Looking to the Future

I had gotten accustomed to the smell of metal shavings, old wood, and something bubbling in a pot that always seemed to fill Meredi’s house. Today, I also smelled incredible pride.

Cynthia had come home early, unfastening her high collar as she walked through the door and shot me a look of disbelief like she had already heard about my time at the gym. Valray followed soon after, dropping a duffel bag by the door and hugging Meredi with one arm, saying she’d be staying the night since she’d be going on a long patrol within a month. She wanted to get as much time in with family before then. Meredi hugged her back so hard I worried about Val’s spine breaking… and secretly wished it was me.

Ravela was the last to show. She looked like she came in ready to yell at me, but the second she saw Valray seated at the table, she lit up like we lived in a paradise free from worries and not this mana haze-choked place.

So yeah, a full house—the thing that always made Meredi so happy.

I stayed over that night, but I didn't do anything. Just went to sleep. I had the whole year, right? I could take my time...

The days rolled on by as I waited for Ravela to tell me when we would be going to the depths.

It wasn’t so bad. The days were filled with memories I would treasure.

Going to the gym early in the morning and receiving Ervon’s guidance—it definitely gave more structure to what I was doing.

Going to Meredi’s for dinner—every night was fun, even with Cynthia there, glaring at me. I’d stay over sometimes too, but nothing hair-raising like what I had seen the night of the spar happened. That was fine. Things needed time to breathe.

Ravela had been staying over at my place some days. Actually, it was guaranteed that she would stay over the day after I had stayed at Meredi’s. To me, it seemed like she was hellbent on overwriting the memory of “the woman I sleep beside” and ensuring it was her I always remembered. I never once dared share my theory with her.

I hadn’t seen Elsbeth, which was a little surprising. Ravela would occasionally mention seeing her around the layer, and would note that she was still wearing the Burnmask, but she would always stop short of asking if I had reapplied it for her.

It was a little harder for me to be okay with my progress with Elsbeth being at a standstill, but what could I do when I was still so weak?

If Elsbeth hadn’t arrived, it was because her doubts were squashing the confidence I was instilling in her.

Meredi and Elsbeth—it ultimately felt like my progress with these two was slow, but then again, maybe it was just because I had gotten lucky with Ravela.

Self-improvement wise, I had never stopped. I had made a lot of good progress so far.

My body was improving. My alchemy was good. I had two new powers thanks to the Gloomspawn.

I still wasn't at the level of overpoweredness I needed to be at, however. The Path of the Salvager. The longer I spent in my more humble paths, the more I realized I was hoping for something amazing to happen if I went below the city.

Which was to say, I hoped Ravela would come and whisk me away to the depths soon.

Then, on one day, as we were approaching the end of the two-week period that Ravela had asked that I wait, someone knocked on my door.

***

There weren’t many people on the street anymore.

The lamps behind me were warm and flickering, but as I walked further along this path, that comfort faded. The stones underfoot felt older here. The lack of pipes for steam and mana to leak from made the air here colder. Even the sound of my boots scuffing the ground seemed too loud, echoing off the nearby walls like the city was desperately trying keep itself alive with sound as its fuel.

Buildings here were built taller, but lurched a little more. Many were boarded up. Iron bars were on almost every ground-level window and above them, crooked windows stared down like curious eyes.

I was still well within the Saint Giselle Layer, but the road I was on curled close to the massive wall that divided it from the Lower Layers. The city’s age was showing here. This was, for all intents and purposes, the oldest part of the Saint Giselle layer—the part where, many centuries ago, the nobility lived.

There were many ghost stories associated with this place—as if that could explain the lack of activity here—but actually seeing it with my own eyes was making me a believer. Something was just spooky here.

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone.

“I really am happy to be walking along this road with you,” Elsbeth said.

She walked beside me with her usual quiet grace, both hands folded in front of her cloak, her long hair hidden beneath a scarf and hood. Her voice was delicate, a soft, haunting sound that seemed to have always belonged to this district.

“I should’ve come sooner,” she continued, her eyes downcast. “I thought about it so many times, but I felt silly going back to you without securing our visit. And I didn’t want the Sisters to feel ambushed.”

