The Land of Men recognizes three major human religions, known collectively as the Faith of the Three Moons. Sometimes called the three angelic faiths or more simply referred to as the Three Faiths, they each revere one of the Seraphims, celestial beings regarded as sovereigns among angels and Deities for men.

  The Byg'm?k Faith, devoted to the Seraphim of Love, holds love, just as the deity’s title suggests, as the greatest virtue.

  The Keysbrügr Faith honors the Seraphim of Selflessness, teaching that sacrifice for others is life’s truest fulfillment.

  The W?hppr Faith venerates the Seraphim of Peace, whose precepts urge calm words over violence.

  Though equal in reverence and structure, with ranks ranging from humble Devotees to High Priest, the three faiths do not share temples, and their influences varies from city to city. In some places, one may overshadow the others; in others, their temples may stand side by side yet remain distinct in purpose and doctrine.

  Yet there is one city where the Faith of the Three Moons stands in perfect balance, a city where the grounds are divided equally among all three. It is called the Holy Capital or Holy city: the city of angels, the sacred heart of seraphic worship, where young Devotees are raised to the rank of Shepherds, chosen guides and future leaders of their respective orders. It was to this city that Anette arrived, after nearly a month on the road from Leirden.

  As Anette’s carriage passed through the final archway and rolled onto the gleaming stone of the upper avenue, the holy city unfurled before her like a divine tapestry. Towering above the world, its skyline was crowned by soaring temple spires, each more radiant and imposing than any city she'd ever visited. Sculpted in stone, these monuments of faith clad in gold and silver-gilt domes and framed by fluted pillars that scraped the sky, reaching toward the two moons hanging above.

  Massive statues dotted every plaza and stairway, carved from obsidian, marble, or golden-veined stone. Some depicted “saints”; others, the three moons that hovered above the Land of Men. Yet none commanded attention like the angelic statues, monolithic figures towering over rooftops and sanctuaries alike.

  One statue in particular dominated a courtyard Anette’s carriage passed: a colossal angel, spear angled toward the heavens, one hand raised in divine beckoning. Six wings arched high and wide, casting a vast shadow over the people beneath, like a guardian from ages past.

  Petals fell from unseen heights, scattered by the wind like blessings, and crimson drapes wound from tower to tower, softening the hard grandeur with reverent festivity. The air shimmered with sunlight reflecting off polished marble, and the hush of awe among the gathered pilgrims was broken only by distant chimes and the whisper of prayers. The scenery, the sound in the distance, reinforced something that Anette thought was already clear in her mind, but apparently not. This was not a city made for men; it was made to please the seraphims men worship.

  "This is your first time in the holy capital, right Miss?" Orco, one of the coachmen, asked Arianna.

  "Yes," she confirmed.

  "Well, same here," he chuckled.

  When she came to find these people, she came with a mission that was a little over the top for what they’re typically proposed, but she was being generous with the pay, so things were wrapped smoothly. Typically, escorting work, especially one involving escorting just one person like it has been the case here with her, is something that you publish in the adventurer guild board. Hiring an adventurer is the way to go, but considering the time that it would take her, since there’s usually a gap between the publication of the quest and the quest being chosen by an adventurer, she chose to approach these people, having once worked with their group before, not as a representative of the Inquisitorum Regiae but of the Wardenpost Guild. They typically operate in the region of Leirden and the surrounding areas, in other words, they mainly operate in the vicinity Wiedenfeld Kingdom, so it only made sense that he never set foot here. It’s literally a place a kingdom away that he might have never had a reason to visit had it not been for her offering to reward them handsomely for escorting her up to here.

  "This sure is a fancy city."

  "What do you expect? It’s a city by fancy folks for fancy folks. It only makes sense that it's fancy."

  What “fancy folks” referred to, Anette could easily tell. There was only one group of people they could be referring to, and that group easily made up a large fraction of the holy city’s population.

  Humanity is by no means a monolith; it is a triad of distinct subraces: Peons, Verdenkind, and Highbreeds. These classifications, while often invisible to the untrained eye, define the boundaries between the ordinary, the awakened, and the extraordinary.

