Chapter 158: Chapter 150 – The Thunder God’s Temple V

Chapter 150 - The Thunder God’s Temple V

The shard in Claire’s chest burned like a raging flame. Its power seeped into her insides, scarring the tissue before retreating back into the nexus, over and over. The world changed each time the cycle repeated. What started as a dim sanctuary with three people inside soon transformed into an empty night sky containing only two.

Tzaarkus was not the wise old sage that she had expected, but rather a brazen, eight-armed youth with tanned skin and a generous head of dark brown hair. Half the messy fibres were hidden beneath his disheveled turban—the crown that signified his godhood—while the rest hung down to his chest. For a man whose temple appeared modest, his outfit was overly lascivious. His robes were made of fine silk, and he wore two long chains around his neck, one made of a silvery platinum, and the other a brilliant gold. Like his headdress, both were decorated with bright red jewels, rubies with masses far in excess of her own.

There was a large entity behind the giant’s ten-meter-tall frame, a blue and white sphere with three rings circling around it. Something about it stole her focus, but she pulled her eyes away and met the deity’s hazelnut gaze.

“I wasn’t expecting an answer,” she said.

After taking a moment to regard her, he craned his neck and looked to the planet behind him, his eyes focused on its largest decoration. He moved his head slowly, watching as the disk spun, round and round.

“And I would’ve preferred not to give one.” The reply came after a minute of silence. “But unfortunately, I owe Flux a rather excessive number of favours.” Adjusting his turban with one hand, he caught the ring in another and pulled it towards his chest. It grew as he did, tenfold, a hundredfold, ten thousandfold, before shrinking to a size small enough to fit in his palm. And hers. “Most of us do.”

He presented it to her, holding it out like a piece of candy, but she shook her head. She could feel the unstable vectors holding it together, ready to collapse at a moment’s notice.

“Good choice,” he said. “It’s as massive as your planet’s moon. You would have been crushed under the weight.”

Something about the statement sent her divine spark into a frenzy. Its power spread further than before, flooding her vessel and invading her core before returning to its refuge. Frowning, she looked up at him again, and found that his mood was no better than hers. His otherwise agreeable face was twisted into an irritated scowl and his eyes were cold, unforgiving as the steel of a blade.

“I thought you were meant to be kind.”

“To my believers, I am, but not to outside pests like you.”

He glared at her again, but the lyrkress didn’t back down. Training her eyes on his, she returned the glower with a hostile scowl.

“Then your kindness is false, nothing but a display of your inferior caliber.”

A violent gurgle escaped his throat. “Watch your tongue, mortal! Anger me, and I will not hesitate to smite you.”

“You would’ve done it already if you weren’t all talk.” The Cadrian met his enraged display with a scoff. “Now shut up and give me your trial.” It wasn’t wise to rouse him, but she didn’t care. It was already too late to play nice. “I have no interest in speaking to a self-absorbed narcissist incapable of tolerating even a single insult.”

“A single insult?” The veins in Tzaarkus’ head bulged. His four lowest arms smashed into the non-present floor atop which he sat, while the others balled into fists. “It was not a single insult! Harnessing the power of lightning is my domain. Not yours. If you wish to use its power, then you must craft it through magic, not steal from me like some sort of greedy footman.”

For a moment, there was silence. Thinking the mortal subdued, he crossed all eight of his arms and reclined against the blue-white world, crushing half of it beneath his rugged back. The gas and stone were pushed aside, and the world’s molten core was exposed, its heat radiating out from behind the giant’s spine and basking them both in its fiery ardor.

“I was tempted to obliterate you for that. But alas I am not so petty that I would forgo the debt I owe, just because of a thoughtless insult. An err in your judgement, mayhaps.”

Log Entry 5405
You have received a divine quest - Replace the Soundstone of Clarity

Primary Objective:
- Provide the temple of thunder with a new soundstone, as per its standard requirements.

This quest’s reward is a minor blessing from the god of thunder, lightning, and inspiration.

“You were insulted? By those cheap parlour tricks?”

His mind was serene until she spoke. When he opened his eyes, he found the halfbreed still unbroken, with no intention to hide any of her thoughts. Her face was twisted into a haughty smile, with all her sharpened teeth exposed. Her eyes were glimmering not with fear, but malice, and her glare was still fixed on the corridor to his soul.

