Artist
Artist
The method the Artist meant to use wasn't so different from how Aslan had tracked down the Formless One in Kardi.
The only change was which party was doing the leading.
Back in Kardi, to flush out the Formless One, Aslan had drawn on something this world had long forgotten — the divine power of Purity.
Lured by that alien divinity, the followers and priests had shown themselves, and Aslan had hunted them as they emerged.
Clearly, the Artist was working from the same playbook.
How the idea came to him, why it did — none of that mattered.
What mattered was that he meant to use the Fire-weaving Spider to locate Verdict.
He was turning a fallen power — something that had once been an evil god — into a bloodhound for that unfamiliar divine essence.
It was, in effect, like loosing a keen-nosed dog to find a scent.
The odds of success weren't especially high, given the Fire-weaving Spider's complete lack of resistance to the local poison. But the Artist wouldn't care either way.
If it succeeded, all the better. If not, no great loss.
The life at stake was only the Spider's own.
Aslan handed out the white-iron armor stripped from the guards and finished preparing the party to descend into the mine tunnel.
Torches, antidotes, dried rations, spare armor, extra water, even white chalk to mark the route down.
Getting ready didn't take long, rebellion still raging or not.
But Aslan had no time to hesitate, no time to wait. He had to move as fast as possible.
Problems born of the revolt, the aftermath — none of it mattered next to what was about to happen.
The real danger would come the moment the Spider found Verdict.
The way the Poison-spitting Dragon had been able to devour a giant.
The secret that had let it consume merely a fragment of one of the Three Evils and still gain a might rivaling the other evil gods.
That secret lay in the divinity of an Ancient God.
In a certain mode — one Aslan had briefly played — the explanation was that an evil god could be strengthened the same way a player could: through an Ancient God's divinity.
How that was possible, what principles underlay it — irrelevant.
What mattered was that if the apocalypse's grounds devoured even Verdict, it would grow into something Aslan's own hands could no longer stop.
The birth of a supreme god that even the other evil gods could not check — a powerful evil god who understood humanity, comparable to the Veil of Compassion itself.
An absolute worst-case scenario that could only end in catastrophe.
Whether that rule had fully taken hold inside this Geladrion was uncertain — but you could only avert the worst by preparing for it.
Even the other evil gods couldn't stop such an act.
Their worlds differed; they could not directly harm one another.
If it were possible, it would have been done long ago. That was why every evil god still stood intact.
So the only one who could stop it was Aslan.
And, paradoxically, the very means to prevent that worst outcome was Verdict itself.
More precisely, the power dwelling within it.
So Aslan drew a torch, took his sword, and headed for the tunnel. The companions behind him followed, each clutching a torch or a weapon, their steps tracking his into the mine.
The inner heart of Olpasbet — a cavern vast enough to be formed from a god's remains — opened its huge maw and swallowed them whole.
Thick poison vapor coiled through the darkness, and the creatures living inside it fled the torchlight with eerie shrieks, hiding themselves away.
Through the choking haze of toxins, the path stretched so far it could no longer be called a tunnel.
It wasn't hemmed in by earthen walls like an ordinary mine shaft.
Instead, it opened out on every side, welcoming them with a dizzying drop that plunged to the deep bedrock, as though a mountain had been turned inside out. Twisting paths, and here and there along them, trees thrusting up from the stone in bizarre shapes.
At a glance, you could mistake it not for a cave or a mine at all, but for a dense forest trail winding through low hills.
Faced with that deceptive landscape, Angie spoke up.
"...Uh, what? Did we come back outside?"
Several of the party heard her and actually glanced up at the sky.
A vista that looked like a moonless, heavy night.
A ceiling that soared so far above it might as well have been the heavens themselves.
So high it escaped the eye entirely, as tall as a sky, and it fooled the senses.
Of course it was easy to mistake.
All the more so with the dense poison fog eating away at their vision.
But they weren't outside.
Aslan shook his head and said quietly,
"No. This is the real Olpasbet."
"...You mean we're underground, sir?"
"Yes, Lady Rumel. This is the inner heart of Olpasbet."
The inner heart.
Deep beneath a city that already sat inside a mountain — already effectively underground — lay an even deeper abyss.
A colossal cavity bored into the earth as deadly venom dissolved the bedrock and a god's remains alike.
In a space so vast a quick glance could pass for a starless night sky, Aslan led his bewildered companions deeper inside.
They walked the lethally toxic tunnels toward the poison pools formed where the god-killing venom settled and concentrated.
Cutting through fumes so thick not even a blazing torch could burn them away, the party pinched their stinging noses and pressed downward.
They kept descending for a long while, until Aslan suddenly flinched and stopped.
"What is it? Why're you stopping, whelp?"
