Hell was pretty much what Nightingale had imagined. Rivers of lava, red, sunless skies that glowed just brightly enough to be uncomfortable, the constant sound of the screams of tortured souls somewhere in the distance. While Kaylen’s altered biology allowed her to survive here, Nightingale had to rely on an enchanted Cloak of Temperate Climate borrowed from the von Ekko family’s maid to survive. Both needed water constantly, making travel difficult.

Unfortunately, due to the occasionally-changing landscape of Hell, the pair’s map was no longer accurate, and Nightingale’s self-summoning spell had landed them days away from the mountain they were seeking, forcing them to trudge aimlessly across the blasted landscape until they found a village.

Thankfully, they were still within demon-controlled lands, far from the tortured souls whose cries somehow managed to travel countless miles to reach them.

The village was small and dusty, surrounded by farmlands where the demons grew unappetizing brown vegetables and raised emaciated, fanged livestock. Its buildings were old and drab, but well-maintained. To Nightingale’s surprise, no one seemed particularly miserable here. The village’s inhabitants were bright and cheerful, excited to welcome the travelers. Perhaps they preferred the excessive heat, lack of grass and the constant presence of distant screams.

They appeared to be particularly hardy varieties of demon. There were no amphibian or avian features, and while some bore a passing resemblance to humans or orcs, most were covered in carapaces or rock-like hides or thick, leathery skin. The smallest were around the size of children and the largest would have found it impossible to fit through most human-built doors.

At the center of the village, the pair was approached by a small group of demons who began speaking to them in Inferno. Nightingale replied in Rampartian, explaining that she didn’t understand the language and the demons began a brief discussion among themselves.

“Are they debating what language we speak?” wondered Kaylen.

“They’re probably deciding how to cook us,” Nightingale joked.

Eventually, one of the demons walked off and the others gestured for the travelers to follow them. They led Nightingale and Kaylen to a tavern which closely resembled the type that could be found in any Rampartian village, save for the fact that the furniture came in various sizes and shapes. The demon who had departed arrived a few minutes later, leading a frail-looking demon with an armadillo shell. He would probably need to trade in his body for a new one, soon. Nightingale wondered why he hadn’t already.

“Visitors from the world of the living,” he said in a raspy voice. “My horoscope told me I was in for a surprise this week, but I never would have imagined something like this.”

Nightingale wondered where he was reading his horoscope. Did they have newspapers in Hell?

“Really? I’m surprised. This village would make a nice little vacation spot,” Nightingale replied.

The demon laughed. He gestured to a table and the group took a seat. A waiter approached and the elderly demon ordered something.

“You’re adventurers, I would imagine. No doubt here on some quest. I’ve heard rumors that some of you make your way down here once a decade or so,” said the demon.

“That’s exactly who we are,” Kaylen replied. “We’ve gotten a little lost.”

Their drinks arrived. Nightingale took a sip of hers and was surprised to discover the taste of spice. Was that cinnamon?

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” the armadillo replied. “Perhaps we can help you find the right path.”

Kaylen took out the pair’s map, copied out of the von Ekkos’ book, and showed it to the demon. “We’re looking for this mountain. But we think our map may be a little dated.”

The demon held the map first close to his face, then at a distance. “Oh, yes, the land hasn’t looked like this for some time. A few hundred years ago, Roolius built an extension on his part of Hell and things were shifted around a little as a result.”

“Do you know where that mountain is now?” Nightingale asked.

The demon responded by saying something in Inferno to his companion, who stood and walked out of the tavern.

“I think we can figure it out,” said the demon. “But I don’t know what you think you’re going to find there. There aren’t any dragons to slay or treasures to find. All the mountains here are perfectly ordinary.”

Nightingale and Kaylen shared a look. The elf noticed the curiosity on her companion’s face and shook her head slightly. Kaylen, of course, ignored her.

“Have you heard about the power the gods fear?”

The adorable fool.

The demon nodded. “I know of it. It’s said to be hiding somewhere in demon-ruled lands. You don’t think it’s hidden in that mountain, do you?”

Kaylen smirked. “That’s exactly where we think it is.”

The demon gave her a stern look. “I’ve lived here since the Calamity, young lady. If there was anything interesting on any of the local mountains, I would know about it.”

