Lorelei Side Story Chapter 2 - Present Honour (Patreon)

Lorelei sat on top of the ship’s deck and gazed out into the world.

For a lack of Fateweavers, their golden vessel was drifting through the river in the mundane world, rather than its own little pocket dimension. Enchantments made it appear like a regular, if highly luxurious, boat that sailed up the navigable river.

Had they been in a Mobile Barrier, Lorelei’s vision would have ended at the wall of divine energy that separated the isolation demanded and provided by the Lady’s will from the secure retreat of mundanity. Instead, she saw the plain in its entirety. She saw the water part around the ship and the waves that hit the shore. She saw how it soaked into the cold ground and joined the rest of the water that gathered in the soil. She saw the roots of the grass, clinging onto life in the cold, sustaining themselves via water and minerals. She saw the trees of the distant wood of Springfield do the same on a larger scale. She saw the leyline that travelled inside and along the river in all of its prismatic glory. She saw the Lady’s creation in all of its beauty.

“Another cup of tea, honoured seer?” a maid with a light grey soul asked. It was the colour of discipline, dedicated to a cause greater than oneself. Minor flickers of other colours danced through, the simple purple of pride, the beige of boredom, and the pink of lust. None of them were present in any unusual amount.

Lorelei suppressed her capacity to see beyond the regular, until she saw the maid as others would. She had brown hair and a modest uniform, with a long skirt and sleeves. The most of her skin that was visible was between her collar and her scalp. With her hands, she carried a silver tablet. The seer saw all of that in spite of the ornamented, metal ring covering her eyes.

“That would be lovely,” Lorelei answered sincerely and the servant stepped closer. The cup on the white, round table she sat on was quickly refilled. With a bow, the maid then stepped away to offer other higher-ranking members of the Order the same service.

Because Lorelei was often paired up with the very top of the leadership of the Order of the Golden Rose, and because of her youth, she regularly was last or second to last in the hierarchy in a room. When taking the Order as an entirety, however, she was among the most important members. She was the strongest seer they currently had available and a Varnik, a name that held a lot of sway.

It was her duty to follow the orders of the knights around her. Her advice was taken into account by all not only because of her prescience. It was honourable to tell the truth in its entirety, even if a small twist may have personally benefited her. It was proper to speak sincerely and calmly. Those things had been drilled into her through the years and she accepted them as the optimal way of being.

While she drank her new cup of tea, the heat helping her ignore the cold, she looked around the deck. The auras of the other Order members were all familiar. Usually this was because she knew the person, often since her childhood. Sometimes, they were mere acquaintances, but the shape and colour of their soul was similar to the rest of the Order’s leadership. This unity in faith and determination was beautiful to behold. It was present in every person on the ship, making the vessel itself glow in the light grey.

Springfield, by contrast, had an aura of a thousand discordant thoughts about it. Rarely a part of the city was dominated by a unifying emotion, often connected to whatever gathering spots were in the area. Otherwise, it was raw chaos. That, too, Lorelei considered beautiful. There were so many individuals in that city, who could go after their day thanks to the separation their Lady maintained. One day, in the far-off future, all of humanity would have access to magic. The Abyss would cease to be, as secrecy would no longer be necessary. In that glorious future, the Order had to be prepared to be the firm bulwark against terror. The weak would always be dominated by the strong, unless justice was enforced.

‘There are many visions of justice. I wish to learn more about his,’ Lorelei thought, a set of images flaring before her second sight. The Gamer back in Florida, flirting with her, then him and the Lord-Protector fighting, a violent disagreement over who should judge the demons, finally John pointing at her and smiling, choosing her with the confidence of a king. The sight was gone a moment later.

Lorelei quickly took another gulp of tea, hoping that people looking in her direction at that moment would attribute her blush to the hot water. Thinking about the Gamer easily made her nervous, longing and desiring. That royal aura of his, purple and gold, displaying the will to be just in an unjust world.

‘Ravished by the purple and golden man,’ she remembered the final bit of the prophecy that she had kept to herself, mostly to herself. Lorelei was quite certain that this described John and his sexual appetite. From what she heard and from what she had seen from the auras of his partners, ‘ravishing’ was the proper word to describe his acts. ‘Oh Lady, could you have granted me complete clarity?”

No answer, only the memory of her talk to Gaia during her visit in Florida. It had been an odd experience to talk to the physical manifestation of her deity. Fundamentally, it had been a lot easier. This was closely related to the unexpectedly sassy way of talking the supreme deity employed. Beyond that, the Gaia that Lorelei had met and the Lady that she was in contact with did not feel like they were the exact same entity. One felt limited, while the other was an all-encompassing will that couldn’t be contained by anything but herself.

Despite that self-limiting, Gaia had known all about Lorelei there was to know. While the honoured Warden had joined the Gamer in a fight against a being called Lucifrena, Lorelei had gotten to ask a few questions. The answers she received had been cryptic or dodging.

“If I went around giving all the answers to all questions, then I might as well do away with the rest of my principle and just solve all your problems for you,” Gaia had made her position clear. “You’ll be with your first true love before the end of next year. Make of that what you will, you needy thing.”

Lorelei did not know what she thought about being called needy by her own goddess. It was true, that much was for certain. Most past Varniks hadn’t used the ritual and even most people in the Order had a small interest in love compared to her. Ever since the seer had spoken the prophecy, she had been looking for someone that fulfilled the criteria.

Trying, and failing, to take control of her flushed state, Lorelei considered heading indoors. There had to be something else she could do to distract herself from thoughts of him. A simple idea came to mind and she stood up.

