We got led into the village and everyone seemed to stare at us. So uhh how long have you guys been living here?


    “Our ancestors arrived here 528 years ago and we have been living here ever since.” That is a very long time, for what reason did you decide to stay here specifically?


    “Because this is the place the closest to the gods!” Excuse me? I don''t like this at all. Do we run?


    “You 3 look confused so let me enlighten you!” Guys I''m sorry maybe this was a bad idea after all! The moment these guys mentioned gods I thought back to what Paul and Paula said and it is setting alarm bells off.


    “I will tell you of our history! A long time ago our god Zarrazax got sealed away in a dungeon. My grandmother says this happened 2670 years ago but some elders argue that it was 2658 years ago!” Uhh, do 12 years make that much of a difference?


    “Fool! Every year is of importance if it''s about our lord and savior Zarrazax!” Right…


    “A detestable woman picked a fight with Zarrazax and obviously she couldn''t beat him so she sealed him away! The gall!” So, what does something that happened so long ago have to do with why you guys are living here?


    “Hey let him finish his story! The good part is to come!” Another guy said. This guy looked super beefy and strong but also like he wasn''t the smartest.


    “After our god got sealed that detestable woman got chased by Zarrazax''s lover the beauty and our benefactor goddess Biian. She got chased to around these parts. But unfortunately, that detestable woman was quite strong. She could seal our god and hold her own against Biian. So, our benefactor returned the favor and sealed her away! Serves her right!” Hey, what was the name of the person that your benefactor sealed away?


    “You want him to utter that detestable name?!” The beefy guy spoke up and pointed his spear at me.


    “It''s fine, Raza, If we want to recruit them it is important that they know who their enemy is.” Raza lowered his spear and stepped back, he still seemed angry. “I don''t remember the name of that detestable woman because it isn''t in any records but she did go by a certain name that sends shivers through my spine whenever I hear it, listen well! I will only utter her name once! Your enemy is the Azure Mist!” Hey, Agnis isn''t that? Yeah, let him finish talking. I have never heard of that name; can you tell me more about it?


    “You want him to tell about all the detestable deeds she did?!” Raza lifted his spear again but this time at Ted.


    “What did I tell you Raza? They can’t hate her like we do if they don''t know the details! Cool down!”


    “Yes, Araz…”


    “The crime she committed was wiping out our god''s private army. Our god required more territory and some of our ancestors gladly conscripted to become part of his personal army. It marched and conquered land until she appeared and mercilessly slaughtered the army” But hey don''t you think maybe he was in the wro… I put my hand on his mouth. Let him finish.


    “Our god got mad because his loyal followers got slaughtered and he confronted her, she wouldn''t listen to reason and a battle broke out. She couldn''t beat him so she used dirty tricks to seal him in a dungeon. She gloated and started to spread propaganda that gods are causing a lot of problems and that they either need to back off or disappear. And that we don''t need gods to interfere in our everyday lives. What nonsense! We are nothing without the help of the gods. That is where his lover stepped in. She was of course sad and mad that her lover got sealed away and drove that witch into a corner. Unfortunately, she couldn''t beat the Azure Mist so she used her wit and creativity to seal her away.“ Wait aren''t you a bit bias… I put my other hand on Gregory’s mouth. Let him finish. You said that goddess drove “That witch in a corner” what do you mean by that?


    “Oh of course you don''t know that. The Azure Mist is a witch. Biian managed to ensnare her and her associates and imprisoned her. Unfortunately, despite that the Azure Mist didn''t lose all power. As we sit here, she is fighting back and weakening this prison! So that is why we need to unseal Zarrazax to destroy that evil witch for once and all!”


    Hmmpf! I took my hand off Ted’s mouth. But that still doesn''t explain why you guys are living here! Just leave the man talk Ted.


    “You seem to have quite the interest. But your friend is right, my story is almost done anyways. So, because of this fact, we were looking for the dungeon our god got sealed in. But then our ancestors found this wonderful device left by his lover Biian which allows us to communicate with the gods!” As he said that he pointed at the pink root. Cool story, so how does that work? That talking to the gods?


    “We bathe in the energy and get a divine revelation!” I am totally freaked out by these guys but they do have some interesting information. I will have to pretend to be interested in their cult. What about those? I pointed at some ancient stone tablets with ancient writing on them. They also give off a weird energy


    “I’m sorry but I can’t tell you about them or let you near them unless you are a part of our religious circle." Cool, can I join? Agnis are you out of your mind? Hey, this joke isn''t funny. I just got interested, we had so many troubles lately maybe goddess Biian can help us get out of this. Hmm is that what you are going for? Gregory seemed to have an idea of what I was trying here. I know our situation is bad but did you forget what Paul and Paula said? Ted didn''t seem to get it at all.


