There was a moment of hesitation before the anchor was raised. Had they prepared everything? Was their plan truly as faultless as they believed? Was there any possibility that they would be able to sail the vessel 50 feet before it became a pile of splintered wood on the dock?
Yes, perhaps, and possibly came Lieze's answer. As soon as the sails were lowered, the clipper bounced along the waves until Saptra's dock was nothing but a faraway memory. Lieze placed her head on the table in the captain's cabin and tried to convince herself that she was still standing on level ground. She was pleased to hear from Lüngen not a moment later that a single cultist had yet to perish from risking their lives on the rigging.
"Are you feeling alright, Lieze?" He asked, knowing what the answer would be but still polite enough to ask.
"No." Her voice was muffled, "Of all the times to discover that I'm vulnerable to seasickness, I would rather it wasn't today."
"Your mind is adjusting to the motion of the craft. It'll become easier to cope with once you've had a few hours to walk around." He replied, planting himself at the opposite end of the table, "Drayya tells me you're also bothered by something else. Something less physical."
Of course she couldn't trust Drayya not to gossip. The last thing Lieze wanted was to share a deep and insightful conversation about the intrinsic value of life with her mentor.
"You're the helmsman. You should be above deck." She raised her head from the table. A little red rash had appeared on her forehead.
"Another cultist is handling it at the moment. This, on the other hand, cannot wait." Lüngen's expression of neutral content faded away - a surefire sign that he was about to discuss something heavy, "Your studies in Tonberg must have led you into a labyrinth of discovery. Considering your area of research, I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up discovering something rather foul about the state of our world."
"You already know." Lieze said. She did not phrase it as a question, for she knew that 'asking' was pointless. Of course Lüngen already knew.
He nodded, "-Of the Gods and their nature, and of their bid to control the world. Yes. Like you, I've also come to the same conclusion, although my research was carried out over the course of decades rather than weeks. Tomes and grimoires aren't especially common in the Deadlands, as I'm sure you're aware."
"Then, you must be able to tell me what to do." Lieze's chair scraped against the floor as she stood, "I've repeated it countless times - we are all just pawns in a greater game. But I never imagined that such a simple analogy could describe us so comprehensively. Everything I've come to understand about our 'faith' is being crushed before my very eyes."
Lüngen closed his eyes and folded his arms, "You've lost faith in the Blackbriar?"
"Because everything I knew about it turned out to be a lie!" She exclaimed, "There is no 'sanctuary' in the afterlife! Our experiences, memories, and faults - all of these things and more persist after death! I thought we were supposed to be saving the world! But all we're doing is sowing chaos and despair wherever we tread for no reason!"
Noma, Alma, Helmach, Furainé, Alistair - those names composed only five of the tens of thousands of lives Lieze had played a part in taking. The Church may have been a corrupt, despotic faith, but Lieze's beliefs mandated the amalgamation of good and evil. She may have uprooted the Church, but her rampage did not stop there. She stole the futures of scholars and lovers and artists and children, all to satisfy the dogma of her impeccable Order.
She did so because it was a necessary evil. The yoke of mortality invited an unbelievable amount of suffering. By separating the body from the soul - by allowing the latter to transcend both physical and mental anguish, she would be extinguishing despair from the light of consciousness. She was the unspoken hero. The saviour who took upon herself the guilt of murder in the name of a bright future. That singular belief - the idea that she was doing something good, had perfectly preserved her sanity up to that day.
But it was all a lie. Her ideal 'kingdom' of peace in the realm of spirituality was nothing more than a dream. She was merely serving the esoteric will of an omnicidal deity who wished for nothing more than a world devoid of life. A celestial beast seeking out desolation with as much zeal as a bull searching for a mate on the pasture.
Lieze paced about before collapsing into her chair with a sigh, "...What am I supposed to do now? Everything we've accomplished has been for nothing. I'm just doing exactly what the Blackbriar wants. The Sovereign Cities have already fallen. What could I possibly do to atone? What's the point in even trying to atone?"
Lüngen listened to her complaints with the mountainous patience of a father. Since the girl's youngest years, he had never seen her so passionate or bothered about anything. A great bead of sorrow had calcified in his gut, knowing better than anyone else that her words were the absolute truth.
"...You've certainly come a long way, Lieze." He began, "You barely resemble the girl who spent her afternoons chasing frogs in the marshes anymore."
"If only that was my worst sin. Killing frogs." She replied, "You knew all of this, and you didn't tell me? You watched me slaughter my way across the city without so much as a word of caution?"
