"The world is dying!" Shouted the priestess at the top of her lungs. Before her burned the precious objects she had once used to bring glory to her lord, the God of Light. All of those objects were incredibly valuable, made out of the rarest, noble metals and the priciest gemstones, and just a week ago this woman would have been fervently protecting them. Now, it seemed she could not care less.
The smoke was sickening. It slowly converged above the temple, a twisted image, a parody, reminiscent of a rain cloud that released not water, but flame. The grand building, which had been a bastion of hope, healing and good, was now blackened by the fires, started by the servants of the same God who's name had been praised in the halls mere days ago.
Urdal rubbed his hands together as he observed the insane woman. Her eyes were red, bloodshot due to the lack of sleep. Underneath them hung black bags, further intensifying her glare, lacking sanity and void of any reason. The once pristine white robes, adorned with yellow designs, were so filthy now, they appeared grey. Soot, sweat, dust, ashes and even some blood clung to the fabric of the cloth piece. Her hair was let loose, dirty blonde locks spliced together by liquids of unknown sources, and the funny cap lay somewhere in her feet. A completely unhinged follower of a God who had been taken away from them, leaving nothing but death.
The observer smirked and resumed his rounds through the town. That was the temple district taken care of - he had seen what he expected he would see. A mad woman rambling to the flames. There were no other observers. Everyone, who was still sane, was sitting in their houses, doors locked tightly, and barricaded on top of that, waiting for the end to come to a close. But could the End end, Urdal wondered. It was not his place to raise that question. Nor was it his job to ponder. The wise men, who had once ruled over the world, were now reduced to rambling piles of flesh and filth. They had taken it the hardest, for some reason. The observant half-elf did not know what could have made them so weak in the head - after all, they were the smart ones, were they not?
But their knowledge could be the reason they were more scared than anyone else. They knew what was to come, those old coots, and they did not want to tell anybody. Urdal was not concerned. At the moment, he felt quite fine. True, the Sun was not itself, glowing dimly, as if perpetually shadowed by clouds, even if there were no such airborne bodies in the sky, but that only meant more shadows. And the paroling observer was fond of the shadows. They gave him a place to stay, to hide from prying eyes. The shadows had saved him many times, and he was not about to refuse a few more of them.
The screams of the priestess slowly died, replaced by the loud hollering of traders. Greedy men could not be dissuaded so easily from their opportunities of making a profit. The marketplace was somewhat livelier than the crossing in front of the temple. There were three merchants, standing by their stalls, waving their arms and trying to sell their merchandise. The prices were agreeable enough, but Urdal could tell those were the oldest products they had. The greedy salesmen were trying to peddle off the worst produce they possessed so that they could say they actually helped the community. They would keep the best of the best for themselves. They weren't stupid, they knew what was coming. And what was coming was unknown. That scared everyone.
"Hey, come buy some food, you look like you need it!" Called out one of the merchants. A fat, balding man in his fifties, covered from head to toe in decent clothing. An apron hung from his neck and tried to hide his huge belly, but failed miserably. This one was offering vegetables. Dirty, old, scrounged up veggies. Urdal shook his head.
"I can live without 'em." He declined the salesman's offer and went on his merry way.
And merry it was. There was not a single soul interested in stopping him. No guards, no beggars, no other people going about their business - nobody. Everyone was hiding. Everyone was still afraid. Urdal had been afraid, but only for the first three days. That's when things were bad. The Earth itself was screaming, and cries of pain echoed through the skies. They never saw anything that resembled a humanoid, but they kept hearing them. Screeching. Moaning in agony. Some said that the souls of the Gods were calling for help, trying to invoke the mercy that men had sought to find within their divine lords not too long ago. But, as the tables had turned, none of the calls were answered.
There were streaks of hope. They saw the skies part. They saw the Last God crash into the Earth. The light that erupted from his landing was blinding, yet soothing and beautiful. All of them hoped he would win. But they did not see him go back up there. They did not see him again. He fought something and died. But the bad thing - it was also dead, because nothing came for them. As strange as it was, it looked as if though everything was over.
But the Sun rose and shone again. The world went on. But there was something else - something was missing. The order, established by the lone notion of the Gods, was destroyed. Now there was no reason not to commit crime - who would jail the criminals for eternity after they died? The authorities did nothing, as they were still afraid. Those who tried to do something were killed like animals, mauled by tens of angry people, looking for answers and finding none.
