An Unwavering Craftsman

Damien sat with Valerie, taking over watch duty while Lana went with Shigeo and Grace to pick up their final feats and perks. Ideally, he wanted her to just go away, but her imprisonment seemed to have broken her, despite only being a few days long.

A very unpleasant few days, Damien had to admit, but she had tried to kill him. He didn't think the punishment was too extreme, given her immortality. Had it been anyone else, they'd be dead, so she should at least be thankful she was still alive.

In fact, it wasn't the few days of imprisonment, but rather the memories they stirred up, that were responsible for her stupor. Had she the presence of mind to explain, she'd have told them it was the darkness she feared the most. She knew her own abilities well, after all, as well as their weaknesses, and this wasn't the first time they'd been exploited. Her previous imprisonment had lasted a lot longer than a few days before blind chance had freed her—months in which she'd been trapped in a prison of shadow, where the air itself devoured her from the inside out—following the doomed mission to purge the Isle of Mist.

She lay twitching on her bed, flinching every time she saw Damien. It wasn't even as if he'd done anything to her; it was all Shigeo and Fleta. Really, Greenhair should have been watching her, being a reasonably neutral party in the attack, but Damien didn't entirely trust him not to be talked around to her point of view if she ever started explaining why everyone wanted them dead. He was still rather big on the sacrifice-for-the-greater-good thing.

"How much longer are you going to lie there and sulk?" Damien asked eventually, looking up from his experiments with [Mana Weaving]. It was an amazing feat, allowing him to produce material of any colour and texture he desired. He could make it stretchy or firm, light or heavy, water resistant or air-tight. The flexibility meant he could replicate any fabric he liked with it, from organza thin enough to be almost transparent, to rubber thick enough to make shoes from. [Increased Mana Weave Density] meant he could replicate any metal. His guess that his perk boosting enchantments would let him outperform adamantite was spot on.

"It's so quiet..." mumbled Valerie. "Why isn't she here to tell me what to do? Is it because I failed?"

"She? Murill the Dreamer?"

"My Goddess," she said, sporting a mad, dreamy smile. "My beloved Goddess. Every time I slept. Ever since I turned seventeen, she's been there, in my dreams, giving me guidance and instruction. And now she's gone."

Damien couldn't help but wonder that if Murill spoke to her in her dreams, then surely she wouldn't expect to have heard from her. She couldn't have slept while suffocating, could she? Lana hadn't mentioned her sleeping since she'd been freed, and she certainly hadn't since Damien had been watching.

"Perhaps you should try sleeping?" he suggested.

Valerie turned around to look at Damien properly. "Gone!" she shouted. "She's not ignoring me, or unable to speak because I'm awake. She's gone!"

"Gone where?"

"If I knew that, I'd follow! My Goddess, where did you go...?"

Valerie curled up again and started weeping.

"Are you telling me you've never made a decision on your own? That you can't function at all without a goddess personally directing your every move?"

Valerie didn't answer, continuing to wail mournfully.

Damien recoiled in horror. Back before he'd got his class, his biggest worry about being tier nine was that he'd have been forced to marry the no-good slut of a princess. He'd never considered being turned into a puppet of the Five. If Murill had shown up in his dreams and asked him to do something, of course he'd have done it. Mostly. Maybe not murder, not right away, but clearing out monsters and the like. And if she kept asking for things, and those things got progressively more morally grey... Eventually, if she told him to kill someone, he could easily assume there was a good reason for it, and unquestioningly obey. In another life, he could have been Valerie.

Putting down the half-finished armour he was making for himself, he crossed the room to Valerie's bed, and gave her a hug.

"I disagree," said Kari. "The templars train for this every day. The others didn't. They fought against Brenhin-Tân, a foe far above them, died to him repeatedly, and still fought on. They deserve recognition for their bravery."

"You know we need to keep your abilities secret. We can't publicly recognise them like that."

"No, you can't publicly acknowledge the dying repeatedly part. The bit about fighting Brenhin-Tân isn't a problem."

"Look, they're spread out across every kingdom in the bowl. There were even orcs there. Gathering up everyone is unrealistic."

