Mantle of the Gods

I made it just in time.

I reached the edge of the crowd moments before the ArchBishop got on stage. My tardiness earned me a few nasty looks from the other people, but at least I was there.

The crowd was gathered around a stage that was connected to a white tent in the middle of the town park. I assumed the stage had been raised to waist high so the short older man with a pot belly would be able to stand over everyone else.

“Welcome to the Mantle Ceremony!” His voice boomed, silencing the few stray whispers. “The All-Temple welcomes you all. It is my pleasure to conduct the Ceremony this year in Zeb…”

It was the same speech he gave every year. After hearing it a few times, all the pomp and circumstance began to lose its glamor. For me at least. I shifted uncomfortably as I stood at the edge of the crowd, completely enthralled by the item in the middle of the stage that was covered in a gold-trimmed, white sheet.

I knew that under the sheet was a divining crystal. It was so large that it took a team of four Priests to move it. It also shone like nothing else I have ever witnessed. I shuddered when I thought about how it might change my life in a little while. How it might change a lot of our lives.

Zeb wasn’t a very large town considering it had a dungeon entrance. It would have been bigger if the sections of floors it was connected to had better quality monsters, but there wasn’t a large demand for the bovine creatures that roamed its grassy floors.

Which meant that we were in a town of barely five thousand people. Of those maybe thirty of us were coming of age this year and judging from what I’d seen in past years, about half of us would be granted a mantle. Most of which would be heirs of nobility.

Having a mantle granted more perks than just increased physical changes. There was a different way that Adventurers were treated outside the dungeon as well. Eventually, this led to Adventurers holding most of the positions of power, while the Mundane did the tasks that were beneath them.

The term nobility had started as an insult, a way to throw a jab at the Adventurers who weren’t going into the dungeon anymore so that they could lord over the common people. Unfortunately, instead of being offended, the topside Adventurers embraced the title and began to refine it. There was an entire system of ranks and benefits that I barely understood, but the one easy thing to grasp was that mantles almost always begat mantles.

Also, since the ceremonies were conducted in public like this, most of the nobility would have their heir checked before the official ceremony. In the unlikely event the Heir was Mundane, there would be some reason why they weren’t able to attend for the family to save face.

“... it is the divine duty of Adventurers to delve deeper into the dungeons to unlock the secrets that it holds. All Adventurers…”

The ArchBishop was at the part where the dungeons were made by the Gods. In one of the converted places where the Gods walked among the people, this might have been better received, but Zeb was in the Godless zone. It wasn’t just snubbed by Adventurers, it was also snubbed by the Gods who were always fighting over followers.

There were Gods who had been around for more than two hundred years, and there were others who had risen to power just a decade or two ago. Some people whispered that they weren’t Gods, but absurdly high-level Adventurers. Even if they were, the power they wielded was so far above that of the average Adventurer, that they might as well be Gods. This meant that when they fought over territory, whole cities could be leveled. I had become an orphan during one of those city-leveling battles, which still left a bad taste in my mouth toward the Gods.

It had been hard growing up not knowing who my parents were, but there were many others like me. Brought to the All-Temple at a young age where we were cared for and taught, then shipped off to the Dispatchers as soon as we were able to work.

My ears perked up as the ArchBishop reached the end of his speech.

“Now, would all of you not undergoing the trial, please sit down.” The old man said it as an order, despite being phrased as a question.

Most of the crowd dropped at the same time. The Nobles and some of the wealthier Mundanes had brought seats, but the majority of the crowd sat on the ground.

I tried to will my heart to slow down as I counted twenty-one of us still standing.

The ArchBishop pointed his boney finger at a man in the front row.

It was about to begin!