by Elian Tars
At a rough estimate, there were about two hundred people in there. Were really only four of them not afraid to fight? Yes, it was undoubtedly a losing fight, but after the creatures had gotten inside they were doomed anyway. Did the others really decide that they’d rather tremble in fear and not fight? Or did they believe that I would save them and decided that there was no reason to risk? Then why did these four men, which where now writhing in agony, attack the Spiders with clubs and axes?
“Your God couldn’t save you!” I said loudly. “But our God can! With his help we can drive away the Decayed and heal the wounded!” I pointed at the dying four. “But our powers are not limitless. I will help only my brothers and sisters in faith!”
I glanced over the villagers. They were looking at me without blinking, huddling up together; women holding their children closer to them, men holding women… They were indecisive to say anything.
“If you help us live through this night, good man,” the scrawny man with shifty eyes said, “I think, we… Er… Agree… Right?” he asked, seeking support.
“Yes…”
“Yes…”
“Agree!”
“It doesn’t matter who this God is, just save us!”
Some cried with desperation, others with hope, but they were all ready to become a part of the Old Man’s congregation.
Chapter 17
The Congregation
I raised my hand, asking the villagers for silence, and the uproar stopped at once.
“Then say loudly and clearly that you devote yourself to the God of Darkness; that you pledge to say prayers to him and follow his will, conveyed through his Disciples.”
People started to exchange unsure glances.
“The God of Darkness?”
“I’ve never heard about him…”
“Do you think we can trust him?”
“I tell you, I don’t care what God it is!”
The same scrawny man stepped forth and, straightening his old back, spoke clearly:
“I devote myself to the God of Darkness and I pledge to obey his Disciples!” He then cast a glare at the others over his shoulder. “Why are you standing there? Pledge if you want to live!”
Timid voices sounded from everywhere, gradually merging into a united, discordant choir. Even the four men that were dying from Decay managed to pledge to Darkness.
“I am glad to accept you, my Followers!” boomed a thundering voice, and a semi-transparent figure, clad in a dark robe and shrouded in black smoke, appeared in front of the scared villagers. The Old Man grew to be fifteen feet tall and was now majestically floating in the air, hospitably spreading his arms. “Believe in me! Fight for me! Follow my Disciples, my Senior Disciple,” he pointed at me, “and you will find harmony.”
Black smoke seeped from the Patron’s fingertips, dividing into seven streams that immediately went into the bodies of the wounded. The villagers’ HP began to restore at once, and they came to their senses.
I decided to try to identify the Old Man again. Looking at him, I asked “Who is this?” and got an answer.
The God of Darkness.
That was unexpected. And quite short. Just like with the other Gods, there was no information about his level. But there was no name either. What could it mean? Was the system really unable to identify my Patron? Or was he before somehow able to stay hidden from it and had only now decided to reveal himself to a bunch of his Followers?
“Thank you, Great One,” said those who were unconscious just a couple of seconds ago. They bent their knees and bowed their heads.
“Thank you, Great One,” the other villagers repeated, following their fellow villagers’ example.
“Your faith and prayers will be the best form of gratitude to me,” the Patron roared and vanished into thin air.
I wondered how much energy he had spent to appear here. Were the expenses substantial or had they already been compensated for by getting new Followers? Religion and the exchange of energies were still difficult concepts for me to understand, especially when I had little information on them.
But I was sincerely glad that the Old Man had allowed the flock to see him with their own eyes, and that he accepted the quadruple accomplishment of the quest as it was unending, and as I got XP for every 50 Followers, and the he so casually named me a Senior Disciple. All these people, though they were of the same faith, didn’t have to know that I was a Gleam, but the status of being the one closest to the God was definitely useful.
“Those four that were not afraid to attack the Decayed can finish off one creature each!” I said loudly, attracting everyone’s attention. I thought that Kane wouldn’t mind six bodies. “And you can finish off two,” I pointed at the “Villager Shawn”, the scrawny man who was brave enough to be the first one to pledge to the Old man. He made a good example for the others to follow, so why not reward him? “Wait here. I’ll come back as soon as we clear the village.”
Having given the instructions, I hurried outside and joined Vella, Kane and his companions. The battle was tough; I had to pour the Enhanced Healing Potion down my dog’s throat — it had been exactly twelve hours. The necromancer, raising his arm, fingers splayed in front of him, sucked the lives out of his three bats and two crows, and then, using the same method, did the same to his bull. The energy he got was enough to partly heal Mara and himself.
We won in the end, though Kane only had Mara and one crow left. However, he didn’t seem very upset. With a crazy smile on his lips, he ran to the unconscious enemies and touched them with the Altar of Death.
“They won…” I heard a surprised whisper behind me.
“Amazing! They defeated a whole horde of decayed beasts!”
“The God of Darkness is strong! We were right to join him!”
Having heard that the sounds of battle had died down, the villagers peeked out of the temple. Seeing that all of the creatures had been defeated, the new Followers became braver and, looking around cautiously, headed in my direction.
