It had been a long night for all of us, and we had a lot more to talk about in the morning, so everyone went to bed once we were back at the temple. Except for Berla and I, who were still sitting on the couch in the office.
“Hati said you were scared before you left... I didn’t see it...” she said, self-deprecating.
“I didn’t want you to see it,” I said with a sad smile.
“But you didn’t know Arax yet... Why were you scared? I honestly thought you might be looking forward to the meeting... That’s why I was so worried.”
“I’m not entirely sure myself. After Hayla told us what had been going on, I started having a... foreboding feeling in my gut. It apparently knew something I didn’t yet.”
“Helling?” she asked.
“We really need a better name for that...” I said. “No, I don’t think that’s how it works. But this whole story... these rules... Arax... It felt like... a bad memory I had forgotten... If that makes sense...”
“Hm... Do me a favor?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“... Die?” I said jokingly.
“Don’t hide your feelings I mean. And then I’ll make sure you don’t do something that could kill you, just because your mind tells you it’s the best option.”
“But you know there really wasn’t a better way. We went over it all week.”
“Your gut knew better though. You need to trust it.”
I really couldn’t think of any better path that we could’ve taken, even with this outcome, but I had to admit that I did ignore the bad feeling I had had to a degree. Would I have taken a different route if I had trusted it? I didn’t know, but maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it aside.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Thank you,” she said.
We sat side-by-side like that for a few quiet moments, until I looked down at “myself,” and was once more reminded that we had a new problem on our hands. Aside from the obvious other new problem. And the existing ones. God, so many fucking problems...
“What are we supposed to tell people...” I wondered aloud.
Berla glanced at me and saw me examining Tomar’s body, surmising what my question was about. “Lilly is a boy now...” she said.
“I hate this. It was me the whole time. Most of the citizens haven’t even really seen Lilana herself. She doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. Maybe it would be better if Lilly died... as the divine messenger. That job was basically her dream after all, and she would be remembered as such.”
“Hm... that would be difficult though, right?”
“Yea...”
The divine messenger dying was actually a pretty big problem. She hadn’t been supposed to be the leader of the town in the long term, but that’s the role she had had. And not only were many people looking up to her, she was also seen as the defender of the town right now. If something managed to kill her, who would be able to feel safe anymore? Additionally, what would the opposition say if Lilly were to effectively disappear? Everything was still revolving around her.
“Unless... we tell people the truth,” Berla said.
“Break the rules right away...? It would be an option, but we don’t know what the consequences would be.”
“No, I guess not...”
“What to do instead though...” I said as I fell into thought.
We had several big problems, and there was no obvious solution to any of them. But at least the risk of it getting even worse was relatively low.
***
“Shae, welcome back,” a glowing, humanoid figure said to another, meeting on a seemingly empty plane, stretching endlessly into a colorful horizon.
“Hmph. Brother,” Shae said in greeting.
“Has it already been two months?”
“Yes...”
“Don’t sulk. You shouldn’t have meddled with human affairs.”
“Someone had to. Nobody else seemed to care. Tell me you did something about the awakened humans while I was suspended.”
“Will you stop already?” he said with a sigh. “That’s not our job.”
“Are you serious!? Not even the split-minded one!?”
“No, Shae, we did not specifically take care of the split-minded human! What do you suppose the moderators are for? I’m sure they dealt with this issue weeks ago. I don’t understand why I have to tell you this over and over.”
“Let’s check then, shall we, Saharl?”
“If that’s what’s necessary to silence you for good, so be it. Celeth!” he yelled.
A few seconds passed, until a third figure of light faded into being, as it walked up to them.
“Ugh. You two. What is it?”
“Shae is concerned about the awakened humans that appeared a little while ago. Did the moderators deal with them?”
“You know I don’t follow their every move, right...?” Celeth said. “I have other things to do as well. Hm... Wasn’t that weeks ago though? They’re definitely gone by now.”
“Could you check what the moderators are up to, please?” Saharl said.
