[ Your actions have alerted the town of Lumen to the forces of Entropy, 500 soul points earned.]

This was a complete surprise to Christopher. A massive haul of 500 soul points just for alerting the town? Now that he thought about it, the system had suggested that actions helping to weaken the forces of Entropy would reward him with soul points.

He hypothesized that maybe his intervention had indeed prevented the death of his companions, and by reaching Lumen safely, they would now be able to alert the town to the details and the danger of the attack. He had to admit that was quite a valuable development for the people here.

He quickly checked his interface to confirm his new soul point balance.

[Soul points: 860]

Christopher felt elation. This was enough to buy one of the fighting skills. What skill would be the best right now? He decided that he could think about it a little longer. He wanted to make the right decision here.

He snapped back to the conversation Tinos was having with the receptionist. It had become a bit animated. “One of my companions is wounded, and I don’t see why the children would have to experience what happened again. please give them their entry permits!”

She glanced at the guard, who nodded in permission. She took their names and handed all of them permits to enter the city.

Tinos spoke to them. “Tamas, please take Christopher to the Adenium Church for healing. Menos, you take the kids outside and get yourself something to eat at the Butterbash Inn. I will stay here to give my report and get everything through customs. We will meet up at the Inn when our business is concluded.” He tossed Menos a purse. Tamas looked somewhat unhappy with her task, but both she and Menos nodded at their grandfather’s order.

Christopher felt kind of useless, but he intended to change that soon enough. He still knew too little of this world and this city, so it couldn’t be helped.

They left their carry on in what a sign marked as the inspection area. To his relief, Christopher had no trouble reading any of the words and signs all across the inspection hall. He was glad to confirm that the written language and even numbers were included in his Linguist skill. It would have been a massive pain if he had to learn another written language.

Now without the heavy load, all except Tinos departed the inspection hall.

Once back in the open air, Tamas spoke. “Menos, don’t take any detours, head straight to the Butterbash Inn. We will meet you and the twins there as soon as we are finished.” Menos responded telling her not to worry.

“Christopher let’s go.” He nodded and followed closely behind Tamas

He took in his surroundings in wonder. He saw tiny pink lizard-like creatures scuttling over the tree-like buildings. He saw one of the exotic looking red beaked birds, seemingly bursting with intelligence, scooping up one of the lizards. For the creatures, there was clearly an entire food system within this city, just like there would be on earth. He was fascinated by all the wildlife.

This was also his first real opportunity to observe the city, outside of the architecture. The streets were clean, and people were cleanly dressed, clear signs of fashion were present. Until now he had somewhat likened the state of the world to medieval Europe, but now he realized that his view was flawed. This city looked much more advanced based on pretty much all aspects of life. Was this the influence of magic elevating them, or stunting their technological progress? Christopher did not know, but he found this part of the world beautiful and he could not stop looking on with wonder.

Tamas led them with a determined stride through the city.

“All of you seem very familiar with this place, have you been here often?”

“Lumen is an important market for our goods, we make the trip here about two times a year. I always loved this place”

“I’m truly amazed, the architecture, the fashion, the creatures, they are all extraordinary. This is truly a magical place.”

“That is the reaction of most people that visit. I have visited the capital once, and by all rights, it has this place beat, but this place still has something you find nowhere else.”

“So where are we going, some kind of Church-led hospital.?”

“Of a sort, we are heading for the Adenium Church complex, they have highly trained healers. They offer free healing to believers that fight the Blight”

“Never heard of them, are you supposed to be a strong believer to receive this free healing?”

Tamas sighed. “You don’t even remember that much? I am surprised that you still know your own name. To the best of my knowledge, the Church is well known all over the remaining kingdoms of Zalun. The church accepts anyone that follows the five commandments. Our family is devout in following the Adenium Church.”

Oh boy, was this entire world full of religious zealots? He had never really been involved with religion in his past life.

“What are these five commandments?”

“The Adenium church has the five commandments prominently displayed in every place of worship. Why don’t you read them yourself when we get there? Can you read?”

“Fine, I can do that much.”

What were these five commandments that he was supposed to follow, should he just pretend to be a believer and hope for the best? Maybe these commandments were not that bad. Tamas and the others seemed reasonable enough after all.

After a few more minutes of walking, Christopher could see a marvelous building rising up in the distance, sporting a defensive perimeter on the outside. Painted on the front of the building, was the same depiction of a woman that he had seen on Tamas her medallion some time ago. Carved into the massive stone blocks of the building, he could see all kinds of heroic figures. Clearly, they had arrived at the Adenium Church.

“Well, this is it, now let’s see if we can patch up that arm.”

They were able to freely walk into the main building of the church.

Christopher took a look around the dazzling hall and saw many magical paintings on the walls. Many of them depicted holy figures of some sort. The paintings actually appeared to have some slight movement to them, flickering smoothly back and forth like two cycling film frames. Large arched windows illuminated the entire hall in bright natural light.

“What is happening to these paintings, are these painting imbued with soul force?”

“That’s right, and these were clearly done by a skilled painter. I can produce a similar effect on a vase with some simpler depictions, but this artist clearly has quite some artistic talent and high soul proficiency.”

There were also about a dozen other people within the church. Most of them were just looking at some of the different depictions. A few people were praying to a five-foot statue of a woman in simple robes in the middle of the Church. Maybe this was the Goddess Avalla that Tinos had spoken about in passing.

Close to them, a middle-aged woman in fashionable clothing was praying out loud to the statue of the holy figure. She was requesting a return of her missing son. The woman’s pain grieved him. He was sure that this was a familiar scene in this world. Tamas led him to the far side of the Church.

When he looked at the far wall, written in beautiful golden letters, were written the five commandments that guided the Adenium Church.

1: Thou shalt aid in humanity's fight against the Blight.

2: Thou shalt not harm any man or woman that offers assistance in the fight against the blight, or has the potential to do so in the future.

3: Thou shalt offer assistance to any human fighting against the Blight, even at personal cost.

4: Thou shalt be wakeful of the dangers that the blight poses, never be unprepared.

5: Thou shalt not have mercy towards any people or monsters that embrace the Blight.

Christopher let the words sink in for a moment. The commandments were surprisingly reasonable and goal orientated. All very much geared towards winning the war against the Blight, which was clearly what the locals called the forces of Entropy.

The fifth commandment was surprising, in that it suggested that there might also be humans that joined the Blight in their efforts. On second thought he was not that shocked, since just like on earth there were surely some nutjobs on this world as well. All in all, he did not expect that he would willingly deviate from these five commandments.

“I do not have any issue with following these five commandments.”

“That’s what I thought. There are few that do not at least say that they follow the five commandments. Now practicing the five commandments, that is unfortunately too often a different story, but I feel safe vouching for you in that regard.”