“You’re angry that someone might mistake them for your bolts. Because they aren’t magic.”

“Correct. The paltry lightning you leverage is an affront to my craft. You will not be forgiven, if you continue to infringe upon the realm of my divinity. This is your final warning.”

“I don’t care.”

She could tell, from the way he twisted his face, that she was getting to him, but the god quickly regained his composure and broke into laughter.

“Well, it’s no matter either way. You’ll be hunted soon enough.”

Claire opened her mouth to question the claim, but the god faded before she could. His realm vanished, and his temple came back into view. He had wanted the last word, and denying her the chance to speak was the only way he could have gotten it. Even knowing that, she found herself mildly annoyed; her mind was still racing with the many responses she could have unleashed to shatter his fragile ego. And the next time they met, she was dead set on just that. All she would need to do was remind him that he was the one that had fled.

“Finally! Took you long enough,” complained Sylvia.

Turning her head towards the voice, she found that the fox girl was seated on top of her non-existent saddle. The canine half-elf was leaning forward, with her chest against her back, her arms around her waist, and her chin resting on her shoulder.

“Get off of me,” said Claire.

“Not until you give me a ride. Like a horsey or something.” She squeezed two of the lyrkress’ three stomachs, one with her legs, and the other with her arms. “I dunno why I never thought of it before, but riding on your back seems like it’d be way more fun than riding on your head.”

“I’m not a horse.” Claire grabbed her pet facefirst and tried to push her away, but Sylvia refused to budge. “I’m a moose.”

“Yeah, moose, horse, deer, whatever! Cervitaurs and centaurs are basically just the same thing!”

“Could the two of you please quiet down?” asked Lia. “I’m still trying to pray.”

“Oh… sorry.” Sylvia tilted her head. “Wait, still? Hasn’t it been like ten whole minutes?”

The catgirl smiled awkwardly. “I know what I want to say, but I can’t find the right words and I’m not really sure why.”

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Her eyes shimmering in the candle light, she cast her gaze on her hands, opening and closing them before setting them back down in her lap. Her mouth followed suit, but the silent words were never conveyed. A set of footsteps drew her attention before she could speak. Ears twitching, she spun around and focused her slit eyes on the massive, hulking crocodilian lumbering down the hall. In one hand, he held a small candle to help him navigate the underground while the other hugged a rugged tome to his chest. His head was adorned with a veiled cap to prove his priesthood, as well as a pair of tiny, disproportionate glasses for his equally tiny, disproportionate eyes.

“Good day,” he said, as he entered the holy atrium. “I was told there was a group looking to register a party.”

“Good afternoon, Father Gremm.” The catgirl scrambled to her feet and greeted the gator with a bow.

Despite hearing her voice loud and clear, he didn’t recognize her right away. He fiddled with his glasses, blinking several times with his translucent, sideways eyelids before calling her identity to mind. “Ah, yes… I remember you. You were Lia, I believe?”

“I am, sir.”

Unlike the runaway, Claire conducted herself not as his subject or inferior. The only greeting she offered was a silent nod, which he returned in kind. Because she was an outsider, there was no need for her to stand on ceremony.

“Will it be all three of you?” He set the tome down on the ground in front of them and flipped through it, eventually stopping on a page that had yet to be filled.

“Not me! Just them,” said Sylvia, in a sing-songy voice. She continued to hum quietly, even as she backed down and hid herself behind the lyrkress.

The priest nodded and looked at the other two. “And the both of you are fine with her bearing witness?”

“Yes,” said Claire.

“It doesn’t bother me,” agreed Lia.

“Perfect. Do either of you need me to write out your signatures by proxy?”

“No.”

“I’ll be fine, thank you Father.”

With both parties’ literacy confirmed, Father Gremm turned his eyes back to the page and traced a scaled finger down to an empty spot.

“I, Gremm Flikrys, invoke by Tzaarkus’ might, the rite of collaboration.” Power welled up around them as the ritual mage continued to speak. His magic quickly took the shape of a large circle filled with specific geometric configurations, connected perfectly to form the god’s symbol with his book at its center. “May those that inscribe their names in my blood share in the fruits of their labour and the bounties of their prey.” Slowly, gracefully, he drew a knife from within his robe and stabbed its tip into the back of his hand. His vital fluid spilled onto the page, forming a puddle that leached into the parchment. “Lest their union be dissolved by death or express invocation.”

