Chapter 170 - Forgotten Blood IV

Every one of the temples that lined the street had its own flair and identity, a reason to stand out from its peers. And yet, despite all the creativity and labour that went into each art piece, none could stand up to that of the goddess of order. Though certainly one of the most powerful and influential deities, Flitzegarde was given no special treatment. Her cathedral was not the one that lived at the street’s far end. That honor belonged instead to the god of the inner flame, because it was one of his disciples that first cultivated the land. Like every other run of the mill church, it was placed along the side of the road, with a small lot just big enough to fit its building. And yet, it drew the eye with an unmistakable gravity; none that passed it by were able to ignore it, no matter how busy or zealous they were.

The stones used in its construction were impossibly white. They were so clean and pristine that they almost seemed to shine, even though they were most certainly not reflective. Claire would have found it difficult to so much as look at the building, had the stained glass windows not broken up the pure whiteness. Each decorative piece featured an intricate relief of a beautiful woman that looked like a catgirl but wasn’t. The lyrkress didn’t know how she knew, but something inside of her was convinced that the two were distinct and not to be confused.

Lowering her eyes, she gazed into the temple’s open doors and found herself staring at what was effectively another world. Its guests were standing in perfect single-file lines. Each silently awaited their turn with a clipboard in one hand and a quill in the other. One of the staff members standing by the entryway sorted the guests based on their business; different groups were sent in different directions, with the contents of their forms the key deciding factor.

Everything was so neat and perfect that Claire found herself bothered. There was an indescribable itch welling up within her, something that made her equal parts tired and annoyed. It was too excessive. She couldn’t help but feel that there was something wrong with the goddess and her followers. It was like they had no will, like they had cast their own wants and desires aside in the pursuit of uniformity.

“How… unsettling,” she muttered.

“Yeah, that’s kinda weird,” agreed Sylvia.

“Is it? It seems pretty normal to me,” said Natalya. “I kind of like how they have all their ducks in a row.”

The incorrect opinion was met with a pair stares, one judging, and the other somewhat confused.

“O-oh come on,” complained the cat. “There’s nothing wrong with a little order here and there.”

Claire shook her head. “There’s everything wrong with it.”

She had no intention of joining the hivemind, but there was no other way to access the temple. The goddess of order was a picky mistress, and her followers often rejected those that failed to conform. Entering the line was the only choice she had.

A dozen eyes shot to her as soon as she stepped into the formation, their looks almost openly hostile. It wasn’t until one of the priestesses intentionally cleared her throat that the lyrkress begrudgingly set her hooves shoulder-width apart and straightened her tail. A clipboard and a quill appeared in the space in front of her as soon as she adhered to the rules, their frames glowing softly with an obnoxious golden light.

Lips twisting into a frown, she accepted the utensils and looked through the form. Filling in the first field, the size of her group, caused a strange distortion that twisted her senses out of place.

Log Entry 6022
Detect Force Magic has reached level 23.

Sylvia and Natalya appeared right behind her. Even though she was the only one to have stepped forward.

“H-huh? W-what!?”

The fox, who was immediately regarded with contempt, had been forced into her humanoid form. She was fully dressed, and not in the elven tunic that she had recently purchased. Her body was adorned instead in one of the robes that had vanished in the rubble, following Natalya’s advent.

Only after looking at the fox did Claire realise that she had gone through a similar change. Her hooves and tail were both gone; she was in her humanoid form and her cloak had been turned into a dress, the various goods in its pockets had transferred into her skirt. Even without the use of her eyes, she could tell that they had been rearranged. The nosy goddess, or perhaps one of the celestials in her service, had sorted all the items in the orders of form and function.

“Calm down, Sylvia,” whispered Lia. “They don’t like it when you cause a fuss.”

“But I was just a fox! What the heck happened!?”

One of the many priests standing along the temple’s walls approached the fox and bowed. “Excuse me, dear guest. We would appreciate it if you could remain silent during the procession.”

“O-ohhh uhmmm… right. Sorry.”

Laughing awkwardly, Sylvia clamped a hand over her mouth and tried her best to stand still. She was awfully stiff, compared to all the others, and her less-than-ideal posture soon earned a number of angry glares, which of course only made her even stiffer in turn. As entertaining as Claire found the self-perpetuating cycle, she soon peeled her eyes off the panicked canid and returned to the clipboard at hand.

