Chapter 8 Bast Familia (2)

"Wat?" Bast said caught off guard.

"I mean, you're a goddess, when you descend can't you choose which form to take. After all there are cat people, why wouldn't you choose the form of one of them," I asked.

The woman standing next to the Goddess sneered, but Bast calmed her with a hand.

"It is a part of the Rules we Gods set ourselves before descending to the Lower world. Humans are like a blank slate, not as durable as Dwarves, as nimble as Elves, or as strong as Amazons. They don't have the sharp senses of Beastkin or the great eyesight of the Prums. So we decided to limit not only our powers, but our forms as well."

I shook my head in disappointment. "A cute cat eared goddess, now that would be the dream."

Ma gave me a flat stare, a tinge of disappointment in her eyes, she still had the gag on her so it looked a bit odd. Da on the other hand was nodding along to my wise words.

"Ok brat, let's move on," Bast said, a bit of anger obvious in her voice. "I want you to answer me, are those two next to you, the dwarven man and the elven woman, your parents by blood."

Regardless of if I said yes or no the Goddess would know the truth. Her piercing gaze that roamed my body was already taking every nuance of my frame and features into consideration.

"They might be," A true statement.

Basts gaze became colder.

"Are you a half-elf half-dwarf?" She asked.

"Perhaps."

"Is there dwarven blood in you?" she growled.

"The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell."

"Boy! I want to treat you well, in fact even if they are not your parents and you are not a half-elf half-dwarf I will bring you into my Familia. There is no doubt you will be handsome and the envy of many when you grow older. It would be best for you if you comply."

Was she a shotacon?

"Isn't it kind of unfair that you Deities can tell when we are lying but we cant do the same for you?" I asked.

"Yes, but so what?" Bast asked, getting to her feet.

I shrugged. "I mean, it's just kind of messed up, we cant tell an outright lie or try to bluff our way out of a situation."

She slowly began walking to our group, the woman that was on the dias behind her following closely.

"We give you a Falna, the ability to reach realms beyond what people are normally capable of, all we ask is for us to be taken care of and entertained. It is a fair trade."

I nodded along, my parents were stiff with a bit of fear in them. Gods weren't worshiped the same way as back on earth, but their aura still gave people a sort of inherent reverence.

"Well, since you can tell when someone is telling the truth…" I looked at the goddess dead in the eyes.

"Currently our location is broadcasted to the being that wiped out the one raiding party. There is a higher chance than not that he is already on his way, and since I made sure to broadcast the location multiple times when we reached this city there is no doubt he knows that we are here. Should you kill us to silence us he will still have to do very little investigation to find out that this city and more importantly your familia was responsible for burning down a part of his forest and kidnapping me and the two next to me."

Bast stopped in her tracks, her eyes opened wide.

The entire room was looking back and forth between the Goddess and me. My parents were looking at me in surprise, I had never acted so arrogant and brash before, but I never really had a reason. I had spent my days learning, which unlike school on earth which was filled with having to regurgitate information to pass a test, this was filled with useful and interesting things. Fighting, monsters, magic, alchemy and smithing, even the history of the world, all of it was compelling to my young mind, and my parents had no issue teaching me all they knew. I was actually pretty certain that to most kids this was the norm and boring so they would rather spend their time playing with friends.

I made sure to ignore the point that because of my parents' caution… I had no friends.

"You said being… what and how," Bast asked slowly.

I fished my necklace out from underneath my shirt and showed it to her. "A Spirit that is able to track us using this."

Realization dawned on her, her trepidation gone and excitement once again on her face. "That's how, the Miracle of a Great Spirit. Still it must have been incredibly difficult to accomplish. A boy blessed by a Spirit with the blood of elves and dwarves."

I could see the greed on her face, not that I expected much from a Goddess that ran a slavery Familia. Is this how the pretty girls felt? They only see what's on the surface, not the amazing person beneath… or something like that.

"A Spirit, no matter how powerful, will never kill a god. When a mortal kills a God in the lower world their soul will be judged by that same god when the mortal passes."

I wondered if I was the same, after all I had been thrust into this world by the Big G himself, maybe he would take my soul back after I died, or maybe I was permanently in this world's reincarnation cycle, either way I wasn't going to risk it either.

"But that doesn't mean he won't kill more of your Familia members, and you have already gotten substantial losses. I don't know how much you want to take me, but I can almost guarantee you it's not worth the loss of so many of your followers, not to mention they themselves might surrender instead of dying pointlessly."

I didn't know how devout Bast's Familia members were, but I did know that no one liked the idea of dying for no reason.

"I could always force my Blessing on you then you would be reliant on me."

I really didn't like the idea of that. It would take a whole year for me to be able to convert to another Familia if she did.

"But would my pettiness die down enough so that when the Spirit did come I wouldn't ask him to take it out on the other members."

We were both trying to hold each other hostage, one by a Falna and the other with people's lives. Eventually Bast decided that she wouldn't risk the lives of her Familia members. A cold smile spread across her face.

"Fine, we will treat you as an honored guest until the Spirit arrives then."

I could tell the underlying message instantly. If the Spirit didn't come soon then I would be forcibly conscripted into the Familia, and if the Spirit was weak enough, then it wouldn't be able to take me back.

I knew that Teshgar had to be powerful if he could wipe out so many Blessed, but I just hope I was right about him being on our trail.

They took my parents and I into a private living quarters with guards posted outside and the three of us breathed a sigh of relief. Ma's muffled because of the gag.