...the pun titles are on purpose, aren’t they?
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"So...do you two normally just stand around while Xiao Liu does stuff, or..."
"No, no, we got our own thing going on. We do our training and cultivating on our own time."
"Does that training include those weird accessories on your persons? They don’t seem like normal aether treasure to me..."
"How did you...ah, whatever. You’ve already been to the library so I think I can tell you. Pathos, the funky clown one, is going to pull you to the side at some point and..."
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"Seriously though, from what I know about your religion, y’all should’ve returned to the grand temple in Opal Scale Valley, right? So why come all the way here to another continent?," Zhen Liu asked while doing his best impression of all knowing enigmatic asshole gentleman.
Logos and Pathos had given Zhen Liu the rundown on the beliefs and rituals of the Order of the Tri-Colored Serpent, more specifically, the reason for the pilgrimage.
Opal Scale Valley and the Serpent’s Oasis were the two places in which the focus of their worship, the Tri-Colored Serpent, would rotate between in their original pursuit of divinity. It had something to do with understanding "abundance", "deprivation" and "relief" or something like that. Either way, followers of this serpent would go on a journey between these two locales in order to complete their initiation into the Order. It sounded easy, but the end result of finishing this pilgrimage was that fully fledged members would be made to stay in Opal Scale Valley. Not necessarily by force, but by duty.
Zhen Liu had sized up these two religious folks as the type of people who were normally honest and not used to lying or hiding information. As such, they would also be the type of people who would get nervous or angry when they get caught in a lie. These two turned out to be the former.
"Huh? Oh yeah, that...um..."
Perhaps Zhen Liu was being a bit paranoid, but from the story that Leon and Isa had told him, these two didn’t have any good reason to stick by Rodenia’s side for this long.
She had helped them complete their pilgrimage to this sacred oasis before she had told them that they were probably going to go their separate ways so that she could find, "the person that changed her fate", while they returned back to their home city.
However, in a turn of events that Rodenia didn’t see coming, they asked to come along with her.
They had said it was because they were friends and they wanted to make sure Rodenia got to her own destination safely in return, but the insect woman was a one person army by default. Thus, the idea that she needed an escort was rather silly.
Zhen Liu watched with a curious eye as the two of them proceeded to try and come up with some other excuse than the real reason why they wanted to tag along with Rodenia, until they finally both decided to sigh and look at each other in resignation. Whatever conclusion they had come together on, whatever reason they needed to share with him, appeared to be something that they would rather not want to share if they could help it.
Unfortunately for them, they had no choice.
"Alright...so there might’ve been one other reason we insisted we come along for," Leon answered as Isa produced a piece of folded parchment from her person that she then handed to Zhen Liu.
It didn’t appear to be have any aether, anima or any other noticeable energy marker on it so, they must’ve made it themselves via mundane means.
Not needing to be prompted to open it, Zhen Liu unfolded the parchment to see what the big deal was.
The moment he did though, a feeling of shock jolted him like a bolt from the blue.
"Yeah...you can imagine our surprise when we found this too."
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Several weeks prior...
"Ah fuck, he’s dead!"
"He got popped like a watermelon!"
"Run! Run for your lives!"
After Rodenia had literally squeezed the life out of the Vulture King like a piece of fruit, the remains of his now leaderless group proceeded to escape as their little legs could carry them. Word quickly spread in Vulture Town that it’s leader was now dead, leading to one of three reactions from the visitors and residents.
They either went "oh shit...that sucks", they immediately got out of there because they knew what was about to happen next, or they decided to riot in an attempt to seize control of the town for the sake of power.
However, none of this really matter to the key instigstor of all this mayhem.
"Leon and Isa!," Rodenia called out. "The bad guys are all dead or running now! You can come in here and finish your pilgrimage now!"
"Uh...okay! Thanks, Rodenia!"
Leon and Isa entered the shrine turned fortress turned shrine again with a bit of hesitation in their steps.
Having spent at least several days by Rodenia’s side at this point, the town of them had gotten used to her violent capabilities to an extent, but this was the first time she had done so in an enclosed space.
An enclosed space that also happened to have been sacred to their religious order.
It may have been for a good cause, but the smell of blood and death had a tendency to make even the most jaded a bit queazy. Then again, that might’ve been due to the Vulture King’s crushed body still being on the ground.
"Oh whoops! Forgot about this guy," Rodenia said as she picked up the aforementioned corpse. "Let me just throw this guy away somewhere while you guys finish up whatever you need to do here."
"Uh...okay. Thank you again, Rodenia."
Leon and Isa watched for a bit as Rodenia left the room with a body in tow, until bringing their focus back to the shrine before them.
"Well...this place was desecrated for who knows how long, so..."
Due to all of the bandit activity, the shrine had become a bit of a bloated mess as they had added shoddy extensions and vandalized the place with graffiti, food scraps and the remains of vices that should not be described in the slightest for the sake of one’s own sanity.
It made for a terrible sight, to be sure.
"It’s gonna take weeks to clean this all up if we tried to do it ourselves," Leon complained as he looked around. "And that’s not including the destruction that occurred when Rodenia cleared this place out."
"Yeah," Isa agreed. "I think we’re going to have to tell the Archbishop back home before we can...wait a minute...what’s that?"
"That. That mural. One of the bricks look weird."
The mural Isa had pointed to was a pretty standard one by their religion’s standards.
It depicted the object of their worship, the Tri-Colored Serpent, coiling itself into the heavens after completing a long journey of self-discovery and self-actualization.
The mural itself was made from three types of special colored bricks, mimicking the three colors of the serpent itself. These bricks were used back home and what made them extra special was the fact that their colors would never fade even after a hundred years had passed. However, when Isa and Leon went to examine the bricks themselves, they noticed something any true believer of the faith would notice.
One of the bricks was off color.
"That brick...it’s the wrong shade, isn’t it?"
"Yes, it is... it’s an entirely different material as well!"
"Was this the work of the bandits? A shoddy repair job?"
Compelled by this glaring difference, Isa proceeded to reach out and touch the off colored brick in question.
Pushing against it yielded no results, but the moment they pulled it...something mechanical just...clicked.
"The mural! It’s...opening up?!"
Before their very eyes, the mural of the Tri-Colored Serpent began to open up like a strange door, the bricks disappearing into themselves.
Leon and Isa stood there in shock as they tried to comprehend what was happening, eventually concluding that they could only wait and watch at this point.
Thankfully for them, it didn’t take long.
As the last of the bricks folded away, and the dust that was kicked up from all the activity finally settled, the two acolytes finally got to see what was behind the mural...only to be thoroughly disappointed.
For behind the mural was nothing but a solid stone wall.
"Is...is that it?," Leon asked in a disappointed tone.
"It’s just a blank wall...so why all the theatrics?," Isa asked aloud while staring at the wall in equal disappoinment. That is, until she tried to analyze the thing with her her aether. "Wait a minute...it just negated my aether."
"I just used some of my aether to scan the wall. It just...negated it like it was nothing. See for yourself."
"Okay...huh...what the hell?"
The two of them were stumped at this this weird wall, wondering what force could possibly negate aether ...until a living example of it came walking back into the shrine.
"Hey guys! Did you finish your-"
The moment Rodenia entered the shrine once more, the blank wall that Leon and Isa were staring at, suddenly lit up like a torch.
Needless to say, the two of them were flashbanged and needed a few minutes to recover.