<~> Chapter 190I sucked in a breath. Fortuna, the goddess of lud fortune?

  "You're right to be ed," Sorsette said. "She already has her cws deep into you and yrowth."

  I shook my head. "That doesn't make sense, why would the goddess of luck be giving me skills and iwining luto all of my abilities if she was w with a group hunting me in particur?"

  "It's more than that," Sorsette added. "When I told you that gods have the ability to push and pull things, some have more influehan others. But what has more influehan random ce? How hard would it be for her to influence seemingly disected and random things to get the results she wanted? Her influence is far deeper than you think."

  Furrowing my brows I leaned in. "What do you mean?"

  "You walked out of a ruin where a man actally cut too deep and killed himself, leaving you with a heavy bag of gold. You ran into a man who had captured your future lover, a person who wouldn't only positively react to their ges but thrive because of them. Days ter you happened to be paired with a pair of twins who were very talented and were bought in part by the... unfortunate i before that. The moment you walked into Goldeh you were led by the hand to a pce that was full of people who would be from your powers and would happily accept the cost. All the while, you would tio gain more and more lud luck-based magic."

  My fists ched as I listeo her words. "Are you saying that everything that's happened has been because of her?"

  Sorsette crossed her legs in front of her. "Yes. She's been pushis all around you and it was because of those threads that I was able to follow them and firm her es to the Tamin church."

  I closed my eyes as my thoughts raced. I was barely able to get the words out without losing my nerve, "So many times I had felt lucky. I barely made it out of a scrape, barely survived. And now it's not just that, it's everything? The lovers I've found, the friends I've made, everything?"

  There was a long pause before Sorsette finally replied. "Yes. However, I'll remind you again that even she only push and pull things using her influence. She doesn't have any more trol over your free will thah or I do. Everything you've done, all the friends and lovers you've found, all of that has been because you took the opportunities preseo you. Not because she forced ao you."

  Another long pause passed as I digested her words. She lifted a cup of tea to her mouth and took a sip before sighing. "Truthfully this isn't how I expected you to react to this at all."

  I looked up at her in fusion.

  She nodded. "I expected you to be fused by her involvement sure, but not so... violently upset by this information. Do not take this the wrong way but I expected you to be more... thankful that Fortuna has influehings in this way. It is pin to me that you love yirlfriends and are happy with how things have gone so far. I chose to tell you this information to get out in front of it. Because even if she is maniputing things to your be, you ot trust her."

  "He raped me!"

  There was a long silence. All of the feelings that I thought I had dealt with had rushed back to the surface. I was pissed off and it turned out I didn't just have him to bme but Fortuna as well. Would I have avoided that fate without her interference? Would Bel have been sold into svery without her interference? Did he drink just a little too mubsp;that night because of her? I was seething but I realized it wasn't Sorsette that my rage was directed at, it was Fortuna. I forced myself to calm down, took in a deep breath, ahe anger fall away like I had done before with my ay.

  "How mufluence does she have over me? Does she get to mess with me more because my Luck is high? What about the Bck bsp;css? What about the luck spells?"

  Sorsette cleared her throat. "When it es to the system she doesn't have much direct trol over anything, and her magic is set up in such a way that not even she adjust the oute. Having high Lubsp;actually gives her less trol over you, other than the fact that you're more likely to survive in the first pce. Having even luck means that she influeh positive aive events, having a lot of good luck means she only boost you when you really, anything too ive would go against the grain too much, though she should still have some trol in that dire. You're so much less likely to be in a bad situation in the first pce, however, that even poor results for you are less likely to be devastating."

  I rubbed my face, trying to take all of this in. "So, why would she supposedly help me so much while supp a church that's actively hunting me?"

  "I 't pretend to have the full details of their pn but Fortuna, along with the other hidden gods, are trying to set the stage for a specific version of the prophecy to take pce. I'd like to assume things are already diverging quite a bit now that you're no longer a demon but I'm also uain how much they know and how much they've anticipated."

  "What about Felketh?" I asked.

  She shook her head. "No, it's impossible for him to be one of them, directly anyway. I won't deny that the state of affairs are ily emp him but it is not possible for him to be among them. His domain isn't actually demons, it's strife and adversity but demons are his greatest expression of that. He isn't able to give them tools to harm his domain even as a front. Felketh, orkinnen, and myself are the only gods that ot be a hidden supporter of the Tamin church."

  "What absolves you and Morkinnen... or Charon for that matter?"

  "arked you with his blessing of ge. In addition to emp some of your abilities, it makes it harder for the divio influence you directly. That automatically makes prophecies about you much less accurate and makes you much more difficult to nudge using their domains. His blessing runs too ter to any of their goals, if he were among them it would destroy their own pn to give that blessing to you. He also very rarely gets involved with anything, the fact he's ag at all is incredibly surprising."

  She leaned ba her chair and drummed her fingers along the top of her desk. "Morkinnen... In a simir way that Felketh 't be a member, Morkinnen ot be a member. Wheamin church get away with it, they regurly murder people expressing their love in a way that Morkinnen upholds as part of his domain. He ot support them directly and I have seen no evidehat he has supported them ily."

