Chapter 35: Chapter 35: White snow falls upon the world to cover it like a burial shroud. Beneath it lie frogs

“Hineni, chosen of the Owl-God?” asks a woman in a white robe with a sickly, almost greenish tinge. It isn’t a taupe, swampy whitish gray like the frogs. Rather, it’s more somber. It’s clean and bright, but not in a cheerful way. Though, he isn’t quite sure how to describe this differentiation exactly. He doesn’t know what makes it look like it does, but that’s how it is.

 

“Thank you for coming by,” says Hineni, before she can start trying to upsell him. “I’m not interested.”

 

The woman says nothing, simply holding out her open hand out towards him.

 

Hineni blinks, staring at it and then back at her as she stands there expectantly, apparently waiting for him to take it. But that would be a weird thing to do. First of all, it’s a weird thing for her to be doing, holding her hand out like that for a stranger, as if they were two school-children about to walk home. Secondly, it would be bad for his engagement to Obscura if he held hands with another woman and walked through the city together with her. Thirdly and most importantly, he doesn't want to go outside.

 

Hineni follows the only reasonable course of action.

 

Slowly, staring at the priestess the entire time, Hineni quietly shuts the door, which creaks with an awkward, almost painful squeak. He watches her disappear behind the wood until it clicks into place.

 

“Ooh, we’re in the big leagues now,” says Sockel from the counter, flipping through some old papers. Hineni turns to look back at her. Feeling his gaze, Sockel’s ears twitch and she looks up back towards him, seeing his confused expression. “Death.”

 

Hineni narrows his eyes. “What?”

 

Sockel lifts her pen, pointing at the door behind him with it. “That’s a priestess of the death god. Spooky!”

 

Hineni stares for a moment and then turns around, cautiously opening the door again.

 

She’s still standing there, her hand is still outstretched.

 

He closes the door again, turning back to Sockel. “Is this going to be an issue?” A god of forging or of some odd element is one thing. But the god of death, that’s not some obscure deity. That’s a real, true, primal force that was around during the creation of the world and perhaps even before it. This is something new, something far above anything he has had to deal with.

 

The elf shrugs, getting back to her work. “It figures. You’re making a name for yourself. So the bigger fish are becoming interested in nibbling now too.” She scoots some papers to the side, pulling a new mountain of them her way. Honestly, Hineni has no idea where she’s even managed to find all of those. That’s separate from the fact that he has absolutely zero clue as to what’s written on any of them. “We’re pretty hidden because of the whole ‘obscurantism’ thing,” she says. “But the big guys aren’t bothered by anything like that,” explains Sockel, holding a piece of paper up to separate her face from his gaze. “They can see right through it.”

 

Hineni sighs. The ‘big-frog’ is a big enough problem already. The other gods have mostly left him alone so far, apart from their annoying couriers and invitations. But…

 

Those were nothing like this. Those were all ‘normal’ gods, in the sense that Obscura is. But death… that’s a true god. An old god. It’s not something he can just… close the door on.

 

Hineni turns around, the hairs on his neck standing on end as he opens the door a third time and looks outside, expecting to see the priestess still standing there.

 

But she’s gone.

 

---

 

It is late at night. Late enough for the sun to have started rising again.

 

Hineni lays in bed, Obscura hooting and worming around next to him in her sleep. Usually, she lays there quietly. But sometimes she has nights like this. Hineni turns to his side, pulling the blanket back up over them as he wedges her into place and shuts his eyes, listening to the excited hissing coming from next to himself.

 

He has always been a night-owl, so his sleep schedule fits well with Obscura’s. Rhine and Sockel are free to live their lives as they please, but he can’t help but notice that they also seem to be slowly adapting to their ways. Rhine a little more than Sockel, but he has also been here longer than her. He wonders if Obscura’s presence affects them like it does himself? He’s found himself adopting many of her ticks and he can’t help but assume that it isn’t what being around a god all day will do to you. He recalls the frog cultists who attacked their home, the healer especially, having odd ticks as well. She had literally ribbited a few times.

 

If that’s the case, then what happens to followers of a god that is infinitely more powerful? More primal?

 

He closes his eyes and sleeps, doing his best to not think about it.

 

---

 

“I mean, have you tried looking in the books on rivers?” asks Rhine.

 

Sockel blinks, staring at the blue haired boy. She leans over the counter, folding her arms. “You know the metaphor of how everything looks like a nail when you have a hammer?” asks the elf.

 

Rhine nods. “Sure, but what’s that got to do with this?”

 

Sockel stares at him for a moment longer, before looking over to Hineni and Obscura, who are sitting at a different booth. A booth that is, by all measures, objectively inferior to his favorite booth. Sure, it’s exactly the same as his booth. But it isn’t. This one is worse. But the glassworker is busy at work, replacing the broken window. So they can’t sit there right now.

 

Hineni shrugs, having nothing to offer the elf. Sockel turns back to face Rhine. “I doubt the password is going to be in a book about rivers,” she explains, shaking her head. “That doesn’t even make any sense.”

 

“Are you sure?” asks Rhine, rubbing his lip with the back of his thumb as he thinks.

 

Sockel rolls her eyes, pointing towards the door behind herself. “Knock yourself out. ‘River’ books are upstairs on the left.”

 

Rhine shrugs and walks past her, heading into the library.

 

“Anyways,” says Hineni, looking back at Obscura who is sitting on an overturned mug on the table in the form of a small owl. “We’re being watched by the big gods now.”