"Then don't gather them. Invite them to a local temple with a far-seeing orb, and I'll thank them personally remotely. They wouldn't be required to turn up, and many wouldn't, but I know a lot of the people I spoke to would appreciate it."

The cardinal frowned as he tried to think of another excuse. "What's brought this on? You've never followed up on people you've healed before," he asked as he pondered.

"I've never fought an ancient dragon before," said Kari, which was perfectly accurate yet not at all an honest answer to the question.

"Well, I'll speak to the other temples. It might be some time until we can schedule the use of every far-seeing orb at once."

"Thank you," said Kari, not voicing her opinion that if a cardinal asked for it, they'd have every far-seeing orb ready and waiting by lunchtime.

Her thoughtful expression remained fixed as she made her way back to her chambers, two guards walking ahead of her and four more behind. Supposedly for her protection, although they also had the side effect of making it very hard for her to run away.

As did the lock on the door to her chambers. Yes, she had a key to all three locks; no-one would ever dream of suggesting she was a prisoner. But she only had two hands. She couldn't open it without an escort, and the outside was always guarded, anyway.

Four guards of her escort remained outside the locked door, joining the two that had remained there while she was out. The other two guards entered with her, taking up positions outside her bedroom. At least they didn't follow her in there, or into the bathroom. Neither room had any windows, with no way out other than the guarded door, but at least she had privacy.

Kari wasn't stupid. She'd long since realised she lived in a gilded cage. She didn't mind it. All she wanted to do was heal people, and being based out of Gaia's grand cathedral was an efficient way to heal as many as possible. Only her tier and power to resurrect the dead were secrets. When it came to regular healing, she was allowed to go wild. People would come from all over the bowl to visit, and she would never turn anyone away or ask for compensation.

Admittedly, not everyone could afford the journey. It wasn't a perfect setup, but even if she travelled the world, she'd never be able to heal everyone, and it would leave her unavailable to respond quickly to disasters like Brenhin-Tân. The climate of the Kingdom of Ergland was already changing. Had the dragon destroyed the southern light too, the entire eastern half of the bowl would have become a frozen wasteland.

They'd beaten the dragon without a single casualty, yet she was starting to suspect that most of the army had never made it home. The fact remained that if she hadn't been there, they all would have died anyway, and Brenhin-Tân would have succeeded in the destruction of the source-light. She'd still made things better. Even if she could run away, she wouldn't. Regardless of the crimes of the church, to continue her goal of helping as many people as possible, she shouldn't leave them.

What she should do instead was take away their motivation to murder people.

The next day, she entered the large room set aside for her healing, as usual surrounded by her six guards. She activated her [Mass Heal] skill, bringing back everyone to full health.

Almost everyone.

"Please! My boy! You haven't healed my boy!" cried a distraught mother. Her child was laid on a bed, his pale skin and lack of movement making it clear he was dead.

"I'm sorry, my lady, but he's already dead," said one of the guards politely. Kari would never lie and say they were beyond healing, so it was left to the guards to convince them to give up.

"It's okay," said Kari. "Even death is something that can be healed. [Resurrection]."

The boy sat up. The roomful of spectators boggled. The guards panicked. Kari was grabbed and manhandled back to her quarters, while she prayed the boy and his mother wouldn't pay for her disobedience. She'd looked poor and desperate. It was likely she'd spent everything she had to reach the temple. If she didn't return home, it was unlikely anyone would make a fuss.

Thankfully, she wasn't the only witness. If the temple wanted to hush the event up, they'd have to deal with the entire room. There had been rich merchants. Nobles. Even a few priests from the temple of Kakkerxat. The sort of people who, were they to enter the temple of Gaia and not come out, would result in a very large fuss indeed.

Kari's bigger fear was that she'd become a prisoner in name as well as practice, and they would no longer let her out to heal. But at least no-one would commit murder using her as an excuse anymore.

"So, what did you get?" asked Damien the second the others walked in through the door. Just because there wasn't anything world-shattering when he picked his feat didn't mean he wasn't interested in what everyone else selected.

