Chapter 27: Meeting My New Cultists as a Rock?! (Patreon)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Meeting My New Cultists as a Rock?!

Knud was enormous.

Alice had not wholly realized just how much room he took up with so many others crowding his shoulders the previous night, but the flamboyantly dressed man had to turn sideways as he entered through the cavern door.

He was dressed in bright loose-fitting robes similar to those Sorin had worn. They were striped and checkered, their ruddy hue blazing as brightly as the torches on the wall. He had a sparse head of brown hair, and large eyes that brought to mind a pair of shiny marbles. She had not noticed last night, but his massive body appeared to be somewhat deformed. Certain limbs appeared larger than those connected to them, making him look as though he was covered in several oversized tumors.

For some reason, it reminded Alice of the demon dogs back on the mountain.

"This is not what we agreed," Kuonrat growled as Knud knelt before Alice the Rock with some difficulty. Two large crates sat beside him, a testament to the strength of his inflated left arm. Knud had carried them down the tunnel and into the room one-handed.

Knud offered the Priest no answer as he bowed his head low towards Alice the Rock. With an angry huff, Kuonrat bowed himself, and gestured to the overlarge man now prostrate on the floor. 

"Master Merry Weather, this is Knud Bludsow," the Priest began in introduction, "a [Scholar] of great intellect... if not little common sense."

"Overjoyed!" Knud squeaked. Despite his enormous size, the man's voice was the high falsetto of a schoolgirl. "A blessed day! Blessed! Please, Master! Accept these unworthy trinkets!"

And still kneeling before Alice the Rock, Knud the Scholar started to remove item after item from his two crates.

"A bowl of bronze for burnt offerings," Knud said as he removed a wide disk and placed it on the cavern floor. "A bowl of silver for drink offerings."

"You are getting ahead of yourself," Kuonrat growled as both Alice and Urd watched with wide eyes as Knud continued to take out more and more priestly items from his two crates. The many different-sized bowls and disks were certainly more impressive than the shabby containers Urd had found for the urchins to deposit their offerings of toys and bread.

"I hope you do not think it presumptuous," Knud said, having ignored each and every one of Kuonrat's growls as he arranged a veritable shrine on the floor in front of Alice the Rock. "I have prepared a small, ever so small, offering for Your Magnificence."

From within the Scholar's striped and checkered robes, he produced a small bag. He upended the contents onto one of the wide disks, revealing several large red gems.

"Blood sapphires," Knud said reverently, and Alice felt her nonexistent face blush. "Acquired at great difficulty, My Master."

Offering received from a believer.

Received experience!

Received faith!

He must think I'm some sort of... blood-obsessed deity, Alice thought to herself as she looked at the pretty stones. All because I drank a little bit of blood in front of him!

Knud had been a constant stream of platitudes and explanations as he had arranged her would-be altar, but he fell silent now, the massive rise and fall of his chest frozen in anticipation.

"Oh." Alice quickly collected herself. While everything else about these people was a mystery, here was something she had a little practice with. "Urd, tell him that I accept his offering."

Urd had been mystified, as well, but this familiar routine seemed to inspire some of her previous confidence.

"The Master accepts your offering," she repeated, her voice growing stronger with each word spoken.

"Thank you!" Knud said with a trembling breath. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! When I was first sent here by the Counsel, I thought it the end of my life. But look at me now! Truly, that day marked my rebirth!"

Eh? Did he say the Counsel sent him here? The Counsel of Magi? It was not as if Alice had heard many other Counsels mentioned.

"Urd, ask him... Did he mean the Counsel of Magi?" As far as Alice could tell, these cultists and the [Magi] were the bitterest of enemies. It seemed more than unusual to find a Counsel [Scholar] hidden amongst their black-robed flock.

Urd relayed Alice's confusion, and Knud chuckled with his high-pitched lilting voice.

"Do not think me still their lackey, Master!" Knud said. The Scholar spoke with a certain pomp that seemed to suggest it was the listener's good fortune to hear his words. "I was sent here simply to study several... local exports. The Council wished to know if it was appropriate to continue their extraction in light of our Dark Mother's [Awakening]."

That was not nearly as exciting an answer as Alice had been hoping to hear, but then the overlarge man continued.

"Such a fascinating topic! Simply fascinating! Our Dark Mother's rebirth could fill an entire library... though I suspect the Inquisition has already burned many such libraries to the ground."

"Eh?" Alice blinked in surprise. "He was sent here to study Eva?"