Those who served the Gods left. They got up, prepared themselves for a journey, and left. Some theories circulated - one claimed they were off to fight the bad thing that killed the Gods. Others said the holy men would kill each other in a tournament to decide who would become the new Gods. Third claimed there was a new land, somewhere far to the East, and that those who had served the Gods were informed of its whereabouts. Urdal did not believe a single one of those stories. He thought they had gone crazy and were now looking for something to worship. They needed their fix, after all. Those holy men were no better than the Untouchable ones. Take their thing away, they go mad and die. The same principle.
The commotion, caused by the trio of merchants, died down as the patrolling observer walked into the residential areas. He looked around and wondered. Those houses were all far more fortified than ever before, yet they looked the same way. Urdal would have picked one at random, he would have sneaked in and stolen a thing or two. Before the death of the Gods, of course. Now he felt no need to do such things. He had done it three or four times already - the fourth day of the week which began after the death of the divines. He had money - enough to last him. Or so he thought. At the very least, he had enough for food, and that was all the concerns he wanted to deal with at the moment.
Out of the corner of his eye a figure appeared. It was coming from behind a building to his left, but it did not look like a robber. It did not look like what it was, actually. The black was actually a long, flowing robe, trying to conceal the voluptuous curves of a female. The dark fabric was embroidered with golden lines, running up and down the garment in a strange, somewhat pleasant fashion. It was a robe that priests would wear, but what kind of priest would be so cool headed so as to not destroy his or her clothing? While thinking about the nature of the priestess walking towards him, he heard a scream. A startled scream, one he had heard a few times in his life before the death of the Gods.
People screamed like that when they found a stranger in their homes. He had been found in the homes of people before, and they had reacted by producing the same scream, he would know what it was. The scream came from the house to his right. A dirty man burst through the window and started running away from Urdal. Another scream came from within the house. Something had went wrong. There was no loot on the robber, and there was a sheath for a knife, but no knife in his hand or the scabbard.
He was not about to go running after the criminal, but he was interested in finding out how had his coworker messed up, and how much damage had he done. At least, that is what he told himself. On the inside, deep down where he did not control himself, he wanted to help the, most likely, wounded person. In these trying times people did not need to die by the hand of other people. Unbeknownst to him the priestess had made her way to Urdal already. He saw her, and couldn't help but stare as she raised her right hand, and an index finger, adorned with a cerulean nail, pointed at the culprit of the crime.
What happened then astonished the patrolling observer. The robber did not stop running, but his hands shot towards the back of his head... Right before he collapsed on the pavement. The brigand rolled once and bumped against the wall of the building opposite of the one he had just left. Judging by the lack of movement... The dirty man was dead.
Urdal made a step back, so as to not get any closer to the priestess, but her hand had been lowered. Two golden eyes looked at his own green orbs, and even this short contact of the ocular organs of these animate beings was enough to convey to the man that this was not an ordinary woman.
"Are you alright, miss?" Called out the priestess, walking past Urdal and situating herself in front of the broken window. Her voice was soft, yet stern, accompanied by a low pitch. It was as if she wanted to calm the inhabitant of the house down. The unwilling participant turned around to have a better view of the occurrence.
"He... He stabbed my boy!" Cried an elderly woman, kneeling on the floor, clutching something in her big arms. She was quite massive in size, but she wasn't all fat - she was also quite tall. Her hair was hidden by a red and white kerchief, while her cheap dress bore an indigo blue color. The little thing in her arms was not visible from the angle at which Urdal was gazing upon the unfortunate woman, but its whimpering could be heard clearly.
"Stay calm. You, get in there and bring me the boy!" Ordered the priestess, directing the last sentence towards the patrolling observer. He wouldn't have complied with this order under normal conditions, but it was leveled at him. As if it was not the woman who was telling him to bring her the boy, but something else. Urdal shook his hands and started walking towards the window.
"And why don't ya just hop in?" Asked the half-elf as he found spots on the frame to hold on to without cutting his hands. He nimbly jumped over and found himself in a clean, albeit old home. The flooring was comprised of long, worn planks. There were no drops of blood yet, so either the elderly woman had absorbed all of the red liquid with her dress, or the boy was not bleeding. The room they were in was the kitchen. A counter lined the inner halves of the chamber, while a table rested just a bit off center.
As Urdal neared the old lady, he saw fear in her eyes, as well as tears streaming down her wrinkled cheeks. He had never paid attention to those details. Fear... So much fear that it caused the human being to resort to the instinct of crying, which was a call for help. Children cried so that their parents would come and save them from any inconvenience or trouble, but adults had no parents to call to. Those tiers were an unvoiced prayer to the Gods. A call for help.
