Chương 435: Chapter 430 - Adtia

Scarlett considered the character floating in the air, radiating an ethereal presence that inevitably evoked the feeling of standing beneath a full moon on a clear night.

"What…does that say?" Skyler asked, uncertainty in her voice."'I see you'," Scarlett answered.

"You can read it?"

"Primordial is not so much read as…inferred," Scarlett said.

"But yes." Her brow furrowed slightly.

"Slate. Can she hear us?"

"She can," Slate replied.

"Very well." Scarlett glanced down at Melody.

"And is she unhurt?"

"I have separated all connections between the avatar and Adtia but one pathway," Slate said.

"Her body is under less strain, not more. There is nothing to hurt."

"She is not moving." Slate studied Melody for a moment.

"…A state of partial dissociation. Self-imposed withdrawal from external stimuli." She paused.

"Correction. Her body is unharmed. I cannot make the same assertion regarding her already unstable mental faculties." Skyler knelt beside Melody, hesitating before gently reaching towards the woman's hand, where it covered part of her face. She stopped herself and lowered her hand again. Her gaze lingered on Melody before lifting to Scarlett — and then to the silvery character suspended before them. A trace of anger flickered in her eyes.

"I thought she was supposed to be your avatar," she said.

"Is this what you do to her?" The character didn't change. Skyler turned back to Scarlett.

"How do we—" The symbol shifted. In a single fluid motion, it reformed into a new configuration.

"Slate, can you translate?" Scarlett asked."'The child is unfortunate'," Slate replied.

"Unfortunate…?" Skyler looked between Slate and the symbol.

"That's what you call this?"

"While I understand your reaction, this may not be the time to scold a goddess," Scarlett said. She eyed Skyler briefly before turning her attention back to the floating script. The conduit through which a deity was currently communicating. If this had been just a few weeks ago, the idea of a goddess interacting with the Material Realm directly like this would probably have bordered on impossible. Even gods capable of addressing mortals—like Ittar—were severely limited in that regard.

Scarlett supposed this was only possible because they were no longer as constrained after her removal of Fate. Presumably, if Slate hadn't restricted the communion, Adtia would have spoken directly through Melody. How far removed was that from pure manifestation?

"Let me ask first," she said.

"Are you Adtia, goddess of the night and the moon?" The light warped, then settled into a new form."'Yes'," Slate translated.

"Good." Scarlett nodded once.

"Then what did you mean by 'I see you'?" The light held, and this time it formed into several new characters."'My child. The disruptors. You are seen'," Slate said.

"Disruptors?" Scarlett frowned slightly. She glanced at Skyler.

"I assume you mean her and me." No response came. Finally, Scarlett looked back to Slate.

"Can the connection be lost?" Slate shook her head.

"Adtia can only evoke limited power in the Material Realm. It is possible she does not wish to answer questions for which the answers are self-evident."

"I see." Scarlett said nothing, eyes fixed on the script.

"What does she mean by disruptors?" Skyler asked, frustration edging into her voice.

"It is difficult to say," Scarlett replied.

"That would depend on her perspective. Will you explain precisely what you mean by that?" She directed the last question at the goddess. The floating characters remained perfectly still.

"It appears not," she added. She had almost expected that. As a first guess, Scarlett assumed it referred to the fact that both she and Skyler could defy Fate. But it could just as easily mean something broader, like them being people whose actions carried disproportionate weight, or who interfered with some unknown design Adtia might've had for Melody.

"Slate." Scarlett turned her attention back to the homunculus.

"Can you estimate how many further responses the goddess is capable of?" Slate's gaze turned unfocused, as though indexing something unseen.

"No," she eventually said.

"A reliable estimate is impossible."

"Then an unreliable one." The girl was quiet for a moment longer.

"Between five and ten exchanges." Scarlett exhaled slowly. That wasn't much. Far less than she would have preferred when communing with a goddess. She looked back to the primordial characters, considering them.

"I assume there is something you wish to convey to your avatar," she said, "or you would not have accepted in this manner. As the one who facilitated this communion, I can assist in conveying that message. In exchange, I would like to ask three layered questions. I will not seek confirmation. I will assume your assent." She watched the symbol closely, half-expecting it to change and refuse outright. It didn't. That was good, at least. There were plenty of things she wanted to know, but three took priority.

"First, I am aware that divinity has begun moving en masse. Many gods are seeking to expand their influence in the Material Realm. I wish to know how many are doing so, and what their current limits of interaction are. Will they be restricted to specific mortals? Can they interfere directly? Can any of them manifest, in part or in full?" As her words faded, she was left waiting again. A light breeze drifted across the cliffside, stirring her hair.

Though it was midday, the argent glow before her did an impressive job of dulling the sunlight, somehow washing the world in the same muted tone one might associate with night. It carried that same weight as well, where time seemed to stretch, each second lingering a little longer than it should have. Eventually, there was another shift. This time, it formed a longer sequence of characters."' All'," Slate translated.

"'Disparate. Old laws constrained unequally. Some may manifest'." The goddess had agreed to answer, then. That all of the gods were moving didn't actually surprise Scarlett. She'd mostly been expecting that. The rest of the response was less straightforward, though.

