Anika managed to avoid going back to the village during the last two days of the lesser week. While Philip enthusiastically returned to the village to spend more time helping with the cooks in return for unlimited snacks, Anika said she needed to practice. Anika did need to practice, but she also did not want to spend two more days wandering the crowded streets and courtyards. Lily, on the other hand, cried about not going back down to the village, so Anika sent her off to the village with Philip yesterday… with Leka and Epona to supervise the pair.

  A day alone had given Anika ample time to practice both magic and archery. She had almost forgotten to practice her archery on Sotomi with the excitement of Lily getting her scarf and the subsequent extended naptime, but fear of Vok had seen her practicing in the evening after dinner instead of escaping to the library. Between archery, magic practice, and the library, Anika had enough to keep her occupied at the temple.

  Kinemi marked the start of a new week, and Anika could barely believe a full week had gone by. During breakfast, Sinaya arrived to tell them that the heroes would meet with Nilendi after eating. Anika hadn’t seen much of the High Priestess in the ten days since the summoning, though she assumed the head of the temple had plenty of important work to do. Sinaya stayed through breakfast to escort them to the meeting room in the administration section of the temple.

  When Anika and Lily arrived, three of the other heroes already sat in chairs. Zola sat unmoving, their face an ever stoic mask. Philip chatted with one of the priests, one hand clutching a half finished muffin from breakfast. Shockingly, Morigan had not skipped the meeting. Anika tried not to stare in surprise at the sulking princess, arms crossed and wings slumped forward. Her body language conveyed defeat, though her face scowled in haughty superiority.

  Shortly after Anika settled into the chair with Lily on her lap, Panu strolled in like the cool kid arriving to the party late. Anika watched as he raised his eyebrows seductively at Zola, gave Philip a fist bump, and threw finger guns at Morigan. When Panu tossed her a wink before sitting down in the remaining chair, Anika shook her head in disbelief that someone like Panu existed.

  Nilendi moved forward to stand in front of the other priests. “We wanted to bring you together to discuss the situation, now that you have spent the week becoming acquainted with our world and our ways.”

  Morigan harrumphed from her chair, but the rest of the group remained silent. Nilendi did not spare a glance at the Princess before continuing.

  “Additionally, we have received more information during our morning commune with the Primaries that we must make you aware of. But first, I will provide some context.”

  “Long ago, monsters like we now see in the dungeons rampaged across the world. Our gods, wishing to create a peaceful planet, found a way to drain much of the world’s Chaos magic into wells they called dungeons. Here, the magic would spawn many powerful monsters, but those monsters could not cross the barrier into our lands. The Chaos magic outside the dungeons no longer existed in sufficient strength to spawn monsters, and our people were safe.”

  Nilendi paused, as if allowing the idea of safety to bring forth a moment of peace and contemplation before continuing. Her voice took on a fiercer note.

  “However, we must constantly cull and remove the raw magic that exists in these dungeons so that they do not become too powerful. Upon creation, the gods warned us that if these spaces were not maintained, the Chaos magic could burst out of them and threaten our people. For this reason, the temples became places of magical training to follow our gods' will and maintain these places of magic. The Hunter’s Guild also formed to help our world maintain the balance of this magical system.”

  Anika nodded, as this information lined up with what she had read her first night in the library. She glanced at the others, trying to determine what they thought of this information. Panu looked mildly intrigued, Philip munched his muffin, Zola sat slightly straighter in their chair, and Morigan somehow managed to scowl even more than before. Anika sighed and refocused on Nilendi as she continued speaking.

  “The Chaos magic in the dungeons has started to grow faster than ever before, and magic outside the dungeons has started to back up as well. The gods predicted that we would start to see more monsters spawning in dungeons, and eventually we would bear witness to Chaos Eruptions outside dungeons. These eruptions would cause monsters to wreak havoc on nearby towns and temples, many that do not have the strength to fight them off. I alluded to this last week upon your summoning… but then, we thought we had more time.”