“I ordered you to wait,” I said coldly once there was about 30 feet of distance between Shawn and me. The man stopped and lowered his head.
“I’m sorry, Senior Disciple. We couldn’t hold ourselves. It’s difficult to sit tight! We thought that maybe we could help.”
However, they crept out of their shelter only when everything was over. And not everyone, only about forty men and a dozen of women. The rest of them were still sitting in the so-so safe temple and trembling in fear.
“Hey, brave ones!” Mara smiled, approaching us together with Kane.
I observed the villagers’ reaction to the girl’s appearance. They started exchanging uneasy glances, shifting their gazes between me, the necromancer and the zombie. Finally, Shawn stepped forward.
“Senior Disciple, don’t get me wrong, but... Your companion… What’s with her skin and eyes?” he asked ingratiatingly.
Just as I thought, nobody could read. They couldn’t see the words “The Highest Wight” floating above Mara’s head. She and Kane understood that; that was why they got surprised when they saw me changing my name before the fight. And although many of the locals couldn’t see that I still thought that I had done the right thing. After all, one could easily hide their level of education if they wanted to.
“Mara was so loyal to the God of Darkness,” the necromancer spoke suddenly, “that even after her death our Patron let her serve him further.”
She gave a charming smile to the astonished villagers and shrugged. I glanced at the odd couple that purposefully lied to impress the villagers so that they’d be more inclined to join the Old Man’s flock. Not bad. Still, Kane had other reasons to lie as well.
“Daerk, we should burn the bodies,” the necromancer said, turning to me. I nodded. I knew that their remains spoiled the area around them and that you could get the Effect of Decay from them. And although it was a temporary effect, it could prove fatal for the low level villagers.
That was also
a good reason to test the loyalty of the new flock.
Turning to Shawn, I loudly said:
“We have to drag the corpses of the Decayed and your former friends and make two piles. Maybe it will be painful for you, but the powers of the God of Darkness won’t let you die.”
And again, Shawn was the first one to volunteer. After being allowed to finish off two decayed beasts, he went up one level and reached level 9. I wondered if the man knew that he had gotten stronger.
The heroic four volunteered after him; moaning and groaning, the other brave men joined them. I endowed them with Tranquility of Darkness, and the people set to work. Soon after that, some of those who had remained in the temple joined them too. I had almost no mana left after I was done casting buffs on them.
Having said that he wasn’t going sit there like a blind kitten, Kane, together with Mara, of course, went into the forest, away from the prying eyes, to recreate his personal airborne surveillance system.
I, deciding to learn more about the saved village, called Shawn over. The man eagerly answered my questions, glancing suspiciously at the shabby crow that was circling above our heads a couple of times. The necromancer left it behind in order to keep up with what was going on in Ilyenta.
According to Shawn, there were “ten times ten groups of people, times two, plus two more villagers” left; he could count only to ten, but he managed to count all of the survivors while we were fighting the Decayed outside the temple. During the attack, the local chief, the only educated villager, died. He was the one who guided them and sold farm surpluses, gathered from all the villagers, to visiting merchants. He also did business with a Disciple of Karus, who visited Ilyenta from time to time.
“Tell me more about this Disciple and about your faith in general. How were things?” Finally, I could improve my knowledge in this field.
It turned out that the locals had been praying to Karus for the last ten years. Before that, they prayed to Ilonida, and before her to Healissa. How did they change their faith? Simple. A Disciple of some God would come to them and order them to pray to their Patron. If the Disciple of the previous God was still in the village, or nearby, the Disciples would then fight each other.
Just as I thought, it didn’t make much difference to common, low-leveled Followers who exactly their God was. All that mattered was that they could hide in the temple in case of an attack of brigands or small groups of the Decayed. The God’s protection lasted for some time, and the God could help their flock by sending the Disciple nearest to them.
“I heard that Disciples settle in big villages,” having scratched his cheek, Shawn continued his story. “In the most significant ones, so to say. And they were trying to… Eh… How to put it…? To control the nearby villages… Well, to look after the neighbors, in short.”
When we were discussing the plan of saving Ilyenta during our ride, Kane said something similar. Adding my own guesses to that, I now had a more or less complete picture. So, villagers were a valuable resource; they didn’t care who they prayed to, because they were too weak to use the skills that the Gods would give them. Most of the villagers led an ordinary life and had hardly ever left home for more than daylight hours.
The villagers shouldn’t be killed. They should be nourished and cherished. The most important thing was to give them protection in the form of a temple. But there were a lot of villages, and the Gods’ powers were not limitless, so this protection was good enough only against weak groups of enemies, as we saw today, and as I saw on my first day here, when the Iron Faced destroyed Bon’s village. There must have been a temple in Listeri. I wondered who their God had been. I had an idea…
There shouldn’t be enough Disciples to cover every village — they were too important and valuable to use them as simple guards. The nearby villages must’ve also prayed to Karus, who probably learned by now that the Decayed had destroyed his temple.
That was one of the reasons why we waited till the last second and didn’t attack the Decayed the minute we arrived at the village. Had we done so, we all would’ve just gotten under the effect of his Aura, started losing our HP and would’ve definitely disclosed our presence. Who knew, maybe Karus would blame us for destroying the temple’s protective barrier.
