Adamant Blood

Mark hovered over the forecastle of the Dreadnought, reading in the sunshine, while David piloted the ship into the full, indeterminate sun. Eliot’s drones went flying far and wide as he announced that a full scan of the place would take a few hours, so there was nothing to do but wait. Lola, Isoko, David, Tartu, Derek, and Sally had conversations about overthrowing governments that felt kinda like that Empire of Foodstuffs that Mark and Isoko had participated in back at their Xerkonan Etiquette class, but a whole lot more serious, and actionable. Here, now, were societies that were obviously hurting, from multiple directions at once, and there was no clear answer to any of the problems presented.

As Inquisitors, and as an Executioner, they had duties to consider violent action as a real solution to systemic problems. Sally especially. It was a literal god and goddess-given duty for them…

Less so for Mark.

But he had been planning on being an Inquisitor, anyway, so…

Violent action was on the horizon.

Andria and Derek were having different conversations than that, down in the bowels of the Dreadnought and working with their plants, with Derek mostly providing plant-growing services in the form of a specific kind of Good/Bad Union. Mark hadn’t spoken to her, but he was pretty sure that Andria wanted an economic solution to all of the problems here, since the problem was an ‘economic problem’. She didn’t feel her solutions would be good enough, and she was sure there was some great big impediment to economic solutions as a real solution, citing her Prosperity as a source, so she remained silent and went to work on other things.

Sally tried to drag Andria into the overall conversation.

“I didn’t know Prosperity could tell you the problems in a society,” Sally had said.

“It can’t… Not really,” Andria had said, “I can only feel out good things for multiple vectors, so… I learned years ago that the absence of good things does not necessarily mean that I’m currently looking at problems. Anyway! I gotta work with these plants. Tartu?”

Tartu had said, “Later, yes.” And then Tartu had gone back to talking about how dragonists are terrible for all governments.

Mark left to read about Worship.

The Book Of Worship, Volume one. Worship As A Language Of Power.

Gods are real. Icons are real. Nothing is a lie. Even the lies we tell ourselves are truths, in their own ways. And if enough people believe something deeply enough, in the right ways, that belief becomes a shareable power, and that power can cause effects in line with how it is believed to cause effects. Those worshipers can then go out and act in the ways they believe they should act, and thus cause effects using that stored power.

All of this should sound familiar, because all of this is very similar to Natural Skills.

This is what we call ‘worship’.

You could call it ‘collective delusion’, ‘collective unconscious’, or ‘god most holy on high, bringing succor to the believers’, and the effects could work well or poorly, and all of it might manifest as something completely different to different people, but in the end all of worship is all the same.

We will be referring the causes and possibilities of Worship in more secular ways, with more natural wordings:

Reality manifestation through demiplane creation, accessing, and restricting.

“Holy f… Reality Manipulation?” Mark mumbled.

That was a lot.

Reality Manipulationwas one of the strongest Arch powers out there. But reality manifestationwas something anyone could do? If they had enough people?

Mark couldn’t believe that. Not right now. But… Hmm.

Aethercalling was a collective action, and Elaria Valen was great at Aethercalling, so… She liked Worship as her main method of magic, so… hmm.

Back to Manipulation Powers.

Eliot had Man-made Manipulation, and through that Power he had made the Dreadnought and a whole lot more. Anything made by humans, he could influence and work upon. Manipulation Powers were always incredibly strong, even with their heavy restrictions, which were there because Manipulation Powers, Arch Powers, were based on Arcane Powers, but more free form. Not as free form as Natural Powers; more rooted in reality, like Body Powers. Which made sense, because Arch Powers were Arcane Powers but stretched along a Body’s capability.

RealityManipulation didn’t have any restrictions at all that Mark knew of, except for the normal ones of astral body size and range. But if anyone could circumvent those usual issues then it was a reality manipulator.

Only one superhero had that Power… though maybe that was untrue? Well… anyway… only one knownsuperhero had that power. Nova Nexus. Alongside Timeweaver and Glorious Man, Nova Nexus was one of the most powerful superheros in the Two Worlds, though Nova Nexus rarely did anything at all, or at least not publicly. Mark couldn’t recall the last time he heard of Nova Nexus doing anything, though he did do some stuff in New Tokyo for Crystal Tower, during the Battle of Memphi.

