Ch 46: Talking Outside the Shrine

"Hey idiot. Did you mess with the eggs while you were in there?" The redhead asked.

Baldeur looked around because he wasn't sure she was talking to him.

"Yeah you. Did. You. Mess. With. The Eggs?" She asked again.

"Fiam, don't be rude to people. He probably didn't know what was in there." Nilo said.

"I guess… But we need to make sure there isn't going to be another beast tide or we need to run fast." Fiam said.

She ran into the shrine to take care of the nest.

"Come on Kyriake. She might need our help." Nilo and the elf ran after her.

"Sigurd and Haydn, follow them." Piaras ordered.

"There's a few priestesses that are trapped inside but in the main area there's one of their victims." Baldeur said.

"We'll take care of it." Sigurd said.

After they all left, Baldeur noticed Aisling glairing after them. He wondered if something happened while he was in the shrine to make her angry at them.

The reason for her stern look was because the woman called Baldeur an idiot. For some reason she felt defensive of him. When she noticed that Baldeur was looking at her, her ears turned red and she intensified her scowl.

"Where did you go?" Aisling asked.

"I figure if I messed around in their sacred space, they'd become demoralized. And what do you know, it worked!" Baldeur replied.

"You just got lucky." Aisling said.

"Wait? Were you worried about me when you noticed I disappeared?" Baldeur teased.

"As if I would.. Worry about you.." Aisling turned more red and moved away from him to recuperate.

"Please tell me that isn't what I think it is." Derbail asked as she pointed to the tentacle.

"Yeah, it's a dokunpal. There's also a whole tunnel filled with its eggs that are in stasis." Beldeur said.

"That answers a few questions." Piaras said.

"Are you kidding me? I avoid world's with Infernius because of those things. How in the hells did one even survive here?" Derbail said.

"Well there's a lot going on in this world." Baldeur said.

He quickly summarized how they found Accursed Stones in the cannibal village. And how the saintess and the high priest were leading them here.

"So that whole prophecy thing was just to get us to take care of their problems." Derbail said.

"It seems like it." Piaras replied.

"Do you think there might be more to it? After all, we and the others all seemed to have been led to the same place." Baldeur had knowledge of real prophecies from his previous lives but they never had this many coincidences.

"I've seen stranger things happen but I don't put much stock in prophecies." Piaras said.

"Why? Divinus users have been known to see into the future." Baldeur was pressing the point because he was trying to get another perspective on the situation.

"Beyond the fact that I've only run into ones that were used to try and scam me. If prophecies are perfect, then we have no free will. Everything will happen and we can't do anything about it." Piaras said.

"Huh, but what if it's our free will that makes the future and prophecies are just the natural conclusion of our free will?" Back on Celestion this debate of free will and an unchangeable future were often debated.

"I'd rather not think about it. I make my own future and that's good enough for me." Piaras didn't like getting too philosophical.

Baldeur had been through enough for him to suspect that something might be guiding events. He just hoped that Piaras' statement was true and he had some control of his future through his own free will.

As they waited for the shrine to be cleaned up, the four of them sat in meditative postures as they regained their Source energy. Baldeur pulled out a few stones for his Divinus at this time.

After a while the group came out of the shrine. Sigrud was carrying the still sleeping Leith.

"Here I found these near that monster. They must have been what was keeping it alive." Haydn handed Aisling a few Infernius stones.

All of them had been used to a degree but combined they would help her refill her energy for that Source.

"Thankfully you didn't mess anything up. I was able to destroy everything." Fiam said.

"You did a really good job." Nilo proceeded to pat her head, turning her face as red as her hair.

"Thank you." The phoenix mumbled.

Kyriake moved next to Nilo and slightly tugged on his sleeve.

"Did I also do well?" She asked with her eyes turned down.

"Of course you did. Your aim was perfect throughout the night." Nilo then gave her a pat on the head.

Everyone was staring at them. This was a little too much. And what made it worse was that Nilo didn't seem to fully understand the effect he was having on the onlookers or the two women.

Baldeur wanted to gag and he was positive it wasn't because he was jealous as his eyes moved towards the top of Aisling's head. His hand even twitched a little.

Her ears had just turned back to their normal color when she noticed him looking at her with an intense gaze. They instantly turned red again.