I looked at the villagers, who were carrying the dead bodies in an orderly fashion, and thought about the second reason behind our “delay”. Though it could seem cruel, we had to wait till these people reached rock bottom. Only then could we show ourselves to the villagers, demonstrating our strength and offering help.
“Do you want to know anything else, Senior Disciple?” Shawn asked politely. He then added: “The fellows are working hard there and I… Eh… Well… Want to help ’em,” he nodded at the group of seven men that passed us by, carrying two decayed carcasses to the pile.
“Okay, go,” I allowed, wondering if my companion really couldn’t sit idly or he just didn’t want a new leader to appear. Shawn was in a favorable position since I personally picked him out of the crowd; someone should always strive to set a personal example in case of a crisis.
Yes, let the man work. If everything goes well, I would offer the villagers to appoint him the new chief.
“Grrrr…” Vella grunted. Plopping down beside me, she put her head on my knees. The dog smelled of blood and looked like she had decided to hunt something tastier than the creatures of Decay.
“You don’t say,” I sighed, scratching her behind the ear. “What a day it has been, huh? What am I supposed to do with this crowd? Two hundred low-leveled fragile batteries… Should I stay here and protect them from further attacks of the Decayed? I don’t think that our Patron would be pleased if I became a homebody, but I couldn’t leave these people unguarded either.
Vella looked at me with her clever eyes and said nothing.
Chapter 18
The Village
How amazing it was to sleep in a bed! Though the mattress was stuffed with old straw and the linen was dirty and littered with holes, it was still much better to sleep on that, than in an open field or a branch.
When I opened my eyes, I didn’t at first understand what time it was; the shutters were closed and it was pretty dark in the room. But the sunlight was coming through the slits, and I could hear voices outside.
I went to bed when dawn was starting to break. By that time, the villagers had gathered all of the bodies and lit two bonfires. The smell was awful, and I couldn’t make myself to watch till the end. I talked to Shawn and went to my temporary home — one of the houses whose hosts didn’t live through last night.
I sat up and stretched. At first I wanted to open the shutters, but I decided to wait a little. I opened my inventory and glanced at the Altars. Unable to hold myself, I chuckled proudly, remembering our last night’s adventure.
Putting it mildly, it was a miracle. The world, or “the system”, counted all the residents of Ilyenta as “lives saved by the pure being”. Why did it do that, I had no clue. After all, this wasn’t the first time I’ve saved someone; — I saved four from the illusion of the Will of the Mother of the Decayed”; rescued Berg from Baron Tsunter; and before that, I helped Una and three other people to get out of the burning Listeri. I wasn’t given anything back then, however. Why? Three possible explanations came to my mind: either because the Altar of Light and the Altar of Twilight weren’t activated at that moment and couldn’t be “charged”; because Ilyenta’s habitants would’ve be a hundred percent dead if it wasn’t for me; or because I had simply missed something. All the theories, except maybe the first one, looked somehow too far-fetched. However, a lot of things were possible in this world.
More than that, the enemies, who I had damaged but were finished off by others were counted as “spared” by the system. So, right now I had two hundred and forty nine lives.
Besides, the Old Man was highly appreciative of my success. Having prayed before going to sleep and dedicating to him all of my deeds, I got a surprising amount of faith poi
nts, the total of which was now two hundred and thirty two.
Also, after last night’s battle and completing Rugus’s quest, I reached level 61 and was near reaching 62.
Thinking about it, I closed my inventory without taking anything out of it. I decided to take a look at my stats first.
They were impressive.
Level 61
Vitality: 280
Endurance: 163
Strength: 192
Agility: 180
Intelligence: 217
I also had three skill points, five everyday points and one personality point. After some thought, I put the last one in Gloominess. Nothing special happened, but I wasn’t upset. A possibility of learning a new skill was available on levels 3 and 5; it was level 6 right now and was, therefore, logical to assume that any new stuff would appear on levels 7 or eight, provided that there were any.
I hadn’t decided what to do with my “everyday points” yet, so I didn’t touch them. Now for “Combat and Special Skills”…
I had a lot of cool skills: Tranquility of Darkness, level 6; Dark Side of the World, level 5; Eyes in the Dark level 4; and Aura of Darkness and Trident of Darkness that were both level 1. I wanted to upgrade all of them, but Tranquility level 7 would cost me four skill points, and upgrading the rest of the skills would be three points each. It all looked terribly expensive, especially taking into account that I needed to get five levels in order to get these three points.
But there was another way of personal development that didn’t require any skills of Darkness.
Stroking my growing beard, I finally made up my mind. I firstly spent fifty faith points and the same amount of lives to unlock Twilight Wanderer, and then three more points to learn it and add it to my arsenal.
I stood up and decided to test my new ability right there. I watched the GIF next to the skill’s description and then did as it showed — I took a deep breath, felt the streams of energy inside my body, “blurred” the streams of energy, closed my eyes and exhaled.
