The day came when Ed would have to face the oracle and it started off with the sound of a bard snoring just a few feet away. They had camped for the night a few hundred yards from the ruins that the oracle called home. Again he slept outside for Ashra's sake, this time in a small clearing on the road where the grass had made a nice spot to spend the night. His bedroll would have been nice but he had only ever slept on them once since this whole thing started.
When asked about the Oracle he had received multiple different answers about descriptions of the appearance. Some said she was an old woman, some said human, some said demi-human, and some said it was merely a disembodied voice. Ed was confused. The one thing that NO ONE messed up was the guardian.
When they had walked up he was standing there blocking the path. And he stood out like a sore thumb or wearing orange pants with a pink shirt.
He was a mountain almost literally. He stood at least 15 feet tall. He was oddly human-shaped. Like someone had taken clay and created a 15-foot statue of what a 3-year-old assumes adults look like. It was generally intimidating and almost a little bit cute.
"State your names and business." The ground shook out the noise more than the giant spoke it.
Ed stepped forward and looked up at the monster before him. "I am Erust, known as The Pilgrim, and these are my compatriots and we have been sent to see the Oracle."
"Who sent you?"
"The Divines sent us," Ed said with a sigh.
"Put out your hands." The monster instructed him.
Ed put his hands out and prepared to be eaten. Instead, the monster's face moved down the front of its clay body and looked at his hands. It put a large gentle finger in the palm of his hands and pushed. Ed felt his body move and then felt his divine energy move.
"Good, you are not a god. You may pass, the Felis and he bard must stay." It stood and pointed at Rennish.
Ashra looked at the large clay golem and looked at Rennish. "Why can't we go with Erust??"
Ed looked up at the golem and was about to protest the same thing when the ground resumed speaking. "You both are full of Divine Powers. Your presence is a danger to this place."
Ashra looked at Ed who smiled. "The curse," he said trying to reassure her. "He is seeing its power, it's that strong apparently."
Rennish smiled and walked up to the large man. "Now my good sir, I am very much a normal human male with a propensity towards music. You can't possibly deny me in?"
"You stink of it the worst. And besides that, you smell of more than one kind of Divine Power. YOU are the greatest threat. Now sit here outside or I will remove you from this place." The golem looked at Rennish and stood up straight, gaining another few inches of height.
Rennish wasn't intimidated. He was still a divine being on the inside, even if his powers were sealed behind the damage and spell that Ysennia had placed on him. "Well if you insist that we stay is there anything wrong with us setting up camp just over there inside the ruins? We do need to stay safe you know."
The Golem looked over and did what must have been a smile. "Stay in my eyesight and do not move. You are free to camp as much as you like."
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Ed was ushered into the building. The ruins looked like at one point they had been a great sandstone edifice. The stone was a collection of different colors, some black, some orange, some brown. Most were a tan color with flecks of gold or green emerald shining out occasionally. The inside of the ruin was kept tidy and neat by disciples and guardians of the Oracle.
The large golem had signaled for a demi-human of mixed races to escort Ed into the building. He was definitely a mix of Dwarf, Feline, and possibly Fairy if their kinds actually existed. Ed had met forest spirits but not Fay folk and he wasn't sure what normal was for them.
Ed marveled at how clean everything was on the inside. The outside looked like a building after the toddler had knocked it over. It kind of matched its guardian golem that way. But if you stayed inside you would have assumed that everything was perfectly normal.
Ed was ushered into a large round room. The inside was dimly lit due to the lack of windows and is at least two levels underground. The floor was some kind of polished green and black stone while the walls were carved from sandstone. Columns lined the inside of the room and each was that same soft tan color that seemed to be used in most of the building.
"Wait here please." The man said to him holding out a hand to indicate he should stand inside the circle.
Ed smiled and nodded to the figure before walking in. Ed figured even Oracles should be mysterious and what better way to be mysterious than to have people wait in creepy dark rooms. A good portion of anything is the show that goes on around it.
Ed looked in more detail at the room and noticed that it formed a perfect circle. Small emblems on the floor lined the inner edge of the largest circle. Ed chalked them up to the mystical symbols you would expect to see in mages offices or churches. The kind of thing to make the room look more mystical.
Ed was admiring the room when a door on the other side of the room opened and closed.
Ed turned to face the noise and found a matronly old woman. His mouth worked before his brain and he said, "Are you the Oracle?"
She looked at him and smiled. "What? Too cliche?" She smiled and snapped her fingers. Her body changed and she became a man with a face almost identical to his. "Is this better?" The voice now suddenly manly.
Ed looked at the oracle in complete surprise. "I wasn't expecting that. What are you? Divine?"
The Oracle looked at him. "You took that better than I expected. Can I call you Ed? That's so much better than Pilgrim or Erust."
