What does anything having a time sink mean? There are of course many different iterations and explanations behind those two words. Some take it to form the literal meaning, where some mages have the capacity to be [Chronomancers] of the highest level and job classification to even perform a spell to sink time in a specific area permanently. Meanwhile, others believe that it was the simple act of doing something for so long, that it was boring and the only reason to do it, was that it was a thing to do. A literal time-waster that was meant to be something to do while you waited for something else to happen. However, this phrase doesn't mean the same thing to everyone, and certainly not what it meant to Credonz.

He took it in an entirely different direction of the word. Something to be proud of. To say he sunk time to hone his repertoire of skills. That the things he came up with, built, and manipulated weren't just made or used with pure [Skills], but also with pure [Talent]. Truth be told, turning off [Skills] is not really a thing most people knew about to begin with. In essence, it was a 'lost' art that seemed to be lost on purpose. No one in the modern day ever talked about doing it, because the concept was so alien to their minds. [Skills] weren't things that were additional to them, they were them. They represented the culmination of their being and their effort in life, and to actually, physically repress IT so they no longer were able to use them, is almost undeniably an unspoken [Sin], if they even realize they could do it.

Those who were able to turn them off, however, weren't labeled with the title that corresponds to it, though. IT was simply the addition of something to make life easier in all aspects. To be able to work towards something that anyone could physically see. If someone wanted to be a [Carpenter], they could forgo the class designation. No one needs to manually control each aspect of their body to swing an axe or keep their muscles at an acceptable level to carry those thick logs, but no one would say no to having something maintain those muscles and the memory of those actions for you to better ease the actions in doing so. Those aspects wouldn't even pop into their minds, because of the sole singular fact that IT allowed someone to see what they were lacking to actually do the job properly, which is something that can't be overstated enough.

Of course, there were things that couldn't ever be gotten rid of simply because they were a part of their being. No one couldn't just simply put an [Affinity] into the back of their mind and magically put their body back into a state before it could've been affected by it. [Affinities] were a part of their makeup, and they had been implemented unto the world in its creation, and they would last in it long after. This is, of course, the same occurrence with [Stats]. They were as much of a part of the body as anything, and only really served as an actual metric with how an entity would stack up with any other. It only ever helped gain more through divine influence or actual hard work. This, of course, was the crux of the problem for him currently, as he tried to remember what exactly had happened, to have made him get stuck halfway through a brick wall.

Credonz had thought of every eventuality when he came to confront someone, 'Feldur!', he thought, somewhat gladdened at the fact that his mind was coming back to him. He knew about the type of people that he usually employed. He knew about his secret second affinity. He had a crash course as to what type of skills that the man relied on. However, even with knowing all that, he had a bit of a disadvantage that he had to make up for, at least when he started upon the path he set himself towards.

For one thing, Credonz wasn't born with any natural affinities, nor was he able to come across any that weren't outright harmful to him. Most affinities around these parts of the continent mainly upheld the values of nature, and Credonz wasn't really looking to become part of the desert, even if he was desperate enough to take a sand affinity. Another thing that he had to make up for, was the pure level disparity and stat distribution.

Credonz hadn't resided in the City of Gelgun for awhile, and his news wasn't all that up to date. The last time that he had gotten information about Feldur, was when he was last employed at the tower, and that had been a couple years ago. Back then, he had just decided that working hard in the desert and fighting monsters of desolation would help his growth. From what he had recalled way back when, Feldur had a level of around 67. Couple this with the different species original stat distribution, and he was basically being set up for a one-two punch to the grave. With as much time as he'd been gone, he would have had to have developed some levels from eating, so Credonz guessed that he was around low 80's to a low 90's range. So, to be able to even have a chance of defeating the combat class, he would have to be level 100. Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to get to the level 100 milestone yet, but he was hoping in the battle, some experience would be imparted onto him, due to some class advancements during the fight or perhaps collateral damage to the town itself, and he'd be able to make a comeback.

From what he remembered, the pool for the 100 milestone, was a fair bit larger than most stat milestones were, but he didn't really worry about it too much. Level 100 was usually the most important milestone, simply because it allowed one to pick a skill that one could get with the stats that they had at the time. All increments of 100 were usually like that. There was, however, one other glaring concern that he had.

When he spent some time recovering some research in the tower and burning some documents he'd rather not fall into the wrong hands, he had come across a log, within a manager's safe, that contained a list of everything that went into the tower and came out. Some of the things that he was most concerned about, were the monsters that had been checked out and never got checked back in. He wasn't entirely sure if Feldur had a [Monster Tamer] or not, and even if he did, most monsters didn't exactly listen to their masters for long. He was fairly certain, that his mechanical creations he'd set up to march towards the wall would have taken care of any side threat, like misguided guards or those that were stationed along the tower. He wasn't sure if they could take care of any serious monster threat that they had cooked up, way back when. So, going into the town, he had three main objectives.