Lia stepped forward, plucked a quill from the ancient volume’s spine and wrote Natalya Vernelle into its pages with no hesitation. More letters continued to form, even as she pulled her hand away from the parchment, confirming that she was a level 304 Armidian Fastpaw with her other classes averaging to 397. Just as she had claimed.

Claire was given the plume as soon as the cat was done, but she hesitated to bring it to the page. There was a large discrepancy in their levels. Though she had mentioned that she was nearing 250, her primary and secondary classes still trailed far behind. Her power level, however, was not why she had refrained from jumping right in. Her Llystletein classes had come with a disproportionate boost to her ability scores, and she had already proven that she could hold her own.

Her logs claimed that she was Claire Augustus no longer. And frankly, she had tried to play into its hand. She had tried to abandon her identity. After conquering Borrok Peak, she had decided not to pursue revenge, to live a quiet life out of the range of his surveillance instead. But his influence was not so easily shaken. It was often reflected in her behaviour and dredged to the forefront. Especially when she had to deal with people.

At her core, she was still Claire Augustus, regardless of what her status board said.

And she recalled still, from all her undesired studying, that the ritual was based not on the objective truth, but her sense of self. In theory, it would fail if she gave anything other than the identity she recognized. But spurred on by a sense of confidence whose source remained unknown, she stopped her fingers short and wrote just one word.

Taking a breath, she set the quill down and backed away, but there was no backlash. The blood that filled the book’s pages didn’t suddenly come to life and assault her, nor did the priest suddenly cough up a lung and fall to his knees.

A melange of symbols appeared next to her half-accurate moniker. She looked at them, thinking that they would reveal her status, but they were incoherent. She saw nothing but a hodgepodge of gibberish, random characters that looked more like works of abstract art than they did any sort of legible text. And yet, neither the cat nor the gator appeared to be caught off guard.

Prompted by an almost silent giggle, she looked behind her, suspiciously, and found the pixie fox winking with a finger held in front of her lips.

“All members have signed. By the thunder god’s rule, I call an end to this rite. May you find luck on the battlefield and bountiful prey on your hunts.” Bringing his hands to his face, the crocodilian bowed his head, a pose he held until his tome closed without his interference. He picked it up, nodded to the group, and stood up to leave shortly after, but Claire called out to him before he could walk away.

“Father Gremm. I have a question. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” he said, as he spun back around. “What do you need?”

“I was given a quest. To provide the temple of thunder with a soundstone.”

At first, he was stunned. His tail scratching the back of his head, he blinked several times before finally nodding. “That sounds… rather difficult.”

“I wasn’t told any specifics. What will I need?”

“Wait… Tzaarkus gave you a divine quest?” Lia’s eyes were wide open. “I can’t believe it. You’re so lucky!”

“Far from it,” mumbled the lyrkress.

A soundstone was ultimately a magical rock, enchanted with a specific set of spells. Anyone could make one, and they were often used in theatres and speeches to amplify the voices of their bearers. With the right artisan, even something as cheap as a pebble off the side of the road could be given all the properties required to alter its classification, but Claire doubted it would be that easy, not with the god’s displeasure so blatant.

“Strange that he would give the quest to an outsider…” He took his book with his tail and tapped his chin with his freshly freed hands. “But it just so happens that we have recently discovered that the soundstone we keep in Vel’khagan, the capital, does require replacing. It shattered just the other day, and we were fussing over what to do this morning,” he said, with an awkward smile. “It happens to be the one that our pope uses in his seminars and public worships, and because it represents our image, it has to be an immensely beautiful gemstone with not a single blemish. Ideally, we’ll want a ruby about as large as my palm.” He held out his hand, his oversized, scaly hand. “But it does not have to be a ruby. Any precious stone will suffice.”

“Okay. I’ll keep an eye out,” said Claire.

On the outside, she was calm. But internally, she was annoyed to the point of disbelief. A ruby at least fifteen centimeters across was the sort of magical jewel that Allegra often complained was in short supply. It wasn’t common for them to come to market, and she lacked the contacts and status to mingle amongst those that would flaunt them.

Though it had sounded relatively unassuming at first, the quest the thunder god had given her was one chosen out of malice. A classic, royal, pain in the rear.

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