Judine was the first to awake. The sun didn’t stream in too often, with the window facing the west. It was truly interesting shaping; for such a grand church to have such twisting architecture. But she had a mission to do. The sleep knocked a full 8 hours off their time, and the other activities totaled two others and some odd minutes.

  The constant action left her ever so slightly stressed, and a knock at their room brought her to full attention. She put back on her coat, as she opened the door to a young elvish girl. She looked a bit nervous.

  “May God of the Sun bless you.” The elvish girl began, “You five must be a bit confused… but you also look tired…” She looked Judine up and down, and with the rest of Judine’s party still passed out, the judge matched the green eyes’ gaze.

  “Do you wanna see the church! Linore changed it a little bit, but it should still be enough that I remember!” The young girl looked so excited Judine couldn’t help but say yes to the easily excited young lass.

  “Sure, I have nothing better to do anyways,” Judine let out the half truth. There was something better to do; but the tour contributed to said better thing. “What may your name be young lass?”

  “The name’s…” The young elf skipped along the halls, as Judine closed the door behind her. The young elf thought for a moment, allowing some time and movement to pass. Judine felt slow after moving at her maximum speed, she didn’t even know what percentage of power she wanted to use to do a light jog. “Ah, right! It’s Kinuta, what’s yours?”

  “It’s Judine.” Kinuta stopped for a second after Judine said that name. Kinuta looked at her with a flash of some other emotion behind her eyes. “...Is something the matter?” Judine asked as Kinuta tilted her head slightly.

  “That’s the same name as the judge that sentenced daddy to death.” Judine’s turn to suddenly stop came along alongside a weight landing in her stomach. She was being weighed down by her past sins now. “Are you a judge?”

  Judine couldn’t bring herself to lie to the poor child. She didn’t personally handle many cases, but she still handled an uncountable number. A small percentage this child’s father fell into. “Yes,” Judine bothered her own mind to try to find the right words. “I apologize for your father’s demise.”

  “It’s okay!” The child continued moving, “I didn’t really know him that well anyway.” The way the child said it gave Judine a light glimmer that the child was lying, but she had no proof for said thought process.

  Judine wanted to speak longer, but it was a risky move to attempt so she bit her words back and swallowed the weight further. Her walkspeed was still close to the child's jog, but the kid brought her to a kitchen.

  Kinuta turned to face Judine, with a wide grin on her face. Kinula walked in and greeted many people similar, and she walked up to someone who looked old. The same green eyes greeted Judine, but these ones had a weight.

  A weight of age, and the white hair that donned the wrinkly head left Judine speechless, but she coughed up the mass of words her mind was able to conjure up. “Ah, pleasure to meet you ma’am. My name is Judine.”

  “I’m well aware your name Ms. Judine, Head Judge of Forsivo.” The older woman spoke, her voice was just as aged and more strained. “You may call me Mrs. Dalores. I hadn’t remarried yet since you sent my husband to his warranted end.”

  The way Dalores spoke made Judine feel only more guilty, and this guilt was eating at her mind, and slowing her investigation down. She had to kill it, but she couldn’t. Something was telling her to move faster in the investigation.

  And yet Dalores stood her ground and stared into Judine’s eyes. She could see when Dalores fate ended. Four days from now, and 10 hours, it just stopped. It flowed constantly up until then, with hundreds of actions causing them to split; but not a single one saved her.

  Because there was nothing Dalores could do. And only her party could do this, and those ones had fates unreadable. It was unfortunate to not have a guide to life, but it was nice. To have the freedom to change the world and the freedom to make mistakes without the knowledge of them.

  But Judine was still going to try. “I’m sorry once more,” Judine began to speak, but Dalores raised her arm.

  “No, I know full well that my husband was in the wrong.” She stared into Judine’s eyes, but it looked more like Dalores was looking past Judine. “After all, that crime was truly wrong… I did get blinded by love.”

  Judine knew she was lying to herself to make the judge feel better. She knew she was talking to a hero to hundreds of thousands of people, and she knew she could be killed in an instant. Dalores’s eyes were far too weighted in their gaze.

  Judine simply nods, but she doesn’t even remember the criminal behind this. Judine knew that she tore a family apart, and this wasn’t the first nor last time she had done such. And she felt terrible.

  But, she still had to march on, and figure out the hell was happening in four days, and why everyone’s fate ends. Judine swallows her anguish and pride, and simply mutters another apology. “No, it doesn’t matter if it was just from another’s point of view. I still took a member of your family away.”

