<~> Chapter 327The demons were more scattered in the forest now. Rather than the concentrated areas and patrols along particur roads, they seemed to be randomly distributed throughout the forest. It seems that whatever group had been keeping them in check had given up on controlling them. I assume the cultists had gotten what they had wanted. Felketh's avatar had been summoned. The only thing I didn't quite understand about their pn was why they had actually attacked Traehall. If they had done all of this in secret and hadn't summoned hordes of demons to attack the city, no one would have come to stop them.

  It... wasn't because of me, was it? They seemed to have needed my blood for their ritual, but was attacking a city with a horde of demons the best way to draw me in? That pn seems like it would have been just as likely to stop me from returning to the city as it would have been to bring me there. That is... unless they knew because Moira, the goddess of Fate and Future, knew that I would be there if they set the conditions right. Was that it? Coincidences all built on top of each other to get me where they needed me? Or... to get Sorsette where they needed her.

  "We're almost there," Morrigan said glumly, breaking me from my thoughts.

  The forest thinned and we could see the walls lit by the early morning sun through the gaps. For the first time since we've returned to Traehall, there were no demons pounding on the walls and gates, but there were also no guards on the walls of the fortifications either. I might have suspected that something had happened if I hadn't heard the cries of distant arguing and panic coming from the people on the other side.

  I gnced back at my friends and the adventurers we helped, and got a mix of worried, yet knowing expressions from them. Our group wouldn't be the only ones worried about the ck of the system that would expire in less than two days. It was likely that any relief or merriment that would have ordinarily followed the break of the siege would be overshadowed by the sudden removal of something thought to be an ever-present force in their lives, not to mention the notification that Sorsette had been sin.

  "Lori, do you think you could go up there and see if someone can open the gates for us?" I asked.

  "Sure. Give me a moment," she replied.

  Lori got a bit of a running start before jumping and using her shadow leap to teleport to the other side of the wall. We could tell through the bond that she was talking to some of the people over there. It didn't seem like there would be any trouble letting us in. After a short wait, a few guards peered at us from the other side of the wall and waved. We waved back, and not long after, the gates were opened to us.

  When we met back up with Lori on the other side of the gate, she had a concerned look on her face.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "The entire city is in a frenzy right now. The guards told me that everyone is on the verge of rioting. According to the guard, the only reason why no one has started yet is because they don't know who to direct their anger at. He told me that many of the guards are on the verge of flipping out too, but they're trying to cling to normalcy. He advised we avoid the bars and taverns if we can help it. Any pns of rationing alcohol because of the siege are gone, and it's going to be unlikely the guards can break up all the barfights that have been breaking out," Lori said.

  As we walked through town toward the adventurer's guild, the streets were noisy with yelling and arguing. More than once, we had to divert around fistfights, and as we were warned, the worst of the pces were near anywhere serving alcohol. The city guards were around, doing their best, but many of them looked just as haunted and despondent as the people were. It was a bit arming to see that most of the people we walked by looked worse off than they had been during the siege.

  ("You would think that the world was going to end,") I said while looking over some of the people as we walked by.

  Lori's face jerked in my direction, a sudden fear in her eyes.

  I quickly held up a hand. ("Rex, the world will survive the ck of a system... My world didn't even have one,") I told her.

  She visibly calmed down, but she still looked shaken. Frankly, all of my friends looked shaken, other than Mimi, oddly. Mimi looked more concerned for her friends and for all of the random people around than being particurly bothered by the system going away. I would have to ask her about it ter when we weren't in the middle of town.

  One of the rger nearby buildings I had never really looked at closely was surrounded by people. They were yelling and trying to push in, only to be rebuffed by some of the mid-level adventurers protecting the pce.

  ("What's that building over there?") I asked Morrigan.

  Morrigan gnced in the direction I indicated. ("Ah... that's the temple of Bollide. This city hasn't been around long enough to have many other temples. Those people blocking everyone off are mid-level pathfinders and explorers who likely follow Bollide. They're trying to keep the pce from being overrun. The system aside... two gods being listed as having killed Sorsette is a pretty clear indication that another war of the gods has officially started... People will want answers.")

  I frowned and continued on through the city. Things were too distracting to have conversations about this stuff right now. Besides, we needed to meet with Raksha'va and discuss what happened. The adventurers we rescued are also going to want to talk about our shapeshifting powers. I think they only really knew about my two forms, not all of the other shapeshifting we could do, but that was already enough to create some suspicion around us, and all of them knew it. I have the feeling that if we hadn't just rescued them, they wouldn't be talking to us as kindly as they still were on the subject.

