Once more they crested a small hill and got a proper look at the city of rebirth, it was in the late evening and the shadow of the Aerie had begun to stretch across the farmlands and irrigation ditches. Seras stretched her arms upwards, “fucking finally.”
Buck tossed his heads back in agreement. The journey through the Heidel-back mountains had been a trying and stressful one. The Toruachs had spread out to fill up any easy lowland passes and gorges, which meant the only way through was up and over the ridge of the mountain. Which coincidently was a high-bronze mana zone.
You either got giant packs of iron ranked monsters, packs of bronze, or really strong singular bronze ranked monsters. And those were just the guaranteed options, because there was also the rare chance a silver-ranked one would manifest. Which it did.
Seras was starting to wonder if she was an actual bad luck charm at this point, it seemed like anything that could go wrong always did around her. The rainbow feathered serpent that had harassed them the whole way down the mountain had been a frustrating thing to fight.
All the pride and accomplishment Seras had felt over her current rifle had withered away while fighting that thing. She unloaded dozens of bullets into it, but A; a silver ranked monster’s hide was too tough for most long range shots, B; even when they did penetrate they just got pushed right out, and C; with just the iron ranked magic in the bullet itself the damage it took was healed in moments.
The most she could do the whole damn time was shoot for its eyes to try and piss it off while the ten bronze rankers in their group did the real fighting. In the end it was the exhaustion and Dustin’s blazing blood affliction that brought it down.
That was the power of silver rank, her guns could kill the weakest of bronze rank monsters, but silver was a whole new level. She doubted any weapon she could make right now would equal that, to reach that level of power she would need to delve deeper into magical integration.
They rode down to the city’s eastern gates, a grand extra fortified affair to better resist the monster surges. The walls themselves thrummed with magical power built to lash out against any monster who would try to besiege the city.
The crew of Dustin’s caravan naturally began to trot towards their inn, but Seras pulled away. “I’ll meet you guys there, I have business that can’t wait.”
They glanced to her in curiosity, but a nod from Dustin cut off any questions they wanted to ask, “well stay safe out there, try not to attract to much trouble.”
Seras chuckled, “I wish I had a say in it.” She turned Buck and began to ride away. In her still developing aura senses she felt Athena trot towards her, but stopped when Flint held up a hand towards her.
Seras was glad for that, she had a long night ahead of her.
She and Buck traveled the empty streets towards the adventurer society complex in Caras district. Even in the falling night the building was still active. Adventurers coming in late to turn in contracts, some sparsely staffed vender stalls, and sleepy looking Adventurer society staff. Seras made her way through the main plaza to the closest receptionist.
“Turning in a contract?” the Leonid man asked sleepily.
“Not quite. I was one of the contracted caravanners on the Omeda raid, director Arlee promised compensation for my work as I’m not currently a society member. I just wanted to leave a message that I’m finally back in town.”
The Leonid perked up, “oh, oh, you’re her huh.”
Seras quirked a brow, “I might be, depends on who ‘her’ is?”
“The one who fell into the labyrinth and popped up in the middle of the Akemi camp.”
Not entirely right, but also not worth correcting. “Yup, that’s me, Seras Cross.”
The Leonid nodded, “the director left instructions with us for you. Something about skipping the test, a bit strange, but not an unprecedented action, especially with you Outworlders. It doesn’t make sense to make you actually experienced fighters take the same test with all the newbies, especially if you’re at a higher rank than iron. I heard a rumor of a test in Karstess that made a silver ranker ride along with iron rankers. Awkward.”
Seras frowned, “have you had many experienced Outworlders coming through here?”
The Leonid hummed, which for him was really a low growl, “a few in my time, four in total I think, three of which are dead now, one found his way to Basal.”
Seras blinked in surprise, “that’s more than I was expecting. I hear about how common Outworlders are in this part of the world, but I’ve not met another yet.”
