In Loki's Honor

"Your will shall be done." The [King] capitulated.

*

*

Obviously, I took their Palace, walls, catacombs, treasury, secret passages, and a big chunk of the underground. That included the oldest and arguably biggest library in the entire world. Perhaps I would later give the Auvani some copies of their history books and the journals of Royalty but the originals were now mine.

I could tell the [King] was fuming inside but his face was calm. I had the new [Pope] and all the [Priests] board the airship along with Larkerta and Barbara, then we went up and away. Once we had some distance from the city, I moved the whole airship to the Ethereal.

The trip still took two days. During that time, I had all the priests praying to [Saintess] Raina the Savior of the Empire, and [Saintess] Kasumi, the Goddess' sister. That fed me with enough Divinity to enact the changes to the clergy bylaws.

The most important was that they could not avail of any funds for their personal expenses other than half of what they earned selling silk goods they wove with their granted Perk and Proficiency. The other half and everything else were to be used for community goodwill projects. They could take other crafts and sell those but the money would go to the church. In exchange, the church would provide them with modest living amenities. They couldn't overcharge the silk. It must be sold at most at fair market prices.

The other was that the Clergy should kill demons and demon worshipers in sight. No quarters should be given to the corrupted ones. I scheduled an update to the Cleric list of Perks, to give all of them a Perk to defend against demons and demonic magic, and another to detect and deal more damage to demons and demon worshipers, including the summoners.

Finally, any person who entered my service must renounce any secular ties of inheritance and titles. Not System Titles, but Nobles would no longer be part of their families' line of succession. They could take wealth with them when they came but personal donations to members of the clergy were limited to at most ten silver per year per donor, according to fair market price.

To counterbalance that, I decided to give all my [Priests] another Perk. Since I counted as one due to my [Saintess] title, I gained it too.

> You gained the Perk, Goddess of Wisdom's Guidance (very rare): So long you worship the Matriarch and remain in good standing, you gain a [Faith * 0.2%] Exp multiplier. Whenever you lose a point of Faith as a punishment, you lose a level in every Path you have. This loss of levels can move you back a tier. You lose your qualification to be a [Priest] and all your Faith points if you lose this Perk.

Poor Pandora, she had to pay dearly for these new Perks as the cost of granting one to a Priest was double the cost of giving the same Perk when the Priest was ordained. That would slow down the moon restoration but I considered it an investment. The clergy would now do their Goddess-damned job and gather more Faith overall.

Just like that, breaking the rules would hurt them where it was the most painful. Some [Priests], like [Bishop] Wolfbane who had some shady deals with Kasumi back when she was trapped in the Cathedral's Golden Tower, gave fuck all important to their Faith Attribute and didn't mind losing Faith at all. Now, they would need to keep every point they had, or they would risk losing all their progress.

Meanwhile, Barbara was intentionally busying herself at the helm of the airship. I felt she was avoiding me for some reason but I had no idea why. I too was busy farming Faith from the Priests and didn't even shapeshift out of Haru's form.

I hoped this would be enough to steer the priesthood back on the path of righteousness.

*

*

The airship docked perfectly on the aerial pier. It was a floating structure fifty meters above the ground where most of our airships rested, except the fleet Arista, Rose, and Lily took to the Scorched Continent. These dozen war airships became a gift to Ackerton and Atlantis, to bolster their defenses and stem the tide of diabolism and demon incursions.

I would probably need to do something about that in the future. But what? Purge the whole continent? Check each person's soul for signs of diabolism? I bet many would slip away from my grasp. No easy answer would solve that problem. But we had time.

With all the buildings mom added as counterbalances and the construction that followed, Clovehaven had a lot of empty housing. We settled the [Priests] somewhere near the center of the island and tasked them with rebuilding the cathedral with their own powers.

Finally free from those pesky Goddess duties, Barbara and I withdrew back to our castle.

"Nethe, stay in that form a while longer, will you?" She requested.

I sensed those feelings again. Barbara's mind was swinging between guilt, elation, fear, joy, and other ancillary emotions in a wild pattern.

