The Son of Ice and Dusk

Where I make a scene and get what I deserve

Ever since the Awakened had mentioned the New Faith, Raegan's eyes were grey and cloudy with worry.

I wanted to ask her what she thought about what the Awakened had told us about Set, but none of my friends were approaching the topic, so I didn't either.

After a while, I cleared my throat. "Thoughts?"

Edgar looked around. We weren't in the forest anymore, but in a place that looked more like an oasis. "Yes," he said. "Do you know any Mudras for cleaning clothes?"

"Sorry?"

"You wet your trousers, back in the Blasted Tower."

"I do have a thought," Jeff said. "Considering that the second clue we had was the image of the Arcane in the fire painting, and it was the High Priest. The name for the leader of the New Faith. So, there must be a correlation. Let's look for a temple."

"What has the New Faith got to do with KI anyway?" Raegan asked.

"Why did we get Jurji's letter to a world far away, where he fangirled about you?" Jeff asked. "The questions are infinite, the answers limited."

"Perhaps Jurji would be better company than some," Raegan muttered, but she sounded almost cheerful.

We walked up and down the beach, until we found a Temple in the waters. There were marble steps, so one could enter without being wet. Speaking of, I didn't know a Mudra to get oneself dry. I would need a change of clothes. I started off by taking off my trousers.

"What — are — you — doing?" Edgar hissed through his teeth.

"Don't worry," I said. "My underpants aren't the least bit enticing. And at least now you won't complain."

"How do you know words like enticing, anyway?"

"I thought we already established that I could read."

In the meantime, our friends had already walked into the Temple. It did remind me of the New Faith, in the way that this one too was white and it had a Greek architecture.

This one was huge as well, and the light seemed to pour in from everywhere.

There was an Arcane in a corner. Its aether-skin looked empty and dull. It was a priest, the same one we'd seen before, with a lock in his hand and a closed book in the other.

"Is it just me, or does it not look alive?" I asked.

"The Tower did not look alive," Jeff said. "But it was tower-shaped. An Arcane like that should move and speak, but I do not think it's about to happen."

"This altar," Edgar called us from the other side of the room. "Look at this. There's sage, and this kind of black powder... I've read about it. It seems those ingredients are here to establish contact with the dead."

That said, Edgar snorted the black powder and used fire from a torch to light the sage on fire.

"What is he doing...?" Jeff asked.

"I've always thought he was weird," Raegan shrugged. "And after all, aren't we all?"

"If those items are here, then someone wanted us to contact the dead," Edgar explained. "Don't you see the Arcane is not with us anymore? They must have passed on when Samuel Winter was here."

Edgar was right, as he usually was. Some kind of mist appeared in front of him, and if one narrowed their eyes, one could almost see the outlines of a face blurring into it.

"Are you part of the quest?" Jeff asked the spirit. "Or have we called on you for nothing at all? We can interrupt the connection."

"Oh, unlikely group of heroes," the spirit replied in a gravelly voice. "I don't want my death to be in vain."