136 – Augustine

“You know,” Saffra said. “That’s… surprisingly reasonable.”

Vivi couldn’t blame the girl for her reaction, but she also couldn’t let it slide. “Surprisingly?”

Saffra paused, and her cheeks colored as she realized what she’d implied. “W-well. It’s just hard to imagine a good reason for treating a draconic princess like that. Especially when you owe her.” She cleared her throat and hurried forward. “But it does make sense! You’ve given her an excuse to stay here longer, without confirming you’re either a dragon or the Sorceress, and you’re also making her job of filling up the amulet easier.” Her brow scrunched down. “I do kind of wonder how she planned on doing that before you gave her a reason to fly all the way to Bonegulch, though.”

“I assume the same way she’s been excusing any of it,” Vivi said dryly. “Through healthy amounts of delusion.” Maybe that was harsh phrasing, but also not really contestable. She owed Embralyne, but the woman was… odd. That couldn’t be denied.

“Even then, what kind of logic would she have used to fly across the world ‘looking for you’?” Saffra asked, a mix between bewildered and entertained. “Anyway, what about the next time you see her? She’s not gonna be happy with what happened, even if she realizes you were trying to help.”

“Dragons are prickly sorts,” Vivi agreed. Nobility were the same everywhere. “I’ll escape if I need to. With my ‘other identity’ being a dragon, I can cast almost whatever I want without confirming anything.”

“That’s true.” Saffra was quiet for a bit. “Huh. So, you’ll use the same strategy for the three other spots? Keep giving her the runaround until the amulet’s full?”

“That’s the idea.”

“It really is the best way you could go about helping her, seeing how she won’t accept it normally.” Saffra nodded. “That’s clever, Lady Vivi.”

The compliment would’ve been more meaningful, Vivi thought amusedly, if Saffra hadn’t sounded so surprised giving it.

A moment later, the girl’s contemplative expression morphed into a concerned one. “I’m still worried about what brought her here, though. She has to have a reason.”

Vivi sighed. “That’s the part I don’t know how to fix. But at least I’m helping somehow.”

“She doesn’t seem that stressed,” Saffra said hopefully. “So maybe she’s just filling the amulet up as… an errand? Since she’s here, and might as well?”

As much as Vivi would have liked a comfortable explanation, that didn’t fit. “The energy dissipates fast, so she intends to use it. And the simple risk of losing a Divine Treasure means her goal has to be important.”

Saffra tried to scrounge up another explanation, but failed.

“I might force the issue, ask her directly and reveal myself, at the end. Just to be sure,” Vivi said. “But only after everything’s done. I’ve been wondering whether I should go and speak with the Dragon King anyway. It might end in a fight, but I have to repair that relationship. The dragons are some of the oldest keepers of knowledge—magical and otherwise—in the world. No matter if their spellcasting is incompatible with ours, Cinereus is too valuable to avoid forever. It’s best I handle that while things are peaceful.”

Saffra had looked serious through the explanation, but her expression blanked at the end. “Peaceful? Lady Vivi, the world almost ended less than a few weeks ago. And now there’s a permanent portal to another dimension above a major city.”

“Both contained,” she pointed out defensively. “Relatively speaking. Things are peaceful, in the sense that I’m not actively putting out fires.” She guessed her sense of ‘peaceful’ meant ‘not undergoing active, worldwide armageddon,’ which was a low standard to set. Maybe her apprentice was right. “Regardless, I should see him beforehand, in case things get actually hectic.”

“I guess that makes sense.” Saffra had gone pale, no doubt imagining what ‘actually hectic’ meant to Vivi.

“It’s possible he’ll be more receptive to this threat than to the Cataclysms, too. As a ruler of a kingdom, he is a pragmatist, and the Cataclysms mostly left the immortal lands alone. When the Ashen Hierophant invaded, Cinereus was able to fend him off”—though the man had impressive scars to remember that event by—“so while he knew they were threats, they didn’t absolutely guarantee his people’s collapse. The void, however, would.” Assuming she didn’t stop it.

“You think he’d agree to help?”

“Probably not, even still. But I owe him an apology.” No matter how poorly it might be received. “And he’s worth talking to. I’ll deal with it all when the time arrives. It’s going to take Embralyne at least a few days to fill the amulet, even if I keep giving her excuses to go exactly where she needs.” She sighed. “For now, I have something else to handle.”

“The Archbishop?”

“Yes, the Archbishop. I’m going to go and find Rafael and see if there’s been movement on that front. I’ll leave you at the Institute?”

After a short hesitation, Saffra nodded. Vivi whisked the girl away, then set off on her next task.

***

Vivi couldn’t say she was thrilled, discovering through Rafael that their plans had progressed. The strongest healer in the human kingdoms and the de facto head of all five kingdoms’ organized religion had agreed to see her—and at her leisure no less. The man would be in Meridian for at least a week, and would be expecting her whenever. Everything had been tidily set up by her loyal steward, as events usually were. Much as sometimes she wished they weren’t.

Better to go and get it done. I don’t want to keep stressing about it.

…though, that anxiety did come from meeting a personality that might be more troublesome than a draconic princess. Calm and relatively reasonable under normal circumstances, the Archbishop might not seem like someone she should be afraid of meeting, but his history—and the game’s plot—had made one thing clear in particular: Augustine was a zealot, a true disciple of the heavens.

And Vivi herself wasn’t convinced the heavens were real, not in the sense the Archbishop clearly believed. He probably would take offense at many of Vivi’s views, not that she was so clueless she would voice them.

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She wished she could pawn the task off on Rafael, but not only would she need to supervise the Codex’s use, the Archbishop had hinted at wanting—though hadn’t demanded—their meeting to be private. He wanted to speak with the Sorceress, and while Vivi could snub anyone and get away with it, the Archbishop didn’t seem like someone she should disrespect. Especially when she had a favor to ask.

After a lengthy debriefing in which Rafael doled out advice—most of which she would surely forget despite her best efforts—she [Blinked] above Vanguard. She turned westward to face Meridian’s temple. The wind rustled her white hair as she studied the structure.

The High Sanctum couldn’t be called a truly peerless construction in the capital of the human kingdoms, but only because of the sheer quality of its competition—the Thaumaturgical Institute, a gravity-unanchored sky-island capped with a tower casting a shadow across half the city, and the Royal Palace, sprawling and gaudy with all the wealth of the most populous race of mortals for the first time in a long-lasting era of peace.

But at a minimum, the white pillars and arches, the soaring multicolored stained-glass windows, and the sheer footprint of the massive building made for an impressive sight. The High Sanctum served not just as a place of worship for the citizens, but as a gathering point for an entire category of adventurers—much like the Institute was for mages. Unlike the Institute, however, nearly all priests, priestesses, and other divine-type classes were aligned to the Church. Very much not the case for the more traditional spellcasting disciplines. So in that regard, the Church held even more power than the Institute.