“It would be real nice if you two could have an argument without involving others for a change,” Celeth said with a sigh, closed his eyes, and started mumbling. “Thirty-four beasts at the base... Ten are out hunting... So fourty are out, searching for anomalies... That’s a lot... Hm... Eight are in the desert... No, that’s too far away from Cerus...”
“Wait, Cerus?” Shae said in surprise.
“Yeah, I saw the humans there about two months ago.”
Her head snapped in Saharl’s direction, an accusatory expression on her face. “They made it all the way to Cerus without getting caught...”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he responded, starting to sound just a little bit nervous.
“Ah, there are two between Alarna and... Cerus... Huh, they are dead...” Celeth said.
“Two dead moderators, that’s just wonderful,” Shae said sarcastically.
Celeth tilted his head, eyes still closed, and kept searching, but as more and more time passed, it became clear that something was wrong. Moderators were by no means invincible, but they had been engineered to be strong and resilient enough to take on all of the anomalies that typically appeared on Erinn. Even if they had died though, their bodies would have to be somewhere, and Celeth would be able to find them by their residual mana.
“I... don’t see them... I’m missing twenty one beasts...”
“How is that possible...?” Saharl asked apprehensively.
“Well... humans eat and burn dead beasts... If that happens, their mana dissipates much earlier...”
“T-twenty one...?” Saharl asked hesitantly.
“Hmhm...” Celeth responded.
Anomalies were a constant problem that the gods had to deal with, from Null Energy leaking into the world, to Aberrations appearing, to black shards forming, and even specimens spontaneously going up in flames. Almost all of these issues the moderators could deal with on their own though, and due to their impressive senses, the gods didn’t even need to tell them where to go. They had essentially outsourced this job.
Awakened humans were exceedingly rare, and a split-minded human was unheard of, but they too would fall into the “anomaly” category, and them being feeble humans, the moderators should not have had a problem dealing with them. If over twenty moderators had suddenly disappeared, however, and two dead ones were decaying between Alarna and Cerus, that left room for a theory that Shae was more than happy to spell out.
“They killed and burned your precious moderators, Celeth.”
“But... Gallas sent the scripter back to the Outer Realm for re-processing... And even if he hadn’t, to kill twenty moderators...”
Both Celeth’s and Saharl’s patronizing tones were gone, as they looked at Shae in disbelief. They could hardly be blamed for thinking that everything would be fine, seeing how that had always been the case, for as long as this world existed, but Shae had seen the danger in letting awakened scripters run around freely, in an environment that would only make them stronger over time. She could have been wrong, as beasts or the moderators could have solved that problem for them. In that case, her suspension would’ve been justified, as interactions with humans were strictly limited, as per the protocol. She hadn’t been wrong, however, and the expression on her face made it all too clear how happy she was about that.
***
The next morning I woke up on the office couch, sitting next to a sleeping Berla. Drowsily, I closed my eyes again, thinking about dozing for a few minutes longer, until I realized that something wasn’t right.
Wait... Did I... sleep?
As per usual, Tomar had taken over control last night to go to sleep, and I had stayed awake. In all those weeks and months, with both him and Lilana, I had never slept while I was in the backseat. I hadn’t even felt tired once, so it was weird that I had apparently slept, unless Tomar and I had switched places, and I just didn’t remember.
“Tomar?” I whispered, as to not wake Berla. However, no response came. He was apparently not awake yet, and I was also fairly certain that I wasn’t in full control.
So I actually slept...? Huh.
After carefully standing up without disturbing Berla, my eyes fell on the blood stain on the couch table. It immediately brought back the last night, which I had almost forgotten about for a moment there. I stared at it for a moment, a rather long moment... until I took a deep breath and started my day.
I went to the “bathroom” four rooms down the hallway, greeting our guards on the way, with Bren following after me. When I was just brushing my teeth, Tomar woke up, and he immediately stopped what I had been doing. He had more of a talent for not hurting himself from waking up in a weird situation, unlike a certain other person.
“Ah... Morning, Miles,” Tomar said.
‘Hey. You’re up early.’
