Advent – Chapter 37: Proper Introductions

GamingWolf

The servant gave Diana a weary look but let her pass regardless, as she was obviously another companion of their guest. Aperio had to hide her surprise – she did not recall telling Terenyks that she would be bringing anyone else along, and yet the three of them were cordially being invited in. Considering the clarity with which she was now able to remember her life, she was very certain she would not have forgotten something like that.

Maybe they are not as strict as the Empire with their visitation rules? Or did the [Grandmaster] tell them when I asked her to inform them about the delay? It was the most likely answer. She had not specified what to tell them and, like almost everyone else she had met, she probably had not hidden the fact that she was a Goddess.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a smell wafting through the air. The Terenyks seemed to enjoy freshly baked goods in the morning. Or is it something they are preparing for us? While she did not have to eat, Aperio would most certainly try whatever they had to offer.

With a few quick steps the maid was in front of them again, leading the way. She did not seem to be too fond of them, particularly Diana, but remained polite. Aperio could feel a similar but more agitated annoyance radiating off of Diana – the priestess was obviously not happy that her Goddess was being treated like any other mortal. She was about to say something when the gentle, reassuring touch of her daughter's magic brushed past her and started to dance around Diana.

The magic calmed the priestess, but she still seemed rather unhappy with the proceedings. Not that you would know that by looking at her. Diana was awfully good at keeping her face expressionless, a talent Aperio would have appreciated if she could not sense the mood the woman was in through her aura. It required a little bit of focus, but just as she was distrusting of the winged Goddess, Aperio did not trust her either. Not that she trusted anyone aside from Ferio at the moment. Roots and Laelia too, perhaps.

After opening the metal-framed double door, the maid stood aside and invited them in with a wave of her hand and a slight bow. Aperio chose not to ask the woman to refrain from formalities as she did not know what kind of person Lord Terenyk was. If he turned out to be anything like the nobles she remembered, there would be a rather messy changeover of the Terenyk head of house by the end of the day.

The thick carpet that covered the floor felt nice under Aperio's still bare feet. Nobody had asked her to wear shoes yet. Perhaps none had known footwear that would pair well with the dress she wore and still be able to support her mighty corporeal self. Or they did not want to offend me. In the end, it did not matter. She liked going barefoot, letting the sensations of dirt and stone and gravel inform her steps. Knowing that most things would not be able to cut her certainly helped her feel comfortable walking around the city without any shoes.

Unable to hold back her curiosity, Aperio let her senses wander around the mansion. It did not take her long to find Maria. She was in what Aperio assumed to be her room, and she was painting. The scene the girl was drawing was not the one she had shown her when they had first met, but the fight she had had with Laelia. It was not the first time Maria had drawn this scene as all around the room the winged Goddess was able to spot various paintings of the fight, every one of which seeming to have been drawn from some point in mid-air.

Each and every painting featured a ghostly version of Laelia being pulled out, which was most certainly not something Aperio remembered doing. Or is that how it looked for other people? Asking the adventurers how it had appeared – should she even meet most of them again – was not really an option. She had been too high up for them to see. Probably. That everyone had her ridiculous eyesight was not something she believed.

Further inspection of Maria's paintings caused the girl to stop her work and look around the room. It was obvious that she knew something was going on but was not able to pin down what exactly it was. Brushing a small amount of mana past Maria in an attempt to help the girl identify the phenomenon she seemed to be perceiving caused her to freeze.

For a moment Aperio thought she had injured her by being careless, but the connection she shared to Maria's soul told her that the girl was fine. A moment later, Maria waved at nothing in particular and went back to her painting with renewed vigour. The antics of the little girl brought a smile to the Goddess' face, one that was quickly replaced with an expression Aperio hoped conveyed sufficient regality for the upcoming meeting.

The reason for her quick change of expression was a man – A butler? – in a precisely cut suit who opened the door they had been approaching. Beyond lay what Aperio knew to be a dining room, the table filled with various foods and drinks, removing any doubt one could have. The only person she did not classify as a servant was standing at the head of the long table, next to what Aperio assumed to be his chair.