  Anika’s heart sank as she heard the last words. She had barely gained any experience in the last week, especially with spending a lot of the lesser week in town or practicing on her own. All the magic practice this week had gotten her to level 8, but she still had a long way to go.

  Nilendi sighed, a small break in the strong mask she put forth when speaking with the heroes, and Anika wondered how much happened in the background in the past week that they didn’t know about.

  “The gods originally told us that we would have at least half a year to prepare you as heroes and begin our investigations before we began to see any significant increase in danger. Now, they tell us that the time frame has changed. The first Chaos eruption is likely to occur in a season or less. As few as three weeks. Maybe less. We will likely see increased dungeon monsters prior to the eruption.”

  Anika did not have words. Some big battle could happen in just a few weeks? How could she possibly be useful in so little time? Her breathing rate increased as anxiety swelled. In her lap, Lily trilled softly and Anika felt calm wash over her as Lily activated her Calming Presence. Anika let the magic soothe her pounding heart and tried to breathe normally.

  “Do the gods know where the eruption will occur?” Anika heard Zola’s voice from her left as she focused on her breathing.

  “Not as precisely as we would like. They know the area, but they do not have an exact location. What they have been able to tell us is that the eruption will occur somewhere in the vicinity of this temple. They postulate that the summoning disrupted the magic in the area, allowing an influx of Chaos with your arrival, and that has escalated the time line. This is, actually, a best case situation, as we are the largest temple, and you are already located here. We will not have to arrange for travel to another area.”

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  With the assistance of Lily’s Calming Presence, Anika managed to not collapse into a puddle of panic at hearing the location of the eruption. A small part of her brain managed to activate and remind her that a battle nearby meant a battle in familiar territory. She hoped that it also meant familiar monsters that she could learn about and study prior to the eruption. If she could learn about all the monsters she might face, she could possibly avoid getting killed due to low level and inexperience.

  As Nilendi opened her mouth to speak again, Morigan finally lost control. “This is ridiculous! I am royalty, not fodder for your war! And I don’t have to sit here and tolerate being treated like a soldier in your little army!” She stood and began to storm toward the exit. One of the priests in the room moved to intercept her, and she began to throw another tantrum.

  Anika sighed. At least she could feel better about herself and her situation around Morigan. Anika tried to do her best with the situation she found herself in, whereas Morigan just seemed determined to turn everyone against her and remain miserable. For a moment, she tried to put herself in the princess’ shoes. She understood why the princess raged about being taken from her home, and Anika also didn’t love the assumption of the priests here that she would willingly charge into battle and risk death to save their planet. In most stories, the “chosen one” didn’t actually want to have that role or save the world, and Anika understood that quite acutely now.

  On the other hand, what else could she do? Sit around in her room, pouting and refusing to go outside? Morigan punished herself by locking herself up in her room, and that just made things worse. The idea of large-scale battle against hundreds of monsters terrified Anika, but the idea of sitting in a room and doing nothing day in and day out until she died of boredom felt equally terrifying. What a waste. She had to make the best of what she had, and if that meant sucking it up and learning to fight and fighting monsters… she would do it. She’d rather fight monsters than socialize in town, at the very least, so there was something worse.

  With Morigan’s disruption, they did not find out anything else from Nilendi and the other priests. Ultimately, it sounded like they didn’t know much more than they told them before Morigan’s outburst. Zola spent some time asking about the defensive capabilities of the temple and various towns in the area, as well as what they knew about the type and amount of monsters they might face. It sounded like Zola had significant training in large scale battle and defensive deployment and had actually fought in several large battles as ‘training’ on their world. Anika felt like she had decent knowledge of strategy and battle… but video games may not have given her the same level of knowledge as someone from a fancy military academy. Or wherever Zola learned this stuff.

