Chapter 83

chapter 83 even as he pulled her away he knew he was spent. a broken arm with gashes running through it, over a day of bringing himself to the point of mana exhaustion again and again, and trying his hardest to keep the staff whole long enough for thera to get off her spell, he had nothing left to give. he wouldn’t be able to get back to the statue he’d enchanted before the one of anailia got to them, and even if they could he didn’t have enough energy to keep thera’s magic from destroying the remaining enchantment. there was only one thing he could do. “run thera! i have an idea but you have to get out of here now!” it was a lie of course, there was nothing he could still do after everything else. he’d done his best and come up close but still fallen short in the end. at the very least he could buy thera time to escape if she believed him. she had the flower so her mother shouldn’t have any issue with her continuing on trying to be a mage, and with a level up in her magic to go along with it she would be fine. myriad might be sad, at least ben thought his god better be sad, but he had a few other believers now, he was sure at least one of them would make a better apostle than he had. maybe sachel. even if she doesn’t know it she is the second believer he got since coming to the world, and it seems like she’ll be able to be a lot more pious than i ever could. still, he wasn’t completely giving up without a fight and quickly bent down, picking up a couple of fist-sized stones. he’d at least distract it so thera could get away. he reared back and in an almost instinctual way felt like he knew where he needed to aim, launching it, and to his shock seeing a couple small flakes of powder falling down from the statue. he didn’t have time to question it though, thera was on him immediately. “ben what are you doing! can’t you feel that!” she hadn’t run and now was screaming at him while he tried to protect her, was she under a mind effect or was something else at play? the question was answered by the statue itself. “any divinity you would feel leaking from my avatar is likely being blocked by your tolerance, but there's no need for that child of myriad. i am anailia, here to congratulate you and let you know the trial is complete.” “ah.” thera could see he understood and let him go, preparing to prostrate herself before her god when she heard another thunk as stone hit stone. “ben!” thera screamed. “just expressing my displeasure, i’ll be good.” he told her, not sounding at all guilty for attacking a god. anailia for her part let out a chuckle as a few more grains of stone flaked from her form. “i must say, for my first time interacting with a sacrilege holder, this is a surprising experience. to think the skill would let you know exactly where to hit to cause damage to my avatar, no matter how minor it may be. i suppose i should consider myself lucky you weren’t left with any real weapons.” she stopped for a moment, tilting her head as if listening to someone else before her stone, reptilian mouth stretched out into a smile. “myriad is begging you to be on your best behaviour for once.” “sorry myriad,” he said aloud, but his mind was elsewhere. is that really part of the sacrilege skill? oh man, that makes it so much cooler. the temptation to level it up had just significantly grown in him, but he did his best to suppress it. as cool as that sort of skill might be for some sort of hero, going against evil gods and fighting for the freedom of common people everywhere, he was no hero, and the gods of this world weren’t evil, even if he wasn’t fond of all the choices they seemed to make. “rise daughter of abrus, there is no need for such deference.” ben hadn’t even noticed that thera had gotten on the ground to bow in respect, but she pulled herself up at her god’s request. “you have both shown you’re capable of exhibiting the values tolona and i envisioned when making this trial, and as such get to reap the rewards such an achievement could provide.” “hm? we get rewards for this?” ben asked innocently, but both thera and anailia turned to him, thera with a face full of shock, and anailia not managing to contain her own surprise. “you didn’t know there was any reward for it and still chose to risk your own life anyway?” the god questioned him, bringing her large reptilian face close to his own. ben did his best not to step back. “i mean i guess i remember myriad saying something about it offhand, but i didn’t give it much mind at the time. i was mostly under the impression that the reward was that thera could keep doing her magic with her family's support. i wasn’t really expecting anything else.” “i guess it was a little weird you didn’t try asking about them at all, but who doesn’t know you get rewarded for completing a god’s trial? that's pretty much the main point of a trial.” thera asked him, still shocked he’d done all of that without realising he’d get anything more out of it than helping her. he only shrugged. “if nobody at the church thought it was important enough to teach me i didn’t learn it. can’t say i blame them, what sort of craftsman does this?” “there are in fact trials created by crafting gods as well, but that's neither here nor there,” she told him, wearing a far gentler smile than she did before. “to go through unknown danger, not because you want to be rewarded, but because you must in order to help the one you care for exemplifies what my late husband and i wished to see. by doing the trial, even without worshipping me specifically, significantly more faith is generated than through typical prayers for a god. this lets us give you two gifts even if you don’t worship me. a skill, and my blessing.” thera couldn’t speak. she knew that was the standard reward for most trials, but she still never expected to receive something like it. not only that, but to be in the presence of her god left her shaken, she couldn’t react. ben though needed information. as great as it all sounded he thought there might be a problem. “um, that sounds great and all, but i’m myriad's apostle. am i actually allowed another god's blessing?” “of course,” anailia told him, not understanding the issue. “a blessing aids the one to gain it in the growth of all things and can open the door to options that may otherwise not exist. what god wouldn’t want their believers to have access to that, most of all an apostle, the one who is most important to their faith in the mortal world?” god, i really should try and be a decent apostle sometimes. he thought to himself after hearing all of that. “in that case i’ll gratefully accept.” something about her demeanor eased some of the anger he had grown as the trial went on. he believed he understood the points of most of what they went through, even though he harbored a serious resentment to some of it. that line of thought did lead him to one more question though. “okay, i get the importance of challenging us to see if we could meet your ideals or whatever the point of all this was, but whose bright idea was it to give me that title?” the issue stopped being as big to him in comparison to having to see his brother in the state he did, but he at least understood it was part of the trial. the title was just an insult to injury. at his question, anailias