Chương 14: Omnimancer 14: Echoes of Divinity

Climbing some fifty-odd stone steps leading up to the ziggurat's main floor, Jax joined the queue on the stairs waiting to get inside. He didn't mind the wait. It gave him the opportunity to check out his fellow templegoers, and judging by their outfits, it seemed like both shamans and Takoran citizens were present. The shamans all wore a simple but well-tailored flowing robe uniform, though the colors varied between greens, blues, and reds.

Jax guessed that corresponded to their roles or possibly seniority within the organization.

"Nonsense!" green robe said, trying and failing to keep his voice down.

"It's overblown! Rumormongering and nothing more."

"So you say," blue robe replied from a couple of steps ahead, "but I've heard rumors. Whispers of worshippers who'd uplift the Fallen Emissary should he reveal himself. As terrible as he was, the heretic had no shortage of followers in his day." Jax frowned in thought. That Emissary again. The guard at Sagebrush Kiva had mentioned them, but he'd heard nothing since. Not that Jax was especially plugged into Takoran gossip.

"Fallen Emissary, bah!" red robe scoffed.

"That one was quite the character, as every story of his time reminds us. He would have declared himself to the world by now! Or the Goddess would have made an announcement! We'd be the first to know, wouldn't we? That there's been nothing but silence says it all. Just because a man wears yellow and a strange mask does not a Fallen Emissary make." The others went silent at that, and they weren't the only ones. That… has to be a coincidence. Right?

Surely Jax wasn't the only one wearing yellow, although his suit's yellow was quite literally impossible to create on Wakanya from everything he'd seen. Let alone a suit from Earth like his. But Jax didn't feel like it was too different from a balaclava from afar, and—"Not just any mask!" another shaman muttered in hushed tones, as though even speaking of it was blasphemy.

"The black abomination with the rope affixing it to his back! It's the same, I tell you! The same!" Jax sighed. Well, fuck… Some pieces clicked in his head at that moment. Had the statue he'd seen earlier been in any better condition, he would've noticed it sooner. This 'Fallen Emissary' was someone from Earth. Had to be, unless there was some civilization who'd secretly mastered advanced plastics hiding out there somewhere. Not impossible, just highly improbable.

Societies like that tended to leave traces of their existence. Which meant that this guy they were so terrified of was not only from Earth, he was a mountaineer. An extreme-altitude mountaineer from modern Earth… like Jax. And said mountaineer had angered the goddess and the people of Takora enough for them to defile his statue. There was so much to unpack there that Jax didn't even know where to begin, and he cursed that he was finding out about all this only now, after the teddies had left.

The last thing he wanted to do was go around asking shamans about taboo'd stuff. Jax's first instinct was to be especially careful about hiding his identity… but what if he wasn't? What if he came out as this 'Fallen Emissary'? Barring the obvious 'being struck down by the Goddess as her public enemy number one', of course. If— and it was a big if—the Goddess didn't smite him, he'd instantly be one of the most feared—and thus respected—figures in the city.

Hell, it sounded like there were people ready to worship him already. Which would definitely start a feud with the Temple. Maybe even outright civil war, by how religious people were around here. That was a bomb he didn't dare touch with a ten-foot pole. Well, maybe as a nuclear option. His Hail Mary for emergency situations. The line continued to crawl, and as they got closer to the top, the topic changed, but just when Jax was about to tune out, they began talking about Luxspire and his Gift, of all things.

"Could you even imagine?" a woman asked in a hushed voice from up ahead, her eyes locked on something Jax couldn't see from his position.

"For no one to have ever obtained it, I truly can't begin to comprehend how powerful that Gift must be."

"That's the whole point of it," an elderly woman said.

"No one's supposed to attain it. Just think of the hope that would be lost."

"Positively dreadful," the other woman agreed.

"Makes one wonder if anyone alive can claim it at all. Perhaps a Manitou or possibly a Nunnehi?"

"Who knows?" a third woman said.

"That they haven't says something, don't you think?" she asked, suddenly turning to Jax, and it took every shred of willpower he possessed not to laugh.

"No idea," he said innocently.

"But anything can happen. For all we know, someone might claim it any day now!" That got a laugh out of the women present, and Jax laughed along, though for an entirely different reason. If only you knew the half of it… he thought, trying to keep the smile on his face from turning wry.

"Believe me," the woman said, shaking her head.

"The sun not rising is more likely." But just as the ladies were gearing up for even more gossip, one of the shamans in front of Jax butted in, killing the fun.

"Ladies, please," he said in a disarming tone.

"I do understand the desire to hypothesize, truly. But, though I know it was not your intent, your words tread too close to blasphemy. Especially here, in the place of our goddess. Please cease this at once." The women all exchanged guilty looks and hurriedly offered their apologies and assurances to the holy man, but Jax barely paid it any mind. He'd been standing a bit too long in the cold and all he wanted was to warm up. The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Upon reaching the highest step, Jax came face-to-face with an enormous bonfire, burning atop a round stone plate as wide as Jax was tall, which itself sat on top of a stone pedestal several feet in height. The fire, however, was no ordinary flame. Not only was it pure light blue and oddly still, lacking the chaotic nature of nonmagical fire, it was so large and so blindingly bright that Jax was pretty sure it was visible from any vantage in the whole city.

Something compelled Jax to reach out and touch it, but he resisted. He was pretty sure that would have been a very bad idea… for a multitude of reasons. Words had been carved into the stone below. Words that made Jax's eyes bulge and his palms sweat the moment he read them.

"Ohhh, not good. So not good."

