In the shop the next morning, Ben watched the kids while they worked, splitting his student’s mind to train her in connect at the same time as everything else and didn’t let any of his own worries slip through to her, despite just how numerous they felt.
Thera’s desire to grow her sacrilege wasn’t a bad thing. If anything, Ben thought that more mortals should aim to do the same, if only to give them even a bit of protection against any divine exploitation, but he also knew the average person didn’t see things like that. If asked bya a god, they’d be happy to work, made to be devoted and willing to show it, not considering themselves taken advantage of by their higher powers.
To an extent, Thera was coming around to seeing things his way, beginning to accept that any god should be judged on an individual basis and not for their divinity alone, and if that was all then it would have been fine, but things didn’t end there. She wanted to stand by his side if he was going to face Oaun, and the very notion caused him no end of stress.
Myriad told him.
Except for the part where this revenge might get her killed.
No, but I don’t want to end up being wrong.
Sacrilege fell squarely under his two authorities and, as such, made it easy for him to feel how hard it would be for her to level and, even with the benefits of his authorities placed on her, he didn’t think she’d be able to cross that tier in the time they had. Become a contender for it? Sure. Perhaps even make decent progress on eventually awakening it, but they had less than two months, and she experienced reality in normal time. She’d held up admirably when she’d trained the skill the night prior, staying in his head for what to her felt like two whole days working on it. Even with the forbidden gods at her disposal, he didn’t think she’d reach that particular goal, even if he still worried about it.
Weaker, but that was always going to be the case. I awakened mine by murdering the forbidden gods in the first place. Beating one up that I’d already been wringing the experience out of was never going to compare. Still, she’s gotten a bit of a sense for faith and divinity now, and even if it’s not the same as mine, and she should be somewhat safe from the gods meddling now. By the time she’s a contender for it, she’ll still be plenty threatening to anyone up there, and hopefully safe from any of their potential antics too, so overall, it’s a positive.
If it makes the other gods worried as well, then it’s nothing but good news. All I have to do is not let myself stress out about how far she’s going to get and I’ll be fine.
With Thera joining them as he thought it, returning through one of his gates after finishing up a chore she’d repeatedly forgotten. She’d still had the core believers of the defeated gods in one of her rings, along with plenty of other priests under Eneth, and with his return from hell, she wasn’t as willing to be quite so drastic, leaving only the awkward task of freeing them.
“How did that go?”
“Ugh, I went to a few different cities and unpetrified everyone on different streets without letting any of them see me when I did, so they couldn’t have the chance of all ganging up together to cause a fuss at least. It’s going to leave plenty of them to have to figure out how to get home on their own, but, well, that’s their problem.”
“They can deal with that,” Ben agreed, not particularly caring either. While he didn’t harbour any poor feelings for most that Thera had captured, barring the ones who’d made legitimate attempts on his life themselves, he also didn’t favour them. They were the most closely aligned to the gods who’d tried to kill him; they didn’t need any convenience.
And since it’s been a couple days since they were captured, there’s some other benefits too. A lack of damage control for one. The world knows what their gods did, and they haven’t been around to try to calm things down. They’ll be in for a pretty rude surprise when they get back home.
Even if it had been cut short upon learning that Thera had passed out the day before, he’d made excellent progress, getting thousands of converts for his god and leading thousands more to seriously consider it, with the act of targeting a community leading to some synergistic effects.
Plenty of the ones who were considering converting would discuss that matter with others, and plenty of the ones they would talk to would have already been converted. Making such a big choice alone might have felt scary to some, but making it with their friends and family as well? It only made conversion more likely and left Ben proud of the job well done.
So long as you’re doing your part as well.
You’re welcome for that.
“Anyway,” Thera said, going on while he continued to discuss matters with his god in the background. “I’m ready. As ready as I can be, at least. Come on, let’s get started before I change my mind.”
“You sound like you’re psyching yourself up more for this than for awakening sacrilege.”
“Because I am.”
“It really won’t be that bad,” Ben said as he connected to her, splitting her mind and pulling part of it into his head. “I’m connected to you, so just connect back and we’ll get to work on leveling that while at the same time, you work on your enchanting and bestowal.”
