Chapter 68: A Helping Hand

"The only thing holding it together."

Music

The cemetery has been upturned in your absence. Thousands of bones pierce up through the soil. They appear to have been exhumed by someone with their bare hands. Many of them are freakishly over-sized, having clearly belonged to gargantuan demons. Many more still— in every shape and size imaginable— litter the floor. The decay paints a haphazard and entirely treacherous course towards the building on the horizon. There are broken gravestones— thousands of them— stretching across the unnatural terrain and sloping upwards before you into a singular point of worship.

You can see the structure far more clearly than before. It curves in on itself as an impossible testament to the immaterial. Punctuated with a white light, Beltoro's lair looms closer than ever before.

Though the ruin is utterly silent, the impression of a child crying lays deep into your thoughts. Just to be safe, you take a step back, one hand to the Relic, and another on your holy symbol.

The door is gone.

​

Something is terribly wrong here.

Fear of the unknown stays your voice from calling straight out to the demon. It isn't that you are afraid of him.

You fear you may not be able to even invoke your Goddess.

I'm not going to take any chances.

There is no need for you to invoke the name of Mercy to receive Her aid.

I won't waste his time. This isn't abuse. I want to help. I need learn. I will know.

A flood of warmth, of light, and of gold courses into your frame the very instant you reach out to Her. Silently, you lean into the embrace— taking only a moment to reel from the force of your Goddess' gifts.

You stand tall. Holding your holy symbol to your chest, you soak in its heat and all of Her blessing.

She loves you.

She's so proud of you.

You've shown compassion and restraint, and above all other things—

"Mercy. By Your guiding light, lend me Your protection. Lend me Your aid." You take a few tenuous steps forward over the cracked bone, into the cemetery beyond.

The demon's lair is as silent as the grave. There is no movement, save for the soil and stone cracking underfoot. The corpses strewn about are so old that there is no drip of blood. No flow of viscera can be seen from any clinging, ancient meat. The desiccated remains all around are unlike any battlefield you've laid eyes on.

The very dust underfoot is so inert that you start to question if you're even still alive.

The sensation and pull of sobbing and torment at the back of your mind keeps you moving forward. You're desperate to help. You don't want to waste another second.

Music

"Spirit! Lend me Your wisdom. Through You— that which I see— grant me Your aid! The immaterial must be known!"

Were it not for the vice you kept on the Relic, you'd have dropped it in an instant. A flood of sight, and a white-hot surge of the Goddess courses through your eyes. She's in your skull, throughout your body, and illuminates each and every last vein.

You stagger through the current of knowledge, and bolt suddenly upright with your Spirit aflame. You reach out.

Paralyzed by Her blessing, you move freely with your soul.

You can see.

There is a pile of hands deftly crawling. They move along a stack of bodies deep within the demon's domain. The corpses underhand— the inanimate objects, and the constant reminder of death— are touched with motions far too intimate. They do not merely caress. They are searching. Feeling. There's a longing so deep and ancient that you can scarcely stand it.

It's the only thing that's been holding the creature together. Through their grief, confusion, and the absence of any identity, they search for an answer. For comfort. The search for—

A scream builds in the back of your throat. From the depths of your soul you struggle to fight through uncontrollable gasps and sobs, and to pull back from the edge.

You're aware that you're on your knees with your hands to your head. Tears spill in hysterics from your white-gold eyes. You rip yourself away as hard and as fast as you can from the cacophony of obsession.

There's hardly anything left of the demon but its Catalyst and an all-encompassing lust for death.

Beltoro's power is so immense that you know that to fight them is surely to die.

Your voice cracks in desperation. Reaching out to the demon's pain, the echo, the pull, and the tear on your own sanity is a piercing and stark contrast. They intermingle with radiance, with knowledge, and with a burst of divinity so intense that you scarcely recognize your own words.

"Beltoro! We are here to learn, to help! Please— trust and answer Us! Come to and See with Us!"

A single night of respite isn't enough to undo all of the damage to my psyche and soul. I haven't been the same since I last channeled them together. This is dangerous. This might be too much.

Mercy, why can't I stop crying?

There is no reply in response.

There's nothing there, but your resolve has never been greater.

No half-measures.

Clutching the Relic in your hands, you tighten your grasp on to the Goddess, to Her gift— and you try to release Her into it.

Mercy's light courses through the white-gold of your veins. Sifting, pulling, congealing away from the flow of Spirit, your patron empties Herself utterly into the locket within your grasp.