"Miss, ya heard the lady. Lemme carry 'im over to the window... She'll fix 'im right up!" Said the half-elf, trying to sound certain, but there was a seed of fear in his voice too. Left over fear, from the sight the old woman had probably been unable to see. The grandmother, judging by her age, did not look like she was about to let go of her grandson.
"No way in Hell! I let him away from me for a second and now he's like that! I am not letting go!" She shouted. Urdal could tell she was irrationally scared. Someone enters their home, unannounced, and stabs her grandson, and now another stranger walks in and tells her to give him her boy. But then again, there was a friendly priestess right at the window, waiting to heal the boy's wounds.
"Do not fear, dear. You can let him carry your boy to me, I will make sure nothing bad happens." Assured the priestess. There it is again, that something, which was not her. Forcing him, and the old woman, to comply. Was she, perhaps, doing the same thing she did to the criminal, who now lay on the street, no longer among the living?
Urdal shook his head, making those thoughts go away, and extended his hands towards the old woman. They were very close, and she's be able to lift up the small, maybe six year old boy, wrapped in her bulky arms. The kid was covered from head to toe in small sea soldier clothes, white and blue stripes... The grandmother's hands were shaking, and so was her entire body. What was it that scared her so much?
The boy, who had curled up in the fetal position, was lifted and given to the expecting hands of Urdal. The child was not at all heavy, and the half-elf had no trouble turning around and bringing the kid up to the window. The priestess raised her right arm again. She pulled the hands of the boy apart, revealing an ugly, poorly designed knife, stuck right in the stomach of the old woman's grandson.
"It won't hurt at all." She told the child as her pale, long fingers wrapped around the handle of the dagger. The priestess pulled it out very quickly, not waiting for her arm to complete the movement, she threw it behind her, and placed the palm of her hand on the wound. The boy cried out in pain, but then fell silent.
At first nothing happened, and Urdal was confused. Was it that much easier to take a life than to save it, he asked himself as there was no visible change. Then, barely visible, he saw it. A soothing, golden glow was emanating from the priestess' veins, which had popped up, as if she was really forcing her hand. The whimpering stopped, and the boy opened his eyes to see what was going on.
"Oh, Moshya!" Sighed the old woman with relief in her voice. She had walked up to the window and was standing next to the half-elf, looking at the priestess do her magic. How she was doing this miracle was beyond either of them. Urdal was certain it was nothing derived from the Gods, but what would that make it?
"It doesn't hurt anymore..." Noted the boy, Moshya, as the priestess removed her hand from his stomach. To the astonishment of both the grandmother and Urdal, there was no sign of the wound. Not even a scar. Not even a rip in the clothing. The half-elf lowered the child to the ground and made a step back, throwing sneaky glances at the priestess. She was clean. She did not have bloodshot eyes. She did have a strange, red eye shadow, but that seemed to be part of her attire. As if her God had not died with the other Gods...
"Thank you! Hail be to... to..." The old woman tried to thank the priestess, but she could not find who to thank. After all, the divine beings who once helped humans were no longer here. Urdal, himself, never would have started hailing and deity, but other people were more inclined to do so.
"Do not thank me. I did what should be the norm." Stated the priestess. She then turned around and started walking, in the direction of the corpse. Urdal lost sight of her.
"I should be goin'..." He excused himself and jumped out of the window. Curiosity had gripped his tail, and he was not about to let this priestess just slip away without telling him a thing or two. She was right there. Standing over the corpse, looking at Urdal. That sent a chill up his spine, because there was no reason the woman would be waiting for him there.
She nodded to the unwilling participant, turned at one hundred and eighty degrees and started walking in the direction she had been originally going. Urdal thought for a moment, then decided to follow her. His eyes inspected her even more thoroughly. She did not have the standard cap that priests bore, having opted instead for a simple cowl, which had been able to hide her hair for most of the time. Her lips were full. They looked as if they were perpetually locked in a kissing position, and a cerulean blue lipstick had been applied to them. This blue thing did not match all that well with her black robes.
The priestess did not say a word as they walked through the town. They passed by every possible landmark Urdal could name and kept going, eventually reaching the outskirts. They encountered no people on the way here, as was expected. Before the unlikely pair were uncovered vast, empty fields. Everything had been plucked right out. The townspeople had no explanation as to why there was literally not a single plant in sight. The God of Nature was dead, and so were his subjects.