He winced, “yeah, you people, that is to say Outworlders, have a high mortality rate. In general, Outworlders come in two varieties, the kind that die quickly, or the kind who thrive. But there’s more of the former than the latter. And those who survive make their way to Basal since it’s one of the big adventure cities for iron and bronze rankers. You’ll find more Outworlders there.”
“Like that one guy you mentioned.”
The Leonid nodded, “Yeah, he was a strange one. A fellow Leonid, but he appeared in one of the water pipes that irrigate the farmlands and washed up completely naked and half drowned an irrigation ditch. It was the talk of Cupric when he appeared, he was already bronze rank and joined a team heading north once his hair grew back in. But get this, instead of your normal sandy colored hair he had dark brown fur.”
“Huh,” Seras vocalized. It seemed that while other worlds might have similar races those races came in different phenotypes. “Hate to cut this short, but my night is packed with other meetings, is there anything I need to know though.”
The Leonid tapped his chin, “no, just be prepared for a short interview. The director, the deputy director and one other. Other than that just try to wear something appropriate.”
Seras nodded, “sounds good, thank you-,”
“Dan is fine. Good to meet you miss.” Dan then reached out and engulfed her whole hand in his fury one and gave it a single solid pump.
Seras waved goodbye and strode out of the adventurer society for her next destination.
All of Cupric was arranged around the central Aerie rock where the phoenix nobility of the region lived, that meant everything important here was arrayed in a close circumference of the giant rock. Seras exited the adventure society campus and walked anticlockwise to her next goal for the night. In the quickly cooling desert night the Divine square was a much less inviting place than it would be during the day.
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Seras wished she had time to do this some other time, but the ever-increasing pain in her soul was slowly wearing away at her mind. It wasn’t just a constant pain she had to deal with, but an overwhelming one that was slowly wearing away at her mind and patience. The longer it went on the worse she would get. She couldn’t wait on anything anymore. She picked her first temple and began to approach without pause.
A bleary-eyed Elvin priest greeted her at the door, looking confused but ready to assist her. “Miss, my lord said you wished to speak with me.”
Seras frowned, “I thought knowing my thoughts was Knowledge’s domain, how does he know?”
The white robed priest cleared his throat, “While that’s true, a person in pain walking up to the temple of the Healer can only mean a few things.”
“Ah, right.” Seras gave the healer priest a small smile. “And I guess sensing pain or injury is just something acolytes of Healer can do.”
He frowned, “Some of us can, but if I might be so bold, its readily apparent that you are in some amount of pain. All the signs are there.” He then gestured inwards, “please come in miss and we’ll see if we can sort you out.”
Seras nodded gratefully and walked into the temple.
“What’s ailing you if I might ask, our clergy can heal just about every malady there is.”
Seras sighed, “unfortunately I have it on good authority that you can’t fix me, not easily at least.”
The Healer priest frowned, “are you referring to Knowledge herself?”
“Yup. I tried to visit your temple in Florin, instead a Leonid named Lenny met me and guided me to the Knowledge Temple instead.”
“And she wasn’t able to cure your condition?”
Seras paused, “she made… an offer. One that I couldn’t accept. Offered to fix it all by stripping away the parts of myself that are hurting me, all on the condition that I become one of her priests.”
“Pardon me if this seems rude, but that sounds like a good deal, especially given the pain you appear to be in,” the Priest commented.
“Maybe to you, but to me it wasn’t even an option. How much do you know about the Outworlder process, specifically in how our bodies are remade?”
“Quiet a deal actually, it is the prime example for soul based healing and other related topics. In fact, before Outworlders were more widely studied there was a greet deal of debate over how exactly healing magic worked. Your kind provided us with irrefutable proof that the soul remembers the body’s shape.”
Seras gave him a sidelong look, but chose not to comment on him already knowing about Outworlders. “Right, but the thing about that is that it’s based on self-image and body comfortability. On my homeworld I made changes to myself, fairly drastic ones, they followed me into this world, which would have been great if there wasn’t a small quirk. My body got remade at bronze rank, with bronze rank magic and all that entails. But my soul and magical matrix were only normal rank.”
