Lament of the Fallen

Dee paid vague attention to the proceedings on the large square below her. She was standing inside one of the towers of the temple overlooking the crowd below. The vantage point allowed her to stay out of sight while still staying within earshot. Still, being inside a temple dedicated to a deity dedicated to law and order gave her a nasty feeling. Gods dedicated to order and law were rather common and this temple had nothing to do with the primary God of Order that controlled the angels. Still, it made her feel like she was somewhere she didn’t belong.

The events happening below were largely due to her own machinations, but the slowness of it all made her impatient. She had been forced to learn some patience in the last week though. The news about the destruction of the embassy of the angels had set everyone on edge. Araqiel especially was shifting between worried and angry, and became only more so as the news of other dead angels and other related species filtered through. Araqiel might be the only live angel on Pantheon currently, not counting Dee of course, and some of the dead people she would count as friends, or at the very least acquaintances. Of course, some had also been her enemies, but a hundred dead enemies didn’t matter as much as a single dead friend.

Everyone was speculating about the identity of the person or community behind the attack, but there was very little to go by. The attack had happened during one of the dark periods of the Day city, and the attack had been quick, efficient and overwhelming. No evidence had been left behind and the embassy had been burnt to the ground before the surrounding communities could interfere. There were plenty of people and even races with grudges against the angels, so there was no lack of suspects. More than one person had looked Dee’s way in speculation as well. In order to convince Araqiel, she had been forced into utilizing Umbra’s ability to make it clear she had taken no part in the attack. Thanks to the ability, it was clear that Dee’s words were the absolute truth, and her direct words had made lies of omission difficult.

Personally, Dee was not sad to see the embassy gone, but it did complicate a few things. Umbra had provided her with a list of potential targets to attack in her bid to become the focus, but now she had trouble dealing with those targets. The destruction of the embassy had set everyone on a witch-hunt, and if Dee started to murder the Champions of order and law gods, then she would be drawing a lot of unfriendly attention towards the Five Winds. She was now strong enough that it didn’t much matter if people came after her, but she was still careful about implicating the Five Winds.

Going after those Champions would almost be a declaration of war and many people would assume she was also responsible for the embassy as the angels were the primary servants of order. To make matters worse, as she was now the Champion of two gods herself, others would know if she killed the Champions of other gods. Normally that would bring glory to the god she represented, but currently, that would draw the wrong kind of attention, as it was widely known the Champions of Umbra and Lumen were associated with the Five Winds, all thanks to the event known as the Fall of the Spider.

That is, if she killed her targets directly. For the purposes of her becoming the focus, it was enough that Umbra was aware of her causing the deaths of her targets. For others to know she was responsible, she would actually have to kill the target personally. Umbra and Lumen would have preferred if she acted herself and brought glory to them, but they understood the necessity to be discreet at times. As a result, she’d been forced to resort to more indirect means.

In the last week, three Champions of gods hostile to both Umbra and Lumen had lost their Champions in various ‘accidents’. One of those couldn’t’ really be called an accident though, as the poor guy had been killed in his sleep by his mistress after said mistress had found out she was not the only woman the Champion was having fun with. It was one thing to have an illustrious man cheat on his wife with you, but it was entirely different to just be one of several such mistresses. The first one was almost an honor, while the second one was a humiliation.

The events happening below had taken much more work on Dee’s part to arrange. A ninth-ranked warrior serving a god of law and order was too powerful to simply die in a simple accident. He also didn’t have such an obvious exploitable weakness, or so it had seemed at first. It had taken some digging on Dee’s part to uncover something she could use. The temple he led tried maintaining order in one of the larger gatherings of communities inside the Night city, a large city within an even larger one. Despite the lawless nature of some parts of the Night city, most of the communities didn’t allow things to devolve into anarchy and most large gatherings either relied on the judgement of the local hegemon or a seemingly neutral third party. Thus organizations like the temples of law and order were often places where the people of Night city sought justice.

The square was a place where judgement was rendered and grievances could be settled. There was also a clear area delineated for executions. The Champion of Themis was overseeing the proceedings, though he was not pleased by the recent developments. Charges were being levied against him, and not just by one person either. The allegations of a single person would be easy to brush aside, but having so many people attacking his integrity at the same time was much harder to ignore. The temple relied on their reputation for impartiality, so if this many allegations were ignored then the temple would lose all credibility.

