The Divine Arc

"Miss Callisto, show us the magic trick again!"

Callisto was hanging some sheets up for laundry when some of the orphans staying at the temple ran up to her. She smiled softly, the scrappy kids hitting a soft spot for her.

When she was younger, no one would give Callisto or her siblings the time of day, some even becoming violent. No kid deserved to get treated horribly because of things out of their control, especially for something like not having parents.

"Alright. Don't go telling any of the priests though. They hate fun."

She conjured a little purple flame with her hand, waiting for the children to finish their cries of glee before she put her other hand into the flame, producing a small bag from within the flame.

She opened the bag and handed out blue raspberry sour candies. [His] favorite, she hated sweets, though she didn't mind sour candy as much.

But she used to keep those types of candies in her purse whenever [He] was in a type of mood, and pop one in his mouth when she thought he was acting stupid or just wanted his attention. Callisto sighed. Good times.

"Miss? Why do you look so sad?" She shook out of her reverie, having been transported to daydream land for a second.

"I'm fine Roye. Just thinking about some stuff-"

"What flavor is this?" A kid interrupted, smacking on his candy, mouth dyed blue.

"Blue raspberry."

"But raspberries aren't blue?" Another kid asked, sticky hands tugging on her hand for another piece. She gave them all another wrapped candy, warning them to save it for a day she didn't see them.

As kids, they didn't listen, each of them popping it into their mouths, save for Roye.

"It's a made-up flavor."

"Then what flavor is it actually?"

"Did you make up the flavor?"

"How did you get these anyways? We know you can't cook."

"Alright, no more questions. Off you go." Callisto shooed them away, and the kids scattered off gleefully.

Though they were at the age to be in school, none of the sectors were willing to fork over a small portion of their money to put them in school.

She heard that Nox was trying to create a public school, which was the only thing Callisto respected him for.

-----

Lately, she felt as if someone was watching her. Callisto had tried coaxing them out, but she wasn't the best at stealth tactics, and when she meant 'coaxing out', it was more of Callisto yelling out 'Who's there?' at random intervals when she was alone.

Clearly, it was not working.

It couldn't be any of the church staff, they weren't skilled enough to hide their auras from her, even the Saint Templars.

But she would just wait until the person in the shadows would come out of hiding. Callisto didn't think it was a malevolent person, after all.

The real malevolence was coming from whatever was underground. It was suspiciously well-guarded for just hiding the old saint. What were they afraid of?

Tonight was the night Callisto would sneak into the catacombs, with some help from the children.

She learned that the kids, when hopped up on sugar, would go on a tirade late at night, causing chaos and making the knights run around to catch them.

She left some chocolate on all of their beds when they went in for curfew, which gave her the perfect opportunity to get in and out.

Some of the priests might seek her out for giving the kids candy, which they knew only Callisto was able to do. But they wouldn't try to wake her up in the middle of the night, considering she was a noble lady.

The only worry she had was the mysterious stalker that Callisto had gained preventing her from going, for whatever reason. But it was a risk she was willing to take.

When she heard the shouts of the templars and the noisy laughter of the kids, Callisto knew it was her time to go in.

She followed the same hidden path to the stone pile, slightly toppled due to her asking Roye to get in there and alert the stationed guards.

It seemed like the guards weren't alerted to the importance of what they were guarding, or it wasn't that important. She'd find out right now.

The air was musty and filled with dust and soot. She could feel the wood particles travel down her lungs, drying her throat, and causing a fit of coughs as she walked down the dark staircase, only illuminated by the small light from the armillary sphere at her waist.

The rays of light bounced haphazardly off the walls as she went down, step by step. Callisto felt like she had walked at least twenty floors until the ground evened out, the room expanding out into a larger cavern.

The catacombs.

Well, they were called the catacombs, but it wasn't exactly that. It was just an underground facility portion of the temple, albeit a neglected part.

Dusted books stacked on old shelves and rusty broken weapons narrowed the path Callisto was walking on. She wiped the soot off the spines of the books, reading the titles to herself.

'Ancient Gods and Legends, Lux's Predecessor, Dark Rituals and Rites of Passage… these are religious texts.'

She flipped through some of the books, crinkling her nose as the dust flew into her face.

Skimming through the pages, Callisto could make an educated guess that these books were considered sacrilegious to the religion, and all printings of the books were stored here.

