Vesperia

Twenty four hours, from true midnight, till the next one. That was all the time the newly chosen Prophets would get to complete their first omens. Of course, time passes differently in the Realm of augury. But as soon as the time on Svarga reached the auspicious twelve, even those omens would be forced to close. And once they did, calamity would certainly ensue. That was law.

"Every year, after the ceremony of the new chosen Totem wielders is carried out, veteran Prophets are scattered around the planet to clean up the unconquered omens that result from it. The average number of chosen Prophets per year is eight thousand people, of which thirty percent are lost to the Realm.

The success rate is that high since the chosen were mostly from those who had trained and prepared well for it."

"Were? What has the Grand-oracle foreseen?"

The previous speaker continued with a slight nod,

"Fourteen thousand would-be Prophets were chosen, and as of now, 9pm... approximately thirty percent of them have left the Realm of augury, and those numbers are likely to remain the same."

The hall fell into deep silence, one so uncomfortably eerie amongst the five overseers of Svarga and the Grand-oracle's representative.

Have the gods have forsaken them? But this was just the beginning.

———

Her eye slits were thin and straight while her eyes were closed, her white eyelashes and eyebrows still noticeable on her considerably pale and round face. With how smooth and radiant her skin was, you couldn't tell that this woman had lived more days than there was in a century.

Her long and flowing milky-white hair were raised to point at the black void below as she flew upside down in mid air, while her folded legs were facing the brilliant white sky.

"Hmm. What a mess this has become." Her powerful voice echoed within the void even without any walls to bounce on.

A massive red and golden scaled serpentine dragon swam and coiled around this woman as it spoke,

"A mess that even you could not forsee?"

The woman, still not able to bare this spirit's taunts after so long, answered calmly and boldly, "The gods hide whatever they want from everyone, and even me at times. But outside that, there is not an outcome I cannot predict."

The void became silent for an unknown amount of time as the woman continued to meditate.

"That boy... he definitely made it out of his omen." She added.

The dragon chuckled in a hoarse voice, "You said the same thing last year, but he wasn't even chosen."

The woman finally opened her eyes, her irises glistening with a bright amber glow. Looking at the dragon's sharp grin, she gave him a stern side glance. "I will have your tongue."

But the spirit brazenly continued, "Oh please, save your fetishes for your husbands and wives. With how many there are, there should be a weird one that likes to, what is it called? Cosplay, yes! Hargh hargh hargh!"

Gently flipping her body till she stood straight in the air, she grabbed the dragon's scales and moved its humongous figure with ease to wrap around her lightly clothed body and wore it not like like a scarf, but a dress... literally with her golden jewels and ornaments in their correct places.

Pulling the red veil over her head, the Grand-oracle hid her arms in her wide sleeves, not minding the black blood her outfit was pouring out profusely.

"Whimper for me, Tenko."

———

The Kailash arena, where Arley had told Ikky about was located atop a snowy pyramid mountain at the central plains of Mahar. Well, the arena itself was a little over the mountain's zenith; it was flying.

The arena itself, floating meters above the snowy mountain's peak, looked like an hour glass, or more precisely, a traditional black drum. Twirling and snaking randomly around that floating drum was a brilliant line of fluid white light.

"Woa- oh!" Ikky exclaimed in awe as the cloud he and Rick were sitting on flew towards the flying drum. He could already see crowds of people atop the arena on their various Vimanas, sitting around the center stage.

The top of the 'drum' was very wide. It was so big, it was spacious enough to contain a small village. The sitting spaces were on the outermost ring of the round top, with an empty space in the ring after that, and the main arena being at the center, enclosed in a dome-like bubble.

"This is it." Yaga said as the cloud descended.

Meanwhile, Ikky sighed, feeling exhausted already as he ran the deciphered information of his Virtues in his head.

"Great blessings, attract great curses. Or is it the other way around for me?" He asked himself.

"That saying is related to attaining gifts and getting envy. But the gods do not envy you, Equinox. Your kind don't last long enough for them to care."

At Yaga's humbling words, Ikky rolled his eyes. All she had to do was tell him he was using the proverb wrong, not slap him in the face with it.

Ikky looked at the man lying down on the cloud beside him and then hummed in confirmation. At first it only seemed like people could not hear his conversations with his Augur Spirit, but after a few hours of Yaga's nice to indifferent talks with Ikky, he had confirmed that others can not even see him talking. Yaga's existence was unnoticeable to all but him. The hair pulling, mouth movements and even the facial expressions Ikky made at her were unnoticeable.

It was a peculiar phenomenon, however it was certainly useful, considering she would be the only being he would want to share his super-personal information with, like his Totem.

"Have you figured out what it does yet?" Yaga asked, her voice sounding amidst hurried winds blowing by their ears.

Ikky itched his head as he read through his Prophecy.

"Why are these things never straightforward? What's with the riddles?"

Yaga cackled, "Blame it on your gods' sense of humour."

"Using totems is against the rules here... Is what you said, right Rick?" Ikky asked.

Without opening his eyes, Rick answered comfortably, "Well, kinda. Besides, who'd want to unleash their totem in front of hundreds of strangers anyway?"

"Oh boy." Ikky sighed.

Totems are more like lifelines to their wielders, as every one of them has their own strengths and of course, weaknesses that can be manipulated and used against them.

Regardless of whether those who wanted to know what a Prophet's Totem was, be it family or strangers, a Totem-wielder should only reveal the properties of their Totems to those bonded with them through a binding contracts, or those who they would kill.

Using one's Totem at a popular and regular joint like the Kailash was practically the same as asking people to guess their Totem's properties.

The Prophecy of Vesperia is written as:

[When you read the holy scriptures that your Lords have sent down, there will be elements that have been made to repeat, so that they may remind you of what path you should tread always. And just as those elements recur in prayer, so will they in the blessings that your Lords have sent forth... in your totems like the shell of a boiled egg.

Forged from a vigorous and applauded vesper, this totem will allow its wielder to realise that shell and harvest the yolk like ingredients to form a meal of their capabilities.]

Broken down in understandable words, the first paragraph of the prophecy spoke of how there are certain elements in totems that are alike. Totems have been known as individual and unique, yet those elements persist.

The second paragraph reveals the ability of Vesperia as a totem that could recognise those common elements in other people's totems and harvest the cores/ true form of said totems as spells (symbols).

In simpler terms, Vesperia was like an empty grimoie that Ikky would have to gradually fill up and arrange in order to create magical spells of unknown capabilities. It also helps remove the flashy and deceptive parts of other people's blessings/ totems so he can harvest those cores easily. It didn't mean he could see what other people's totems could do, just that he'd be harder to trick into believing a totem could create water when all it did was shoot it out from a filled storage.

Essentially, Vesperia could allow Ikky to create miracles and see through other people's magic tricks. These were the core points of prayer— to be blessed with good fortune, and to not be led astray.

Wow, it sounded like a glamorous and really versatile ability! It just has a few, simple minor problems like harvesting the cores of other people's totems when there was a solid rule that prophets should not use their totems around others at all; that he would have to learn a new language that probably no one in all the eight planes of existence would know; and that he would have to harvest a reasonable number of these individual symbols to create any miraculous spell at all.

Yes, just three... simple... PROBLEMS.

Ikky would have to ensure he has a really long life before he would be able to accomplish anything major with Vesperia.

Yet, he was on his way to the Kailash, a place that reduces the skeptical mortality rate of prophets even further.

The vimana descended.