“But the maid said that the demons were made to forget everything that happened before and during the Calamity,” Kaylen said, voice dripping with cockiness. “If the power is older than the Calamity, you probably forgot about it when you forgot everything else.”

The demon looked troubled, but said nothing.

A few minutes later, the demon’s friend returned with a rolled-up map. The demon unfurled it and compared it to the map in the book, looking between one and the other for several long moments.

Finally, he shook his head. “It’s no use. The topography has changed so much that I can’t remember all of the details, and some of these mountains have been destroyed or merged or split. Your mountain might not even exist anymore.”

Kaylen looked at Nightingale, her face sinking. “What are we going to do now? We’re so close.”

Nightingale smiled reassuringly. “Don’t worry, we’ll figure something out. We’ll stay here until we think of a solution.” She looked to the demon. “Do you think you could help us find a place to stay?”

“Of course,” the demon replied.

As it happened, the tavern also served as an inn. The demon helped them rent a room and purchase a meal. Afterwards, he excused himself, saying he was growing tired. As soon as he was out the door, Nightingale dropped her silverware onto the plate of strange meat and vegetables.

“Come on, Kaylen. We need to buy supplies.”

Kaylen cocked her head. “Shouldn’t we wait until tomorrow? I don’t want to overwork the only person here who speaks Rampartian.”

“We don’t need him. You have your Magi-Net book?” Nightingale asked.

Kaylen offered it to Nightingale who took it and flipped through it until she found the page she was looking for, an advanced bit of work from Nebula Academy that automatically translated any words written into it to any other language. She waved down a waiter, who approached them somewhat apprehensively.

Nightingale quickly wrote the phrase “General store?” on the page, the Inferno translation appeared on the opposite page. She showed it to the waiter, who just furrowed his brow and said something in a confused tone.

Nightingale looked at the words she had written. Perhaps Magi-Net was confused about which meaning to use for one of them. Maybe it had thought she meant the military rank for “general” or the verb form of “store.” She crossed it out and tried again, this time writing “Groceries?”

This time the waiter nodded and held out a hand. Nightingale handed him the book and he wrote something on the Inferno side. A moment later, the translation appeared. “Always south at the wide building.”

“Always south?” Kaylen asked. “What does that mean?”

Nightingale frowned at the book. “I think this translation page isn’t completely accurate. He probably means that it’s directly south.”

Of course, even if that was true, those directions weren’t much use in a sunless world. She wrote “Which way is south?” and showed the book to the waiter again, who sighed and pointed.

Nightingale thanked him and led Kaylen outside, then in the direction the waiter had indicated. It took some time to find the store. It seemed that “Always south” did not mean directly south. The pair arrived just as the armadillo demon was stepping inside. Nightingale quickly grabbed Kaylen’s sleeve and pulled her around to the side of the building.

“What are you doing?” Kaylen asked way too loudly.

“Quiet,” Nightingale said in a hushed voice. “I think our friend is hiding something from us.”

The two crouched by the side of the building for several minutes. Kaylen tried several times to speak up and each time Nightingale hushed her. Finally, she heard the sound of the door opening again and the slow steps of the armadillo demon walking away.

“Wait here another minute, then go inside and buy enough supplies for a few days’ travel,” Nightingale instructed as she passed the Magi-net book to Kaylen. “I’ll meet you back at the inn.”

Ignoring Kaylen’s protests, Nightingale peeked around the side of the building and caught sight of the armadillo demon. She pursued him carefully, always staying around corners or behind obstacles. So as not to look suspicious to any other passers-by, she presented herself as a loiterer, usually leaning against a wall or pretending to examine some nearby object, while she waited for the agonizingly slow armadillo demon to make enough progress for her to move.

Finally, after what felt like hours, he entered one of the village’s larger houses. By now the sky was starting to darken into what passed for nighttime here. Since the streets were emptying, Nightingale guessed that the demons here were diurnal, so she returned to the inn.

Back at their room she found a concerned-looking Kaylen.

“What’s going on?” the ex-priestess asked.

“That armadillo guy knows exactly where the mountain is,” Nightingale announced, “and he’s going to lead us straight to it.”

“Oh, he figured it out?” Kaylen asked. “Before he sounded so sure that he couldn’t find it.”

Nightingale blinked. “No, Kaylen, he was lying to us. Remember, you told him what we were looking for?”

Kaylen gasped. “You think he’s secretly working for the gods and he figured out that we were planning to destroy them?”

