Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Batak gave him a judging glance before sighing heavily. «Though the gods have gone silent, the priesthood has never been completely powerless. Most priests have some skill with magic, and higher ranks can usually call upon the aid of angels and other lesser spiritual entities, but our real claim to authority came from various hidden mysteries that were entrusted to us before the gods departed to the unknown. Over time a lot of those were stolen or otherwise lost, but the one thing where we were always unmatched was the healing arts. As such, when the Weeping Plague started spreading across the lands like wildfire, we were expected to do something about it. Sadly, not only were we as powerless against it as anyone else, our close contact with the infected quickly resulted in massive casualties within our ranks. With the subsequent shortage of qualified priests, peripheral temples like this one were all but abandoned, both by believers and by the Holy Triumvirate.»

Zorian looked around him, but failed to see any evidence of decay in the interior of the temple. The temple was clean and intact, and the altar — made out of white marble and framed with silk or some other expensive cloth — looked practically brand new. Plenty of stone statues were scattered throughout the building, seamlessly melding into the walls or support beams, and most of the remaining unadorned space was taken up by wooden panels that had various religious imagery carved into their surface, much like the main doors. In short, it was an absurdly luxurious building by the standards of rural temples such as the one in Cirin, and better maintained to boot. Zorian was almost afraid to ask what Cyoria’s main temple looked like if this one was not considered important enough to keep running.

Batak led him to a small, unassuming door next to the altar and ushered him to what was apparently a more informal setting. Rather than being a classical office, it was instead a combination of a kitchen and a living room, far messier than and not nearly as lifeless as the main temple had been. Batak immediately started preparing some tea and started peppering him with questions. The questions were fairly standard — who he was, what he did, where he was from, who his family was, that sort of stuff — so Zorian felt comfortable answering them honestly. Strangely enough, Batak didn’t ask him a single question about his religiosity, something Zorian was glad for. Zorian, in turn, asked a couple of questions about Batak and Kylae, trying to understand what they were even doing here if the temple was abandoned.

Batak was all too happy to enlighten him. Apparently the church leadership didn’t feel comfortable with simply demolishing the temple… or worse, leaving it to the mercy of the elements and looters. A perfectly understandable sentiment, in Zorian’s opinion — not only would it be a shame to consign such a majestic building to oblivion, it would also be a blatant admission of weakness from the church. In the end, Batak and Kylae were assigned to the temple, ostensibly to keep the temple running but in reality more to keep it presentable and ward off thieves and squatters.

Finally, after he finished his cup of tea, Batak finally decided he had danced around the issue long enough.

«So,» said Batak. «You never did tell me why you’re here, mister Kazinski. Do you think you could perhaps tell me what you need to speak with Kylae about or is this too sensitive for the ears of a mere junior priest?»

Zorian thought about it for a second before deciding it probably wouldn’t hurt to tell the man why he came. Future forecasting wasn’t illegal or anything, after all.

«Well…» began Zorian. «For a start, I heard that Priestess Kylae is skilled at forecasting the future through divinations.»

Batak stiffened slightly, but quickly forced himself to relax. His smile did slip off his face, however.

«She is,» he said. «It is a difficult field to practice and I doubt anyone could claim mastery of it in any real sense, but she is as close to an expert as you’re likely ever going to get.»

«But there are other people who dabble in it regardless, one of which has sent me to speak with Kylae about her findings,» said Zorian, privately enjoying the mental image of the aranea matriarch hissing at him for calling her a ‘dabbler’ in the field. «Some of the results she had gotten out of her predictions have been very… irregular.»

All pretenses of good cheer had left Batak’s face by the time he finished talking. Silence stretched into uncomfortable seconds. Zorian was starting to wonder if talking about the topic was somehow taboo or if he had otherwise insulted the man somehow when the junior priest spoke again.

«And these… irregularities… when exactly do they appear? How far did your mysterious backer project her predictions before they went haywire?»

It was at this point that Zorian realized: Batak already knew. He was no more a mere junior priest than Zorian was just an innocent messenger.