"Excuse me?" the shaman in front of him asked, giving him a concerned look. But Jax ignored the man. His eyes were fixated on those three little sentences that changed everything. Here burns the eternal vigil of the world's highest peak. For as long as this sacred flame lasts, the Gift atop Luxspire Peak remains to be claimed. Let it be a source of hope for all who aspire to higher heights. Uh, why's the flame lit? Jax thought, alarm bells going off in his head. It shouldn't be lit.

Because as shocking as a literal beacon tracking the Gift on top of Luxspire Peak was, that at least, Jax could understand. That served as a source of inspiration as the plaque read. A goal to reach. What made no sense was why it hadn't extinguished the moment he'd obtained it. For an instant, Jax wondered if multiple people could claim the Gift at Luxspire's summit, but the teddies had made it clear that wasn't possible. The teddies… A system message popped up just then, answering all his questions.

And yet, for all the horror Jax had felt just now, it paled next to what he felt upon reading those words. P. S. Teddy timer says 25 days, 20 hours, 3 minutes! If you guessed that's how long you've got until our power stops working and Aunty finds out about our little oopsie… ding ding ding, you guessed right! Jax reread the words, just to be sure he wasn't imagining things as he gripped his head in his hands and did his best not to shrivel into a ball in a corner. An oopsie? An oopsie!? Seriously?

If—no, when —'Aunty' found out three weeks from now… Forget Takora's reaction, or even that of the broader world. Forget the despair and the anger everyone would feel—that was all quaint in comparison to how the goddess would take it. Her most prized Gift, taken by some rando helped along by a couple of eldritch teddies. Who had then duped her for a whole month? Jax took a deep breath, which ended in a hacking coughing fit that got him no shortage of side eyes. Look on the bright side, Jax!

Maybe she'll be reasonable about all this. Maybe she's not as terrifying as everyone makes her out to be? Magnanimity was a hallmark of a Goddess like Luxor... right? And he still had three weeks. A whole twenty-five days to think up a plan. The obvious stuff wouldn't work, of course. Jax didn't think there was anywhere on Wakanya he could flee to where a goddess couldn't find him, but that didn't mean there wasn't an out somewhere. Some blind spot he could leverage.

Sure wished I'd come here before chatting with the teddies. Could've used their advice right about now. Wiping the sweat off his face, Jax gave the flame a wide berth, as though his presence might snuff it out at any moment, and headed in. Upon entering, Jax was hit with warm, earthy air that smelled like a combination of sagebrush, thyme, and a half dozen other burning herbs.

Despite the mishmash, none of it was unpleasant, and it actually made for an exotic vibe that completely fit the low chanting voices coming from within. The delightful warmth didn't hurt the appeal, either. The temple's main chamber was a vast, pyramidal area that rose several stories high. Hundreds of Takorans sat cross-legged on the stone floor, chanting in unison with a half-dozen shamans who sat on an elevated dais across from them.

Icons of fearsome-looking deities lined the walls, carved from wood and painted in vivid colors. While similar to the ones Jax had seen all over the city, these were far larger and much more ornate. Which was only to be expected of Takora's Sky Temple, as the bears had called it. Feeling like a complete outsider, Jax snuck quietly to the back and sat down cross-legged like everyone else. It didn't take long before he lost himself in the spiritual chanting. There was an energy there that was very much real.

A more condensed, powerful form of the chants he'd heard in the kiva and elsewhere in the city. The chanting eventually faded, and Jax was left with a strange emptiness when it did. He expected the group to stand and leave, but was somewhat elated when they didn't. Jax began to wonder if there would be another chant, but what happened instead, he could never have guessed. Lux the likes of which he had never seen exploded into the room, and Jax choked on his own breath.

It was so thick, it was like the air itself had turned solid. Jax's breathing grew ragged and he was suddenly drenched in sweat. The wave of Lux was unlike anything he'd felt. Should he defend against it? How the hell even? As he discovered right after, he wasn't actually suffocating, and when he collected enough wits to pay attention to his body, he found he was breathing just fine, even if his heart was racing like mad.

The source of the insane Lux made itself visible soon after, and for a moment, Jax wondered if the temple was under some form of magical attack. Motes of visible Lux swarmed through the air, coalescing and growing brighter at a rapid pace. If his million points of Lux was like a deep lake, this was a planet-encompassing ocean. He might as well have been a bug. The glowing blue lights finally took a form. A beautiful woman with long, flowing golden hair and an otherworldly smile.

Though she was made of pure magical energy, not a single person alive could mistake that form for anyone other than the Goddess Luxor. And if just the leakage of her Lux caused this sort of reaction… Not terrifying my ass… Why'd he ever even think she'd be weak? Her existence truly deserved to be called divine, and Jax felt like he always did when looking upon an enormous peak. Utterly inconsequential.

"Come, my faithful," the figure said in a voice that spoke directly into Jax's head.

"Be rewarded for your devotion." A wave of healing Lux washed over everyone present, including, to Jax's immense surprise, himself. It was followed by a System Message. An Echo of the Goddess Luxor has bestowed [Divine Wind] upon you. For the next 24 hours, gain +10% to your strength and vitality. An echo!? You've gotta be shitting me. Jax felt a trickle of cold sweat down his back. If that was just an echo of the goddess, then just how impossibly powerful was she? For that matter, how powerful was Misu?

The teddy bear had definitely laughed when Jax called Luxor the strongest, right? But that just gave rise to an even more terrifying question. How powerful was'Daddy'? And how could any plan he hatched overcome the wrath this goddess would bring upon a mortal who's earned her ire? Not for the first time in his life, Jax wondered what the hell he'd gotten himself into. Because for all that he'd stood on the roof of the world, right now it felt like he'd never even left Base Camp.