  Believe it or not, the adventurer's guild was actually one of the calmer pces in the city. That wasn't to say that none of the nearby adventurers were having meltdowns or existential crises, but a rger percentage of the people here were used to staying calm under pressure and acted like it. There were also a lot fewer fistfights going on here, but that probably had something to do with the very intimidating tiger woman who was leaning over the map table when we came in.

  Her eyebrows rose when she saw us come in, but it wasn't until we parted and let Yefen past that her face lit up into a smile that I had never seen on her before.

  "Yefen!" Raksha'va called before coming over and pulling the rge bear man into a hug. "You made it back alive!"

  Yefen chuckled before hugging the guild master back. "I'm surprised we made it back at all, to be honest. I have one hell of a story to tell you."

  "The others?" she asked with a guarded expression as she pulled away from him.

  "We're here too, ya stray!" Aquil called out over the excited murmuring throughout the guild hall.

  To my surprise, Raksha'va went and hugged each of them, except Samuel the dwarf, whom she shared a forearm handshake with instead. I idly wondered whether it was due to cultural reasons or just the practicality of the severe height difference between the two.

  "How is Brominn?" Yefen asked.

  "Still resting. He had been heavily wounded and exhausted while trying to make it back to the city through the demon horde. Luckily, the two healers who just brought you back here were able to patch him up, but he's still fatigued. He's woken up a few times since Lilith's group left, but he hasn't been up since the global alerts," she said.

  The mention of the global alerts brought down the mood of the entire room.

  Yefen gnced back at our rge group. "We should do a debrief, it's important, but there are kind of a lot of us."

  "Most of my team can go back to the pce we're staying. I think my perspective has most of the important information," I told him.

  Raksha'va scanned our group before nodding. "Only a few of you, then. It looks like all of you are stronger. That one in particur must have leveled a lot," she said, gesturing to Raya.

  "Yes, ma'am!" Raya said excitedly while giving a pretty bad salute. Raksha'va chuckled and shook her head.

  I turned to the group. "Any volunteers to come with me?"

  The twins, Silva, and Mimi, all raised their hands. Raksha'va nodded. "You four then. The rest of you can go."

  I looked at Bel. "You're in charge. Get everyone back to the smithy safely."

  "Sure," she said with a nod. "I'll see you soon. Be careful on your way back."

  Everyone followed Bel out the door, and Raksha'va led us to the meeting room we had used so many times before. The four adventurers we saved followed us in as well, and the nine of us sat around the meeting table.

  "Okay. Yefen, you start."

  Yefen told the story of how the five of them first discovered the dungeon that they had suspected was there based on the number of banshees they were spotting in the area. They eventually found the mouth of the cave and watched as a single banshee flew out of it. They entered the dungeon and tried to gather intel before returning with a delving team, but they were surrounded by cultists and defeated by a group led by that same golden-furred dogkin. During the fight, Yefen had locked the woman down enough that Brominn could escape using some of his pathfinding abilities, but eventually, the remaining four of them were surrounded and knocked out. When they woke back up, they had been pinned in pce and left there for more than a week with their weapons drawn to threaten the dungeon core, triggering an endless dungeon break. The cultists didn't talk about their pns around the four of them, so they didn't know a lot, and being left there for so long without much food had them passing in and out of consciousness during that time.

  Once Yefen finished, I gave a quick summary of the dungeon. I talked about running into the dogkin again after Morrigan had killed nearly all of the banshees by turning the dungeon's mana against it, and how the dogkin had almost killed me to take my blood to power the ritual.

  "Why were they targeting you in particur for that?" Raksha'va asked.

  I sighed and began to reveal nearly everything I had been keeping from her. Being a world traveler, meeting with Sorsette, having once been a demon, and having my race changed because I rejected them. A little bit about Succubi and their transformation powers. Mimi's status as an ex-demonic Mimic. I talked a bit about the prophecies and some of the other stuff we learned about the Tamin church, Fortuna, and their involvement in all of this. I briefly talked about what we learned regarding the Cult of Amphores and filled in some of the bnks I had left when I told Raksha'va about our trip to Goldenhearth and Torlimal city. Through all of this, Raksha'va seemed surprisingly calm and didn't seem to get angry or threatened by all the stuff I told her. From time to time, Morrigan, Torien, and Silva added details that I missed or glossed over.

