Chapter ThreeGod's Religion Begins to Spread!Isi was alone.

  And cold.

  The shaggy human had left her temple, very much alive, a couple days earlier. He had been full of reverence at first... but the fme of his worship had grown weaker and weaker the farther he had trekked from Isi's ruined temple.

  "I can't even see him anymore..." she said to herself with a defeated sigh.

  As his faith had ebbed, so too had her sight. At present, she could see little more than a small ring around her unattended altar. She was so weak. That horrible word had first tickled her thoughts when she had escaped the abyss, and she had little else to do but ponder it now.

  "Weak..." Isi shuddered at the taste of its noise, but there was an even more potent word she tried to hide from. Powerless. Because she... she had no believers.

  One of her broken Guardians appeared near her altar, and she knew the briefest moment of excitement. The emotion quickly died, however. She had no control over these beasts. She was convinced there were many of them, though who knew exactly how many. They were all broken, however. For one, her Guardians were not supposed to enter her inner sanctum.

  "Powerless..." Isi would have wept if she were a lesser god. It had taken her a day to remember how, but she had looked deep into herself and beheld the truth of the situation.

  [Avaible Prayer Power: 15pp]

  [Number of Believers: 0]

  There was a time when her believers were so plentiful and their worship so rich that she did not bother to keep track of such paltry things.

  "But now..." Isi wanted to tear out her eyes. She wanted to deny the reality that was stamped across her thoughts. "I scarcely even have enough power to exist..."

  The worst part was that she still did not understand how she had become so weak. Sure, she had only been able to push a sliver of her essence through the abyss... but what even was the abyss?! What had happened to her believers in the first pce? She was not sure if these memories remained trapped with the rest of her essence, but the Isi here and now...

  "Powerless." The word was a curse. The broken Guardian trotted outside of her meager field of vision, and she was alone once more. The fme of the shaggy human's faith was too small to reveal more than the grassy floor of a forest under his feet.

  She had used all of her [Prayer Power] setting the altar on fire. All attempts to communicate with the human after that, to instill a proper faith in his bones, had failed spectacurly. After less than an hour, the fire had puttered out, and the human had dared to depart.

  Isi opened her mouth. Instinct demanded that she summon Muna for help. But Isi already knew the Three Holies were gone. Isi had scarcely enough strength to maintain her own existence.

  "I'm... sorry..." Isi said, very quietly, as her thoughts turned once more to her three most faithful servants. "I'm sorry your... your master is so... powerless."

  The ring of sight that surrounded the altar slowly contracted. Hour by hour, day by day, it decreased in size. Isi allowed herself to wallow in the misery of defeat. She remembered just enough to know shame. She wished she remembered enough to know anger.

  It seemed as if the abyss was slowly reciming her. There was so little to see. Her altar was a beacon of light, but it was ebbing... ebbing... and then growing... growing... like the waves of the sea dancing back and forth.

  "Hmm?"

  Isi blinked away some of her misery as one of her broken Guardians entered her vision. She had not seen one of them for many days. She had not seen much of anything... had not felt much of anything... but now...

  "What... is that?" Isi straightened up and peered out across the vast darkness of the world. Her altar fought against the shadows, and she could see another torch casting its light against the darkness.

  Without a second thought, she willed herself to the other fme of worship. The quiet disrepair of the temple disappeared and was repced instantly... with the smoky interior of a rge tent. The air was thick with tension.

  "You do not have permission to speak, Tinek!"

  The tent was fashioned from a dozen different animal hides, its busy corners dimly illuminated by a rge fire pit at its center. Women and children crowded the tent walls while grown men, all with enormous shaggy beards and hair, sat in a circle around the fire pit. Aside from their hairy heads and chins, the men were made simir in the poverty of their faces and clothes.

  "But you will still listen to what I have to say!"

  Isi instantly recognized the speaker. It was the same shaggy human she had saved in the temple. She could sense the stamp of her [Boon] still writ clearly across his soul. The man's faith had ebbed close to nothingness earlier, but it now strengthened into a small torch.

  "I would listen to you die a slow death!" An older man with white streaks in his beard jumped to his feet and stepped towards Isi's believer. "Your stupidity killed my son, Tinek!"

  Several other bearded men quickly rose and pulled the white-haired elder away from his violence.

  Tinek rolled his eyes, which incensed the white-haired elder. He lunged for Tinek, almost falling into the fire pit, who loosed a yelp not at all dissimir to the one she had heard in the temple. Isi felt her believer's face looked very much like a hungry weasel.

  "Off me! I'll throttle him! I'll kill the godcursed fool!"

