Chapter 349 A Memorial

"Can you tell me what happened?" I asked in a soft voice that sounded completely different than before. My voice was dripping with power and anger but somehow held a sense of warmth to it.

Elise nodded as she stared at me with wonder in her eyes, probably from the healing magics that were causing her body to knit itself back together. "I was walking home one night minding my own business when some women grabbed me. I tried to fight back, but they hit me and took me here, where they burned my face and started doing all kinds of things to me."

Tears fell out of Elise's eyes as she stopped talking, but I lifted up her chin so that she was looking right into my golden eyes. "It is okay now, Elise, because I am here," I said softly, and then I felt my chest start to tighten. It was like my heart was breaking, but I knew that it wasn't possible for a god to feel such things.

I could understand now why Tallia got so upset when she found out about what had happened to the women around, but hearing it from a child made it all worse. I wiped away the tears from Elise's eyes as she looked at me with wonder. It must have felt like a dream or maybe even the first time that someone had shown her any kindness in a long time.

p "What is your name, kind lady?" she asked, and I smiled at her.

"Galio, the Cat God, but let me fix this little bit of dirt you seem to have on your head," I said as I reached forward and used magic to heal the large scar and grow back all her hair, so it flowed down to the girl's shoulders.

"Dirt? What do you..." Elise started to say, but she trailed off and then began to cry when she reached up to feel the hair and smooth skin that replaced the horrible scar that had marred her face. "H-how?! Is this really me?!"

"Of course it is darling," I said as I gathered Elise up into a hug as she cried into my chest. "I wouldn't lie to you."

After a few minutes, and I had sent some healing spells to help the others get on their feet, Elise calmed down enough for us to talk and for me to explain what was going on. She told me about the other captives, their names along with some of the things that they were forced to do by the cultists.

Elise also explained how they would take blood sacrifices from them every now and then in order to keep everyone scared or make them try harder if captured people weren't performing well in their eyes. The stories that Elise told made my blood boil, but everything was over for the most part. I had to get everyone back to Calham and then get to work on the Cat God Spa!

"All right, everyone! I am going to summon a portal to Calham, where people are waiting for you! They will help you get food and a place to sleep until you are recovered, and then we will work on getting you all back to your homes," I explained, but there were a lot of uneasy looks.

"Do we have to go back to our homes? This town is dying thanks to the cult!" One woman called out, and others started to voice their opinions, but I put my hands up to quiet everyone.

"I will be coming back here tomorrow to Elloria to fix everything up and help prevent something like this from happening again. There is still a long way to go with everything, but by the end of the week, you won't even recognize the place!" I cheered, and that seemed to bolster the women a bit, but there was only so much that words could do.

I gestured and opened a portal to where Olivia was, and she turned to me with a warm smile, and then poked her head inside the portal. The smile fell off her face, and she let out a long sigh. "Bring them through. We have room for everyone, but we will have to take a few to the next building, considering how many you found. I am sure they were a lot worse off when you found them."

"They have had a hard time, so make sure that everyone is gentle with them," I said as I started to wave at the people through my portal. "Oh, and one of them is a little girl named Elise. I want to keep her with me when everything is said and done."

Olivia nodded as she walked back into the building as everyone slowly filed in from the portal, and then it snapped closed. I looked around the prison, and then everything started to melt, dropping me through the floor. I fell through the air and then landed lightly on the ground. The melted ground filled the whole back in, but then I created a circular area that set into the ground-like steps. I took the metal and created a statue of a group of women holding up a pole with a flapping flag frozen in place.

The place would be a memorial for the women that lost their lives here and for the survivors of this tragedy. There had been bodies of women in the cages as well, and some in piles. Each of them was now dust in my pouch, with the other two I had found in the Watch Tower. I would say some words for them as we cast off this island and spread them out over the sea so their essence can travel to a place they never got to see. I wished I knew what really happened to them, but if they were reborn here once, I just had to believe that they would return again in golden eggs.

'',

I would do my best to make sure that the world was a better place for them when they returned, and even if that was not the case, I would still keep pushing forward, doing what I could. I was the Cat God, after all. It was my duty to make sure things were fair for everyone, even if they weren't gods or royalty, and that started with making sure that no one ever had to go through what these women did again.

Occasionally missing content, please report errors in time.