Chapter 49: Pieced Together – Prologue – Inquisition

The temple of the thirty-three was quiet. It was a peculiar building, north of the city of Heralry, roughly as far distanced from it as the Birshia dungeon was, and sat isolated on the edge of the world. Literally, the semi-circle shaped build partially stretched over the end of the leaf. It was an immensely sturdy building, thousands of stones melted together as a dam against the invisible barrier that surrounded the world, preventing people from just falling off. Other flat worlds weren’t designed with that kindness.

Where the circle thus passed over the edge, like a child peeking over the edge of the table, thirty-two towers grew evenly out of the temple. Each one a single chamber dedicated to one god. From Hashahin’s, located at the southern edge and closest to the city, the number counted downward. Aside from the last tower in the north, dedicated to the progenitor, father of gods and godhood, they were all equally sized.

The temple of the thirty-three was quiet. The walls were thick and like every church reverberated even the tiniest sound, causing everyone to move with patience, not to disturb this aura of divinity. Ctania was not known for its religious population. Quite the contrary. As the safe leaf created by the thirty-third god, Hashahin, people here didn’t devote themselves to the divine. The few that lived by the decrees of the god of actors were Priests in origin only.

Their skillsets inevitable melded with Rogues’, making them Tricksters, the divine equivalent to the Illusionist. Amongst those in the clerical professions, Tricksters were seen as something like the Berserker to the Knight. Technically in the same group, but at the far fringe.

As a world made by such a god was not a place where the church would flourish, but as an organization that crossed over many worlds, they had the funds to secure a facility such as this. Even if it were just a few Priests recruited here, the Cardinals wouldn’t miss the opportunity to guide new adventurers on the right path. Every Priest recruited was, after all, a potential missionary to countless new worlds. Although all created by the gods, many species in the omniverse had still to learn what it means to worship.

The temple of the thirty-three was quiet. Which was why the steps behind Mehily echoed so strongly. Still, her eyes stayed closed and her lips moved only in quiet prayer. Her cold hands clutched around her medium, raised up to the flawless block of glass in front of her. It was a mere representation of the eternal ice that was Jersoja’s symbol, just like her pendant, a cube carved from crystal.

“Priestess Mehily, your prayer must end, the angels still need of you and if you punish yourself longer, there will be no more service you can give,” a friendly voice, one she wasn’t familiar with, spoke in a chastising manner to her, finally causing the addressed to open her eyes. The lids only raised sluggishly and her acquiescently lowered head felt stiff.

She faced infinity. Where everything in the building was stone or altar, only the floors in these chambers were made from glass. As they hung over the edge of the leaf, it meant that the believers could see the omniverse, or at least a part of it, below them.

Mehily’s dry eyes saw the uncountable numbers of silver branches spread out below her. Most of them so distant they were nothing more than a thin vein, yet so numerous that they formed together a layered carpet through which only one uncovered dot fell into her eyes. A simple, not even nail sized piece of the nothing below the roots of the omniverse. Next to it, even the concept of black through a lightless midnight would have looked like a warm colour. The complete and utter void pulled at her soul and filled her mind distantly with their fear. Their endless, numbing fear.

Whoever had spoken grabbed her forcefully by the shoulder and pulled her away. “You are not ready for this revelation yet, child,” he spoke and shielded her eyes from the world with his right hand as he turned her around. Below, the branches swayed and left but a glow of silver below them.

“Who…?” Mehily wanted to ask when the hand was lifted from her head again, used to better support her weak body instead. Her throat was parched and denied further words. Now that her posture of prayer was broken, she could no longer move. Weakly, her eyes fell on the man’s garb. Where her own was white and blue, his robe also had the colours of dark green and red mixed into the stripes, the colours of autumn and summer gods. Combined with the thin, golden embroidery on the base of his sleeves, right around his shoulders, there could be no mistake.

She was face to face with Cardinal Remezan, one of the thirty-three members of the third highest rank in the church, subordinate only to the Ecclesiarches and the Progenitor’s Chosen herself. A man several hundred years old and veteran of many adventures. Bald but with a long, bushy beard that only had a couple of grey streaks running through its black mass, the tanned man had a look that matched his friendly tone.