  Dalores simply nodded at that apology. “I know this probably doesn’t fix anything Mrs. Dalores,” Judine kept talking, allowing the words to carry away the weight of her sins, “but I want to understand why it happened from your point of view. Outside of a court of law.”

  Dalores looked more surprised at this. Judine had relit a fire inside her soul, as she remembered that these people needed a savior, and that by definition that was her. She had to stand strong so the people had someone to look up to, someone they could view as someone similar.

  Dalores laughed at Judine’s comment. “Alright, but do ya really got the time for such a long story?” The aged elf looked at Judine without scrutiny for the first time since they met. Kinuta had long since run off, talking to other kids within the kitchen, and even is currently helping someone else make a dish.

  “Of course I do.” Judine lied; she didn’t have much time and nothing even seemed off. She hadn’t even found a singular loose thread to pull upon just yet, other than the fact that everyone in the village was in this church now.

  But, this story could have some clues, something to tug upon. The System works in mysterious ways as many say, and Judine wasn’t going to just deny the existence of these guys as important to saving many lives.

  And so Judine stayed with Dalores, hearing the story of her husband from her aged lips; cutting out the sweetness and niceties to learn more about it. And that’s when she noticed that there was no case like that.

  She never prosecuted who she described, because she almost perfectly described Linore. And Judine had a gut feeling there was a reason behind that. She stood up and thanked Dalores for her time after the story, but there was a thread there.

  She just had to ensure it was similar among a majority of the people here. And once that was taken care of, the party would have something to act upon. And so she asked many others, but she asked specifically why they were here at this church for God of the Sun.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Many of them had vastly different stories, some ranging from requiring new housing after it was sold off by the landlord, and priest Linore being the only one to lend a hand; all the way to having lived here all their life and how they would rather be six feet under than six feet away from the church.

  While the more devoted were more clearly dressed similarly to Linore, some of the more ‘in need of help’ were still dressed nice. And after only 5 hours of talking with volunteers, the common threads aligned.

  They were here because of Linore or that Linore had seemed similar to someone in their past beforehand. These threads would allow Judine to confront that man once she got back to her party.

  She thanked the head chef Poniste for their time and walked back into the halls of the church. She exchanged greetings with a few other priests, but one of them especially stood out as another face for Linore. The voice gave it away.

  “Why good morning to you as well; hero Judine.” The voice was different, but the cadence, the resonance, and the other aspect only visible to Judine, the fate of the priest. It had ended well before she came in contact with them. “Now, why may you have that expression?”

  Judine stops in her tracks. She knew she was careful to keep a light smile, even mixing in a few deception based buffs in there to keep it looking as real as possible. But despite all of that, the priest asked a quite obvious question to someone who could see the glare Judine couldn’t suppress.

  That only rang more alarm bells in Judine’s head about this being Linore. “Ah, whatever could you mean father?” Judine spoke calmly, ensuring not to break character. She couldn’t be careless, unless it was certain her ruse was up.

  And she’d make sure it wasn’t certainly up for as long as possible. Not many act with reasonable doubt. “Why, that simmering sneer, isn’t it quite odd to point to a churchman?” The priest had an awful smile, the way the lips were pulling back felt more like something gripping the back of the head to tighten the skin.

  “Apologies father, but I feel the stress of the tower is getting to me.” Judine let a singular statement slip, and while it was partially on purpose, the reaction of the priest had been one of shock at the mention of the tower, not of surprise nor confusion. “Now then Linore, what may your real name be?”

  “Ahaha…” The chuckle Linore gave was fake, the skin of the priest falling off to reveal Linore on the inside. “Why I’m a living divinity, and you’re friends are digging somewhere they really shouldn’t be.”

  “And neither should you be digging with them, Judine. You’re smart, you can figure out that the only thing in this church is that it’s a distraction from the main stage to force the tower to keep on.” The divinity kept speaking, it’s voice impossibly smooth. “You can understand what I’m saying. This tower is the only thing that can kill gods quickly, and did you know the reason why the others are helping you is just to save their own skin?”

  What the divinity was saying sounded… like a partial truth. Judine dealt with those constantly, but the voice had something wrong with it. It was grating at her sanity to hear it, it was just within hearing range and yet it was outside of those octaves all the same.