Her mind almost seemed to dim as she wrote the word quest into the business field. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself standing in front of a desk, with neither the wooden tool nor the writing utensil anywhere to be seen.

“Thank you for waiting,” said an old, balding priest. “I believe your business was related to a quest? We do not happen to have you on file. Could you please provide the issuer as well as all other relevant details?”

Though her mind had yet to fully catch up with the bizarre phenomenon, she nodded and moved to grab the mysterious box, only to find that it was already in her hands. She gave the priest a skeptical look, but reading his face was impossible; his guard was up, and it was better than many of those that thrived in the Cadrian court.

“The quest was issued by the celestial Alfred Llarsse. We,” she looked at Sylvia, “were tasked with delivering this box to one of Flitzegarde’s temples.”

“Yup!” said the foxgirl. “And it’s a real quest, not just an ask. It went through the system and everything.”

“I do not recall there being an Alfred Llarsse among the list of known celestials…” The man scribbled a few notes down with his quill before taking the box and examining its exterior. It was not until he was sure that it was harmless that he finally opened up its lid and peeked inside.

Claire followed his eyes with her own at first, but quickly steered them away upon noting its contents. She lowered her stance and prepared for a potential conflict, but no such event came to be. His face a light shade of red, the priest closed the box back up and took a slow but unsteady breath. “C-consider these items duly received.” He quickly filled in a few blanks and handed her a neatly cut document. “This will be your invoice. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some… private matters to attend to.” Pulling the box closer to his chest, he took off and made for the building’s depths.

Log Entry 6023
You have completed “Flitzegarde’s Greatest Need.”

The celestial of life and fertility has forgiven all of your misdeeds.

“Damn it, Al! I should’ve known,” muttered Sylvia. “He likes that trick way too much for his own good.”

“We should leave,” said Claire.

“Uhmmm? What was in the box?” asked Lia.

“Nothing.” The snake grabbed the cat by the shoulders and spun her around. “Now let’s go.”

Though Natalya would never learn of the package’s contents, she would later hear a rumour regarding a particularly curious excommunication. According to the public record, the priest in question was branded a heretic after a superior discovered him standing before one of the goddess’ effigies with his hands inside his pants. Accompanying the mad clergyman was a horde of blasphemous material, the most egregious of which was an illustrated story depicting the goddess of order alongside an unfathomably erect orc.

“That’s all of our business.” Claire spoke as soon as they left the temple’s grounds. “Let’s go. To the dungeon.”

“Hold your horses.” A hand grabbed the back of her dress before she could march down the street. “I think we should visit the arms dealer before we leave.”

“Well I don’t,” said Claire. “We’ve wasted enough time.” Her ascension was right around the corner, and it was taking all the willpower she had not to run off in its immediate pursuit. Even though she had to wait another twenty five hours regardless.

The impatient lyrkress had already decided not to take on any new quests. Vella had extended a personal invitation, and she suspected that Builledracht would have been willing to negotiate, but she skipped out on visiting both in the interest of time. Flitzegarde was another deity she had planned on asking, but Alfred had led her to miss out on the opportunity. She was certain that the door was closed to her, after discovering the box’s contents.

“We’ve got a lot of funds to spare, so it might be worth investing in some new equipment. I think I might know someone that’s good enough to work with the horns you kept.”

“I dunno if there’s really much of a point,” said Sylvia. The half-fox was still in her elven form. She was too busy enjoying the sensation of her mother’s hand-made dress to bother switching back. “Claire loses stuff all the time, and she’s probably just gonna pick up something better later and use that instead.”

While Sylvia thought nothing of the statement, Boris found himself staring down an existential crisis. The lizard reacted with a look of despair, followed by another when he realised that the first was completely ignored.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Natalya. “How do you manage to use all those different types of weapons anyway?”

“Oh, I know, I know! Blade magic!” said Sylvia.

“I’m not quite sure that explains how she’s able to use Boris…”

“It’s because Boris is just a blade if you squint hard enough, duh,” said the fox. “Right, Boris?”

The lump of metal still strapped to Claire’s back raised his head and nodded with all the vigour of a sad lizard desperately trying to prove his worth. Almost exactly like that, in fact.

