(Four hundred years ago, seven years after the Demon Kings fell.)
Seven years. Seven years since that fateful day.
Meinz continued to travel, to warn, calling for the foundations of a future strength to be laid. For planning to cultivate resources to defend and attack when the time came and the demon citadel was once again free. As an Esteemed priest and as a hero, he was given time and audience to speak. But he was never heard. The governments and temples did not act.
Meanwhile, life and death went on. In the villages, in the countryside, in the cities, in the temples, and in politics.
Duke Seliear Crawhand was a refugee noble from the fallen kingdom of Dresdale, a kingdom in the west that had suffered greatly from the Demon King's army. The duke had escaped the territory with more than enough money to set up a comfortable existence in exile in the Ocheorean Empire. Since settling there, he had made many enemies with his schemes, conniving, and blackmail. His sister being the wife of the Empire's Chancellor was the only thing keeping his opponents at bay. It was no surprise to anyone that he was killed when meeting with 'a secret informant,' according to his servants' statements.
After his death, a search through his private papers to find his will turned up he had been in the pay of the original Demon King, selling out Dresdale for gold and a high-level position once the Demon King took over. It also showed plans to kill both Meinz and Elric, probably for their role in bringing the would-be king down. From the evidence, it was likely Seliear was behind the attempt on Meinz's life two years before.
In the same space of time, three of the Empire's top ranking priests had also died, two to heart attacks and one after a blood vessel burst in his brain during the Turning of the Year ritual. Though Meinz was present at the last, the crush of people prevented him from getting through in time to save the elderly priest's life.
*******
High Priest Orelin in Saleca, head of all the priests in the Ocheorean Empire, was worried. Besides him and Meinz, the fallen priests had been the only ones who knew of the existence of the Reincarnation with Memories Birth Talent. It didn't show up under normal screenings or to normal Analysis, requiring a specialized tool to view. But when Orelin had gone to retrieve the tools the priests used to find that Talent, they had been missing. A frantic search later, the tools had been found, twisted into useless junk and discarded on the temple's garbage pile. Now the only one remaining was the one sitting in Orelin's own chambers.
The devices had been centuries old. The plans were long lost. Calling in craftsmen to examine and duplicate it might well be impossible; the story handed down was the devices had been crafted by someone with the Reincarnated Talent. There was also the matter of how to find absolutely trustworthy and close-lipped craftsmen, in metalwork, gem work, and glasswork.
The door opened. In stepped a priest wearing a veil and the simple stole of a novice who had taken their vows but not decided on their path or temple.
Orelin was not in the mood for interruptions to his brooding. "What do you want?" he snapped.
The figure closed the door and removed the veil, revealing the face of Meinz. The high priest groaned.
"Are you sneaking in here to beg for my support for your ridiculous ideas? Again?"
Meinz ignored the insult and tone. "Will you give it?"
"Weeelll, things have changed since our last conversation." The priest mentally rubbed his hands together with glee as he realized his advantage. "I need the emperor to support the reinstatement of the annual Gathering."
"That was stopped," the younger priest said quietly.
"Only because of the Demon Wars," Orelin huffed. "The resources were needed elsewhere, or so the emperor's generals said. But now we have those resources again."
"Just because you can doesn't mean you should," Meinz said, deliberately quoting an expression the Terrans had used.
"Don't be ridiculous. This is a fantastic opportunity for the br- young children. That's why you're here, and not tilling a tiny field in some village no one ever heard of until you came along."
"True." Meinz was quiet for a moment. "What would you do?"
"A word in the ear of the Emperor, a nudge to a few nobles." The high priest smirked as his eyes lit up. "If you're sufficiently helpful, I could have a divine revelation about the return of the Demon King!"
"That sounds expensive." Meinz walked over to study a map of the Empire the high priest had hung on his wall. "I've been working on a new spell."
Bargaining, eh. With Meinz's brilliance, this spell should be amazing. "What kind?"
