The church looks like a giant wielding a sledgehammer has totally pulverized the building. There are stone blocks scattered around and throughout the church. Each whole block must weight 500 lbs. As we stand in the crumbling archway entry to the church, I see the destroyed main chapel. The altar is in fragments and the pews have long since crumbled to dust. Behind the altar are the remains of two statues. Only the feet of the statues remain, with everything else broken off at the ankle and shattered. We pick our way through the ruins to the altar without any encounters. This is a bit of a letdown. Since there doesn’t appear to be any threats I re-invite Nora to the party when we receive a notification. We continue our conversation in party chat just in case there is anything around that may be attracted by the noise.

  Nora: Any ideas on how to continue?

  George: No idea.

  Nora: Did you check your quest to see if it updated?

  I look, and the quest has updated. It now says repair the church of the twin gods. I look at Nora and share the change with her. We both look around at the church and I can see it in her eyes. Neither of us knows what to do to repair this church. It is huge.

  George: Before we do anything, else let’s look over the whole ruin to make sure it is safe to camp here tonight.

  Nora: Ok.

  We continue to hold hands as we carefully go over the whole church, which takes about two hours. Other than seeing how complete the destruction of the church is, we find no creatures in the church. We also observe the nearest shambling mounds follow paths away from the church and they are not attracted by Nora and myself walking around the church.

  I am ready to at least try repairing the church altar, since it is obviously a significant piece. I sit in front of the altar’s shattered debris and pick up a piece of stone. I use stone sense to get a feeling for the stone. Then I reach out to the other stones. As I feel them I try to picture them as they use to be, while my mana pool begins to rapidly drop. The altar was a large table of stone three feet wide, six feet long, three feet high, and six inches thick with four curved legs, which comes to 8 cubic feet. This will be the biggest object I have shaped. I continue to pour in mana, as fast as my mana pool replenishes, into the altar as the stones seem to liquefy and flow together to meet the fractured base of the altar. After it completes I just collapse on my back as I hold my throbbing head, exhausted. It took thirty minutes to complete. Unlike when I did this back in the Starter Glade I can keep adding mana as it regenerates, since I am not passing out. There are several flashing icons clamoring for my attention.

  Nora: How did you do that?

  George: It’s an ability I have.

  Nora: That is some ability. That object was huge and broken into thousands of pieces. I think you could complete this quest after all.

  Rather than answer I look at my notifications.

  I convey everything except the Deck of Fate to Nora and ask her what she sees when she inspects the altar. All she sees is an altar to the Twin Gods and that it is a respawn point. I am sure the Deck of Faith must be what allows me access to the altar’s special abilities. It seems limiting to only be able to sacrifice once a day, but Nora does know the answer to that. Typically, the altar is a focal point to gather faith energy from followers and the higher the level the altar the greater the distance it can gather faith from. The System also allows a limited ability for the God to gather more by their followers making a sacrifice. Many of the Gods will hold competitions among their followers to find the most powerful item to sacrifice and as a reward the one donating the item will get a portion of the faith points for their use. Faith points are very valuable and can be used in special enchantments and to cast certain spells granted by the Gods.

  After my mana is back up to half I stand up feeling much better and approach the altar. We set our respawn point to here. There is no telling where we would respawn if we die. Then I take one of the corrupt shambling mound seeds, place it on the altar, and select Sacrifice and Inspect the altar.

  That got us two faith points. I wonder. I take out 10 corrupted seeds, hold them in my hand, and try wood shaping them into one seed. I feel resistance and pour more mana into the shaping and gradually the seeds flow together until I am holding a larger seed that swallows the light. I put that back in my inventory and will try to sacrifice it tomorrow, which leaves me with 140 seeds.

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  Nora: What was that about?

  George: We got two faith points for sacrificing the seed, but that means 50 days until we can level up the altar. I wanted to see if I could create a larger more potent seed, which we can sacrifice tomorrow.

  Nora: Increasing the potency of something corrupted is extremely dangerous! What if the corruption spread to you? We don’t have access here to a high-level healer.

  George: I understand, but I took a calculated risk that ten seeds would not be too much. Tomorrow I will make another until in five days we level up the altar and see what options we then have.

  Nora: I guess you should be ok, but don’t try adding more.

  George: Ok, I won’t add more without talking to you first. Now I want to try a statue next.

  We both take a seat on the altar, which is the one clear spot now, as I pick up a piece of the statue on the right. I open my earth sense to find the pieces of the statue and then begin to shape the stones together. The cost rapidly balloons, since the statue is much more complicated that the altar. An hour later I am clutching my aching head as Nora admires the statue. I Inspect the statue.

  Wow, I share the results of the inspection with Nora, which confirms Garth is dead. Nora can’t see the status, but I am guessing I can because of the Deck of Fate. Now I really want to start on Poth’s statue, but it is too late, and I am mentally exhausted. I use shaping to gently move the debris away in a fifteen-foot circle, so we can setup camp. After my mana recovers I create a ward using the sand I still have in my inventory from so long ago.

  Nora: I suppose this is something else you learned in your training?

  George: No, I figured this out myself in the Starter Glade.

  Nora: Is all of this from your earlier life experiences?

  George: Not at all, we don’t have mana and magic where I came from, so all of this is new. However, that means I don’t have any assumptions about what should be possible.

  Nora looks thoughtful as she pulls out her bedroll. We eat a cold dinner of rabbit meat and bread with some ale. I love the inventory, since it keeps everything fresh. Nothing appears to age while in my inventory. I have never been great at making small talk, so I try asking Nora some questions to fill the silence.

  George: Can you explain the political structure of the Empire?

  Nora gives the first full laugh I have heard from her.

  Nora: You are not asking for much are you? Where to start? There are six domains within the Empire outside of the capital, which is not part of any domain. Each domain is dedicated to one of the Major Gods or Goddesses. There are two to four clans in each domain that have major influence outside of the church. There will be many guilds within and across the domains and smaller households as well that typically live in just one domain. Everyone is always trying to grow their influence and power.

  George: What is an example of a guild that crosses domains?

  Nora: The Jeweler’s Guild is one such. It crosses all the domains and its members cut and appraise gems. They also work with different Merchant houses to get precious metals and stones that they craft into jewelry. Many clans have members that are part of the guild and are constantly vying for more influence.

  George: How do the smaller houses survive then?

  Nora: Well many smaller households are allied with a clan, have members in a guild, and may supply some unique skill or ability.

  George: If everyone is trying to get an advantage how do you know who to deal with?

  Nora: That is the problem and it is truly relevant to our current situation, since I could not know who it was safe to talk to in the Outpost we tried to leave instead.

  George: Hmmm, when we finish the quest here what would you suggest we do?

  Nora: I would not try to plan anything yet. Completing this quest seems like a monumental task even with your abilities. After you complete it we will see what the reward is and if there is a follow-on quest.

  George: Good point.

  Nora: Well that is enough tonight, you have a lot of reconstruction to do tomorrow and I will spend my time training.

  George: Ok, have a good night.

  We both settle back in our bedrolls trusting the ward to wake us if there is a problem tonight. With all the updates to the quest I take out the Deck of Fate under my cover and inspect it to see if there is any change and I am amazed at all the information that is now displayed. It must of either have updated from the quest updates or because of my recreating the altar or maybe the statue.

  It takes a lot of faith points to charge up the deck, so I will focus on the altar first to see what happens when I get it up to level two before thinking about trying to get faith points into the deck. I put the Deck back in my inventory and try to get to sleep, which is difficult with all the possible opportunities that will occur in a few days when I level the altar.