Why there always was a Cardinal on this leaf, nobody had ever quite understood. They usually were busy on frontiers or guiding the faithful where catastrophe had struck. It was not a rank known for sitting in safe leaves, neither were they known for speaking to neophytes.

Remezan produced a golden cup out of seemingly nowhere and held it against her lips, the purple red liquid inside running against her split lips. “Drink, it will rejuvenate you for a few hours,” he promised, “but it will not be a replacement for a proper meal.”

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Undeserving of such honour, Mehily still opened her mouth and gulped down the magical drink. It tasted like the finest wine, far beyond what any vinery she had ever encountered could produce. Sweet and cold, it ran down her parched throat and spread like a cool, soothing waved through her body. When the last drop had left the cup, it disappeared as if it had never existed.

“Y-your holiness,” Mehily began trying to free herself from the man’s grasp to prostrate herself. However, he held on with a benevolent smile. Despite this, Mehily felt like she was on a verge of a panic attack. She had never heard of a Cardinal interrupting anybody’s prayer before, she must have done something wrong.

“Relax, Priestess,” he stated and pressed two fingers onto her forehead. A more intense, forceful calm settled on her mind, a state bordering on apathy. “You have been kneeling in front of Jersoja’s altar for two straight days. Your devotion is admirable, but your lack of self-preservation will lead you nowhere but an untimely grave.”

“I understand,” she calmly nodded. “Is this why you came to help me, Cardinal?”

“No,” he answered, “under normal circumstances, it would have been the angels that would have informed you about your misdeeds, but these aren’t days that will pass as normal.” Letting those words sink in for a moment, the Cardinal chose his next slowly. “It is… admirable that you came to report to use as quickly as you did. This… slime’s existence is deeply disturbing to us. In all of the divine archives, spanning countless worlds and countless creations, I have never heard of something like it. Similar things, yes, but nothing exactly like it.”

“It was a creature unfitting of any world and unfitting to procreate with humanoids, your holiness,” Mehily agreed quickly. “An assortment of stolen, divinely shaped limbs in an impure amalgamation. I could not feel the slightest touch of divinity in it.”

“Yes… which worries me deeply… especially with your acquaintance Reysha carrying a disease so rare… and another report about a matter I cannot talk with you about,” the Cardinal kept it cryptic but quickly continued. “I will be honest with you, Mehily, we need to catch this amalgam and question it about this secret matter. These things happened too close to one another to rule out a possible involvement.” Giving her an apologetic tone, “This is as much as I can tell you, my apologies.”

The Priestess didn’t mind at all, she was already thinking about another thing. “Then you will chase down this threat yourself?” Mehily’s voice was hopeful, if a Cardinal was going on a hunt, that slime was as good as dead.

Her heart sank when Remezan shook his head. “I cannot leave this place, as is my oath. My presence here is the lock to a greater evil.”

“A greater evil than a godless being?” the Priestess felt like her world was slowly getting ground down from the outside. There were so many things of terrible nature she didn’t know about.

“A greater sin than being born without a divine spark is to forfeit it through hatred towards the silver heavens,” the Cardinal cryptically spoke and quickly moved on, having already said too much. “And this slime you describe seems to at least have an inch of morality, it let you and your comrades live after all, did it not?”

“Who knows what abominable thoughts led it to that action!” she spewed the words out like a mouthful of poison. In her mind, there could be no empathetic reason this creature would let them go.

“...Who knows indeed,” Remezan said slowly, taking a more charitable stance towards this beings intentions. There was still a chance that monster had no relations to what he feared. The fact that it hadn’t murdered where convenient for it had to mean something. “By the end, I hope to know. I do not trust the Guild alone in this, Mehily, yet I cannot go myself. I have asked my gods and the angels have delivered me an answer,” his brown eyes stared deeply into her, right down to her soul, a golden cross segmenting his pupil. “We are forming an Inquisition.”

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