"It's an area-of-effect healing spell." Meinz touched a mark that seemed to have been added after the map's creation, denoting the still-tiny village of Acorath high in the mountains. "The radius is about one and a half meters about most, and currently it only supplies about twenty percent of the healing a hands-on spell does. With more development, it should be able to cover a wider area with a greater amount of power."
High priest Olerin considered. Such a spell could help a force recover even when just resting at camp, without the healer having to go from man to man. And if he got credit for 'helping' to develop such a spell…
"I also found out another thing." Meinz was still talking. "Healing energy can be changed by intent. Changing your intent in the wrong ways can take a spell from helping someone to harming them. Reverse healing, in essence."
"We -don't want that getting out." Orelin surreptitiously rubbed his chest and hoped Meinz hadn't noticed the momentary shortness of breath. Such wasn't surprising; the priest knew he was getting on a bit. After he was done with Meinz he'd have to go see his personal healer. That young man was so desperate to support his siblings-
"Well, overall it shouldn't be a problem," Meinz interrupted his pleasant chain of thought. "You'd need a large mana pool and the area of effect healing I'm working on to cause real trouble. With touch healing, using it on one person to harm them is just setting yourself up." He'd moved from studying the map to examining what looked like a metal sculpture.
Orelin mentally flinched; he'd forgotten to put away the Talent detecting device after making sure it was safe and intact. For now, he smoothly continued his pitch. "I have many useful connections that can be of help, Esteemed Meinz." He walked over to the window looking over the gardens of the temple compound. "The Empire is great and will continue to be great. We will quell the unrest in the south and repair the damage in the north, offer governance to some of the more damaged kingdoms to the west, continue to grow in size and power. There can be no other way."
The younger priest replaced his veil. "I'll have to think about the terms of this deal." He bowed. "I promise I won't take too long."
It came again in the high priest's chest, a tightness, and something that felt like a sour stomach. He walked over to the table to pour himself some wine. "Would you like a drink?" he asked, belatedly.
"No thanks." Meinz shook his head. "I need to go or I'll be missed shortly. I'll be in touch." He quietly closed the door behind him as he left.
Orelin hmmphed and ran his hand over his face. So tired, but still so much to be done.
He remembered his personal healer insisting that healing wouldn't be able to keep up if he didn't rest and take precautions. As if Orelin didn't know his own limits.
Wait, on the shelf. The high priest walked over to look at the device.
But it wasn't the device. It looked identical, but didn't have the arcane feel of deeply complex and embedded magic the device had. It had some basic spells, for preventing breakage, keeping dust off, and the like.
In Orelin's world view, a priest could not have the skills of a thief. Borrowing from the treasury and delaying paying it back was one thing; taking an object and leaving a counterfeit was simply not something a priest did.
And how? As far as the high priest knew, Meinz did not have any skill that would let him smuggle in or out a forty-five centimeter construct made from delicately crafted metal. Only the Summoned had an Item Box skill.
But Meinz had to have the answer. If Orelin hurried, he could catch up to him and ask what he'd done, demand the device back and an explanation. He ran across the room and pulled open the door.
Something popped in his chest. His breath grew tight as he fell to his knees. His vision blurred as sharp pain radiated up and down his left arm. Struggling, he grabbed at one of the statues by his door and tried to pull himself up. It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
Across the hall, next to the statues there, he thought he saw someone. Someone in full priestly robes, veiled, without a stole, just a shimmering dagger, held upright in their hands with the point just below where their chin should be.
'Help' the priest tried to gasp, but no voice would come out. The pressure in his chest was increasing. His legs gave out and he tumbled to the floor.
Then darkness.
*******
High Priest Orelin was widely mourned as one of the leaders who had helped the Empire stand against the demons. His ashes were scattered in the temple's garden overlooked by his window, one of his favorite meditating places.
However, the four deaths in eight months left no high priests in the Empire. With things looking bloody and high priests from other kingdoms looking in, one of the Empire's potential candidates suggested asking Esteemed Priest Meinz for help. His rank put him outside the normal hierarchy of the priests, and his position as hero made it unlikely his choices would be disputed, in spite of his odd obsession.
