PreCursive

  on train pulled up to the small encampment outside the gates of Silvercrest. There were two Sculpted members on guard duty, one made of stone and the other made of iron, both male in shape. They had been watg us for a while as we crossed the desert pin towards them but straightened up when we finally stopped. Beyond the two guards, I saw many other Sculpted soldiers milling about and watg us in curiosity as well.

  All of them reacted in shock though, when Woodrick hopped out of the back of Grey’s lead wagon. The eyes of the stone guard nearly bulged out of their sockets at the sight of their leader, while the iron one immediately sprinted off further into the camp, abandoning his post. Meanwhile, cheers began to echo out of the onlooking crow of Sculpted soldiers, as a number of them began to stream out of the camp to surround Woodrick. The wooden man staggered uhe weight of the back sps he was receiving, but he was ughing all the same.

  I was standing off to the side, watg the se with Grey. Azarus and Sylvia were behind us and helping the former prisoners exit the wagons.

  “He seems well-liked,” I said to my mentor.

  “Oh, he is,” Grey answered wryly. “Very much so. There’s a reason he was elected the leader of the Sculpted over my Sylvia. She may have seniority, but Woodrick has the sheer force of personality o run a rebellion.”

  From the camp, I saw the iron soldier return at a sprint, this time leading another Sculpted. This one looked female and shaped from what looked to be obsidian. She looked to be wearing the kind of faabard over her mail that I had seen on officers in the past, over a suit of leather armor. With a ugh, she pushed her way through the celebrating crowd to embrace Woodrick. He retur fiercely.

  Grey nodded in the dire of the Sculpted officer. “That’s Nyx, sed in and of the bined Sculpted forces. The Uprising is lucky that she took an i in military tactics shortly after gaining her sapience. Likely a result of her having been an attendant of a Herztalian officer before her awakening. Excuse me, Nathan.” Grey walked off to join Woodrid Nyx, catg their attention with a raised hand. He and Woodrick exged nods, while Nyx saluted Grey. The three of them wandered off into camp, no doubt to discuss the steps. The crowd of celebrating Sculpted followed after them.

  A harsh puny shoulder knocked me out of my lollygagging. I hissed in pain and clutched it in surprise, turning to face the person who had do. It was Honoka of course, smirking at me.

  “Oh, man up,” She said in amusement. “You take it.”

  “Hi, Honoka,” I said between grit teeth. “I’m fihanks for asking. How are you?”

  Honoka s me and then jerked her head in the dire of Silvercrest. “, boy. It’s time to pay my debt with you.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her, rolling my shoulder as I did so. “What do you mean?”

  She rolled her su-colored eyes at me and my stump. “I’m talking about getting your arm back. Silvercrest is more than big enough to have a Preceptor who do the ritual for you.”

  I felt a bolt of excitement ray spine. A smile crept its way onto my face, before I paused. “Isn’t it supposed to be expe-”

  Honoka cut me off, raising a pouch held in her left hand. She ja at me. “I already bothered the reprobate for a loa’s go. I know where the Church is here.”

  Ah. Grey had said that he would finance a rept arm for me.

  “Lead the way, then,” I said to her, my smile ing ba force.

  Honoka started swiftly walking away in the dire of the Silvercrest gates, while I jogged to catch up eagerly.

  Soon, I would have both of my arms back.

  The gates of Silvercrest surprisingly weren’t guarded. I guess they didn’t feel the need, with a military encampment just outside their walls, no matter how small it was. Onside, Silvercrest retty much how I had expected it to be. The air was thick with coal smoke from the foundries smelting iron and steel all around us.

  Honoka expined a little bit about the town to me as we made our way through Silvercrest. Silvercrest was one of, if not the biggest supplier of raw and smelted metal in the Kingdom of Herztal. The surrounding mountains, especially the peak of Helgar above the town, were packed full of ore. The town was so prosperous that they had even been able to struct the needed facilities to process the ore after geions of toil and saving. This had been a somewhat new development in the history of the Duchy of Helstein though. It had apparently caused some fri with the Duke of the area, as he had previously owhe rgest foundries in the area from his seat iy of Helstein. From what Honoka told me, it was the hostility that the Duke had shown to the towhe st few decades that driven them away from the cause of the Loyalists, and into the arms of the Uprising.

