Atzi had never been to the academy before, but she’d seen it from afar plenty of times. It was way too risky to try to steal from because of all the mages there, and who knew what crazy magical security they had? And if that wasn’t enough, the entire place was fenced off, with two city guards positioned just outside the gate.

  The place had one big stone building, six stories tall, in the center of a huge field of grass. They probably use magic for the grass, right? It was easily the biggest building in Sostra, even bigger than the temples, or any of the mansions in the rich district, or the home of a half-giant. Twenty copies of V's mansion, all put together, still wouldn't even be half as large. It looked like she imagined a palace would, from the steamy stories she’d read about Artaxtian noble women.

  There were a bunch of other, smaller buildings, too. Atzi had no idea what they were for.

  V spoke to the city guards outside. “I have business.”

  And they just opened the gate! Guards would have never let Atzi anywhere fancy. Wow, I guess looking rich does help.

  Atzi followed V as they strolled up a stone pathway towards the central building.

  They passed by multiple academy students walking through the grass, going to and from the various buildings on the campus.

  The three reached the central building, and V’s guard pushed open its double doors.

  The immediate interior was a sort of reception area. A generous number of chairs and lanterns lined the walls. This led all the way up towards a T-junction, in front of which was a middle-aged butler sitting behind a desk.

  Just one guy? For this big of a place?

  V approached. The butler pushed a far-too-small pair of glasses up his nose. “May I assist you?”

  “You may address me as V.”

  Atzi boggled. V was a prolific name in the criminal underworld, such that even she’d heard about it. That they would just use it in public baffled her.

  “I am here to see…” V stopped, then hummed. “Actually, just prepare a room and I will pay for thirty minutes of time from the highest ranked mage who will see me. Double whatever they would normally ask for, in fact.”

  Atzi boggled again. V’s that rich?!

  “Highest single rank, or?” The butler asked.

  “Total rank,” V replied.

  “Then I will inform the appropriate parties at once.” The butler said, writing something down. “If they are busy…?”

  V frowned. “I will wait to a degree, but if they refuse to see me today, then I will go without their company.”

  The butler opened a drawer and pulled out three silver disks, about the size of a human’s palm. “Please take these.” He handed one each to V, Atzi, and V’s guard.

  Atzi couldn’t figure out what the carving on it meant - in fact, it hurt to stare at too long, shifting strangely.

  The butler stood. “Follow me, do not stray behind.”

  They followed. Atzi grasped the disk tightly in her claw, wondering if there was any way to steal them. There was a desk drawer full of them. They almost look like a big coin. Ha, a silver coin. As if. Silver was very expensive, far too valuable to be used as a coin.

  They climbed up the steps. Grey-robed initiates and blue-robed apprentices passed by them. Both lone ones busy to be somewhere, and groups of them happily chatting with each other as they slowly ambled.

  Atzi thought about what her life would have been like, had she ever been given a real chance to learn magic. More than just the boring books and meditations. Her life if her mother had tutored her, even once, or her dad wasn’t gone so often, or if there’d been anything other than that classroom back home where she’d been yelled at for not paying attention…

  It’s not my fault nobody was willing to teach me right!

  Then she could have been invited to the academy! Learned super cool blood magic and used it to impress women. Atzi glanced at a few of the mages passing by. Yeah, she really regretted not coming here.

  The butler led them through a sliding door into an empty lecture hall. Several long stone desks sat facing a podium near the bottom of the room.

  “Would you care for refreshments while you wait?”

  Atzi glanced at V, wondering if she was allowed to say yes.

  “Tea,” V replied.

  The butler bowed, then left.

  Atzi turned to V. “You can afford this?”

  V didn’t reply, taking a seat. Atzi awkwardly sat near them.

  They waited a few minutes. The butler came back with tea, then left again.

  Why do people like tea, anyway? Atzi picked up her teacup. At least it’s hot…

  The sliding door slammed open. Atzi flinched. She dropped her teacup, its contents spilling all over the desk and floor.

  An old man with the tattoo of a snake on the side of his skull jumped through the doorway. His eyes were weary and filled with fear. “You!” he pointed at Atzi.

  “Eh?!” Atzi glanced around.

  “You’ve seen it too! The end! The end of days!”

  Atzi gulped. “Um... a-are you a shaman like my dad is?”

  The old man ignored her question. “They’re eating!” He trembled and shook as he spoke. “Everything! You can’t stop them! No one can stop them!” He laughed. “It’s the end of everything! Everything!”

  Atzi blinked, confused. “What’s that got to do with-”

  Just then, the butler rushed into the room. He grabbed the old man as he addressed V. “I’m so sorry, he’s not-” The old man tried and failed to struggle out of the butler’s grasp. “Come on, we need to take you back home.”

  “Everything!”

  The butler pulled the old man out of the room.

  “Believe me a bit more now?” Atzi asked V. Ha! A whole prophecy about me and everything!

  The butler re-entered. “My apologies, he’s been saying that to everyone.”

