“The kobolds,” Gyula shrugged. “I can never tell whether they’re celebrating or shouting at each other. By the way, the dark ones you brought to the island… Are they staying?”
“I don’t know. What about them?”
“We just need a few more people for an upgrade…”
While he spoke, I opened the fort tab. The kobolds weren’t wasting any time.
Welcome to the Kharinza fort control panel, Scyth!
Owner: clan Awoken.
Level: l.
Population: 78/100.
Structures: Headquarters, Vault, Tavern, Stables, Barracks, Houses, Cemetery, Merchant Stalls…
We could wait, of course, but if some of the dark cultists stay and live here, I could upgrade the fort to level two. We have all the building materials.”
“What do we need for level three?” I asked, remembering the conditions for Righteous Shield.
“Two hundred sentient residents in the fort. I have the design. We can buy any materials we don’t have. But most importantly, level three lets us build a castle!”
The usually tight-lipped builder turned talkative now that the subject was on his craft. He talked excitedly about the castle’s features; a stationary portal, fishing jetty, sawmill, workshops and a whole lot more that could be leveled up to strengthen the clan and all its members. Fort building was practically a separate game within the game. No wonder every decent clan had a person whose job it was just to manage the castle. Who among us would take on that role? Nobody but Crawler, but he already had enough on his plate…
We stopped by the fast-growing Tree Protector. Its boughs rustled over our heads. I stretched out a hand and touched one of its meaty, thorny leaves. Recognizing me, it retracted its thorns and gently stroked my hand. The tree’s range already covered almost the entire fort.
The constructed temple stood before us empty and silent, still bare of any symbols of divinity. Just a roof on carved pillars at the top of a pyramid.
Climbing the restored stars where Shazz and I fought not so long ago, I entered the temple and approached the altar.
Level l Unconsecrated Fortified Temple
Consecration requires an adept with a status of at least ‘priest
Identified: Initial.
Requirements met.
Scyth, do you wish to consecrate this temple to the Sleeping Gods?
I chose Behemoth out of the list of Sleeping Gods, and the altar transformed: green veins crisscrossed it, reached the floor, widened and ran all across the temple’s every surface. Rugged stone blocks were covered in a dark-gray finish. Bas-reliefs mottled the altar, upon which appeared the tusked face of a hippopotamus.
And again, as always when consecrating a temple to the Sleeping Gods, I—or my consciousness—was carried off somewhere into the endless and lifeless cosmos, where the imprints of divine entities whirled. Each touched me, greeting me and filling me with emotion.
Returning from my short journey, I saw something imperceptible pierce the floor in the hall’s center. A small whirlpool of viscous and sticky liquid suddenly formed, around half a yard across. It pulled my gaze to it like a magnet to steel. With great difficulty, I managed to throw off the haze and get a grip on myself. Strangely, only the priests and I saw the whirlpool, which seemed to be sucking in streams of faith. For everyone else, it was just an ordinary floor.
First Fortified Temple of the Sleeping Gods9 dedicated to Behemoth
Level: l.
Initial (1/1): Scyth.
Priests (3/39): Patrick O’Grady, Manny, Tissa.
Adepts: 169/28561.
Faith points to next temple level: 1/28561.
Build a third temple and consecrate it to one of the Sleeping Gods to support more adepts.
“Finally,” Behemoth’s voice boomed out behind me.
I looked back and smiled.
“Glad to see you at full strength again, Sleeping God!”
The divinity had returned to his previous humanoid form, but the avatar flickered; his energy was low.
“Full strength?” Behemoth echoed. “Not likely. All the faith is going to Tiamat. I can barely maintain my avatar in this plane of existence. I see that you are still alive, Initial…”
Behemoth shimmered and seemed like he might disappear any moment, so I kept it brief:
“The two armies have broken each other. The temple is temporarily safe, but one of us will emerge a clear victor in the next battle. If Shazz wins, the Nucleus will gain strength and recruit new legates; if Nergal wins, we have no chance of saving Tiamat’s temple. For now, both sides are licking their wounds and regrouping. Shazz is certain to restore the battle avatar of the Departed and form a new legion of undead far stronger than the last. Nergal’s followers will train against the desert monsters…”
“You said the Departed?” Behemoth frowned.
“Right. The lich dug up the bones of a huge monster and raised it. Who are the Departed?”
“The first sentients, offspring of Chaos. Renegades. They thought themselves equal to the gods, but they fled in fear of the New Gods.”
“Where to?”
“I know not. I do not see their presence in Disgardium.”
My conversation with the Sleeping God was short, but we came to an agreement on what to do next: we needed more adepts while both temples were whole. That would strengthen Behemoth, me and all the others. And most of all, it would give strength to Tiamat so I could hand in her quest and get new skills as a reward. When I asked which ones exactly, the Sleeper just shook his head.
“I fear that even she herself does not yet know that.”
I went straight from the temple to Shazz’s camp. The cultists had somehow contacted Morena and found a way to cleanse the soil of the Destroying Plague’s scourge. But I only saw what their method was when I reached the end of the street.
A small procession had formed with Dekotra the troll proudly marching at its head. Three cultists led nine resigned kobolds. The other members of the tribe wailed in despair, held their whining cubs close. Rvg’har the shaman limped among them, a stony expression on his face, held up on one side by the ore cultist Ranakotz and on the other by the clan chief Grog’hyr. I caught up
