Chapter 60: The Shape of the Underworld

“Something important?” Cerys asked, tilting her head.

“Apparently, there are two other ways to gain Faith from this river.”

“Oh! That’s very important! More feasts! More alcohol!”

“Well, not from the river itself,” Nerez explained, closing his Godscript screen. “More like from the souls it carries.”

“From the souls it carries?”

“Haven’t you noticed how deserted this place is?” Nerez asked. “I forgot to ask him (or rather, I didn’t care enough to), but Erebion must have summoned the souls in the battle against us directly from this river.”

“Now that you mention it, you’re right,” Cerys replied, crossing her arms. “We haven’t run into a single soul this whole time.”

“That’s because apparently I’m the one who has to choose which souls are allowed to inhabit this place.”

“Ah… that makes sense. But what does that have to do with those other ways of gaining Faith?”

“The Lustral River gives me Faith simply by existing, so to speak,” Nerez began to explain. “But on top of that, the souls I allow to inhabit this place will generate additional Faith. That’s the second way.”

“Well, then what are we waiting for?!” Cerys exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “Let’s take all the souls out of the river at once!”

Nerez brought a hand to his mouth, trying to hold back his laughter.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“If we take every soul out of the Lustral, I’d lose the Faith it’s generating right now.”

“Then what’s the point of taking souls out in the first place?!”

“We need to distinguish between them,” Nerez clarified. “The denser souls, the ones with stronger attachments to life, more desires, and so on… apparently, those generate more Faith while the river purifies them. It’s a kind of symbiosis.”

“And there are other kinds of souls swimming around in there?”

“That’s right. Souls that are already pure enough, maybe because they’ve been in the river for a long time. Or because they died satisfied, so to speak,” Nerez replied. “Those don’t generate as much Faith in the river, and taking them out won’t have much of an impact on the Lustral. They will generate more Faith by being conscious and ‘inhabiting’ this place.”

Nerez gave the river a thoughtful look before continuing.

“Maybe those same desires, or even feelings, are what turn into energy. So when none of those are left, they are already meant to reincarnate (though I have to allow it, it seems), or, for the purest souls of all, continue on their way to the Silver Sea. But apparently, those cases are very rare.”

What the hell am I, really?

“And you could see all that in the Godscript? It’s usually more sparing with its information… though I suppose that’s to be expected from a sacred place this important.”

“That’s just what I deduced. There are several holographic screens’ worth of technicalities disguised as proverbs and phrases that don’t make much sense. Do you want me to read them to you?”

“No, I’m fine, thanks…”

She even thanked me… Looks like that kind of thing really isn’t for her. Now I know what to use as the next punishment.

Stolen story; please report.

“Besides that, there’s the third way to gain Faith, but…”

“But what?”

Nerez closed his eyes, and visions of a completely dark no-man’s-land came to him, lit only for brief instants by red lightning. The thunder that followed each strike was deafening.

In the moments when that land lit up, other things could be seen. Other things that inhabited that place, but that were better not described.

They were nightmarish images, but they were real. He knew that because he was connected to that place now.

“There is another world within this underworld. It lies even farther below than this desert of green dunes. But there is no way to reach it… or to leave.”

“Then what is it for?”

“I can create a way to reach it (though I absolutely do not want to), and apparently I can place souls there or take them out directly,” Nerez summoned his Eidolon, the Book of Death, and opened it. “As I thought, I can use ‘Soul Ledger’ to take souls out of the river and place them either in the green field or in that lower world.”

“And what good does it do us to put souls in that lower world?”

“Calling them ‘green this’ and ‘lower that’ is a little inconvenient,” Nerez noted, a hand on his chin.