  "Take him outside!" a voice of authority boomed, and the three bearded men quickly dragged their white-haired elder out of the tent. A couple children at the tent's edge started to cry.

  Silence returned. Tinek looked more than a little nervous. He gnced over at the owner of the powerful voice and then looked quickly down at his feet.

  "You should be put to death for what you did," the voice of authority said. He was an older man, though white had not yet assaulted his hair. He wore the same poverty as the others, but there was a quiet dignity to his face. "You were told not to enter that accursed pce. Our brother, Poor Mitja, suffered death for that folly."

  "Not folly!" Tinek said, smming a starved fist against the tent floor. "Lack of faith! I warned him that it was no spirit, but rather- "

  "Quiet!" the voice of authority boomed, and Tinek jumped. "I have heard your fairytale! Your bsphemy! You will not- "

  "Do you all have rocks in your heads?" Tinek demanded, and Isi watched some of the nervous jitteriness leave his face. "A god dwells in that pce! Not a malevolent spirit, but a god!"

  "Enough!"

  "Someone quiet the fool!"

  "He's possessed! The spirit sickens his thoughts!"

  Isi blinked in confusion at their words. It was a moment before she realized what exactly they were talking about... and when she realized, a white fire filled her belly.

  "A lowly spirit?!" Isi was blind with hate.

  She called forth a rock of molten va to fall from the sky. She willed for its sulfurous kiss to poison the nd for a hundred miles in every direction. She wished that these foul cretins suffered a slow choking death before they were crushed beneath a thousand tons of molten rock!

  Or at least she tried to.

  "A t-totem of fire!" Tinek shouted desperately over the others... and the fire pit at the center of the tent answered Isi's fury.

  The angry shouts from before died as the fire from the fire pit leapt and kissed the top of the tent. It hissed and roared, illuminating every weathered face in flickering orange. Sadly, none of them choked to death. Isi was not nearly powerful enough to see these unbelievers smitten.

  The fire that kissed the tent roof fell back into the fire pit, and every eye rested on it. Isi frowned as she sensed a sudden swelling of fear. Even Tinek seemed taken aback.

  But then the fme of the man's worship swelled with enough ferocity to make Isi unconsciously coo.

  "The Nameless God is with us here!" Tinek hissed, and several men made strange gestures with their hands. "I will tell you what happened! Not a fairytale! The truth!"

  The man of authority opened his mouth, but whatever he had to say died in his throat. Silence hung in the air like smoke.

  Tinek smiled a weasel's smile as he cast his gaze around the tent.

  "A dream called me to the Forbidden City. A dream I now realize was a vision from the Nameless God who still dwells there!"

  Several voices muttered darkly, but did not dare to speak louder than a whisper. Isi watched them all with a sudden burst of excitement. She could feel small pinpricks of faith building in Tinek's listeners.

  "Mitja was not in my dream. Not in my vision. But he still followed me. I told him not to, but he insisted! When the horrors of that pce saw him, they were roused into a frenzy. They chased us until our legs could not take another step. There was murder in their beady bck eyes."

  None spoke. Few dared to even breathe.

  "I threw myself onto the ground and begged the Nameless God of the Forbidden City to spare me! Mitja invoked The Droll and was immediately bes- "

  "You will not bspheme against Our God!" someone shouted, and a couple others found their own voices. The pinpricks of faith that had started to swell were quickly snuffed out.

  But Tinek's voice rose in fervor at their angry shouts. Oddly enough, however, the fme of his own faith seemed to shrink.

  "I begged the Nameless God for mercy, and I was spared! Look upon me! I walked the streets of the Forbidden City and returned with all my limbs! Because I was called to that pce! Not Mitja!"

  The shouts died, and Tinek continued.

  "I tell you, after Mitja had been smote for his irreverence, a dozen horrors padded towards me, Mitja's blood still dribbling from each of their rotten maws. They growled with murder so loud one would think the earth was shaking, but I was not afraid! I knew God stood beside me! I would not come to harm!"

  The fme of faith from before was rekindled amongst some of the listeners. Isi could not deny that the man spoke well, but she had started to frown.

  "I cast the horrors away! In the Nameless God's authority, I demanded that the horde of beasts be gone! They fled like a herd of whipped dogs!"

  Isi groaned in irritation at the shaggy human's continued embellishment, but she could not deny that the humans enjoyed the tale. Even the children had stopped crying.

  "I gathered as many stones as I could. I built a small shrine to the Nameless God, offering them the blood of our Dear Mitja. And a totem of fire!"

  All eyes, even Tinek's, turned to the fire pit in the middle of the tent, but it did not dance as it had before. Tinek looked slightly disappointed.