"I'm worried. What exactly happened between mom and you at the Cathedral? Is that why you don't want me to find out? Because if I turn myself into my book form I'll read it in the automatic biography thing?"

She all but said yes. Barbara fidgeted and looked away as her feelings of guilt intensified.

"IthinkIcrossedalineIshouldn'thave," she blurted.

Afraid she would reject me, I hesitated to go and hug her. But then I thought that Barbara would never reject me. We were master and familiar, a bond tighter than marriage. Why did I compare one to another? So I took a step forward. Barbara flinched. I wrapped her with my arms, then my tails.

"If you want me to stay in Haru's form, I will. But there are no lines you cannot cross, Barbara. And wherever you go, I'll be there with you."

She cried and I could only soothe her.

"Talk to me. What heinous crime did you commit? Mass murder? Necromantic experiments? Oh, I know. You enslaved people with mental magic. Or did you turn some naughty [Priests] into living statues, forever doomed to be conscious inside their now brittle forms? Perhaps you transmuted only their skins? Oh, that would be gross."

She whimpered and snorted a muffled chuckle, then pinched my side. "You are awful!"

I ran a hand down the back of her head. "I'm awful? You are the one who said you crossed a line that cannot be crossed! Come, out with it. It's not like I have a time limit on how long I can stay shapeshifted. Until you tell me what happened, I'll stay in this form. Happy?"

She was. Her feelings were screaming down our link. A wave of dread washed down my spine as I thought of something.

"Wait! Was it mom who did something she shouldn't do with you?"

"NO!" She immediately protested. "It was all me!"

"You monster! Out with it, Ambrose. What did you break this time?" I imitated Mrs. Cormak's voice.

She walked away from me, feigning indignation. "That was a low blow!"

I replied with a silent and stern "I'm not buying your bullshit" kitsune glare.

"Oh, look. I got three [Goddess Tears]," Barbara misdirected by showing me three shimmering pearls. "I think I'm going to the lab to research what I can do with them."

She turned around and ran away. I didn't chase her. Why would mom weep so earnestly to create divine-infused [Mermaid Tears]? What did Barbara do to pull it off and then feel guilty about it? Did she trick mom? Did she...

I had the answer right here inside me. All I needed to do was to resume my normal form, and read what happened in that temple. But I didn't want to do it. I felt like invading their privacy. I didn't like the games Barbara was playing. I also didn't like that mom and Barbara's privacy was something I had to respect now. As if I wasn't her.

I sat on the corridor, my tails settling as a badly woven fur carpet around me. What the hell was going on?

*

*

"You know, the clergy would be dismayed if they found their Goddess sulking on the floor of some random castle hallway," Kasumi shook me out of my spell of bedlam.

I didn't answer. Kasumi walked over my tails, making sure to step on all of them to get near me.

"You're ruining your clothes. Come, get up. Then tell me, what in the name of yourself do you think you are doing here?"

"Hard to do that with you standing on the root of my tails."

"Liar!" She provoked.

I stood up, pulling Kasumi up and making her hit the ceiling with her ears, then her head. She fell down and I halted her with my tails, then stretched them to deposit her in front of me. The [Saintess] rubbed her head and ears.

"That hurt!" Damned Halfling castles and their low ceilings!"

"You asked for it." I crossed my arms over my chest.

"Where's Barbara?"

"In her lab."

"And why are you here and not there with her?"

"I don't know!" I protested. "She... doesn't want me near her."

I knew that was a lie but I was hurting.

"Still a liar."

"She won't tell me what's wrong. She's been... Sorry. I shouldn't say such things. I don't know. I'm not..." I almost said good enough.

Kasumi grasped my crossed forearms. "Do you want me to go talk to her?"

"Do as you wish. I'm going out for a walk."

Before she could convince me to stay and talk like a reasonable person, I had already slipped into the Ethereal. From there, I plummeted down into the Labyrinth. I had to vent my frustration and nothing better than bashing some monsters.

The hole left by Clovehaven's bedrock was already filling with water. It would take many months to become yet another lake but it would, eventually.

*

*

*

*

Kasumi barged into Barbara's lab unannounced. She assumed that if Barbara wanted some privacy, she would've used more than just a mechanical lock.