Mark had been fucking pissed when Nova Nexus, Glorious Man, andTimeweaver all decided to notfight and kill Addavein last year, right after Mark had come out of the Tutorial. Considering Nova Nexus didn’t have many public appearances, and he wasn’t willing to go against Addavein, maybe… maybe thereweresome big restrictions on Reality Manipulation that Mark didn’t know about?

… Hmm.

Reading about Worship being ‘reality manifestation’ had Mark trying to recall what he knew of Nova Nexus, and Mark couldn’t recall much. The guy used to be highly active until something like 40 years ago. He was still ‘one of the big guns’ that came out if shit got really bad, but he was mostly retired.

“Quark? What’s the latest news that you have on Nova Nexus?” Mark clarified, “The last big thing you read, anyway. I know we’re not connected to the internet right now.”

Quark beep-booped, then said, “Nova Nexus, real name Kuse Kin, was a second generation superhero of Crystal Tower, becoming one of the pillars of Crystal Tower for many years. He is best known for his kaiju killing and also his movie roles. One of his largest roles was the Windy trilogy, including ‘A Windy Day’, ‘A Windy Weekend’, and ‘A Windy Night’. He starred alongside Wandering Sage, real name Aeri Kanno. Nova Nexus mostly retired when Glorious Man came onto the scene 19 years ago, and now Kuse Kin bankrolls movie productions.

“Most recently, Nova Nexus was seen in the skies of New Tokyo during the Battle Of Memphi crisis, alongside Wandering Sage. A Category 5 kaiju with an incredible Temperature Manipulation Power was siphoning the world of heat to make wall-cutting lasers while also manipulating the resulting ice into hammers against those same walls. Nova Nexus empowered the walls and heroes with anti-manipulation strength, to allow the walls to survive long enough for the heroes to kill the kaiju.”

His last known action was right alongside Isoko’s grandma, huh… Mmm.

Mark frowned a little. “What was he using his Reality Manipulation for?… Strengthening people and walls?” Mark suddenly remembered something. “I was sure I’ve seen videos of him inverting a kaiju all by himself, killing it instantly.”

“You are referring to the Gore Years,” Quark said, “Taking place from 2028 to 2031, when he did exactly that, every single month, without fail. There was a lot of backlash against that from the superhero community, citing such brutality as ‘against the superhero code’. When Glorious Man appeared in 2030 Nova Nexus eventually let Glorious Man take over all of the kaiju killing duty of normal gate days and Nova Nexus went into semi-retirement.” Quark added, “I have more information on Nova Nexus, if you want to hear.”

“Thanks, Quark.” Mark returned to the Book of Worship, saying, “Maybe some other time.”

The book went on to explain how individuals could notcreate realities all on their own unless they had very specific Skills, and yet everyone was creating their own reality all the time. Everyone experienced life through their own lens; their own senses, their own rationalities, their own experiences. No one experienced ‘Truth’, though personal Truths abounded, and those were useful in a lot of ways. Even atoms and physics might one day turn out to be a shared delusion of reality itself, and indeed, to an experienced and powerful mage, this much was already true.

Mark paused again. “Quark? What part of the bookshelves was this book located on?”

“Book of Worship, Volume 1, 2, and 3, were located at the very bottom of the language section.”

“… Ah. Yeah.”

Not for beginners!

… Mark scanned the table of contents for what he wanted to know, instead of reading all the way through. Soon, he was reading a section on ‘creating realities’, and it was all about people believing something, anything, and then giving parts of themselves over to that thing. Sacrifice.

Sacrifice didn’t have to be anything big. Prayer was the most common sacrifice. Time, energy, and trust; that’s all prayer was. Prayer, given to an idea, in the ways the idea was shared by multiple people, created a shared unreality that could eventually manifest into a reality just beyond sight. That sort of reality existed everywhere that a person believed it existed, though it could only be reached by the believers, and only in the ways they believed they could reach it.

“Gods are always there,” Mark muttered to himself, “Just gotta believe.”

The book expounded upon a historical religion called Light In The Dark.

LITD was simple in action, yet profound in effect.

In the beginning of a person’s life, when they were a child, a parent would give a child a candle and then use their own lit candles to light the child’s candle, and thus the child would have a nightlight for the coming dark. In the morning the candle would have burned to nothing, as candles usually did. Every night the family would do this, and every night the candle would remain lit until it went out on its own. As long as the candle was lit the child would have good dreams, and they would be protected from the darkest of nights.