To everyone's surprise, only one of his choices supported preparing 'just in case'. For those who dug deeper, they realized that all four had been vehemently opposed to resuming the Gathering, the collection of the best and the brightest children throughout the empire to the temples. Since Meinz himself had been brought to the temples through the custom, why he would move to stop it supplied a topic for intense debate.
At the festival to celebrate the ascension of the high priests, dishes introduced by the Summoned appeared. The Summoned had come from many countries, and their offerings showed it: Japanese, Italian, Mexican, and more, with multinational versions of many of the dishes.
Games from Earth also made their appearance, their development bankrolled by the Merchants Guild under Kenneth's guidance. While some were initially confusing to the Tasnians, chess, various forms of Go, and Monsters & Stairs were a huge hit.
Kenneth, Meinz, and Elric, the latter having traveled fast to join them in time, sat on a balcony overlooking the festivities. The suite was owned by the Merchants Guild, loaned to Kenneth and his guests in recognition of the vast profits Kenneth was making for everyone. Elric and Kenneth had cups of mela in front of them, while Meinz sipped at tea. Kenneth was telling them how he'd secured the contract to distribute Earth tea.
"So Keiko said the only way she'd trust me is if I had no reason to betray her. But she kept shooting down every magic contract I presented her with. It was one of the guild's secretaries who advised me to ask her out to a private meal. One thing led to another, and I not only got the contract, we're getting married next year."
Elric was laughing. "I can't believe she carried that torch for you for five years before you clued in! Congratulations!" He and Meinz both toasted the groom-to-be. Meinz, however, was noticeably distracted.
"Something wrong?" Elric asked.
Meinz looked at his cup. "Elric, you're out here to find people who might be willing to settle your land, right? And Kenneth, you need more workers."
Both nodded. There were still a lot of refugees in the Ocheorean Empire who had fled east to escape the Demon King's armies.
"I need you to do something for me. I'd prefer for you to do it kindly, by hiring for higher wages or offering more money than their land's really worth, but if it's still there, it'll always be a light I want to return to, a lure that I fear I won't be able to resist or ignore… home is like that." He realized he was rambling and took a deep breath.
"I want you to destroy Acorath."
*******
People in this chapter:
Meinz
High Priest Orelin
Duke Seliear Crawhand
Kenneth
Elric
Places mentioned in this chapter:
Saleca: Capital city of the Ocheorean Empire and the current kingdom of Ochrea.
Events:
Gathering [of the Children]: A custom invented by the high priests of the Ocheorean Empire over three hundred years before the Demon Wars, upon the priests' accidental discovery of the Reincarnation with Memories Birth Talent. They sought to control the knowledge the children brought with them from other worlds. Oddly, there is no known case of the Talent showing up in someone with two consecutive reincarnations on Tas.
Turning of the Year: A celebration of the spring solstice.
Birth Talents, Hidden: Reincarnation with Memories, Regression, Time Control, and other rare Talents that can disrupt the natural order of things on a fundamental level are hidden from normal scanning and examination. Without a tool or spell crafted to see these talents, it takes Perception and Analyze raised to at least Level 7 each to even be able to tell a second Talent exists, and higher to actually read it. Crafting the tools or spells is very finicky and extremely difficult. It is very unusual for a Hidden Talent to be a primary talent.
Note: Esteemed Priest is a position outside the normal hierarchy of priesthood. A person anointed as Esteemed is highly intelligent, skilled in many of the ways of divine power/magic, and have a dynamic and driving personality. They are a leader capable of great things and tend to have an appetite for change and justice. They'd cause havoc to the status quo if allowed to remain in the normal ranks of the priesthood.
An Esteemed can travel anywhere they like without being a part of the adventurers or merchants guilds and are not bound to any specific temple. They are often sent where a particularly impressive representation of the church is temporarily needed, such as when stronger monsters are fought, plagues are decimating an area, or natural disasters have occurred/are occurring. If they die while on these missions, they are retroactively anointed Saints or Saintesses and honored with a statue. The statue can be in a temple, a city square, a crossroads, or any point the high priests feel is appropriate.