"I was never-" Lüngen went to defend himself, only to find the sentiment dissolving on his breath, "...No. You're correct. I didn't. No matter how deep my affection runs for you and Drayya, I could not bring myself to so much as suggest an inkling of the truth to either of you. I allowed you to 'crusade' and 'cleanse' in the name of your infallible faith. But now that faith is fading away, and all you are left with is an emptiness that threatens to consume you whole."
Lieze furrowed her brow. She was resisting the anguish in her heart, but couldn't prevent it from showing on her face, "...But you could have stopped me. I would have listened to you."
"I know." He replied, "And now there is no atonement for either of us. The future has become uncertain, and our goals even moreso. What could possibly redeem the Order's folly in the eyes of those who yet live? The answer, of course, is death, but even that would not satisfy the shattered spirits of those whose lives have been scattered to the four winds."
"No atonement…" Lieze muttered, "So you don't know, either…"
"No. I certainly don't." He placed a hand on his chest, "But you do, Lieze."
"...What?" She raised her head.
"As a Scion, the fate of the world - however gruesome or heroic - rests in your hands." He explained, "Perhaps your conscience is unsalvageable. Perhaps there is no redemption for you. But the 'future' will always arrive, even in the face of true evil. It is your decision as to whether that future will involve the end of the world, or the arrival of a new era."
"A new era…" She muttered.
Lüngen exhaled heavily as he peeled himself from the chair. His footfalls were heavy against the creaking floorboards, "Those who seek death will find it. But those who seek 'life' have a long and arduous journey ahead of them. There is no defining this incomprehensible reality, and nor can the future be foretold by even the most powerful of sorcerers, for the 'future' is decided by the 'now', not the 'what will be'."
He creaked open the door to the deck and slipped through, leaving his words to simmer in Lieze's mind. As per usual, she had no idea what to make of Lüngen's explanations, but somehow, she was a tad more hopeful of the enigmatic 'future' than before.
New Quest Received!
'Plan Z' - Sneak past the Dwarven border without being detected
Reward - 5,500xp
Once, the promise of experience had excited Lieze, but having understood the dark significance of its power, she couldn't help but be somewhat disgusted by the idea of it. She dismissed the notification with a swipe of her hand, returning to the pile of books stacked upon her desk.
Within the Portable Home, at least, she didn't have to worry about seasickness. A clear head was precisely what she needed to theorise a solution to her celestial woes. She would leave the most complicated of Lüngen's lessons to a more enlightened version of herself, but until then, there were plenty of roiling emotions in desperate need of stabilising.
Lieze dipped her quill in ink and scribbled a summation of her thoughts onto paper. She reserved no guilt or regret, exploring the depths of her understanding until they took form as a rational explanation for her circumstances.
Firstly, she was a Scion. One Scion was chosen by one God, meaning there were always seven in total. Their unique powers and often-meteoric rates of growth would naturally draw them into the scope of the world's greater conflicts. In doing so, they would encounter one-another, do battle, and absorb the powers of the defeated.
Whichever Scion emerged victorious from this strange contest would invite the influence of their particular God into the material plane, who would then spend an indeterminate amount of time acting as the world's custodian. After this period, the God's 'term' would come to an end, and the cycle of the Scions would repeat yet again.
Lieze was chosen by the Gildwyrm, but when she was killed by Sokalar, the Blackbriar - whose Scion had been Helmach - offered her a second chance at life under the condition that she become its champion for the remainder of the contest. At the time, this seemed like little more than a convenient opportunity for Lieze to both survive and improve her necromancy, but as she delved into her studies following the conquest of Tonberg, the truth became apparent: she was being used as a puppet by the Blackbriar to ensure its victory over the other Gods.
Not only that, but she discovered through her research into the Scions testimonials of those who had undergone the process of resurrection, claiming that the intrinsic suffering of life central to the Order's ideals was not eliminated in death. This formed the crux of Lieze's sorrow - her beliefs had come into question, and her crusade against the life-cursed world suddenly wasn't as righteous as the Order made it out to be.
Then who was her true enemy?
"The Gods…" She muttered, "All of them - the Blackbriar included."
The architects of the world's sorrow. Bringers of conflict. Divine troublemakers on a quest to keep the world trapped in a cycle of allegiance.
But how could she hope to stand against the very Gods? Those who had supposedly willed the world into existence? Lieze was forced to admit the futility of it all. No matter how powerful she became, there was no challenging a deity.
"The Light in Chains."
Furainé's secret confession replayed in her mind. There was something about those three words - something forbidden and taboo. Alistair recognised them as well, but before any questions could be answered, Lieze was bound to her promise to end his life following the procedure to remove the phylactery from her body.
"I need to find out what this 'Light in Chains' really is…" She muttered, "There has to be something hidden in the fragmented journals of the Sages…"