“There are no shadows which can hide our enemies from the Holy Sight of Our Lord! Though darkness has swallowed the world, it cannot conceal those who would sin against the Holy Covenant which binds and shields us. And know, not later, no, know this today! That they are legion! We see them where they crawl, but they are legion I say! Ever out there, eating away at what is ours. Seeking to take what we’ve made, what we’ve bled and died to preserve and corrupt it into filth. So be alert! Stay watchful! If any would stray into sin, if any would turn against the Lord Eternal, let your voices ring out against them! Bring the light and bring our Holy Judgement down upon them!”

– Traditional Mount Gloria speech to begin the Defender Memorial Service to honor those who died in the previous month guarding the Central Water Portal.

I should have been terrified. I had a Neoteric Lord who was personally invested in killing me dead. Vaingloth was not feeling merciful or playing around. What I’d done to him, melting his eyes, was not something he was ever going to forgive, and he’d had centuries to work out inventive and horrible methods of killing people.

That I wasn’t already dead was due in part to Sola keeping me alive, but doing so had left her bound up far away from me and unable to repeat the trick. 

Which meant I really should have been dead, since Vaingloth was entirely capable of assaulting me from the other side of the city.

Except I think he might have lost track of me.

I couldn’t fault him. As far as I could tell I move moving faster than sound.

Or the threads of spellcraft he’d bound me in were as great at muffling my hearing as they were at blinding my eyes.

The person carrying me, who I probably should have been terrified of as well, didn’t seem to be encumbered by any of that though. They simply ran, carrying me like I weighed nothing at all.

Not wanting to be dropped if we were moving as fast as it felt like we were, I lay still and tried to work out what came next.

Death.

Mine.

Maybe everyone’s.

Which was not a particular helpful observation, even if it seemed like it was unquestionably accurate.

I’d messed up. I wasn’t sure where. Maybe healing Mumora? I’d known that was a bad idea but I did it anyways. I did it anyways but I didn’t regret it.

Which weird. I’d always imagined being caught at something and how angry I would be at myself for whatever stupid thing had landed me there. I knew I’d feel like that because of how angry at myself I always was when I came close to being caught.

But that wasn’t how I felt this time.

I didn’t know how Mumora was doing, or how any of them were. I might have gotten them all killed, but as I lay there in a stranger’s arms, being carried somewhere  not even my own personal god knew where, I saw that I honestly didn’t regret anything I’d done.

Sure, killing the patrollers and the Inquisitor hadn’t been the best choice I could have made. Maybe next time I’d choose differently. In the moment though, unleashing the wrath Sola and I had felt had been what I needed.

That moment had made sense. Dying afterwards also would have made sense. I wouldn’t have like it, I was glad it hadn’t come to that, but it would have been an understandable outcome of my actions.

The situation I was in though? It made no sense at all. Blinded and deafened and as helpless as a baby was not a state I’d been prepared for.

What was I going to do about it?

I had no idea.

Relax maybe?

I mean I was supposed to be dead, and while there are far worse things than death, I couldn’t picture any of them involved by held by strong and sheltering arms while I was whisked away from danger.

Heck if this was some wastewalker monster that had developed a sudden urge for Ratkin-on-a-stick or something, they were welcome to me. I’d be dead but at least without the dramatics and misery that Vaingloth had in store for me.

Except, I couldn’t quite make the leap to accepting that idea.

I wasn’t alone anymore. If I died, Sola was going to lose her connection to the world. Best case she’d wander around as a flickering divine spark until she found someone else to welcome her in. In the worst case, the beast, or maybe even one of the Neoteric Lords, would eat her.

I didn’t like any of those possibilities so I had to live.

I couldn’t do anything while we were moving, and I had no information to plan with for when and wherever we stopped. That left me with plenty of time to fret needlessly though, which was an activity I had lots of practice with and was getting better at all the time.

My thoughts were happily spinning out into increasingly ridiculous scenarios when we came to sudden stop. There should have been a jolt or a sense of deceleration, but instead, one moment we were moving fast enough to outstrip the wind and the next we were still.

“That should have snapped all those threads, but let’s get them off you just in case,” a soft voice said as I was placed onto a hard floor.

One by one the threads of spellcraft which had bound me were cut away, first the ones tying my legs together, then the ones which bound my chest, and finally the ones which had wrapped themselves around my head.

The cocoon I’d been trapped in fell away to reveal a surprisingly well lit basement room as well as my rescuer.

She stood about half again as tall as I did. Where I had more human traits than rat ones, she was the reverse, blending mostly fox traits with a slight morphing towards a human posture and limb length proportion.

“I’m not sure who you are, and I don’t think a ‘thank you’ could possibly be enough, but thank you anyways. That was a bad spot you just got me out of,” I said, feeling oddly secure under the circumstances.

Like I knew this person.

Or, was it this type of person?

Or was it even me who knew them?

Sola? I asked silently, listening for her thoughts as best I could. Do you know who this is?

There was no answer. Or at least none in words. I did feel a distant warmth bloom inside me though. 

My brain didn’t know how to process any of this, but it was smart enough to listen to the unspoken reassurance my god sent me. 