avatar noticeably grimaced. “for that, i must apologise,” she told him, bowing her head. “i promise there was no negative intent behind it, but some of the gods that were watching simply asked a question about you after seeing some of your choices, and it was enough for the system to notice and solidify it in a title.” “what question?” “how is he the forgotten one? they were impressed with your attempt to make use of your duplicates, as well as take the time to train with them even, but the moment the words left enough lips the title was granted. if it helps, for a god to interfere with someone taking another god's trial, and in such a way that could harm them, is a gross violation of the rules. providing a title that may upset the participant to a great enough extent falls within mental harm. myriad has been compensated for their thoughtless acts, and when you are out of here he will pass on reparations to you. now unless there's anything else, shall i distribute the rewards?” ben gave a nod, a little shocked to hear that there were actual consequences for the gods who gave him the title, but at least was happy to hear it didn’t come from a more negative place. there were worse things than learning some gods were intrigued enough by him to question why he’d been forgotten by the mortals they ruled over. ben for his part seemed just as happy as she was, a smile covering his face even as he joked. “so that’s the sort of quest and reward a powerful god can offer huh? maybe i should convert?” anailia only chucked. “as you succeed in growing myriad’s faith among mortals you’ll eventually get the chance for quests and rewards such as this, i wouldn’t be quite so quick to abandon your god.” “just a joke, i’ve tied my lot to myriad, i won’t just abandon him.” “good. thera, i expect great things from you, i’m sure you’ll make me proud. you won’t have to worry about encountering any of the trials as you leave and you’ll find it much quicker to get out. i can’t completely erase the spacial magic that expands this place, but it will weaken for you at least. i hope we may get the chance to speak again.” with that her statue laid back down to the ground and the emotion left its face. they were dismissed, and finally free to go. “so what was your plan anyway?” thera asked as they started walking back. “hm? what do you mean?” she had been silent when they left anailia, and ben had assumed she was thinking about how she would complete her quest, but it seemed thera had something else in mind first. “you said you had a plan to take on anailia’s avatar, i’m just wondering what you were going to do.” “oh, that.” he said awkwardly, unsure how honest he should be about it before deciding he didn’t like lying to people he cared for. “the plan was kind of just making sure you escaped.” she stopped in her tracks the moment the words left his mouth. “what.” it wasn’t a question she was asking, but a statement, and one filled with anger. he knew he was in trouble with her and rushed to explain. “i was spent and we had no way to attack the thing, i figured i was pretty much guaranteed to die anyway so you might as well try and escape while i held it off as long as i could...” he saw the anger building in her eyes with every world and ended up trailing off, not knowing what would be safe to say. she took two steps towards him and he was sure she was going to take a swing at him, but instead pulled him in a tight embrace. “please don’t ever try and get yourself killed for me.” her grip on him was tight and he didn’t know what to do, nor if that was a promise he could keep. “thera i can’t just do nothing if i think i can help you. there’d be no point in both of us dying like that.” she pulled herself away and grabbed his face, bringing it close to her own so she could stare him directly in the eyes. “do you think i’d be able to keep being a mage if my selfishness got you killed? we’re a team, aren’t we? if we need to figure something out we’ll do it together, or if we run we’ll run together. please don’t ask me to leave you to die.” as she spoke the anger left her voice, replaced by a far deeper sadness, reminding ben of the lonely little girl he saw during her trial. he grabbed the hands that clasped his cheeks and looked back at her. “i’m sorry. you’re right, we’re a team, i won’t go dying on you anytime soon.” she took a step back and pulled up her hood, looking away from him. “you better not. honestly, what is it about life and death situations that has you throwing yourself into danger like that? save that sort of thing for people with the skills to handle it.” “ha well, people on earth tend to think that when facing danger we’re inclined to either fleeing or fighting. not sure how true that actually is but i guess i’m the latter.” “well, start choosing to flee. seriously...” she put her head in her hand, finding it difficult to deal with her emotions. her anger wasn’t at him, not truly. she just couldn’t stand the thought of making that choice, and that she was weak enough without a staff that he felt like he had to make it. without connecting with her, he couldn’t be sure about the extent of her emotions, but he got the impression she had calmed down at least and resolved to try and make it up to her later. he really didn’t want her mad at him for long. he was going to try and talk her into continuing on back when something caught his eye behind him. the figure of a small grey, staring at him for a moment before running back through the trees. it only took ben a moment to grab thera’s hand and start running after it, his mind flying through possibilities. “what, ben? what’s wrong? the exit’s the other way!” “i’m pretty sure there’s an emergency this way, if i’m wrong we’ll just head back.” he already knew there was some spacial effect on the trial, and he was all but certain one of them was meant to keep participants from meeting up. if not, why even keep them from going through the same section, and why not have more people go at once to take on the final challenge together. but if that really was the case, why had he seen him, and why didn’t he say anything? a possibility ran through his mind and he couldn’t leave it be. he pushed himself to run as fast as he could, needing to know if his hunch was correct. it took longer than he expected, and he was only able to catch glimpses of the small alien as he went, but eventually they arrived at the location he was seemingly being led to. on the ground before him was karly, trapped in a deep slumber, with glob nowhere around. ben had a sickening feeling in his stomach as he figured out what must have happened, what was happening still, as he and thera rushed to her. he gave her a quick check over. alive but definitely asleep, seemingly for at least a couple days as she was trapped in the fifth section of the trial. he picked her up and pulled her onto his back. “we have to get her out of here soon. hopefully she’ll wake up when we exit but even if she doesn’t there will be healers around to keep her alive while we figure something out.” “but what about glob?” she asked. “he must be somewhere nearby.” out of theras sight, just behind her as she looked at ben, the small grey emerged again, gesturing with a thin arm to follow along. “i’m pretty sure we’ll find him soon.”