“What?” the mountain yeti rumbled. Raymond saw deep confusion in the beast's eyes and sighed. She thought it’d be really cool to have a level 25 pet Mountain Yeti but the brute was just a little too stupid to easily communicate with.

“Serve Legion?” she tried hopefully, to no avail.

Og came up beside her. “Are you seriously trying to convert a wild monster?” he asked incredulously.

Raymond’s mouth twitched into a frown. “I thought I’d try but…” she said, trailing off as she gestured hopelessly at the yeti. The beast fell onto its rear end and started pulling at the shackles once again. Og hid a smile.

“You just have to learn to speak his language. We have to hurry, so I’ll help you out here.”

He stepped forward, reaching a hand into his bag. He pulled out a thick cut of meat and held it out in front of him. The yeti perked up instantly, entirely forgetting about the chains as it focused on the delicacy.

“Food.” Og said, shaking the meat slightly.

“What want?” the yeti asked, his eyes following the gentle back and forth movement of the meat.

Og pointed at Raymond. “Master.”

The yeti broke his attention from the meat just long enough to follow Og’s finger. “Mas...ter? Me… slave?”

Og motioned Raymond to step forward, holding the meat out for her to grab. She took it and held it out to the yeti. She briefly considered saying yes but she remembered the yeti rampaging just moments before about that very subject. Probably best to reassure it.

“Me master. You not slave.”

“No… slave?”

“No slave.” Raymond replied firmly.

The yeti leaned forward and sniffed the meat. Slowly, it opened its mouth and bit the edge, pulling it away as Raymond released it. It chewed slowly, a thin red stream dribbling down its chin.

The Mountain Yeti pushed itself back to its feet unsteadily. As Raymond observed it closer, she could see that the creature was obviously very fatigued. Its eyes were drooping heavily and the wild monster could barely stand up straight.

“Where… go… mas...ter?”

Raymond glanced at Og. “You said something about a trap?”

Og shrugged. “If they haven’t attacked by now, they probably won’t yet. This is a really common method that trackers use to find our hidden camps. They capture and torture a wild monster and then let them escape. They flee their tormentors by running towards the largest nearby ‘herd’ of food that they sense.”

“So we’re going to be attacked soon?” Lexi asked, walking up beside them.

Og nodded grimly. “I don’t know when, but probably before the week is over. We need to move our camp.”

“There’s no time for that.” said a voice that Raymond recognized. She turned in the direction the voice had come from and saw a man leaning against a tree. He had on a black leather tunic covered in sheathed daggers but his face was unmistakable.

“Max?”

The merchant smiled. “Hello again, Miss Raymond.”

“You know him?” Og asked, his eyes bouncing between Raymond and Max with a hint of uncertainty.

“I met him once in Cairel.” Raymond replied, “Though our conversation was very brief, it was long enough for him to read my status.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “You noticed?”

Raymond shrugged, “Eileen is pretty free with information.”

He chuckled. “I find that hard to believe. That woman is crafty and knows a lot of things that she shouldn’t. If she told you anything, it was probably not all that important in the grand scheme of things.”

Raymond shrugged. “She’s pretty much my only connection to a Temple right now, so I’ll work with what I’ve got.”

“Just be careful that you don’t stack all of your cards in one deck.” Max warned, “or else you just might end up like me.”

What does that mean? Raymond wanted to ask but she could see a hint of sadness in his eyes. She didn’t want to pry too much into this man’s past… at least not yet. He obviously came here for a reason and it was probably not to tell her his life story.

“Why are you here? And how did you find this place?” she asked.

Max pointed at the Mountain Yeti that was clearly failing to comprehend what was happening. “I freed that from some scouts that are searching for your camp, carried it to the mountains and released it. Then I followed it here.” He pulled a letter from his pocket and held it up. “I have a message from Eileen. This camp will be attacked soon.”

Og stiffened. “Adventurers?” he asked.

Max tilted the letter and spun it through the air in an arc. Og caught it smoothly without taking his eyes off the human.

“The details are in there. My job was to deliver this. What you do with the information is up to you.”

Og nodded, pursing his lips. “Thank you. It is a strange human that cares to help goblins. May I ask why you care so much?”

Max grinned. “You can.”

“And will you answer?”

Max stepped backward, disappearing into the shadow cast by the tree. His voice came from all around them.

“Perhaps if we meet again.”

Og gasped. “He’s good.”

“Jealous?” Raymond teased.

Og gave her a sidelong glance as he turned and started to walk towards the camp. “Just a little bit. Hard to be impressed when your mentor was the Evelyn Raymond though. She understood the world and magic on a level that mere mortals can never achieve in their lifetime.”