And one day the candle wouldn’t burn anymore, but it still remained lit.

That child would then have a lit candle for the rest of their lives, as long as they believed.

It was all a grand, small ritual. Every single part of the entire ritual was part of the Worship of Light In The Dark. From the person who made the candles and gave them out, to the fires passed down from parent to child, to the worship of the light in the dark right before bed, and then thanking it for remaining till the morning came. Eventually, these prayers, most of which were not physically praying, would culminate in a person connecting to the created reality of Light In The Dark.

When the child became a true believer the candle would never go out, as long as they were guarded from wind and rain. Some of the strongest practitioners of LITD, those who truly believed and who gave a lot, could keep a whole house lit with one candle. They could prevent the ingress of monsters and otherwise with that very same candle. LITD was a very, very popular religion, and it still is in some ways.

If the child did not believe, and if the child grew old enough, usually 12, and stilldid not believe, then there were historical records of the child being ritually executed or exiled as a non-person. In certain cultures there was only so much wax to go around and each candle was ‘sacred’. Failing to pray properly was not good in those early societies.

As a side effect of this kind of Worship and religion, these kinds of prayers and rituals kept children from developing Knacks or any kind of random Binding in their soul because they would constantly be ridding themselves of mana through collective worship of the Light In The Dark.

Mark had to re-read a few parts of that, because it was strange how much the example religion paralleled the religion of Kabberjaw… But also, Hearthswell, too. Hearthswell was a religion of fire keeping away the monsters. Were they both tapping into the same ‘created reality’ of power? Of Light In The Dark? The book mentioned that lots of current religions stemmed from Light In The Dark, including some of the most popular religions, like Darklight.

A lot of religions came from Light In The Dark, and almost all of them could still tap into that old power that was still there, if you believed. The original heaven of Light In The Dark had long since been lost to time, though.

… Were created realities heavens?

Mark flipped a bit.

Yup.

Right there, chapter 9.

‘On The Nature of Realities Manifested Through Worship’.

First lines:

Not every created reality is a heaven. Some are hells. Some are nothing more than a repository for power. The most powerful created realities are known as demiplanes, and they are almost always inhabited by a divinity of some sort. The divinity is usually the figurehead of the created reality. Though there might be many divinities out there, those divinities usually fall into 1 of 3 types.

There are the divinities who are dead, inactive, or otherwise beyond communication with parishioners.

There are divinities who are alive, fully interacting with people, and able to communicate freely with most anyone.

The third, and most populous type of divinity, are those divinities with a dead side that is solid, unchanging, and a living side that is more freely able to use the power of the created reality.

All of the demiplanes that are inhabited by figureheads, that have active worship flowing in and miracles flowing out, are greater demiplanes. Greater demiplanes are capable of holding souls and making real heavens and further extracting and creating power through the worshiping dead, who usually only exist as minds and figment-bodies inside of those created heavens. The personal realities of those souls inside of a heaven are usually simpler than in real life. We know this because people have been ‘rescued’ from heavens and hells alike.

Very few divinities allow a person, once claimed, to be brought back to life. Doing so would be akin to removing a power source from themselves.

All of the demiplanes that have no active mind behind their created reality have never had a soul successfully brought back to life, at all. It is thought that without an active mind releasing souls to the world, or a mage attempting a resurrection, then a soul is simply lost forever to whatever worshiped heaven or hell they believe they have entered upon death. Such souls are fully integrated into the heaven, as the floor, or the roof, or the lightbulbs, the power of a person fully turned into construction materials.

Assaulting heavens and hells to bring back the dead is a thing that can be done, though it is not done lightly. Assaulting a created reality as an outsider will have you face the entire might of a reality that is bending itself toward stability while you are coming in as an unstable element. You will likely not get past the front door.

Souls that are violently brought back from afterlives, and the people those souls belong to, are generally not thankful for the resurrection.

You can usually reach the front door of any demiplane, though, if you know how, and if you go in sideways, which brings us to the next subject of splitting religions, which happens a great deal more often than people realize.

When a religion splits the demiplane of worship sometimes splits, or sometimes an entirely new demiplane is created. Sometimes split religions become the main one, and they can then take over the original demiplane, as long as they have a bigger claim to that demiplane, but more often than not, you get a ‘continent’ of religions, all of them stemming from a single original demiplane but separated by borders more ephemeral than real, while all the rest of reality is an ocean beyond that religion’s demiplane...

