Zef snatched up the pendant and the effigy, stating: “I will be able to prolong the time the severance lasts, though not for long. A few days, at most.”

The Black Nail pulsed with eldritch light.

“Each time it does that, it’s the Gem trying to break its restraints,” she commented.

Not entirely sure what to think, Zel asked: “You’ve been mentally processing whatever the Black Rod showed you the entire time since we entered the cathedral chamber, haven’t you?”

“No…” Zef said. “I stopped when Von Wickten showed up. No way I could’ve fought while trying to make sense of antediluvian bullshit. Don’t worry, I would’ve told you if it became a problem. It was just a great deal of information, no different than digesting a heavy book.”

Zel would’ve told anyone else to just tell her anyway just in case.

She instead turned her eyes to Jorfr and said: “Well, might as well clean up after ourselves and then go for that tour of the city you promised. We’ll have plenty of time to go sightseeing since our appointment with your blacksmith friend is late in the afternoon, won’t we?”

While they were busy cleaning up, Fryg and Torhild burst out of the longhouse, questioning: “What was that northlight just now? What’d you do?”

Northlight - Zel remembered reading that Boreans used that term in reference to the eldritch unlight due to the fact the northern lights also manifested that otherworldly colour. Not having gotten a good look at Torhild before, Zel couldn’t help but look her over. Painfully bright blue-green eyes jumped out at her. She was similarly massive to Merete, if a bit less overtly muscular, and her face looked downright pretty, possessing next to no masculine or otherwise rough features. She wore a heavy, grey parka that was long enough to double as a very short dress, her treelike legs completely bare save for wooden sandals. Her blonde hair poked out of the hood in two thick braids. Even so, she gave off the same aura of physical power as Merete.

Noticing that her attention was elsewhere, Zef answered.

“An Itrian curse-warding ritual in case someone attempts to curse one of us. Just being cautious,” the gunwoman claimed. Zel couldn’t tell if she was lying. A half-truth?

“...That requires a sacrifice. Jorfr-” Fryg turned her eyes to the man as if about to chastise him, but she stopped herself when Zel raised an eyebrow to her. Jorfr didn’t seem to notice.

“-what did you use for the sacrifice?” Fryg finished tensely.

“Just a Razorflayer,” he shrugged.

“Ah. You’re not lying, are you? Such a sacrifice should not be able to produce…” she glanced skyward. The cloud cover had a hole in it shaped after the ritual’s projection, though it had nearly closed. “That.”

“I’ve learned a great many things while I was gone - among them, just how much power is wasted in a typical ritual sacrifice because the effort and knowledge required for true efficiency is too great for most ritualists,” he said completely seriously, then did something downright unsettling. He grinned, terribly smugly at that, then gestured to Zelsys.

“...Furthermore, we have the Skinless One’s favour.”

Thinking quickly, Zel pulled the Brass Stake out from one of her ammo belt’s empty shell loops which she’d stuck it into while they were cleaning, rather than take the time to stow it in Fog Storage properly.

“The God of Sacrifice thought to give you a piece of itself?!” Fryg breathed as she turned a cold stare to Zelsys, utterly appalled. She briefly closed her eyes, and with a sigh, all emotion and expression vanished from her countenance, replaced by impassive self-control. “Very well, I see no issue with you using our irminsul so long as you warn me if you intend to perform a truly significant rite.”

Fryg spun around on her heel and walked back into the longhouse, while Torhild stayed behind, briefly scanning Zel with curious eyes before shifting her attention to Victor. The redhead didn’t seem to be certain of what to do, not being nervous as much as thrown off-kilter. Zel found it amusing that of all situations it would be one like this to impact him more than killing a man for the first time. It had been the same for her.

“Torhild!” came Fryg’s voice from within the building. Torhild begrudgingly followed her ancestor.

They finished clearing out the remnants of their ritual and Jorfr at last fulfilled his promise of taking them on a tour of Oasis City.

A well-dressed, one-eyed man with a braided white beard sat inside his personal chambers, reading a trashy pulp from the lands far south in the hopes that its author had failed to omit some crucial piece of information that would help him in getting rid of her. A crow perched on his shoulder and a large animal best described as a bearcat hanged by its thick, prehensile tail from one of the support beams overhead. A curved bone blade protruded from the tail’s end, its edge coated in natural cold-iron. It was one of the rarer animals native to the jungle - a Crescent-tailed Binturong, the nocturnal counterpart to the Razorflayer.

Stomping footsteps approached his door, followed by powerful, angry knocking - barely short of outright punching the door, really. He didn’t bother to invite her in, knowing who it was and that she would enter of her own accord - and she did. His brutish, altogether unwomanly niece. She was furious, slamming the door in her wake and stomping up to his desk. Without being asked, she relayed her perspective of her brief exchange with Zelsys Newman in the Wolfblade inn.

The older man put his book down, and unable to fully believe what he was hearing.

“She stipulated what condition?! She’s a Storm-soul Cultivator, she should be at less than half strength without a weapon, even a temporary one! Either she thinks to insult us even further or she is completely consumed by hubris… Maybe both.”

Continuing, the woman stuttered as she struggled to contain her seething fury: “She just…. She just agreed to cripple her cultivation if I won as if there were no chance of that happening, and then said she would have me shave myself head-to-toe and bathe if she won.”