Heading into the ship itself, she soon found a part of it dedicated to leisurely activities. In terms of the Order, leisure did not have the same definition as the rest of the world. Where normal people relaxed by playing games, watching movies, or other ways to waste time in an enjoyable fashion, the members of the Order honed their senses even during their downtime by spending it working out, reading, or meditating.

Lorelei had never been much for the first of those three. Like all Abyssals, her body was healthy, although on the thinner side. Because of the long time it had taken her to overcome the limitations of her blindness, she had never really gotten into the habit of physical exertion. Usually, she would have headed into the library or one of the empty meditation chambers instead. Today, she sought her friend.

They would dock in less than ten minutes, so everyone but Moira had already vacated the gym. The Warden was every bit the exemplar of the Order that she was expected to be. Hardworking, she only took a break from her training when she saw Lorelei enter. The training spear she had been thrusting at magically created targets was lowered, while she turned.

“Rare to have you here,” Moira observed, while grabbing the bottle of water from the edge of the training mat. “Did my father send for me?”

“The Lord-Protector has not instructed me to find you,” Lorelei said, shaking her head. It took some conscious effort to keep her face pointing at Moira as she moved. Focusing on someone did not require the seer to keep her eyes on them. Long ago, she had learned that conversation partners found it comforting if she still did it though. “I simply seek distraction, honoured Warden.”

“We’re alone, Lorelei, please,” Moira pleaded. The exact demand remained unspoken, the sincerity of her words was clear in the way her soul rippled. Light grey mixed with the gold of conviction and the white of honour. Through it all wove a prismatic band, interwoven with an intense pink. The Lady’s Blessing, for any seer an unmistakable mark.

“M-moira,” Lorelei stammered, trying her best to drop the honorifics.

Moira let out a long sigh. “Every time we have privacy, I ask you for this and yet you cannot be comfortable with it.”

“Privacy changes not who we are, honoured Warden.”

“No,” Moira raised her spear again and aimed at the invisible targets, “I suppose it doesn’t. What did you think of the other Wardens?”

“Impulsive, for our Warden of the Spear,” Lorelei responded. “Swift to act in uncommon ways. Enigmatic, for our Warden of the Sword. I… can’t provide greater insight.”

“You mean that you won’t,” Moira corrected, her soul flickering with the warm yellow of amusement.

“It is not for me to reveal the souls of the Wardens, not even to another,” Lorelei responded with the same honesty she always used. “They can be relied upon, should conflict arise.”

“Let’s hope it won’t,” Moira responded, between strikes. Lorelei could see the little lights before the Warden could. The magic required to form the weak glow travelled up through the air before her second sight. Even with that advantage, Lorelei was certain she could have never struck as fast as the Shield Warden.

“Your reflexes continue to improve,” the seer complimented.

The redhead could not answer while stuck in the series of thrusts. Only after the last light extinguished in response to the air disturbance, did she turn back to the seer. “I must be. That is what you told me.”

Images of a broken arm and a molten hammer flashed in the corners of Lorelei’s mind. It was like watching a film where every second frame was replaced with random other images. This was an echo of a vision that had occurred previously and all Lorelei could say with certainty was that the molten hammer was the one Moira currently wielded in battle.

“I am a mere conveyer of our Lady’s will and wisdom,” Lorelei said.

“Lorelei, you should give yourself more credit than that,” the Shield Warden said. “You are the most talented seer we have had in generations. The accuracy and frequency of your visions are incredible and you explain well what is notable about them.”

“I merely report what I see, honoured Warden.”

Moira sighed, the blue tint of frustration tainting her soul. “I am lucky to have you as my advisor and my friend, Lorelei. I want you to understand that.”

“I… thank you… Moira.” Squirming where she stood, the seer swiftly changed the focus of the conversation. “You must be the strongest Warden we had in generations yourself.”

“I have to be,” the blessed by the Lady responded. “These are difficult times. What did you call it again?”

“The holy generation, honoured Warden,” Lorelei responded. It had come to her in a dream. A vision of the expansion of humanity, the corresponding expansion of the leylines, the leylines feeding into the Lady’s grace, and the Lady’s grace touching the souls of those to be born into this world. It was a stream that had widened and now confined into a bottleneck. “No generation before was as blessed as ours.”

“You should pride yourself on that discovery. Perhaps you should request a reward from my father.”

“You honour me, Warden, but the only reward I seek is serving the Lady well,” Lorelei denied.

Again, Moira sighed. “Lorelei, I deeply admired your selflessness. Every now and again, you should attempt to do something for yourself. We called an entire meeting of the three branches in order to discuss this. You are owed something.”

‘I’m afraid I will have to ask for something that will out scale all that I could have ever deserved one day,’ Lorelei thought and stayed silent, hoping this line of conversation would end. Realizing that she was talking to someone unwilling to yield on the point, Moira sighed yet again.

The Warden placed the training spear in one of the weapon racks along the wall. “Let’s go home,” she said and headed towards the door. The ship was almost still by now.

On land, they were greeted by a couple of cars. The majority of the staff would walk or use their own vehicles. The Order tried to keep a low profile when it came to the mundane world. That they had even used the ship was a decision the Lord-Protector had made for enigmatic reasons. Lorelei had a hunch, read from his soul, but she would not share it needlessly. It would have put the leader of their organization in a bad light if people rumoured that he acted in certain ways only to upstage the Gamer.

Lorelei and Moira were driven home in the same car, driving right behind that of the Lord-Protector. They arrived in the dead of night. They would have one last opportunity to sleep, before meeting with the gorgeous Gamer and his equally attractive following.

Before the seer and the Warden could head to their individual quarters in the Brighton estate, they were approached by a servant. “The Lord-Protector orders both of you to the conference room,” she told them.

It was entirely expected.