  "I tell you, brothers, if it had been night, the fire would have been seen all the way from our lost homend! The fmes reached the very clouds of the sky, but I was unharmed. The fires would not burn me! The Nameless God of those ruins instead filled me with their essence! I am healed, as you can all see! My affliction has fled my body! I have been cured!"

  "Ooohoh..." For whatever reason, Tinek's comment earned a rush of faith from the listeners. Isi felt her entire body warm as if she were resting atop a bed of coals. She decided she would forgive his embellishments if it meant more faith.

  "I have returned here, a prophet of the Nameless God," Tinek said, and whatever warmth Isi had been enjoying disappeared instantly. She clenched her fist and cruushed the bsphemer's lungs.

  Or at least she tried to.

  "I tell you all, brothers and sisters, The Droll has forsaken us! We must- "

  "Enough of your heresy!" A man of wrinkled skin and white hair rose to his feet. "You are possessed! Death! Death or exile!"

  The elder's faith quickly smothered the burgeoning faith that had begun to grow in the crowd. Others added their shouts, but Tinek was unconcerned. Isi despised the weasel grin on his face.

  "The Nameless God is here with us now! She will cleanse you as she has cleansed me! Look to her fire and see the truth!"

  "This makes me sick," Isi said as the bsphemer made some spastic gesture at the fire pit. None breathed. Even those who had been shouting stared at the fire pit with bated breath.

  This worm. This woooooorm.

  Clearly, he sought a miracle. This insignificant speck demanded a miracle.

  Isi blinked and returned to her shabby altar a world away. The man deserved a thousand deaths, but she was not confident her powers would not backfire like before. It terrified her that she might accidentally py into his hand.

  "What is wrong with these humans?!" Isi demanded. She kicked up her feet and y across the throne of her altar.

  She was trembling with fury. More than that, however, she shook with shame. If she had even a tenth of her power, she could have smote the False Prophet. She could have filled his belly with maggots! She could have... could have... Well, the maggots were her go-to with False Prophets, but there were other things!

  "The nerve!" Isi huffed angrily. Two of the broken Guardians appeared at the edge of her sight. Perhaps they had been summoned by the sheer weight of her emotions.

  She frowned as the two Guardians stopped and... and stared. They were looking up at her altar with the half-intelligence she had given them. It was almost as if they could see her.

  A thought occurred to Isi, and she looked deep into her essence.

  [Avaible Prayer Power: 37pp]

  [Number of Believers: 3]

  Isi could not smile. It was almost worse to have three believers than zero.

  But now she had three believers. The bsphemer's little con had not been without fruit. She allowed her senses to drift away from the altar. She could sense the newest torches of faith. Each cast the darkness around them back ever so slightly.

  "I hate this so much..." Isi knew what she had to do, and in the days that followed, it became all too clear that she had no alternative. The humans had called her temple a forbidden pce. Which did much to expin why only her broken Guardians walked its quarters.

  [Avaible Prayer Power: 43pp]

  [Number of Believers: 5]

  The number of believers had only increased by two in the days she deliberated. It was almost not worth the bother, but she was committed to the wretched idea.

  Isi blinked and willed herself near the False Prophet. She had been too consumed with hate to look upon him or even the others. She found the one called Tinek asleep in the middle of the woods. He shared a bed of leaves with a woman, though she was not a believer, and a boychild, who believed.

  "I should fill your mouth with maggots..." Isi spat as she loomed over the sleeping three like a malevolent spirit.

  "Not a spirit!"

  She forced herself to calm down. It had taken days to decide, but now she was committed. She had become weak, but she would not remain weak.

  Isi knelt down and reached for Tinek's shaggy head. She noticed that his nose was crooked and his left eye was covered in a bloody cloth. The sight brought a dim smile to her face.

  With her left hand, she reached into Tinek's sleep. She would send him a vision in his dream. A real vision! Because what she needed right now was believers, and this lout would have to do.

  She summoned ruins made luminous with golden fire. A voice echoed through a forgotten temple with the weight of judgment. The dust and disrepair of the ruins disappeared and were repced with a realm of magnificence. At its helm stood... stood...

  Her hand remained embedded inside Tinek's dream, trembling with uncertainty.

  When he awoke, would he twist this vision into another lie? How much would this man shame her before she recimed her power?

  The boychild stirred beside Tinek, and Isi sighed deeply.

  "Fine..." she hissed irritably as she added the finishing touches to Tinek's vision. He would lead his family and all other believers back to the so-called Forbidden City. "We'll see just what kind of prophet you turn out to be..."

  Snaggle_Tooth