The first one, was to sneak inside while the guards were being assembled. He had some basic light inscriptions in his pack, that would let others not see him easily. However, the real problem was the gates. He couldn't exactly open them without anyone noticing that the crank was moving without anyone touching it. He had, of course, planned on perhaps knocking out those guards that had been stationed there, but it seems that Fortuna had been gazing at his predicament that day, and decided otherwise. He had been able to spot a caravan that was kicking up dust rather fast as he got closer to the settlement and sneaked along through the opened western gate to take care of his next objective.

This one, was to figure out where exactly the nearest church would be. Of course, Credonz wasn't ever really what anyone would call, a religious man, but he figured it would be better safe than sorry to pray there and see if any god would be willing to give advice or, perhaps actual aid through priests. However, his aching head and cracked back reminded him why that didn't exactly turn out all that well.

Despite honing his skills, he had never really been able to figure out how [Enchanters] went about enchanting their slates and paper. Of course, he was able to buy some high-quality paper to actually use for the light magic he had in mind, but no one would be willing to sell anything regarding magic detection. He asked around, but all that ever got him in the desert was a scoff, and a tip off to the local town guards. The only reason he had even thought of going in, was because he thought that the teacher he had paid for, actually did her job. He only ever asked how to carve that one specific action of evading magic detection, and she had complied some kind of runic incorporation, but...it didn't seem to work at all.

He hated himself for that. Whether he got tricked, or if he wasn't paying attention, he didn't know. Of course, later on, with a clear head, he would have probably realized that he had spent too much time paying attention to her ears and tail, and not enough attention to what she had been saying, but he would never admit to himself that he felt that way. His interests were supposed to be only aligned towards his kind, and others would downright reprimand him for the wayward glances if any knew about it. Either way, the result was the exact same event. Feldur was able to detect him within the city, and Credonz couldn't have known about it, until the stone behemoth had punched him square in the jaw.

This, of course, brings Credonz back to the present, and as to why he was stuck inside a wall with something blurry rapidly moving towards him from across the other side of the street. He was currently shifted into the third objective he had, far before he had even accomplished his second. For a second, Credonz was almost afraid. Even with his rapidly returning vision, and the speed in which Feldur kicked up the cobblestone, he didn't know exactly how he could escape this. It also did not help his decision making all that much, when he noticed that Feldur's eyes seemed to be glowing red with a power that did not belong to his class, at least according to Credonz's memories of it. He never actively met another berserker, so his memory of the previous fight was all that he had to go on. So, with Feldur seemingly intending on tackling him through the building to put him out of commission, and likely eat him for 'disturbing the peace', he got out of the indent he made, planted his feet, and dug deep into his back pockets. Bringing his arm up, and covering up the metal gauntlet that lay upon it, with some spare crystal in his front pockets, he rocked his fist as hard as he could upwards to delay his third objective, Confronting Feldur.

His fist made contact with the charging stone goliath, but instead of cracking its head clean off, Credonz just seemed to launch Feldur up into the air with a crack. Credonz, wanting to do something more than simply launching the man into the air, took some spare crystals and stomped on them, further releasing energy into his boots. However, instead of a buzzing sound, something within the shoes seemed to hiss in anticipation. He slightly berated himself for packing the wrong pair, but a gleam of wisdom went through his mind before any further thoughts drowned out his logical thinking. Crouching down, he pushed off the ground, and pistons within his boots aided his jump as he reached heights he couldn't have dreamt of years ago. However, his eyes weren't on the things moving around him, they were, instead, tracking down his steadily slowing down target.

Feldur seemed to gather his wits about him again, as he recovered from the jaw breaking strength of Credonz's gauntlet strike. However, it seemed like it was all too slow a pace that he recovered, for as soon as he realized that Credonz was in front of him again, did he once again get hit. However, instead of striking out with his fist, he seemed to wheel around with a piston-powered kick to the chest, which sent Feldur streaming across the sky seeming to crash straight into a couple buildings. At that, Credonz paused, sending silent prayers to any people who happened to be caught up in the fight. Unfortunately enough, this point in time is when his upward momentum ceased to be, and thus began a rapidly accelerating downward descent.

At this, Credonz slightly panicked. He hadn't exactly been expecting a fight in the air. At most, he thought it would be a simple matter of fisticuffs until he inevitably had beaten that monster down into the very earth he was composed of, not something like this. So, as he headed straight down, he spotted something slightly below him and too the left. He had apparently been pushed into the side of the castle overlooking all the city, down below. That was Feldur's seat of power, and it also had claim to having one of the tallest towers within it, and it was approaching fast. So, with a quick wit, and as the wind whipped past his face, he used up the final charge within his boots, and rocketed towards the rapidly approaching roof of the tower. And missed.