Nightingale stared at Kaylen for a moment, then made several attempts to begin a sentence responding to that ridiculous question. She felt her face beginning to heat. How was Kaylen this cute?

Finally, she managed to get a sentence out. “We should get some rest. We’ll need to get up early tomorrow.”

Despite Kaylen’s complaints that it was too early, Nightingale managed to coax her into getting ready for bed. Tragically, their room had two beds, and when Nightingale began to suggest sharing she became so tongue-tied that Kaylen just stared at her in confusion. Eventually, they settled into their beds for the night.

After a few minutes of silence Kaylen suddenly said, “I told the maid what we were looking for, too. Do you think she lied to us?”

They rose early as the sky began to lighten, Kaylen once again complaining that it was too early. Did morning and night even arrive at the same times here? The pair dressed and collected their things, then Nightingale led Kaylen to the armadillo demon’s house where they discovered a small wagon drawn by one of the fanged livestock creatures waiting in front. Nightingale pulled a protesting Kaylen around the side of a nearby house and signaled for her to wait.

After about an hour, during which they held a long conversation about women’s rights, the armadillo demon finally emerged from his house and struggled onto the wagon, urging the creature into motion with a flick of the reins.

It moved at a slow, plodding pace, making it easy for Nightingale and Kaylen to follow. Just as before, they stayed out of sight, always just around corners, as the wagon made its way to the edge of the village. From there it was a couple of hours of waiting until the wagon was a speck in the distance. Finally, they began to follow.

The blasted landscape was not easy for the wagon to navigate, so it meandered this way and that, avoiding ridges and rocks and cracks as it made its way towards the mountains that dominated the horizon. While Nightingale and Kaylen could take a more direct path, it was not easy, and often involved as much climbing as walking as they made their way over ridges that resembled frozen waves. Eventually, the sky dimmed again and the wagon halted for the night. Kaylen and Nightingale, too, took this time to rest.

Things continued like this for a few days, the pair always keeping the wagon just visible in the distance, occasionally losing sight of it only to discover it had taken some unexpected turn to get around some distant obstacle. Their supplies dwindled quickly and Nightingale realized they wouldn’t make it back to the village if they tried to turn around. The only way to safety now would be another summoning spell. It was also beginning to become clearer which mountain the wagon was moving towards, a small one which did not stand out from the others in any way Nightingale could observe.

She realized she should worry more about their situation. What if they were heading toward the wrong mountain? What if it held dangers they weren’t aware of? What if summoning spells couldn’t be performed in Hell? However, she found herself unable to worry about the possibility of her dream ending. She was here now with Kaylen. She was helping the woman she loved change the world. Where else would she want to be?

The landscape became even more difficult to navigate and Nightingale began picking up the pace to close the distance between them and the wagon. This turned out to be a smart decision when the wagon stopped unexpectedly and Kaylen caught sight of a smaller figure, the demon himself, having abandoned the wagon. Nightingale continued to push the pair forward, abandoning all pretense of stealth in order to catch up. When the armadillo demon reached the base of the mountain he halted and turned to wait for his pursuers to reach him.

Nightingale unslung her rifle and loaded an ordinary bullet, not one of the Demon King-killers, whispering an incantation to cause it to explode on impact.

Once the pair a few dozen feet away the demon spoke up. “So you saw through my lie.”

“What are you even going to use the power for?” Kaylen called back.

“I was a king before the Calamity,” the demon replied. “With the power, I will be again.”

“I thought demons didn’t have any memories from before the Calamity,” Kaylen said.

The demon shrugged. “No detailed memories, but I know I was powerful. That fool who dares to call himself a Demon King couldn’t begin to compare. I know I had servants. I know I led campaigns. After the Calamity, when I woke up in that disgusting village I knew there must have been a reason why I was there. I may have forgotten most of it, but there are fragments left in my head. And a few other clues, as well. Like my body.”

“What about your body?” Nightingale called back, her voice raspy from rationing water. She continued to march forward, closing the distance between herself and the armadillo demon.

The demon grinned viciously. “Oh yes. Why do you think I kept this half-dead old body instead of trading it in five hundred years ago? It’s because it has a hidden power.”

