Morgana looked toward the Cathedral. “As much as this is a surprise, it’s not the one that I was expecting. Monk Chen was supposed to meet us at the Cathedral, he has joined the staff as well, and will be coming along to help with meditation and mental fortitude training.”
Karl laughed and pointed toward the building. “He’s almost certainly inside those doors. They lead to the meditation area, and they’re a much better spot to surprise a visitor.”
Tessa and Lotus surrounded the Witch Doctor and wrapped their arms around her.
“So you’ve been drawn into the Karl gravity well. Aren’t you a bit old for him?” Tessa asked.
“First off, I am his advisor from the Bureau, secondly, aren’t you older than I am, Sister?” Morgana cut back.
Doug and Lotus both laughed before Doug gave Tessa a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. “She’s got a point, she was the youngest in her class, nearly a whole year younger. She didn’t even get long enough legs to keep up with the group until third year.”
“You really want me to Hex you, don’t you?” Morgana replied.
Lotus hugged the Witch Doctor. “Don’t feel bad. I graduated last year and I still have short legs.”
Morgana sighed and looked away just as the door opened, revealing Brother Chen, who had been drawn by the commotion.
“Commander Karl! It’s good to see you all healed and returned to service. But why does the lovely Miss Morgana look so defeated?” He announced.
“She’s not ready to deal with Nature Priests today. I heard that you’re joining the Academy Staff, congratulations.” Karl replied, before giving the Monk a hug.
Monk Chen smiled back at Karl. “You know, you actually look your age from this angle.”
Behind them, Doug laughed. “Not for long. It’s his birthday next week, and he will get his baby face status back.”
Karl did quick math, as he hadn’t seen a calendar in ages. Doug was right, but he was surprised that the Nature Priest knew that.
Tessa nodded. “And it’s both Lotus and Dana’s birthday next month. We’re all getting old, make it stop.”
Her dramatic announcement made the Monk laugh. “Just wait, soon enough you will be looking like one of the Orphanage Matrons, all round and jolly with a ruler in your hand as you terrify school children.”
“You take that back right now.”
Tessa had the sort of narrow and angular features that Karl couldn’t see ever getting that sort of chubby. The Battle Nuns, as everyone called the lean and muscular female Red Dragon Clerics who practically lived in combat, seemed like a more probable outcome.
The rest of the group joined them as the clerics all exchanged stories. They hadn’t seen each other in a while, as Bob and Doug had been assigned to guard duty, and while Monk Chen wasn’t technically a cleric, he was mostly hidden in the meditation areas of the Cathedral.
“Let’s lead you all to your rooms to drop off your gear. It’s good that they got you robes in advance, that makes life easier. The Cathedral has seen too many visitors trying to sneak out of bounds lately, so if you will notice, those robes don’t have the silver thread in the cuffs that the regular visitor robes do.” Brother Chen explained.
Karl had never noticed the silver threads before, but he hadn’t really been looking for them in an all white robe. But as they walked through the cathedral toward the upper floor rooms, he did notice that on the tourist robes, one single thread on each sleeve was dyed silver. Not always in the same spot, but they all had a silver thread near the cuff.
That was brilliant, and meant that even if you tried to sneak in by blending in, the actual clerics would notice right away.
But if they didn’t have the silver, that meant there was something else that marked the Elites and other authorized visitors from the clerics who were working there.
Karl still hadn’t found it by the time that they reached the rooms, so he put it out of his mind for the moment and stowed his pack for the evening before quickly washing his hands and face. He really did need to shave, he decided, before pulling his kit out and realizing that there was an easier way.
On second thought, that was a terrible idea, and it would fill the room with the smell of burning hair. So, with his shaving kit in hand, Karl headed for the sinks in the men’s shower room. A few minutes of work and he was clean-shaven again, looking like a proper Academy student, and ready to face the remainder of the day.
When he walked out again, he heard cursing coming from the ladies’ showers that sounded like Ophelia, as well as a lot of laughing. She had said that she might be hairier in human form than Werebear, but Karl didn’t realize that she actually intended to shave it all off again.
They were headed out in a day or two, so it was just going to grow back. But perhaps, like him, it just felt a bit more human to be all cleaned up for the day, like a reset between missions.
Karl returned to his room and took out one of the books from the small bookshelf that each room had. They were all church literature, but some of them had useful information and not just religious dogma in them.
Like this one. It was told from the viewpoint of the church, but it was a history of the conflicts with the Giants, who occupied most of the territory around their borders. He could use a bit more information about the Giants, and how things had gone in the past.
Karl recalled that there should be some wise saying about repeating history, but he couldn’t think of quite what it was as he began reading through the book.
The story started the same as this war had begun. The Giant Clans had started to work together, attacking the nation from all sides as they searched for relics of the System Stones, which they believed would allow them to regain some of their lost power.
The first war was only a few generations after the stones had been shattered, and the Giants were convinced that the humans had another set.
They didn’t understand how the humans were keeping their advanced magic. But that was because, uniquely among the species, the humans had managed to train new generations in many of the skills that had originally come from the system.
The book was an older one, written before the Elites had been a thing, and it didn’t mention Inscription as a skill, as it had been considered a lost art at the time.
That was how humans had passed down the skills, until the number of Inscriptionists had dropped so far in places like the Golden Dragon Nation, thanks to the concentration of magic users in their own enclaves, that it had been forgotten by most of the world.
Some nations had always been able to do it, but it was a jealously guarded skill, and only when the Elites had started to do it on their own had they slipped up and revealed that they could as well. It was their determination to find the person who leaked their secrets that had actually given away their secret.
They had rampaged through the nation as the humans hid or defended their walled cities, doing what they could to defend their survival. At the time, it had been unthinkable that the humans could take on the Giant Clans without the legacy magic users who had fled and left them to their fates.
And they had been right, but at the end of the war, the humans had managed to hold enough, and the Giants didn’t have the population to hold the entire region. So, they slowly rebuilt, and attacked the Giants where they found them, until a century later the church had managed to unify the region.
The story was the same nearly every time, with some subtle variations.
There was only one exception, the Fire Wars, when the Giants had allied to trap and destroy the Fire Drakes that humans had been breeding as their defenders.
Karl hadn’t realized that they had started here. He had thought that the Island nation of Drake Riders was where they were because they had arrived from another continent.
Of course, it could all be propaganda, but it was official propaganda, and the Church was actually very particular with their records so that they didn’t upset the Blue Dragon of knowledge.