  Good for the Uprising, bad for the Loyalists. They’d lost one of the foremost suppliers of iron and steel on the ti, due to the jealousy of one shitty hat seemed to be pretty sistent with my views on nobility.

  Eventually, Honoka led me to the local church. This was my first time visiting a Church belonging to the Gyreites, and even through my excitement, I was curious about it. I had never gotten a good expnation about what they believed in. To be fair, I had never really asked though. The only thing I really knew about them was that they had a ‘special retionship’ with the System and had some unique csses because of it.

  The Church itself was…different than I was expeg. When I thought of Churches, what came to my mind were familiar buildings from bae, long halls with tall steeples reag high into the sky. This very much so wasn’t like that.

  The Gyreite Church was a rge, squat, drical-shaped building with a dome overhead. Set into the walls of the Church every few feet were stained gss murals, depig ses that I assumed were important to the history of the church. I sure didn’t uand them. The oo the right of the door seemed to be depig a rge group of people stepping out of a dark cave and into the light of the sun. The left one looked to be a night sky with fourteen stars on it.

  The building materials for the Church were different, as well. Silvercrest as a whole seemed to be structed e, pione blocks, likely quarried from the surrounding mountains. The Church, however, seemed to be built from a rough golden tan stone of some kind that sparkled in the light of Tarus overhead. As we drew close enough to touch the walls of the Church, I ran my hand over them. They were almost gritty, as if made of sand.

  “Rori sandstone,” I heard Honoka say. Turning to her, I found the older women was watg me with a smirk on her face. Unbothered, I removed my hand from the wall and shrugged at her.

  “Roricia, huh. Where’s that?”

  “Rorica is the southernmost province of Herztal,” Honoka corrected me. “The area is known for two things. Dense, imperable ju seen anywhere else on Vereden, and its beautiful beaches that cap the southern tip of the ti. The Gyreites insist that a Church ’t be properly secrated unless it’s built out of sandstone from the area. Damn waste of gold and manpower in my opinion, but what do I know? I’m not particurly religious.”

  Our versation was interrupted when the doors of the Churear us opened, and a stream of people began to flow out. These must be the Church’s faithful, as they definitely weren’t Preceptors. Looked to be tradesmen, miners, and families to my eyes.

  I guess we had arrived at the tail end of a service.

  Several of them eyed Honoka arangely, but I didn’t pay it any mind. Instead, the two of us waited until the Church had been cleared out, and slipped in through the y doors. Ihe church looked more familiar to me. It retty mu auditorium with a raised pulpit on one end, with benches arranged out before it oher side of an aisle. There were doors along the walls of the hall that presumably led to other rooms, but it was the roof that caught my attention.

  There was aained-gss panel up there. This time, it was of the more familiar symbol I’d e to expect of the Church. A rge, golden, seven-armed spiral, curling inward. The light of Tarus shohrough it from overhead, casting the hall in a golden hue.

  There was a man up on the pulpit, likely the Preceptor we had e for. He eaking to a man and a woman as we stepped into the hall, but his versation stalled when he caught sight of us. He said a quick word to the two of them, and then all three made the sign of the Gyre with their hands, two fingers id over their upheld right palm. The couple left the pulpit and walked past Honoka and I, dutifully not paying us any mind, while the Preceptor approached the two of us.

  I got a better look at him as he drew closer. Like the only other Preceptor I had ever met, he was dark of skin, with a pletely shaven head and face. The man didn't even have any eyebrows. He was shorter than Eduard had been, though he had a simir set of green and white robes draped over his muscur form. He seemed pletely uned, merely watg the two of us with calm blue eyes.

  “Blessings of the Gyre upon you, wayfarers,” He said in a low, deep voice. “I am Preceptor Josha. Do you require assistance?” From the way his gaze lingered on my stump, I could tell that ‘Josha’ most likely already knew what kind of assistance I wanted.

  I could be polite though. I smiled at the Preceptor. “Ah, yeah. You see-”

  Honoka cut me off, underhand tossing the bag of gold she held at the Preceptor. Josha didn’t even blink as he caught the jingling sack, merely raising an eyebrow at Honoka. “This young fool needs his arm grown back after pying the hero,” She said, jerking a thumb my way.

