Chapter 71 – Hierarchy
They both inspected the terrain through the gate. Orestis had opened it high above the landscape, and angled downward, so that the view below resembled a map.
They were not looking at the usual spot he used for sparring. This was still a barren stretch of wilderness, but unlike the previous site, this area possessed a rich concentration of mana within the soil. That would make inscribing the formations marginally easier.
“So what kind of formation are you thinking of?” Varra asked.
Orestis drew one in the air, superimposing the glowing construct over the terrain visible through the gate. “Something like this. It will need to be deep underground. At least fifty metres.”
“Hm… the resonance field would need to be fairly wide,” Varra said thoughtfully. “We can use five crystals on the periphery and a sixth in the centre as a catalysing anchor.”
This time, Orestis didn’t comment on the obvious star-shape. Varra was clearly much too fond of it. But at least it made sense in this instance.
He modified the formation to integrate the suggestions. They iterated the process a couple of times before coming to an agreement on the design.
Then, Orestis drew deeply on divine power—from six separate reservoirs, so that the drain from each source would remain below the threshold of notice.
Varra was immediately fascinated. “Whoa! How are you doing that?! You’re using the divine power of multiple gods at once!”
“Theft, more or less,” Orestis replied as he tore fifty-metre pillars of rock and earth from the ground at the designated points, lifting them into the air.
“Really? How?” Varra asked, looking far too excited.
Orestis gave the lich a side-glance. “I doubt telling you is a good idea.”
He then teleported to the bottom of the hole left by the central pillar. Orestis felt a thread of magic latch onto him at the last moment. He chose to allow it, letting Varra tag along through the teleportation.
Orestis had illumination spells ready the moment they materialised.
Varra, meanwhile, had complaints ready. “Hey, no fair. Stealing from gods is really evil; that’s totally my thing! Teach me!”
Even as he protested, the lich opened a small gate and pulled a life crystal out through the aperture.
At least he can remain productive while complaining, Orestis thought as he used a floating light to mark the location where the crystal had to be placed.
Honestly, this is a conversation we have to get out of the way sooner or later if we are to work together. Might as well be now.
“The last time I showed you how to do it, you went around flaunting that ability,” Orestis said.
The lich used to have a habit of occasionally going out to ‘terrorise the masses’. And being the incorrigible show-off that he was, there was never any chance of him keeping such an ability hidden. As a result, the fact that he could draw power from any god, regardless of their approval, had become public knowledge within days.
“While showing off in itself is not a problem,” Orestis said, cutting Varra off as he raised a finger to protest, “during your excursions, you would end up facing off against paladins of one temple or another. And your preferred method was to use their own gods’ powers against them.”
Varra chuckled at that. “Heh. Funny.”
Orestis also smiled. Because it was indeed quite funny. He himself had done it a few times.
Although, in my case, I did it while fully knowing the consequences.
“Yes, well, the problem was that you were making those gods look foolish in front of their own followers.”
Gods would tolerate much—well, some gods like Sobekhar tolerated absolutely nothing at all. But the point was, outright humiliation was something none of them would accept.
“I cannot be certain,” Orestis continued, “but I have a feeling it was the gods who had you killed in the future.”
Varra paused his work. “Wait, I die? That’s not good.”
“Not good indeed. And the reason likely boils down to you showing off after learning my little trick.” Orestis gave him a look. “So. Do you still want to know?”
The lich began humming and pacing, as though engaged in a serious internal debate. “Hmm… hmmm… let me think… I’ll have to check with my better half about this.”
Orestis shook his head and returned to work on the sigil formations, leaving the lich to his thoughts. The sooner Varra got over this, the sooner he’d be able to focus on the project.
As for me, it’s been a while since I’ve worked on such a large scale.
He planned to make a tunnel network for the whole thing. But rather than digging through the rock, he compressed it outward, widening the passages instead. Manipulating the stone itself was not particularly difficult; the challenging part was maintaining the precise spatial alignment and angles required across a formation of this scale.
Still, the old instincts resurfaced almost immediately. The calculations, the layered spatial adjustments; his mind slipped back into the rhythm of it with practised ease.
Two days should be doable, he thought, estimating the timeline.
“Okay, I’ve decided,” Varra said eventually. “I’ll keep it secret. So teach me.”
“You are certain?”
The lich let out a deep sigh and said, “Yes, I’ll go the route of the phantom thief with this one. We can’t handle vengeful gods.”
What does he mean ‘we’?
Orestis turned to the lich. “Just so you know; if you do slip up, I will pretend not to know you.”
“Hey! That’s mean!” Varra exclaimed, pointing an accusatory finger at Orestis. “We’re supposed to be friends! Partners in evil! Wait—not too evil. We should be about five percent good so we can support each other.”