'Disparate' likely meant that the restrictions placed upon divinity varied from god to god. Why the laws would have constrained them unevenly was less clear, but that question could wait. What mattered was confirming that there were some gods that could already manifest in some capacity. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Next," Scarlett said, "I wish to know when divinity will be able to act openly within this realm." From her brief touch on the topic with Yamina and her longer conversation with Mistress, she'd gotten the sense that most of the gods were still building towards direct involvement. Not that they had already arrived. But she wanted to confirm that.

"Are there gods who have already breached the Material Realm? When will the others—including you—begin to act?" The characters moved again."'Yes. Soon,'" Slate said. Scarlett's lips pressed into a thin line. So there were already gods in the Material Realm, interfering in ways they previously couldn't? At least Adtia's words seemed to confirm that most gods had yet to cross fully.

"Which gods are already present," Scarlett continued, "and where are they interfering? Are they—or any of the others who will inevitably follow—a threat to this realm or its inhabitants?" Asking that of a goddess herself wasn't necessarily wise. There was nothing stopping Adtia from lying outright. Still, Scarlett felt relatively confident. At least in the game, Adtia had never been overtly belligerent, and Scarlett didn't get the sense that that had changed.

It seemed unlikely that the goddess would fabricate information about the other divinities in this scenario. Scarlett almost thought she sensed a trace of hesitation from the floating symbol. It was subtle enough that it could easily have been her imagination, especially since the light itself showed no obvious reaction. But then it shifted, forming a single character."' Eidolon'," Slate translated once more. That was all. Scarlett frowned. Adtia's earlier answers had at least carried some degree of elaboration.

This one didn't. It was given as though the single word alone should suffice. Interpreted that way, it was possible the goddess viewed Eidolon as the only divinity currently interfering directly with the Material Realm — and the only one posing an immediate threat. But perhaps she didn't know where that interference was occurring. Still, Scarlett could work with that. A name was a vector that she could investigate and verify to draw her own conclusions.

It was also the sort of problem Slate might be able to assist with. With that said… The answer confused her somewhat. Admittedly, Scarlett had limited interaction with this world's divinity. She'd dealt more with entities that weren't entirely native to it — beings like The Gentleman or the Anomalous One. Of the local gods, she was only truly familiar with Ittar, Itris, and Adtia. That didn't mean she was ignorant of all the others.

There were at least a few dozen scattered throughout the game's lore or referenced in this world's historical and religious texts. Eidolon was a name she did recognise. She vaguely remembered spotting it in the game, but more clearly in historical accounts she'd read during her research after arriving in this world. One detail stood out. Eidolon was not the name of a single god. It was a title associated with a pair. And, according to what she knew, they were dead. Not gods of death or anything like that.

Dead dead. Destroyed during The Severance, along with several other deities. Which meant either this was a divergence from Fate she hadn't encountered before, or the lore hadn't functioned as she thought it would with Eidolon. The main problem was that she didn't know much about Eidolon or what purpose they served. That made it difficult to assess any threat they posed. That did unsettle her slightly. Scarlett glanced at Slate, studying her. She would see what information she could extract from the girl later.

If Slate knew nothing, then Yamina would likely be her next option. The wizard was familiar with a great deal that Scarlett wasn't. Turning back to the floating argent light, Scarlett folded her arms. She wanted to ask more questions, but she'd already folded several sub-questions into her three, and simply knowing that some gods could manifest and that at least one posed an active threat was good. It made Mistress' proposal about her so-called 'gala' more tempting than before.

Still, there was far too much to consider before committing to anything like that. For now, she pushed the matter aside.

"Since you have answered my questions," Scarlett said, "I will convey your message. What is it that you wish to tell your avatar?" The argent light shifted again."'I need an altar'," Slate declared. Scarlett raised a brow. That was what Adtia wanted to tell Melody? That she needed an altar? It felt somewhat cheap, given what Melody had been through.

"Do you require one because you intend to manifest more directly in the Material Realm and need an anchor?" Scarlett asked. Since Adtia was, for all intents and purposes, a forgotten goddess in this realm, her influence here was far weaker than that of most others. An altar could signify many things, but an anchor made sense. She might want something that could help stabilise or cement her presence despite that lack of worship. Scarlett waited a while for the goddess to answer, but eventually sighed quietly.

"I will relay your request to her. Whether she agrees is another matter, and I cannot, nor will I, force her. Additionally, unless you expect her to act on that information alone, you will need to provide more than this." The goddess remained silent. Did Adtia truly expect what she had already said to be enough? Scarlett couldn't see how it would be, or how Melody would even know what to do with such a request.

In any case, Scarlett wasn't particularly interested in involving herself in that sort of endeavour right now. Not on top of everything else. Nor could she yet say whether helping Adtia establish a foothold in the Material Realm would ultimately be a good thing. Her gaze drifted briefly to Melody and Skyler, lingering on the latter as Skyler seemed to have started staring at the empty air, her expression caught somewhere between annoyance and concern.

