I woke up inside the dilapidated temple. There were a couple of obvious reasons that made that conclusion clear. For one, I was rather high up and looking over the rest of the neighbourhood, and the only building with a second floor I had co across was the temple. For another, instead of a wall, I had a giant window.
Or rather, the wall itself was missing entirely, leaving my room completely open to the elents. Dilapidated was probably an understatent.
The bed was more of a pallet when I got to my feet. I had trouble believing what I was lying on was an actual mattress and—
“Holy shit,” I muttered.
Groggy though I was after waking up, I was still alert enough to rember my real objective. So, I’d taken a peek at my status and the countdown wasn’t twenty-one hours any longer. It had gone all the way down to thirteen hours. Had I literally been conked out for eight hours straight?
I cursed under my breath. Ti was running out faster and faster. I needed to find a solution now.
That was when I noticed sothing was wrong with my chest too. I couldn’t see anything off, but it felt like I had fractures spiking out of the centre of my ribcage. Like, literal cracks. It was on the edge of painful. Like if I moved wrong, I’d sohow break space itself inside my chest and that’d be it for .
Suffice it to say, it did not help my panic go down.
I took a few deep breaths and focused. At least the sensation of mana exhaustion was gone. No more cloying hollowness.
A quick look around revealed a plate of food and a glass of water. My stomach growled. Huh. These people were really nice for a bunch of folks willing to kidnap innocent people from a different world before ritually sacrificing them.
The food itself looked like biscuits, though they were chewier than I was expecting. Hopefully, they weren’t made with foreign ingredients that this world’s inhabitants were used to but would make my stomach rebel. Oh, I supposed I also had to hope there weren’t pathogens that people here had acclimatized to.
I had already gone through my Joan of Arc re-enactnt. Experiencing my own smallpox epidemic was sothing I dearly hoped to avoid.
Quickly chugging down the water, I headed out. If this was a temple, then surely there would be a store of information about the cult sowhere. I just had to find it and hope I could decipher just enough to give a good idea on how to go about acquiring Sacrifice. If I could understand spoken words here and there, maybe it would be the sa for written words too.
The real question was how I would go about finding said treasure trove of knowledge. There couldn’t be a library here, could there? Sohow, I doubted very much I’d discover a whole room full of books and shelves in a temple.
I sneaked out. There wasn’t anyone in the hallway. I had no internal map or much to go off, so I picked the right at random and started down the hallway.
Only to et a floating ball of light coming down the other direction.
“Uh…” I ca to a halt. There was an indescribable sensation of sentience and life from the glimring orb as it hovered in front of . “Hello. I’m an honoured guest of, uh, your leader. Yes.”
The orb of light bobbed and weaved in front of . I got the distinct sensation that I was being evaluated sohow. It didn’t speak though, and I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or not that a sentient ball of radiance couldn’t talk.
“Do you happen to know the way to the library?” I asked. “If there is one, that is. Sowhere I can get more information about the cu—uh, this whole organization.”
I spread my hands around to indicate the temple and everything within it.
The orb floated closer to . I felt warr as the sensation of scrutiny intensified. The ball of light grew a lot brighter, then began hovering with a lot more zippiness. It was excited for so reason. I had the fleeting thought of the orb being able to sense my Path or Core or sothing like that before it took off.
“Hey, don’t rush off,” I called after it, following as fast as I could.
Was it leading where I needed to go, or was I about to end up in the middle of a bunch of cultists—assuming there were more of them than the three I’d seen so far? Just in case the latter occurred, I’d need so way of convincing them to call their old leader. Or better yet, Aurier. He would stick up for since he had brought here, right?
The floating orb led through another short hallway, past a couple of doors, before finally coming to a stop before a smaller door. It bobbed in front of the handle before phasing right through.
I turned the handle and entered a lavatory.
The orb weaved around, happy to have led to the toilet for so reason.
“This is not a library,” I said, raising my eyebrow at the sentient ball of light.
