Answering any other way than that which the church expected of him was far more serious a blasphemy than simply invoking an image of Vox’s lady parts in casual conversation. Among more seasoned adventurers, saucy language like the former was commonplace. The latter was rare.

To answer Becka’s question with “No” would challenge the nature of both Gods and church. He would accuse Celes Herself of being a liar. That was true blasphemy ... or could be, if the Gods labeled it such. And last night, when Levos thwarted him and Becka, had assured him the Gods payed attention.

“Why would you even ask that?” Glenn whispered.

“I’ve been unable to banish that question since last night.” Becka glanced up at the wide clear sky, as if waiting to be turned to salt.

Glenn almost feared she might be. He couldn’t bear to see that. Yet Becka remained whole.

Finally, Becka shuddered and relaxed. “I’m still here. One sign in my favor, I suppose. If the Gods will allow me to freely suggest They’re not omnipotent, perhaps I’m right.”

“Where’s this coming from?” Glenn asked.

He trusted Becka with everything, including his life. Yet what she asked now was beyond even his life and, moreover, made absolutely no sense. Everything they’d just endured—the Monsters, the Quest, their inability to sleep together—proved the God’s Laws worked exactly as the church said.

“You grabbed my boob while I was still asleep,” Becka said.

Glenn’s mind lurched before his thoughts righted themselves. “I, uh ... sorry?” How did that relate to anything this morning? “It really was an accident.”

She gripped his hands in hers. “Focus, Glenn. Look at what your action suggests. No less than a few hours earlier, you couldn’t touch me, despite how much I wanted you to touch me. Gods, after we both lived, I wanted you to completely wear me out.”

Glenn’s cheeks heated even as his sense of danger bloomed. An insidious doubt now tugged at the edge of his mind, a small crack in the wall that armored his once unshakable faith. That doubt was forcing that crack open bit by bit, widening it. She couldn’t mean...

“Levos forbid us from having each other no more than a few hours earlier,” Becka reminded him. “No matter how much I wanted you to put your hands all over me, He wouldn’t allow it.”

Glenn’s mind lurched again. “But, wait.”

“Those common age cannot touch each other like we wished. I’m common age. You were common age until first light. And if we proved nothing else last night, we proved we could not defy the Laws of Levos. Until you did ... just before I woke up.”

She was absolutely right. Glenn had read too many books about the Laws of the Pantheon and done too much speculating about possible loopholes within those laws to dismiss what Becka was saying. Last night he had somehow, unintentionally, found a loophole in the Laws of the Gods.

Discovering and learning to exploit loopholes was what separated normal Adventurers from legendary ones. The most successful Adventurers knew how to bend the rules of the Gods without breaking them, and guarded such secrets jealously. Once too many knew, the loophole lost its value.

So what loophole had allowed them to defy the will of Levos?

How was it possible to defy the will of the Gods? Glenn had spent his whole life assuming it wasn’t, and now knew it was. With that forbidden knowledge now worming its way through his brain, he couldn’t rest until he’d figured it out. So he started by focusing on what he’d been told.

In the world of Balarel, the Gods controlled all aspects of mortal life. First, the Pantheon determined if one was given the path of Townsfolk or Adventurer. Second, the Pantheon called on one to gain experience and Level, even if that meant risking one’s life to do so.

Finally, the Pantheon governed whom could harm whom. Adventurers could attack any Monsters they wished, and Monsters, of course, could attack anyone. Without such rules, it would be impossible for the Challenger Gods who created Monsters, Demons, and Desouled to challenge mortals to test their might against them.

Yet the Pantheon treated conflicts between mortals differently than those between mortals and monsters. One mortal could not assault another unless both gave Consent. One mortal could not make love with another unless both gave Consent. Such laws could not, so far as Glenn understood, be defied.

Until he had. Until Glenn Redwood had, quite literally, defied the power of a God.

“You see it, don’t you?” Becka asked. “I’ve not been deluding myself.”

Glenn nodded. He’d just opened his mouth to speak when Becka placed her finger on his lips.

“Say nothing one way or the other. You understand why this question vexes me now, and there’s no need for you to risk the wrath of the Gods by joining me in this blasphemy. Just listen to me and consider my thoughts. And then, if you’re willing, let me know if I’m anywhere close.”

