I said goodbye to my sprite roommate before I headed out the next day. It blinked back its farewell.

“I really should find you a name one of these days, shouldn’t I?” I said.

The sprite agreed with a long flash.

Before I headed off, I channelled Gravity and infused greater weight through my entire body. Training this way had helped raise my Power yesterday. We had a lot of walking ahead, and while it would obviously be more annoying to move around while weighing myself down, I wanted to raise my Attributes, so why not?

The real issue was the two days left for mana implosion. No idea how, but I would need to find something to Sacrifice. Soon. Hopefully, today’s endeavours would be enlightening.

I also made sure to Sacrifice my breakfast instead of eating it. That would give me more energy. Plus, it also finally ranked up Sacrifice.

[ Rank Up!

Your Sacrifice Aspect has risen by one Rank.

Sacrifice: Iron II ]

I met Aurier by the temple entrance. It was still odd that there was literally no door and anyone could just walk in, but I was slowly getting used to it.

“Ready?” Aurier asked. “We’ll send out some of the invites before heading to Ring Three.”

I nodded. “Lead the way.”

We were setting out a little early. That way, we could meet people as they went off to work or whatever, formally inviting them to the Cult of the Sun. It had been Escinca’s idea, not mine. Smart old fart.

“Are you…?” Aurier inspected me with mild confusion. “Using your Aspect?”

“Yep.” I thumped my chest. It sounded heavy. “Figured it’d help my Power.”

Aurier nodded. Soon enough, we were busy with our actual tasks.

I mostly stayed back during the operation. Aurier was the better-known quantity, and quite a few people recognized him on sight. He was also pretty pleasant to talk to, which helped. Almost everyone he approached was at least receptive to his invitation, even if some of them declined.

“How long have you been with the cult?” I asked as we moved on to the next ramshackle house down the street.

“Oh, just over a year now,” he said, looking away and trying to remember. “Yes, that’s right, I think. Why?”

“Just curious. Everyone seems to know you and like you.” I thought for a second. “Though I suppose, I didn’t see anyone hating Hamsik either.”

Aurier grimaced a bit. “Hamsik can be a little intense, sorry. He was brought up pretty strictly, I think, and he’s just hard on everything and everyone.”

“Hmm, not sure that explains why he has to act like a prick.”

“I’m not sure either…”

We focused on our task. Our efforts weren’t always successful. Some people were just too busy heading off to their destinations and wouldn’t give us the time of day. Others straight-up declined without even letting Aurier get his full invitation out of his mouth. The latter rude-ish ones grew in number the farther we got from the cult, which I supposed made sense.

I felt a bit like a door-to-door salesman, but hey, we weren’t trying to sell tickets. It was free food and drink. Back in my broke college student days, I had taken free dinner and pizza invites from all sorts of religious folk.

A few of the invitees were naturally curious about me.

“You’re not from around here, are ya, son?” one old lady asked after accepting Aurier’s invite.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “I joined the cult recently.”

“Mmm, I could tell. Your skin’s too muddy.”

My eye twitched. Muddy wasn’t exactly how I’d have described my tanned complexion sticking out among the sea of sun-deprived milky pastiness. I imagined calling someone’s skin colour “muddy” back home, and then I imagined getting my nose punched into my face.

“Yeah,” I said. “Can’t really help it. Where I’m from, there’s an actual sun and everything there.”

The old woman’s eyes went wide as coins. “A sun? Where in the Pits are you from? There been no sun on all o’ Ephemeroth for ages.”

“I’m—”

Aurier suddenly pushed my shoulder. “Oh look at the time, we really need to be getting these invitations sent out.” This time, he was successful in shoving me along. “We’ll see you at the fete, Sestice!”

The old woman’s mouth was still a little agape as we left.

“Don’t want word of summoning to get out?” I asked.

Aurier looked away, though it didn’t really hide his blush. “It’s best to keep that on the down low…”

“Why? I remember there were a bunch of other people present, and none of those were cultists.”

“Yes, but most of them were carefully selected people from our neighbourhood. We’re not in our neighbourhood anymore. This is Earth Cult territory.”

“Earth Cult?”

“Yes?” He tapped his booted foot on the street. “Earth Cult.”

“Oh.” Stupid of me to think he meant Earth as in my home world and not earth as in the ground. “Never mind.”

He gave me an odd look, but we continued on. I wanted to indicate that there was no point in trying to keep the summoning on the downlow. There had been too many people there. I would be surprised if most of Ring Four hadn’t already heard something about it, even if they didn’t know specific details. But whatever. It wasn’t a big deal.

