Chapter 449 - The Festival and the Skyward City VI

  Cire fought back the urge to stretch as she watched Marie’s carriage float off into the sunset. Together, they visited all the attractions the festival had to offer, checked out the local stores, and skated around the city centre. On some days, they watched the colosseum’s fighters go at it. And on others, they zed around and read, turning into potatoes on the hotel’s fancy couches. When they ran out of special events, they spent their time chatting, gossiping about the people in their lives and telling tales of battles hard fought. Sometimes, Sylvia would pitch in with stories and songs, throwing in illusions to better tell her tales.

  The fun always sted until sunset, until it was time for the marchioness to return to her duties. At night, she had to host banquets for their noble guests, surprisingly many of which were eccentric enough to visit the northernmost nds in winter.

  “I like her. She’s lots of fun,” said Sylvia.

  Fox-Cire nodded. “She was always the silliest of all of my maids.”

  “Mhm. I can totally see it.” Sylvia smiled as she grabbed her silvery friend’s hand and gave it a bit of a squeeze. “Are we gonna head back into the mountains now?”

  “In the morning,” said Cire. “There’s one more pce I have to go.”

  “Where’s that?” asked the real fox girl.

  “A temple,” replied the fake one.

  “Oh, right. More god stuff.”

  “Yeah,” said Cire. “I don’t have that much left to do, so I might as well.”

  “Mmk. I’ll go grab dinner and wait back in the room.”

  “Okay.” Sucking the mana out of her disguise—they had left Marie’s on as a prank, unbeknownst to her—Cire kicked off into the evening sky. She floated through the city, hovering directly above its square as she picked out the scattered temples. There were only five of them in all. Most of the northnders worshipped either the goddess of the frozen wilds or the goddess of war. Rikael might have had a temple were they any closer to Kryddar, but even she was missing, ignored as readily as the goddess of harvest. Instead, the locals worshipped the collective, the lord of the abyssal depths, and the god of the inner fme.

  The first choice seemed like the most obvious. The collective was likely responsible for the distortion that assaulted the Langgbjerns each time. And having rejected its dominion, Cire was bound to have caught the attention of at least some of its members. But at the same time, its distributed nature was precisely why she hoped to avoid it. Perhaps, if she were an ordinary noble dy, she might have felt some affinity. But she wasn’t an artist, a musician, or a writer. That was more Rubia’s domain.

  Lest there was an existential threat to the concept of art itself, she doubted that there would be much for her to do, especially if she was unwilling to strip for a pervert holding a moistened brush. Every interaction she could fathom was headed straight south.

  With the divine collective disqualified and the dark god’s blessing long in hand, she had no choice but to knock on Dorr’s door.

  His temple was one of the few locations that vioted the city’s aesthetic, as well as one of the few pces that didn’t quite resemble a pce of worship. The giant sbs of rock that made up most exteriors in town had been repced by rge, stained bricks. They were bckened by ash and soot, inevitable byproducts of the many fires always active within the holy grounds.

  As implied by the god’s title, most of the temple’s fires stemmed from within his practitioners, but so too did they exist externally. The god of the inner fme made a habit of forging weapons. In life, he was one of the few ascended dwarves not afraid of the forge, for he transcended the beard-like state possessed by their people and became a bundle of matter-agnostic energy. It was more of a hobby than a profession, but he remained the closest thing to a god of smithing. Though most gods could create equipment, there were only a few like Dorr, who was truly specialized for the task.

  Many of his believers took up the hobby, forging various things in their spare time. One might have assumed him rather popur for his work’s retion to war, but few Cadrians cared for his worship. Smithies were certainly important, but those who purchased well-crafted weapons often did so with indifference or reluctance. The popution desired naught but to be chosen by Vel, to be granted a divine arm forged of her biosteel. A bcksmith’s masterpiece was merely a second css good.

  That wasn’t to say that they weren’t appreciated or otherwise collected. People still bought fancy weapons and brought them into battle. There was no such thing as a spared expense with one’s life on the line, after all, but so too was that the reason that the standard issue weapons were constructed as they were.

  Purposeless ornaments were cut from the equation. Boiled down to only their functional parts, the weapons were designed to be banced and durable, their enchantments and materials the key differences. After all, a level 50 warrior needed a completely different set of properties from one above level 500.