Urd repeated Alice's confusion, though Alice had never meant for the words to be spoken aloud.

"No, no, no!" Knud said at once, his sparse fluff of hair bouncing as he shook his lumpy head. "Such study, and by extension that of Kaos, is strictly forbidden. The [Magi] are terrified of both. I was sent only to determine the... the appropriateness of certain exports from the valley. The study of our Unbound Queen, and that of Kaos, would have been most illegal."

Alice could not get that excited about this mysterious export Knud kept referring to, but his talk about Kaos immediately grabbed her attention. She had only heard the word mentioned a couple times, but it seemed to have something to do with Urd's dragonrot.

Rather than ask explicitly what Kaos was, however, Alice took another route.

"Urd, ask him what he found out. From his study."

This turned out to be the wrong question.

Knud was all too eager to discuss his research, but it was of such a highly technical nature that she could scarcely understand more than a few words. He spoke of weather patterns, the seasonal growth cycle of local fauna. He even discussed the population patterns of local boar.

Alice felt as though she was back in the classroom, and much like those days, she could feel herself falling asleep. Thankfully, a figure appeared at the end of the tunnel that quickly snapped her wide awake.

The bent-over doorkeeper looked just as anxious, if not even more so, as he hobbled down the tunnel towards where Knud was giving a spirited explanation of the Lossen Valley's soil quality.

"Urd, tell Kuonrat that the doorkeeper is coming down the tunnel again," Alice said.

Knud did not seem to notice Urd's squeaks and continued his lecture with full-throated enthusiasm. Kuonrat heard Urd all the same, however, and his face quickly lost much of its color. He hurried away, unnoticed by Knud, with his fists clenched.

Alice did not have to wait long to discover the source of the doorkeeper's worry. Before Kuonrat had even made it out of the cavern, the elderly cultist from last night appeared, climbing down the tunnel's ladder with some difficulty. At his hip was the same shortsword he had brandished at Kuonrat. Wedged under his arm was a beaten-up wooden box.

"Isaak!" Kuonrat was a thunderous storm as he descended on the wrinkled old man. "Of all the people to disobey me! What were you thinking coming here?!"

Knud continued to squeak out a dry dissertation at Alice the Rock's feet, but her focus remained anchored on the men standing in the tunnel.

Isaak the Old Man had more hair than Knud, but not much. It was shock white and did little to hide the liver spots on the top of his head. He had a martial face that brought to mind a veteran of many battles. Despite his many wrinkles, he wore leather armor that seemed too large for his age-shrunken body.

"Elder, I am not sure how much life is left in these old bones," Isaak said with only a hint of a smile. "I wished to see our long-awaited god, just in case the night's cold decided to take me."

Alice was not sure why, but she instantly liked the old man. She had always been partial to the liver-spotted oldtimers in her life. 

"Bring him to me," Alice whispered, pulling on Kuonrat's ear with [Malevolent Whispers].

Kuonrat offered no more protest after that. The two of them marched past Bram's corpse, neither man so much as glancing down or wrinkling their nose at the decay.

Knud was off in his own little world as Isaak staggered into the cavern after Kuonrat.

"Knud," Isaak said flatly, and the Scholar's lecture seemed to lose some of its steam. The man did not stop speaking, but he did turn towards Isaak's voice.

"If you fill our Master's head with all your babble, They will have no room left to hear my prayers." There was no humor in Isaak's voice, but something about the faintest lilt of his mouth made Alice think the words were said in jest.

The comment shut up Knud right away, regardless. The Scholar's face went scarlet, and he bowed his lumpy head several times towards Alice the Rock, as if in apology for his overzealous talk.

Isaak drew closer, his body trembling either from age or reverence. Gently, he lowered himself to the ground beside Knud. He placed the wooden box down first and then unbuckled his sword, placing both items in front of him as he bowed low in prayer.

"Master Merry Weather, thank you," Isaak said simply. "I did not think I would live to see this day. I am yours. My sword is yours."

Act of faith performed by believer.

Received experience!

Received faith!

Alice felt the pleasant rush of faith fill her rock body. She could not help but wonder, however, what about the man's words had resulted in the warm tickle. It seemed rather inconsistent what earned her a notification of prayer or faith.

"Though meager and mean," Isaak continued, and Alice turned away from the thought, "I bring you this offering, My Master."

And Isaak opened the wooden crate in front of him.

Offering received from a believer.

Received experience!

Received faith!

There were no gems inside. No bits of bread or broken toys. The contents of the chest looked like...