What was more interesting was the reserved reception we were getting now, compared to earlier. Aurier had mentioned it being no longer Sun Cult territory, but rather, Earth Cult locale. Well, he hadn’t mentioned it quite like that, but it nevertheless made me think of gang territorialism, which was odd because the Sun Cult was about as far from a gang as piss from ice cream.

…now I was starting to miss ice cream.

A lot of people were starting to note my presence too, often asking even more pointed questions than the old lady had. I didn’t mind going with Aurier’s story that I had come to Zairgon recently and left it at that.

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What I did mind, though, was the ruder way people were starting to act. Most of these folks were literally downtrodden, destitute, and about as dirty as the sole of my new cult boots.

Like they were in any position to be impolite at random acts of kindness.

“Don’t mind it too much,” Aurier said. “They need to do this. They need to show they’re loyal to their cult. Some cults are just…”

“Territorial asses?”

Aurier sighed. “It’s like what the Elder said. We’re all struggling to stay relevant. So if there’s someone else encroaching on our doorstep and making that even harder, then well…”

“I don’t see you going around and demanding shows of fealty.”

“There are definitely better things to do than that.”

I decided against arguing the point further. My disdain for the issue I could deal with on my own. Such as when we came across the next mean jerk.

“A party?” the unshaved man said. I couldn’t even tell his age. “What for?” He eyed me like I was yesterday’s fish rotting in the dumpster. “This idiot right here?”

“Now, now,” Aurier said, raising both hands with a pained smile. “No need for language like that. We’re just—”

“Boy, don’t you got better things to do than harassing others about your cult’s little celebration? Not all of us want to see your little gang’s dying gasp.”

That made even Aurier’s brows twitch and smile falter.

“Dying gasp?” I laughed. “Believe me, it’s the opposite of that. Whether you want to haul yourself to the Temple of the Sun or not, for us, we’re going to celebrate an important moment. Dying? Please. It’s the sun cult’s moment to shine, and in three days, we’re going to mark our first step into power and prosperity.”

Aurier stared at my outburst. What, I hadn’t even said that much.

But the unkempt man just squinted at us. “I heard tell you had another ritual, up the ‘cano.” He scowled a little. “I also heard tell it didn’t do nothing. Just like all the rest.” His eyes landed on me. “Might be I heard tell wrong.”

I slowly grinned at him. “Well, hear me out. The day of the fete is going to mark the day the Cult of the Sun starts its ascendancy. Be there for it.”

“Hng, might be I will.”

Aurier tried to make sure our departure was smooth before more or less dragging me away. “I think that’s enough of this area. Let’s get back to our usual haunts.”

I wasn’t paying much attention because I had ranked up again.

[ Rank Up!

Your Fervour Attribute has risen by one Rank.

Your Path of the Acolyte has risen by one Rank.

Fervour: Iron III

Path of the Acolyte: Iron II ]

There was a strange feeling of slight lightheaded-ness accompanying the new ranks, which I hadn’t felt before. It had to be the new rank in the Acolyte Path. The feeling faded soon, and I couldn’t tell what difference it made.

“Hey, Aurier,” I said.

“Hmm?”

“You have the Path of the Acolyte too, don’t you? Since you’re a member of the cult like me.”

“No, I don’t.”

I stared at him quizzically. “No?”

“I’ve got the Path of the Apostle. It’s the Silver-ranked evolution of Path of the Acolyte.”

“Huh.” That was new to me. So Paths evolved when they crossed rank thresholds. I wasn’t going to have Acolyte as the Path forever. “How’s it different from Path of the Acolyte?”

“Well, you get two Aspects instead of one. That’s true for basically every Silver-rank Path. I haven’t actually awakened my second Aspect. I actually only got my Path evolution a few days ago, around the time of the… of your, well, you know.” He rubbed the back of his moplike head before clearing his throat. “I need to think about what I want to get.”

“Right. You don’t have Sacrifice. What Aspect do you have then? Besides the one for your smithing Path, that is. That’s the one not at Silver yet, right?”

“Yes, Smith isn’t at Silver yet. And my Aspect for Apostle is called Ritual. Basically, you set different processes, and when you perform them, you get a result.”

“Huh.”

Aurier wasn’t the best at describing, but I was starting to get an idea of how Ritual worked, and it sounded interesting. Similar to Sacrifice in several ways, but different enough that it could function as an interesting complement rather than something that would overlap too much.

“I’m guessing Escinca already has it too,” I said.

“Oh, yes.” Aurier smiled fondly, though it was a bit sad. “He’s Gold-ranked, actually, on Path of the Hierophant now. Pretty high-ranked too. One of the things he was actually looking to do was break through to Opal-rank with the help of the, uh, the Sacrifice.”

He left out the part about it not working out that way. The only one who had really gotten rewarded by that Sacrifice was me, which wasn’t something I felt even a smidge bad about, even if Escinca had turned out to be a kindly old man I didn’t really want to see being sad.