Champions of law and order rarely had the penchant for something truly heinous as their own gods would abandon them if they found out. However, that didn’t mean they were saints as shown by the Champion with his mistresses that Dee had dealt with earlier. This particular Champion had the habit of swaying his decision according to his own interests. He didn’t take bribes, as that would be a blatant disregard of the very principles he was supposed to serve. Just that there were certain benefits that could fall the temple’s way when certain decisions were made. The temple might decide to confiscate the ill-gotten gains of certain criminals and distribute them to the affected people according to their judgement. They were the most neutral party to perform such duties after all. Only, some assets never wound up being distributed due to various reasons, and some assets would end up being distributed slightly unevenly, favoring people the Champion liked. He was also harsher than was required when the person being judged had ample possessions to distribute.

As there was a stark lack of places or willingness to detain criminals for long periods of time, punishment was usually exacted either in material compensation or blood, often in both. In the Night city, the most common punishment was death. As the Champion’s misdeeds were being aired for everyone to see, the crowd began to demand justice. Yet, his misdeeds were not so heavy that the other priests and clerics would be willing to see their Champion executed. True, he had erred, but his crime was mostly not in the service of his own greed, and often benefitted the temple. The clerics themselves had been the beneficiaries on some occasions, and had not questioned the Champion’s actions. Thus, Dee had added a little spice of her own to the mix, just enough to pressure even those reticent people.

One of those clamoring for justice moved forward with a new charge and asserted that the Champion had judged an innocent man to death to clear the way for the Champion to claim that man’s wife for some fun. Of course the Champion denied the charge, as it was entirely false, but when combined with the other charges they gained some credibility. When the accuser and the wife in question were interrogated under truth spells, they passed with flying colors. That was natural because as far as they knew, they weren’t lying.

Dee scoffed. That was the problem with truth spells, even those cast by the priests of a Goddess of Law and Order. If the one under the spell thought he was speaking the truth, then the spell would flag the words as true. And Dee had spent quite a bit of effort planting those memories in the heads of those two people. Messing with the minds of people was not her preferred way of doing things, but it worked well in this case. She had made sure that the ‘wife’ had very pleasant memories of her time with the Champion.

While she watched the situation spiral out of hand, Dee grimaced at the memory of her previous meeting with the deities. The two goddesses had been gloating quite a bit, and Dee had been forced to use the word ‘please’ again to have them teach her how to stop leaking holy all over the place. She still gave off a sacred feeling of sorts when someone paid attention, but at least she wasn’t alerting everyone in close proximity to her presence anymore. Now she would likely have to pull that holy presence out again to move things in the direction she wanted.

Her dominating presence was a whole other matter. Moirai and Nyx had run some tests and subjected several people to the dominating aura before they had come to some conclusions. Apparently, everyone that had either been defeated by Dee before or recognized Dee as superior felt an instinctive fear and reverence towards her. They had trouble trying to oppose her even in their minds, and would be heavily suppressed if they actually tried. Even those with similar strength than Dee could be heavily affected if their mindset was wrong. Yet it seemed there were exceptions and Dee didn’t have full control over the ability yet. For example, Moirai knew she was not as strong as Dee, yet she was barely affected. Shioko, on the other hand, was stronger than Moirai, at least theoretically, but was rather strongly affected. So there were some other factors involved, most of them ill-defined so far. Dee could unconsciously exclude people, but some people like Faylen were affected even when she tried excluding them. Yet, when they were in certain relaxed mindsets that had nothing to do with viewing Dee as a powerful individual, the pressure would vanish.

“It seems it’s time for me to make an appearance.” Dee suddenly said, and changed her appearance to that of a standard angel, a seraph to be exact. The seraph often worked as emissaries of various order deities, as a favor from the primary God of Order. Some of those gods had even created something similar of their own when they had the ability, though usually, they could only manage a handful of such beings.

The Champion had been condemned by both the gathered people and a portion of the priests that were less friendly with him, but had decided to resist. His decision was natural, as he was the most powerful person present. In his mind, he was the embodiment of the principles that their goddess represented, so this dirty rabble was not fit to judge him. Not on these false allegations! That of course ignored the fact that most of the allegations were true, but such details usually didn’t get in the way of a good delusion.

Suddenly the Champion found his power leaving him as a great weight settled on him, pressing him to the ground and on his knees. “Citizens of Sidon! Servants of mistress Themis! Hear me!” Dee floated slowly down to the square, her dominating presence now affecting the crowd as well, though to a much lesser extent. They could feel the holiness radiating off her though, and assumed that holiness to be that of the deity Themis, and her to be a messenger. An impression strengthened by her following words.