  Both too low, and too high, to hear; leading it to be perfectly audible. “The real name’s insanity, but it doesn’t matter now that you know that; does it?” Insanity’s smile looked even more wrong than when he was wearing the skin of another. The way the paper thin skin cracked and broke to form the smile was wrong.

  The smile stayed clean, and there were more issues forming in Judine’s mind, and another alarm bell rang as Insanity laughed. Judine had to get out of here as fast as possible, or risk being turned into a living weapon by this divinity.

  That was the only way this was going to end. Judine couldn’t move at her full speed, but she could try to move at small percentages of it to avoid collateral, use her Power stat to try to force it to stay confined.

  She was desperate at this point, with Insanity moving at the speeds only she could see. Insanity was keeping the damage contained, so it clearly showed it was possible. Judine remembered something Kishtan said about their power stats being higher than their agilities.

  That was probably what he meant, and she didn’t quite fit in that category, she fit in the other one of Constitution being higher. So she tried something ridiculous. She slowly raised her speed towards when it would become a problem to everything around her. And she focused.

  She felt her mana strain but not decrease in amount as she evaded Insanity’s attacks barely. She felt the air begin to ionize so she physically held the heated air close to her with her power stat. Judine felt more uncomfortable with this, but the air wasn’t being pressed against others, the damage was being controlled.

  Judine felt pride in this, and she knew that her party would do well to learn this as well. But Judine had to get away from Insanity first. She couldn’t afford to use her demigod form, the amount of fates in this building would immediately overload her ability to focus, something she needed immense amounts of to not vaporize the building.

  Insanity seemed to not have this limit however, attempting to pull at Judine’s sanity. She reverted the fate of her own mental state to bring it back to normal though, adding a greater strain on her mana.

  She needed help if she wanted to get out of this safely. This floor may not even be a full day yet, but--

  A slash came down, piercing her very mind at the core. She felt time come to a halt as she let out a wretch of agony, and Insanity grabbed her. He dragged her away, and the scars along their body seemed to bleed as she was dragged away.

  Everything’s detail blurred together, and the grays blurred into splotches of black that stayed attached to her vision and dragged across it along with her. The ground felt unnaturally cold, but it was clear they were moving at a quick pace for her.

  She lost control over her senses as well, and everything seemed to slow down further. The stillness of reality caught her off guard even as her vision blurred moreso. Her feeling of touch was getting confused as well; the cold ground becoming more akin to burning coals as Judine was pulled along.

  The sounds were also getting melded together, previously being insanely clear as to where she was based off the counted steps and the sound of her own coat dragging against the cold floor slowly melding to be more of a period of silence, 20 slams of the floor and a box being thrown against a wall, repeating over and over.

  The only sense Judine still had extreme control over was her ability to see fates, but even those were slowly being fused together to become more of a picture book. Her head was pounding from this, and when she closed her eyes it got slightly better.

  And then it got much worse as she felt an ache go across her body, as all of a sudden the picture book ended. She groaned as she felt her own fate return to her power, but she also couldn’t move so it didn’t matter.

  She noticed some of her thoughts weren’t her own. And she needed help. She tried to call out, but all that came out was a mere gurgle, or silence. She can’t hear clearly anymore and it was maddening.

  To be unsure which thoughts are one’s own and which thoughts are foreign was terrifying to her core, or maybe the other core that was linked to her in one direction. Her thoughts weren’t going to that one, but that one’s thoughts were bleeding into hers.

  It was a terrible experience too, to be filled with thoughts every time she tried to direct her thinking against captivity. She tried to make sense of the sounds, but she couldn’t so it didn’t matter, so why not just give up?

  She tried to call for help, but nothing came out. Something was against her arms? Maybe her legs and her senses were inverted. Maybe nothing was binding her and she was just falling to madness. All of this was possible with how gray everything was, even as she felt time seemingly resume.

  Or maybe that was a made up sensation. She couldn’t tell anymore, and she just had to wait for her party. And it was terrible to feel so useless. Her investigation got plenty of use, but she couldn’t risk using her full power to break these chains, since that’d kill everyone but the one they needed to.

  Her ears filled with groans of everyone around her, and they were all simultaneous, but she also heard the sounds of upstairs conversation intermingle with it. It felt like her senses were broadened and narrowed all the same, and everything was wrong.

  Her vision saw too much all at once, losing the fine details in the forced bird-eyes view. There was red maybe on the floor? Or maybe she was upside down and it was the ceiling. The orange glows in the corners didn’t help her find out where she was either.