    “Oh, so you want to join? That is wonderful news!” I know I’m just a new recruit but is there a fast way to get a chance to uhm commune with those ehh sacred text over there?


    “So quick to show our gods the highest respect! We don''t normally have an opportunity for that but our recent candidate for our yearly offering to our god Zarrazax showed weakness and isn''t pure anymore if you would take his place you get to commune with the sacred tablets before the ritual of sacrifice gets held." Ok cool, let''s do that! Hey, Agnis I don''t want to criticize you for your religious beliefs but shouldn''t you think this over a bit more? Think this over? Greg? They were talking about sacrificing Agnis! How are you not against this?


    That is fine, I already made my decision. I’m sorry Ted but this is important to me. No! I won''t let them take you! I appreciate Ted’s sentiment but I hope he would''ve read between the lines a bit as Gregory did. Ted took out his bear form and tried to grab me.


    I’m sorry Ted but I will stay here. The villagers got battle ready and attacked Ted who tried to grab me. Ted stop! We’re turning the whole village against us! How could you say something like that? Does Agnis mean nothing to you? They clearly did something to him! We need to take him back and find out what happened! The villagers seem to be quite strong; they use basic magic augmentation but their skills with spears and swords are remarkable.


    Ugh, get off! They were climbing on the bear avatar and trying to stab through it to reach Ted. It kind of looked like how small people would fight a giant and overpower it with numbers. Ugh, this is bad, we need to run! Noo! We can’t leave him behind with these cultists!


    “Hey! We are not a cult!” Raza seemed to be really glad now that he could use his spear. Gregory [Shadowmelded] himself and appeared in Ted’s shadow and melded Ted and himself and escaped. I was alone now surrounded by cultists.


    “I am sorry for treating your friends like this but they were very rude.” That is fine, They were out of line, if they can''t accept my choices then they aren''t my friends anymore. I secretly made 2 clones and let them escape from this village. One to send out to explain what I''m doing, to Ted and another to pretend to be me on the surface. I don''t know if I''m able to make it up in time to sell my rubies so my clone will do that.


    “I am impressed, you show a lot of determination, you even cast off your friends. We need people like you!” I’m glad that that impressed you but I did that for myself, I didn''t do that to score your trust or anything.


    “As it should be! We haven''t had a candidate like you for a while, maybe after this year''s sacrifice, Biian will reveal herself to us!” The villagers started to chant something and dance. I will have to make sure I get what I need as soon as possible and get the fuck out of here. So, when is this sacrifice going to happen? I want to at least mentally and ehh spiritually prepare for it?


    “The time where you will commune with the sacred tablets will be at noon in 3 days. The sacrifice will happen soon after.” So, on the day we normally destroy the root is the day that I get sacrificed, eh? Can’t say I’m excited. My clone reached Gregory and Ted and Ted seems to be angry. He accepts the plan that I made which is that I will find information from inside this village and they will investigate the surroundings to see what we can find out. I also told them about the day of the sacrifice.


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    The guy who I have been talking to the whole time seemed to be the son of the village elder and leader. He showed me around the village, important religious spots, other spots of great importance, and my hut. He then started to explain their rules and how they behaved in a group. He brought me away from the village to a path that exited the main big cavern and led me to a smaller cavern that also had those weird crystals on the ceiling but in this cavern, they were growing crops and holding animals. Groundwater surfaced here, creating a small lake. The weather was quite warm, probably because we are deep underground. He then brought me back to my hut and left because he said he had things to do. He left 2 beefy guys at my hut. I don''t know if it was to make sure I didn''t escape or because I am an important sacrifice. I don''t know how they choose their sacrifices but I got that role quite easily. I looked around again in the village. I didn''t see anyone around my age, besides me, the youngest person looked to be about 16 and that was Raza. Is that why? Does the sacrifice need to be of a certain age? Is the goddess a pedophile?


    At about 3 pm they had some ritual where they came really close to the root and did some sort of praying and bathing in the dense magic it radiated. I can see how some of these people got their mana corrupted. Do this enough times, and one day it is just game over. I participated but even though I have a higher tolerance to this than humans I still used some frost magic to protect me as a precaution. Even though that guy, ugh what was his name again? I didn''t archive his name. I will call him a cultist guy. Even though the cultist guy’s story seemed to be full of bias there did seem to be some useful information there.