Dee had almost spat out the word mistress earlier, but it had been necessary. Mistress could still be a non-reverential term, but the idea had already been planted in everyone’s minds. Still, it was likely that Lumen and Umbra would want her to call them mistress at least once to tease her. She would have to use as much sarcasm as possible when that happened. “Today the misdeeds of the Champion of the mistress have come to light and she finds herself sorely disappointed in her chosen. One who was supposed to uphold law and order has twisted it instead. Further, to escape the lawful judgement, the accused also wanted to use her power to harm innocent people. Thus I have been sent to make sure this travesty does not come to pass and to aid in rendering judgement! The accused has been made powerless, and now it falls upon the people here to exact punishment, if such is your decision. Remember, don’t let anger cloud your judgement in the search for truth.”

‘Yeah, that sounds a little too thick for anyone, but what can you do. Mobs require catering to the lowest denominator.’ Dee thought to herself. Who knew she would end up preaching something like this, even if her words were a bit on the sarcastic side?

The Champion of course was perfectly aware that Dee wasn’t a messenger of the goddess Themis, but was unable to say a word due to being pressured by Dee’s Domain. To others, it looked like the goddess was giving them a chance to judge a powerful criminal misusing the goddess’ name. And they were partially correct. It simply wasn’t Themis that had sent Dee here, but a different goddess entirely. Even the priests of Themis could not tell the difference as the sacred power practically oozed out of Dee. She looked like the perfect messenger, and they didn’t know better. Thus, even those that considered the Champion their friend were pushed to a decision by the blatant ruling of their goddess, and they called for the execution of the Champion. The power of faith was stronger than bonds of friendship after all. Especially when those bonds were built simply on greed and mutual benefit.

The crowd was all too happy to join in the condemnation, and a volunteer wielded the Champion’s own blade to bring that judgement upon him. Once the deed was done, Dee gave some further platitudes to make the crowd and the priests feel good about their decision and flew off so quickly that she seemed to vanish. While flying away, she considered another thing she had previously learned when conversing with the deities, in this case with Lumen in particular.

Dee had inquired about the special powers of Lumen, and had been told in no uncertain terms that the particular ability would do her no good. In fact, the goddess had claimed the ability would be counter-productive. Dee had wanted to know the details anyway, but Lumen had claimed that she would not reveal it since the ability relied on the element of surprise to work. Dee wasn’t entirely convinced that was true, but she didn’t mind either way. She had no lack of abilities, so one that didn’t suit her wasn’t a big deal. The mystery of it was more important to her than actually gaining a new ability.

Suddenly her thoughts were interrupted as she was forced to swerve violently to the side. A large blade of energy flashed by the spot she would have been otherwise. The attack had been extremely fast and accurate considering the distance it had traveled, but she had the ability to sense things from far enough away to not get caught by surprise. She had sensed the other being quite a bit earlier, but had not considered them to be hostile before the attack. Not that she didn’t prepare just in case. Additionally, the projectile might have been fast for most people but Dee had no trouble dodging it. She wasn’t even forced into using Lumen’s blessing to dodge the attack.

A clacking laughter sounding extremely creepy approached her. The appearance of the hideous being made Dee narrow her eyes, not because she was disgusted, but because the attacker had been a demon. To be exact, the attacker seemed to be a Blade Demon, a creature that looked like someone had poured molten metal into a mold and had removed the mold a bit too soon, leaving a bit of the metal to still run down the sides. As the name implied, the demon was covered in dozens of extremely sharp edges and pointy spikes, while its form was generally that of a large hunched humanoid.

“Well, it has been a while since I last failed to ambush my enemy. Rare are those that have the ability to dodge my void blades!” The metallic sounding voice was clearly tinged with insanity and bloodlust.

‘Void blade? Was that blade supposed to be some sort of void energy? Or is it just a fancy name?’ Dee sent a wondering thought to Croestia.

‘Well, strictly speaking, the blade did seem to create a weird edge of sorts, so I suppose?’ Croestia shot back amused at the name.

“Was that supposed to be dangerous?” Dee asked the demon with clear disdain in her voice.

“It seems you don’t have the proper respect. No matter. Mistress Umbra will give me the strength to show you the folly of your ways. Just like she lead me straight to you.” The metallic creature lunged towards Dee with its long and sharp claws reaching for Dee’s face in an attempt to rip it off.

‘Wait, Umbra led this being to me?’ Dee was slightly confused in her thoughts, but not in her actions. She moved much faster than the creature and grabbed a hold of one of the few places on the beings hand that was not covered in something sharp and threw the demon straight at the ground. Despite the short distance, the sheer power behind the throw and the mass of the surprisingly heavy demon caused damage comparable to a large meteor strike, the after effects traveling hundreds of kilomels in all directions. The relatively nearby city most likely suffered some damage as well.

The demon was rather sturdy though, so it wasn’t really damaged, just a bit stunned. “How can you be so fast and strong?” The demon wondered with a twisted expression.

