The next few days went by with a frustrating lack of updates. When he asked Murdin, the mage simply shrugged and went back to his work on the wardstones. He’d made good progress, but it was clear that ‘good progress’ was not nearly enough for the scale of danger the whole town was in.

  Sen didn’t even have an outlet for any of his nervous energy. The spars that he and Murdin had usually started their days with were now canceled on account of Murdin’s injuries. That it allowed Murdin more free time to focus on the wardstones was good, but Sen’s work had almost devolved, in comparison to before Murdin’s injury.

  The mage had given him a few tomes to study, but most of them were filled with esoteric knowledge that didn’t seem applicable for him right now. Most of it covered increasing the load bearing properties of different stone building materials, ensuring wood and stone or other similar materials could last for longer no matter what weather or usage patterns they were involved in, and…

  It was a lot, and a lot of it put Sen to sleep. A noticeable amount of his fervor for the magic had dried up after he got a taste of combat again, where he could let loose and enjoy the flow of it all for a moment. There were no more nightmares, out in the forest. It was quiet, and it was predictable, and it reminded him of a time when life was simpler. It was still simple, in some ways. In others, he could barely comprehend it.

  Like Murdin and the mayor suggested, he had been spending time in the forest, scouting out or dealing with any additional monsters. It helped some, but nothing as large or as interesting to fight as the cockatrill or garoush had appeared since. On the surface, that was a good thing. Unfortunately, Sen craved something a little bit more demanding than the occasional small group of tanbino’s.

  Each morning he woke, then ran through the town. He needed to ensure he could fight for as long as necessary, so running served to develop a good baseline.

  After came spear practice. Coupled with the freedom to use his normal magic when alone in the forest, Sen found any monsters - even groups of monsters - almost trivial to deal with. His mana had been increasing slowly but surely, as well, which only made the slight dangers available to him less interesting.

  In a way, Sen had to laugh at himself. Suffering from success, I see.

  Normally, he would go to Murdin’s house and study or pester the mage for any additional work he could do to help out. When the mage simply shook his head, and Sen couldn’t study any more, he normally set out for the forest to scout. Today, though, Sen decided to visit the library after his morning warm-up.

  The library itself was built into Shiren’s collective temple, a place for worship of the multiple different gods that had led the peoples through the Crossing to Cerid. Larger cities often had dedicated temples for different gods, with only the less important, or less valued, gods being relegated to a collective temple.

  A town like Shiren, however, only barely covered the most popular gods in its own collective temple. The building was, like most others in Shiren, built from stone. That was where the similarities stopped.

  While other buildings in Shiren were squat, wide creations, the collective temple towered in the air. Flying buttresses swept out from the sides forming small walkways that looped around the building. Small gardens decorated these paths, with an occasional bench for those wanting to enjoy the day.

  Each buttress hosted a spire that drilled into the sky, once again the size of each buttress. Each spire was different, carved in an intricate pattern that, supposedly, had been built directly reflecting the domains of one of the gods at this collective temple.

  Some of them looked nothing like spires. One looked more like lightning, flailing around first one direction, then another, though inexorably reaching up into the sky. Another was a simple cube extending high. Yet another looked like a giant hand had crushed it before placing it, misshapen, upon its pedestal.

  The main building itself seemed less interesting than the framework around it, with little more than a bell tower that extended not quite as high as the spires did. A small cone capped it off. The face of the building itself held nothing of note, aside from the large wooden doors engraved with images reminiscent of each god celebrated within.

  At the bottom, a small set of stone stairs led up to the entrance. The whole building sat on a small hill, making it by far the tallest building in all of Shiren.

  A man in a simple grey habit greeted him as he stepped inside. “Good morning, Tane,” called Terdot, waving a hand. “I hear you’re mage Murdin’s new apprentice. Congratulations!”

  “Thank you,” Sen said. Terdot was a follower of Deshvi, the goddess of knowledge. As a natural extension of her domain, which often focused on the research and dissemination of knowledge, Terdot worked as a teacher. Tane had actually learned to read from Terdot himself.

  “What can I do for you?” The priest asked with a smile on his face.

  “I’m looking for some information on the pantheon,” Sen replied. He’d never heard of Durunia, and he wanted to fix that. If her cult was planning on attacking the town, he wanted to at least know more about her than what her domain focused on.