No-one answered, instead staring at Damien on the sofa, where he was giving a lap pillow to Valerie, gently stroking her hair as she sobbed.

"What?" he asked.

Shigeo looked at Fleta for help, but she just shrugged.

"Well, never let it be said that the young master lacks balls, seducing the enemy like that," commented Grace, struggling not to laugh.

"She was in desperate need of a hug, so I gave her one. That's all. It's not my fault she became a bit attached. She's used to someone telling her exactly what to do every second of her life, so she's gone a bit weird now that she has to make decisions on her own. Anyway, perks and feats!"

"[Impassable Protector]," answered Shigeo, giving up on trying to understand the situation of an assassin getting a lap pillow from her target. "No-one I'm trying to protect can be harmed as long as I'm alive and in range."

Damien gave an impressed whistle.

"Pity you didn't have that while we were adventurers," commented Fleta. "I could have focused entirely on attacking instead of needing to worry about evasion."

"[Loyal Equipment]. Should solve your worries about our enchanted goods being stolen; anything I make with a user in mind can only ever be used by that person."

"[Unbreakable Bond]," said Grace. "Anything I tame will never rebel, and if they die, I can expend mana to respawn them after twenty-four hours."

"That's pretty good, too."

"There were others that might have been interesting. One would have let me tame people. I might finally have been able to get Shigeo to eat with some manners."

"I dunno... I didn't think tamers could force their contractees to do something antithetical to their nature. Dad eating with manners certainly sounds like it should qualify."

A short snort of laughter from Damien's lap interrupted the conversation.

"Family..." said Valerie. "I wonder what happened to mine?"

The Holy Theocracy of Jurelli was on fire. Mostly metaphorically, but a decent chunk was trying to make it literal. When the temple of Kakkerxat had learnt that the temple of Gaia had a healer on hand with a resurrection skill, and hadn't offered her aid in the crusade to the north, they had been rather upset.

The news had already spread to several other kingdoms, too, thanks to the nobles present for the resurrection having various communications devices on them. Every kingdom had lost tier seven and eight fighters in the doomed crusade, so they had been equally upset, believing that their military had been crippled because of the temple of Gaia not wanting to share.

Kari's presence wouldn't have made any difference; she had no great defensive abilities on par with her tier, and Arach-achanol would have ended her with the same ease it ended everyone else. With the eyewitness report of Valerie, that fact should have been obvious to everyone, but facts rarely diffused hot emotions.

Another fact they didn't want to believe was the limitation of Kari's skill. There was a strict time limit for bringing someone back, which extended based on the condition of the body. When there was no body, as with the more violent attacks of Brenhin-Tân, she had a minute. Properly preserved, she had days.

The corpses—if they were still fit to be called that—resulting from Arach-achanol's massacre had not been properly preserved. It would have been over the time limit even if they had. That didn't stop a bunch of ambitious kings hoping that if they got their hands on Kari, they could rebuild their military while every other kingdom was left crippled.

"Now do you see why your power needed to be kept secret?" asked the cardinal, not even looking at Kari, but rather at the tall, female statue, arms empty and outstretched, a crown of ivy wrapped around her head.

"You murdered people!"

"I saved people! How many are going to die now because of you? How many will you be unable to heal, because every kingdom in the bowl is fighting over you?"

"There must have been another way! Something else you could do."

"Yes, we could have forbidden you from ever using your power, and let Brenhin-Tân destroy the remaining source-lights."

"I'm sure everyone would have kept quiet if you explained."

Despite himself, the cardinal snorted. "Kari, you are... naïve doesn't even begin to cover it. You are pure and innocent, and frankly, I wanted to keep it that way. I wanted to protect you from the evils of this world. But, if you think for a second that no-one in that fight would have reported on you, I've kept you too sheltered. Well, that should be rectified soon enough. I didn't call you here to berate you. What's done is done. I called you here to get you to safety."

"What?"

"We can't protect you here. Not now that knowledge of your power has become public. You're going to be moved somewhere no kingdom can touch you."

"What?" repeated Kari, somewhat distressed. "Where?"

The cardinal didn't answer, continuing to stare at the statue as it started to glow.