    So, Azu slapped a god and locked him in a dungeon which pissed off another god and she got caught and locked up herself. But the fact that she survived 2 encounters with gods is a testament to her strength. They didn''t even seem to be able to kill her. But a witch, eh? I don''t know much about witches but I know they can be terrifying opponents. Not only do they have high magical capabilities they are also highly intelligent. They seem to be quite similar to nine-tailed spirit foxes in that. Is that why we are supposed to deal with gods? My mom did say that gods over-rely on the fact that they are baseline stronger than almost anything while witches use their brains and thus could be a bigger threat than gods. I never thought I would find an example of my mother''s tales like this. I got to my hut but the two people that I thought were preventing me from running away still stood there. Are they bodyguards then? Anyways they blocked my path.


    “You shall study!” Their tone made me want to decline to spite but I am interested in what more information these guys had about this strange town.


    Bring me to your leader! They looked puzzled and looked at each other. I actually always wanted to say a line like that but I guess this doesn''t involve their leader. They dragged me quite rudely to a big hut that the cultist guy described as their library. This is such a joke; this cultist village has a library but Boshi town doesn''t. The mayor needs to step up his game. I got pushed inside and a woman in her early 30s brought me a tray of food. Really? Of all the food they could have given me they had to bring me mashed potatoes?


    We meet again my arch nemesis. Guess I''ll go with no food for now. I politely accepted the tray after which they closed the door. I was left alone in this big hut with various scrolls and tablets and what is that? A modern book? I burnt the mashed potatoes to ashes and picked up the modern book.


    Well, this is useless I can''t read this at all. This doesn''t seem to come from the continent of Kaledon. Bah, useless. I throw the book into a corner. Right if this is a decent library these documents are ordered in some kind of way. I picked up multiple items but they didn''t seem to have any logical ordering. Did they just dump whatever they found interesting here? Half the documents here seemed to be in ancient Kaledonian which I can read. Of the half that isn''t I can read about half because they are all ancient texts. So, in total, I can read three quarters. The last quarter has some languages that look similar to the ancient languages I know but there aren''t many of those, only 3 documents. This library had in total 154 documents that I could read. Luckily most weren''t super long. With some luck, I could read all of them in these 3 days. I picked up something in Old Kaledonian. What is this? A family register?


    Bah, useless. I threw it in the corner with the book I couldn''t read. Hmm, what is this a diary of a sacrifice candidate that got caught stealing? Bah, useless! After increasing the pile of useless documents to 17 documents I found something that struck me as interesting. It was listing the 12 Sarian gods. What is this? What does Sarian mean? Is it a category? A type of power or just a name? It was just a list. After skimming over it I saw the names Biian and Zarrazax. Ok, this might be relevant.


    <hr>


    Zarrazax (Masculine): Associated with the sun, fire, red, power, combat, and immortality.


    Ha, he can be immortal sealed in that dungeon although I think all gods are immortal. How is being the god of immortality relevant?


    Adea (Feminine): associated with the moon, ice, illusions, silver, knowledge temperature, and mirrors.


    Hmm, sounds like I could get along with this goddess quite well, there are some things here that I would associate with myself.


    Zys (Masculine): Associated with lightning, analysis, purple, energy generation, impulsiveness, and propagation.


    Besides analysis, this one could get along well with Raishin.


    Ardella (Feminine): associated with the sea, water, light blue, energy control, the weather, harvest, vitality, and cleansing.


    Oof this one would be Gregory’s archnemesis.


    Yttroz (Masculine): associated with volcanoes, the earth, orange, poison, momentum, durability, gravity, construction, and destruction.


    And here is Gregory’s best friend, but where did this name sound familiar? I went through my archive. Yttroz industries, the place Terry works for, I think he said they worked with rocks or something. I guess they are not a religious cult but probably borrowed the name of the Sarian god of rocks.


    Bellia (Feminine): Associated with nature, dark green, life energy, healing, communication, husbandry, hunting, fertility, proliferation, and... What? Infinite resources?


    What does that mean?


    Xyoras (Masculine): associated with obsidian, darkness, weapon mastery, crowd control and curses, shadows, stealth, moods, and household magic.


    Huh? This sounds like someone Viridian and Hisui could get along with. Isn''t this god basically an assassin or am I wrong here?


    Biian (Feminine): associated with gold, light, justice, buffs, commerce, beauty, mind control, politics, religion, and subjugation.


    Hmm, this combination of associated things looks like a problem. Politics and religion? Yikes. Also, mind control and subjugation seem concerning. If I remember correctly according to cultist guy Biian was responsible for sealing Azu, I guess that falls under subjugation. Paul, Paula, and Uraya will get hit with a lot of pain when they talk about stuff, they aren''t supposed to so that is mind control? Or something else? Also, commerce… I don''t think commerce, politics, and religion are things that should be governed by one god. I don''t like this Biian.


