Khenal
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Chapter Four-Hundred Seven
🕑 Added 2025-10-31 01:59:27 +0000 UTCI feel kinda bad for the Earl. It’s difficult to feel too bad, though, as I can literally read his transgressions as they etch themselves into his skin. I’m not happy to see him writhing in pain on the floor like that, but it’s also the consequences of his own actions. Not that everyone seems to agree with me.
His maid must think Kennith is attacking the Earl. I guess she can’t feel the weight of Order on him. Either way, even with Miller’s hand on her shoulder, she decides to flick her hand at Kennith and send a fan of knives at him. The robed figure steps forward and intercepts, the sudden movement revealing Rocky’s face as he takes the knives on his forearms. Even with him being undead, I can see the nasty poisons trying to get to work.
I’d ask what kind of poison she was using, but it looks like if she even blinks too fast, Miller won’t be letting her get back up with all her organs intact. In the time it took for Rocky to take the hits, the ashen elf dragged her over the pew and slammed her onto the ground, a hand at her throat and a look of anger on his face. For her part, the maid looks appropriately cowed and doing her best to not offend Miller with her continued existence.
For a solid minute, the only sound in the cathedral is the pained screams of the Earl as the contracts he thought he escaped are branded onto him. He’s apparently been doing this for a while, as there’s hardly any skin left that’s not marked, and in fairly fine print, too. And these are the ones reworded to the efficient simplicity Order prefers, also.
He gasps for air and lays on the floor once it stops, trying to recover, as everyone else tries to figure out what to do.
“Knight-Captain,” comes Rezlar’s voice, weary yet firm. “Take him into custody and make a record of his crimes. His Highness may be relieving me of my duties once he hears of this, but until he does, it’s my duty to see Paulte secured and punished for his numerous crimes.”
Ross looks like a deer in headlights for a moment before his training kicks in and he swiftly moves to follow the order, though it takes him a few moments to get out from the pews and into the aisle to move quickly.
“And have your men ready to move to secure the thieves guild as well. My father has been working with them, and that includes the plan to assassinate me,” Rezlar adds, holding up the contract that now carries the weight of binding to it.
It makes sense to me. Breaking all his contracts and cutting him off would be a pretty simple way to deal with someone who breaks oaths, and while that might be what I would do, I’m not Order. No, it seems you don’t get the luxury of being let out of a deal backed by Order. It’s not his fault that you are physically unable to honor all of those deals, you should have thought of that before trying to game the system. Order is the kind of guy who will make you lay in the bed you’ve made yourself, seems like.
Miller hauls the maid to her feet and has her very slowly hand over… a concerning number of blades. It’s not quite like the gag of a character having clearly more than their own mass in weaponry, but that’s still a lot more steel than I would have expected someone to be able to carry without spatial expansion, and I don’t feel any of that around her. Once done, he motions for her to follow the military as they carry the Earl out, and she does so, looking like all the fight is out of her.
The military closes the doors behind them with a quiet boom, and Rezlar takes a calming breath before turning a relieved smile on the stunned people still in their seats. “I imagine you’d all like an explanation?” he asks, and gets a few nonplussed nods and murmurs of ‘yes’ before he continues.
“There are a lot of details that I don’t want to get into right now, but Paulte wanted direct control of Fourdock, and I was impeding that. He conspired with the thieves guild to murder me, and with the help of Lord Thedeim, his schemes were discovered and eventually revealed, as you all just witnessed.
“I’m sure many of you have noticed Lord Thediem acting strangely the last month or two, and that was because he was putting up an act to throw Paulte off. If he knew Lord Thedeim was as smart as we all know Him to be, he’d have taken Him far more seriously. But now that Order himself has declared Paulte an Oathbreaker, there’s little reason to keep the charade going.”
The people murmur among themselves, and Rezlar is happy to let them for a few moments, before he continues. “I’m sure you all have questions, and I’ll do my best to answer them later. For now, I’m in the mood to celebrate.” He smirks as the crowd is confused into silence once more, before he gives them all a wink.
“Not only did I get to crash my own funeral, but I can enjoy the wake, too. So let us all celebrate and appreciate life. I know I intend to.” With that, he steps down from the raised platform and makes his way to the exit, with Freddie and Rhonda scrambling to follow him. The doors opening seems to knock everyone back to their senses, and the murmuring resumes, with many making their way for the exit as well.
I take a sec to look outside, making sure everything seems to be fine with the food and the grounds. People will be safe to mingle and chat, and I bet Rezlar’s going to be busy once everyone sorts out what all just happened. The nobles, especially, are going to want to have his ear after this. I don’t think many are able to get one over on his dad. The only thing that might keep them from schmoozing too hard is the uncertainty of his position right now.
Sure he’s fine and should still be the mayor right now, but who knows what’ll happen once the king hears about all this? To answer my own rhetorical question: Olander might have a good idea. He’s currently still sitting in a pew, his arms folded as he considers everything. The smile on his face has me pretty optimistic, but I’m not going to bother him just yet.