Tiyamal's voice edged with concern. Aslan didn't answer. He rolled his tongue against the roof of his mouth, replaying the dull sensation that had struck his mind.
His pounding heartbeat. Something drumming along his spine in time with it. Not pain, not touch — a higher-order feeling.
A premonition.
It was Luck.
Luck raising a warning in a way unlike its usual reaction.
Not a sense of mortal danger closing in, but a premonition cautioning him against some wrong answer. Aslan stood stock-still, slowly turning his head to look behind.
"I asked you why."
Tiyamal had pulled his clothes back on as he repeated himself. When they'd entered, he'd shed his outer garments; now he'd bundled up in armor, even covering his nose.
When Aslan's gaze shifted to Fay, her reaction was much the same. She wore a grimace of displeasure, a hand covering her mouth as she scanned the area.
The sight of the two of them — Tiyamal bundled up as if detection meant nothing now, Fay peering around as if even she couldn't sense anything clearly — set a thought turning in Aslan's mind.
'Why aren't there any traces at all?'
Of course, this wasn't the only tunnel. Several other routes led to the inner heart.
But nor were all routes completely isolated from one another.
There were points where they met. There was even a common cavern where all the tunnels converged.
And at every one of those places, there were no traces.
Not even the marks that would inevitably be left no matter how meticulous the Artist might be.
The realization hit Aslan as a jarring dissonance.
Something was wrong. Not a single trace. Tiyamal and Fay failing to pick up anything with their senses.
Aslan's expression hardened. Seeing it, the party stirred, eyes darting around them.
Rumel brought out her spear and lowered her stance.
Richard blinked in confusion, unable to find the source of the tension.
Ereta already had her axe in hand and her gaze lowered. Angie shifted her footing, sweeping the surroundings.
Every companion showed their wariness, and in the silences between the faint, simmering rush of the poison, a thought abruptly surfaced in Aslan's mind.
What would he do, if he were the Artist?
If he were the Artist — one who had heard much from Valerie, one who knew Aslan was coming?
Setting aside how he knew, if the Artist was aware Aslan was on his way, how would he act?
The answer came at once, even born from a what-if.
'If I were the Artist, and I knew that I — that Aslan — was coming, I wouldn't rush down. I'd wait.'
Being both human and wielding the full strengths of a priest, the Artist would certainly do that.
Because if you were Aslan — notorious for moving alongside the last remnant of an Ancient God — you would surely know the location of Verdict, or at least something about it.
The Artist would be able to guess that much.
Aslan followed the thought to its conclusion, then lifted his head and stared into the darkness behind them.
Past the gentle slope hemmed by a low cliff, into the gloom that seemed to slither closer.
"Lord Aslan... I confess I'm rather frightened. If you could at least explain what this is about—"
Rumel's voice had a slight tremor, her face fallen into a child's uneasy pout. In that brief moment, Aslan caught a flicker of movement beyond the darkness and spoke.
"Come out."
The darkness shivered.
Then the shivering became sound.
Clink, clank.
The approaching noise was the sound of chain armor.
Unlike Aslan, whose features were set in a scowl of killing intent, the face emerging from the shadows was bright.
Composed, almost merry.
The smile he wore was a clear one.
Clap, clap, clap.
Measured applause. Aslan took in the figure revealed before him — the Artist — and his own lips curled into something closer to a sneer.
High priests, as a rule, refused to use anything not bestowed by their own gods.
Whether that was a matter of pride or practicality was impossible to say.
But as Ash had proven, as the Dragon-king had proven, as the Sword of the War God had proven — high priests were beings of that order.
The exceptions were the Three Evils, the Artist among them.
They were human-minded high priests.
They employed whatever fell into their hands with no hesitation whatsoever.
The black chain armor glinting beneath a surcoat that looked like red rags — here, too, the principle held.
The Artist was wearing the Thief's Skin, the very chain armor once used by the God of Thieves, the son of Eternity and Night — an armor originally worn by the giant merchant Blaz.
A harness that could completely muffle its wearer's noise according to his will.
Given that the Poison-spitting Dragon had devoured the Ground-Breaking Giant, it made perfect sense.
Its high priest must have been slain by another high priest.
And his possessions would have passed to the Artist.
Aslan fixed him with a hard stare, already thinking it through, when the sound of running footsteps came from behind the Artist.
And what emerged were fully armed priests.
Priests clutching maces, axes, swords, spears — all dripping with venomous malice. Followers, less fearsome perhaps, but still armored and bearing weapons.
And skittering around their feet, lizard-like creatures.
"...Ah, hell."
The force that materialized numbered dozens at a glance. As if she had only now made out their fierce presence, Fay's face went rigid, and Tiyamal spat a curse, chagrin written on his features.
He wasn't wrong.