  For most troops, that was all they needed to draw out their full potential, but it wasn’t uncommon for a soldier to order a weapon purpose built to suit their needs. Such bdes came third only to accessories and pieces of armour. A sword would need to be repced as soon as its bde was shattered, but a projectile-firing ring could st for upwards of a full ascension. Enhancements and minor buffs were far more common, but whatever the case, it was a jeweler and not a weaponsmith who would ultimately reap the profits.

  And while Dorr’s disciples could certainly churn out such goods as well, few took it upon themselves to deviate from his path.

  On an ordinary day, the banging of hammers would have flooded the halls, but with no one at work during the winter festivities, the bckened stone building was eerily silent. There wasn’t even a clerk to greet Cire by the entrance, not that it made much of a difference.

  Either way, she proceeded through the temple until she found the atrium. And then, csping her hands and dropping to her knees, she spoke his name aloud.

  “O Dorr, greatest of the smiths and ruler of silent resolve, I beseech from you a task of great importance, worthy of your sacred blessing.”

  She didn't expect him to respond—she figured the weaponsmith would shy from the few most wanted by Vel—but the scenery changed before her prayer was completed. All of a sudden, she found herself deep in the forest, far, far away from any sort of civilization. She could hear all the usual culprits. The bugs sang the songs of their people while the fish spshed through the creek and the birds dove from the sky to catch them. The frogs croaked to express their displeasure while the local monkeys screamed for mates beneath the starlit sky.

  Dorr didn’t greet her explicitly. He remained in his old log house, hammering away at his newest creation while tufts of dark smoke erupted from the chimney. Oddly, there seemed to be a few Borises present. One was at her side, scuttling along as she approached the smith’s home, while the others zed around, napping in the branches and on top of the house.

  It wasn’t like she had mistaken him for some other metal iguana. Each was undeniably one of the many clones that her weapon had spread throughout the realm.

  Wandering inside without permission seemed rude, so she knocked on the door and waited for the gruff “Come in!” before pushing it wide open and venturing into the holy workshop.

  Its faceless owner was precisely as she had heard. He was a glowing blob shaped more or less like an unascended dwarf. He was short and wide, built as stocky as a hippo. In reality, the bulging lumps were probably muscles, but his shape was only approximate, cking in just enough detail that it was impossible to tell. His beard, the main part of his body, was long and curly, extending nearly to his bellybutton despite its frazzled nature. It likely would have reached the floor had he straightened it out.

  “Give me a second,” he said.

  Cire nodded silently as she scanned the room. There wasn’t anywhere to sit, so she made a bench out of her vectors and plopped herself down by the door. It wasn’t like Dorr cked furniture. Just, everywhere she looked, the room was covered in finished goods. Hammers, axes, shields, and armour ptes of all different shapes and sizes covered everything from the floor to the walls to the ceiling, leaving only a scant few pces to walk. Even if she wanted to approach him, it would have been difficult to avoid all of the neatly pced wares, which had been arranged precisely to use every bit of space they could.

  Unlike the goods made by his believers, Dorr’s work was incredibly intricate. Different materials were carefully interwoven to create the impression of luxury goods. Though in reality, he was simply skimping on his resources. If the pile beside his forge was anything to go by, the monster parts he had to work with were limited in number, so he used them sparingly, often setting them in the core of each bde whilst filling them out with metal.

  Some of the particurly odd weapons had elemental power sources built in. There was a dagger resembling the shard in her chest, a pair of boots that floated on their own, and a gauntlet that leaked primordial fme from each of its thirteen fingertips.

  The item that Dorr was working on, however, was most curious of all. It was a ball, a metal sphere the size of her fist. Every once in a while, it would rebel against its creator and grow a series of spikes, but the god of the inner fme always hammered them back down and returned it to its rounded form. The process must have repeated at least fifty times before he was finally satisfied enough with his handiwork to pull the object from its heat and pce it in a bath of ice.

  Steam burst from the beaker on contact, but the god paid it no attention. He turned around and made a gesture like he was taking off his goggles and gloves, despite having neither item on his completely naked person.

  “Cire Augustus. Welcome,” he said. He didn’t have a face, but somehow, she got the impression that the man was smiling. “You too, Boris. It’s good to see you again.”

  Cire blinked, slowly looking between the man and the lizard, who was happily bobbing his head.

  “Seems like you’ve changed a fair bit, since I st saw you,” muttered the dwarf. “Level 1000 already, huh?”

  Another series of nods.

  “Well, turns out I’ve got something special in mind.” Again, Cire got the impression that he put on his very best smile. “But it’ll probably have to wait for some other time. The system doesn’t think you’re ready yet, and I’m inclined to agree.”