He had overshot, and instead of landing on top portion with the roof to somewhat break his fall, he had managed to aim himself off, and to the side of it. Thinking quickly, he maneuvered his body, and tried to reach for some of the mason work and slow down his descent. His gauntlets did indeed claw their way into the side of the tower, and his idea seemed to work. His claws stuck within the stone, they seemed to be also somewhat held by it, as he raced around the side of the tower, going round, his descent seemed to slow quite a bit.

Trying not to develop motion sickness, he tried to find any semblance of the church, as he now had a spinning view of the entire town to make use of. Now that he had wasted any magical items he could use up, whatever method that Feldur had found him by, probably wouldn't work a second time. However, this was also a double edged sword. He had put too much power into one of his gauntlets at once and it could no longer use anything to make a charge. Even then, there wasn't much left to even charge the other one for any longer than a couple of seconds, so he decided it was time to improvise. His tools were almost used up entirely, and he needed something that he had never received before, a miracle. So, as he circled the tower from on high, he spotted the church, its massive stone work and steepled rises seeming to reach towards him from further off east of the city. Readying himself, once he saw that there was little tower left to go around, and approaching the roof at a dizzying sideway speed, he ripped his claw out of the masonwork.

His running didn't exactly catch up to his real speed until his feet rolled a bit on the shingle, and he was off, running along the roof, desperately trying to maintain control of his speed. He would not have much time before Feldur recovered from his impromptu flight, so looking for an easy way down, he spotted a gutter handing off the side of the building, so sliding off the roof, he clung onto the side of the drainage pipe and slid down. Thankfully, the two-story drop hadn't managed to damage anything on Credonz's person, or even himself. So, jumping the last five feet, he ran down the side paths and alleyways, hoping to use the cover of darkness to hide himself and headed eastwards towards the church.

His feet pounded the pavement as he rushed from shadow to shadow. He could hear the far off sounds of destruction towards the southern wall, as well as, some happening northwards. It could've been some of his constructs that had managed to get around the town slightly, but he assumed it was from the direction he had struck Feldur. That meant he was rightly furious, and most likely not in his right mind.

'Good', mused Credonz, 'If he's angry, he's not thinking, and he'll only be able to act upon a [Berseker]'s instinct. Perfect.'

He whizzed through any light-stricken street, dodging haphazardly piled barrels and carts that had been left out in the open. And then, when he turned a corner, he saw it. The spires seeming to drip down from the sky as they peeked over rooftops. At first, he stumbled a bit over some loose cobble as at that exact moment, he realized how much he'd have to do to even pray. 'So much wasted gold's going to go down the river.', he thought.

Stepping silently, he approached the story-high double doors and checked if it was locked. Thankfully, no one had locked it in the ensuing chaos. That didn't mean that nobody was in it, however, as when he opened the doors, there was someone there to be a testament. There standing in front of him, was what he assumed to be a [Priest].

"If you're here for the service, that ended about 30 minutes ago." Confused, he looked around searching for the source of the voice before noticing a tuft of black hair below him. He turned his gaze downwards, to find that the priestly aura had been emanating from what appeared to be a dwem woman, who had also been the source of the blatant monotone, which went utterly against what her smiling face tried to employ. Credonz shook his head, trying to separate influence from reality.

"No, I'm just here to pray for guidance in these trying times." The [Priest] seemed to look at him for an awful long while, probably wondering why someone wearing rags and sporting around somewhat ruined armor was walking through the city.

"...Alright, I'll take you to the chamber. Do you have the customary cost?" Credonz nodded towards the questioning tone. At this, the dwemer reached into her robes to pull out what looked like a bunch of papers with her wing.

"Which god are you trying to reach?" She asked, as she scanned through her manuscript.

"Any that would have me." At this, she stopped, and glared upwards towards him, seemingly angry.

"That costs extra."

"Extra? Last time I was at a church it was just the basic cost with a wait time!" At this, the petite woman rolled her eyes.

"You must have not heard recently then. Durok's empire seems to be expanding, so most gods need faith to rebalance what he's using in excess. 'Cause of that, this costs basically 50 gold now." Credonz cursed under his breath. He knew not keeping in touch with worldly affairs would cost him in the long run. Now almost his entire horde of gold would be lost just to see if someone was able to help him.

"Alright. Sorry, I was angry. Here." He tugged off the pouch on his side and threw it towards the woman, who caught it deftly in her winged arm. Her smile seemed to widen a tad bit before shrinking.

"Follow me then." And with that, she turned and walked away down the hall. Credonz hadn't been inside a church in a long time, so the changes were kind of apparent once he actually stepped across the threshold of the door.