A sob escapes from your throat. With a jerk, a twitch, you try to cope with the sudden void of Her from your form. It feels like a million little cracks in your soul are no longer being held together by anything more than your Spirit. The immediate absence of Her embrace, the sterility of the object within your grasp— it grants your vessel immediate relief and so much emptiness in

absolutely

devastating

silence.

You are still under so much strain. Held together by the blessing of the Merciful Goddess— the cure to your pain— you clutch onto yourself and hold the Relic as tightly as you can.

Your Spirit is weak.

Music

It will take time to use this gift without consequence. Without failure. With the wisdom, the knowledge, and all of the sight that I am so utterly devoid of. I do not see. I do not know. How can I possibly hope to accomplish in a week what had taken Idonea ages to control? Why was she so eager to part with this item? I never asked her how she obtained it, what to do with it, what it does, or so much as why.

I might not ever know.

Curled in on yourself, you sob hysterically. Your out pour is unstoppable. Ignorance. Knowledge. Spirit.

I thought this was meant to heal my pain. The pain of others. The Gods see fit to work through the deserving. The devout. Those who dedicate their lives, their minds, their bodies, and all of their souls. I understand so little. I've been kept closed off, kept away, and have ran from the truth for so long.

I am honest. I am kind. I am brave— and I am terrified of the truth. I have not lied to myself. I have not lied to the Gods. I simply cannot stand to think of—

The heat rising from your Relic, the invocation, the works of a Goddess, and your attempts to release their gifts into the unknown becomes so intense that your skin blisters. A moan cuts through your sobs. A blessing. Another pull. "Spirit— aa—!" A blessing. "Mercy—!"

A curse.

I've always been weak. I've never looked after myself.

I've always found a way to take the pain.

The clergy of the Church of Spirit does not suffer the way that I suffer. They cherish the Goddess. They are healthy, and whole. They lend their aid to the peoples of Corcaea. Tending to those who have strayed near the Catalyst, healing their fractures, showing them what we all must know— they are our guide. Our wisdom.

I tread the line time after time, seeking answers that I do not truly wish to understand.

Father Sullivan tried so hard to teach me. To share. He could not help me. He resents me, my weakness, my ignorance, and my sin. The years of isolation— the prayer, the strain— I could not stop it then. I could not stop it now.

Spirit only blesses me with what She knows I can withstand. I do not know the clergy. I do not know of anything that transpired in Ostedholm. I did not know what would lead me to the Relic.

I did not know Ofelia or Celegwen. Not until their hand was forced.

I do not know Beltoro— even now.

I do not ever fully see. I do not ever fully know.

But I must see. I must learn. I must know.

You reach out.

There is a collective. A gathering. A congregation of sin, creeping over the ashes of a fallen mother. There is a sob. An internal conflict. The desire to feel. The obsession to know—

You pull back instantly, retching, permitting the thin white of your veins to pool forth from your soul and out onto the soil before you. You want to keep it in— to withstand what you've seen— but your vessel is unwilling.

Everything about your body is becoming entirely uncooperative. The Relic in your hand is drawing forth so much pain from your skin that you scarcely know if you can stand to wield it. The white before your eyes intensifies in a way that you can actually look upon the blinding light of the item to see the flesh beneath. It draws forth no physical pain. The Relic leaves no mark upon your body. These burns are immaterial.

The Gods are Merciful.

I— I can't handle this—

You're crying so hard through the vomit that you're starting to choke, but the heat lancing your hands, the constant reassurance of the Goddess, and the divinity coursing through the item you have sacrificed nearly everything for keeps you steady. It keeps you grounded.

Your conviction keeps you grounded. You pull into yourself, shaking so hard that you nearly come out of the hold that Spirit has on you.

I can't. I won't break.

You dig into it.

With another sharp inhale, soft and gentle white-gold continues to spill from your lips. An unstoppable force of heat and agony cannot be guided by your physical efforts.

You tense, brace, and steel your soul itself.

I WILL be better.

"M-Mercy—! Spirit—" Your prayer is interjected with a cry, a sob, and a sharp pull.

You drag yourself up, stilling the nausea. With a shudder, you still your breath, and fight through the turmoil to call upon both deities within you. You do so with all the conviction and reverence a mortal could ever hope to utter. The timidness and all of your pain parts from you.

You look with white-gold to the sky. To the mist. To your mission.

"Goddesses! HEAR US! To best lend you Our mind, Our body, Our soul! Though I may kneel now, in the valley of these shadows of death, I shall fear no evil—! For We have felt You! We have known You! Goddesses of the Immaterial, the Restrained, We will give Ourselves UNTO You! Grant Us Your WISDOM! Grant Us Your COMPASSION! GRANT US YOUR MERCY! GRANT US YOUR SPIRIT!"