Mark read about different types of heavens and how they were manifested through ritual prayer, but soon he had to stop.

Mark closed the book, saying, “Ahhh… this is forbidden knowledge, isn’t it.”

Quark asked, “Why do you say that, sir?”

“It feels too big. Too much. Assaulting heavens? Splitting demiplanes through cult creation and control and then... assaulting heaven through the cult’s backdoor…”

Mark’s voice drifted off as he looked back toward Kabberjaw’s skull, which was about 50 kilometers away. The place stretched into the sky like a mountain. The left nostril was a great cave 40 kilometers tall. It was too impossibly huge to nothave some reverence toward it all. Just being here, looking up at that thing, and feeling some kinda way about it, was a form of Worship. Of small ritual.

Mana leaked from people all the time, though the Binding, the astral body, mostly contained it, it was not a 100% containment. Mark’s Union was constantly out there in the world, acting and doing, and thus, when he looked at something, when he gave something attention, he devoted mana and power toward that thing.

Looking at Kabberjaw and feeling reverent…

It was a small ritual.

Enough rituals piling up could do a lot.

Mark suddenly thought back to the Reveal.

The entire world had been praying for an end to the Reveal, and then that happened, and 1 main god and 6 subsequent gods arose. The New Pantheon came into being, pulled up by Malaqua and also Freyala, while one Betrayer God manifested himself into Thrashtalon.

And then no more gods. Why no more gods? Why not?

Mark didn’t know.

Mark’s thoughts trailed on, toward Freyala.

Just the other day Freyala had appeared and spoken about how gods died all the time, and how the New Pantheon needed backups.

Mark knew something else about Freyala, that he had never really considered. She had two forms. One tall, lithe black woman, most often revered in the African nations. There was also a red-headed white woman, from France. Mark only knew the name of the white woman; Nurse Emily Turner. Did the black woman have a name? People called her ‘Nurse Emily Turner’, too...

Were the black woman and the white woman two different people, who both wore the guise of Freyala? Because one of them had been killed? And then Nurse Emily Turner came in… Or maybe the black woman replaced Emily? Because Emily had been killed? Because she was the first god to rise, almost at the same time Malaqua rose to power, so of course she had a target on her back from the get go.

… Oh gods.

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Mark’s thoughts spiraled way, way too far.

Holy shit.

So…

Kabberjaw here… What was Kabberjaw? A dead mortal who was now revered as a god? The Dragon King’s dragon body. The Dragon King… who made the System.

The people here thought that the Dragon King made the System, too.

So…

When the ‘System He Made’ broke so very, very long ago, did the mortal leader of the divinity that was the System die, too… Wait. First of all: Was the System divine?

The System had to be, right?

So was the ‘System He Made’, otherwise known as the System, a demiplane that had been abandoned by the death of the god that made it, and so it had laid in ruin for a long time, which was why it was ‘The Thresher’ for so long, but then Addashield and Malaqua found it and… and was Kabberjaw here the ‘dead’ part of the System, that Malaqua reinvigorated to life?

What was Kabberjaw?

Was it an Icon of the System He Made?

An abandoned part of the Old System? Something else?

Was this place connected to the System, or not?

Maybe Kabberjaw and the Dragon King had nothing to do with the System at all, and everyone here in this land were all praying to something that wasn’t real at all… But, like, sure, they made it real in the belief of it all, but… it wasn’t ‘real’ real.

So either Kabberjaw was a part of The System… or not.

Mark considered…

What did the worst case scenario look like?

Well.

The worst case scenario was that Kabberjaw was a part of the System, or it had been a part of the System, or that it could bea part of the System again, and therefore it was some sort of lever upon which the System could be moved. Seemed crazy, if true. But that was the worst case scenario, because if the Systemcould be changed by the people or the dragons here, then such a scenario held the potential to be disastrous for most everyone on Earth and Daihoon.

If the dragons could alter, adjust, or redefine the System with the lever of Kabberjaw, then they could adjust everything about life on the Two Worlds for a lot of people…

The dragons could probably… do a lot.

One of the first things Malaqua did with the Old System was to change the age of The Thresher from 12 to 18, and make it optional. In this way the Thresher became the Tutorial. Under the Old System, the broken System, as soon as a person turned 12 they were automatically inducted into the Thresher. A lot of cultures in Old Daihoon didn’t even name kids before 12 because most of them died in the Thresher.

