The System Seas

Chapter 149: Unique and Temple

They compromised by leaving the system priest’s right hand free so he could write, putting a pencil in it, and then leaving him almost completely alone on a chair by the seashore. Aethe was watching him, of course, but without anyone talking to him, he was free to make whatever notes and write whatever explanations he wanted. It took him a few hours and a few revisions to get it right to his own terrified, desperate standards, but when he was done, he had failed to so much as try to escape or launch an attack the entire time.“Here,” he said. “I did my best.”

Marco glanced at the Gulf Isle priest and Elisa, who had been monitoring his efforts at discreet points during his writing time. They seemed to agree with him. Whatever he had written, it was the best he could do.

“Thanks,” Marco said and turned to the Gulf Isle priest. “Here’s some gold. Could you feed him and keep an eye on him?”

“You aren’t worried he’ll try something?”

Marco looked at the nervous, broken man in front of him and shook his head. He had never seen anyone so broken and unlikely to cause trouble in his life. He suspected when the man finally found a quiet, lonely place that he’d cry for a while before he ever considered doing anything else.

“No. He’ll be fine.”

The crew of the sinking ship was left where they were, though Marco had the Gulf island priest arrange for them to be fed, too. Once everything was set and their surroundings were clear, he handed the papers to Elisa to read. She shuffled through the small bundle of essays, pulling two clear of the others as she did and handing them to Marco.

“Here. He was very thorough, but none of it really matters besides those two. Tatric’s is on top, so read that first.”

Marco set down the other sheet and put his gun down on it to hold it in place while he read the note on his father. It wasn’t incredibly long.

“That’s good news, if true,” Elisa said. “The capital seems to be a softer target than we might have thought. Not that they won’t have fighters there, but…”

“But they seem to rely on system priests to make them invulnerable. I can’t imagine they are ready for one tight group of fighters just trying to get somewhere in the capital. How far inland is it?”

“Not far,” Elisa said. “It’s essentially a big town with a short road to a pier. We can probably just bash through.”

“Unless they have heavy hitters. Someone who can stop us.”

“Oh, that’s not going to be a problem.” Aethe waved her hand. “That doesn’t exist.”

The smooth confidence with which she said the latter bit shocked the rest of the group into silence, all of a sudden. They turned as one to look at her, where they found she looked honestly confused at the reaction.

“What do you mean? Like someone who isn’t stronger than us? There has to be something out there that can stop us,” Marco said. “Like a guy with a whole evil empire. A giant monster. They have to be out there. That’s why we keep watch.”

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“I keep watch over myself most of the time,” Aethe said. “It’s not because I think whatever I see might kill us. Part of being us is being prepared.”

“Still,” Elisa said. “There’s always a bigger fish.”

“Really?” Aethe said. “You always talk about evidence and things like that. I think the evidence is that there isn’t a bigger fish. We’ve been looking for one, right? We’ve seen a lot of fish. When it came time to measure them, we were always just a little longer.”

“I don’t know that that makes sense. We are much stronger than we were when we fought Quill, and we were much stronger then than when we fought Stead. We’ll be stronger still as time goes on. There must be someone out there who has been doing this longer and is stronger than we are now.”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t. But they won’t find us until we are strong enough to beat them, if we really try very hard.” Aethe shook her head. “I’m not saying we are literally invincible. But Elisa said the system was giving us power so we can go somewhere and do something. She says it a lot. She makes Marco put points into Charisma so it will take him even farther.”

“At the beginning you did say it was for the system to take notice of me.” Marco glanced at Elisa. “I don’t think we can say it hasn’t. Not anymore.”

“Right. And since Elisa was right, that means the system isn’t going to shove us into any problems we can’t deal with unless it’s the right time for us to die. As long as we are going down the road, the next step will always be the next step we should be taking. We just have to do what it wants, and it will let us live and grow. Until it doesn’t, I guess. But that would come anyway.”

“I don’t know,” Marco said. “Lately it’s been talking a lot about my path. I feel like I have a choice. It seems like it thinks I have a choice. It would be weird if it killed me for not following it.”

“I don’t think it’s like that,” Elisa said. “I don’t think anyone has to have adventure. I really do think it probably would let you choose if it came down to it. But I can’t say it wouldn’t put you on a different road, Marco. Things might change. But that’s all we really know.”

“So what’s the choice, then?”

“Whatever feels right,” Elisa said. “We’ll back you. Now get to the part about temples. I’m afraid it’s not much better.”

“Well, that’s a lot more abject an apology than I expected,” Marco said. “I almost can’t be mad at them now.”

“I wouldn’t say that. I’m not so sure they tried hard to find a solution,” Elisa said. “They’ve certainly enjoyed their power.”

“Doesn’t make a difference,” Marco said. “We need to go get Tatric. And I’m tired of waiting.”

The system seemed to agree.

Conquest Complete!

Since all your other potential paths of growth are closed, your recent complete victories over members of the system church have been converted into resistance to their temple’s power.

Marco nodded. Whatever his choice of path would be later, it was clear that this was his path right now. He was going to go rip the foundations of the capital out if he needed to, but he was getting Tatric back.