"Hey, Baroness," the Kitsune called. "Oh, what are these shiny marbles? [Goddess Tears]? Huh, neat. Sounds about right you have them."

Barbara looked up and away from her study of the crystallized tears. "What do you want?"

"If you're asking what brought me here, it's because I found your new fur rug rather gaudy. It was thrown about in the hallway outside. I wondered what made you leave it behind in that poor condition. But don't worry, the rug is no long cluttering your demesne's hallways."

"I don't have time for games!" Barbara protested. "What do you mean by... fur rug?" Her face went blank. "Nethe?"

"The Goddess. Peko nut, Peko seeds. She said she would go out for a walk and vanished. What the fuck happened?"

It was rare for a [Saintess] to curse but Kasumi was livid. And she didn't get raving mad when angry. She went into that cold and calculating rage where she started to give zero fucks if she would harm someone else's feelings. So, when Barbara didn't answer and looked away, she grabbed the Halfling [Crystallomancer] by the shoulders and shook her.

"We don't have all day and there's a dismayed Goddess on the loose. Who knows what kind of disaster she'll cause this time."

"I did something terrible."

"I figured that much. What, did you fight with your own familiar? How dumb is that?"

"Pretty dumb," Barbara said in a self-derogatory tone.

"I am still waiting for a story. Don't deflect. Barbara, we are like sisters. We were sisters, back in the Empire. You can trust me!"

Now it was Barbara's turn to get angry.

"Why is it that EVERYONE remembers my past lives but I do not? Everyone knows who I am, everyone coddles me, whispers behind my back, and the fool here can't even... I can't. Get out, Kasumi."

"No."

"This is my lab! Get! OUT!" Barbara screeched, her voice rising into a falsetto.

Kasumi grabbed Barbara's waving hands before she slapped and broke something she shouldn't. A [Crystallomancer]'s lab was a dangerous place with lots of fragile objects.

"Past lives?"

Barbara didn't struggle. She just let her head hang. "I know who I was. I had figured it out a while ago, but then I told the Goddess in the spur of the moment."

"Just to make sure we're on the same page, who do you think you were?"

The halfling looked up. "[Queen] Lorna of Windemere. That's why Rosewise didn't want to meet me. Why let me read about her in the [Encyclopedia] if I was not supposed to know?"

Kasumi smiled and made a painful titter. "We never told you because we were respecting your wishes. Did you read what happened to Lorna during Haru's life?"

"No," Barbara admitted with a bit of shame. "Every time I tried, something in my heart would lock up and I felt very afraid of finding out. All I know was that I died of old age while Lakerta was cursed."

Kasumi knelt and rubbed Barbara's head. "Perhaps it's for the best. Barbara," she paused to take a deep breath. "Lorna asked us to not tell you anything. We were respecting your, her wishes. She wanted you to live your life free of the burdens of the past."

"Hah!" She bit her lower lip. "What an awesome job you all did of not burdening me with my past."

"Is this why Haru was so dismayed? Because you confronted her with that?"

"No. Nethe doesn't know yet what happened. I... couldn't tell them."

"It didn't involve Nethe, so all who's left is either Lakerta or the Goddess. Lakerta was fine and bragging to the other girls about how easily she fought the Auvani elite guards. So, not her."

"I hate you." Barbara growled.

"That's fine."

"I don't hate you." Barbara whimpered.

"That's fine too. Did your feelings surface and run out of control and you had a romantic makeout session with the Goddess in the middle of the fight?"

Barbara wheezed and cartwheeled away, almost losing her balance. "You cheater! You used magic! Get out of my head!"

The [Saintess] jaw dropped and her mouth hung open as she stared with disbelief. "Barbara... I was making a wild guess."

"Liar!" Barbara repeated.

"So, you're feeling guilty because you think you did something wrong? Kissing the Goddess is not wrong. Also," the Kitsune smirked like only Kitsune could smirk, "Welcome to the club."

Kasumi tenderly touched her lips as she closed her eyes and reminisced.

"YOU DID WHAT?" Barbara exploded.