CH564

“Just make sure nobody stops me.”

Ben wasn’t given time to ask what she was going to do before she’d already crossed the boundary to the statue, leaving him to deal with the yelling staff who’d come to stop her as he rushed over and held them back, trying to be as reasonable as he could given the circumstances.

“Now, I know this probably doesn’t look great, but there’s definitely a good reason for this,” He told the two he’d grabbed in his arms, all while trying to keep an eye out for more as they screamed at him. They’d already drawn the eyes of the other visitors but that was always going to happen in a circumstance like that, Ben could only hope that none of them decided to join in on the chaos. The bigger the crowd that tried to push past him, the more he’d have to do to hold them back.

His only option was to try to hope that Thera finished whatever it was she was doing quickly and after a minute it seemed she had. The staff had stopped their yelling and thrashing while the visitors who’d been looking were wearing expressions of either confusion or horror, giving Ben the leeway to look at what she’d done before coming to the same horrible understanding as she had.

In front of Thera was no longer a statue, but instead a man, one free of the petrification that had to have been placed on him hundreds of years ago as what happened all came together.

Ben had wondered if the famous healer, an awakened life mage, who had supposedly created all of the statues surrounding them had been an earth mage as well and it seemed the answer was a firm yes, granting them access to the spell they’d need to do such a thing with the implications of what that meant for every other statue in the room clear as Ben turned his thoughts upward, needing some higher powers to give their input as he screamed into his head.

MYRIAD, HELORI, NARE, ANAILIA! ANYONE LISTENING ANSWER ME RIGHT NOW!

<Infinite hells, what happened?> His god asked as the others made themselves known.

<You really can be quite loud when you want to be, can’t you?> Nare added, with Anailia speaking up next.

<Rare for you to call on me, Child.>

<Consider yourself lucky then.> Helori told her. <Once he’s comfortable talking to you it’s getting him to stop that’s the trick.>

So not the time guys. Take a look at where I am and then notice that every statue here is actually someone who’s been petrified for a couple hundred years and let me know what the hell to do about this!

<What!> The gods yelled in one voice before quickly talking amongst themselves and deciding that they needed to inform the others, leaving him alone with Myriad.

You know, I called all of you for advice, not to wait for you to figure it out yourself.

<Well unfortunately, something like this manages to be the sort of thing we need to talk about. For now, go to your girlfriend, it looks like she’s having plenty of struggles about this herself.>

Shit, right.

Taking his god’s advice, Ben dropped the two members of staff before rushing over to her as she tried to handle the very disoriented cyclops, looking like she was feeling deeply out of her element.

But how could she not be? How was one supposed to tell someone that everyone they knew was likely long dead and that they’d been brought back in the middle of the world’s dreaded invasion? That shouldn’t have been a job for anyone, let alone her.

“Where am I?” The cyclops asked in a panic. “I was going out to dinner and then I… I… What’s happening?”

“Just try to calm down a little,” Thera told him gently. “Take a seat. I’m a healer, you’re okay but it’s just going to take some explaining-”

Despite what she was telling him though, the worried look in her eyes was only making the man panic more, making him try to dash off before immediately being caught in Ben’s arms.

Myriad, give me permission to tell Thera to put him to sleep.

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<Granted. Do it and if there’s any issues then I’ll take responsibility.> His god said despite the laws about casually using mind spells on people and he connected to Thera to tell her exactly that which she did without argument. While normally she would hesitate it was obvious that she felt out of her depth enough that having the gods give her an out was a welcome opportunity, and with a quick exertion of mana the man fell in Ben’s arms.

All that leaves is everyone else around. Okay, I’ll do something.

Gently placing him down, Ben turned to face the crowd of onlookers and yelled for their attention.

“Alright, as you’ve all seen we have a bit of a complicated situation on our hands! As the apostle of Myriad and acting representative of the gods, I’ll ask all guests to leave the gallery for the time. As for the staff members, one of you go and pass that message along to the rest of the staff to lock up for the day and gather here!”

The air of authority he’d given himself by saying he was both an apostle and a representative of the gods seemed to have helped since not one person tried to argue with him after. The visitors flooded out and seemed happy to, not wanting to stay to deal with whatever was going to happen from there while the staff went to close the place down while gathering the rest, leaving a few moments where it was only going to be him, Thera, and the now unconscious cyclops alone in the room.

“You okay?” He asked his girlfriend the moment they had some privacy.

“No, this is really too much.”