Chapter 94: The Church of the Stars (6)

It was decided that Simon would swear his Templar oath and receive the associated Crestone at the end of the month. Ironically, that would be the same day as when the Goddess’ Judgment was planned to strike Frightwall.

“The trap is set, Your Majesty,” Shabram informed him through telepathy. “We will crush the entire spy ring in one fell swoop.”

“Firewand will take care of Malphas and capture his daughter,” Simon replied mentally. “I want everything settled by the first day of Pluviose.”

“Yes, I have already contacted Miss Kano to potentially replace Lord Patriate. Both parties will no doubt try to push for one of their own loyalists, but I expect them to settle on a neutral individual like her should they fail to reach an agreement.”

“Good.” The discovery of a secret elven spy ring embedded in the imperial power structure should hopefully help delay the civil war. Every day the two parties spent looking inwards was one they wouldn’t waste on a pointless conflict. “Once we have crippled the Oracle’s organization, your next priorities will be to purge us of the Cobweb… and help me investigate Church-related matters.”

That slightly surprised Shabram. “Has something changed?”

“I have received some troubling information, and I am not sure what to make of it for now. I will keep you informed.”

The truth was that Simon was starting to alter his plans for this reign. His priority remained to learn more about time-travel, Visionaries, and how they were connected. However, the discovery of the abyssal portal in the Lighthouse’s basement and the absence of a miasma crystal in what should have been a demonbarrow’s heart had made him consider investigating other leads.

The way the High Confessor felt familiar to his Overlord Class also bothered Simon. He didn’t think Mastemo was a Zodiac Fiend host—someone would have no doubt noticed in an organization full of diviners and Templars, not to mention that he lacked the same oppressive aura of darkness as the Minotaur and the Twin-Tailed Fish—but he couldn’t exclude anything at this point in time. Balzam’s own notes marked Mastemo as a potential suspect for some of his unknown assassinations. He was dangerous, at the very least.

Finding what happened to the local miasma crystal had become a secondary priority. Simon hadn’t heard of a mass breakout of demons at the Lighthouse back when he was casting the Seasonal Key ritual, so he was confident that the Church’s wards at least resisted the black comet’s arrival. He would be sure to monitor the gate closely this reign.

Either way, Mastemo had agreed to fulfill his promise to Eole and invited her and Simon to a museum on floor sixty-four. He greeted them there, in a large gallery full of curios and objects on display behind tasteful vitrines, from Confessor marble busts to shifter statues and porcelain dishes.

“Welcome, Eole,” Mastemo said warmly, two Templar guards following along. “I hope you found our stay among us enjoyable.”

“It was fine,” Eole replied, albeit a bit defensively. Simon could tell she didn’t entirely trust the High Confessor. “What is this place?”

“This is one of the floors where the Church displays gifts and cultural artifacts it has gathered across the centuries. I dare say the only collection that matches our own is that of the Overlord himself.” Mastemo invited them to walk after him. “This wing contains objects from Telluria.”

Eole scowled. “Were they confiscated from my people?”

“Some were,” Mastemo replied honestly. If he took offense at Eole’s behavior, he didn’t show it. “Others, particularly those that matter to the kish, were recovered from archeological digs during the conquest of Telluria.”

He led them towards an exposition hall holding ancient items, such as pieces of a stone pillar, shattered ceramic, and defaced statues centuries old. The greatest and most important piece was an enormous tablet nine-feet wide and tall, which Simon suspected to have once belonged to some temple wall. It showed carvings of winged people bowing to one of their own and a woman with twin-finned tails. Eole scowled upon seeing the inscriptions, all written in the kish language.

“This…” Eole squinted in fascination at the tablet. “Where did you find this?”

“In the ruins of a long-buried kish outpost, south of Telluria,” Mastemo explained. “I had commissioned archeological digs based on rumors of the great sin of the kish people in the aftermath of His Majesty’s conquest of Telluria, but this was the first evidence we could find.”

Eole paled as she read the tablet, and Simon only had to read to understand why.

—and so the king lay with the demon queen, giving her his soul in return for her love. His scaled bride she became, and three gifts she bestowed upon the kish clan for her dowry: wings, so that they may look down upon all creatures of the earth; a long life, so they would not know the ravages of time; and a voice that could bind all the beasts of the world to their will. Then the king had her curse all the clans that once opposed them, forcing upon them fur and claws.

“Beasts they were,” said the demon queen. “Beasts they shall remain.”