  I felt an eyebrow twitch. This irritating old biddy…

  Preceptor Josha hummed and nodded. “I see,” He said calmly. “I have time to perform the ritual. I assume you wish to draw from the Church's stores ents for it, and this is your payment?”

  “Yes, obviously,” Honoka said, rolling her eyes impatiently. “Let’s get on with it. I’m not getting any youanding around like this.”

  I smiled weakly at the Preceptor. “Sorry about her. I’m Nate. I’m not sure granny Honoka here-”

  I didn’t get another word out before Honoka smmed another punto my arm, in the exact same spot she had earlier. I yelped at the sudden violence, clutg my now throbbing shoulder. I glowered at Honoka. “What does Sylvia see in you, woman?!”

  “I’m not yranny, you young punk,” Honoka s me. “And she sees my sparkling personality, of course.”

  I rubbed my shoulder. “More like sulfurous,” I muttered under my breath. I ged back when Honoka raised her fist again at me threateningly, apparently not quiet enough.

  Our bad forth was interrupted by the sound of low ughter from the Preceptor still in front of us. I flushed, having fotten about him briefly. Josha had a small smile on his face as he spoke. “e. The ritual room is this way. We must prepare the young man for the rigors of the Rite.”

  Josha walked away in the dire of a door in the back. With o glower at each other, Honoka and I followed him.

  Around half an hour ter, I was kneeling in the ter of a small, dle-lit room. I was shirtless, having been stripped to my waist so the Preceptor could paint my entire upper torso in runes. He had used a golden paint of some kind that was so mystically potent that even now my skin was tingling.

  Oone below me was a rge, golden engraving of the Gyreite spiral. Resting on each of its seven arms were what must be the mysterious ‘reagents’ I’d heard referred to. I didn’t really reize all of them. There were a handful of different kinds of metal and stone, a bone of some kind, and some gss jars filled with what looked like blood and a kind of potion. I think there was also what looked to be some sort of…dehydrated scaly tail the size of my forearm.

  I…kind of didn’t want to know.

  Honoka was standing with her arms crossed along the back wall, while Josha was standing in front of me. He nodded in satisfa. “As I said, please be aware that this will hurt. Do your best to bear with the pain during the ritual.”

  “If you scream, I’m telling Sylvia,” Honoka said in a mog voice from behind me.

  Die in a fire, you old bat.

  I ignored Honoka and the Preceptor. “I’m ready.”

  He nodded back at me and csped his hands before him. Slowly, he closed his eyes and began to t in a nguage that I didn’t uand. It wasn’t being picked up by Language Adaptation, which meant he had either tur off, or whatever he eaking in was really old.

  A breeze began to pick up in the isoted room, as if from nowhere. The dles in the small room flickered, and a weight of pan to grow all around us. The air was so thick with Aether that it was almost hard to breathe. I still kept my breath steady though, through the use of my middle ring. I was tense, waiting for the blow that I was sure was about to fall.

  At some unseen signal, Josha’s snapped open, glowing a bright gold. He uncsped his hands and thrust them, open palm, in my dire. I felt the heavy Aether in the room surge inwards at me. I closed my eyes and braced for the pain.

  But…

  Nothing happened.

  The Aether merely washed over my form.

  After a moment where nothing further happened, I cracked open an eye. In front of me, Josha was blinking rapidly in shock. Honoka had left her spot on the back wall to stand before me as well, with a frowched on her face. I looked betweewo of them, fused. “Is that…it?”

  “No, boy,” Honoka said seriously. “That was most definitely not ‘it’.”

  “I don’t uand,” Josha said, clearly baffled. “I performed the ritual correctly, I know I did. I’ve dohis hundreds of times. Why didn’t it work?” He shook his head, suddenly determined. “Let me try again. The reagents are still fine. Please step back, madam.”

  Preceptor Josha proceeded to try the regrowth ritual three more times. It failed, again and again. While the Preceptor was growing visibly more frustrated each time, I grew more and more despo.

  Eventually, he gave up.

  The ritual trow my arm…

  Was a failure.