From one moment to the next, Gallas suddenly found himself in the Mid Realm. Instead of the boy he had been staring at, another god now stood before him.

“Welcome back. Please take a seat,” Saharl said.

Realizing that he was not inside Alarna’s temple anymore, Gallas looked around in a panic. They were in an open space, the sky shimmering in thousands of different colors, merging into the seamless, white ground in the horizon. No trees, furniture, houses, or decorations in sight. Except for the large, round table behind Saharl, where six other gods sat, waiting.

He hadn’t left the temple out of his own volition. Someone had called him back here for some reason, and at the worst of times, when he believed he had just found his master, the creator of this world.

“I don’t have time for one of your fucking meetings, Saharl! I need to go back!” Gallas spat.

Saharl looked at him in surprise. He wasn’t usually one to curse in an agitated state. In fact, Gallas was usually one of the more subdued gods, who just did his job in peace.

“What happened?”

“The scripter! He’s back, and he’s—” Gallas started, but stopped short of telling his fellow gods about his discovery for the moment.

Not all of them would like this revelation, and some of them might even advocate for getting rid of him if possible. Gallas didn’t have enough information to know for sure whether Miles would be able to stop the gods, but based on the existing evidence, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to hold off more than one of them.

“He’s... what?” Saharl asked after a moment of silence.

Gallas’ shoulders slumped. “He... needs to be taken care of.”

“Well, this ‘fucking meeting’ is about just that, and more. So I would kindly ask you to get to your seat. We have time.”

With Saharl walking towards the table and taking a seat, Gallas reluctantly followed him and took his place among the gods as well.

“Now that we’re complete, let’s begin. As most of you already know, we have two awakened humans running around down there. They—”

“Four,” Shae interrupted.

“Four? Since when?” he asked incredulously.

Most of the gods snapped to attention after hearing about awakened humans. While Saharl liked to call these meetings for seemingly nonsensical reasons, this topic was different.

“I don’t know since when. I was locked away, remember?” Shae said, irritated, being the only one who wanted to stop them months ago.

Saharl looked down at the table in contemplation for a moment. “It’s been a while since there were this many...”

“Oh, it gets better,” Shae said. “There were five already, but one died recently.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me before?” he growled.

“I just learned about it right before you called us.”

“Well, at least one is already gone. We have some good news as well then,” Saharl said, lighting up.

“Brother, this is not—”

Shae was about to retort that there having been five in the first place was not good news, when another god spoke up.

“Could you two save your arguments for a later time? Why are there awakened humans, and why aren’t the mods dealing with them?”

“You’re right, Filia, let’s continue. As I was saying, they have awakened over the past three months and they are getting stronger. At least two of them briefly left Alarna, and at some point, twenty-one moderators were seemingly killed.”

Saharl briefly looked at his sister, searching for confirmation on these details, which he got in the form of a nod from her. He continued.

“We have since confirmed that twenty of them were sent to Alarna to deal with an anomaly, but they never returned. Seeing how one of the humans has another soul inside him, we can conclude that they were looking for him there. And that they found their end at his hands.”

“Whoa! Wait a minute, there’s a split human?” another god asked incredulously. “And he’s awakened? What is going on here?”

“That’s what we’re here to find out. Gallas, what can you tell us?”

Suddenly, all eyes were on him.

As the god of rituals, he was responsible for pulling souls from the Outer Realm and turning them into soul shards that may spawn in Erinn. However, a long time ago, the gods decided to use some souls to create moderators, which also became part of his job. This process should never have been applied to a human, however.

“I don’t know where he came from,” Gallas said, “but I can guarantee you that it was no mistake of mine.”

“Oh, come on,” Shae snarled. “This wouldn’t be the first time you made a mistake.”

“I don’t want to hear that from a girl who is constantly trying to break the rules out of sheer paranoia,” Gallas said, glancing at her. “I have also fixed this particular problem once already, but somehow he came back. Are you saying I somehow made this mistake twice?”

Saharl raised a hand towards Shae, who was getting ready to fight back, and addressed Gallas. “I’m not blaming you, but something has evidently gone wrong, and it’s reasonable to assume that it happened somewhere in your area of responsibility.”