  Sorsette sighed. "As for me, I have no direct proof that I am not part of their group but I hope my as speak to my character. I would not be telling you any of this if the goal were to keep you on track to fulfill the prophecies in the way that they wish for it." She gestured around us. "Even now I'm shielding this room from divine spying using my own domain so that I tell you all of this in fidence. Everything I tell you that they ot observe will make their predis of you even worse. Especially since you've mao surprise me with your reas thus far."

  I squi the way she worded that. "You just said in the way that they wish for it, that makes it sound like you're trying to fulfill a version of the prophecy too."

  For the time since I've sat across from her anger fshed across her face. She rubbed the bridge of her nose before looking back up. "There will be a war of the gods. That part of the prophecy already ot be ged. It's now just a matter of how and when. Things are already in motion, the riot outside this tower shows that. Things have been building to this for a while, all I'm trying to do is adjust things so that fewer people get hurt and my domain isn't lost."

  "What do you mean by lost?" I asked.

  "War breeds both innovation and terrible loss, every, siime. In every flict while we learn of new ways to kill each other, we also run the risk of losing someo the forefront of research or a repository of knowledge being burnt to the ground. The sapient races are on the verge of extin and we're squabbling over followers instead of things that matter. There are already fas that don't like me because of the st war, I'm afraid that if a full-on war that involved mortals were to take pce, my libraries would be targeted. There are two ways to kill a god, you either kill them directly or destroy the current ination of their domain. I am one of the most susceptible to this threat and one of the most likely to lose everything in a sed war."

  I took a sip of water and swallowed. "What do you mean when you say the sapient races are on the verge of extin?"

  She sighed and shook her head. "Just because a few cities have walls does not mean that they are safe from the wilds." She looked me in the eye. "I've seen glimpses of your world, billions of sapient life on the surface of your p. By parison we have less than two hundred million people spread out across what paratively little nd we've tamed. To make things worse, we have monsters and demons on our doorstep stantly trying to erode away our defenses while the rger threats are thankfully half a world away. The only reason we've survived this long is by plug the souls of deceased world travelers from other worlds and iing what knowledge we . Sometimes the knowledge is practical, like agriculture, sometimes it's peculiar but useful ideas like the cept of the status system itself."

  There was a lot to mull over in that statement but the thing that had me the most immediately curious was the system. "You got the idea of the system from a world traveler? Why did you create it?"

  Her expressio ft, likely trying to hide her plex feelings oopic. "The idea of the system came from a world traveler, yes. It is desigo help people get stronger and more resilient. I took the idea and created a version of it here to help people properly ie mana into their bodies. Everything in this world is filled with mana, the pnts, the animals, the pself, the monsters, and even sapient beings. Before the system existed sapient beings used the mana they gained from eating and killing mohe same way animals did, mostly randomly. It was haphazard and messy, sometimes the mana would be useless, or worse, be actively detrimental based on how it ied with them, over time it maed into the evolutionary differences seeween the races. But the status system was created to help individual sapient beings leverage their greatest advantage, knowledge, to their be. There were some growing pains with the early versions of the system but it was immediately effective in increasing survivability rates." By the end of her speech, she had shifted to being proud of it.

  "And then the first war of the gods happened?" I asked.

  She sighed and leaned ba her chair. "Yes. Erimikai, the god of war aru got the biggest be from the system being created. War is somewhat iable to settle rge-scale faal disputes. If it was just that he got strohat would have been fine, but it was discovered that he ushing different gods' followers to fight with each other. It only really intensified when it started threatening some of the gods' domains that it triggered a full-scale war. After the god of death killed Erimikai uedly, the remaining gods iated and created the Divine Accords. I was bmed fering it, which I in some part agree with. So, I swore not to create an army to exert my power and disband the one I had at the time by stripping all of my padins of any divine magic. The most I'm allowed is those who guard my sites and allowing my followers to participate in an unanized fashion as they see fit. Even the boons I grant must be powered by their own strength, such as the variant of [Zone of Truth] I have granted you." She quirked a smile. "If you wish to learn more about this time period, you're wele to research it yourself here. We still have more to discuss and we're starting to drift off topic."

  "Could Erimikai secretly be part of the Tamin church?" I asked.

  Sorsette ughed. "No, that's not possible. Part of the Accords made the domain of war aru permaly well... destroyed. During the iations the gods agreed that the god of death should permaly 'kill' the domain, in a metaphysical sense. He is the only one of us who would be capable of doing so and I'm not sure if it could even be recreated if he wished it. On a more practical level, the gods would be able to see the domain if it had been somehow recreated and recimed. No, Erimikai is still dead. Of that I am sure."

  I nodded and took another sip of water. "There is one more thing you mentioned earlier that I'm curious about."

  She nodded solemnly. "I thought as much."

  "You said that you have survived by plug the souls of deceased world travelers... Does this... include me?"

  "Yes," she replied before sighing. "It does."

  Saine

  Hello! More Sorsette! This is a pretty long versation so there's one more chapter after this one tinuing their versation. There's been a lot of specution about the ods and this chapter finally has some answers for all of you. I hope you enjoyed!

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