"But how?" Ed started and didn't get to finish.
The oracle clapped his hands and a table formed in the center of the room with two chairs. "Take a seat, Ed." As the oracle walked back into the room it took on the shape of a grandmother it had before.
Ed sat down nervously. He was using every sense he had to look for divine power or magic at play here. Nothing showed up and on top of that this being had no Aura. It was as if it wasn't really there.
"What are you?" Ed said.
"I am the Oracle... What a dumb question." It said sitting down and pulling out cups and a pitcher of brown sweet liquid. It was some kind of fruit punch and spices.
"I get that, but WHAT are you? You can't possibly be alive are you?" Ed said taking the offered glass nervously.
"Very astute. I have a soul but I am not technically alive in the sense you measure it in. But in my own eyes, I am very much alive also. So that makes it a matter of perspective." The oracle took a sip and sighed as it enjoyed its beverage.
"Okay, so why come here then?" Ed looked at the table trying to figure out what was going on.
"I can help there Ed. First off, you must understand that my place in this world is unique. You know about the divine so that makes this easier. When this world was first made, the creator set down a series of rules it wanted everything to follow. Those rules govern things like wind, water, earth, and heat. They also govern how other organisms may be created and how they can grow.
Much like a garden you see. You get the dirt and water. You put plants and life in that dirt and give it water. Then when its time you remove that plant or wait for it to bear more fruit. But who makes sure all that happens correctly? The gardener is required to make sure all things are in constant harmony. To put it simply, I am that gardener."
Ed looked at the figure. "So you are a creation of the Lord God?"
"Exactly! So much easier when I explain this to you than a first-timer. Their brain starts to bleed and I have to do tricks or explain slowly until they suspend their disbelief. You already have the basics down." She put her cup down and clasped her hands together. "So why do you think they sent you here?"
Ed thought for a minute. "You work for them? And since you tend the garden you know which fruit needs tending?"
The oracle put her head in one hand and looked at Ed with a smile. "I love when a human almost get's it right on the first try. You have half that right. They think I work for them. But they do send people to me because I have a line onto every living and nonliving thing on this planet."
Ed tilted his head. "You work for the Lord God then? Or just the planet? Does that mean you really don't care about the little things that live here?"
"I work for the planet at the Creators will. When he is done with my service he will simply shut me off or create a new oracle to run the whole planet. Thankfully he is still pleased with me at this time." The oracle still looked at Ed with what might have been admiration for such a normal conversation and continued.
"Ed, you must realize they are using you, correct?"
Ed nodded and sipped on his drink. "I am not sure who to trust. They have already done something to essentially blackmail me back into submission."
The oracle winced and shook her head. "I am sorry about that too, by the way. You do know that your whole life wasn't always designed for failure. I have manipulated things where I can help you out. There is an outside force at play with you Ed." Ed's scroll materialized in the oracle's hand.
"Do you see this scroll? Your scroll? What's written on the back must come true. That's not a notes section it's a page used for addendums. It only came to my attention recently when people started asking about the pilgrim. I was unaware of a 'Pilgrim' in the system. Then I found out it was you and I realized I was being bamboozled."
Ed shook his head. "If you are in charge of making sure all the natural forces and life cooperate in harmony how would you not know it was me?"
"Divine power. A power strong enough to create a Glamour was used around you. Plus they used your soul to create the soul of Erust the pilgrim. Because they did it that way the soul counts did not change and I did not catch you. Consider it an auditing error that I plan to correct. I plan on measuring the total number of soul scrolls in my inventory versus the total number of living beings with souls from now on. I am a learning system you see."
Ed hated that his life was being played with but it made sense. Why else do it that way unless you wanted to make someone artificially grateful.
"What is really awful is the ways you have been misled. You do know about the uniqueness of your soul right?"
Ed nodded and leaned forward. "I know that I am handwritten by god and special among 14 other souls. I know that normally that makes us exceptionally powerful but I am just slightly better than the average human. Limited by my human form."
"Who told you that nonsense? Your soul is a special gift among the divine powers. You can amplify the powers of anyone else around you. You are a catalyst."
Ed shook his head. "Yeah I get that, but I can't create or do anything more than the average human."
"How many humans are there who are unique to your situation Ed?" She said smiling trying to lead the conversation.
"Fourteen Right?"
"Exactly. There are only fifteen of you total and you average among THEM. Not the whole planet. And of those other souls, most of you have powers equivalent to the gods and stronger in some ways. It's no wonder they didn't fill you in on exactly who and what you are."
"What are we then?"
The oracle smiled. "You are a system reset. You are like an the bodies own defense designed to perform a reset, crafted by the creator himself. Each of the fourteen other souls handles one particular part of the reset, but you are the lever on the damn that opens the whole flood gate. The button that turns on the lights or turns them off."