Raymond grabbed the yeti by the arm and pulled to get it to start walking. The beast remained unfazed, scratching an ear idly as it looked down at Raymond.

“Holy Legion, this thing is heavy! Max said he carried it?” she muttered as she released her grip and pointed at the camp.

“Go?” the yeti asked.

“Go.” Raymond affirmed. The yeti began to amble towards the camp, lurching as it swayed back and forth. Lexi came up beside Raymond as they followed it.

They walked in silence for a few seconds. Raymond glanced at Lexi and noted that she seemed a little uncomfortable.

“Is everything okay?” Lexi asked, returning the gaze.

Raymond thought for a moment. She was at a loss for words because she simply knew almost nothing about Lexi.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Lexi asked with a hint of confusion.

“Sorry that I’ve been a little distant for a few days... I had just rescued you and then I left you alone…” she trailed off bitterly.

Lexi paused for a moment, as if deep in thought. She cautiously wrapped an arm around Raymond’s shoulder. “You needed some time to decompress, right?”

“Right…”

“I’ve been there. Sometimes you just need to put stressful things aside and break stuff until you feel better.”

Raymond hid a smile, relief flowing through her. She resolved herself to pay more attention to Lexi from now on. She wanted to have more friends than a disembodied voice.

“How’s your training going?”

Lexi’s ears perked up as she grinned widely. “I’m an Acolyte now!” she declared proudly.

Raymond chuckled at the girl’s enthusiasm as they walked through the gate and back into the goblin camp.

“Tell me all about it.”

“Are you sure we have time for that?” Lexi asked, her eyes following the yeti that walked in front of them.

Raymond thought about the problem. The yeti obviously needed more food and some rest. There was also the impending attack that needed to be addressed…

Raymond’s immediate priorities were clear.

“Let’s drop off the yeti with the cooks. We need to speak with Shaman about the contents of that letter. You can tell me about being an Acolyte on the way.”

Lexi’s eyes sparkled as she grinned widely.

“Okay! So to understand the story, first, you have to know that I like fish---

***

“Your Tether is a very unique individual.” Auto said.

“I didn’t expect her to recruit the yeti either.” I said, shaking my head in amazement.

“I do not know how she will succeed in bringing that to a Temple… but I am most intrigued. Thus far, the two of you have not failed to show me interesting things.”

“We’re just doing our best.”

“If that were the case, it would be more than most.”

“What do you mean?”

“I suggest you learn how to extrapolate on your own.” Auto said, it’s voice taking on a hint of frustration.

“Isn’t it your job to teach me?” I asked.

“Officially, it is my job to answer your questions. However, you do not ask questions about the things you should be focusing on.”

“The things I should be focusing on?” I pointed at my Prayer Log. “I’ve been organizing that monstrosity for days!”

“And your system is more efficient for it. However, there are obviously other things you should be doing as well. If your Tether does somehow begin to grow your religion, you must have Tenets for your ‘followers’ to be able to ‘follow’ you.

He had a point. I had been neglecting the Tenet and Divine Mandates tab since writing the ‘No Slavery’ commandment. I had also been purposefully avoiding the chat log with the other Overseers… I just felt like I didn’t know enough yet to be messing around with those kinds of powers.

As if reading my mind, Auto replied. “You will never know enough if you do not try. You may make mistakes and those mistakes may lead to terrible consequences. However, if you do not choose to learn now you will be forced to learn later when there is so much more to lose.”

Again, he was right. I felt it deep inside… I needed to start building my religion. If there was no framework, there would be little to no growth and I would remain stagnant forever.

“Alright, I understand. I’ll start to think about and build up the Tenets of the Church of Legion. However, I think I will wait until I have an actual church presence to start my dealings with the other Overseers. Right now I just don’t have enough power to deal with anything they throw at me.”

I felt Auto’s approval and smiled bitterly. Creating an entirely new religion would be a long and difficult task. I needed teachings and commandments that would please and help people… but in order for me to gain power much of the list needed to be comprised of do’s and dont’s. A few things seemed obvious to ban at first, but there is a flip side to almost every coin.

Take ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ as an example. There is no gray area in the statement but there certainly can be in the act. Sure, murder is not a commendable deed, but self-defense and protecting one's family definitely is. And what about the case of Raymond killing the humans who attempted to enslave her? Personally, I didn’t condemn her for that and thus my religion should not as well.

A soft ding brought my attention to the Prayer Log and I shook off the self-defeating loop of rationalization.

