“You’re not allowed to laugh at my observations, Carl. I’m not speaking to you, remember?”
“That’s not what I’m laughing at, Donut. I’m laughing at the implication that the sand ooze is some sort of super mob. What does that make Samantha? She either has to be Apito, Scolopendra, or the unwitting mother in this scenario. This is so ridiculous. We fought that thing. That’s no god killer.”
Rosetta shrugged. “Just so, that’s the myth. It’s like this in all cultures. As civilizations grow, they observe phenomena they don’t understand. While the scientific minds strive to comprehend the universe, others, less educated and louder, reverse engineer ridiculous stories to explain the phenomenon, and that’s how religions are born. This is why my culture had stories of an ocean goddess with sapient menstrual blood when in reality it was a red algae bloom that evolved the ability to move onto land. They took all those ‘ridiculous’ stories and compiled them and fed them into the storylines for the dungeon.”
I remembered the caprids and how they’d reacted when they learned the gods were leaking.
“No, I understand,” I said. “I’m not questioning that. We just fought a giant talking dick. I’m talking about us trusting that the war mages know what they’re talking about when they say Samantha’s kid is this thing.”
Rosetta nodded. “We don’t know how they know this. Or how they found it in the first place.”
And that was the problem, wasn’t it? So much of this was left up to faith. In a world where anything was possible, phrases such as “This doesn’t make any goddamn sense” stopped having any meaning.
“Okay, okay,” I said. “Thank you.” I turned to Prepotente, who’d been leaned forward, fascinated by Rosetta’s explanation. “I am hoping to see that memorial crystal you have.”
[ 70 ]
Prepotente was wearingthe memorial crystal like a necklace inside his robes, and he hesitantly pulled it over his head, temporarily getting it stuck in a curved horn, and handed it to me. “I am not giving this to you, Carl. But you may observe it.”
I gently grasped it. It was warm to the touch, and it was a lot heavier than it looked. The small glowing gem occasionally changed color, but right now it gently pulsed amber, just like a regular soul gem. The thing wasn’t even as big as the one that had been turned into Carl’s Doomsday Scenario.
Memorial Crystal. Apito.
This item is 0% charged.
That was it.
The necklace was set in silver and hung from a simple chain that had a few goat hairs stuck to it. “One is supposed to attach it to jewelry or a weapon, and it supposedly charges up when you kill things, similar to your patch,” Prepotente said. “Osvaldo wore it upon his person, but it didn’t work. He then kept it in his inventory, and it did nothing, not working as intended. And then, near the end of Faction Wars, it activated on its own, shining a dangerously bright light into the sky. It still never charged. It is supposed to charge, and when it is full, one canextract the spells and skills and knowledge hidden within it. But charging it does not work. Apito herself is not dead, at least as far as we know, so this crystal should not exist.”
“I remember when it shone up into the sky,” I said. “It had happened right when Yarilo stepped out of the Nothing.”
We had used the Gate of the Feral Gods to teleport to Architect Houston’s castle. We were hoping one of the demons would appear to attack Samantha, but instead, the banished god of lust appeared.
According to the legend, Yarilo—who was the child of Taranis—had been banished to the Nothing by Apito, who was both his grandmother and stepmother. He’d been banished there because he had been the one to break the peace of her Butcher’s Masquerade spell by sexually assaulting the familiar of another guest.
And as we knew all too well, when a feral god was released from the Nothing, there was a good chance another god would appear to deal with it. None of that mattered now with the Nothing destroyed, but there was a chance that Apito herself should have appeared when Yarilo broke out. She hadn’t emerged, but the memorial crystalhadactivated.
My Scavenger’s Daughter patch had also activated, but much like the moment with Lucia Mar, it hadn’t worked properly.
“So,” I said, turning the item over in my hand, “Osvaldo has a quest from his deity to find out why these things aren’t working. He has a second crystal that’s also not charging.”
“He has two?” Prepotente asked. “Curious. I guess that’s why he rightfully handed this one over to its proper owner.”
“He said you were mean to him when he gave it to you,” Donut said.
Prepotente scoffed. “Would you be kind to a thief just because he has had a change of heart? The crime had still been committed.”
“Remember what we talked about?” Donut asked. “How do you think your mother would’ve acted in that situation? What would she have called you?”
Prepotente looked down at the floor.
“Well?” Donut demanded.
He spoke with a very small voice. “She would’ve said I wasn’t being a good boy. She would’ve called me a little stinky butt.”
I exchanged a look with Imani as Elle raised an eyebrow.
“Anyway,” I said, “what isyourquest with this thing? Mine is to find out who murdered Emberus’s son, Geyrun. We know Samantha was there when someone was hired to do it, but her memory is a little spotty. And we know that one of those four sons of Sheol waspossiblyinvolved. One of them, Amayon, claims to know who did it.”