I also shouldn’t bother Rezlar right now, either. He’s going to have enough on his plate. I will bother my High Priestess, though, because I think she may have found another bug. She’s not hard to find, with so many others around her right now. Yvonne, Aelara, and Ragnar are beside her, watching everyone file out, as is Kennith and Karn, not to mention Tarl and Berdol.
Teemo hops onto Aranya’s shoulder and gets some chin rubs before he can even speak, but I don’t begrudge him getting some pets before I get some answers. Luckily for me, she’s a smart enough cookie that she can probably guess what I want to ask about.
“You want to know why I chose that moment to consecrate the cathedral?” she asks, earning a happy squeak and nod from Teemo. She smiles at him, indulging my Voice for a few more seconds before answering. “Because I didn’t want it consecrated for Order instead.”
Kennith looks a bit sheepish as he responds. “Ah, I hadn’t considered that the cathedral hadn’t been sanctified yet. Channeling that much of Order’s power would have sanctified it for Him instead. I think you could have denied it, but that would have prevented… what happened to the Earl,” he admits.
Aranya nods. “Which is why I did it first. Much as they both get along well, I believe Lord Thedeim would prefer to not pact with another god.” She pauses for a moment, and Keenith looks thoughtful as well, before he laughs.
“Oh no… did you make him pact with himself?” he asks with a grin.
“Uh… did I?” she answers, looking to Teemo and finally stopping petting him.
My Voice does his best to not sulk at not getting more pets, and nods. “Yeah. He now has a pact with himself, and a lot of interesting options. He’s just looking for now, but there’s a lot of things he’s pretty sure he could break if he tried.”
Please don’t, comes a popup, which gets Teemo to grin for me.
“Oh, don’t worry, he’s not going to go and mess with things. But is Order even able to do much about it?” he asks, looking to Kennith for his opinion.
The gnome rubs his chin in thought as the others watch, curious as to what’s actually happening. “I’m honestly not sure. I know Order can adjust things with dungeons with few limitations, but it goes against His very self to try to interfere with how other gods do their thing. I think it’s technically possible, but I can’t imagine He’s not bound by contracts to not go interfering like that.”
Teemo nods for me as I take a closer look at what I can do, both as a dungeon and as a deity. The dungeon side is pretty basic, which considering how most dungeons seem to think, makes sense. I can request mana, and I can also offer mana with a request. I can only assume it’ll convert at some sort of ratio to the divine energy I have. In fact, I go ahead and donate a small amount of mana, and feel the energy increase. I can also send a bit back, which I do, and there’s not much loss, if at all. I don’t exactly have a good way to measure the divine energy, but it feels like the same amount each way. So no infinite mana glitch at least.
As a deity, I also have the option to bless myself, which is kinda weird, and is also what has me thinking there’s things to break with it. Because while the dungeon options are pretty rigid, the deity options are only really limited by my imagination and domain. My imagination and Change leaves a lot of doors open, and I resist the urge to go running through them like a Scooby-Doo chase scene. In the cartoon, it’s a funny gag. But forcing reality to bend to cartoon physics probably wouldn’t be a good idea, and that’s without me even getting metaphorical with what I could do.
I mentally put a hat over the deity options for now, and I can practically feel Order breathing a sigh of relief at that. Messing with those are a great way to make disastrous Changes, and I don’t even need to have my domain to see that. Better to leave testing that for later, and in very small ways. It probably wouldn’t hurt to have Order along to oversee, too. Better to be slow and observe lab safety protocols.
It’s not like I can make a dash for the eye washing sink thing if I splash chaos on my face.
I put that aside for now, and I can see both Aranya and Kennith looking relieved, probably for different reasons. “It feels like He’s going to leave it mostly alone for now,” speaks Aranya, and Kennith nods.
“I think Order can tell and is happy to hear.”
“Well then, since the Boss isn’t going to go breaking things, why don’t we head outside for the wake? I’m sure we could get some fun reactions out of Rezlar if we use the mourning toasts right to his face!” suggest Teemo, earning a hearty agreement from everyone.
I watch them go as I get another popup, this time with a quest, that I accept.
Test Dungeon/Deity interaction with Order supervision
Reward: knowledge without potentially destroying everything
I like that reward. But we can do that later. For now, I watch over the wake and enjoy the mixed atmosphere of grimness and humor as everyone celebrates living to see one more day.
Comments
Kenneth Welever
It is never a good look when nobles attack members of the clergy.
Kenneth Welever
Forgot about it since it didn't go anywhere but his maid attacking a priest of order (to whom the king follows) might be an issue.
Ben Bass
TYFTC! Ouch, that Oathbreaker was HARSH! Justified though. It will be interesting and fun to see what Thedeim and Order can do with the deity aspects he has now.
