Crow chuckled as he slid his visor down over his face. Because he opted not to kill the paladins, it limited his disguise. Myriad of the Dead certainly changed, but the core of it remained. His Soul Butlers were still a thing, but they weren’t like mindless golems. They retained some of their personality and could now communicate. The Soul Butler bodies didn’t belong to them, so they were like a consciousness hiding inside automatons. The distinction was important because it changed how others interacted with them. They rewarded those that behaved, such as giving them a break and control over the Soul Butler body to explore the world.

While rebuilding the Myriad techniques, he removed some of their more sinister aspects. Previously, all the Soul Butlers would be destroyed if he died, which never sat well with him. Now he could determine the soul’s fate upon his death. It was one thing to kill someone but to destroy their previous lives and reset the soul through destruction was harsh on those who were just in the wrong place at the wrong time—people like Sione, who wasn’t a bad person but couldn’t escape his fate.

“We’re going through the church,” Sarah interrupted Crow’s thoughts. “Remember, you two follow me, question nothing. If anyone greets you with, ‘From Oblivion, we came.’ You respond, ‘To it, we shall return.’ There is only one god, so never scorn him or use the name in vain. It’s best if you don’t speak at all, Otto.”

“It’s fine. I’ll cover for him.”

“How?” Sarah asked more out of curiosity than anything else.

“Situations are dynamic, and adapting means not overthinking them. I tell them Otto nearly had his skull crushed, and Oblivion favored him for his selfish act. But it left his brain a little damaged.”

Sarah stared at Crow for a long while until Otto chuckled. “He right. Work.”

“People see what they want to see,” Crow shrugged. “The trick is to give them enough to let them jump to their own conclusions. If you give them too much information, they’ll subconsciously wonder why you are saying so much.”

“Who the hell are you?” Sarah mumbled and shook her head, trying to get rid of her unnecessary thoughts. “Last thing. There is a set of ceremonial leather armor which you two don’t have. This meeting isn’t a formal gathering, so it shouldn’t matter. But the sooner we can get a set, the better off we are. Even during regular mass, entering while wearing these metal suits is frowned upon—too much noise.”

Sarah exited the secret room, and it was like they had transitioned to an entirely different world. The cavern with the Inverted Cathedral was still as majestic as ever, but it wasn’t as bright out here and not nearly as developed.

As they approached the building, he could see the detail of the structure better. The amount of detail was so intense that it would have taken mortals decades—or centuries—to build. The central steeple touched the ground, and where a stained glass window would usually reside was an entryway with stairs leading upward.

The stairs brought them to an opulent church with rows of pews. There were already dozens of the paladins scattered around the place. Some were praying at small altars to the side, and some were sitting around, chatting quietly. Overall, it appeared so ordinary that it felt wrong.

Sarah was right. The vaulted ceiling was so high and grand that there was no way there was a room above it—unless it was above the cavern’s ceiling, which could be a thing. It was hard to understand the mind of an architect that designed a church to exist on the roof of a cave. Crow didn’t know enough about supporting a structure to determine what was safe or dangerous.

After going through all those thoughts, he scrapped all his previous assumptions. It was best to prepare for any reality.

Sconces lined the walls, and each one was between an alcove that housed a statue of a saint. Crow was more interested in the fire-based mana stones inside the sconces. The light they emitted was warm and cozy, but not even that warmth could eliminate the chill of the darkness he felt lurking in the shadows.

As if by some unspoken mutual understanding, Sarah brought them into a specific alcove. A statue stood before them, and she subtly pointed at the name. The man looked ordinary except for his eyes. Whoever carved this had subconsciously tapped into Soul-Carving because he could feel the saint’s essence in those sinister orbs. Crow involuntarily shivered upon seeing them because this saint was not a good person. The problem was he couldn’t read the name and didn’t know why she was pointing him out.

“Who?” Crow asked under his breath.