“Ambushed?” I asked, glancing over.

Even through the Burnmask, she was beautiful. That alchemical scarring clung to half of her face so reliably. That rough, dry coating meant to deter attention, was doing such a good job that the people we passed never once looked at us. It was just a ratty-looking alchemist in his old clothes and his disfigured assistant.

I loved it.

Only I knew how bright with delight her eyes were. Only I knew her cheeks were dusted pink with either cold or embarrassment. This Elsbeth, who walked beside me, was like a secret kept between me and her.

Elsbeth nodded slowly. “You’re a stranger who has no connection to the faith. Even if I trust you, they’d need time to prepare themselves. They’re our faithful—our Saints’ most devoted, yet, they’re here, doing thankless jobs, being given the bare minimum. Someone like you, Timaeus, who lives well enough but doesn’t assist—wait, no, I’m sorry. I’m not blaming you. I’m sure you and your family have your own hardships. It’s just the way some of the Sisters see the situation… Men also cause many problems, so there is a little bit of a bias.”

“Hmm… Is this temple also like a shelter for women?”

Elsbeth coughed suddenly and then tried to chuckle. “Oh, no, no. We don’t have any of that,” she said, noticeably more nervous than before.

I studied her for a moment, inwardly gushing over how terrible she was at lying, and then nodded.

“I find it interesting,” I said. “The way this city treats the servants of the faith. It makes me wonder how we got here. It pains me to say, but I was never so interested in learning about it.”

“I know a little,” Elsbeth replied. “It’s mostly because the Saints never returned.”

“Can you give me a lesson before I walk in there?”

Elsbeth giggled. “Sure. I’ll do my best. The Sisters won’t be laughing at you. So, as the tales go, there was the Great God. They vested in 10 Humans their power and their knowledge. Using the knowledge, the Saints revived the technology of the lost age, and using the power, they repelled the hordes of Gloomspawn to establish this place, humanity’s last stronghold. But alas, time passed. The Saints perished, and in their place, humanity stepped forward. The builders learned to maintain the ancient technology. The scholars learned how to find sources of mana. The fighters learned how to repel Gloomspawn. The merchants learned how to motivate all the others… Humanity grew apart from the Saints and their great deeds. Now…”

Elsbeth looked to the nearby wall.

“Those walls are all that’s left of the Saints. When we look at them, we look at the reason why the Saints haven’t been totally forgotten.”

“How sad,” I replied.

The Saints faith was strange to me from my perspective as a player.

It was not mentioned at all in the Prologue. The people of the villages had never heard of it. They only had their local traditions. Maybe this Great God had been referenced, but in that case, they would be a being above the Land Gods that players could revive.

The city having such a developed faith system made me wonder how much of it coincided with what the devs planned, and how much was exclusive to this fleshed-out world.

“So,” I said. “If the faith is largely being forgotten, what is life like for the faithful?”

“Harder. Some nobles still worship the Saints and the Great God, and they help fund the temples. But there is limited money, and the lower one goes down the layers, the more help is needed. The lowest layer, in particular, is a truly dangerous place, and the devoted who go there to help are true heroes, but they are also some of the most… well… I haven’t been told about the rifts that exist with the faction of devoted who live in the dark down there… Only the Paladins are allowed to engage with them.”

“Paladins… Ravela thinks they’re annoying. What do they do?”

“The Paladins, as I understand, are where the majority of the military power of the faith is centered. In this city of nobles and merchants, they are the third force who act in service of ensuring that nothing falls short of the Saints’ original goal.”

“Wait, do they police the nobles? But how can a dying faith police the nobles?”

“The rumor I’ve heard is that they actually wield relics that once belonged to the Saints.” Elsbeth smiled as if hope had been breathed into her soul. “The Paladins are a large part behind why the nobility hasn’t killed the citizens of the Lower Layers. With the last embers of power, they make sure that the blessings of the Saints still reach the most unfortunate among us. Power, water, supplies—they Lower Layers have not been cut off because of the Paladins.”

“I see,” I replied.

“The Saints claimed the entirety of this grand hill for humanity. This entire hill is sacred, not just the top where the nobility lives. The Paladins ensure that remains true.”