"A basilisk's fang," Isaak said, gently lifting an enormous tooth reverently over his head. "The horn of a chimera. This, Master Merry Weather, is phoenix ash."

One by one, the elderly man took out some part or portion of a monster, holding it over his head as though for Alice's inspection.

"Isaak is a famed adventurer, Master Merry Weather," Kuonrat said as he hovered over the old man like a storm cloud.

"Was an adventurer," Isaak corrected Kuonrat as he closed the lid of the now-empty chest and bowed his head. "My fighting days are long past. But if our Great Revolution is at hand, know that I will die gladly if it means to see our chains broken."

This was not the first time she heard a Great Revolution mentioned. It seemed these cultists were rather eager to see their chains broken, though not even Knud's lecture had made any mention of what that might mean.

"Oh." The old man's wrinkled face brightened slightly as he stared at Urd. "I thought I recognized you, little one. You're Momma's pup."

Urd's eyes grew wide as she realized Isaak was speaking to her. Not as Alice's spokesperson, but as Urd the Brothel Worker.

"You look... Well, you looked like death before," Isaak said brusquely, and Alice felt a nerve pop in her nonexistent face. "But you look better now. Is that the Master's blessing at work?"

Urd seemed incapable of forming an answer on her own. The child's lips flapped wordlessly, and she turned to Alice the Rock, as if she had forgotten how to speak without Alice's instruction. The panic brought a mischievous smile to Alice's own nonexistent face.

But blessings... I still need to [Bless] Kuonrat, don't I?

The Priest had acquired a moderate curse when he had found her beside Red Shirt's corpse. It was hard to believe all of that had happened less than twenty-four hours before.

And the old man talked about dying from the cold, Alice thought to herself, studying Isaak's many wrinkles. Who knew how much of that had been a joke.

Without delay, Alice focused on Kuonrat. It felt like a long time since she had last used [Bless], but she willed that her shaggy cultist and would-be priest be cleansed of his curse, that he not meet his doom so shortly after entering her flock.

A curse has grown weaker.

And that was all it took for [Bless] to activate. She watched Kuonrat's face transform. His chest swelled wordlessly, and he turned to Alice the Rock, swaying slightly on his feet.

Alice turned her attention then to Isaak, who remained seated on the ground, and willed that he be made hale and hearty, that he have the vigor he once had when he was running around slaying basilisks.

Just like with Kuonrat, Alice felt nothing herself, but she could see a transformation slowly taking over Isaak's wrinkled face, a disbelieving awe as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

I guess I'll get Squeaky, too, Alice thought to herself, feeling a little giddy at being able to play god again. She wasn't sure if [Bless] would help with his lumps or even if the lumpy flesh caused him discomfort, but there seemed to be no reason to skimp out.

Knud's childlike eyes blinked madly, confused, as his posture sagged with an unspoken relief.

Within a heartbeat, all three men had their faces pressed against the floor. None of the playfulness from before remained. None of the almost conversational intrigue had survived Alice's first act of divinity.

"Truly! Truly you will free us from our ill-begotten Fate!" Kuonrat sputtered reverently from the floor, but Alice was distracted by a faint scratch at the edge of her senses.

...please...

...I may be an old man...

...but grant me...

...a glorious...

...and violent death...

New Prayer Received

Petitioner: Isaak Widowluck

Status: Believer (zealous)

Prayer Category: Salvation

Description: Isaak Widowluck wishes to die gloriously in battle.

Alice could hardly believe her nonexistent eyes. Death? Isaak wanted a violent death?

Would you like to accept this prayer? [Y/N]

It was not fear that filled her then but rather anxiety. Once more she was reminded that these followers were nothing like the urchins she had satisfied with bits of bread and broken toys. They were not simply concerned with an empty belly.

As if summoned by the thought, the silence of the cavern was broken by a pronounced rumble.

All three men looked up and stared at Urd, whose eyes had become as large as dinner plates. Her tummy loosed another neglected roar as her face turned as red as a tomato.

Alice smiled.

"Urd, tell them that the Great Upheaval is... is very important." Kuonrat and Isaak's eyes glittered with anticipation as Urd conveyed Alice's Divine Decree. "But it is too soon to discuss this."

The men seemed far less enthused about this part, but Alice did not care. She had to remind herself that they were not equals. She was their god, and they were her servants.

"Tell them that I accept Isaak's offerings, but what I need right now... is a grain offering!"

Urd's stomach offered the room another noisy rumble, so Alice hastily added, "And maybe some soup?"

Time for some soup!

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