The large man was carrying a different type of metal rod this time, golden with pale blue marbling crossing it and the end with twin prongs like a tuning fork. He tossed a gray tunic at Uriel this time while smirking, “Looks like you got upgraded to trade to the DOD with yer fellow Chosen.”
“What does the white mean?” Phoenix asked quietly.
Everin understood that Phoenix was concerned about her adopted brother but was a little disappointed that she didn’t ask about his green tunic that stood out from the others as well.
“He’s going to be dinner for our High Priestess,” their captor replied with a grin, “Gemites are in high demand,” he paused to look the amethyst warrior up and down as he added, “And simply delicious to eat. That last one we had was—”
“Freeze in the Abyss, slime,” Dazien snarled at him.
The man gave a hearty laugh as he approached Everin’s cage and pulled out a runekey to unlock it.
It seemed like Phoenix finally sent some concern his way when she asked, “And the green? What are you going to do with Everin?”
He was poised to pounce as best he could and try to make a run for it, but the rod stopped him short, sending a shock of electricity through him that made his fur stand on end. He hated Lightning magic; it always messed up his fur, even when allies used it.
When his malfunctioning hearing returned, the laughter filled it once more as the man tossed him over a broad shoulder and replied, “Green is for turning animals into Bits.”
Everin couldn’t make any sense of the shouts that got cut off by the door slamming shut behind them as he was being moved.
He struggled.
It didn’t seem to matter.
Without his Boons to boost his attributes, he was just an average bottom-of-the-barrel Emerald Caster, which was usually stupidly stronger than a normal Mundane person, but against this brute, he might as well have been a child throwing a tantrum.
The room he was brought to was concerning as it had an elaborate ritual circle already prepared and other people seemingly awaiting his arrival. The crimson hooded cloaks they all wore didn’t make him think they were going to help his predicament either.
He didn’t recognize this particular ritual, never having been good at the endeavor and usually forced to train in other ways. Becoming a Spirit Advocate who specialized in Boon support was probably the biggest insult to his parents’ efforts he would ever accomplish in his life.
It didn’t take him long to learn this ritual’s purpose, however, when a man he didn’t recognize stepped forward and began to monologue at him, “I’m sorry it’s come to this Avatar Starlark, but really it’s your own fault for putting your nose where it didn’t belong. You and the Saint would have been safe from us had you not pried. The Scarlet Banquet has long been working in the shadows of Tulimeir without such important persons getting targeted. Alas, here we are.”
“We are here,” he replied flippantly, giving the man a flat look, “Your minion here said you would turn me into Bits. Are you planning to kill and loot me? I’ll be honest, I don’t have a dimensional storage to gain riches from, so this seems a bit of a waste.”
The minion moved to hook his wrist cuffs to some chains hanging from the ceiling over the ritual circle as the leader answered with a sigh, “We’re not going to kill you, Avatar. However, this ritual is related to looting, you might say. Have you ever tried looting something that’s still alive?”
“The magic doesn’t take,” he promptly replied.
The man smirked, “A little dark to attempt that on someone, isn’t it? Perhaps you aren’t as radiant as the gods you serve.”
“It was a monster that my claws didn’t work against,” he retorted, “The fact that you assumed it was a person is the key difference between us, I believe.”
“Well, there’s going to be one less difference between us in a moment. Tell me, Avatar, have you ever met a voxen missing its tails?”
Everin felt his blood run cold despite not having any anymore. He had met one once, a Mundane victim who had their tail stolen to create a magic item. They never smiled and, even years later, had trouble balancing properly. They were the clumsiest voxen he had ever met.
Eyes widening in surprise and mouth dropping open at the realization of what was about to be attempted made him sputter, “B-but I’m Emerald Caste! I’ll regenerate, and the tails will turn to ash. There’s no point—”
“That’s what the ritual is for,” the man said with a malevolent grin, “It helps you feel what’s about to happen in your soul and preserves the tails as loot. It might take a few tries, but we’ve never failed to claim a Caster voxen’s tails before… eventually. I wonder how many times it will take for yours.”
He tried to struggle again, using his tails to try and disrupt the ritual below him, but he hung too far above it. Another shock from the magic lightning rod had his muscles spasming, and there was no more conversation to be had. The cultists took their places around the ritual circle and began to incant in sync.
Everin began to shout at them in vain and silently prayed. Prayed to his goddesses. Prayed to Hero or Champion. Prayed to the newly anointed Celestial Pantheon that included the eight gods that had marked their Saint. Prayed to any other god that might save him on a merciful whim.
There was no answer.
There was only pain and tears.