I’d literally been ripped from my life and plopped onto a sunless world where people called my face muddy. Was Path of the Newborn Star a good recompense for that?

Only time was going to tell, I supposed.

I’d gotten sidetracked from my real question about Fervour as an Attribute, but we came across a harried-looking woman calling out a name. She spotted us—or rather, spotted our robes—and hurried over.

“Good cultists,” she said, her eyes wide and worried. “Could you please help?”

Aurier stepped up before the woman’s words were even done. “What’s wrong? How can we help?”

“My—” She was on the verge of sobbing, but she quickly pulled it together. “My daughter. She’s missing. I’ve been looking everywhere, but…” She shook her head, no longer able to hold back her tears. “The guard I reported to couldn’t find her either. He said he’d call for more help, but…”

“Calm down, please,” Aurier said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Tell us where you last saw your child. We’ll find her, don’t worry.”

She gathered herself again, then quickly took us to a neighbourhood that was more deserted than the others. “We were passing through here, and then, once we were through…”

The woman broke down into tears.

“We’ll start looking around,” Aurier said. “And we won’t stop until we get your daughter back. I promise.”

I didn’t have being roped into looking for someone’s missing child on my agenda for the day, but I tried to smile encouragingly at the woman too. “Leave it to us, please. In the meantime, go back to where you met the guard. They might waste precious time trying to find you.”

She wiped her eyes, thanked us profusely, before hurrying off.

I watched her go before turning to Aurier. “Hope you got some idea where we can look, cause I sure don’t.”

Aurier was already looking around. “I’ve been through this place many a time. Just give me a minute. It’s deserted. Silent. If a child got lost here, and if that woman had been calling out all this time, the daughter surely would have heard it."

“Unless she’s not here,” I said, frowning. “Or there’s a reason she can’t respond.”

Aurier nodded. Things were starting to feel a little more sinister than a case of a lost child would initially make me assume. But also, this was Zairgon, not a modern Earth city. It wouldn’t have surprised me to learn that children going missing wasn’t an irregular occurrence.

Thankfully, Aurier proved himself. He did know the area well, and he led me through thin alleys and along curving, dirty streets as we checked out the entire area. I got a bit lost, but I started to notice a certain pattern. Aurier wasn’t just rushing through the abandoned shacks and paths. We were being circumspect. Careful. Almost sneaking at certain points.

“There’s a reason why you never asked for the kid’s name, isn’t there?” I asked. Unlike the woman, we hadn’t bothered to call out for the missing girl even once.

Aurier slowly nodded. I hadn’t seen him look this serious before. “She can’t respond.”

I could at least tell we were getting pretty far away from the more populated areas of Ring Four while we searched, and we had slowed down a great deal. And then Aurier, who had been a little ahead of me, pulled me to a halt. I sneaked a look past him.

Down the street, near the end, two ragged men were standing in front of a house. Something about them gave off a sense of familiarity, but I also felt a slow shiver tingle down my back like icy needles.

Aurier soundlessly led me into a house, and we peeked through the window to get a different angle. My throat choked up for a bit.

The girl was inside the hut the men were standing in front of. We could see her through the window of her shack. Even from this distance, where I couldn’t fully hear what the men were saying, I could tell the girl was scared nearly senseless. The only reason she hadn’t collapsed was because there was someone else with her. Someone… rather serpentine? I blinked.

“They might sense us soon,” Aurier said. He was looking at the men, completely ignoring there was a snake-person with the little girl. Like, hello? Serpent got our girl, Aurier. “We should take the initiative. But… I’m not sure we can take them…”

I decided to ignore the presence of snake-person. “You know them.”

“I might know what they are…”

Before he could elaborate, both men suddenly turned very alert. Aurier’s little prediction came true. They had sensed us.

Aurier straightened and handed me a broken chunk of wood from the floor. “Master says it’s good to have a weapon in hand.”

“Uh…” The plank was more rotten than sturdy. Plus, I was pretty sure a weapon was only as good as the wielder’s capability to use it. “Thanks.”

“Ready?” Aurier asked.

Funny how he had asked the same thing when we had first headed out. Back then, we were just inviting people to the cult. Now, we were facing… whatever these things were.

Because I was pretty sure they weren’t regular people.

I nodded and followed him outside. They were approaching us, and while I noted their form and the weirdness about them, what I was really thinking about was how to deal with this encounter.

“Praise the Woven Way,” said the nearest fellow with a barking laugh. “It’s led fresh meat right to us.”

I ignored their jibe. My eyes trailed to their ragged shoes. Gravity fired up within me, threads of deep void purple ready to emerge. Hmm, I was starting to get ideas on how to handle this…