The wind kicked up behind Nightingale and to her left, sweeping at her jacket and pulling her to the side, nearly blowing away her hat. Dust was caught in the wind and swirled around and around, spiraling towards the armadillo demon who, Nightingale now realized, had a strained look on his face as though he was concentrating very hard.

“I’m still not up to my full strength,” Kaylen said to Nightingale. “Once he does whatever he’s doing, this is going to be a huge fight. You should stay back.”

Ignoring her, Nightingale aimed her rifle and fired.

The explosion in his face sent the demon flying backwards several meters where he landed in a heap. The wind halted suddenly.

“Oh, never mind, then,” said Kaylen. “That was easy.”

The pair jogged to stand over the demon.

“The alchemists make some high quality weapons,” Nightingale said. 

“Wait, but isn’t that really powerful?” Kaylen asked. “Riven’s fireballs explode, but a single one wouldn’t have been enough to kill a demon channeling that much power.”

Nightingale shrugged. “I enchanted the bullet. My enchantments always seem to get the job done.”

The demon stirred below them.

“Oh, I guess he’s still alive.” Kaylen extended one of her shadow arms to strangle the demon. “Still, though, that shot seemed to be way more powerful than it should have been. I mean, no offense but a spellsword’s magic isn’t normally as powerful as a full-fledged mage.”

Nightingale stared down at the struggling demon. Nothing that had occurred seemed unusual to her. “Maybe it’s the rifle? Or maybe I’m naturally powerful?”

The demon finally went limp in Kaylen’s shadow grip. “I guess it’s nothing to worry about for now. How do we get into the mountain?”

Nightingale gazed up the barren, rocky mountainside. There was no sign of any caves or doors or suspiciously smooth walls. “I don’t know. I hope the entrance wasn’t collapsed when the landscape was rearranged.”

“If I was still a priestess, I could use divine power to sense for hollow areas inside the mountain,” Kaylen said.

Nightingale looked back to Kaylen. “What about now? Do you have any sort of demon contract power that’ll help?”

Kaylen shrugged. “I have no idea what kinds of powers I have now. All I’ve been able to figure out is the shadow thing. Can you use magic to help?”

Nightingale shook her head. “My skills are way too specialized. I could find something on Magi-Net, but trying to learn a whole new spell in a specialty I’m not familiar with would take days at least.”

Kaylen gave her a doubtful look. “Don’t tell me we’re stuck trudging all over this mountain until we find an entrance.”

Nightingale sighed. “I’m afraid we are.”

For the next hour, the pair climbed over steep ledges and unsteady, gravelly terrain. In that time, they made little progress and quickly tired themselves out. As she finished the last of the water, Nightingale was beginning to realize that they would be able to search a tiny section of the mountain before she would need to leave. Worse, it occurred to her, Kaylen would insist on staying and continuing to search. With her demon-granted strength, Kaylen would last much longer than Nightingale. Soon she would insist that Nightingale retreat, summoning herself back to House von Ekko, but she would refuse to come with. Kaylen always pushed forward with no concern for her own safety, seemingly unable to perceive any safer-yet-longer path. But even her body wouldn’t last forever. She would run out of energy eventually and Nightingale wouldn’t be able to rescue her.

Thankfully, just as she was about to speak up, Kaylen spoke first. “Is the mountain angry at us?”

Nightingale blinked, wondering if she had misheard Kaylen. “Angry?”

Kaylen nodded, her gaze sweeping back and forth across the rocks before them. “Yeah, it feels a little bit like when you’re in a room with someone who is angry with you. But they haven’t told you that they’re angry, so you’re not really sure, and you don’t know why they would be, but you still get the sense that they’re angry. That’s what the mountain feels like.”

Nightingale could picture the feeling Kaylen was describing, but couldn’t imagine it coming from a mountain. “When did you start feeling this?”

“Just a little while ago. But it’s getting stronger.”

Had a solution just presented itself? Nightingale was hesitant to ask. “Is the sensation coming from any particular direction?”

Kaylen looked back and forth, biting her lower lip as she concentrated. Finally she pointed ahead of them and somewhat up the mountainside. “From there, I think.”

Nightingale steered them in that direction. For the next several minutes they continued like this, with Nightingale occasionally pausing to ask Kaylen if they were on the right path. Finally, as they rounded a boulder, Nightingale found an entrance.