That sound reasonable. Becka smiled, just a bit, and removed her fingers.

“To start, let’s consider Azalea. Her being charmed led to our Quest, yet remember, it’s not the first time that child has been attacked by Monsters outside town. Haven’t you always wondered how it was Vulpor devoured Azalea and her father three years ago?”

Glenn grimaced. He’d been only twelve when the news of their horrific deaths hit town. A Safe Stone on the Safe Road had failed, allowing Vulpor to enter the Safe Road and consume a father and his child. Even three years later, Glenn didn’t understand why the Gods would let that happen.

Physically, Safe Stones were created and placed by Builders, a Townsfolk Class. Yet their power came from Kya, Goddess of Duty, and the rest of the Pantheon. Even the most powerful Monsters in all Balarel could not bypass or destroy a Safe Stone. Not even Builders could destroy them.

Vulpor’s attack on the Safe Road had been so unprecedented that Wolfpine’s former mayor, Mayor Featherhallow, had actually resigned in shame, yet not before taking the rare step of giving the Town Guards permission to depart the walls. The guards escorted a pair of Builders to the portion of the Safe Road where the stone fell, with orders to find and repair it.

The Builders repaired the fallen Safe Stone, and no Safe Stone had failed on the road to Wolfpine since. Yet before Jack and Azalea Whitetalon died, Glenn had assumed Safe Stones could never fail. His inability to understand why was probably why he’d buried his doubts about it.

“Do you know how it happened?” he whispered. “All I heard was it was a fluke.”

“I couldn’t get it out of my head at the time,” Becka said quietly. “It just seemed so impossible a Safe Stone could fail. No one in town would speak of the possible reasons, and I dared not ask the church, so I set out by myself to investigate where the stone had fallen.”

“At twelve? That’s insanely dangerous. You should have taken me.”

Becka offered a small smile. “We didn’t even Level together back then. You were still that Redwood boy, the one who loved carrying packs for Adventurers and wrestling pigs on Grant Calmwarden’s farm. You wouldn’t know a girl was making eyes at you even if she asked you to pin her on the ground.”

Glenn smiled as he thought back on his early years of training. “So that was why Erika was always asking to give her wrestling lessons. I always assumed she just really like wrestling.”

Becka poked his stomach. “Fortunately for me, your cluelessness was legendary, and I managed to snag you before Erika got her knitting needles into you. Now, back to our loophole.”

Glenn nodded.

“I came out to where the broken Safe Stone had been and investigated,” Becka continued. “The Builders had made it good as new. Due to their fine work, it took me some time to discover the cause. Yet I do believe I discovered it. The road washed out.”

“The road?”

“Because of the rains,” Becka clarified. “That particular Safe Stone was sturdy as ever, but its Builder placed it too close to the slope leading into the grass, or perhaps the slope itself simply grew deeper and more pronounced over the next hundred years.”

That sounded plausible. Grassea’s storms were no joke. No matter how sturdy an earth fortification might be, water eventually eroded anything.

Becka continued. “So far as I could tell from my investigation, the Safe Stone failed because Grassea’s torrential rains washed out enough of the earth below its foundation. It simply tipped over after it became unbalanced. It was no legendary Monster. Just natural erosion over time.”

For the first time, Glenn considered why the church hired Adventurers to walk the Safe Roads every five years or so, with Builders from nearby towns. He’d never understood that, because he never thought a Safe Stone could fail ... even though one had in his lifetime. If Safe Stones could be washed out by erosion, then of course Builders would need to check on them every few years.

Yet how was any of this connected with him accidentally grabbing Becka’s breast?

“Given what happened back then, and what happened last night, I mulled over what could cause such events all night and this morning,” Becka said. “And the only possibility I can’t dismiss is that you were able to touch me last night because of our mutual lack of intent.”

Glenn immediately knew there was something there. She was on to something.

“Last night, I wanted you to touch me. You wanted to touch me. We both gave Consent. Yet Levos absolutely forbid us from having each other, because the laws of the Gods trump intent wherever They have one of their sanctimonious little piques.”

