DIVINE INTERCESSION IN PROGRESS…

  How dare he! How dare that worthless, useless, piece of __REDACTED__ dare claim my [Priestess]?

  Kaden wasn’t sure he was dead. Or asleep. The lack of YOU HAVE DIED notifications was the first, the aches like he’d been hit by a mountain were the second.

  You’re not dead yet, but even you can’t [Resist Suffocation] or [Resist Death] forever. That buckle is regenerating your health. The cut Eve made on your cheek is bleeding and will keep bleeding, and that puts you squarely under my domain. Sooner or later, they’re going to dig you out. When they do, you have a Quest.

  Eve is not dead.

  Oh, fine, the other three are not dead either. Can’t you read your notifications?

  He had been a bit busy getting nearly blown to chunks.

  ‘Ghastos’s Exchange.’ As in swapped. Where my beloved Evie killed so many of his followers he had to waste precious power to suspend them. True, she had a little bit of help from your friends. And you, you are going to get her back. I have altered your perception of time to ensure you are no more insane than normal. The agony you are enduring would grind away your mind like time before the wheel of a god.

  Not dead.

  We’ve been over this part. I swear, you behave like you’re made of flesh. There is a price for everything, Kaden Birch. A price I am paying, a price I have yet to pay, and a price you have already paid. Tell no one what you know. Your ability to act hangs by a thread and the weight of intent, even from a Centurion, could destroy our only chance. Come to my shrine.

  I will be waiting.

  INTERCESSION ENDS…

  “We got a live one!” A woman shouted. “How the hell is a level thirty one [anything] alive? That’s several tons of rock.”

  Kaden attempted to speak. His lungs didn’t work. His brain wasn’t doing that great, either. Thoughts didn’t form. They wouldn’t form, even though he willed them to.

  “Get a healer,” a woman said in a cold tone. “Brunna, make yourself useful. Let the miners work and put him back together.”

  You have been touched by [Hand of Varun] (Rachel Barrister)

  Grievous Wounds has been lifted.

  Enough of his brain worked now that agony became his world, the type of agony he hadn’t been subject to for a very, very long time. He would have screamed, and in fact, as his ribs knitted together, he finally did.

  “Open your eyes. They’re not flattened anymore,” Queen Barrister spoke.

  One eye opened, the other remained crusted shut. Kaden’s jaw clicked as the bones knit inside and he spat out old teeth to replace with new. “Eve.” A moment later, his mind functioned enough to remember what he’d been told. Keep what he knew a secret.

  “Rachel will attend you.” She spun and stalked away.

  When last he’d seen Rachel Barrister, she was a newly-minted [Priestess] of Varun surrounded by eye birds and adoring priests. Now she wore the weight of the world at probably ten. “Stay still. This will hurt. I’m supposed to say it won’t, but that’s lying. [Major Mend!]”

  His ribs errupted through skin that grew back, and now, Kaden could draw a proper breath and give a proper scream. And now he could roll onto his stomach, fighting his way to his knees. “Have to go.”

  “Eve is dead. The rest of them are dead, too. Mom won’t accept it, but I felt the Goddess. She was angry, so angry. And neither will answer my prayers now.” Rachel began to weep.

  His buckle pulsed, adding three hundred health. More than enough for Kaden to get to work. “Who’s down in the mine?”

  “Sara’s mom. The scary man with dozens of spiders that Mom likes. A few more.”

  Kaden’s beasts had suffered, erased by the cave-in. The soul-bonds remained intact, and Burney was already reformed, as was, curiously, the dragon. He summoned Trinity and embraced the relief in his soul from the weight of beasts.

  Rocky. “Where’s my rock gobbler?”

  “I don’t know or care.” Rachel’s reply was flat, the weight of grief like its own mountain collapse.

  That was step one, then. Kaden sensed him nearby. Nearby. He’d been carried out of the mine and east were the town walls of Faust. Kaden couldn’t quite run, but he could limp quickly, and when he reached the mine, dropped down a level at a time by stepping off the edge of the stair.