  The meeting lasted until just before lunch. After lunch, Anika met with Leka in the Water Training facility while Lily went to the Aether facility. For once, Anika did not feel completely inadequate, as Leka actually complimented her progress with magic. Anika still couldn’t exert very fine control over the water in her magical grasp, but she could shape it more easily and more quickly.

  Leka gave her new exercises to work on, and she practiced for most of the afternoon. Anika knew that her skill with bow and arrow could only increase so quickly, as she had a much lower tolerance, and thus less time for extended practice with archery. After the news they received that morning, she redoubled her efforts on her magical learning, hoping that mastering her magic quickly would be enough to protect her and Lily.

  After dinner, Anika settled into the armchair in her room to read a book about types of magical beasts. Lily curled up in her lap and closed her eyes, prepared to take a pre-bedtime nap that Anika envied.

  The Goddess Water has opened a divine channel with you.

  Hi, Anika!

  “Uh… what?”

  I’m Water! I’ve been waiting all week to message you!

  “Um…” Anika stared at the words appearing in front of her in the same kind of message boxes she saw when she leveled or looked at spell information.

  “What’s wrong, Anika?” Lily raised her head to look questioningly at Anika.

  “It says I have a… ‘divine channel’... from the Water goddess?”

  “Ooo! Water made me! She is great! Hi Water!” Lily started to stand, waving into the air.

  “How…?”

  Oh! Right! You’ve never seen this before. Silly me! You can just talk to me like I am in the room with you! I can see and hear everything you say!

  “Wait, you’re watching me? Like right now?!” Anika looked around, her voice raising in alarm.

  Of course! I’m a Goddess, after all. I can see anything I want. And I’ve enjoyed watching you this week!

  “You’ve been watching me all week?!” Anika yelped, standing up without remembering the capybara on her lap.

  “Owww Anika!” Lily tumbled off her lap, crying out in surprise as she landed on the thankfully soft rug under the chair.

  “Oh no! Sorry Lily!” Anika quickly bent down to examine Lily for injuries.

  Oh my gosh! Don’t you dare hurt my favorite creation!

  “I didn’t mean to hurt her!” Anika exclaimed as she examined Lily, who pushed herself into a sitting position, shaking herself off from the fall, unharmed. Anika picked her up and cuddled Lily to her chest in apology.

  You need to be more careful! I came to check on my little capybara and you throw her on the ground?!

  The text somehow appeared bigger in the window in front of Anika. She couldn’t tell if the goddess was angry or teasing, but Anika felt immediately defensive.

  “If you hadn’t been spying on me, Lily wouldn’t have fallen! It isn’t my fault!” Anika snapped at the ceiling.

  “I’m fine, please don’t be mad at Anika!” Lily couldn’t see Water’s message, but seemed to have picked up based on context. “Anika takes good care of me!”

  Awe, tell my little capybara I’m just teasing. I’m not spying on you, it’s my job to watch you. And everyone. And the whole planet! I’m a goddess!

  These words appeared at the original size, and Anika breathed a sigh of relief that the goddess wouldn’t smite her in anger. She probably shouldn’t have talked back to a goddess. But she felt violated to find out Water had watched her all week like some weird reality TV show, and that gave her single minded focus.

  “I’m not exactly used to being watched by gods or chatting with one. My world doesn’t have gods or magic or any of this!”

  Pssh every world has at least one god. Just because your planet’s god didn’t talk to you doesn’t mean he didn’t watch you. But it’s not like you’re missing out. He’s boooooring.

  Anika gaped. “Uhhh… what?”

  I probably shouldn’t have said that. Anyway! Just wanted to introduce myself to my hero and have a little chat and tell you to take good care of my favorite creation!

  “Can we address the whole ‘my planet’s god’ thing?!”

  Mmmm-no. I have to go do god things now! Byeee!

  “Just because you’re a god doesn’t mean you can say things like that and then just metaphorically leave!” Anika yelled, but her vision remained empty of a response.

  “I know you can hear me!” Anika grumbled.