Standing in small alcoves between the windows were maids, valets and other footmen. Maybe they expected more than just three. If etiquette had not changed much in her absence, the Terenyks had enough staff on hand to serve six people and still fulfill the two servants per noble requirement that Aperio herself had never really understood.

The man tensed up a little as he laid eyes on Aperio, likely making the connection between the winged Goddess and the person his daughter painted. The maid that had led them was about announce her, but Aperio waved her off. "Such formalities are not needed."

Her words caused a few of the servants to falter, sinking to their knees. How am I supposed to hold back even more? I am already barely speaking loud enough for them to hear.

"If they cannot bear to hear me talk, they may leave." She was not the Lady of the house, but it was clear that Lord Terenyk was trying his best to not offend her. Allowing the servants that were simply too weak to be able to properly deal with her liberal use of mana to leave seemed like the right decision to her.

Still, the servants that still stood only started to help their fallen colleagues after Lord Terenyk had given a slight, almost imperceptible nod. There was a slight rage that wanted to make itself known, the fact that the servants had not heeded her call as soon as she had spoken somehow an offence to an unconscious part of her mind. Aperio shoved that feeling down again; even if she could make people do what she wanted it did not give her the right to do so or be upset if they did not. Annoying. Will that ever stop?

While most of his employees were doing their best to remove themselves from the premise with at least a little dignity remaining, Lord Terenyk gestured towards the table.

"Please, take a seat." His voice was ever so slightly unsteady, something that undoubtedly had to do with the fact that he was scared. Aperio could see the sweat form on his brow, feel his distress through her aura, and, if she really focused on him, could hear the frantic beat of his heart.

"Why is everyone always so frightened?" she asked. "I am not here to bring righteous fury down upon any who simply give me strange glances."

"You underestimate the weight of your presence, mother." Unlike Aperio, her daughter seemed to find a bit of enjoyment in watching the mortals squirm a little. A behaviour the winged Goddess would find distressing if it would ever be more than amusement at her own ineptitude to judge her strength.

With a sigh, Aperio took the chair that had been offered to her and turned it slightly before sitting down. Having to sit on her wings and have the rest pressed against the back of the chair was something she could do without. The wood groaned slightly under her, but held firm. Curiosity reared its head yet again, but she filed the question of her current weight away for pondering at a future time.

"I have come to visit Maria, but I assume you want to …vet me." The fact that she was unable to find the proper words annoyed the winged Goddess more than she thought it would, but she continued on nonetheless. "I am willing to answer your questions if you return the favor."

Having to listen to years worth of nobles exchanging pleasantries and actually doing business was paying off, even if she was never really able to recall their conversations in as much detail as she could now. A perk of being a Goddess? She had avoided giving him her name or title, a trait she had once observed in the upper rankings of the social hierarchy. Aperio had not really thought about her words, just choosing what felt right. But, now that she had had taken a moment to think about what she had said, Aperio could not help but mentally reprimand herself.

"Welcome to our humble home, Lady Aperio," Lord Terenyk said after a brief moment of continued hesitation. "I am Geshton Terenyk, head of the house and Lord of this estate. The [Grandmaster] informed me that you would be coming to visit my daughter, but not why."

He sounded a lot surer of himself than Aperio knew him to be. It was undoubtedly a product of countless meetings and other social gatherings in which he had to pretend to be someone else. Her daughter's priestess did not seem to like his straightforward approach, despite Aperio having asked for it. She was glaring at the man as if he had committed one of the greatest sins possible. A rather forceful nudge of Ferio's mana caused Diana to lower her head, seemingly ashamed of her own actions.

"I want to learn more about the life Maria has lived so far," Aperio said. "There are a number of things I need to know."

Geshton gave her a long, hard look before he replied. "Do you know of her… affliction?"