The priest gave her a wide-eyed stare, “how is that even possible?”
Seras shrugged, “I have theories. I’m much tougher than a normal or iron ranker. I think maybe that translated into a bronze rank physicality.”
The priest was already shaking his head, “I’m sorry, but that can’t be right. A normal ranker can be as strong as a bronze ranker without being bronze rank, there is a qualitative difference in the magic between the two. Even with the body reconstruction of Outworlders in play that wouldn’t be possible.”
Seras opened up a file document and added this into the entry labeled ‘magic on Ruin?’. “How exactly might not be prescient, what I need now is a solution.”
The Priest turned to her, “are you request for Lord Healer to offer you the same deal as Knoledge?”
Seras barked a laugh, “no, not at all. No matter which God I ask it will always rely on me getting my body ripped apart and remade, worse yet it’ll probably need some sort of invasive soul manipulation to work.”
“Your… not wrong. If I might ask then miss, what do you want from us?”
They were now before a statue of Healer, simple robes, a kind smile, and knowing eyes. “Throughout this whole conversation you’ve been quoting some rather impressive factoids and other such, can I assume this is all knowledge you have studied from some sort of divine repository?”
The Elf frowned, “Yes… every church keeps their own stores of relevant knowledge. Case studies, patient info, and pure bio-magical research as well. Our temples’ mission is healing the weak and ill, but our secondary mission is developing medical knowledge and practice. Each generation building upon the last.”
“You’re God doesn’t just tell you how to fix things?”
He frowned, “sometimes, but there’s a lot of nuance to it.”
Seras nodded, “there always is.” She gestured backwards to the statue, “I have an Outworlder trait, Net connection, it mimics the information superhighway on my world. Something this world lacks, all I can access are books I’ve stored in my own pocket space, a few commonly disseminated things like the essence list, monster manual, and the farmer’s almanac. To access more I would need divine permission. I was hoping to ask Healer if I might have access to those records you mentioned.”
The priest stared at her for a long moment, a frown developing on his face, “you wish, for all the medical knowledge our congregation has been putting together for the entire breadth of our existence?”
Seras grimaced as she realized how arrogant that was. “Yes, I know it’s a big ask, but I need to find a cure. One that works for my needs.”
The priest glanced to the side just behind Seras, but Seras kept her eyes on the priest. “I can’t stop you from asking miss, your free to pray to Lord Healer and see if he’s in the mood to grant your request.”
Seras blinked, “like, pray pray?”
The priest sighed, “yes Miss, if you wish to ask something of the Gods then that is how it’s done.”
Seras’ head tilted to one side, and then the next. “Huh, I don’t know why, but the idea that actually praying might do something just sounds so bizarre to me. Even though I know you have living Gods on this world. I can’t help but have seconds thoughts about this plan.”
The priest looked confused, “what do you mean by ‘living’ Gods. Gods cannot die.”
Seras shook her head, “no, they just haven’t yet. But on my world they have.”
That seemed to shock him the most, “that’s, no, that’s not possible.”
Seras shrugged, “if you doubt me then look up the star story of the Silver handed man. He was apparently a real Outworlder from my world. Back when it was called Vestal and not Ruin.”’
The priest’s face went pale as he began to sprint for somewhere deeper in the temple. Seras sniggered to herself before turning back to the statue, which wasn’t a statue anymore.
The man before her was simple, elegant, but simple. Plain robes, ordinary brown hair with warm amber eyes, and a modestly handsome face. The only thing off about him was the ungodly aura around him exuding displeasure. Or rather, godly in this case.
“I would appreciate you not giving my followers crises of faith,” the God said.
Seras scratched the back of her head, “yeah, that wasn’t my intention when coming in here, it just appears to be something that happens around me.”
