NOVEL NEXT Book 10A - The Auction - Chapter 2
Cultists were all over the place.
Like ants.
While there were always doomsday criers, I'd really started noticing the Cultists of Wurn when they'd tried to resurrect him on top of his Dungeon. We'd had to go into the Mantle and fight the spirit of the Minotaur God, which had resulted in Arlo Heema taking the Mantle and becoming a God.
Becoming a God was tricky because you usually had to go deep into the Dungeon unless you had a cult of crazy people who were willing to die to summon it to you. Anyway, once you found the Mantle, you just had to beat the spirit of the former God that'd worn it, and you would become tied to that Dungeon. There were perks too, but the main thing was that there were only five different types of people who could even go into a Mantle to begin with, so you had to be one of those. Either you had to be the child of two Gods, then you'd be a Godling like myself and Pixie; the child of a God and an Adventurer, which made a Nephilim like Miel; the child of a God and a Mundane like Trent and Ether, which made a Gibborim, though Ether was technically the child of a Nephilim and a Mundane, but apparently that worked too; a Hero like Rix; or a High Priest of a God, like Justia.
Anyone who fell into one of the first four categories could become a God and own a city. But that also meant that there were a lot of Gods who wanted to kill people like us before we were strong enough to take a city. Fewer cities meant more Adventurers in your Dungeon, which meant you got even stronger. Gods really didn't like competition, or so I was told. I'd met five Gods and none of them had seemed concerned about eliminating me before I could become competition for them. But there were hundreds of Gods and I'd probably just met the exceptions.
I shook my head. I'd gotten off track and needed to focus on what I knew about the Cultists.
The Cultists had grown something in the Wurn Dungeon that we'd called Dungeon Seeds, since they'd looked like seeds. They'd used the seeds to summon Wurn's Mantle and I knew that they'd been used in Mive to cause a Dungeon Break, which had destroyed most of the city. If there were seeds involved, then the cult needed to be looked into.
If we were going to have a chance to find out about where that Dungeon Portal went, then we needed to find a cultist that would talk to us. Which wasn't an easy feat, but now that Trent should be waking up soon, he could do his mind-meld thing and take the information from their head.
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I touched the crystal on my left wrist. It was firmly held there, almost like a watch, but this did a lot more than just tell time. I scrolled through the menus that appeared in front of me until I got to the Party tab. This display would tell me approximately where the other members of my party were. While they hadn't been part of my six-man party, they were part of the team, so I should have been able to see them if they were anywhere in the city.
There were blanks where their profiles should have been.
"We need to go." I looked at Oz.
The raven-haired brown woman had finished getting dressed and was looking down at the newest member of our team. There was concern in her green eyes as she met my gaze.
"We can't just leave them." Her voice was firm.
Before I could respond, the elevator door opened again, and this time a pair of Scarlets walked out.
"Our med team is here." Miel held out her hand towards Oz. "We should leave anyway so that they can do their jobs."
Oz bit her lip while she thought.
"I'll have Justia come down so there'll be a friendly face when they wake up." I glanced over at Miel, who was lowering her untaken hand.
"That shouldn't be a problem." The older woman walked onto the empty elevator and put her hand over the door to keep it from closing. "But you should really give them space to work."
The raven-haired woman slowly walked away from the cot where Astrid was still sleeping. Both Scarlets had gone to Trent's side first, and while I was worried about my teacher, I didn't like that a student was getting overlooked. Granted, Trent was in worse shape and would require more help to recover, but it would have been nice if someone had at least checked her vitals.
"Come on." I put my right hand on the small of her back to guide her towards the elevator. "The faster we get to the room, the faster we can get Justia down here."
"Okay." Oz looked me over. "But shouldn't you get some sleep? You were just up the entire night working."
I stifled a yawn by clenching my jaw. As much as sleep might have sounded nice, my concern for Rix and Pixie far outweighed my need for sleep. Honestly, I'd been riding an adrenaline high all night, and this was just fueling another round. Even if I tried to go lay down, I doubted that I'd be able to fall asleep.
"I'll be fine." All three women had concern on their faces. "Seriously, I couldn't sleep right now if I wanted to. I might as well do some good instead of pacing."
Gesai got on the elevator after me, and the doors began to close. None of them argued, but I had a feeling that I wasn't through defending my decision. I just hoped they were okay, wherever they were.