A month. That’s how long it took the high priest to prepare. Spell circles were set up around the city, covered in illusions and layered with mental wards to ensure they were ignored. Reagents were prepped. Blood and hemolymph were… gathered.

During that time, he disguised himself as to not let anyone know he had returned. As much as it pained him to be in Emer’Thalis and hide from his goddess, there would be plenty of time for reunions once he’d finished. For now, even the slightest misstep could risk his plans crumbling to pieces.

But then, at last, everything was done. Everything but the final piece.

The main ritual, he would complete in the settlement’s dungeon.

Largely this was to protect himself. If either Hexaura or Aarris managed to track him down once the ritual began, everything would end before it truly started. It was extremely difficult for magic from one side of a dungeon portal to affect something on the other, and the only way he’d be getting through that restriction was with the booster rituals he’d already set up around the city.

It also had the added benefit of keeping Hexaura’s prison locked away. There was no reason to have it out in the open — where anyone could tamper with it — if he could help it.

For all that his month of prep had been nerve wracking, the day of the ritual arrived without fanfare. He snuck into the dungeon, he blazed through each room, and he got to work. The dungeon’s boss — a giant shade — was laughably easy for him by this point. The city had never focused on its dungeon after all: It wasn’t known for having a sizable adventuring population.

He kept expecting to be found out. To have to do some form of clean up, of damage control. But he never was.

Many hours later, everything was complete. Now the only thing left to do was start it up.

Ephesis cackled with glee.

As the ritual began to power up, I suddenly found myself yanked back into Tess’s body.

Wait. I’m Tess. My body, I reminded myself. My head was a mess after spending so much time in Ephesis’s.

Hexaura blipped into existence besides me.

In what would have induced vertigo had I been in a physical body, Hexaura somehow tugged my form out of the dungeon and over the city. I stared down on all of Emer’Thalis from a bird’s eye view. Somehow I found that I could see considerably more than I should have been able to, even with my normally enhanced Perception. Each passerby was crystal clear.

The first sign that something was off was Aarris. The goddess materialized not too far from where Hex and I were, brows knit together. A veritable stream of mana was coursing off of her before seemingly disappearing into nowhere.

While Aarris appeared confused, she didn’t seem genuinely worried until the next stage of the ritual began.

Dozens of commotions broke out at once, with only one thing to connect them all: Kexids.

Everywhere that I saw a kexid above ground, something grizzly unfolded.

Spears of light appeared next to one of them before shooting through the unsuspecting kexid the next moment. Two friends went mad, tearing into one another. A few suddenly fell to the ground, blue-green hemolymph leaking from their eye-sockets.

It was horrifying.

It was a city wide slaughter.

“But why?” I hadn’t been expecting something pleasant, but this was a massacre. “I thought the whole point was to trap you.” As much as Ephesis had ranted about the kexids, they weren’t supposed to be his target in all this.

No wonder the Heretics Guild had rejected the ritual. What sort of monster could even do something like this?

Then, blissfully, the carnage was halted.

Another figure appeared beside Aarris, this one cloaked in veils of billowing darkness. That’s Hex, I realized. How she used to appear back then.

Waves and waves of mana coalesced around her, winding themselves into complex three dimensional patterns that I couldn’t even begin to unravel. When at last she’d completed her spell, magic stormed off of her, consuming the city below.

When it hit, every kexid in sight slumped to the ground, limply. Moments later, their bodies shot off, somehow flying out of the city faster than a jet.

For just a brief few seconds, everything quieted down.

And then it began once more.

Only this time, it wasn’t the kexids that were the target. It was the humans.

I watched the same scenes unfold over and over again, made even worse by how many more people there were above ground.

“What’s happening?” Why the hell wouldn’t Ephesis just stop his damned ritual?

I watched the ritual’s effects play out over and over and over again, unable to tear my eyes away. Somebody would stop this, wouldn’t they?

But no. Hex was spent. She’d cast her city-wide magic already, thinking that would be the end of it. Aarris was drained, her high priest having used her as a mana battery. I saw a few higher level individuals surviving, but by and large that was all. The city ran red with the blood of its people.

When at last the ritual had had its fill, Hex was the first to notice. Her billowing form seemed to flicker for a moment before lurching downwards. Soon thereafter, Aarris joined her.

I watched as the two flew down to the ground and then out of view.

I had a horrible premonition of what was about to happen. For all that the bloodshed was over, this couldn’t be how things ended. The city was too intact. The surrounding area was still lush with life.

There was no sound to it. No boom. Just the thinnest of instants where I saw it. A mass of dark energy sending a pulse wave outwards.

It was a small mercy that the world went black in its wake. I’d already seen far more than I’d ever wanted to, and I had no desire to see what was left.

Besides, in a way, I knew what I would see. I’d seen the aftermath already. A city in ruins surrounded by blighted land as far as the eye could see. This was the day that the deadlands were born.

Sitting under the jagged rift created to seal away Hexaura, High Priest Ephesis stared at the screen before him, mute. By all rights, this should have been a time for celebration. He’d done it! He’d trapped an actual deity! The culmination of years of research building on the tops of generations of advances, at last carried out by his own hand.

Sometimes, however, the world could be cruel.

You have received a quest: Betrayer of the Faith I

As a high priest of your church, you have sworn to serve your goddess and spread the light. Instead, you have slaughtered your fellow worshipers and locked your goddess away.