Where before the marble tiles lined the floor, and dragon glass infused into the ceiling, two stories up, to create etchings of historical importance, now had wooden scaffolding decorating the entire interior as many of those same drawings and sketched had been taken down and laid on the floor. Credonz made no comment about his suspicions. It could only ever mean one thing, if a church was redecorating, and most often times, it didn't mean anything good.

"So," Credonz queried, "who's the new god?" The dwem looked behind her and tilted her head upwards to meet his eyes.

"Currently, we are under orders from the [Lord] to shift our scope away from Sesham and towards Belun. Personally, I don't think it's going to last." Credonz thought it was quite curious that she, a [Priest] would say so, so he asked her one more question. However, a sickening realization went through his skull. In his mind, he played back the fight he just had with Feldur, and the red eyes once again stood out to him. Credonz could only hope there was not too much of a connection there.

"Why is that?"

"Currently, any actual [Priest] and members of her clergy are mostly dead. Some mishap with her crusade against Swelc a couple years back, not really too sure of the details, but since I'm associated with Grans, I've been brought here to make sure that anything that goes into building this, is at least of the same alignment." So, Credonz summarized that string of words as politics he shouldn't have asked about, and also, if he accidentally says something distasteful about Grans, then he wasn't sure he would be able to leave the church.

As they passed by some corridors, Credonz peeked down them to find some people huddled in a corner praying. He offered a silent bidding of good fortune and wished that they would have enough money to actually pay for a dedicated room, before heading onwards. Some doors were open along the side, leading to pulpits where he could view multiple people giving sermons about tenants upheld by their gods. He didn't pay attention to any sermon for long. He feared if he listened in for too long, he'd buy into the shpeal that [Preachers] often carried out. Finally, the dwem had turned left at some point down the endless corridor and came across a somewhat opulent door.

"Do you know the rules about praying?" Startled he looked downwards as she gestured towards the door with her black wing.

"No. I'm not really much of a church goer." She sighed before pushing the door open. Inside, was perhaps the fanciest room that Credonz had ever beheld. It didn't seem to host any of the renovations that the outside was currently going under, so the white marble tile still was left unblemished. There wasn't a hint of dirt or detritus within the room, and the only things inside of it was a raised altar, a satin pillow, and a bell. The decor of the room was spartan, but the design was simply perfect. It was made up of a domed roof that all led to a skylight, which shined unnaturally bright, given the condition outside.

"So, praying isn't all that much different from how it's normally done except for what you do with the items here. Instead of just doing it to the air though, you have to direct it towards the altar. Once you're ready to pray, you ring the bell, and start doing it. Once you're done, if any god deems you worthy to answer them, their name will show up upon the altar." The answer that the dwem gave was perhaps the most straightforward and helpful that Credonz had gotten that day. Then again, it was the only answer he had received on that day, but the statement would still stand if all went according to his plan. Credonz walked inside, but was stopped when he felt the leathery wing upon his back.

"Don't be afraid if no one shows up. Usually it takes a fair amount of time for anyone to respond. They have to parse through so many people after all." He nodded towards her slightly before heading towards the center of the room. He settled down on the pillow and heard the door shut behind him. He calmly breathed in, and let it out, getting himself into the mindset of prayer before he rang the bell and looked towards the altar. He took a moment of silence, contemplating whether or not the [Priest] was listening in, but he pushed the thought out of his mind and began praying.

"I...I need all the help I can get. No one else seems to want to stop Feldur's monstrous ways, and the only way I feel I can atone for this title I have is if I take him down. I know that once he's gone, this entire city will be without a [Lord], but it is something I feel has to be done. To prevent more losses of life, to persevere in the face of barbarity, and to save all those lives he's consumed, either physically or through actions like what I have done to the tower southwest of here. That is the reason I pray...I'm not strong enough on my own. Things have not gone according to the plan I have set, and the only way I feel like I can get back on track, is if I receive some aid. I'm willing to do anything just...someone...please help." Silence fills the room. Credonz's voice seems to bounce around the ceiling before trailing echoes can be heard far through the skylight. At first nothing seems to happen. There does not appear a list where he can choose who to talk to, nor is there any indication that it had worked at all. Sighing, Credonz went to get up, but then noticed something. The light was dimming slightly.

Indeed, the skylight that looked so bright was starting to dim to slowly towards a dull glow before not all too long of a time passed and it went out entirely. Darkness filled his senses, as his eyes began to make shapes within the dark, and his ears began to hear a phantom ringing before-

You have activated the Ritual of Prayer, with added help from the local church...

6 Valid Deities detected...

Deity 1: Swelc

Deity 2: Teltaj

Deity 3: Yoau

Deity 4: Invalda

Deity 5: Pelur

Deity 6: Ounder

The voice of the world spoke out, appearing above the altar.