The web was forming, clearer now than ever.

The conversation between Illias and I had taken an almost unforeseeable left turn, ending up being more about Garrian and I than the other, more influential man. I had secured myself a way to keep in contact with the man, with a simple messenger or a particular bar that would hold the word for him, and then I’d left with little fanfare.

An insurrection… it was certainly a step up from the minor stunts I’d pulled in Mayer’s little road town.

The escalation wasn’t free of anxiety, not in the slightest. It was terrifying, even if it was the most competent I’d ever felt in my entire life. I felt like I was a fish in water, the movements as easy as walking was for me now, yet the anxiety never left me now.

The reasoning was obvious, I’d jumped from a pond into a raging river, and I was trying desperately to continue swimming even if it were as natural as anything. Every moment that I thought of something new to add to my web of connections, I was hit with a moment of panic, followed by cold sweats and a sense of overwhelming dread.

Maybe my mind was only now coming around to the reality of the task I’d given myself. To save the worlds, Virsdis and Orisis alike, would be a massive undertaking, and it all started with me getting this right. Then me getting the next thing right, and the thing after that.

I swallowed against the anxiety pushing it down for a scant moment while I walked into the Skinned Lizard far past its regular operating hours. I’d barely been back to the little inn for the past few days, spending my time flitting from party to party, luxurious home to monolithic mansion. But now, I found myself in need of at least some rest.

The interior of the little inn was cosy, a gentle fire flickering in the fireplace and lending its warmth to the rest of the room. The rest of the lights, mostly oil lanterns, were left to slowly peter out in their soundless war against the encroaching darkness.

There was no one in the room, and no one even in the kitchen or backroom where Tek had first held his meeting with me and the others. It was quiet as could be. Yet I knew someone was here, a friendly presence that I soothed me simply by being nearby.

I grabbed a chair from one of the many tables, carrying it easily to right in front of the little fire, glittering in the darkness. I place the chair down backwards, and then sat facing the back of it, leaning on the solid wooden back of it.

“Hello there, brother.” I called out gently. There was a little sputter of life from the fire, suddenly possessing a whole new warmth entirely. There was a warm chuckle from within the fire, radiating from it like its very own heat.

“Good evening brother.” The God on the other side of that fire said. It was a different voice than last time, a warm and inclusive voice instead of the slightly reedier and bookish tone of the Last Hearth God I’d interacted with.

“Why do I have the pleasure?” There was another chuckle, with what could only be a wide smile accompanying it. I grinned in the eye of the fire as it flickered, waiting for the God’s answer.

“Well, our complete lack of pertinent information since the Keeper’s arrival was making us look bad, I’d say. I decided I was going to be the one to offer up a little of my own power to have a chat, touch base, all that good stuff.” I rose an eyebrow to the luxuriant and endlessly warm tone of the God.

“Have you guys been having a hard time doing any research on the Champions?” The flame flickered back and forth for a moment, almost a gesture of denial.

“Nothing of the sort, I assure you. We’ve located ten or so Champions on Orisis, eleven if you count the one who got himself killed, but it has been slow going on Virsdis’ own set of Champions. Maybe they are being more reclusive due to the political instability of most areas.”

“So you know where a fifth of the Champions are; what about the others?” I asked wearily, a small pang of dread already overcoming my body.

“We have our leads, some scraps here and there. The ten are the ones we’ve nailed down completely, most of which are basically marauding murder machines at this point.” The God paused to hum thoughtfully, “We have our eyes on a possible twenty others, though at least eight of those leads are questionable at best.”

“Any leads on Virsdis?” The flame almost shrugged.

“One or two, one more promising than the other. The promising one will end up leading you north, though it seems like you’ll be ending up there as some point in the near future, what with your new puppet socialite.” I rolled my eyes, ignoring the pang of anxiety over the reminder that I had yet another task I needed to manage now.

“In the Brauhm Empire.” I asked simply.

“Near it.” Came the confirmation, though he didn’t talk to specifics. I sighed, running a hand through my slightly too long brown hair, feeling against my scalp in consternation.

“We’re sorry, you know?” The warm voice rang out again, slightly subdued this time. I scrunched my brows together, at the fireplace.

“Sorry for what?” I asked, though I think I already knew the answer.

“Putting the weight of two worlds on your shoulders.” They replied softly, “We spent many years simply hoping that the Champions would never make a return, or that your world’s God would pick another place to inflict them upon.”

“But he didn’t.” I cut in, falling into silence for a mere moment.

“But he didn’t. And that left us with very few choices. Remarkably few for just how powerful the Hearth Court has grown in the many, many years I’ve been kicking around.”

“What were your choices? What lead you to empower a Champion, and unexceptional one at that?” There was a rumble of laughter from the fire, making the fire pop and crackle emphatically.

“There were other avenues. Maybe empowering one of the residents on Orisis would have been possible, though you underestimate just how hard it is to find a suitable candidate to bless, even a small blessing. Valeri, the blessed of Might your right hand is training, she’s a good example of how hard finding someone to bless is. Tarania must’ve had a heck of a time finding her if she puts up with Valeri doing nothing to better herself.” I grudgingly nodded at his point.

“But still, it’s a wild move to make. The Hearth Court gave me effective Divinity. The real deal too.”

