0023 Chaos Gate

 

In the dark corridor, the stairs that went up to the ground floor reflected the moonlight on the stones of the floor and walls, looking at the slightly greenish tone, Lucius walked to the first steps of the stairs and looked at the sky.

From there, a part of the destroyed roof showed the sky, and from the position he was in, Lucius caught a glimpse of the two moons, he closed his eyes and felt the cool night air passing over his face, he opened his arms up high and embraced this new world.

Behind him, Sara carefully watched this mysterious person in Thomas's body, he acted and spoke very differently from all sorts of southern and foreign people she'd come in contact with.

*"Tho... We'll be captured if we go up and run into them..."*.

*"Tell me, why are they chasing you?
Again, say it like I don't know anything..."*.

Lucius lowered his arms and turned to answer Sara, who paused to think again about current events.

*"Our city belongs to a Marquis who denies the church's meddling in his society...
... The western cities have greater influence from the church, and it ends up expelling or converting other regional cultures...
... Many of them retreat to the east, and our city is one of the cities that most promotes different cultures..."*.

*"Wait, I understand about the persecution of other peoples and cultural extermination, I mean you, this body, this place..."*.

Sara began to tell the entire political and social history of the southern region, and seeing that she assumed a thoughtful posture that would likely lead to a lengthy explanation, Lucius decided to interrupt her to bring her to the subject focused on them.

*"Uhmm... So... We belong to a faction that teaches and uses magical abilities that the church condemns as heresy...
... Our headquarters are in the city, and most of the population works with us directly or indirectly...
... I don't know what the church came here to do, but it's probably an investigation, and one of them discovered one of our faction's Inheritance passages, so we should let them know before the church arrives..."*.

*"Inheritance, you mean money, treasures and such?"*.

Realizing that not even the concept of Inheritance this mysterious person knew, Sara didn't know what kind of help this person could offer, so before answering the question, she thought for another three seconds.

*"Yes, there is also money and treasures there, but the most important thing about Inheritance is the cultural knowledge and magical teachings of our faction..."*.

*"Magic skills...
... Like what we saw just now in the salon? And the reason I'm in this body now?"*.

*"Yes, probably..."*.

Lucius held his face in thought, magical abilities and everything he'd seen so far was surreal, and this new world unknown to him awoke his will to move forward, and now he had a goal.

*"You said that I came to this body when I was in the shape of those gray humanoids, and that all that stuff on the ceiling was caused by that strange oil lamp?
What do you know about this oil lamp? Tell me some details..."*.

As Lucius recited the events, Sara nodded in agreement, and on the last question, she searched her memory for Thomas' explanation of 'The Light of the Guide'.

*"Thomas told me that 'The Light of the Guide' had the ability to take the souls of those who are dying within a certain distance, and place them inside a living body...
... And he said something that I can't quite remember about the person's soul and the person who received the soul could go crazy, I've heard about that from my instructor before too..."*.

^"Souls huh? It seems that there are many things to study and do some experiments...
... And then there's that strange phenomenon that brought us here...
... As for going crazy, I've been with one foot in madness for a long time... I'll deal with one thing at a time..."^.

*"So I must have died nearby!
I need to know if the others are ok, you can go tell your faction, I need to know if my friends are fine!"*.

*"Wait!"*.

Sara made a quick connection between that person's friends, remembered her friends who were also taken by the church people, and finally, the emergence of those countless fire humanoids a short time ago.

She looked back, in the opposite direction that leads to the magical passage, and looked at Lucius walking up the stairs without waiting for her, so she made a decision on impulse and ran towards Lucius, following behind him.

**************************************************

"Sir Father, what is a Chaos Gate?".

"There's no problem in telling this, after all it's no secret...
... Well, from time to time, an extraordinary event happens, a black sphere forms from several black dots...
... All of sky and earth near the event shudders and roars in fury...
... Isn't this similar to what we saw?".

People around the Father remember the strange phenomenon they witnessed and soon saw the similarities with what he said, the Father observed the expression of the Envoys, the Watchers and would-be soldiers with curiosity and was proud to have more knowledge than them.

"Continuing...
... The importance of the Chaos Gate is that whenever the event happens, it brings new and different things with it, sometimes some rare mineral, sometimes rare plants, as well as animals that we can domesticate or use their remains...
... Of course, most of the time the Chaos Gate only brings destruction, fire, water and useless things...
... So, as we are close to the event, it is important that we investigate, good or bad, we will still receive a reward for the discovery...".

The Father followed proudly telling his knowledge about the Chaos Gate, the would-be soldiers were the most excited to discover something of this level of information, after all, they had almost no knowledge about church affairs.

"And why is it called 'Chaos Gate'?".

One of the Watchers next to the Father, had his interest in the matter, but he did not pay much attention to the pride shown by the Father, and decided to try to obtain more information.

"The event has this name because it is impossible to predict where it will happen or when it will happen, just as it is impossible to know if we will obtain wealth or disaster...
... Some Bishops say that Diore himself sends the gate to bring us wealth, and others say it's heretics trying some evil magic...
... So whenever this event happens it's chaos...".

"Sir Father, I noticed the movement of four people watching us on the edge of the forest next to us...".

"Just ignore them, the vestiges of the Chaos Gate are more important than mere heretics or bandits...".

On the main road, the church group with approximately thirty people, could already see the shed from afar, everyone was excited about the possibility of winning a reward, as well as excited to witness the unknown brought by the Chaos Gate.