“See?”

“That sounds like a bit of a stretch no matter how you spin it,” muttered the cat.

“Doesn’t matter. It works,” said Claire. “We can come back for equipment later. Once I level. Just two more times.”

“Alright, alright, fine.” Natalya sighed. “I can already tell that you’re just going to run off if I make you wait. We can head out right away, but I do have just one condition.”

“What?”

“No flying.”

Claire tilted her head. “You want to swim?”

“Of course not,” laughed the cat. “I was thinking we could rent a boat.”

“Oh.”

“That sounds fun.” Eyes sparkling, Sylvia stretched her spine as far as it would go and looked towards the sea. “I’ve never been on a boat before.”

The buildings littering the city stopped her eyes from reaching the ocean, so she climbed Claire’s back in an attempt to get a better look, completely unbothered by the fact that they were both in their humanoid forms.

“Stupid dog,” muttered the lyrkress.

“Hey, I heard that!”

“I know. That was the point.”

Sylvia was standing directly atop the other girl’s shoulders. And because they both remained perfectly balanced, they drew the eyes of those around them. Whispers shot through the crowd, with many commenters pointing out that neither of them were Ryllain natives. Some wondered if they were traveling performers, while others remarked them dangerous, stupid, or both.

“Why do you keep calling Sylvia a dog anyway?” asked Natalya.

“It’s because she’s mean!” complained the dog.

“No it isn’t. There’s a good reason.”

“Yeah, right!”

A small frown crossed Claire’s lips. “There’s a very good reason.” She crouched over and let the fox step off of her back before forcefully apprehending her by the cheeks. “You said that moose and deer are the same thing.”

“H-huh?” The lady with the abused cheeks blinked. Thrice. “I did?”

“Yes. After I blew up Borrok Peak.”

“Wait a second! That was like once! And it was like literally weeks ago!”

“Once too many.”

“Gosh, Claire! You’re so petty!” groaned the fox.

“Noble ladies are not petty.” Claire bolstered her pinching efforts. Shaping her fingers into talons, she pulled the foxgirl’s face as far as it would go, and then some.

“Yeah, but you are! Right, Lia?” The victim, however, was unperturbed. She had already learned, thanks to continued exposure, that her cheeks could not be permanently deformed.

“I think I’m going to have to go with Sylvia on this one,” giggled the cat.

Because the opinion she gave was objectively wrong, she too was subjected to the same punishment; one of the lyrkress’ hands immediately began tugging on the side of her face.

“Idiots. Both of you,” said the deer.

She continued to walk with both their faces in tow, heading down the street with each step faster and springier than the last. Her victims, of course, were eventually released, but not before their cheeks were left with a visible red mark. Sylvia immediately hid hers by turning back into a fox, but Natalya had not as many tools at her disposal. She could only ignore the people she passed, many of whom regarded the swollen cheek with curiosity.

The city changed as they got closer to the shore, with the aquatic buildings and paths only growing more prevalent. Some of the lots were effectively empty, just large holes dug into the sand and filled with water that flowed in from the sea. Buildings on the exact opposite side of the spectrum had also become more frequent. There were many large warehouses and other industrial constructs, some of which even had access to the shore. And it was precisely in front of one of those that the group wound up.

“This should be the place,” said Natalya.

Size aside, the building was relatively unassuming. It had a typical slanted roof, a boring exterior coated in a layer of faded blue paint, and a trio of doors. Even the smallest, the one situated in the middle, was tall enough to fit a moose, and the other two had dimensions at least twenty times greater.

“Doesn’t hurt to try!”

Sylvia dashed up to the tiniest entrance and gave it a knock. There was far too much hammering coming from the other side for anyone to notice the subtle rapping, so Sylvia amplified it with her magic and forced the sound through the building.

“Stop knocking so loud! You’re gonna break something goddammit!” Before long, a shout was hurled at them from beyond the entrance, its owner stomping up to the door and throwing it open shortly after. “The hell do you want?”