"What do you think about this sight?" Asked the priestess. The half-elf had been absorbed in thought, but he had kept track of the movements they undertook. They were right there, at the edge of the town, looking at dead fields. What was there to think?
"It's dead fields. What about it?" Replied the patrolling observer, raising a question of his own. He had quite a few other questions he wanted to levy at the woman who stood before him. Mainly, how was she so calm. Then again, people could, probably, ask him the same thing. His reply would be that he had lost the ability to be distressed, because he had been so bothered by the death of the Gods he had just snapped. A lie, but a noble one. If they knew he was unable to sleep properly, they wouldn't leave him alone.
"This is one of the reasons why my lord prepared me." She stated calmly, as if that answered everything. For someone smart, sure, it probably would answer everything. For Urdal that was not enough. He would need more, so he tried to signal without speaking. His left eyebrow rose up slowly, indicating the question. The priestess noticed, pleasantly surprising him.
"I served a God. I am a priestess, after all. I cannot be a priestess if I had not served a God. But you may wonder, how am I able to withstand the crushing absence of my God? He taught me. In fact, I never felt his presence. It was never the same way it was for the servants of other Deities. They speak of a connection - such a thing never occurred between me and my lord. From the very beginning he taught me that one day he would be gone. He said that I would need to learn all he would teach me by then..." She explained.
Urdal shook his head for the Nth time today. There was no such God, at least according to his knowledge. They all liked to become the lights of the lives of their servants. They all became an inseparable part of their underlings. Serving someone and getting nothing in return was not pleasant. And the one who was being served was considered evil in most cases. Horrible, even.
Now that he thought about it, there was a Cult like that a few years ago. A single temple opened in the biggest city of the country. People started flocking to it, because the priests there actually cured diseases, healed wounds, saved people. Some band of adventurers got rid of it though. Went and killed the high priestess or something. No way the woman before him was part of that cult.
"My God insisted we call him the Horrible God. We called him so, because he would leave us. And what is a God who abandons those who worship him? Is he even a God? My Lord was adamant that he would forever remain within our souls, but we would be unable to feel his presence, as feeling it would be like a drug for us. It would make us crave his presence, as do all other clerics, priests, paladins and holy men. In doing so, he prepared us for this world - a world with no Gods. As it would seem, it is not only the intelligent races that are so attached to the Gods. Plants, animals, the air, the water, magic itself... Everything needs the Gods, because it does not know how to exist without them." She continued her explanation. Urdal was becoming a bit lost, but felt as if he could still follow.
The Gods were, essentially, a drug which allowed everything to exist. Without the Gods, everything could exist, but once touched by the divine beings, it would die without them... Did that mean the Gods were some kind of parasite? Coming to leech off of those worshiping them, knowing they would die without them? That was not nice. It was horrible. But they did not call themselves horrible. Only the God who did not do that called himself that way. Perhaps it was bliss to be in the presence of God? Urdal couldn't know. But he was beginning to catch onto the priestess' drift.
"Now the world needs to learn. It will be difficult for it to do so. What I do now is of my own will. My Lord is gone, and he cannot influence my choices or decisions. I believe, as a person, that what is best for us now, is to find those, clinging to the past, and teach them how to look at the future. To do that, we need to survive. This will last months, if not longer. We will die if we do not do something." Urdal knew what she was about to tell him. He was almost certain, and he did not want to hear it. But there was that deep part of him, the one which did not listen, and it was poking at his mind. 'Let us hear her, she might say something we need to hear!'
"I need help. Go to the taverns, go to the inns, go to the guilds - find people who will help. Promise them whatever they want - be it gold, be it glory, be it other things. Once you are ready, go to the north. I think you will find something there... Something that will help you, and by helping you, it will help us all." She finished her speech. The half-elf was a little shocked by the fact she actually said what he thought she would say. One thing was certain - he had to combat it.
"I'm... I'm not good. I'm not a leader, miss. I can't take on this task you're offerin'." He sighed heavily after saying this. Being honest with himself was easier. This was a very lousy excuse. But he had struck the appropriate cords. He would make her reconsider, go find a knight or someone like that. Someone actually good. Not a scoundrel like himself.
"You helped me save the boy. That is good. You may not be a leader, but you will find one. Now go. It may not look like it, but time is of the essence!" She refuted his claims and pointed to the northwest. Conveniently, right in that direction, Urdal could see a building. A big enough building. A tavern.
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