“Am I?” he asked and looked out the window, where the first rays of the morning sun were just hitting the main square. “Huh, not even four yet? Weird. I feel wide awake.”
‘I might have a theory about that...’ I said, as Tomar resumed brushing his teeth.
“Wouldn’t have expected anything less,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror.
I explained that I just woke up myself, and since Tomar was usually a late sleeper, who wouldn’t be up already under normal circumstances, we might have “shared” our sleep somehow.
“Huh. You slept?”
“Yea... It’s weird.”
“Did this happen before? I mean... with Lilana?”
‘No...’
“Hm...”
He became quiet, and based on the look on his face, he was now thinking about last night as well. He kept brushing, with the sorry excuse for a toothbrush they were using here, but he slowed down more and more, until he finally came to a stop.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” he asked. “I can’t believe I thought Arax was weak... And now Lilana is gone... Just like that...”
‘We didn’t have much of a choice. And we couldn’t have known. Though Berla admonished me for ignoring the bad feeling I had...’
“Hm.”
I guessed that we were both blaming ourselves to a degree, though we also knew that we weren’t really at fault. We had all agreed to this plan, and technically it had been the reserved one, seeing how Tomar and Lilana thought that Arax couldn’t be that much stronger than the beasts we encountered before, and might even have attacked her on sight. We had simply been out of our depth, and that was a bit unexpected, after we were doing so well otherwise.
‘By the way... Thank you... for saving me.’
“Of course... I’m very glad you made it. I mean... otherwise I would’ve had to make the speeches from now on...”
‘Right... we wouldn’t want that...’ I said with a sad chuckle.
Speeches... I thought, which brought me back to my preliminary plans going forward. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any time to lose, and I had made a decision last night. Whether it was the right one, however, and whether the others would agree to it, that was left to be seen.
“Well... let’s get going, shall we?”
‘Yea, let’s,’ I said, and Tomar gave control over to me.
It had been a long night for all of us, and we had a lot more to talk about in the morning, so everyone went to bed once we were back at the temple. Except for Berla and I, who were still sitting on the couch in the office.
“Hati said you were scared before you left... I didn’t see it...” she said, self-deprecating.
“I didn’t want you to see it,” I said with a sad smile.
“But you didn’t know Arax yet... Why were you scared? I honestly thought you might be looking forward to the meeting... That’s why I was so worried.”
“I’m not entirely sure myself. After Hayla told us what had been going on, I started having a... foreboding feeling in my gut. It apparently knew something I didn’t yet.”
“Helling?” she asked.
“We really need a better name for that...” I said. “No, I don’t think that’s how it works. But this whole story... these rules... Arax... It felt like... a bad memory I had forgotten... If that makes sense...”
“Hm... Do me a favor?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Don’t do that again.”
“... Die?” I said jokingly.
“Don’t hide your feelings I mean. And then I’ll make sure you don’t do something that could kill you, just because your mind tells you it’s the best option.”
“But you know there really wasn’t a better way. We went over it all week.”
“Your gut knew better though. You need to trust it.”
I really couldn’t think of any better path that we could’ve taken, even with this outcome, but I had to admit that I did ignore the bad feeling I had had to a degree. Would I have taken a different route if I had trusted it? I didn’t know, but maybe I shouldn’t have pushed it aside.
“Okay, I promise.”
“Thank you,” she said.
We sat side-by-side like that for a few quiet moments, until I looked down at “myself,” and was once more reminded that we had a new problem on our hands. Aside from the obvious other new problem. And the existing ones. God, so many fucking problems...
“What are we supposed to tell people...” I wondered aloud.
Berla glanced at me and saw me examining Tomar’s body, surmising what my question was about. “Lilly is a boy now...” she said.
“I hate this. It was me the whole time. Most of the citizens haven’t even really seen Lilana herself. She doesn’t deserve to be forgotten. Maybe it would be better if Lilly died... as the divine messenger. That job was basically her dream after all, and she would be remembered as such.”
“Hm... that would be difficult though, right?”