He sighed, “you are living proof that much of what our followers hold as immutable is more fragile than it seems. It matters not, Charels is a good man, if he can make peace with this he’ll come back better.”
“And if not, if he chooses to walk away from all this?” Seras gestured outwards. Logic told her that questioning a God in his own temple was not a smart thing, but she couldn’t stop herself.
The God ‘hmm’ed, “it depends. Charels has many divine essences. If he wishes to leave I could take them away, though I usually don’t do that. I think that so long as he continues to do good as he’s always done then he’s allowed his long sabbatical.
Seras… she didn’t like that answer, but she couldn’t say why. She was beginning to doubt whether there was a continuing point to Atheism on a world with living Gods. “You heard why I’m here then?”
“Of course, even if I’m not Knowledge I still know what happens within my own temples.”
“Then will you help me?”
Healer frowned “that is an odd way of wording it. In my eyes the only way of helping you would be convincing you to reconsider Knowledges offer, or maybe finding you a God that works better for you. I know a few others are interested in you, Craft, Innovation, Fertility, and even Hero.”
Seras recoiled at the last name, “Hero? What the hell would he want with me? I’m not... not one of his. Unless he’s looking to deal with me for my sins…”
Healer held up a hand, “I don’t want to infringe upon my colleagues and their intentions, but very few of us would have you hunted down for whatever crimes you committed on Ruin. Unless one of your victims arrived here on their own and swore an oath to Vengeance, but that is unlikely.”
Seras rubbed at her temples, “I’m kind of glad my world’s Gods are dead, you all seem like a complicated lot.”
“Theology is not for everyone.”
Seras sighed, she walked up the alter where Healer had replaced his own statue and sat on the ledge, “I’ve said it before, I’m not giving up who I am. Even if it kills me.”
“There are few other options.” Healer said from behind her.
She blew up at a stray bang, “maybe, but there are options.” She glanced to the right and saw that he was sitting next to her, she hadn’t seen him move. “It hurts, it hurts so fuckin’ much. I can barely sleep anymore, and it’s only at 14%. How bad is it going to get?”
“Worse, so much worse. The percentages your abilities gave you are accurate, what they fail to mention is that anything past 50% would put your body into a state of total shutdown, at 60% your mind will shut down to spare itself the agony. Beyond that I can’t even find words that you would understand.”
She shrunk in on herself, “why, how? I can’t even get to 100% before going comatose?”
Healer frowned, “not comatose. If this were all in the body then it would be, but this is your soul Miss Cross. Even when your body shuts down, and your mind goes blank, you will still have the pain. Please, I beg you child, reconsider your choices.”
She put a hand to her chest, “but this is me I can’t give it up. I spent a lifetime working for what I’ve got, I’ve lost my best friend, my crew, and a woman I thought I could love. All I got for it was being blasted into another world where nothing is the way things should be. This is all I have left.”
“I don’t know what you went through before coming here, but I can say you aren’t alone. You have Dustin and his kind crew, you have a great friend in Athena, and most importantly a potential at a future. Do you still need these metal and wires to feel connected?”
Seras sat and didn’t answer the God.
He placed a hand on her shoulder, “alright, I can see that you need more time. Rise, and I will grant you my blessing.”
Seras stood, and surreptitiously wiped a tear away from her eye. “I didn’t get it before with Knowledge, but I can really see why people believe in you Gods, I kinda wish ours were still alive.”
Healer frowned, “yes, I feel for all those of your world who would need the kind of help only my kind can offer. But I know that your Gods didn’t leave you totally alone. Charels was right in one thing miss Cross, Gods don’t die, but it can certainly seem like that to mortals.”
Seras logged that little tidbit away to a file deep in her memory banks. She stood before the God and bowed low, not as low as she could go, but lower than she had ever gone for anyone before.
Ability Net connection has received Divine permission from the God [Healer]. Medical and biological research up to the silver rank is now available for your perusal.