Regardless, this didn't look like a task meant for Scarlett to begin with. Suddenly, Melody stirred. Skyler's attention snapped to her immediately.

"Mel, are you okay?" Melody was still covering her face with both hands, but Scarlett thought she caught the faint sound of words slipping through her fingers. Skyler leaned closer.

"What did you say?"

"…sister," Melody murmured.

"What?"

"…I want to save…sister." Skyler's eyes widened.

"Oh." She and Scarlett both watched her in silence. The light changed again, forming new primordial characters."'Child,'" Slate said.

"'She does not need saving'." Scarlett looked from the primordial script back to Melody. That was something she'd already tried to tell her. She believed Melody understood it, at least intellectually — but understanding and acceptance were clearly not the same thing. Melody's head dipped lower, almost curling in on itself.

"…Why?" she asked, her voice barely audible."'Fate,'" Slate replied after some time. Melody said nothing after that. Then, without any further warning, the characters contracted into a single argent thread, flowing back beneath the woman's robes. The air settled, and their surroundings returned to normal, as though the communion had never happened.

"The communion is over," Slate stated. Scarlett looked at her.

"…I could tell." Her gaze dropped back to Melody. It was unfortunate that the encounter didn't seem to give her nearly as much clarity—or comfort—as Scarlett had hoped.

"How many times do I have to apologise before you forgive me and stop subjecting me to this frozen torture?" Rosa complained as she hugged her arms to herself and shivered dramatically.

"What if I lose a toe? An ear? Or—Scarlett forbid—one of my god-blessed fingers?" Scarlett employed her usual tactic of ignoring the bard entirely, keeping her eyes on the path ahead as she carefully followed the footprints Fynn and the others had carved through the snow. It was deceptively deep here, and she'd already had more than a few close calls that would have ended embarrassingly if she hadn't subtly stabilised herself with brief nudges of hydrokinesis.

They were trekking along the outskirts of the Whitdown Mountains now, climbing into the peaks closest to Dimfrost after finishing their business in the settlement. After the communion with Adtia, Melody had needed time to recover and fresh bandages to wrap herself in, but they'd still departed well before dusk. The plan was to eventually return briefly to Dimfrost before heading back to Freybrook, but for now, they had to accomplish what they had come here to do.

A sharp gust swept in from the side, carrying fine curtains of powdery snow with it. Scarlett turned her head into the wind and flared her pyrokinesis just enough to raise a wall of heat that broke the worst of it before it reached the group. She'd been maintaining a steady veil of warmth around them for the entire trek. It was nice, being able to do something like this without constantly worrying about draining her mana dry.

It was also nice not to have to layer herself in half a dozen furs just to fend off the cold biting through these peaks. The hike had been unpleasant enough the last time they had done it during summer, and while she had grown a lot stronger and sturdier physically since then, she still preferred to mitigate that particular kind of discomfort when possible. For all those who deserved it, that is. Rosa's continued complaints stemmed precisely from the fact that, in Scarlett's opinion, she did not.

The bard had made one too many inappropriately irritating jokes, and Scarlett had decided it was finally time she learned that actions occasionally came with consequences. She had no intention of 'forgiving' anyone until they reached their destination. The others cast Rosa a mix of sympathetic and amused looks as they trudged through the snow under Scarlett's protection.

Skyler, in particular, looked faintly uncomfortable with the whole situation, presumably caught between feeling awkward around both Scarlett and Rosa and not being quite sure how to react to seeing them fight. Not that this was much of a fight. Scarlett was, after all, simply teaching someone a lesson about consequences. Eventually, the party reached a rocky overhang where their current ridge connected to a smaller peak further into the range.

Scarlett's expression tightened slightly as she glanced down the sheer drop beyond it, and memories of her last visit here surfaced. Back then, Fynn had picked her up and jumped off the cliff without warning. It wouldn't be an understatement to say that it ranked among the most terrifying moments she had experienced since arriving in this world. That hollow, plunging sensation in the stomach might be entertaining on a rollercoaster, but the real thing was something else entirely.

Before anyone else could entertain similar ideas, she summoned her [Eternal Flameweaver's Athame] and leaned over the edge, scanning the rock face until she spotted the narrow crevice carved into the mountainside below. She tore open a portal to that point and stepped through without much ceremony, the others following close behind. They emerged inside a narrow cave, cold stone pressing close on all sides. At its deepest point stood a weathered stone obelisk.

Scarlett approached it and placed her hand against its surface. The world went white. An instant later, she stood atop a wide platform carved into the mountainside, countless pale peaks stretching out before her and fading into the horizon, deep snow-filled ravines yawning between them. The others appeared around her one by one. Skyler and Regina both paused to take in the view, open admiration written plainly across their faces.

Oveth, meanwhile, seemed far more interested in something far off in the distance, his attention fixed on a point only he appeared to notice. Melody remained withdrawn and quiet, still turned inward after everything that had happened earlier. Nol'viz and Carnwedain were not much for conversation to begin with, leaving the conversation to come mostly from Scarlett's own party. The Kilnstone wasn't far from here. Once they reached it, they would be parting ways with Skyler's group.

And then it would be time for Fynn's trial.