It was less a cave than a hole in the ground where a steep cliff met the ground, barely wide enough to squeeze through one at a time. It wasn’t the encouraging sight. It would be easy to become trapped in a hole like that. Was it really the way into the mountain? Would it turn out to be a dead end after a few meters? What proof did they even have that there was anything under this mountain at all? The word of some random woman and a map in a forgotten old book?

While she was contemplating, Kaylen dropped her bag and got down on her hands and knees to begin crawling inside.

“Wait, Kaylen, are you sure about this?” Nightingale asked.

Kaylen looked back up at her, confused. “We need to get inside, don’t we?”

“But...but…” Nightingale groped for an answer. But which of the many reasons this was a bad idea would Kaylen listen to?

“Nightingale, we’re never going to find it if we don’t try,” Kaylen stated.

Nightingale felt something in her chest. Excitement flooded her and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to follow Kaylen down that hole. It was that directness, that foolhardy confidence. It was everything Nightingale loved about Kaylen. It could be victory or disaster, but for Kaylen there was no question that she would find out which. And hearing Kaylen say it in such a matter-of-fact way left Nightingale with no more doubts about continuing.

Nightingale dropped her bag, keeping only her rifle and ammunition, and joined Kaylen at the hole.

“Besides,” added Kaylen with a wry grin, “it’s not like you have anything to worry about. Worst thing that will happen is you’ll wake up.”

Nightingale had to fight the tears that began to well up in her eyes. “You understand. You really understand.”

Kaylen blinked. “Of course I do. You told me about it.”

Nightingale shook her head. “I’ve told other people, but they never understood. They always just thought I was crazy and pretended like I hadn’t said anything.”

Kaylen shrugged and began squeezing into the hole. “You are crazy. But that’s also the world you live in. It doesn’t make any sense for me to pretend like you don’t.”

With some effort, Kaylen managed to squeeze all the way in and Nightingale began to follow her. Since she had a slighter build than Kaylen, it was easier for her, but she still couldn’t rise up on her hands and knees and was forced to crawl on her belly. The ceiling grew lower and lower, then seemed to rise slightly. Ahead of her, she could hear Kaylen’s horns scraping against the rock.

Nightingale quickly lost her sense of both time and direction. She reached a point where she had no idea how long she had spent in the darkness crawling behind Kaylen. She couldn’t tell how far they had gone. They moved so slowly that it couldn’t have been far. It was difficult to tell whether they were moving up or down or staying level. Somehow, however, there was no urge to express frustration or wonder how much longer they would be there. For a time, all there was was the slow forward progress.

Eventually, Kaylen’s voice broke through the darkness. “This is the worst. How much longer do you think it’ll be?”

It seemed she didn’t share Nightingale’s feelings.

Eventually, Nightingale noticed the ceiling and walls receding. Soon, they were able to crawl on their hands and knees side by side. Shortly afterwards, Nightingale noticed a light ahead. As they reached it, they emerged in a large cavern lit by a long row of braziers. It was, Nightingale quickly realized, less a cavern than a room with smooth walls and square corners hewn from the stone. It was much longer than it was wide, like an enormous hallway. The only exit was on the far end. One wall was covered in a mural, giving Nightingale the sense that the room’s only purpose was to house it.

“How are those fires lit?” she asked. The fires were white and as bright as light potions. Looking at that side of the room at all left afterimages in Nightingale’s vision.

“They’re Vigil Flames,” Kaylen said, voice full of wonder. “It’s an old divine power, lost in the Calamity. They’ll burn forever as long as they have air. The Sanguians still have a few, but most temples have to recreate them using ordinary candles.”

“How can you lose a divine power?” Nightingale asked. “I thought you just asked your god to do stuff for you.”

Kaylen shook her head. “It’s more complicated than that. When you become a priestess you become a conduit for a god’s power. Channeling that power has to be done carefully, using the right meditations and rituals, or you risk disaster.”

Nightingale cocked her head. “What sort of disaster?”

Kaylen shrugged. “Could be lots of things, depending on what you’re trying to do. Mostly people’s heads explode.”

Nightingale stared at Kaylen. She’d had no idea that being a priestess involved so much danger. Was that a risk every priest and priestess took on every time they called upon their power? What kind of person took a job like that?

The two turned their attention to the mural. “What do you make of this?” Kaylen asked.