Maybe my voice was a little too sharp because it stopped its zipping motion and actually dimd a bit, almost like it felt chagrined.
I took solace in the fact that at least the bathroom didn’t sll terrible—in fact, it didn’t even look like it got used often, if I was being honest—and modified my tone. “Can you please take to where I can find more information? Or maybe help find a map, so I can find my own way around?”
Gleaming a little brighter again at my request, the orb resolutely led out. I followed it again, seeing and hearing nobody along the way.
We reached a section where the wall was broken, and the orb just floated right through to keep continuing onwards on the floor beneath.
“I can’t make that jump,” I said. It was at least twelve feet to the ground floor and I did not have tuck-and-roll experience.
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Or could I make that jump…?
I focused on channelling Gravity again. Once again, instead of adding weight to myself, I wanted to lessen it. If I could beco as light as a feather, I could just float down, right?
The buzzing sensation of power threaded through once again. But with it ca the echo of a deep ache. Not the emptiness I had felt when I had used up too much mana on that carriage, but a shadow of that sensation. Like a lingering, taphysical warning not to repeat that experience.
Alright, got it. I would do well not to strain my body by overusing mana. Annoying that even if my mana core was gathering a ton of mana, my body could only channel so much in a given ti.
Whatever. I focused on my Aspect. Gravity. I needed it to modify my weight. I needed to beco lighter.
Purple threads of power erged from once again, caging in just as they had before. And just like before, they grew thicker and darker, turning black and heavy as I focused. A familiar sensation of increasing mass weighed down.
“Not what I wanted…” I muttered. Talking was a little harder when my jaw and tongue were a lot heavier than normal.
I let go of it all, returning to my normal state. Then I tried again, concentrating very specifically on my Aspect’s ability to reduce the effect of gravity, not increase it. I was more than sure it would be capable of it. So why wasn’t it working? No matter how I thought and concentrated, Infusion could only ever add to my weight. Nothing besides that.
The sensation of making progress was there, but I just hadn’t reached the breakthrough or whatever I needed. Kind of a bumr.
I sighed. “Yeah, no. I’m not making that jump.”
The orb hesitated. It had been waiting patiently for all this while. I got the feeling that it was seeking to return, although why it didn’t just float back the way it had jumped was beyond . Maybe those things couldn’t float too high off whatever floor they were on? Whatever the case, the orb blinked at , before zipping off in another direction.
Sighing, I went left. Again, at random. If I could leave a review for this temple, I would rember to state quirky but ineffective tour guide.
Although, I probably ought to and that. Before I reached the end of the corridor, the glimring sphere reappeared. We t at a large door, and before I could greet my guide, it turned and phased through the door.
Feeling a slight surge of hope, I turned the handle and went in.
Hmm. The room was the largest I had encountered in the temple, and the strangest thing was that all its walls were solid and intact. It didn’t take long to recognize the place. There was the altar in the centre, braziers at every wall, a little raised platform at one end.
Yep. This had to be a ritual room. Probably where they sacrificed things like goats. The stuff that didn’t need a sensational volcano-top execution that my fortunate self had received.
For all that the room itself and the offerings on the altar were rather fascinating, they weren’t exactly illuminating in the way I wanted. Since I didn’t know the first thing about acquiring Sacrifice, I had a feeling just nabbing sothing from the altar and setting it alight in one of the braziers—which weren’t lit anyway—wasn’t going to work.
Nevertheless, my eyes did linger on the wide assortnt of tributes. I spotted a doll, food that hadn’t rotted yet, what looked like soone’s writing on unbound pages, and more.
Still, none of that was going to help get Sacrifice. I was about to turn and leave, when the door opened behind and the floating orb. In walked the old man, a quizzical look on his face.
“* *** ********* where *** *** ****,” he said.
He didn’t sound angry or anything like that. If anything, I thought I heard a slight relief.
“I was looking around,” I said.