“Yea...”
The divine messenger dying was actually a pretty big problem. She hadn’t been supposed to be the leader of the town in the long term, but that’s the role she had had. And not only were many people looking up to her, she was also seen as the defender of the town right now. If something managed to kill her, who would be able to feel safe anymore? Additionally, what would the opposition say if Lilly were to effectively disappear? Everything was still revolving around her.
“Unless... we tell people the truth,” Berla said.
“Break the rules right away...? It would be an option, but we don’t know what the consequences would be.”
“No, I guess not...”
“What to do instead though...” I said as I fell into thought.
We had several big problems, and there was no obvious solution to any of them. But at least the risk of it getting even worse was relatively low.
***
“Shae, welcome back,” a glowing, humanoid figure said to another, meeting on a seemingly empty plane, stretching endlessly into a colorful horizon.
“Hmph. Brother,” Shae said in greeting.
“Has it already been two months?”
“Yes...”
“Don’t sulk. You shouldn’t have meddled with human affairs.”
“Someone had to. Nobody else seemed to care. Tell me you did something about the awakened humans while I was suspended.”
“Will you stop already?” he said with a sigh. “That’s not our job.”
“Are you serious!? Not even the split-minded one!?”
“No, Shae, we did not specifically take care of the split-minded human! What do you suppose the moderators are for? I’m sure they dealt with this issue weeks ago. I don’t understand why I have to tell you this over and over.”
“Let’s check then, shall we, Saharl?”
“If that’s what’s necessary to silence you for good, so be it. Celeth!” he yelled.
A few seconds passed, until a third figure of light faded into being, as it walked up to them.
“Ugh. You two. What is it?”
“Shae is concerned about the awakened humans that appeared a little while ago. Did the moderators deal with them?”
“You know I don’t follow their every move, right...?” Celeth said. “I have other things to do as well. Hm... Wasn’t that weeks ago though? They’re definitely gone by now.”
“Could you check what the moderators are up to, please?” Saharl said.
“It would be real nice if you two could have an argument without involving others for a change,” Celeth said with a sigh, closed his eyes, and started mumbling. “Thirty-four beasts at the base... Ten are out hunting... So fourty are out, searching for anomalies... That’s a lot... Hm... Eight are in the desert... No, that’s too far away from Cerus...”
“Wait, Cerus?” Shae said in surprise.
“Yeah, I saw the humans there about two months ago.”
Her head snapped in Saharl’s direction, an accusatory expression on her face. “They made it all the way to Cerus without getting caught...”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he responded, starting to sound just a little bit nervous.
“Ah, there are two between Alarna and... Cerus... Huh, they are dead...” Celeth said.
“Two dead moderators, that’s just wonderful,” Shae said sarcastically.
Celeth tilted his head, eyes still closed, and kept searching, but as more and more time passed, it became clear that something was wrong. Moderators were by no means invincible, but they had been engineered to be strong and resilient enough to take on all of the anomalies that typically appeared on Erinn. Even if they had died though, their bodies would have to be somewhere, and Celeth would be able to find them by their residual mana.
“I... don’t see them... I’m missing twenty one beasts...”
“How is that possible...?” Saharl asked apprehensively.
“Well... humans eat and burn dead beasts... If that happens, their mana dissipates much earlier...”
“T-twenty one...?” Saharl asked hesitantly.
“Hmhm...” Celeth responded.
Anomalies were a constant problem that the gods had to deal with, from Null Energy leaking into the world, to Aberrations appearing, to black shards forming, and even specimens spontaneously going up in flames. Almost all of these issues the moderators could deal with on their own though, and due to their impressive senses, the gods didn’t even need to tell them where to go. They had essentially outsourced this job.
Awakened humans were exceedingly rare, and a split-minded human was unheard of, but they too would fall into the “anomaly” category, and them being feeble humans, the moderators should not have had a problem dealing with them. If over twenty moderators had suddenly disappeared, however, and two dead ones were decaying between Alarna and Cerus, that left room for a theory that Shae was more than happy to spell out.