The less-than-happy worker that greeted them was an older lady with two heads. One was right beneath the first of her two stomachs. Adorned with eight beady black eyes, it was an extremely fuzzy dome with all the parts that one would expect from her mostly spider-like frame. Its counterpart sat atop the humanoid torso growing out of her neck. Even with its back ramrod straight, its crown was only about two thirds of the way up her massive abdomen, but for what it lacked in height, it made up with musculature. Her body was incredibly defined, with her core clearly visible through her sweat-stained shirt.

Her humanoid half was clearly annoyed, its attention focused on the taller pair standing in front of it, but her spider half, on the other hand, had its gaze trained on Sylvia. Unlike its pouting counterpart, the arachnid face was completely devoid of anger. It even raised a leg and waved cheerfully at the fox, who was happy to respond in kind.

“Hello. Is this the Emmers’ shipyard?” asked Natalya.

“Yeah? What ‘bout it?”

“I was hoping we would be able to rent one of your boats.”

“Rent?” The lady scoffed. “We haven’t done that in years. You want a boat, you’ll have to buy one.”

“Y-you haven’t?” Lia blinked a few times before regaining her composure. “I guess that could be fine too. How much are they?”

“Depends on what you need. Follow me.”

The spider lady turned around and gestured for the group to follow. Walking through the shipyard, they passed a number of works in progress, massive wooden vessels in all stages of their lives. All of them were being worked on by arachnes, some larger, some smaller, all female and toned.

“We sell all sorts of different ships. But if it’s just for you three, I’d say you’ll want something smaller. Maybe a rowboat, or one powered by magic if you’ve got the coin.”

She pointed around the building, at everything from the frames hanging off the walls to the vessels already afloat in the water. But while Claire followed her finger at first, she soon found her eyes focused on a peculiar object located atop one of the furthest piers. It was a carving of a strange, lizard-like head, mounted atop a large wooden prism and adorned with the sort of hat that one would typically find atop a witch’s head.

“Don’t worry about that,” said the spider, as she traced the cervitaur’s gaze. “It’s nothing special. Just a small shrine so we can do our midday prayers without having to leave the workplace.”

“Can I use it?”

The arachne eyed her briefly before nodding with her less-humanoid head. “Be my guest. Bet our gods would ‘preciate the devotion.”

Thanking the bug-eater with a nod, Claire left the shopping to the others and approached the deities’ shared effigy. Sitting on her knees, she clasped her hands in her lap and closed her eyes, and first prayed to the one that was unfamiliar.

“O goddess of the moon. Mistress of tides, and guiding light. I beseech from you a trial, a task that would deem me worthy of your blessing.”

The goddess did not whisk her away or even send a revelation. The night was still far, but the goddess was not unwilling to respond. A swirl of energy appeared around the lyrkress and enveloped her body, wrapping it as would a mantle of raw divinity.

Log Entry 6024
You have received a quest - Aid the Moonchild

Primary Objectives
- Provide aid to the one blessed with the mark of the moon.

This quest’s reward is a blessing from Griselda, goddess of the moon. The precise strength and effect of this blessing is to be determined by the goddess’ satisfaction.

Nodding, she took a deep breath and cleared her mind of distractions. Slowly, carefully, she invoked the title of the deity she had shown her back.

“O god of curses, divine overlord of lament and grief. I am your subject no longer, but for my shameless insolence I seek exoneration. I wish from you a task not for your blessing, but your pardon and forgiveness.”

She was expecting Builledracht to either ignore or scorn her. But her former patron did neither.

Log Entry 6025
You have received a divine revelation:

Claire,

I’ve been keeping a careful eye on you ever since you first interfered with that ritual. I’m confident that you would be able to clear any trial worth giving, and I don’t see any purpose in putting you through any more undue stress. My blessing is yours, so long as you still remember what we last discussed.

May eternal suffering befall your foes,

Builledracht

“I understand,” said Claire. “I swear upon my soul that I shall endeavour to carefully consider any option that has mention of a ‘dragon.’”

Log Entry 6026
You have been blessed by the God of Curses. You have become more resistant to curses and your ability to remove them through the application of divine power has been greatly enhanced. Those that face you in combat are more prone to falling prey to the effects of fear.

“Thank you, Builledracht.”

There were no more messages, and Claire had little more to say, but she kept her hands clasped regardless and stayed stock still in front of the shrine whilst her friends shopped for boats. It was the least she could do to express her thanks. To the man who had so graciously forgotten her betrayal.