"Idiot." Aisling mumbled before turning away from him.

"What?" Nilo asked when he noticed everyone looking at him and the women next to him.

"Everyone needs to get some rest. We'll need to leave before the sun comes up. There's still a bunch of villagers that ran away and the refugees will join them if pressed." Piaras said.

"Then we need to plan where we go next." Nilo said.

"We're headed back to the City of Gates. You can join us if you like?" Piaras said.

"We can't leave yet. There's still the demon lord that we have to take care of." Nilo said.

"Demon lord? There shouldn't be a demon lord in this world." Derabil really didn't like worlds with Infernius energy.

Sigurd had set Leith down and went to give Derbail a hug. "Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you."

"Unfortunately it looks like one found their way to this world. And we have been chosen to take care of it." Nilo said.

Passage between worlds that didn't involve the City of Gates was extremely difficult but not completely unheard of.

It required two things. First there needed to be a large amount of energy. So much so that only those near the top of their Sources could even have a chance of traveling between worlds.

The second requirement was even more rare. Both worlds needed to have specific celestial alignments to allow for passage. For some reason worlds with Infernius or Divinus had these alignments more often than other worlds.

"If there is a demon lord, we're not the ones that will be able to kill them. There's a number of groups back in the city that would love to take on a demon lord. We can sell the information when we get back." Piaras said.

"That might be too late. The cult of Sathanas has been making moves lately. Based on what Kyriake has observed, they might be making a move towards the gate in the capital. We also captured one of their high priests who confirmed that something big was coming but he didn't know specifically what." Nilo said.

"Well we just took care of their army so there shouldn't be that much of a threat." Baldeur said.

"They have more monsters at their disposal. I have been watching them since they destroyed my village a few years ago. While we definitely gave them a major blow, they still have enough power to launch an attack." Kyriake said.

"All the more reason to stay out of it. We'll let the kingdom know what's going on when we get to the capital." Piaras said.

"They've moved most of their forces to prepare for the attack. Their main base isn't defended. We can sneak in and kill the demon lord before they realize what's going on." Nilo said.

That didn't fully make sense to Baldeur. If they were preparing for an attack, why leave these nests out here? It would take weeks to move all the eggs and they hadn't even begun.

He didn't share his thoughts because he was starting to lean towards helping Nilo.

"We have a mission and it's time sensitive. The plants we have won't last long enough." Piaras said.

"Oh, I can help you with that." Fiam held out her hand. Baldeur placed one of the smaller pieces of root into her hand.

Green flames surrounded the root and it became healthier.

"You don't need to worry about your job with me around." Fiam had an arrogant smile.

"You're still underestimating the threat here. Entities don't get the name of demon lord unless they are strong." Piaras said.

"That's the thing, Sathanas isn't that strong anymore. The high priest we caught told us a lot about what was going on in their main temple. Their lord has been too long without a good Source of Infernius and from what the high priest said, he's suffering from Source degradation." Nilo said.

"Do you even know where Sathanas is?" Piaras asked.

"Yes. That high priest was very willing to tell us what he knew so that we wouldn't kill him." Nilo said.

To his side, Fiam looked away in guilt. After they let the high priest go, she had tracked him down during the night and torched him. She had just met Nilo and didn't take his sense of honor seriously.

"Sir, this could be a boon for Zeerous. Think about the rewards we'd get if we handled this for the locals." Haydn said.

"We could just take a look to see how dangerous it is." Baldeur said.

"Our job is often to take risks." Sigurd added.

After thinking for a moment Piaras came to a decision.

"I have two conditions. First, I am in charge. You follow my plans and obey my orders." Piaras said.

"I can do that." Nilo said but Piaras noticed the two women with him looked away.

"Sigh, the other condition is that we scout the situation first and only attack if I say so. If I determine it's too dangerous, we go back to the capital for aid." Piaras said.

"This world has gathered us together for…" Nilo began.

"I don't care what this world wants. I don't live here. What I do care about is getting my people home alive. You can either agree to my conditions or you can go by yourselves." Piaras said.

"Alright, I agree." Nilo didn't see a downside to agreeing.

If Piaras did decide it was too dangerous, he and the other two would still attack after the others left. If Piaras decided they had a chance, he would have more allies to help with his task.