 

Obscura nods, lifting a wing as she preens her feathers. “Many fear Obscura’s power, yes?” she hoots. “They are wary of my sharp.” She spreads both of her wings out in an instant. “Deadly Obscura!” The cup she’s standing on wobbles from the sudden unbalancing of her movement. Hineni grabs it, holding it steady for her as she parades around in a circle on spot like a proud mother hen.

 

“Do we have to be worried about anyone except the frogs?” asks Hineni quietly.

 

Obscura, with her back towards him, her wings still spread out, turns her head around in a full turn to face him. “No.”

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“No?” asks Hineni. That seems like an unusually precise and curt answer from her. “Are you sure?”

 

She nods, spinning her body around after her head. “The gods are many, but they are… uninvolved.”

 

“…For now? Or forever?” asks Hineni

 

Obscura nods. “For now.”

 

“For now?” asks Sockel from across the room, bringing the total to three times.

 

The door behind her opens up. “I found it!” says Rhine, holding out an open book on rivers. There is a series of numbers and letters scribbled onto the pages. Sockel turns around, staring at him for a moment.

 

“That’s awfully convenient,” she says, her ears twitching.

 

“Rhine! The river-wizard!” proclaims the boy, throwing the book to her and holding his hands at his hips like a proud champion. He lets out a boisterous laugh.

 

Hineni shrugs, getting up. Best not to question it. “Good enough for me.” He looks at Obscura. “I’m going with Sockel to Avarice. There might be some old money there from my family,” he says.

 

Obscura nods, flying up to the rafters above. “Obscura will watch the glass-man, yes?” she hoots.

 

The glassworker looks up from his work, staring at the owl that has changed into her giant form, her massive shadow looming down over him as she clicks excitedly with her beak that is the size of his torso.

 

Without saying a word, the man turns back forward and continues his work on the window.

 

Hineni nods in approval. Now that’s professionalism.

 

---

 

Pale snow falls down from the cold sky, which carries the same dull lightlessness of the many flakes. It’s dampening, in a way.

 

As they walk, the muddy, slushy slurry of mud, snow, dirt and gunk that is all caked together by the sides of the road, crunches beneath their boots. Hineni stares up at the falling snow, realizing that it carries the same exact weight and color as the robe of the priestess of the death-god.

 

Snow, falling snow, comes to cover the dying world of autumn. It comes to drape itself over everything like a burial shroud, so that by the time it has faded, that everything beneath it will have decomposed and fallen apart, hidden from the world beneath a veneer that carries a solemn beauty to it.

 

“I’ve never been down this way,” says Hineni, looking nervously around themselves.

 

The further they walk, the more different the houses and the people around them become. The structures of his own neighborhood are ‘livable’ to put it nicely, but that’s about it. However, with every minute of travel, the facades of the buildings become nicer and nicer. The windows are larger, cleaner, brighter. The same could be applied to the people who they see. The further they go, the more properly dressed they are, by standards of polite society and the more well fed they seem to appear.

 

There aren’t many adventurers down this way. This is the golden quarter of the city. It’s where all of the high-end merchants, banks and businesses are. This is where the real money in the city moves around. Everything else, apart from the work done in the tower quarter, is pocket change.

 

Hineni looks down to a street-vendor who is selling exotic fruits. Each of them, for a single piece, runs well over seventy Obols and the people here are lining up to buy them by the basket-fulls. Even the stones paving the streets seem to be straighter, brighter and better aligned than in his part of the city. They’re definitely more well kept and he can even see a man running around, scraping out the cracks between the pavers to keep them free of overgrowth and trash.

 

The golden quarter is prosperous in a way that is almost incomprehensible. But that’s to be expected. This is where many gods and their followers live. Particularly, Avarice, the god of wealth himself. In the center of the plaza is a giant, ornate, white-stone fountain that people sit around, enjoying their lunches out in public despite the winter’s bite. Somehow, as impossible as it might be, even the sparse shine of the sun seems to glow brighter here than it does in his quarter. It’s all opulent in its beauty.

 

Hineni looks down at himself, fidgeting with the old, yellow scarf and the raggedy coat that he’s wearing.

 

In the center of the plaza, on the far side of it, is a large staircase heading up to a white-marble pillared institution. Avarice, the bank, belonging to the god named Avarice. He likes to put his name on things, apparently.

 

“This is it,” says Sockel, walking towards it. “Come on,” she says, heading up the first stairs, clutching the leather bag with their papers.

 

Hineni looks up the staircase. It’s almost daunting. Honestly, it’s excessively large and high. He can’t help but feel that the bank was built like this not out of some necessity, born of the landscape, but just because they wanted a giant, ornate staircase. He sighs and walks on up after her.

 

People come and go, taking about the same pace as them, but it feels less like walking by someone on the street and more like walking past a fellow climber on a mountain trail. Despite feeling like five minutes, a minute later, they reach the top, standing between two giant pillars and the grand door into the building. Hineni spares a look back down around the plaza, sure that for a brief flash of a second, that he sees a white-robed woman standing there and staring at him, her hand still held out open for him to grasp.

 

But when he blinks and squints to look closer, he sees that it’s just a mound of old snow.

 

---

 

“Hineni, chosen of the Owl-God?” asks the bank-teller. Though, unlike any of the people who had come to visit him at his home, she sounds almost bored.

 

“Yes,” replies Hineni, not sure how she knows who he is. They haven’t even given her the papers yet. They just walked up to the desk a second ago.

 

She nods, scribbling away in some ledger. “You’re late for your appointment.”

 

Hineni blinks, looking at Sockel, before turning back to the teller. “We never made an appointment?” he asks.

 

The woman rolls her eyes. “We made it for you,” she says in an annoyed tone, closing the ledger. “Please follow me. Avarice would like to see you.”

 

 

---