“It could have been worse,” the fox-lady said. “He could have been there in person.”

“If he had been, it might not have gone all that well for him either,” I said, assuming that we were talking about Vaingloth.

“You’re not the first God Bearer he’s encountered. Though I suppose you might be the first one to channel a miracle quite that big. Is who I am not coming back to you though?” She turned in a circle as though there might be a side of her which would jog my memory.

“Have we met before?” I asked, knowing for a certainty that we hadn’t.  I’d met a few Foxkin in the past, but like me they were more humaniform than this woman. She was closer to a fox-version of a Wolfling, with same sort of short fur and a snout and a tail and digitigrade legs the wolf-people had, just sleeker and red where the Wolflings were typical bigger and grey.

“Not in these forms, but my spirit and your shard worked together for an uncountable number of years.”

“You know Sola? Wait, can you cut her free too? Whatever Vain..” I got half his name out before she stopped me with a hand over my mouth.

“Don’t use his name or any of his titles,” she said. “Normally he doesn’t listen for them but at the moment? He’s going to be searching for any trace of you he can find and if he hears his name in your voice, we’ll have a problem I may not be able to outrun.”

“Understood.” Among Vaingloth’s many mythical abilities which people loved to tell stories about, the idea that he could hear his name whenever it was spoken. For those who deluded themselves into putting their faith in him, there was the belief that Vaingloth himself would answer their prayers if they were just good enough because he could hear each and every one of them when they prayed to him. Given how many people were in the city though and how often they prayed for this, that, or the other thing, that had seemed like an impractical hope at best. That he was willing to make a special case for me, seemed less impractical however. “What about made up names for him? Does it matter if we’re thinking about him or is it the actual words he’s listening for?”

“There’s no guarantee of protection from him, but other names are less likely to attract his attention.”

“Okay, well then, Melty Boy bound Sola up too. I think it was the same spell he used on me, but I can’t tell where the strands are?”

“Melty Boy?”

“I wanted to set him on fire but I had to settle for just melting him a bit.”

“Ah, that would explain why he struck out at you. Normally he would have tried a recruitment strategy.”

“That would have been a colossal waste of time. I will never work for that ass.”

“Others have said that and been convinced. He has many strings he can pull.”

“Wish I could hang him up from them,” I said. Killing the people had been a sin. Killing something like Vaingloth, who should have died ages ago, would be doing the world favor.

“You’re not alone in that either. Though in decades of trying, I don’t know if any have had as much success as you have. And, you really don’t know me? My name is Zeph.” She looked hopeful but all I could offer her was a shrug.

“I wish I did, but Sola’s silent.”

“He must have used a different spell on her then. One not bound to him, probably to isolate her. Otherwise the spell on her would have unraveled too when I freed you.”

She spent a moment paused in thought and I gave her the time she needed.

“I think we need to get you to someone who can break one of his bindings,” she said.

“There’s someone in the city who’s more powerful than he is?” I couldn’t picture it but I also couldn’t have pictured running into a god while fleeing from the murder of a patroller, so my imagination clearly had some significant limits.

“No. Not in the city and not more powerful, but possibly able to break the spell you speak of.”

“There’s someone out in the wastes? I thought the only thing out there were ghosts and monsters?”

“There are as many or more ghosts and monsters inside the city as outside.”

I hated the city, I hated the people in charge of it, and I hated a pretty fair number of the people who lived in it, but the thought of leaving the city still terrified me. I knew the reports of the wastelands were probably overblown. Vaingloth’s people always made things seem worse than they were, and he had every reason to keep people fearful and huddled inside the walls where he could control them.

But there was some truth to the fact that there were terrors outside the walls.

Under the circumstances though, taking my chances with the terrors probably was the better option. 

With my life officially that messed up, my thoughts were drawn back to the other lives I’d disrupted. The ones who deserved for me to do something to fix the damage I’d done to them. Assuming that was even possible.

“One thing, you freed me, but what about the rest of the people at Lucky’s? I’m guessing you couldn’t rescue them too?”

“No. I couldn’t. I’d hoped that by drawing you away, it would draw Melty Boy’s attention from them too.”

“Do we know if that worked?”

“He is searching for you and since he hasn’t found you he may not have taken any action against them. If we try to circle back there though, one of his sentries will be waiting for us.”

“And I’d be doing them even more harm. Yeah. It’s a terrible idea.” And there was the anger at myself that I’d been expecting.

“You haven’t done them any harm.”

“Not directly, but my actions set this all in motion.”

“Then before judging yourself, perhaps you need to watch for how it all plays out. Unfortunately, I don’t think we have the time to take a wait and see approach. “

“Are we in danger here?” I asked with more than idle interest.

“Not yet, but it looms over us. He will find this place, there are only so many places we can hide within the city. Where we need to go is the Factorum. He won’t, and I think can’t, follow us there.”

I’d heard of the Factorum. Lots of people had. It was a city, or it had been one before it lost its Lord. Since then it had stood somewhere impossibly far off in the darkness, with no Fire Portal or any other portal, and no people. Just a silent mausoleum to one of the few Neoteric Lords who’s reign hadn’t been eternal at all.