The winged Goddess cocked her head ever so slightly to the side at his question. Maria was in perfect health. She did not know for certain what he meant, but there was something that she thought could be a possibility. "Does her [Status], perchance, have a bit that is unreadable? Just a mess of letters and symbols you cannot understand?"

"...Yes."

Will Laelia and Arden also have a garbled text for their blessings? Or is it only Maria's because I touched her soul? "That is nothing concerning. It merely means that the blessing she has cannot be measured by the tool you used."

"I was told it is a curse from a fallen Goddess."

The sound of something breaking caused Aperio to face her daughter; she had crushed the armrests of her chair at his words. After Ferio took a deep breath to calm herself, Aperio saw the magic of her daughter begin to mend the broken wood. The few servants that had remained tried to ever-so-subtly distance themselves from the angered Goddess.

"Who said that?" There was a slight, angry shake to Ferio's voice.

"Priests of Vigil, Inanis and a few other deities," Lord Terenyk replied. The veneer of surety he had had was gone, replaced with a worried uncertainty that Aperio did not like but could understand.

"Did the [Grandmaster] tell you who I am?" Aperio asked.

The man gulped nervously before giving a shallow nod. "Yes."

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Then you know what I am, no?"

Another uneasy nod was the reply to her question.

"Have you thought that, perhaps, they might have lied to you?"

"Yes, but…" His voice grew quieter as he sunk into thought. "They were quite persuasive, and insistent. But they wanted me to kill Maria - kill my own daughter! - and I could not bear to do so. Instead, I banned from our grounds all followers of those deities, and kept Maria here for her own safety." He shivered slightly. "They claimed that the curse would twist her into a Demon, but the longer she lives the more I refuse to believe such claims. All that Maria does are normal things for a child. Except for the painting, perhaps, but even then I cannot see anything demonic in her actions." His brow furrowed in thought as he sat heavily back into his chair. "But, the information came to us from people in service of a God! Why would they lie about such a thing?"

"Why does anyone lie about anything?" Aperio's wings twitched slightly, the motion was easily understood as a shrug even if it garnered a slightly confused look from Diana. "I have my own goals and dreams, just like anyone else would. Why would a God not lie?" I thought this was obvious.

The man let out a defeated sigh. "I just believed your kind would be above such things." As soon as the words had left his mouth, he tensed up again. "I meant no offence."

"I told you before, I do not mind," she replied, waving him off. "As for Maria's blessing; it will not harm her. And neither will any other God or Goddess." Her words carried with it a finality that made it clear that she meant what she had said.

Geshton seemed to stare at nothing for a moment, something Aperio figured was a System notification. What did I do now?

A moment later the ambient mana surrounding the man changed. It rapidly gained the same coloration and feel that Aperio's own had, before it started to weave itself into Geshton. She narrowed her eyes as she followed the tiny strands of magic dancing inside the man's body. Unlike the blessings she had previously given, there was no change within the man. The new mana simply followed the flow of what he already naturally possessed. Once every bit of it had successfully been absorbed, Aperio felt a small tingle in the back of her mind.

While it was a new sensation, it also felt familiar and a thought was all she needed to grab hold of this timeless feeling. Aperio had expected an ethereal flow of information akin to that she received from her aura and the blessings. Instead, there was a feeling of wholeness that only came second to the Void in the comfort it gave the winged Goddess. Closing her eyes, Aperio revelled in the feeling before another change occurred.

She had thought her aura provided her with too much information, but what had returned to her now dwarfed what it could provide. Chaotic aggregations of names, strange clusters of symbols, and weaves of mana that made no sense despite knowing that it had to be hers nonetheless. Aperio knew of only one thing that she could have connected with that was hers and would drown her in information. Is that how the System looks?

Once she opened her eyes again, Aperio was greeted by a blue-tinted window she had thought only an [Appraiser's Stone] could produce.

Revoked access from custodian entities.

Custodian entity 'Roots-Beneath-All' retains access by the will of the Creator.

Custodian access granted to entity 'Ferio' by the will of the Creator.

Creator reinstated.

System functionality restored.