“Are those parts really necessary?”
“We’re trying to get you two different awakenings and those abilities directly pair with connect, of course you’ve gotta. Now, take a seat because I’m going to start speeding up your mind here as well so you can get more practice with it done.”
She’d wanted to grow and, as a result, he was going to help her all he could, focusing on the two skills that he could conceivably help her awaken now that her sacrilege had been pushed to the second tier. Her newly acquired connect, with Ben having his hopes that, given it was a soul skill and that she was a soul mage, the powers might pair well together once they grew a bit, as well as trying to awaken her knowledge skills into a general one, leaving the part of her in his head to deal with lessons while also interacting with the different forms of his mind he’d produce as her practice began and the full day still to go.
Training Thera and the kids, as all of that went on, Ben did his own work, finally succeeding after a few hours as he managed to make destruction inclination.
Sweet, finally. It took a little longer than I’d hoped, but still shorter than it would have been before I went to hell, and now this is a bit more experience under my belt when it comes to creating inclinations. In that case, soul inclination is next, and-
His thoughts cut off with a flash of mana, Thera claiming another awakening for herself as she gained the knowledge skill under his tutelage, looking worn out as she did.
And maybe that’s a good place to end the day.
Along with that, she’d gotten to the sixth level of connect while undergoing Ben’s training, now matching the level he’d gotten Delair to as she constantly worked at it as well and showed that it wouldn’t be long to awaken Thera on that front either, leaving him to nod in satisfaction.
“Alright guys, you’ve all worked hard today, so let’s wrap up here.”
Thera rubbed her head, sighing and happy to be done while the children began tidying up their work, even if the acquisition of knowledge wasn’t the only thing she had to comment on.
“Ben, just how many people did you give destruction inclination to?”
“Hmm? Everyone I can reach, same as always. Why?”
“I feel like that more than anything else is going to raise some eyebrows, that’s all.”
“Hey, there’s nothing inherently wrong with destruction, and I specifically chose to avoid creating evil inclination too. I’m being super thoughtful about it.”
“Mmh, and the reactions around town?”
“... Ranging from confused to worried.”
“I’m sure. At least tell everyone that it’s something that the gods have been mass-gifting, handing out useful skills or something, if only to give all of our neighbours some sort of explanation about why they keep randomly getting new ones.”
“Yeah, sure, fair enough,” he said, touching the town’s minds and pretending to be a representative of the gods as a whole when delivering that message. “The next one I’m going to make is going to be soul inclination though, so there’ll be nothing remotely objectionable to even the most judgmental guys around.”
“Should I even ask about all of the other ones you plan to make?”
“Almost nothing objectionable,” he said innocently, the only one that was sure to be seen in a truly negative light being the sacrilege inclination he had planned, which he wasn’t going to be sharing so casually once he had it made, no matter how useful he expected it to be. “With today done though, I’m going to need to finish up some work I stopped early yesterday, so I probably won’t be back in time for dinner. I’ll see you-”
“Are you not going to be back again tonight?” Mora asked, grabbing his arm and looking worried in a way Ben immediately understood. He and Thera had both been going away a lot since they’d returned from fixing Inux, and with all of the changes Mora could see in their souls each time they returned, it was making the boy concerned about whatever they’d been going through, leaving Ben to quickly change his plans.
“It might be a bit late,” he admitted. “But instead, why don’t you two… you three come with me? It’s not going to be exciting, mostly flying around, but we can stop for dinner on the way. If you’d all like to, that is.”
He’d extended the offer to three because, as he was speaking, he could tell his student wanted to join, and with Thera seeing that it would be good for Mora as well, she and the kids were quick to agree.
“Alright, cool,” Ben nodded. “In that case, if you guys could go make sure Fontesh is okay with it, I’ll run back home real quick and make sure that Dewdrop’s fed, and we’ll meet back here in fifteenish?”
“That works,” Thera nodded, going with the kids while Ben went to make sure their resident outsider had nothing to complain about once he got back from the same thing he’d done the day before. Claiming as many believers for his god as possible.