“The real deal is a good way to put it. You’re correct, it was a massive decision, one made in no small part due to our older brother’s judgement.” The other God pointedly avoided saying Gallar’s name, likely still worried that invoking his name would draw far too much attention to our covert rendezvous, “Our older brother’s word holds an immense amount of sway over our decisions. It was the Court’s choice to simply petition the other Courts yet again, as we had done many times during the last War. He had instructed us to search for Mayer Renue, and in the process, we found you.”

“And our older brother made that call as well?” The fire chuckled.

“That very day. I believe that it was the first ironclad decision that he has ever made, even the few brothers who have been around longer than I were shaken that he’d made such a determination. It’s very unlike him to gamble.”

“So it was just his determination? None of you believed in it?”

“No, we weren’t quite convinced, not until we saw his conversation with you, and when we first felt your presence compared to his. The decision was unanimous and almost immediate, even if we were unhappy that it’d come to it.” His words trailed off into a companionable silence. Though a hundred questions burned in my mind, one in particular forcing its way from between my lips.

“How’d you know?”

“We just did,” he replied after a thoughtful hum, “it was as simple as that. You were one of us, and that was the way it was.”

“Helpful.” I said, a little sourness leaking into my voice, though the God just laughed like you would at a pouting child over something small.

“You underestimate what you are Maximilian. You seem to believe that much of your social prowess comes from the power given to you, forgetting that you were always this way, you just didn’t quite understand it as such.” I frowned bitterly at the fire, the words of encouragement not quite reaching me past the layer of doubt.

“It doesn’t feel like it.” I spoke.

“And neither do I feel like a true God. I never have and may never feel as such.” The warm voice consoled, “Yet, I am, and I must be.”

“But I have to somehow deal with everything down here, and I constantly feel like I’m floundering, just a few steps away from disaster.” My bitterness leaked from my mouth without proper warning, though by the end of the sentence I couldn’t find fault with those words. The flame in the fireplace grew silent, the only indication that anyone was still there to respond was the distinct feeling of divine, something incomprehensibly complex, but distinctive all the same.

“And there are many platitudes I could spout, but I’d hardly be a good bartender if I didn’t have my own wisdom to deliver.” The voice was starkly cheery, getting a wry chuckle out of me before it continued onwards, “You’ve been given the heaviest burden that I could possible think of. It’s something so incomprehensibly heavy that I suspect it’s not something you could reasonably process at once.” The voice trailed off again before resuming a moment later.

“So don’t. The far future is the concerns of the Fate Court for now, your own worries should be of the immediate questions. Of Rethi, Alena, and Valeri. Of Oscar, Lucae and Illias. Of Garrian, the Shadow Walkers, the Brauhm Empire. The Champions, for now, aren’t relevant, and your first clash with one is something we’re actively avoiding at the present. We wish to lead you towards a Champion who will be receptive to your petition, and that is our job to worry about.

“For now, all you must think about is to do what you can, and we will be there to guide once you need it.”

There were no words spoken afterwards, the silent goodbye being conducted by our divine energies as they so briefly touched before the God left the little fire, leaving me alone in the slightly cooler room. I left the fire to slowly die over the course of the night, deciding that I would give myself a moment of reprieve from the never-ending treadmill of social advancement, something that I’d been capable of walking through with an ease that came both naturally and divinely to me.

I let myself sleep that night, in the room filled to the brim with all of our packs and supplies. I hadn’t experienced sleep, or any significant amount of it, for many months now. Now that I could go entirely without sleep, I’d even begun to find the act of relinquishing your conscious to nothingness for hours unnerving.

Though that night, it was perfect. Within moments of me resting my head to the comfortable pillow, I was asleep.

I dreamed that night, an odd experience when I found my mind was untouched by the alluring agreeableness that a dream usually inflicted. Within it, I wandered in field, destroyed and razed like only a thorough bombing could replicate. It was far too reminiscent of old picture and videos of the wars that had occurred on Earth, the lengths of soul-destroying trenches filled with boys far too young to be allowed to witness the horrors.

Yet I stood in that field, beside me was my hammer, the Soul Weapon that had formed itself out of my soul itself.

I don’t know what could possibly have lent it the shape it’d taken, or the properties that it expressed. It would likely be a mystery forevermore, but in here it made a certain sort of sense.

“A heavy burden creates an equally powerful resistance.” I said in a strange fugue.

“Cannot the burden be so heavy that it’s weight crushes what lies beneath?” I asked myself lightly.

“Yes, but such is the cost. What is crushed beneath will become the essence of the successor’s power.” I answered.

My hand grasped the hilt of the hammer and found it to be as heavy as ever. Though the weight was more familiar than it had been not too long ago when I’d taken Gallar’s blessing, the divine seed now resting within my soul as a small sprout, a single leaf twitching with the promise of what it could soon be.

The weight was casual in my hands, though the monstrous weight of it quaked the earth as I swung it. What was more enormous than its weight, however, is my hammer’s potential. The weight ever increased, as long as my own strength did in proportion.

As I thought of it as such, I felt the hammer grow in weight, rivalling my ever-increasing strength. When would it be that a single strike would shake the worlds when it hit? That it would be so powerful as to cause it to crack like an egg would.

I stared around myself, following the holes and trenches scarred into the earth and realised that they weren’t that at all. They were movements, they were the Sharah in motion, the terrible destruction they can bring along with an impossible physique and weapon as my own.

There was a moment of horror before the dream was interrupted by the distinct sound of my room’s door opening, waking me from the lucid experience, and launching me back into reality, casting an eye towards Rethi, who stood at the door with a metal mask covering his face.

“Uh, good morning?”

“Morning.” I grumbled.