Orestis ignored the melodramatic nonsense as usual. “You can think of it as motivation to keep things under wraps.”
“Oh. Okay. That works.” Varra nodded, seeming satisfied. “Anyway. Method.”
“Right. So, the problem starts with the faith system itself…”
He explained the process while they worked, and things progressed fairly smoothly from there. Well, apart from the lich’s occasional bursts of laughter while muttering something about phantom thieves.
But that was barely a distraction, easily ignored. Orestis also chose to ignore the wings that had appeared on Varra’s back: one white, aligned to the sacred; and one black, aligned to the profane.
Kind of nostalgic. He did the wings last time as well.
They worked through the rest of the day, the division of labour unspoken but naturally understood; Orestis handled the macro components of the formation—the sigil network and overall structure—while Varra focused on the micro: the life crystals and their integration into the spell matrix.
By the time the sun set, most of the work had been completed; every life crystal had been installed and integrated into the matrix, and the sigil lines had all been drawn. There had been one minor complication when a section of the formation intersected with a capillary branch of the mana stream, but Orestis modified the geometry to route around it instead.
They still needed to test the obfuscation layer and the effective range of the formation. Since they also added a translocation array to each crystal in case of overflow, they would also need to prepare a proper storage system on the laboratory side to receive the excess life force.
Varra had been both pleased and sceptical when Orestis first mentioned the possibility of an overflow. Which was understandable. Had he not tested the curse’s capabilities personally, Orestis himself would have considered the idea of a single person generating that much life force to be absurd.
After calling it a day, they both headed back to their respective abodes. Although, when Orestis got back home, he found out that Eleuthera had been complaining to Eirene about him.
What kind of goddess goes to her own follower to complain about her troubles? Shameful.
***
The next day, after Eirene’s spell training, Orestis returned to his room to find an unwanted guest waiting for him.
Eleuthera was standing in the middle of the room, arms folded, wearing the self-satisfied expression of someone convinced they had outmanoeuvred a great enemy.
“You are not slipping away this time,” she declared triumphantly. “I will be watching you like a hawk.”
Orestis gave her a flat look. “I’m about to take a shower.”
Eleuthera did not move. “Doesn’t matter. You’re not leaving my sight for the rest of the day.”
I think I remember having this conversation before.
Although, this time, he had a weapon in his arsenal that he didn’t have before.
Orestis opened the mental link he had with Lyse and sent: Help, there’s a pervert in my room.
Lyse’s avatar materialised within two seconds. Her pale gold eyes swept the scene, locking in on her friend.
“Lu, what are you doing?” Lyse asked critically.
Eleuthera turned to Orestis with a look of pure betrayal—like she could not believe he would drag Lyse into this. He responded with a smirk.
“You know what, it doesn’t matter.” Lyse sighed and took Eleuthera by the arm. “Come. Let’s go.”
“But I want to solve his spell!”
Good luck with that, he thought. He’d designed it specifically so that he could change the configuration on the fly. Whenever she got close to solving it, he planned to change it. At the last second, obviously.
More impactful, that way.
“It’s very interesting, yes,” Lyse said, “but you can book a time with him later to play. Right now, you should stop embarrassing yourself. You’re making us all look bad.”
“This isn’t over!” Eleuthera called back over her shoulder as both goddesses began to fade into transparency. The transition was slow—no doubt Eleuthera’s doing, so that she could say her piece.
As they disappeared, Lyse also glanced at Orestis. Then, she sent through the link: Do forgive her. She only shows this side of her to people she likes.
I know.I don’t really mind, Orestis sent back.
Had he truly wished to stop her antics, he could have done so long ago. Eleuthera was annoying in the same way an overly energetic animal was annoying; disruptive, but difficult to genuinely dislike. She was starting to grow on him.
Like mould. Or a mushroom, perhaps.
A little after the goddesses vanished, Lyse sent: You could simply tell her, you know. Then she would stop bothering you.
Yes, he replied. But then it wouldn’t be as amusing, would it?
Orestis felt Lyse’s own amusement through the link.
***
By late afternoon, Varra and Orestis completed everything needed to secretly siphon from Maxim.
Next on their list was building the equipment needed to properly study the curse. However, both of them had agreed that the actual construction would wait until after the lich body had been completed.
The designs themselves would still be prepared in advance, obviously, but the assembly had to be postponed. Because some components performed significantly better when built using that unusual, solidified-life-force material Varra had developed.
We really should name it.
Actually, now that he thought about it, Varra probably had named it already. It was probably better not to know. Orestis was unwilling to subject himself to the second-hand embarrassment he was certain to feel after hearing the name.