“It’s a bit flat, but I think that’s a deliberate stylistic choice,” Nightingale replied. “I’m not an art critic or anything, but I’m pretty sure an art critic would find reasons to say it’s good.”

“No, I mean, what do you think of what it’s depicting?”

Nightingale stared at the piece. It was divided into several sections. The one they were looking at now, nearest the crack from which they had entered, had thirteen human, elf, and orc figures sitting at a long table. They appeared to be in mismatched states of dress ranging anywhere from full suits of armor to complete nudity. The five in the center were larger than the others. Below them sat a pile of various dead things, such as a deer wearing a crown, a two-headed snake with a sword piercing it, a fallen and wilted tree, a circle which Nightingale assumed was meant to be dead though it was impossible to tell from the image. Due to the flat style of the artwork, the dead things didn’t quite look like the heap Nightingale imagined they were meant too and instead were more just arranged near each other, with gaps that real-world gravity would have filled. Perhaps they were simply meant to be lying near each other?

“A bunch of people celebrating a successful hunt? Which, uh, included trees and circles?” Nightingale guessed.

“Those are the gods,” Kaylen explained. “See? You can tell the one in the middle is Athor because of his golden armor. And Roolius is holding the Book of Holy Truths, Passia’s the naked one, and Sanguis is marked with the blood of men who harm women. The small ones are the minor gods.”

“Why are all of the orcs and elves minor gods?” Nightingale asked.

Kaylen inhaled a deep breath which indicated that this question would have a more complex answer than Nightingale had expected. “First of all, they aren’t technically orcs or elves or humans. They’re gods. But the question of why the only ones who look like orcs and elves are minor gods is hotly debated. Modern theologians claim that all gods are equal in power and that the major gods are only thought to be more powerful because their worshippers were quickest to redevelop advanced divine powers in the wake of the Calamity. Orcs haven’t had the opportunity to build expansive networks of churches and elves haven’t had the need because of their connection with the fairies, so it was the gods of the humans who became the most prominent. However, if this mural is from the time of the Calamity, it means that the major gods were seen as major even before it.”

Nightingale nodded, though it hardly seemed fair that orcs and elves got weaker gods. “What are all those things below them?”

Kaylen frowned. “It’s been a while since seminary, but my guess would be that those represent the primordial forces. They were a bunch of chaotic entities that ruled the universe before the gods. Then the gods destroyed them and brought enough order so that mortals could exist. Only these days they’re usually depicted as a bunch of angry-looking shadows, not deer and circles, but that’s the only reason I can think of to depict the gods as allies. Usually they hate each other. But even more strange is that there’s a fifth major god.”

Nightingale examined the figure Kaylen indicated. She wore a dress which was made up of blobs of red, yellow, orange and blue. Nightingale imagined the colors were meant to be bright and vibrant, but either time or lack of materials had led to it looking somewhat drab. Behind her, a peacock tail was spread out, wreathing her in feathers.

“I’ve never seen that goddess before, but I don’t exactly know a lot when it comes to the gods,” Nightingale admitted.

“She must be the one Riven told me about, the one who died in the Calamity. The one who actually cared about trans people. We never learned about her in seminary. Probably because they didn’t want us to know that gods could be killed.”

Nightingale could hear the pain in Kaylen’s voice. Coming from the world she did, where all the gods were cruel, she could only begin to imagine what this goddess represented to Kaylen. Kaylen had been raised worshipping a goddess. She had believed wholeheartedly that Sanguis was there to protect her only to be rejected by her over a technicality. All of that belief had been proven wrong not by the cruelty of the world, but by the uncaring nature of the goddess herself. This nameless goddess was a hope that had died long before Kaylen had been born. She was the goddess Kaylen should have been able to put all of that energy into worshipping. Instead, she was only just learning of her existence in a forgotten cave.

“Come on,” said Kaylen quietly. “Let’s see what the rest of the mural is.”

The next section of the mural abandoned the minor gods. The five major gods were displayed, each apart from the others. Each was flanked by a pair of angels, wings spread wide, and surrounded by groups of humans dressed in the garb of the priests of their respective god. Athor’s group included a pair of paladins. Sanguis’, of course, was entirely female and dressed in the traditional red and white. The fifth goddess’ angels were, to Nightingale’s surprise, naked. Even Passia’s were clothed. Furthermore they had both breasts and penises. It was difficult to determine whether her priests were male or female, something Nightingale guessed was a deliberate choice. They were dressed in what appeared to be something in between dresses and robes. They were in various bright colors and varied in length, making them much less uniform than the priests of the other gods. The only commonality seemed to be wide-brimmed conical hats of the type commonly worn by the small-town mages who were often called witches.