I hedged my bets. What better a store of information was there than the leader of this entire establishnt? Especially one who was kind enough to leave food and water, after placing in a bed to sleep off my mana exhaustion?
Then there was the part of screaming that this was literally the guy who had led my Sacrifice not that long ago.
The duality of it was starting to make my head hurt. Go figure, people weren’t black and white. What an enlightening realization.
He approached us, his eyes lingering on the way the floating orb of light got closer to , shining brighter in my vicinity. The old man scratched the cap of short hair on his head before seeming to co to a decision, his eyes lighting up with new purpose.
“* ***** Aurier ******* **** Sacrifice ******** ******,” he said. “* **** *** **** ********** **** ** what ** ******, *** co **** **.”
I recognized so encouraging words there, plus the na of the young cultist who had led to the temple.
“Do you… know I’m looking for how to get Sacrifice too?” I asked.
The old man understood enough to nod. Then he beckoned with one hand before leading the way out. Crossing fingers internally, I followed.
We went higher up the temple, taking so stairs that cracked as we walked and made fear I would fall through if I stepped wrong. The old cult leader took to what had to be his office. There was a desk, a shelf with morabilia, his own personal altar at one wall, and another section of the room entirely dedicated to a large tapestry emblazoned with a sun.
Mostly, I recognized the symbol of the golden-white circle with the silver rays coming out of it. Just like on the old man’s robes and belt, just like I had seen in the ritual room below.
The old man led to the balcony, from where he looked over the surrounding neighbourhood. “**** ** ** **** *** ***** want, Ross?”
I blinked. So Aurier had told him my na. I followed his gaze, finding that unlike the last ti I had seen it, there were more lights now. Even a few people, milling about in the distance. “Want, huh?” I glanced at the glimring that had followed, now resting almost against like an overbright shoulder angel. “I want to learn to use Sacrifice.”
There was probably more I could have said about what I really wanted, but I had to prioritize what I needed for now.
The old man considered for a mont, eyes once again lingering on the orb of light basically on top of . “*** **** **** ** ****** one ** us.”
He bid to wait, before going back to his office. Monts later, after I had figured out his last sentence more or less, he returned with a goblet filled with sloshing red liquid. Thankfully, it looked more like wine than blood.
He placed a hand over his heart, took a small sip, and chanted. It was the sa as before.
“O Power ******* ** *** Beyond.”
“Fla **** ******* *** and ***** **** ******* Life.”
“** *** ** Co ** *** Hallowed ****.”
“*** **** Unto *** **** Sacrifice.”
I was starting to understand what they were all about. The symbol, the ntions of Fla and Life.
He offered the goblet to , and I recognized the one word he said. “Us.”
It wasn’t the first ti he had said it. I saw what he ant. If I wanted Sacrifice, I’d need to beco one of them. A cultist. A real one. That potentially had a lot of consequences I couldn’t see just then, but I wanted to test Sacrifice. I wanted the feeling of fractures in my chest gone.
So I took the goblet and sipped the wine. It wasn’t bad, honestly. Especially since my stomach wasn’t empty. As I drank, I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Repeating the chant wasn’t going to work as I didn’t even know most of the words. But I concentrated on the feeling of being in the temple, replaying the images of everything I had experienced so far.
The cultists and their chanting. Being bound to a stake. Fires swimming closer, smoke drowning alive. Being Sacrificed.
I really did want that Aspect. And if this was the way to get it, then I was all in.
[ Path Unlocked!
agre connection via earlier Sacrifice has been deed satisfactory. Lingering traces of Divine Blessing considered sufficient evidence of sincere Fervour.
New Path: Path of the Acolyte [Iron I]
Starting Aspect: […]
New Path Attribute: Fervour [Iron I] ]
I returned the goblet as I finished reading the blue screen full of words. “I… think I’m one of you now.”
The old man smiled, eyes glimring almost as much as the light orb on my shoulder.
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