Halfway down the stairs, Orestis abruptly halted at the sight of an unexpected creature in the living room.
A small black shape was perched on the back of a chair, its luminous green eyes fixed on him, alert with curiosity. Its tail swished once against the upholstery.
The mauthet.
They both stood still and stared at each other.
From the corner of his eye, Orestis noted that Eirene was seated at the table with a stack of books—probably borrowed from the Divinarium. She was not saying anything either.
So. This is a test, is it? he thought, narrowing his eyes at the cat. One to determine the pecking order of the household.
As if it stands a chance against me.
Orestis had long prepared for this day. From the moment Eleuthera revealed her intentions, he had begun gathering information on mauthets and their behavioural tendencies.
Thus, he drew on a sliver of profane power and shaped it into the ultimate weapon against mauthets: a ball of condensed shadow.
He tossed it gently across the room.
The mauthet’s head snapped toward the sphere mid-flight. Its pupils dilated. It launched off the chair, intercepted the ball in the air, and dove into the shadow it cast on the floor.
A moment later, it emerged from the shadow beneath the table, hugging the ball with all four paws while battering it enthusiastically with its hind legs, its tail lashing with undisguised delight.
Eirene was also tilting her body to look under the table, a silly grin on her face.
Judging by that expression, the cat clearly has her wrapped around its finger. Or paw. Whatever.
“Since I have decisively defeated the cat, I now claim dominance within the hierarchy,” he declared.
Eirene snorted in amusement, then said, “Teach me that spell.”
What an underwhelming response.
Deciding not to make an issue of it, Orestis held up the sigil structure for her to examine. It was a simple technique. Eirene studied the construction, then replicated it immediately.
She did not stop there, however, and continued to play around with the sigils, making the shadow construct change shape.
“This is very similar to how mauthets manipulate shadow,” she observed.
“Makes sense. Someone probably reverse-engineered it from watching the mauthets,” Orestis remarked.
“You didn’t create it yourself?” she asked, giving him a surprised glance.
Orestis smiled at the implication behind the question. “I do not create all of my spells. Most are techniques I learned from books, or other people.”
Most of his original spells bordered on the ridiculous—even by his own standards—because they were created for the sole purpose of killing the unkillable.
Well, I did improve some spells when I was bored, but those cannot strictly be defined as original creations.
Eirene nodded and began creating more shadow balls. She made them in varying sizes, and set them floating around the sitting room at different heights, held in place through a gentle application of her gravity spell.
Orestis smiled at the clever utilisation.
Of course, the effect on the cat was immediate and total: it went berserk. But berserk in a positive sense.
It launched from ball to ball, batting the small ones across the room, tackling the medium ones mid-air, and diving headfirst into the large ones—vanishing inside, then erupting from another one across the room, only to jump into another.
Even then, it somehow managed to clutch some against its chest, bat others away, or flick a few around with its tail—all while meowing happily.
Eirene watched all of that with an expression of pure, unguarded happiness.
“I named her Nuri,” she said after a moment.
He considered that.
Ironic. Naming a shadow predator after the light. Still—
“It’s good. At least you didn’t name her after a goddess.”
“You mean like Nyx?”
“Or Kali,” he added. “Neither would have been a good idea.”
Eirene laughed. “I considered Nyx, actually. But Nuri felt more like her.”
Well. At least she avoided a disaster there.
They watched Nuri demolish the shadow ball obstacle course for a while longer. Eventually, the mauthet’s energy began to flag. Then, it finally stopped and disappeared into the nearest shadow.
Orestis assumed it would go off to sleep somewhere dark and enclosed—standard mauthet behaviour after exertion, apparently.
He was wrong. He suddenly felt a weight settle on the top of his head.
Orestis immediately reached up to push the cat off, but its paws gripped his hair through the shadow it cast. The creature was using shadow manipulation to anchor itself to him!
He tried grabbing hold of its body and pulling. But the thing only gripped tighter, refusing to get off. Orestis could actually feel the shadows in his hair solidifying around its paws like a cradle. Attempting to lift her was like trying to peel a barnacle off a hull.
“Get off,” he said with a frown.
The thing responded with a purr that vibrated through his skull.
He turned to the owner of the nuisance. “Eirene, get this thing off my head.”
Eirene looked at him, then at the small kitten on his head, and said, “No, leave her be. She looks adorable.”
Orestis gave her a flat stare.
“You two share the same eye colour,” Eirene added, tilting her head slightly. “Same shade of green. I only just noticed.”
Orestis stared at her for another moment. She chose to ignore him.
He felt the mauthet make itself at home in his hair, using its shadow abilities to ‘nest’ itself in.
So much for dominance.
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