  Atzi avoided V’s gaze. N-no, it’s probably still related, right? It has to be. “U-um, when did he start?”

  “This time? Last week. Though he's always been a bit strange.”

  That's pretty recent. What's he talking about though? Eating? Maybe he means the undead.

  “But please, disregard his words. He is not the mage you’re to see. I’ve put the word out to a few, and-”

  The door slid open again. A woman stumbled in, eyes heavy. She had red robes and a big red hat, the latter of which was decorated with bands of steel embedded with shiny yellow stones. She was attractive, but…

  Atzi had seen plenty of people high, but this woman was on another plane of existence. She felt this place was not inspiring confidence in its staff so far. I'll let V do the talking so they dont kill me, though.

  “Madam Terra! I’m surprised you decided to make an appearance.” The butler bowed to her. “The personage V has some questions for you.”

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Terra looked over, eyes vibrating as she tried to focus on V. “Okay…” She shuffled over to the podium in front of the room, before resting both of her arms on top of it. “What was it you wished to ask?

  “My associate here has experienced numerous unexplained instances of gaining knowledge she should not have access to,” V explained. "I should like you to detect any magical influences.”

  Terra slowly laughed. She is high out of her mind. “Okay, you…” Terra pointed at Atzi.

  “Me?” Atzi intelligently asked.

  “Down here.” Terra pointed in front of herself.

  “Oh! Okay.” Atzi walked down the steps, over to where Terra indicated. “Do I lie down?”

  “Sit.”

  Atzi sat on the floor.

  Terra placed a hand on her head. “Close your eyes,” she said.

  Atzi did so. Hopefully she actually knows what she’s doing and isn’t doing something useless just because she’s high.

  “Abandon as many sensations as you can… but my touch… and my voice.”

  Atzi was normally quite good at zoning out, but not on purpose, and especially not with all the dying she’d been doing lately. Still, she gave it her best shot.

  “You can only hear me. You can only feel… me.”

  Yeah, yeah, lady, I hear and feel you.

  “And…” Terra drew out the word. “Now you will sleep.”

  Atzi fell asleep.

  When she opened her eyes, in front of her was a wall of fire.

  Atzi yelped. She tried to run, spinning around. Her foot found no floor, like she was floating. Still, she spun.

  Beside the fire was a tornado. Then a wave of water. A pillar of earth. A tree, growing into infinity. A beam of light. A tower of skulls. A torrent of blood.

  Atzi’s spin slowed, then stopped. She stared. All these things were contained in a white void, entirely surrounding her. W-what do I do? “Hello?” she called. No response. She tried moving. Surprisingly, she found it easy. She drifted over to the tree.

  She instinctively reached out a claw, touching its bark.

  The tree vanished, as though it was never there.

  Atzi blinked. “Huh.”

  She drifted nearby, to the pillar of earth. She touched it. It, too, vanished.

  Weird.

  She went along one by one. Water, gone. Air, gone. Fire, gone. Blood, skulls, pillar of light. All gone.

  Atzi realized the void was no longer white, but pitch black. Exactly like the times when…

  The mysterious woman emerged from the void.

  "... Huh?" Atzi looked around, panicked. “Wait, what killed me?!”

  “Wake up,” came a voice from above.

  “Eh?!” Atzi looked up-

  -and opened her eyes.

  Terra removed her hand from Atzi’s head. “You did not have any association with magic.”

  "Wh-what was that? I was in that place-" She stopped herself, looking to see if V was still there.

  They were, looking directly back.

  Right, don’t say anything if I don’t want to die! “...Um, nevermind.”

  Terra raised an eyebrow. “What place?”

  “V, can I mention this part?”

  V crooked a finger. “Come here and tell me, first.”

  Atzi wandered over. She leaned over to whisper into V’s ear. It felt strange to her, being so physically close to them. “When I die, there's a place I'm in, before I wake up again. There's a woman there, I don't know who she is. I've never seen her outside of there." Atzi explained. “A-and I was in that place, for a moment, there."

  “Is it me?” a voice asked in Atzi’s head. The mysterious woman.

  “Yes, it’s you.” Atzi whispered to herself.

  V tapped the desk. “What did you mean?”

  “O-oh, sorry. I can hear her sometimes even when I’m alive. But she doesn’t know anything.”

  “I see,” V said plainly. V looked over towards Terra. “You said she does not have any association with magic. None at all?”

  “Correct.”

  “To your knowledge, is it possible for another being to possess or communicate with someone without magic?”

  "Divine magic is poorly understood by standard magical models. Gods and their priests are capable of things I would not be able to detect through the eight paths. Though the most expedient explanation would be that gods can communicate directly with their prophets.” Terra gave a surprisingly lucid reply.

  V turned back to Atzi and whispered, “Have you checked for the possibility this woman is a god?”

  Atzi scratched her scales. “No, but… How would I know if she is? She says she doesn’t remember anything.”

  V turned back to Terra. “Do you know how one might rule out the possibility that a mysterious communicator is a god?”