“Saint Aesculapius and his tomb is under us. I’m positive that whatever the Brotherhood of the Unspoken is up to, it has to do with this saint. I could understand the Brotherhood doing something like this, but the Clergy? Even if corrupted, I can’t understand why they’d profane the greatest saint that ever lived.”

Crow looked at the statue and noticed writing on the tip of the stole that he hadn’t seen before. It looked like someone had tried to cover it up, but time had worn the plaster away. He used a finger and rubbed it away, exposing the words underneath. Crow saw the writing and felt disturbed because they wrote it in Ancient Draoidh.

“What are you doing?” Sarah whispered sharply.

“Can you read that?” Crow pointed at the words.

“No? Are those actual words?”

“It is, but it’s an ancient language of my people. It says ‘Unholy Healer.’”

Sarah covered her mouth, but not before a small gasp escaped her throat. Other paladins who were milling about glanced over at her with silent condemnation. It took everything in Crow not to roll his eyes or spout out some random insult.

“Please tell me you are full of shit,” Sarah desperately whispered when people stopped paying attention to them.

“Would that help you sleep better?” Crow snorted. “Of course, I’m not full of shit. Do you know who that is?”

“Some older texts talk about the Unholy Healer, but they claimed he was our order’s biggest sinner—a bastard who betrayed every ideal they founded the Order of Minnustern on. But that can’t be right because we know Saint Aesculapius as our greatest hero and healer. His legend is on par with our god Ginnungagap, so I’m having difficulty believing your words.”

“I didn’t write those words, and I’ve certainly never heard of your saint or sinner. Why would I make that up? I will say one thing: what better way to hide a sinner than changing the narrative and keeping him in the light?”

“You don’t understand. Saint Aesculapius was supposed to be the greatest of us all, and his healing ability was unparalleled. Rumors said he could even revive the dead if they brought the corpse to him within three days of their death. How can someone like that be the Unholy Healer?”

“Let me ask you something… do you believe all power has a cost?”

“Yes.”

“How does the ability to raise the dead not send up red flags for you? Let me ask you, what kind of power did the Unholy Healer have?”

“It was said he sacrificed mortals—no. I-it-that can’t be true,” Sarah shook her head, trying to deny it. She didn’t want to believe it. Her faith was crumbling before her eyes because of the Clergy and Unspoken. They built Minnustern on a cursed cornerstone, and once exposed, it’d crumble, bringing down everything with it.

“Sacrifice?” Crow felt a cold chill down his spine. “You are saying he killed people to heal others? How fucking twisted is that? No wonder they claimed your city was free of poor and infirm and that crime barely existed. Your order didn’t achieve that through faith but by eliminating the unwelcome element in their city. That—”

“Enough,” Otto said softly. He knew when Crow was like this, he often forgot about those affected. His mind would jump from conclusion to conclusion, leaving those around him feeling lost. Sometimes, his self-awareness was garbage.

“Ah, sorry,” Crow apologized to Sarah.

“No,” she said, letting out a shaky breath. “I can see it now, and the signs were always there.”

“Serious question. Do you think this guy was a Druid?”

“Huh?” Sarah wasn’t expecting that question and was still trying to come to terms with everything she had just learned. “Uh, I don’t know. Why do you ask?”

“There is more I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think it relevant. Seeing that writing, I’m betting this saint had a relationship with my ancestors, provided he wasn’t a Druid himself. The Scath are the creation of Scath-Draoi—you can call him the Shadow Druid. He is part of our history and the first to betray the Druid Order. He turned to Caorthannach, and she made him the Ginearál de Far Dorcha—one of her four generals. If this saint of yours was a Druid, then maybe this conspiracy goes much deeper than we can even speculate.”

Sarah remained silent after that. Neither of them had the answers, so taking the discussion further was pointless. Still, she felt like her entire world had crumbled.

“Path,” Otto said beside her. “You not wrong. They wrong. Order. Ideals. All good. People bad. Don’t like. Rebuild better.”

Crow watched how Otto patiently worked Sarah and felt like the third wheel for the first time in his life. He wondered if this was how Otto and Acco felt all the time and chuckled to himself.