  Finally, once all of that was id out, I talked about Felketh's summoning and our escape from the dungeon. How we were crossing the bridge, and how I was forced to use light magic that gave away our position enough to be targeted by Felketh and brought into the middle of his fight with Sorsette. Then I talked about Sorsette's death, followed by the brawl that happened between the gods' avatars.

  It wasn't until I got to this part that Raksha'va's calm demeanor cracked. She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. "So it is true, then? Sorsette is dead and the system will die with her in less than two days?" Raksha'va shook her head. "What I don't understand is why Fortuna's name wasn't on the global alert. It sounded like she was the distraction for the other two, and that global alert didn't look like any normal kill notification message I've ever seen."

  Morrigan suddenly jerked forward. "You're not saying... that Sorsette intentionally left Fortuna's name off of that global alert? But why? She helped kill her too!"

  "I have no idea," Raksha'va said. "Perhaps I'm wrong. I have never seen a 'global alert' before in the first pce. I've never even heard of one before. It was never mentioned in the tales of the first war of the gods at Bollide's temple either. If it was some kind of universal kill notification, I feel as though someone would have heard of it before in regard to the death of Erimikai."

  I shook my head. "Fortuna flipped on them after Sorsette was dead. But, one of the things Fortuna said to Sorsette before she died was, 'I'll win this game for the both of us.' Maybe Sorsette believed her?"

  Raksha'va growled. "I suppose we'll never know. But there's a problem... Moira and Allerel are both in the notification, and Fortuna wasn't. Which means we need to decide whether to reveal that she was part of the Tamin church. If Sorsette intentionally left her name off of it, then we would be acting against her wishes to disseminate it. If it was accidental or automated somehow, then we would be allowing her a free pass."

  Torien leaned back and looked at the ceiling. "I don't think we should disseminate that information."

  "Why?" Morrigan snapped at her.

  "Whether it was her intention to leave her off the notification or not... It sounds like she's aligned with the other gods standing against the Tamin church now. Besides, Velenthel knows too. She could release the information if she wants, and she was already pnning to leak it, st we heard. It's not just up to us to decide. Velenthel can decide if it's the best pn or not," Torien expined.

  Morrigan slumped down into her chair a little. "Okay... Fine. We won't tell anyone about Fortuna. Not unless Velenthel does."

  "What about you?" I asked Raksha'va. "I told you a lot about the succubi, and I know that people aren't the most trusting of people who can shapeshift. Two of us are even former demons. Is any of that going to be an issue between us? I like you a lot, I'd rather not be at odds with each other."

  Raksha'va ughed. "You're rather confident telling me everything after sending all of your comrades away, then having the gall to ask me to my face how I feel about you." She shook her head. "No. You won't have any problems from me. And consider your debt to the adventurer's guild for standing behind your dungeon-killer titles paid. You've gone far beyond what we usually ask people for. The truth is, I've believed you were a world traveler from our first meeting. A lot of what you told me didn't surprise me. The succubus stuff and Mimi, are a surprise, but nothing that I have any issue with at this point. This city is falling apart right now. I couldn't do anything about you if I wanted to. Rather than antagonize you... I need to beg you for help. I have no right to ask you for anything at this point. You already saved some of my oldest friends without even discussing any rewards, but this pce needs you right now."

  Raksha'va leaned back in her chair and met my gaze. "After being cut off for this long and receiving no help from the outside, other than you, a lot of people have been talking. One of the st casualties in the town was the mayor, and there aren't even any tax collectors in the city right now. The sver's guild was destroyed, and the city was saved in part by a rge number of former sves who hate Torlimal. Right now, I'm the only person in the city with any amount of status, and it isn't even close. People are talking about seceding from Torlimal."

  There was a wave of shock and several of the people in the room gasped in surprise.

  "If we have any hope of that succeeding, we would need your help," Raskah'va finished.

  End of Book 5

  Saine

  Hello! That's the end of book 5! Boy, this story is turning into a lot of books. Things are going to be taking a bit of a different turn in the next book. It's going to be a bit more focused on Traehall as a location in addition to the adventures of our characters. From the end there, as well as the fall out following the death of the system, things are going to get a bit more complicated for our friends. I hope you're excited! Thanks for reading!

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