  It probably wouldn’t change anything, but Sen couldn’t help his curiosity. That all of his other duties had slowly turned from exciting thrills into frustrating slogs or jobs that Murdin refused to give him when he could simply be studying more made the decision even easier. A bit more knowledge of the world around him wouldn’t hurt, either.

  Terdot’s eyes lit up at the request, and he chatted with Sen amicably as he walked down one hall toward a room dedicated to knowledge on the pantheon. He pulled a large book down from a shelf and all but dropped its huge mass on the table.

  “This book has most of the knowledge we have on all the members of the pantheon,” Terdot said with a smile. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for that I can help with?”

  In spite of the warm memories Tane had for the man, Sen couldn’t help but consider the possibility that this cult of Durunia had infiltrated the town, and Terdot might be among their number.

  It seemed unlikely, and Sen hated to put any suspicion on the man, but he couldn’t just blindly trust someone because of the past.

  “No, thank you,” he said before sitting down.

  Terdot left with a smile just as wide, unbothered by Sen’s rejection. After the old man left, Sen gaped at the sheer size of the tome before him. He didn’t know how much information it contained, nor even how many gods the pantheon contained. The topic had never interested him before, but to think it could make a single book seem so bloated and misshapen that opening it threatened to tear the spine apart…

  After skipping through the first few pages, it became obvious why it was all in one giant volume rather than a collected set. The book had been continuously revised and edited, a sum of knowledge that probably had no formal organization outside of whoever originally compiled it.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Pages of different colors and levels of wear decorated the book, showing its numerous extensions. Margins filled with small footnotes provided context or interesting details or corrections.

  Sen felt overwhelmed. Working his way through a book had become something he thought he was good at, no matter how dry the material, but the sheer amount of words crammed into each page made it seem far more like a trial of ability than simply reading.

  He spent most of the morning there, working his way through the book. It turned out that not all of the gods in the pantheon were even known. Some of them enjoyed working with the mortal peoples, and rejoiced in their worship. Others preferred to work alone, according to the book, and had no use for worship. That left him with more questions than it answered.

  Other gods even despised mortals, and wanted nothing at all to do with them.

  It took a while to find anything of interest, and the first information that stood out had nothing to do with Durunia, but rather a different god.

  Ebrek Naru. His domain centered around the culling. Its domain went unexplained, and information on the god was painfully sparse, but there was one elaborately detailed drawing of the god’s appearance, copied from a cave painting that had existed on Fiddia, before the Crossing.

  A small carved sun sat in the sky, eclipsed by a large maw. A bright, crimson corona seeped out from behind the giant black void, filling the sky.

  A flash of memory erupted in Sen’s mind. The same image had filled the world only moments before his death. Ebrek Naru had culled Cerid before the Crossing.

  Ebrek Naru had killed Sen. Ebrek Naru had killed Amery, Anelica, and everyone else he’d ever known.

  He shivered. Finally, he thought. He had a name. He had a target. Now, he just needed the power to do the incomprehensible.

  What would it take to kill a god?

  ***

  As interesting as Sen found the discovery, knowledge of Ebrek Naru didn’t accomplish what he’d come here for. It took him a bit longer to find the information he wanted on Durunia, a god who actually had a sizeable entry.

  He wished she didn’t.

  The gods that Sen remembered from his previous life had been a mixed bag. Most of them acted as much like people as they did beings of incredible power, playing games of politics and working toward goals that made sense to them. They used mortals, or they saved mortals, or they lead mortals, or, or, or.

  To put it simply, the gods interacted with the world. That was simply the truth of it all - and mortals had to deal with it.

  Tane’s lack of knowledge in regard to religion had allowed Sen the spark of hope that, maybe, the new world around him would be different.

  Sen felt no surprise as that hope broke within him. Durunia and her cults were not always bad, but the reality stood that her domain naturally aligned itself with people who found murder and death enticing, and the god herself only cared for one thing. Adding people to the cycle of life.

  Apparently, this desire came directly from a relationship between Durunia and Edrunn, whose domain covered life and sculpting. Edrunn mixed art and sculpting into life by literally sculpting life from the dead, enacting the ‘rebirth’ part of Durunia’s own cycle.

  Notes on Edrunn suggested he cared only for the creation of life, and anything that came after that was outside of his concern. Durunia and Edrunn not only enjoyed a working relationship, with their domains intersecting so cleanly, but also a romantic one.