  The tunnel that had led to the Forgotten Area was now ten feet high and wide, and miners worked hard removing rubble from inside. Rocky, the [Rock Gobbler] who had once been a siege machine, lay dead. His glistening black shell had not a scratch on it, but suffocation had claimed the beast when a cave-in couldn’t.

  Kaden pulled the corpse into his soul, the start of him reforming.

  “Kaden, you shouldn’t be on your feet.” Mistress Scylla carried lanterns in all of her tentacles. Her voice was thick and heavy with grief. “We haven’t found the other corpses yet. James! Bruna! Bryce!”

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  He met their gazes with unfaltering determination and shared the system logs. “He had some kind of mana bomb on his chest. I blocked the explosion with Rocky to protect them.”

  “They did not die of the explosion,” Queen Brunna answered. “We found meat-paste in the rubble. “Ghastos’s Exchange. This is not a death-skill, they’ve been taken. And I will find out where. I will recover my daughter, and if it’s possible, Sara as well. It begins with summoning this ‘Ghastos.’”

  “Don’t you dare,” Mr. Dervish answered. “Forgotten gods are searching for power, desperate for more. I told Kaden pushing always causes push-back and this is the sort of thing that happens. Don’t go adding to it.”

  “I will not be ordered!” the Queen shouted. “You do not command me. You do not decide! I will get Evelyn back and if the cost is a thousand villages or all her so-called friends, so be it.”

  Kaden ignored them and headed to the lift.

  “There’s nothing down there,” Mistress Scylla said. “This was a Forgotten Place. The moment others entered, it ceased to be so. Whatever was down there isn’t anymore.”

  Kaden regarded her as a kindly aunt who often yelled when he was learning at Beast Control. “Don’t give up hope. I have—I can’t be here. I have to do something. Can you close this place up so it doesn’t leak monsters?”

  She hadn’t stopped staring at him. “I saw you enter a locked dungeon when no one should be able to do that. I saw you drag Sara out. I will choose hope. Is this another ability of yours?”

  “No. And that’s all I can say.” He demanded a Portal into existence and stepped out into the town square at Faust, letting Trinity follow. Commoners scattered, screaming in fear as the TriTerror lumbered along beside him.

  They could have a drink on him tonight to calm their nerves. He send the Falcrow to the portal mages and the FarPortal flared to life. Focus was the log he clung to in the storm of fear. Trella wasn’t dead. Sara wasn’t dead. Eve was obviously not dead, and all of it started with a conversation with the goddess of suffering, disease and blood healing.

  The Holding held a curious air, like a thunderstorm, as Kaden stepped through. The [Farmer] they contracted with stopped working the fields there, staring, then returned to work when neither Kaden nor Trinity attacked.

  Kaden set the dragon hatchling down in the dirt to absorb sun and got to work.

  To the left stood the farmhouse wall with Sara’s standup gardens, and beside them, a narrow arch of woven wood with vines Sara had grown over it. On a silver plate in the center stood a statue of the Goddess Nurav. The stone figure was at times indistinct, the shape of a person and at moments gloriously detailed like the goddess herself stood there. Dew had collected on the plate overnight, and a swirl like a drop of blood tinted the water.

  Kaden gripped the statue. “How do I get them back?”

  Gentle! That’s a piece of me you’re squeezing. Do you treat your lover so violently? That would be very nice. Nurav’s voice made his skin crawl. First off, place my vicar in Inventory. You’ll need my help. You’re up against a god with everything to lose.

  He put the statue in Inventory, detesting the way the attention crawled over his skin. “How do I get Trella, Ashi, Sara, and Eve back? Not one of them. All of them.”

