Ch 38: The Village Shrine

Piaras stayed inside the tavern with the village chief asking him a few questions. After Derbail healed them of their injuries, Sigurd, Haydn, and her began inspecting the village for any stragglers.

"How did you figure out that they were going to try to kill us?" Aisling asked Baldeur as they stepped out of the tavern.

Piaras had asked the two of them to make sure no one tried to sneak back and save their chief during his interrogation. A few screams and cries for mercy came from inside.

The fact that he not only figured out they were in danger earlier on but also took the initiative to actively protect them was knocking down her view of him being a lazy bum.

Of course what she didn't want to admit to herself was that she had always viewed herself as being better than him and during this mission he was once again stepping in front of her. What exactly did that make her?

Baldeur had been sensing this for a while now. While she was definitely being arrogant towards him, she had never been truly malicious towards him, so he was willing to guide her a little.

"Have you ever wondered why there are only 13 aspects of nature for Anodular?" Baldeur replied.

"Fine, don't answer me." Aisling said.

"I mean, nature is vast, how can it be simplified into just 13 aspects? There are hundreds of worlds with Anodular as a Source and they all have just the same 13." Baldeur said.

"Sigh. I'm not really sure we'll be able to answer that for a while. Even someone like Piaras wouldn't be able to give a good answer to that question." Aisling decided to just humor him since there wasn't anything else to do.

"Yeah, I think if someone figured that out they'd be able to master every aspect all at once." Baldeur said.

When he lived his sixth life on Faefael, many great scholars debated this topic. Even they didn't have a good answer.

They stood in silence for a moment before Baldeur continued. "Have you ever thought about what a 14th aspect would be? I mean we have the Wild Hunt, but not the fleeing prey or something like that."

"Well, part of the Wild Hunt is understanding what prey would do when hunted so that's wrapped up in that aspect." Aisling said.

"Really? I thought prey instincts would be wrapped up in another aspect, not just the Wild Hunt. I mean, the Dark Depths deals with aquatic animals among other things and the Highest Clouds deals with flying animals. Escaping prey is different depending on their environment, right?" Baldeur said.

"I mean… I…" Aisling began to think of what he was getting at.

It was one thing to know a fact about nature, it was another to understand enough to incorporate it into your magic. Baldeur could see a bit of enlightenment appear on her face.

He had noticed during their training that she was trapping her thoughts in a very common mistake of sectioning off what each aspect could do.

The Wild Hunt warned of danger but so could Winter. Maybe not to the same degree or in the same way but the aspects of nature did overlap.

"You could have just said it came from the Winter aspect." Aisling said.

"I guess I could have. But when you concentrate on something you get this really cute face and I couldn't resist." Baldeur teased.

"Tsk. Idiot." Aisling turned her face away as she blushed.

Of course he wasn't about to tell her it was more his Psychic Source telling him that they were all acting kindly towards them to hide their killing intent. Something these people were actually really good at.

"There's a desperation in Winter that the hunger predator has when it goes without for a while. These people really wanted to sacrifice us to their god or whatever they thought it was." Baldeur said.

"They're just insane cannibals. Hopefully the others kill the rest of them." Aisling said.

After a few more minutes Piaras exited the tavern. With a flick of his wrist a flame flew into the building and it began to burn.

"Follow me, there's a place I want to check out before the sun fully sets." Piaras lead them towards the eastern edge of the village.

There was a grouping of trees around moss covered rocks. Among the rocks was a small building that had architecture that was more curved than what they had thus far seen in this world.

With everything else pointing to a connection to Tartarus, Baldeur made the connection of this style to that world as well.

The village shrine was just large enough for half a dozen people to be able to kneel in prayer before a stone with blood covered ropes wrapped around it. In front of the rock were a few packs and the rest of the belongings of their missing group.

"Apparently once a year these offerings will disappear. Whatever entity they actually worship supposedly takes them. Baldeur, can you collect them so that we can return their belongings to their families." Piaras said.

Nodding, Baldeur opened his main dimensional storage and began loading everything inside. He took a glance at Aisling to see if she was picking up on what was under the stone idol.

"They usually only get a group that they find worth of sacrifice about once every other year. Which was why they were really excited to see us. They don't mess with people from other valleys, or merchants that people might go looking for." Piaras continued.

"Um sir, something doesn't feel right about this place." Aisling said.

"Well, if you heard about the shit they did here beyond human sacrifice, you'd lose your lunch. I'm going to burn this place along with everything else." Piaras said.

"No, I mean I think there is Infernius Source energy here." Aisling said.

"Really? Is it anywhere specific?" Piaras asked.

"I think under the stone there." Aisling said.

After moving the stone, they found a small trap door that led to a small stone room underneath the shrine. It was barely big enough to fit the three of them.

On top of a pedestal was a fist sized Accursed Stone.

"Is this what you felt?" Piaras asked.

"It is but how did it end up here?" Aisling asked back.

Piaras gave a side glance to Baldeur. He had never believed any prophecies on the world's he visited and wasn't convinced this one was fully real either but there was definitely something going on.

What neither of the other two realized was that Baldeur was reading the engravings along the edge of the pedestal. 'For the Glory and Hunger of Sathanas,' was written in the language of Tartarus.

Baldeur had been coming to a good theory of what was going on and while there were still a few holes and pieces that didn't fully fit, he was certain he had a good handle on it.

An old king of Tartarus somehow found a way to flee that world and ended up here. He had been using Accursed Stones to gather Infernius energy since it didn't occur naturally.

The major question now was if this demon king was still alive and what type of plans he had.