  According to legend, Durunia hadn’t always been obsessed with providing more people to recycle into Edrunn’s ‘art’. There were whole books listed as sources for the gradual progression, which was detailed as a slow courtship. Durunia set her sights on Edrunn, and the god had, slowly, begun to reciprocate. Over multiple millenia, that relationship had developed into something of an obsession for Durunia.

  All of it made Sen sick. The idea that Edrunn recycled people like chaff to create different people. Durunia’s obsession, which led her to the sick and twisted hunger to provide more and more resources for her lover’s work. He had known of Edrunn before this, distantly, but he hadn’t known about Durunia or the connection between the two.

  He knew that not all of the Fiddian gods were like this. Deshvi, the goddess of knowledge, seemed as close to benevolent as a god could be. She valued the spread of knowledge, and often divinely sponsored those who wanted to share knowledge with the world. How that manifested was unknown to Sen, but he found multiple references to the goddess’ actions working to change how everyone managed to settle into their new lives after the Crossing.

  Teyro, god of the festival, sponsored festivals all across the world, according to legend. He had never come to Shiren, but the hands of his work spread out to bring cheer and liveliness to cities and towns everywhere. The truth of that was affirmed over and over, both in the teachings of the book before him, and the public knowledge Tane had been raised on. The god himself usually manifested an avatar during these festivals, though the majority of the work was managed by his followers and divine creatures made by him for the purpose.

  In contrast, Durunia and Edrunn left Sen wishing he had the power to change the world. The two of them treated the world beneath their feet as a resource to be harvested for their own ends, rather than…

  Mentally, Sen sighed to himself. With the sorts of power that gods had, it wasn’t surprising that they didn’t care about the mortals that their actions hurt. It was depressing, but it was reality, and Sen didn’t let himself dwell on it much further.

  Sen stood up and stretched. For all that the information was enlightening, it didn’t explain much about Durunia’s cults other than that they existed, and what they liked to do - kill as many people as possible.

  The questions he wanted answered when he came here mostly sat unanswered, and the ones that did craved a better resolution.

  Why does Durunia’s cult kill people?

  Because Durunia sees dead people as a gift for her lover, clay to be molded into new life.

  Sen needed a breath of air.

  He thanked Terdot as he left, putting on a false smile when the older man looked at him with concern. “Everything alright?” Sen didn’t have it in him to talk about it.

  He had only taken a few steps from the library when another priest from the collective temple waved him down. Stiebn greeted him with a smile, before immediately rushing into business.

  As Murdin’s temporary replacement in managing the monsters around Shiren, people now came to him when monsters appeared. Thankfully, that hadn’t happened more than once in the few days since his appointment, but Stiebn had a job for him now. The man looked leery at Sen’s youth, but dissatisfied as he might look, the man had no choice. Murdin was too injured.

  Sighing, Sen set off for the fields after fetching a spear from Murdin’s armory. Murdin didn’t look up, absorbed in his work as he was, and Sen didn’t feel much like talking. The knowledge of Ebrek Naru had set a fire for violence in him today, and the disgusting background of Durunia and Edrunn had lit that fire into a raging inferno.

  The monsters were nothing special. Stiebn served as a priest to Herevet, god of the harvest, and when any of the farmers who lived in or near Shiren had troubles, they usually came to him. The priest himself usually came to Murdin with monster extermination quests, and the chain continued from there. Now, it was Sen’s turn, and the handful of Bereshi, while frustrating, were not much of a match.

  Bereshi were large, mollusk-like bears. Their skin was wet and slimy where it wasn’t covered in hair. Where it was, it was wet, slimy, and hairy. On their backs, large shells covered them from most attacks. If they weren’t so slow, they’d be a significant threat. Their shells and thick skin naturally made them hard to deal with, but thankfully, Sen had some magic that made it much easier than normal.

  It took him a bit of experimentation to find the best way to handle the creatures, but they weren’t especially aggressive, and despite moving in a pack, did nothing to help their fellows fend off Sen. That left him with plenty of opportunities to test fireballs, spear thrusts, spark, and other attacks against the creatures.

  There were no openings to use his spear, and fire seemed to fail against their slimy skin. Spark, however, worked its way through the creature like fire on paper. It didn’t take much effort to leave a smoking pile of meat behind, with even a small amount of the magic building on itself inside the creature. He would need to look into that how that happened. It took him longer to harvest the gems inside the creatures than it did to deal with all of them, once he figured out the trick.

  Sadly, there was no trick for harvesting them. It simply took time to cut them apart.