Elsbeth spoke like the Paladins were heroes, but I couldn’t help but wonder if what she was telling me was the idealized version… Then again, Ravela mentioned the Paladins were passionate and annoying. With that sort of characterization, maybe the Paladins were all the right kind of zealots. If their moral system was based on an extreme adherence to the spirit of what the Saints did, then I could see the setting making sense, but it required the Paladins to be a truly awe-inspiring force.

If they actually wielded relics…

“I’d love to see what their relics look like,” I said.

“Me too!” Elsbeth happily replied. “I think every temple has relics, but the Sisters haven’t confirmed that.” Elsbeth laughed, her smile unburdened. “Why would they, right? If a relic is enough to keep the nobility behaving, then they must surely be amazing, right?”

“I’d wager they’re game-breaking.”

“Aww, the way you laugh so quietly is so charming,” Elsbeth said. “And there it is.”

Up ahead, just past the curve of the road and nestled against the great wall, the temple came into view. I’d imagined it before—some stereotypical gothic temple made of stone. But now, standing before it… I underestimated the sense of awe it would invoke.

It looked like it had been built into the wall itself. Huge stone bricks, corroded and stained by smog, made the walls and were shaped into arches and spires.

The entrance was framed by statues—one crumbled, one whole—both of a robed woman reaching downward, arms outstretched as if offering sanctuary. The windows had seen better days. I couldn’t tell if they were cracked or just dirty. The building was so massive, and those windows reached so high—there was no way for them to maintain them with normal means.

Old pipes ran around the perimeter. They weren’t hissing from steam escaping them or anything like that—a downright strange thing anywhere in these parts.

“Hey, is it going to be okay for me to go in there?” I asked, feeling more unnerved the longer I looked at the statues.

“I spoke with Sister Elesca. And Sister Lune. And even the old Sister who tends to the archive—I think she’s the strictest, you know. They were happy to let you in, as long as I vouch for you. And I do,” she added, quick and sure. “I do. I vouch for you completely.”

I smiled and tapped the strap of my bag. “Well, I brought enough potions to supply a siege, so hopefully that’ll endear them to me.”

That made her laugh—a tiny sound, like a bell in the haze.

“Is that going to be okay?” she asked. “The potions?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“No, I mean, is that not going to impact your finances negatively?”

“I’m very good at mass-producing these things.”

“Oh… Well, in that case, thank you, Timmie! I’m sure the Sisters will appreciate the gesture of goodwill.” Elsbeth stifled a giggle. “The children always seem to turn up with cuts and bruises.”

“Hehe… do you want to know an alchemist secret? Before we go in there?”

Her eyes lit up and she looked at me with puckered lips. Then she pulled back slightly. “I mean, if you want to share…”

“Well, I guess you are an alchemist’s assistant.”

Elsbeth nodded repeatedly. “I am. That I am.”

“Well, you see,” I said, leaning over.

She walked closer.

“Me and a bunch of other alchemists are in this feud with another faction of alchemists.”

Esbeth gasped. “Feuds? Between alchemists? I didn’t know!”

“Keep it down, keep it down,” I said, gesturing with my hand.

“Oh, sorry,” she said, her voice like a mouse’s squeak.

“Anyway, these other alchemists… They take a long time making their stuff, but we’ve got this arrangement between us you see…”

“Yes? Is that so?”

“My faction does not flood the market with the compounds that we make faster.”

Elsbeth gasped.

“See, Elsbeth… If we flood the market…”

“The price would go down,” she whispered, channeling the knowledge the daughter of a merchant would have.

“That’s right. So, you see… My faction pretends to have the same production rate as the other. This way, we keep the bigger faction from lynching us, keep them in the dark about our true production rate, and keep the price of potions where it should be.”

“Oh my. How… scandalous.”

I grinned at her. “And now you’re part of the secret too,” I whispered.

She placed a hand on her heart. “Oh no.”

I leaned closer. “Can you handle that secret?”

Her gulp was audible. “Yes sir,” she whispered, sending tingles down my spine. “I won’t betray you. You can trust me.”

I cleared my throat and pulled away, surprised by how her words hit. “I knew you had the makings of an excellent assistant, Elsbeth.”