Requirements:

Free your goddess from the prison you have locked her in

Failure conditions:

Leave the city and abandon your goddess.

Rewards for success:

Unlocks Betrayer of the Faith II

Penalties for failure:

Loss of High Priest of Light class.

Heretic’s Mark.

This is a mandatory quest.

The text hit him harder than anything on his journey’s ever had.

I failed, he realized. The ritual backfired. By the Light, what have I done?

What was he thinking? It was an untested ritual! He’d never seen it in practice a single time! Still, the worst he’d thought could happen was it sputtering out and dying or just killing the kexids without trapping Hexaura. He’d never imagined it turning on Aarris.

It’s still fixable. You can get her out. She’ll be devastated, but she’ll understand. She’ll turn to you. Be grateful for all you went through to save her from Hexaura. Mortals like us die all the time anyway, right? She can always build a new city. And this time she’ll do it with you at her side. It’s fine. It’s fine! The quest is a misunderstanding. A mistake. There’s plenty of time to fix this.

After all, of course there was! When it came to rituals that affected gods, Ephesis was now something of a master. He needed to pull her out? Well… Sure, he didn’t have a ritual that did exactly that, but he had one that was close enough.

I’ll use myself as an anchor. I’m still a worshiper. We have a connection. I’ll just set up another ritual around the rift and then tug Aarris out while leaving Hexaura in!

Sure there were a couple kinks to work out, but he’d manage. He could fix thi-

Congratulations! You have fulfilled the requirements to successfully conquer the city of Emer’Thalis!

Notice: The city of Emer’Thalis no longer meets the requirements to maintain a settlement dungeon. You will be ejected from the dungeon in one minute.

59s…

58s…

He froze.

The requirements to conquer… And it no longer meets the requirements for a dungeon? That couldn’t be right. It took some effort to open a new dungeon, but the minimum number of people needed to maintain it was rather low. There should have been more than enough people left even if he’d accidentally killed some of the humans.

That’s not the important part, though!

One minute was hardly enough time to carry out a ritual! How was he supposed to get Aarris out?

He frantically paced about, searching for some kind of answer, but as the clock ticked down, none came to him.

At last it hit zero.

Unceremoniously, he was ejected from the dungeon.

The stench of dark mana was so heavy in the air, he nearly gagged. By the Light’s grace, what is this? Were it not for his ridiculous levels of dark resistance, even just standing there would have killed him outright. Even so, he could feel the mana clawing away at him.

In a flash, he escaped the tunnel leading to the dungeon and made his way to the surface. The darkness was thick enough to obscure nearly anyone’s sight, but the eyes of a High Priest of Light cut through it all with ease.

What he saw was a mass of ruins. Buildings collapsed. Fires raging on the streets. And the bodies. So many bodies.

Even for him, it was too much. He collapsed to his knees, cradling his head in his hands.

What… What happened?

Emer’Thalis, the place he called his home, was no more.

He came close to crying right then. He was right on the brink of it. A low, the depths of which he hadn’t known existed, filled every crevice of him from head to toe.

He, however, did not cry. After minutes spent on the ground, a complex mix of emotions roiling and festering within him, he did quite the opposite.

He laughed.

A laugh so loud, everyone in a mile would have heard it if there’d been anybody left.

So be it! The city is done for. You’ve suffered a setback. So be it!

You’re a Protagonist! This is not the end of your story; it is the beginning! You will rise above it all, and many years from now, you and Aarris will look back fondly on this time. A brief blip in history. “Remember that horrid city I was brainwashed in?” she’ll say. “A terrible tragedy for all those who lived there, but their deaths served the Light. Have I reminded you how much it means to me that you saved me?”

And I’ll just smile. Because of course I did. I would do anything for my goddess. Anything.

He rushed back to where the dungeon portal would be if it were still active and sat himself down. Already an idea was hatching.

He couldn’t leave. Even if there hadn’t been the quest, what sort of monster would abandon their god like that? Besides, if he lost his class and was no longer considered one of Aarris’s faithful, none of his plans would ever work. How would he pull her out?

So he would stay. He’d wait. It would take a toll on him, but his Constitution would help with some of that, and blood magic the rest. He knew a good ritual to slow his heart and put him into an ageless slumber.

It would be a long wait, he knew. He couldn’t afford to act hastily. Now was the time when people would be hunting for answers. Distant relatives searching for their family members. Trade routes disturbed. Neighboring kings worried about the sudden appearance of darkened land at their borders.

He checked the settlement interface of his newly “conquered” city and found options for obscuring it and protecting it, switching them both on. If anyone somehow braved the mana density, he would turn them away. And if that didn’t work, he’d simply suggest that there was nothing here. A tragedy, some magical experiment gone horribly wrong. An uninhabitable, but unremarkable and easily forgotten city.

And after that?

Once the city was naught but a legend, once no one alive could put two and two together, once the mana had died down enough to feasibly rebuild… Then it would be time.

Someone will come. Eventually. Nothing lies untouched forever.

Hopefully it would be someone he could use. A noble brat, or an explorer. Someone with some sway, but low mental resistance.

I’ll need to have a tale for them, now won’t I?

Cackling, his thoughts scattered in a dozen directions, and practically swimming in a sea of dark mana, Ephesis drew a crystal out of his bag.

Yes… A nice little tale for them.