Presumably, there would be some sort of outcry if they were to burn the books or do complete censorship, so the church instead chose to silently remove their availability to the public. Smart. Controlling and messed up, but smart.

The white-haired lady pocketed one of the more interesting titles, a book that said 'The Truth About The Conception', before moving forward.

After quite a bit of walking, the underground tunnel gradually opened up into a large circular room with several doors.

There was another set of stairs going further down, and even with her limited experience, she could smell the heavy stench of death emanating from the bottom of the stairs. What on earth was the Church of Lux doing?

She felt the urge to investigate deeper but felt a faint magical aura in one of the rooms to the left of the stairs. Her heart sped up. It had to be the saintess!

The door was barred with thick wooden planks, boxes shoved in front of the door to really prevent anyone from in, or out.

It looked like whoever boxed this room in was creating a final resting place. With some difficulty, she moved the boxes out of the way and pried off the boards.

A malnourished corpse of a body, gagged and tied up, flitted its eyes weakly as it stared at her, too debilitated to even be surprised at the sudden appearance of the person.

"Saintess." Callisto said, mostly to herself, astonished by the fact that she was still alive.

Her radiant blonde hair that shined like light was matted and dirty, and her eyes closed sadly at the mention of her title. Callisto cut the ties that bound the woman, only to be horrified by what she saw.

Her tongue had been harshly cut and cauterized. It was an indescribable amount of pain that they forced upon this woman, especially considering that Callisto didn't see any possibility they gave her a numbing agent before cutting off her tongue.

She could still see the streaks of old tears on the Saintess' face from the pain. Her fingers had been cut off as well, and as if taunting her, the people who had done this left medicine and packs of rations just out of reach of where the blonde woman was bound.

Even with her messed-up moral compass, Callisto felt sick to her stomach at the cruelty. The only blessing was that she was able to get some food for the woman who was on the verge of death.

Callisto fed the emaciated woman with her hands, conjuring up some water to quench her thirst as she quickly made an assessment of her wounds.

They were infected, explaining the swelling and fever, and it seemed like her immune system had all but shut down. In this state, would anyone even want to live?

"I'm going to get you out of here, miss." She began to get her arms underneath the woman's body, when the Saintess looked at her, shaking her head.

In the hazy gaze of her eyes, Callisto can see there was a resignation to death. There was no expectation or even willingness to get out alive. Callisto scrunched her eyebrows.

"I could get you a healer. It won't be perfect, but you could go on with your life."

She shook her head more fervently, and Callisto saw her eyes begin to glaze over.

"I want to defeat Lux? Do you know any way how?" The dying woman's eyes widened slightly, tears welling in her eyes, perhaps from the knowledge that she wouldn't die meaninglessly.

With her feeble strength, she used a stub of a finger to trace words on the ground.

U DIF WRLD?

Callisto nodded.

"I've come to end Lux's godhood over this world." And some other stuff that Callisto chose not to say.

What happened after didn't matter much to either of them, anyways. In response, the Saintess gave her a look that she didn't understand.

If she did, Callisto would have realized that it was not a look of sadness or revelation, but of pity. A deep, sorrowful pity, substantiated by an understanding of the world that Callisto didn't have.

Maybe if she deciphered that look, Callisto would have realized something about her circumstances.

But she didn't, and the world moves on.

ORB DESTROY FIND RELICS OTHER GOD

Punctuation would be helpful. But that would be rude of her to say.

With context clues, she could get the gist of things, though Callisto didn't know what the relics were.

KILL ETHL BEFORE

Her hand trembled, struggling to keep writing.

"Before what?" The Saintess coughed, and blood began to trickle down her chin.

Callisto attempted to do a mana transfer of sorts to get the woman's strength up, to no avail. She was at death's door.

With the last of her strength, the glorious Saintess, who dedicated her whole life to a god that neither cared nor noticed her, picked one last piece of information out of the many of which she didn't have time to convey.

DONT TRUST

Her hand stopped moving and dropped before finishing the last word.

She had written half a letter, though Callisto didn't want to make an assumption as to what it was. It was just a straight line, which only ruled out like, seven letters of twenty-six.

"Well, that's…incredibly ominous."

As if on cue, loud footsteps shook the ground above her. Shoot, did she take too much time?