  So untrusting, when all I’ve ever done is bless and help. I kept you alive. True, I did it for my own selfish ends, but I did. What is it you people say? The bloody truth? That’s what I am. Ghastos took my only priestess and then was shocked when she didn’t go quietly. The entity from beyond devoured enemies as they came, the [Polymage] immolated his guards, your lover—oh, how I do enjoy her antics—focused on his avatar, and Evie, she’s something special. She left a trail of corpses.

  He had no choice but to imprison them.

  That fit what Kaden knew of his friends. They wouldn’t go quietly, and, lured into a trap, had turned it into a killing field. “Now, how do I get back?”

  You were already in the Forgotten Place. Your attachment to it remains, a ‘key’ in the System which says you may enter. Ghastos is a forgotten god. Taking Eve places me into the same general category as him, so Ghastos has erred. I could not speak of him before. Now, while Eve neither lives nor dies, I can.

  Still not answering his question. “I’m putting together a party. How do I get back into that temple? There has to be another entrance.”

  I don’t know, but I know who will. Demons are not affected by the illusions which protect Forgotten Places. Demons make a catalogue of them. You could work a deal with a Demon Lord. There are no Forgotten Places they cannot grant you access to. Now, a warning. Are you listening or plotting your revenge?

  Kaden stopped plotting to focus. “Listening.”

  Ghastos was a god of violence and gore. In his Domain the living die and the undead cannnot rise. That with a soul is afflicted, that without cannot rise. Golemns will not function. Your Beasts are bound to your soul, which is why I chose to save you rather than savor the gentle leak of your lifeblood.

  “Not making a good name for yourself. Beasts only. Skully?”

  It exists in a crossfire of conditions, undead and yet soul-bound. I believe he will cease existence. It would be worth the risk if he survives.

  Kaden summoned the [Falcrow] and gave it a short message, dispatching it. “I’ve called for help.”

  You cannot bring anyone with you. The entrance will not permit it.

  “Maybe not that kind of help.” Kaden tried to get used to hearing the goddess’s voice from all around. He headed to Trella’s workshop and ransacked her potion chest, then considered the options he had. He’d get better deals in Verona but Omnor was his destination.

  Whatever it takes to get Evelyn back is an acceptable cost. Even your life. What I mean is, you’re expendable. You’re reacting to this all wrong. I’m just saying that Eve is the critical person here, the one that must survive. You—stop acting like that. It’s not like I’ll kill you myself to recover her. That won’t work, I already checked. I can help more once I’m in his temple, and you’ll need my help to survive.

  “Did you know Eve was the most nutritious party member if I needed to eat someone?” Kaden asked.

  Of course. I have blessed what little health she has with perfection. And I know you did not consider devouring her. Your plan may work.

  “What plan?” Kaden asked as he descended to the basement and rifled through chests and storage cubes. The solar dragon had followed him down the stairs and slunk up his back to rest on his neck like a scaly kitten. It lit the room like a warm sunny day. It was also angry that Ashi had switched to fire mana when Solar Mana was obviously superior in every way that didn’t involve burning.

  Nurav didn’t answer, but he sensed the goddess laughing. And he hated it.

  A few moments later he’d looted the [Primsatic Frog Colony] and checked on his dungeon, which was full of Directed Mana. “What kind of weapon would you use against a forgotten god or his monsters?”

  Void is the antithesis of Deities. The void devours all. This plan, too, I see and approve of.

  Kaden directed the Core, using the loot ability to create a handfull of [Void Arrowheads] he could use with [Mana Quiver]. Every last drop of Directed Mana he had available had created seven.

  Seven more than he’d had before. “I’ll be back. Or I won’t. I don’t know. If I die, grow strong, have good monsters, kill lots of adventurers.”

  The FarPortal flared, and Dominion activated—then stopped as it recognized a permitted individual. Kaden wasn’t annoyed as he swam across Echo Lake. He’d told Sevin to meet him in Omnor, but the Necromancer prodigy had come to the Holding and brought Skully.

  It was time to upgrade his monster.