  Peons form the baseline of human society. They are the unawakened masses, without access to the System that governs power, skill, and potential in Fiendfell. Lacking supernatural abilities, they live by craft, labor, and learned tradition. They are born mundane, then grow hearing tales of knights’ and mages’ adventures, even if, for the majority, they lack the means to become them. Yet within them lies a latent source of magic.

  Verdenkind are the awakened. Born a peon, at some point between childhood and early adolescence, typically between the ages of seven and ten, they go through an awakening. With it comes a class, a level, six distinct attributes, and a constellation of possible skills and abilities. These individuals become something more than human, radiating an aura of raw potential. Yet their emergence remains unpredictable: spontaneous, ungoverned by bloodlines or training.

  And then there are the Highbreeds. Unlike Verdenkind, Highbreeds are born not just with potential, but with inheritance. If even one parent is Highbreed, so too will the child be. While they, too, awaken around age seven to nine, what awakens within them grants them traits that make them highly appreciated by two group, namely nobility and the faiths, the latter far, far more than the former. Blessed with a seventh attribute known as "Faith" their presence is often highly valued in the three faiths’ temples, as the unique trait often guarantees the Highbreed a high affinity with holy-type and healing-type skills and abilities.

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  So for a place like this one, with so many temples and the city’s very existence being all about the worship of the entities believed in by these temple dwellers, there was nothing wrong with what the two coach drivers said. After all, this place has the densest population of Highbreed on the whole continent.

  "So Miss, where do we take you from here?" one of them asked. "We’re not familiar with the city, but we can ask around."

  Anette thought for a moment before voicing, "To a decent hotel."

  "To a fancy hotel then."

  Anette heard them say that but didn’t even feel like correcting them. After what she went through, she felt entitled to such a luxury.

  After asking around and riding for a dozen minutes or so, the carriage stopped in front of a hotel, a fancy hotel, as the carriage drivers, now a duo, said. She began to wonder if this was worth the money. She wavered, but not for long. Stepping down from the carriage, she asked the duo, "Where are you two heading after this?"

  "We? Well, we’re gonna find a good inn to rest for perhaps a couple of days, then I guess we’ll come back to Leirden."

  "I see," she mused for a moment, then, "Say, could you two do me another favor? There is a place I have to be; I’ll need someone to take me there. Wanna make an easy few hundred ?inors?"

  They looked at each other. "I rarely ever say no to money, but you’re sure you're not gonna rest first, Miss?"

  "I’ll do that later. For now I just plan to register my stay, leave my luggage behind."

  "You sure are in a hurry."

  "I am," she didn’t even deny.

  "Well then, we’ll wait for you."

  "I’ll be fast," she declared, heading for the hotel.

  "Take your time."

  "Feel free to even take a nap."

  She chuckled at the words, then just proceeded toward the entrance of The Queen’s Respite, a place that was, as the name suggested, a very fancy-looking place, and as fancy as the appearance went, the price of the most modest room was exorbitant, so exorbitant that under any other circumstance she would have walked away right there and then, but since she was allocated a generous budget by the Chairman, one that barely budged since she spent none of it on inns on the road, she could afford getting a room in this respite for a whole month. But she wouldn’t. Upon leaving the reception lounge, one that she was eager to leave since she noticed too many eyes were on her and she feared it was because of either appearance or smell or both, she was taken to her room.

  Her room, she had to admit, while not worth the price offered for a day’s stay, was at the very least doing justice to the name of the hotel… or not, she wasn't sure, she’d never been to a queen's room before, but she was certain that this was closer to that than it was to her room in Leirden, which looked shabby in comparison.

  The first place Anette ran to after familiarizing herself with was the bathroom, where she took a quick bath that wound up being a long session of intense soaping and scrubbing, rinsing. Upon leaving her bath, she was taken by an intense urge to throw herself in bed and rest, but no, she changed into a new set of clothes.

  Donning a long-sleeved black dress, a garment she never got much opportunity to wear, the last time being when Emma, an Inquisitore colleague and good friend of hers, brought the gift for her after a mission several months ago, today she finally got the chance to. Upon arranging her blonde hair into a high bun, held up by a silver scrunchie, pairing this with a pink sling bag and a pair of indispensable white gloves, she, upon inspecting her appearance and seeing nothing wrong with it, left the room and soon joined the duo at the entrance.