Mark stared at the skull of Kabberjaw, and he felt soft.

Weak.

Small.

Like he was staring at Addavein, hovering there in the sky before him that first time, over Rome.

Fury rose, but that fury was quickly buried under an ocean of uncertainty.

Elkatracks, at the behest of the former would-be-dragon-emperor of Aluatha, Farhowla, had gotten Mark and his team to come here to Kabberjaw to participate in something… big.

Godly.

How big?

How godly?

How… blasphemous? How real?

Was Mark imagining something that wasn’t real at all? Or… or were all the residents of this landimaginingsomething that wasn’t real? And by their imagination, were they makingit real? Was this a cult? Or the original religion of the System?

… Well.

Mind Control Powers absolutely existed.

Mark was absolutely sure that if you controlled the minds of enough people you could makea place like this hold actual magical significance...or maybe… maybe you wouldn’t have to controlanyone.

You could get a few religious leaders with a Knack or a Knowing about people, and they could be charismatic and charming, and makea religion out of thousands of refugees. How long would it take to manifest a divine demiplane? Maybe just… 70 years? Wouldn’t even have to be a full ‘7,000’ years of history. You could do it in 70 years, two or three generations, by filling the first generation with stories of the System He Made through mind control and false pasts and whatever, and then massage their children and culture in subsequent generations.

Maybe the whole 7,000 years thing was just a lie meant to make it all more effective?

Sure, you’d lose people who failed to integrate properly, like Raptor, and you’d have true zealots, like Skybones, but that was fine. You could still manifest a reality. And what could you do with that reality? Light some lights, for sure! And maybe, with enough people believing that Kabberjaw was the Dragon King, then this place…

This place could connect to another place.

Kabberjaw could become a lever upon which the System could be moved.

A backdoor.

… Was Mark completely off base?

Maybe Kabberjaw was a function of the demons of Thrashtalon? The dragons here dealt with demons all the time, and demons had long-form plans, and maybe… Mark breathed deep. Worried. Terrified. Maybe Kabberjaw was only 70 years old—

“… Mark?” Isoko asked.

Mark looked to the side.

Isoko, David, and Derek were there.

Lola was running out from the castle of the Dreadnought, asking, “What’s going on!”

Isoko quietly said to Mark, “You’re sending out some seriously weird vibes here, man.”

Mark was calm as he spoke seriously, “I need to know if this place was created 70 years ago, or if it’s actually 7,000 years old, and how, if at all, we could make sure that it’s one or the other. Like, really, truly, make sure. I need to know that we’re not being lied to by those results.” Mark added, “Furthermore, I need to know the Powers of the people here. Are they Knacks-only? Something that can be acquired from simply Awakening in the presence of power? Or can the people here leave to the Tutorial and come back? Canthey participate in the System? Or are they toldnot to, because they can’tcome back here at all? If they can’t come back, then why not? Is it because they would disturb the belief systems here?”

Isoko was completely lost. All she understood was that Mark was trying not to freak out. Derek was pretty much the same as Isoko right now. David arched an eyebrow, sure that Mark was losing it but also that he wanted to give Mark the benefit of the doubt. Lola was still running this way.

Derek said, “I can throw myself at a problem but you gotta give me a more concise problem than whatever thatwas.”

Mark said, “I’m probably paranoid, but I’d rather be paranoid and alive than paranoid and ignoring the danger. So I need two things. One, I need to know the age of Kabberjaw in a real, serious way. Two, I need to know if there is serious power-suppression among the people here, and how they get into the Tutorial, or if they even do.”

Disbelief. Concern.

And then something clicked for David.

“… Ahh,” David said, because of course heunderstood now. He was an Inquisitor, and he had super speed. “One of those.”

Mark asked him, “This happens?”

“Of course it does,” David said, “But this is one of the most elaborate setups I have ever seen.”

Mark asked, “Is this a real danger?”

David repeated, with a variation, “This is one of the most elaborate setups Ihave ever seen.” He added, “Freyala doesn’t investigate this stuff.”

“Oh,” Mark said, realizing that Malaquawould be the one to investigate this sort of stuff. “Of course.”

“What?” Isoko asked them all, “Help me out?”

Lola finally arrived at the group, having figured out what Mark was worried about along the way. She locked eyes with David. David shrugged, unsure. So Lola quietly announced, “There are many ways in which Inquisitors are called to action, but it’s usually against cultists. There are absolutely cultists here, though, and thatis what I would be more worried about than a System attack, Mark. Believe me, if this place was a System attack, then it would have been noticed before now.”