    Chiara (Feminine): associated with mystery, dark blue, chaos, spatiotemporal control, reality, the origin of chaos magic, infinity, and trickery.


    I wonder if this god could randomly pop up and teach me how to make this stupid dimensional anchor. I took out the tail responsible for figuring this out but it still didn''t find anything.


    Wyndur (Masculine): Associated with emptiness, body enhancements, martial arts, perseverance, enlightenment, and workouts.


    Well, this is an odd one, seems Ted would get along well with this one.


    Walter/Wyxyxozyas (masculine): associated with metal, machines, progression, magic deconstruction, and science.


    What is this name? And why does this one have 2 names? Was his real name too difficult? It must be that.


    <hr>


    There is some text below this list. Hmm, it seems that the name of these gods gives them power. For the male gods, the amount of X, Y, or Z’s determines how strong they are, and for the females, it’s the amount of A, E or I’s. Hmm so I guess Walter is the strongest wait no he doesn''t have X, Y or Z in his name so then he’s that whatshisname with lotsa x''s and y’s. Does that mean that he got weaker by changing his name to Walter? That must have been rough.


    I saved this in my archive. These gods might come back in one of these texts. I threw this scroll in another corner. This is the useful corner. At least I know what group the gods belong to that they worship here, Zarrazax and Biian 2 of the 12 Sarian gods eh? I added more documents to the pile of useless. I guess things will go quite fast if it continues like this.


    Another useful document. It mentions the story that the cultist guy told me but is a bit more detailed. Hmm, it seems Zarrazax''s army was marching on Witchaven which seems to be Azu’s hometown. Well of course she is going to defend her hometown from a marching army. She fought an army of cultist... soldiers belonging to Zarrazax alone. What? These soldiers were gifted with divine power. I don''t know what that means. I archived this; I hope I can find a document that explains this. I can only assume they got juiced up by a god''s power. She won a 1 versus 2 million. Wow. What were the other witches doing? But I guess if you have someone like her you don''t need to send out a big group. It is talking about some details. She seemed to be proficient at every element. She didn''t need a staff or wand. Is that relevant? I guess so? I always imagine witches as women with big hats, long robes, and dresses with staves and familiars. But maybe this is a bit stereotypical. I don''t remember any of these on Azu. She just looked like a normal albeit eccentric chick. So, she beat that army and went home. I can''t blame her.


    It continues about how Zarrazax went on a warpath to kill her. He fought her 4 times. She tried to avoid a fight twice. Why are these cultists so biased while these documents seem to be neutral? The third fight was a real fight and this is when this document claims that Azu got the attention of the gods because she sent Zarrazax packing after a 2-hour battle. The document didn''t say that but that is me paraphrasing. She kept using water magic to counter Zarrazax who is associated with fire. Wait what! Ugh, Azu what are you doing! So, the reason why she got the attention of the gods is because of her skill called [Azure Mist] which made her infamous under the gods. Isn''t that the magic skill she gave me? But wait who is the author of this document? I looked for any clues but there didn''t seem to be a clue. I should keep in the back of my mind that these things might not be reliable. But from what I know about Azu this is something she would do; she just randomly gave me some overpowered spells and skills.


    So, she sent Zarrazax packing when she used [Azure Mist]. He tried to kill her another time but that is when she sealed him. It doesn''t specify a location. I guess that makes sense these cultists would have already found it otherwise. That seemed to be the end of the document. At least the interesting things. The rest is about how the remnants of the army tried to reform a competent army to launch another attack on Witchaven but it went as you would guess. If only 1 witch is needed to defeat 2 million beefed-up soldiers some scrambled-together army isn''t going to be of any threat to a whole city.


    I leaned back. Witches are scary. Azu soloed a big army and slapped a god several times. I didn''t see anything related to her encounters with Biian or how she ended up here. Witchaven isn''t close to here, I think. I found an old map in this document, the map showed the strategic tactics the army used and how they flanked Azu but the result was still their annihilation. I chucked this document from the useful pile. I tried to look for the follow-up of the story but that is when my 2 bodyguards came to pick me up. No, wait! I want to read more! They dragged me out of the hut. They seemed to be pleased though, probably happy that I was becoming a cultist or something. It was surprisingly dark.


    “It is time to rest, you have been in there for 6 hours” Wait really? My internal clock said that it was 22:12. I checked with my clone and it did what it was tasked with and met up with Terry to sell the rubies. Good. I decided to go to sleep. Who knows what they would make me do. The clone that I sent with Gregory and Ted was above ground with Gregory preparing to wipe out the shades. The number of shades was really ballooning. They piled up so high that even the roofs weren''t safe. I didn''t put much energy into that clone so I think it will disappear from exhaustion after cleaning up those shades.