  “The easiest method would be through the prophet of another god, though a god themself would also be able to tell.”

  “H-how could that be the case?” Atzi waved her claws. “Why would a god want me as a prophet?”

  “We will be investigating every possibility. I merely need to determine which prophet would be most willing to perform this check.”

  “Okay… Oh! Actually, I know a prophet!” Atzi said. “Sort of. The new Ancestor one, her brother, I helped him out before.” She paused. “Wait, has she been made the new prophet, yet? It happened this morning, right?”

  V whispered, “Careful with what you reveal.”

  Atzi grimaced. “S-sorry!” Please don’t kill me!

  The butler spoke up from the corner of the room. “It was announced an hour ago.” Atzi had forgotten he was there, thinking he had left again.

  V looked at Atzi, considering her slowly. “Then we will see this prophet.”

  “E-eh? Um, sure.”

  V stood. “Thank you for your assistance, Madam Terra. You’ve been a great help.”

  For some reason, Atzi saw V’s lips twitch, like they wanted to smile.

  “How will you be paying?” The butler asked.

  V took out some kind of paper. Then they took out a needle, poked their thumb, and pressed it to the paper. Finally, they borrowed a nearby quill and ink to sign their name.

  What is that? Atzi wondered. Some kind of magic paper?

  V walked over to the butler and handed him the paper. Atzi followed.

  The butler bowed once more. “Thank you for your patronage. Madam Terra is happy to have been-”

  Terra walked right between them as though they weren’t there, and continued out the door.

  “-of service,” the butler said. “Please let me escort you back to the entrance.”

  They did so. Back at the reception area, the butler took back the silver disks.

  “What were they for?” the mysterious woman asked.

  “No clue,” Atzi replied, whispering to herself.

  Atzi and V then left through the way they came in, V’s guard following behind them.

  The trek to the temple district was much longer. The entire time V seemed to be pondering something. Atzi didn’t want to interrupt them, in case it was them deciding she was telling the truth.

  Finally, they arrived in front of the Temple of the Ancestor, before heading inside.

  The temple was filled with people praying around several large burning braziers. They sat on their knees, hands clasped in front of them, mumbling to themselves.

  Several tapestries hung down from the ceiling, depicting the Ancestor leading increasingly large groups of humans.

  In the front of the temple was a priestess - or at least Atzi assumed she was because she was standing in front of an altar with confidence, like she was supposed to be there. But her outfit was the furthest thing from a priestess she’d ever seen. She was wearing fur armor, held a large axe like it was a walking cane, and had a horned helmet she wore over her scruffy red hair.

  V approached her.

  How does V plan to get us to see the prophet in the first place?

  “Yeah? Whaddya want?” the priestess asked. She was loud, the exact opposite of the prophet.

  “I would like to make a sizable donation to the church of the Ancestor. Also, it would be helpful if I could see the prophet.”

  Ah. Money.

  The priestess smiled, a big toothy grin. “I’ll go grab her.”

  -

  A few minutes later, Jewel emerged from the back of the temple.

  “H-hello, I-”

  “You're Vance's sister, right?" Atzi interrupted. "Or was it Lance...? Where is that guy, anyway?”

  Jewel turned towards Atzi, surprised. “You know my brother?”

  “Oh yeah.” Atzi nodded. “I helped him out and he vanished after instead of paying back the lady letting him sleep at her inn.”

  Jewel’s demeanour shifted from a nervous woman in over her head, to a woman ready to kill someone. “That no good, rotten-”

  V coughed. “As a prophet of the gods, you are able to sense divine connections, correct?”

  Jewel looked up, blinking. Atzi felt like the blonde haired woman had returned to normal. Well, however normal being a nervous wreck all the time was. “Y-yes! Cor- Cor… That’s right.”

  V gave Atzi a dismissive wave. “Please do so for my associate here.”

  What god would even want me as a prophet? Atzi thought back to all the statues outside the temples. The mysterious woman didn’t resemble any of them. It would have to be some god not even part of the Empire. Why would they even be here? Why me? Atzi concluded she couldn’t be a prophet, but she’d go ahead with what V wanted anyway.

  Jewel nodded and held out a hand. “C-can I, could get, um… your hand? W-wait, no, claw!”

  Atzi held out both her claws. “Here, take two.”

  Jewel grabbed on to them. “If you can call on this g-god you believe to be connected to, please do so,” she said as she closed her eyes.

  Atzi felt awkward, but started speaking out loud. “Hey, strange lady, can you hear me? You’re awake right now, right?”

  A few moments passed without response. Then…

  “Yes?”

  “Okay! Good! Just keep being there. Keep talking.” Atzi smiled.

  “About what?”

  "Anything! Talk about this place, what do you think of it?"

  "...I think I’ve been inside a temple before...?"

  "Wait, really? Where?"

  "I think-"

  Jewel gasped, suddenly letting go of Atzi’s claws.

  “Did it work, did you see something?” Atzi asked.

  Jewel rapidly nodded. “You are! You are a prophet as well!”