“That was supposed to be fast?” Dee wondered, not realizing that her own speed and perception even without using Lumen’s blessing had grown exponentially, both due to her personal growth as well as the new title of Champion she held. The demon actually was rather fast, just that Dee had not gotten used to her new abilities yet. “Never mind. Let me show you just how wrong you are about Umbra helping you.”

The shadows suddenly coalesced into strict bindings around the demon. The demon tried trashing around, but its blades had no effect on the shadows holding it, as the shadows simply bent away or allowed the blades to pass through harmlessly, while still holding on to the demon’s form. “It seems you’re rather sturdy as well. Let’s see just how sturdy.” Dee stated, while a small ball of black flames suddenly dashed towards the being.

The demon harrumphed and walls of earth rose from the ground to meet the ball of fire. To Dee’s surprise, the walls of stone that held no power of the demon anymore actually stopped the ball of fire. Granted the walls were all turned to dust and the ball had been small, but still. Apparently solid objects without power were a much more effective defense than anything created out of mana or ki. Of course, she could enhance the more destructive aspect of the flame or combine it with her dragon breath, but it was still interesting to know. “Is that all you got?!” The demon taunted while tearing away some of the constraints around him with sheer strength.

“I don’t think you’re in a position to say anything.” Dee muttered a little amused, but decided to oblige. A giant blade of psionic power materialized next to her, the blade alone being wider than she was tall. ‘When something complex fails, go back to the basics.’ She thought to herself.

Once again the power seemed to almost crystalize into something solid, before Dee made a small flicking motion with her hand, sending the blade at the demon. Apparently the sturdy metal of the demon’s body was not enough to resist the blade, as the being was cleaved into two almost without resistance. Out of curiosity Dee had left the exploding element out of the blade this time and observed as the blade slowly started to vanish. She realized she could force the blade to materialize fully and stay there, but currently there was no point. It might be interesting to find out if a blade like that could stay forever.

She landed on the ground and made a small prayer to Umbra, seeking an audience. The goddess had some explaining to do. Dee was not surprised to find herself inside the palace made of pure darkness, as the two sat in the garden opposite each other. “I’m guessing you want to know about the demon?” Umbra asked straight out without preamble, knowing Dee might be feeling a bit antsy.

“You guess correctly.” Dee replied curtly.

“I did mention to you that there are other candidates for the position. That little demon was one of them. I’ve also mentioned it before that while you’re my preferred choice, made obvious by the fact that you are my Champion, I can’t act too biased. So I may have given your location out and guided the demon to you. I may also do so in the future. I may also continue to forget to mention to them how little chance they have against you, and only guide them to you while you’re outside the Five Winds. It’s not really my fault if they decide to bite off more than they can chew and if it happens to benefit you as well, so be it. I did as they asked. What they do with the information is up to them.” Umbra grinned, her meaning clear. Even when giving favors to the others, she was actually doing favors to Dee instead.

Dee decided to let it go as the goddess had a point and had made sure to point out that such attacks would not come to the Five Winds. Instead, she asked something else that was bothering her. “That sorry being was supposed to be a candidate as well?”

“Well, you have to understand a few things. First of all, your strength has just grown much more than you realize. You’re gaining the power to fight multiple immortals at the same time, so a single one should be fairly simple, especially since you’re suppressing their abilities even without noticing. You’re just comparing them against monsters like Teresa or the avatar you just killed. You have to keep in mind that no single immortal has the level of advantages you have. Now don’t get too cocky as a large enough group of immortals can still trounce you as things stand, and there are other monsters out there. Eventually, you will have the power to take on the entire Paradisia, but not just yet. Another thing to realize is that the demon just now wasn’t exactly the most powerful candidate. I just started you off with something a bit easy. Still, don’t think that the demon didn’t have his own strengths. They just didn’t match well with yours.” Umbra explained.

That made Dee think. She had been feeling much stronger since the death of the avatar, but perhaps she didn’t realize just how much stronger she had gotten. Her thoughts were soon interrupted. “Since I just gave your competition a little help, let me give you something useful as well. It’s time for you to return to the Five Winds.”

“Why?” Dee had a hunch, but had to make sure. She had assumed that she had limited time and that seemed to hold true.

“The Celestial Emperor will soon make his move. You might want to warn the seer that’s been leading the Five Winds lately. Tell her that her husband is coming soon. She already has plans in place.” Umbra gave a curt explanation, before making a shooing gesture to send Dee’s mind back.

As Dee vanished, Umbra looked at the now empty seat with some wistfulness. “You should also say your goodbyes. It’s time for you to leave the relative safety of Pantheon behind.” Dee would hear the message when she woke up.