“They killed and burned your precious moderators, Celeth.”
“But... Gallas sent the scripter back to the Outer Realm for re-processing... And even if he hadn’t, to kill twenty moderators...”
Both Celeth’s and Saharl’s patronizing tones were gone, as they looked at Shae in disbelief. They could hardly be blamed for thinking that everything would be fine, seeing how that had always been the case, for as long as this world existed, but Shae had seen the danger in letting awakened scripters run around freely, in an environment that would only make them stronger over time. She could have been wrong, as beasts or the moderators could have solved that problem for them. In that case, her suspension would’ve been justified, as interactions with humans were strictly limited, as per the protocol. She hadn’t been wrong, however, and the expression on her face made it all too clear how happy she was about that.
***
The next morning I woke up on the office couch, sitting next to a sleeping Berla. Drowsily, I closed my eyes again, thinking about dozing for a few minutes longer, until I realized that something wasn’t right.
Wait... Did I... sleep?
As per usual, Tomar had taken over control last night to go to sleep, and I had stayed awake. In all those weeks and months, with both him and Lilana, I had never slept while I was in the backseat. I hadn’t even felt tired once, so it was weird that I had apparently slept, unless Tomar and I had switched places, and I just didn’t remember.
“Tomar?” I whispered, as to not wake Berla. However, no response came. He was apparently not awake yet, and I was also fairly certain that I wasn’t in full control.
So I actually slept...? Huh.
After carefully standing up without disturbing Berla, my eyes fell on the blood stain on the couch table. It immediately brought back the last night, which I had almost forgotten about for a moment there. I stared at it for a moment, a rather long moment... until I took a deep breath and started my day.
I went to the “bathroom” four rooms down the hallway, greeting our guards on the way, with Bren following after me. When I was just brushing my teeth, Tomar woke up, and he immediately stopped what I had been doing. He had more of a talent for not hurting himself from waking up in a weird situation, unlike a certain other person.
“Ah... Morning, Miles,” Tomar said.
‘Hey. You’re up early.’
“Am I?” he asked and looked out the window, where the first rays of the morning sun were just hitting the main square. “Huh, not even four yet? Weird. I feel wide awake.”
‘I might have a theory about that...’ I said, as Tomar resumed brushing his teeth.
“Wouldn’t have expected anything less,” he said, looking at himself in the mirror.
I explained that I just woke up myself, and since Tomar was usually a late sleeper, who wouldn’t be up already under normal circumstances, we might have “shared” our sleep somehow.
“Huh. You slept?”
“Yea... It’s weird.”
“Did this happen before? I mean... with Lilana?”
‘No...’
“Hm...”
He became quiet, and based on the look on his face, he was now thinking about last night as well. He kept brushing, with the sorry excuse for a toothbrush they were using here, but he slowed down more and more, until he finally came to a stop.
“We’re screwed, aren’t we?” he asked. “I can’t believe I thought Arax was weak... And now Lilana is gone... Just like that...”
‘We didn’t have much of a choice. And we couldn’t have known. Though Berla admonished me for ignoring the bad feeling I had...’
“Hm.”
I guessed that we were both blaming ourselves to a degree, though we also knew that we weren’t really at fault. We had all agreed to this plan, and technically it had been the reserved one, seeing how Tomar and Lilana thought that Arax couldn’t be that much stronger than the beasts we encountered before, and might even have attacked her on sight. We had simply been out of our depth, and that was a bit unexpected, after we were doing so well otherwise.
‘By the way... Thank you... for saving me.’
“Of course... I’m very glad you made it. I mean... otherwise I would’ve had to make the speeches from now on...”
‘Right... we wouldn’t want that...’ I said with a sad chuckle.
Speeches... I thought, which brought me back to my preliminary plans going forward. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any time to lose, and I had made a decision last night. Whether it was the right one, however, and whether the others would agree to it, that was left to be seen.
“Well... let’s get going, shall we?”
‘Yea, let’s,’ I said, and Tomar gave control over to me.