Glenn willed the lines of his own thought to find a way to follow hers. “Yet when I actually did touch you ... you were asleep!”

Becka frowned as if disappointed. “And that truly makes sense to you?”

Glenn wanted to say it did, but already, the possibility had lost its sheen. Levos did not care whether one was awake, asleep, or even unconscious. No person could touch another in any way the Pantheon did not allow, because They simply did not allow it. Levos physically prevented such actions with His Divine power, as He had when he locked their joined hands last night.

Yet Levos had allowed him to grab Becka’s breast when she was asleep, when Glenn had no intention to do so. Or rather, and far more dangerously to Glenn’s once strong faith ... Levos hadn’t stopped him. Which implied that, even with all His Divine power, Levos couldn’t.

“Our intent,” Glenn whispered, and it felt like a [-Volt-] spell crackled in his head. “And erosion has no intent, which is why the Gods didn’t stop that Safe Stone from tipping over. Which means—”

Becka slapped her palm to his mouth. “Careful.”

Glenn stared into her eyes calmly, and then, just as calmly, removed her hand. “You risked being turned to salt to bring this loophole to my attention, just like you risked everything to help me save Azalea last night. I won’t let you risk again alone. You’re my Partner.”

Glenn kept holding her hand. He lowered it between them.

“I did not intend to grab your breast, yet I did so, because I believed I had reached for your shoulder.” Glenn spoke of the loophole aloud despite the fact that the Gods might be listening. “And you could not have intended for me to grab your breast, because you were asleep.”

“Utterly comatose,” Becka agreed. “I couldn’t have tricked you into that even if I was awake, and if I’d tried, the very fact that I intended you to touch me would likely have stopped us. As soon as I woke up and realized what you were doing...”

“Levos reacted,” Glenn all but whispered. “He pushed me away, but not until you woke up. Not until one of us finally realized what I was doing.”

Becka nodded.

“A storm has no intent,” Glenn continued, hearing the excitement in his own voice. “Nor does eroding earth. No Monster or mortal could destroy a Safe Stone, but it could just ... fall over.”

“As we know it did,” Becka agreed.

“So the loophole we’ve discovered is that if no active intent is involved in an action, one can actually defy the Law of Consent? The Gods can’t stop actions that don’t have intent behind them?”

As Becka tilted her head, her dark hair brushed across her still quite bare shoulder. “Do you see now why even thinking this made me feel like I was going insane?”

“Vox’s Tits,” Glenn whispered.

Becka smiled gently. “I’d warn not to blaspheme, but we’re both a bit past that now.”

====

The Gods created the Law of Consent and other laws governing mortal action so mortals could focus on fighting Monsters and Leveling without warring among themselves. Yet even the laws of the Pantheon are not without limit, and mortals are endlessly clever at finding ways around the God-imposed limitations on their actions. Such exploits are commonly known as loopholes.

With a few exceptions, any who learn how to work around the rules of Gods jealously guard these secrets from all save family or close friends. Those who choose to make a living in the dangerous world between the rules of the Gods often find a place in the secretive and mysterious Shadowers Guild.

In all of Balarel, there is no guild that can rival the Blazers save the Shadowers. While their numbers are but a quarter of the mighty Blazers, the Shadowers Guild operate in all provinces and all zones—though without the blessing of those zone’s rulers. Members in the Shadowers Guild specialize in exploiting loopholes in the supposedly unbreakable laws of the Gods, completing contracts for coin for those who have decided methods lawful in the eyes of Gods and mortals are insufficient.

By using methods only they know to harm those who cannot be harmed and steal that which cannot be stolen, the secretive members of the Shadowers Guild enrich themselves and those who contract their services. Even the province governments contract with the Shadowers Guild from time to time. Sometimes, something needs doing that requires a deft and morally dubious touch.

Membership in the Shadowers Guild is even more exclusive than the Blazers Guild, as one does not simply apply to join. One cleverly exploits loopholes, and if one is very lucky or very bold, one gets noticed and approached. While Shadowers and Guilecasters make up the majority of the guilds members, they recruit from all Classes and even enroll unscrupulous Townsfolk in their shenanigans.

If there is illicit coin to be made, one can trust the Shadowers Guild to take the job.