To Gallas, what had happened was relatively obvious by now. This being, the presumed soul of his master, would surely have no issues entering this world on his own terms. He wouldn’t be surprised at all to learn that there were ways to bypass the Soul Stream. Not being ready to share this with his fellow gods just yet, however, he had to feign ignorance.

“Unfortunately I don’t have any more details. But this soul is peculiar. In case you missed my outcry... He came back. I sent him to the Outer Realm for processing, but that didn’t stop him. He’s also the most capable scripter I have seen yet.”

Saharl raised an eyebrow. “The most capable? More than us?”

Stretching out his arms, he gestured at the gods sitting here, unable to comprehend that someone was supposed to be better than them, and better than him in particular. Not to mention that, in his mind, this person wouldn’t be down there if they were that good.

“It’s not about how much you know about the system,” Gallas mockingly said. “It’s about your ability to use it. You never understood that. Remind me, how long did it take you to understand the ritual script back then? This guy made it his plaything in a matter of weeks.”

“What are you talking about?” Saharl asked. “Celeth said all they did was change the source for the soul check. I would hardly call that impressive.”

“That was two months ago,” Gallas said. “Now, he created a magic user.”

Another god shot up. “What?” he yelled at Saharl. “You’re telling us you’ve been dragging your feet for months, and now we have magic down there again!? This is a disaster!”

Shae sneered at him being yelled at, feeling the satisfaction of having been right the whole time. But of course there was a reason for all this.

“I have simply been following the protocol, Kevan. You know as well as I do that we can’t interfere directly in such a case. That being said... This changes things.”

“I’ve told you we should no longer follow that ridiculous protocol!” Kevan said, furious. “It’s bad enough that we can’t get the old guard to ignore it, but following it ourselves will be the death of all of us!”

Another nodded in agreement. “That’s right!” he exclaimed, and they started arguing about the pros and cons, as they had done so many times in the past. Two very notable exceptions were Gallas and Celeth, who silently looked at each other in annoyance.

“Enough!” Saharl yelled as he stood up.

A wave of mana erupted from his body and shut up the others in an instant.

“I will have to concede that this problem has gone a bit too far,” he said, “and that it could have, possibly, been prevented. But you will agree that our current system has worked very well for centuries, without breaking the protocol. This situation is unprecedented.”

“What do you suggest then...” Kevan asked, glancing at Saharl with trepidation.

“First of all: Gallas, what kind of magic user are we talking about?”

“I believe she’s a healer, but I couldn’t confirm it until you called me here.”

Saharl let himself fall back into his chair as they all breathed a sigh of relief. “You could have led with that,” Kevan said, a small laugh escaping his lips.

“Do you truly believe I would have calmly sat down here if someone dangerous was running amok down there?” Gallas asked him.

“There you have it,” Saharl said. “The situation isn’t as grave as it might appear on the surface. We lack information about what exactly is going on, but one thing is clear: they’re still weak. If Shae is right, and one of them died recently—”

“I am right,” she interjected.

“Then we shouldn’t be too concerned just yet. In lack of more intel, I was going to suggest sending the moderators once more, but to go all out this time. A healer doesn’t change anything, and she might even make this easier. Who knows, maybe she’s killing the others right as we speak. Shae will resume her job of monitoring things, and should they actually manage to escape death a second time, we will talk about other measures. By the creator. Understood?”

Everyone nodded, though not all of them were entirely convinced that this was the right way to go. None of them would dare go against Saharl’s orders however.

“Very well. With that out of the way, I want to talk about a few other topics as well.”

When Saharl started complaining about things that were solely important to him once more, leading this meeting into the direction they normally went in, Gallas mentally tuned out. Most of the gods weren’t very busy, and these meetings seemed to be somewhat of a pastime activity to their self-proclaimed leader.

Not wanting to indulge Saharl any more than he had to, Gallas’ thoughts were on the boy instead, and he wanted to get back as soon as he could. Time was fluctuating in this realm, and Saharl was right in saying that they weren’t in a hurry at that moment. Even if there had been something of immediate importance down there, it would still be there in an hour. All Gallas could hope now was that this meeting wouldn’t go on forever.