As I looked at the Prayer Log, I couldn’t help but feel a little proud to see the result of my efforts. With the previous automatic response function that I had set up, all the prayers I received with the keywords ‘bless this food’ were automatically answered. Using this automated system, I discovered a way to route prayers into groups. There were six categories.

Assistance, Romance, Miracle, Vows, Gratitude, Misc

Any prayers primarily asking me for some form of non-romance related aid were filtered into the Assistance category.

Petitions of a romantic nature were numerous enough that they had their own group.

Requests that desired for me to solve their problem for them went to the Miracle category.

Promises made to me or in my name filled the Vows category and another group was made up of prayers that contained only gratitude.

The Misc section was for prayers that didn’t fit under any of the other five groups.

After spending roughly fifteen hours skimming through and sorting prayers, I finally had the previously unread messages sorted. Any new messages containing preset keywords would automatically be filtered into the correct groups. Messages that hit none of the keywords would land in Misc.

Assistance: 254,832 (Unread - 4,532)

Romance: 92,954 9 (Unread - 21,210)

Miracle: 439,549 (Unread - 90,304)

Vows: 515 (Unread - 3)

Gratitude: 12,222 (Unread 10)

Misc: 2 (Unread 0)

Total Prayers: Read - 684,015 / Unread - 116,059

Since many prayers could fit into multiple categories, it also had a priority system. The order of highest value to lowest was ranked: Vows, Gratitude, Assistance, Romance, Miracle, Misc and any prayer that would fit in multiple categories would land in the category it qualifies for that has the highest priority.

I tried to keep up on the Gratitude and Vows as soon as I received them. I had also tried with Assistance at first, but it was pretty depressing to read a bunch of prayers I could do nothing about. I ignored the Romance prayers for the most part and didn’t even touch any of the new Miracle requests. The distinction on whether a prayer landed in the Assistance or Miracle section was mostly in whether or not the individual had asked me to do something for them or whether they had asked me to help them do something.

And honestly, most of the requests for Miracles were things people could do themselves if they just put in the effort. I personally had little interest in solving people’s problems for them. This is a religion, not a charity.

Finally, I had a little subsection titled Steve. The system copied any prayers I received from him and placed the copies here so I could access them quickly. Over 300 of the Vows were his prayers. Most of the vows were promises to serve me well if I made him one of my Paladins… he made this promise dozens of times a day.

Though he wasn’t my follower yet, he was definitely on the road to becoming my favorite.

I opened up the Steve section and found one that I had bookmarked yesterday to look at closer.

Yo, Legion buddy. Thanks so much for dropping that gnome in my backyard! Mr. Swaggins is an awesome breakdancing teacher. As promised, I will find a way to claim a Temple in your name down here in Atlantia. Hope you keep me in mind if any open Paladin slots pop up.

This guy… I had no idea what to say. Obviously, I didn’t send the gnome. Either he was insanely lucky or some otherworldly force was granting Steve his wishes. I had no idea who this Steve actually was or if he could do what he promised but I won’t complain if I get a Temple dedicated to me someday. Fingers crossed.

And then the new prayer that I had just received moments ago.

Hey Legion, Steve again. Wanted to thank you for sending me William, the Grandmaster Dark Knight. I’m sure you already know, but he has taken me as his apprentice. I already have the Black Mage class capped at level 50 and he taught me the Guardian class this morning. Once I get it to fifty, I’ll be a Dark Knight. After that, I will fulfill my vow to claim a Temple in your name. On that day, please allow me to be one of your Paladins.

PS: Mr. Swaggins says I’m a natural!

Something was up. Everything this guy asked me for just seemed to fall into his lap. If he really did acquire a Temple for me, I would absolutely make him one of my Paladins. He hadn’t even officially become one of my followers yet and, for whatever reason, he was this dedicated.

Also, apparently he was a Black Mage. My knowledge of fantasy stories and video games from Earth made me slightly hesitant to trust the character of an individual that would mess with black magic...but then again, I chose a True Vampire as my Tether and she went on to violently mutilate several humans.

If we’re judging by the standards of those stories, I’m not exactly on the path to rainbow unicorns and fluffy bunnies.

And speaking of standards, I still need to decide what standards I will judge and be judged by.

“Where do I even start…” I mumbled.

“Suggestion. Choose a domain.” Auto replied.

“Huh?”

“I believe another Overseer inquired about this very thing earlier. Decide what you will be the god of. Will you rule over battle? Or perhaps you could be the god of goblins since you already have a good potential foundation among them. A domain will assist you in understanding what you should build your religion towards.”

That actually made perfect sense.

So then, what should I be the god of?

I pondered this question as I followed Raymond, Lexi, and Og into Shaman’s tent.