And the kish people rejoiced, resolving to raise a capital upon the site of their rulers’ union, built on the back and toil of slaves. For thirteen years the king and queen ruled, casting the land into terror and shadows, but though the demon granted her husband wings and a crown, she could not change human appetites. He took a liking to a slave girl and bestowed his seed upon her womb, for which his wife punished him by trapping him in eternal ice, so that his weeping may echo into eternity. She would have turned on the kish people in her fury, had the princes and princesses not joined their songs together to lull her to sleep. The demon’s gift was turned her against her, and her sleeping corpse entombed—

The text stopped there due to the damage time did to the tablet, but pictures illustrated the events depicted well enough: the kish gathering to sing the demon queen to sleep beneath their old palace, not knowing what disaster would befall their land once she awakened.

Mastemo was right, the Twin-Tailed Fish of the Zodiac Fiends had been involved in the creation of the shifters.

She tried to turn me into some sort of dragon before Unyielding Essence cancelled the effect, Simon recalled. That demon can forcefully polymorph others… and control them.

This had to be the reason why Vouivre sought to secure that particular Zodiac Fiend. She could use it to enslave the shifters into an army, then turn captured humans into more of them. No wonder she thrived in any reign where she could get her hands on Eole.

“This cannot be…” Eole said, her voice weaker, her hand covering her mouth. “This… I cannot believe it.”

“I understand the truth may seem harsh to you, child, but unfortunately, I have more proof,” Mastemo said. “Come with me.”

The High Confessor led them to an elevator and then to a floor holding one of the Lighthouse’s hospices. The chamber they walked into was filled with rows of white-sheeted beds lining the walls. Not even the wind flowing through the open windows could fully wash away the stench of alchemical brews and sickness pervading the area. Nuns catered to the needs of dozens of sick people, most of them humans, by feeding them alchemical brews or casting healing spells on them.

There was a small anomaly among the sick: a small shifter child no older than five, with lion ears, a tail, and a growing mane. The elf librarian Izulon mixed fluid-filled beakers and other substances on a worktable.

“Your Excellency,” Izulon said with a bow. “A new batch of the Joining Elixir is ready.”

“Good.” Mastemo turned to the shifter child and put a hand on his head. “Are you ready for your big day, my boy?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” the child replied meekly, a smile forming on his lips once he spotted Eole while light filled up his eyes. “Is this the angel?”

“Lady Eole is a guest, who will witness your courage today,” Mastemo replied before switching to Elvish for Eole’s sake. “Lyon’s parents entrusted him to the Church’s care soon after he was born. He has served faithfully since, and volunteered to participate in the development of a cure.”

Eole bit her lip. “A cure for what?”

“Beastmanhood.” Mastemo switched to the common tongue as Izulon brought the boy a small bottle of a scarlet elixir Simon did not recognize. “You must drink to the very last drop, Lyon. Only then will you truly join us.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.” Lyon gathered his breath and then brought the potion to his lips, dutifully drinking it all.

“Painlessness,” Mastemo cast on the boy, no doubt to spare him whatever side effects the medicine might cause.

The potion’s purpose became clear the moment the boy finished it.

Simon and Eole watched on in amazement as the child’s body underwent a quick and radical transformation. His claws receded into nails; his tail vanished; and his feline ears grew rounded. By the end, the young shifter had become indistinguishable from any human child.

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“How are you feeling, my boy?” Mastemo asked Lyon.

“I do not hear you well, Your Excellency,” the child replied with a slight frown. “The smells… they are all gone…”

“Do not worry, Lyon. Whatever gifts your curse endowed you with pale before the burden you have finally shed today.”

“A curse?” Simon quickly put two and two together, his gaze settling on the empty bottle. “This elixir exorcizes the shifter curse?”

“Indeed,” Mastemo replied as he switched back to Elvish for Eole’s sake. “As you can see, we are making headway into undoing the great sin of the kish.”

“You… can turn shifters into humans?” Eole repeated, her skin pale, her voice shaken by what she had seen.

“Only children for now,” Mastemo conceded. “Their bodies can still shed the curse and recover from it. Our tests on adults have instead resulted in… worrying side effects.”

“Side effects?” A chill traveled down Simon’s spine as the truth dawned upon him. “Like uncontrollable rage?”

“Something like that, yes.” Mastemo studied Simon for a moment before reassuring Eole. “But I assure you we are making progress.”

Enough to turn it into a devastating plague, Simon guessed. Once the Church Party started losing ground in the north, this miraculous elixir would be turned into a devastating bioweapon. Was that always their plan? To exterminate shifters with it? Or the result of a botched attempt at turning them all human at once?

Moreover, this whole scenario was far too… fortuitous. What were the odds that one of Mastemo’s most devout shifter children was due to be ‘cured’ on the day of Eole’s visit? It all felt orchestrated for some grander purpose.

Eole’s shock swiftly turned to disgust and anger. “You plan to wipe my people’s culture off the map!”