  Boris tilted his head.

  “Nah, I wouldn’t even say it’s your fault. I know that doesn’t seem to make much sense, but you’ll get it soon enough.” He looked towards Cire, his gaze as expectant as it was nonexistent. “In the end, it all comes down to the details.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Cire, with a tilt of the head.

  “Good. I’d be doing you too much of a favour if you did,” said the globby god. “Now let’s see… you said you wanted a quest?”

  Cire nodded, prompting the god to scratch the back of his head with his hammer. “Y’know, that’s not exactly as easy as it sounds. I don’t got much to ask of you. It’s not like I can task you with something you’re already doing, and a weapons test would come off as more of a boon than a burden. ”He spent a moment with his arms crossed and his beard twisted in a knot. “Guess I could always ask you to help pay off some of my debts?”

  “Your debts?” asked Cire.

  “Just to be clear, I don’t mean cash,” said the god. “I owe a few guys a few casual favours. I was thinking you could pay them back for me, but I dunno. Doesn’t seem like the greatest idea.”

  Cire paused briefly before raising her voice. “I have an idea.”

  “Do you now?”

  “An exchange,” said Cire. “You’re running low on true ice.”

  “True, but I can get true ice whenever I want.” He twisted his nonexistent lips into an equally nonexistent smile. “That does give me a bit of a better idea, though.”

  Log Entry 917609You have received a quest - Transcend True Ice.

  Present the god of the inner fme with 10 kilograms of a substance derived from true ice. The resulting derivation must be strictly superior. You will be rewarded with a greater blessing.

  “There,” said the blob-man. “I’d say that’s probably challenging enough.”

  Cire blinked. “Does anything work? As long as it’s better?”

  “Pretty much,” he said. “Dunno how long it’ll take you, but you can stop by whenever you’re done. Oh, and fiddling with it should be pretty easy once you get the hang of toying with your divinity. I can give you a few tips if you get stuck, bu—”

  He froze as Cire stepped out of the hut in the middle of his sentence. He furrowed his brow, thinking that she might have immediately given up, but she returned as soon as a loud crack rang through the otherwise tranquil forest. A rge, bloody chunk of ice followed her through the door. Shaped like the tip of a spear, it was as long as the girl’s forearm and, at its thickest point, nearly three times as tall.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Something that transcends true ice.”

  “It is?” He raised a brow as he realised that her shardless chest was still oozing blood.

  “It’s mostly the same,” she said. “But it’s better adapted to divinity.”

  Dorr spent a few moments staring at the object before breaking into a cackle. He hadn’t realized that her bones had adapted. It made so much sense in hindsight, but perhaps a little too focused on Boris, the old god had overlooked the obvious change.

  “Yeah, fine. You got me. You got me good,” he said, with a missing smile. “My blessing is yours. Do with it what you will.”

  Still chuckling, he dismissed her from his realm and returned her to his temple.

  Log Entry 917610You have completed the “Transcend True Ice” quest.

  You have received a blessing from the God of the Inner Fme.

  You have felt within your heart the strength of a stalwart will, and with it, the heat of the inner fme. Your affinity for fire has been restored to its rightful value. In heat, you find only comfort and rekindling. Fire will mend your wounds, freshen your mind, and cleanse you of all impurity. For it is in fire that your will shall blossom.

  Cire blinked. After staring at the panel for a solid few seconds, she silently thanked the god and rose from her seated position. It was another, rare, bonafide blessing. Unfortunate as it was, it had come just a little too te for Cire to spec into fire. Her titur css had done away with her flexibility. At the very least, she would have to wait until she became an aspect if she wanted to unlock another slot. It was likely going to be consumed just like all the others, but either way, she was unlikely to fill the slot with elemental magic.

  The thought of combining fire and ice was entirely unappealing. It was too boring, too common. Over half the mages who went in one direction often swerved around to cover the other, as if to bance themselves out and compensate for some sort of weakness. Cire, however, had no such intention.

  She wanted something warrior adjacent, something that would allow her to regenerate rge chunks of her body at once while she dueled her father. She doubted that Dorr’s blessing was powerful enough to fill that void. And even if it was, she would need to find the time to cast yet another set of spells in the middle of trading blows.

  It just seemed impractical, probably even worse than becoming something along the lines of a cleric—not that it mattered all too much at present.

  There was still some time before she needed to make the decision.

  And after one st meal, one st night of respite, she would set out in pursuit again.