**************************************************

^"I need the Healer, or I'll be in danger if a new enemy arises...
... Those weird weapons might not bring me down prepared, but it's extremely dangerous to deal with unprepared...
... A bunch of ordinary people can easily destroy an exercise of prepared people, this is very dangerous..."^.

The Envoy watched from afar some people fleeing from him, he left behind many people, as well as the interference of the southern heretics, and did not know how to report his situation to the superiors.

He knows that he acted rashly when he was outnumbered, as well as he acted without the Father's consent, and in the end, he tried to hide the entrance of an Heritage trying to take advantage of any possible discovery.

And now, it was more important for him to heal and rest.

^"Run away, you shit heretics, I don't ever want to see you again!"^.

Once again, he saw two people running away from him as he approached the large group that chose to stay behind following his orders, and again he didn't care, looked for a place to sit and went to wait for the Healer to arrive.

**************************************************

^"Shit... How many people died here?"^.

Lucius and Sara looked at all the destruction and dead people, both looked for people they knew, but they didn't find anyone, but Lucius heard some footsteps of people running ahead and was able to recognize these people.

^"Alex!!! Alex is with Helena, both are fine!"^.

Lucius thought about yelling for Alex, but a distant light made him turn away, and as he recognized the person shrouded in the light, his head reeled in memories that weren't his, and in the meantime, Alex looked at him and continued on his way.

"Shit!".

*"Did not understand what you said...
... Ah! The Confessor is there! She's hurt!"*.

Sara was scared of all the destruction and after looking at all the bodies and not finding her friends among them, she observed the entire part of the shed, and saw hidden among the boxes the Confessor who had promised her help earlier.

*"Come on, if we help her, she might give us some time to find the others..."*.

Lucius watched Alex walk away and preferred to let him go without calling him, apparently Alex and Helena were running away from that white knight, and he wasn't going to put the two of them in danger because of him.

^"Alright, I'll meet you later Alex..."^.

Sara called him and ran towards the crates, where he could see an injured girl, and after he had one last look at the knight heading towards the two, he decided to go close to Sara and help the other woman.

**************************************************

^"Those weird people in blue disappeared in time, I think I'm safe now...
... Why are these people arguing?"^.

During all the fuss going on, Alicia has kept hidden and watched people come and go, at this moment she is watching two people arguing with a woman who had just joined the group praying.

Then she saw the leader of that group intervening in the discussion, and a few minutes later the two walked away, passing not far from her, and to her surprise, as she followed the two of them with her eyes, she saw another pair coming up the stairs, and this pair she recognized it very well.

^"How did they get out?
How can he walk after being so injured?
She saw me, are they mad at me?"^.

Alicia was in doubt about how to behave in front of these people, she still wanted to help them but was afraid of being blamed for all the bad they had suffered, and so she waited for them to get closer.

*"Confessor, are you okay? What happened?"*.

*"Hard to explain now, the situation is really bad, but don't worry, I won't give up on helping you and your friends..."*.

Sara opened the sleeve of Alicia's clothes who looked at the two suspiciously, but decided to let them help her, since she knew their character.

*"It's okay, I saw in your eyes that you were honest with me..."*.

Looking at the wound still spitting blood, Sara didn't know what to do and within seconds she felt a tap on her shoulder.

*"Looks like a gunshot wound, let me see..."*.

^"Gunshot?"^. ^"Gunshot?"^.

They both asked the same question in their minds, as Lucius looked at her shoulder, and behind her back, saw that the bullet had passed without getting lodged, then he took off his own shirt and ripped it to bandage her wound.

*"Press and hold to prevent blood loss, you've already lost quite a bit..."*.

Alicia agreed and Sara stared at Lucius tending to her wound, but soon she saw the Envoy coming towards the three of them and was scared.

The Envoy stopped not far away and watched the two of them helping the Confessor, he didn't know how to deal with them now, in fact he couldn't stand to stand anymore, as soon as he saw the blue-eyed stranger trying to approach him, he just raised his hand signaling him not to approach him.

Then he ignored the heretics and these strangers and looked for one of the boxes to sit in, and there he went back to saying his prayers, where the white light of his body began to flow more intensely.

Lucius watched the white light flowing from the knight's body with interest, he could no longer wait to learn and discover the magic of this world.

^"Magic uhm...
... All magic is knowledge or technology that we don't understand...
... We will see if magic is impossible to explain or replicate using scientific methodology, I need my virtual books..."^.

*"Allright, looks like he won't do anything to us now, wait for me here, I have to look for something..."*.

*"No! Wait!"*.

Helping Alicia to her feet, Sara called out to Lucius who walked through the wreckage looking for something, and so the two looked at each other not knowing what to do.

**************************************************

"A lot of people killed, Father... But many were killed in battle, it seems the Envoy did it...".

"Yes, and it looks like the phenomenon was indeed a Chaos Gate...
... I'm too old for these things...".

"Father, inside the shed!".

"Just saw... Girl Jenany, your friend Alicia needs you...".

"Alicia? Alicia! I am going!".

Father Alcione's group arrived exploring the place, during the route, he also explained to Watcher and Jenany about the possibility of the phenomenon being a Chaos Gate, making Jenany even more excited.

However, after seeing so many people dead, Jenany was more worried about Alicia than excited about the recent supernatural events, and now when they found her, Jenany couldn't hold back and ran towards her screaming Alicia's name, causing everyone left in the place to look at her.