Mark breathed out, “Holy shit. It ispossible.”

David said, “Give Eliot a decade and a slightly different Power, then yeah. He could build this place.”

“ ‘He could build this place’?!” Isoko spat. “What the fuck is happening right now?”

“It’s possible, yes. I didn’t make that connection at first, but yes,” Lola said, “It is possible.”

“What?” Isoko asked, air platinum all around her, the deck of the ship splintering slightly.

“Mark believes that this place is set up to attack the System,” Lola said to Isoko. Then she said to Mark, “But I’m not sure how he got there?”

Isoko went blank, followed by confusion, then disbelief.

But Derek suddenly believed, his vector flexing throughout the entire ship, and probably elsewhere, too, as he went, “There’s no such thing as a credible threat to the System.It’s the System!”

Mark said, “The System has been attacked before. That’s what Addashield did with Malaqua, to end the Reveal.”

Isoko just stared. “… Kabberjaw is… the System… Oh.” Isoko’s eyes went wide, the air silvering solid around her. “The System He Made.”

David easily, solidly said, “Kabberjaw is NOT the System, but it might be a god’s corpse, and that means a lot when it comes to things like this.”

Mark said, “It’s Worship and divine realm attacks. It’s abandoned divine thrones being taken over by Malaqua while the original corpse of the ‘god’ who made the System is still here, as Kabberjaw. I think Kabberjaw might be a backdoor attack.”

Isoko was firmly stuck in disbelief.

Lola tried to calm Mark, saying, “I feel that you are jumping to conclusions that do not exist yet because you have been hypervigilant for weeks without sleep, and fighting all the time—”

Mark wanted to defend himself.

Lola shook her head once, and continued, “I know you are worried, Mark, and deeply. But right now you seem to have a lot of disconnected thoughts rumbling around, and I want you to take some time and think about them. But we’re not ignoring this. We cannotignore it. And so, I would like… Derek.”

Derek stood straight. “Yes ma’am?”

Another Derek asked, “Should I talk to Walaria?”

“This is what you must do:” Lola said, “Go to the Grand Temple of Malaqua at the edge of the crater of New Delhi in India, on Earth, if you can. Otherwise any Stone Church would do— Deliver the report in multiple ways, actually. Go to a few Stone Churches, the big ones, and go into confession with Malaqua. Still, go to New Delhi. Talk to someone as high up as you can get, and do not tell anyone below a high priest about this. I’ve never had to report any credible System attacks, but if I had to, that is what I have been trained to do.”

Derek stood tall, saying, “On my way! Should be 2 hours to New Delhi.”

Another Derek said, “I’ll go to a Stone Church. Be 2 minutes.”

David spoke, “I’ve seen a few credible attacks from cultists before, and Lola has the right of it. I don’t handle this stuff myself, at all. If this were a normal System attack, if anyone reported this, you’d be met with a simple ‘we know’, asked to not tell anyone else, and then the next time you go looking in the direction that you reported the System attack, that vector of attack would no longer exist. Parking lots where grand buildings used to be. A missing mountain.” David added, “I don’t think Malaqua can do much against Kabberjaw, so this one will probably stick around.”

If that was meant to make Mark less concerned, it did not work.

Isoko asked, “What do wedo?”

Lola said, “What we’regoing to do is stay here, solve some problems, and then move on with our own business. We’re not fighting 50-some dragons. We’d just die. The most we can do is be observers, and so we must observe.”

Mark asked, “But… But that’sall we’re doing?”

“Absolutely not,” Lola said, “We need to find out if you’re being paranoid, or insightful.”

David easily diagnosed Mark, saying, “It’s paranoia, but it’s a good paranoia to have. Mark’s idea of dating the land is a good one, as is checking to see if the people are allowed to do the Tutorial or not, to see if they’re being systematically denied power over their own lives and thus being used as Worship batteries instead of as people. I’m going to talk to Eliot about some scanners. Lola?” Nᴇw novel chapters are publɪshed on N()velFire.net

Lola said, “I’m going to pray at the Pantheon Garden. David, please?”

David vanished in a flicker of speed, taking Lola with him.

Mark instantly said, “I should talk to Tartu.”

He would know about magic.

Isoko said, “And I’m coming with you!”