“I guess that answers the question of whether she protected trans people,” Nightingale said.

“It looks like after mortals were created, they each amassed followers. And then their most loyal followers became angels after death,” Kaylen interpreted.

The next section of mural displayed a war scene. Priestesses of Sanguis swung hammers at paladins of Athor, priests of Passia fired arrows at the worshippers of the fifth goddess. Because of the flat style, figures towards the top of the scene were the same size as ones towards the bottom, making them look like giants to Nightingale’s eyes. In the sky, the gods themselves fought, arms awkwardly grabbing wrists and balled fists apparently in mid-swing.

“They ended up fighting. No surprise there,” Kaylen said.

Another section down depicted a more troubling scene. It was split in two halves. One half depicted the smooth green background which had been used in the previous scenes. Nightingale supposed it represented the human world. The other half had a gray background. The two were separated by a thick black line except in one place where the fifth goddess had cut through the line with a sword. The gray side was full of demons of various types who had crowded around the path the goddess had made and were pouring through, attacking the humans on the other side. The humans were fighting back, but clawed men and snake-tailed women stood over piles of corpses. Even though the simple art made everyone look like paper dolls, the image made Nightingale shudder.

“She caused the Calamity,” Kaylen breathed. “She was supposed to be the only decent goddess. But she caused all of those deaths.”

Nightingale didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“She was supposed to protect people like me. Did she even really care about her followers? How many of them died because of what she did?”

Was a hug appropriate? Nightingale worried that it might come across as an attempt at amory. She wondered if she should just ask. Would that be weird?

“Do you want a hug?”

Kaylen responded by wrapping her arms around Nightingale. In return, the elf pulled her close. They stood there for a moment embracing before Kaylen spoke.

“Not like this changes anything. Even if they had a good reason to kill her, the other gods are trash. They have complete control over who sees paradise and they keep people like me locked out just because we’re trans.”

“But it still hurts,” Nightingale observed.

“I just wanted to believe that gods could be good, that somewhere, at some point in time, there was a powerful being who cared about me and wanted to protect me. But gods aren’t like that. Ours are as bad as yours.”

She pushed out of the hug, leaving a tear stain on Nightingale’s coat. They continued to the next section which depicted the fifth goddess lying dead. Her guts were cut open and the other gods were devouring her entrails.

“Well, that’s horrifying,” Nightingale said.

“I don’t think it’s meant literally,” said Kaylen. “Gods don’t really have internal organs, at least not according to my metaphysics teacher. But imagine they really did tear her apart and devour the pieces. Just not in a way that human minds can easily understand, so the artist decided to go the grotesque route.”

She spoke with a serious tone that surprised Nightingale. Wasn’t she bothered by the sight of the goddess who until a moment ago had represented her last hope in the concept of godhood?

The final section of the mural depicted a human removing an eye from the dead goddess. He was painted over and over again, depicting him fleeing from demons and other humans before reaching a mountain.

“He brought a piece of the goddess here,” Kaylen concluded. “That’s the power the gods fear.”

They were at the far end of the room now. A stone door invited them to continue. With some effort Kaylen pushed it open.

It seemed that whoever had built this place had done so with a single purpose. To house the power the gods feared and to explain what it was. With the first room completing one of those tasks, there was no reason for anything more than a second room. It was a small room with a pair of braziers lit with vigil flames. Between them was a tall, thin table holding a simple wooden box.

“So that contains her eye?” Nightingale asked.

Kaylen shook her head. “No, it contains her anger. Every bit of her rage at the other gods for what they did to her. Can’t you feel it?”

Nightingale stared at the box. She concentrated, trying to feel whatever it was that Kaylen felt. But there was nothing. “Why would the gods fear it, though? They already destroyed her once. What’s so scary about the last remaining piece?”

“On its own, it would be helpless against them,” Kaylen explained. “But with it, we have everything we need to put an end to the gods. Do you think your summoning trick can get us to the realm of the gods?”

Nightingale pulled a piece of chalk from her coat’s inside pocket, grinning. “I’m willing to give it a try.”