  "Sorry for the wait again, boys."

  "You're back already," Orco trailed, staring intensely.

  He wasn't the only one, she noticed, the other coachman, as well as a few people in the lobby, were too.

  "Erm," she hesitated, "Is there something on my face, or is there something wrong with this dress?" she asked.

  "No, none at all."

  "It's the contrary in fact, it looks great on you, Miss."

  "Thanks for the compliment," she smiled.

  "You must be meeting someone very important to be so pampered."

  She wasn't sure if she exactly pampered herself, but she didn't deny the allegation and nodded, "Yes, you can say that."

  "I see..."

  "Well then, where are we heading to next, Miss?"

  Climbing into the carriage this time with a smile on her face, she announced, "The Temple of Thaluna. I heard from my friend that it's on the eastern side of the city."

  ***

  True to the directions Anette was given in the letters, they found the Temple of Thaluna in the southern corner of the city. Upon climbing down from the carriage, she looked back at the carriage drivers,

  "Need us to wait for you, Miss? Or?"

  "No, thank you. I think I'll be alright from here on out," tossing onto them what she promised, which came in the form of two coins, but more golden than would a ?inor. "Keep the change."

  "That's very generous of you," the duo smiled widely.

  "Of course. Anyway, that's where we part ways, gentlemen. See you next time."

  "See you," they waved.

  Climbing the wide steps to the temple, Anette entered a courtyard dominated by another angel statue, this one cradling a moon that mirrored one in the distant horizon. It was Keysbrügr, one of the three moons that hover above the Land of Men, linked to the Seraphim of Selflessness. The Temple of Thaluna was dedicated to that very deity. Ignoring the grand statue, she moved on into the temple’s inner grounds.

  Temples of the three faiths, while valuing different virtues and doctrines, have one thing in common: they are all places where one could go and receive medical care, be it from injuries, ailments, or afflictions of all sorts, including hexes or curses. So anyone could more or less waltz into the temple grounds.

  After checking for anything wrong with her face with her pocket mirror, Anette proceeded, ignoring the sections of the temple dedicated to worship, for being a temple, a large portion of the place was still dedicated to that, but instead focused on going through the medical section of the place. She was looking for someone, someone that she knew she would find in that corner, not as an afflicted person in need of healing, but rather someone who would be dressed in that uniform, those priestly robes worn by those who were clearly disciples of the temple.

  In her mind, the ideal would be that she found him herself, stumbled upon him, but after searching for him for ten minutes, she settled on approaching one of the disciples.

  "Hello," she greeted, after choosing someone.

  The disciple she approached was young, around 13 or 14, 15 would be pushing it, making the term disciple quite fitting, as he didn’t fully carry that priestly zeal yet.

  "Hi," he greeted back.

  "Say, I'm looking for a friend. He's a priest here, he's your age, the name is Charles? Do you—" There was a look on the boy's face that made it clear he recognized the name. "You know him, right?"

  "Yes," he confirmed, casting Anette a thorough inspection, had it not been for her knowing better, she would say it felt like she was being subjected to the skill [Appraisal]. "Unless it's another one... Is he blonde?"

  "Yes."

  "Curly hair?"

  "Yes."

  "Tall?"

  "....Yes?"

  "Then yes, I know him. We live in the same section."

  "Fantastic," she genuinely relished, "Do you know where I can find him?"

  "Here? Nowhere. At this time of the day he's usually out, apprenticing in the Aethernum or being on some random errand."

  "Ah, I see... what a shame."

  "Erm, excuse me."

  "Hm?"

  "You are Charles'..."

  "Oh," realizing what she did, or to be exact what she failed to do, she calmly removed her right glove, then extended her hand, one that he, at the sight of, wound up staring at, but as the second extended, he, aware of etiquette, wound up reaching onto it. Staring into his eyes, she spelled, "I am just a faraway cousin who passed by."

  "Charles' cousin..."

  "No. Not Charles'. Yours."