"Where are my granddaughter and my cute little Bin?" Gul asked. Eik still had trouble reconciling the old man's perpetually grumpy demeanor with his overly sweet, loving grandpa attitude towards Bin. Not that Eik was complaining at all. The more love that little girl could get the better.

"At home together. They're totally fine."

"Good. There's no need to involve Ihasu in this for now."

The oracle stood up slowly from her own seat. "They're not going to stop coming. They want me back no matter how many people have to die, whether yours or ours."

"We're going to have to work fast."

"No matter how much you succeed, they will never stop coming," she said with a sigh. "Just look at Vendekaabe. I am the highest of high leaders to these people, second only to the Lord of the Moon himself." The cultist had been standing with his head bowed ever since they had entered the office, refraining from looking up even when the attacks had been mentioned. "This only ends when I'm dead."

Eik didn't know what to say about that. So he didn't. "Gul, are we sure the attack was to find her? What if it was the same as reason the raids on fresh worlds two years ago? The ones that occurred during the Championships."

"The attacks two years ago were to recruit new cultists for their ranks," Andihar said, shaking his head. "This ti—"

"Uuh, no, that's not entirely true," the oracle piped up, cutting off the elf.

"What isn't entirely true?" Gul asked gruffly. Although he was fully aware of the necessity to have her with them, he still didn't like playing host to cultists from Moon Shall Swallow no matter how much they appeared to have changed.

"The raids two years ago weren't to recruit new cultists. We already have many new recruits. Sure, we got some, but the primary goal of that operation was to collect subjects to give to the Life Harvesters. I'm sure they must have gone for forceful abductions after luring in as many volunteers as they could." She looked extremely nervous as she looked from person to person.

Eik's voice shook as he spoke. "Are you—… You're saying that… they were all hooked up to some kind of monster to slowly wither away in agony?"

The oracle simply stared at him, seemingly unable to find the words to respond, but the expression in her eyes was all the answer he needed. Suddenly and unexpectedly, tears pushed through the corners of his eyes and flowed down his cheeks. The oracle looked almost as surprised as he felt.

"Well, that's not what this was," Andihar assured them. "This time they went on a spree in search of their oracle. As far as I know, all corpses were left at the scenes."

"Is it over already? Can we help?" Eik asked.

"No, the ones from the attacking group that didn't perish retreated pretty quickly. Strategically, their method shared some similarities with our own raid."

"Fuck…" Eik cursed and sat down. "But with this, surely, the Alliance will see that the oracle is of importance. Otherwise the cult wouldn't have come for her like this. They want her."

"She is our spiritual leader. We would have come for her whether she held secrets we wished kept or not."

"But given all that you know about the situation, do you honestly think that's why they came here this time?" Eik asked.

Vendekaabe's gaze fell to the floor, no answer forthcoming. The oracle wasn't quite as shy and readily voiced her thoughts. "Oh, I'm sure the regular members are as sincere as Vendekaabe here," she said wearily. "But the brass are… different. They are not as reverent as the others. They are… goal-oriented. People like him," she said with a gesture toward Vendekaabe. "they want to devote themselves—to me—to something greater than themselves. They seek a connection. But the other leaders… the mission comes before all else. They're driven."

***

Before doing anything else, they moved the oracle to a safer place. They considered a few different places, but everywhere that was at least somewhat safe was also tied to either of them. An unfamiliar world or something like that was naturally out of the question.

In the end they decided to keep her on Earth but to move her to another location in Forest. That had fewer variables than a world move. Heath was barely on Earth these days as he spent every day in the smithy and most of his free time in Gimleh as well, so he didn't have a problem letting the oracle use the house he had shared with Sonja.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

That meant that the only people privy to the oracle's new location was Eik, Andihar, Gul, and now Heath. That was a pretty tight group. Vendekaabe knew as well but that was mostly because he refused to be separated from her.

Hours were spent as Andihar and Gul questioned her about various aspects of cult activity. On a lot of points she was either evasive or outright refused to answer when asked.

Anything she deemed not necessary for the specific purpose of hindering or preventing the reawakening ritual for the Lord of the Moon was avoided. It clearly annoyed both of the S-rankers but they accepted whatever they could get, which was still heaps and bunches more than they had ever been able to learn.

It illustrated just how much loyalty the oracle still held toward the cult. It was her people through and through, and that hadn't changed. The only thing that had changed was what she thought was best for them.

A heavy sense of guilt weighed on her shoulders, and this partial withholding of information seemed to be a way of alleviating some of that. Vendekaabe as well, sat in he corner of the room, looked pained with every secret revealed.

If they had truly been faking their betrayal of the cult's mission this whole time, as especially the Alliance had suspected them of, then they were excellent actors.

Eik was listening but had largely ejected himself from the conversation. Both Gul and Andihar were simply better suited for this type of interrogation than he was, not to mention how much more experience they had. His brain felt exhausted just from listening and his focus slipped more and more the longer they went on.

His mind floated, landing instead on his alchemy projects, his business, and theory crafting about his abilities.

The Original Life returned to the forefront many times over. Every time Andihar launched into yet another complicated question for the oracle, he felt his jaw slacken a little, regardless of how important it was to the war effort.

Thank fuckin' god he wasn't knee deep in this mess alone.

By the time they were done, the two S-rankers were ready to escalate the matter to an Alliance-wide level. Seizing this opportunity now when the cult's attack was still fresh in everybody's mind was a given.

And Eik saw no reason to participate in that crap. Despite his up and coming status as a potion master and powerful fighter, he had no real established political image, and that seemed to make a lot of the career bureaucrats take him less seriously.

That was actually fine with him. He knew he wasn't suited for it, and he didn't like it either anyway. He knew he tended to be too reckless, and while it had worked out miraculously well until now, he would rather not have to deal with it anymore. Although one shouldn't underestimate the efficacy of pulling up the root of order with a hand of outrageous, chaotic antics.

Instead, Eik went straight to his laboratory and started working.

His workplace had received a serious upgrade since he had first begun working on alchemy. For one, the smaller cauldron he had been using was now replaced by the largest his could get his hands on. From bottom to rim, it was about as tall as Eik, made of solid metal of a variant he would have to ask Heath about.

And since the space was also now about five times larger, he had splurged and bought seven. And like the one he had received as a reward from Atla, these ones also helped stabilize the ingredients.

With the success of his Legendary Mystery Medicine, most people seemed to assume that it was the only thing he made. That was far from the truth. By adding some non-Earth ingredients, he had improved his old healing chunk recipe considerably, for one.

As a matter of fact, Eik's Excellent Elixir Emporium had a catalogue of more than one hundred and fifty recipes.

Awakened Earthlings had begun to train in alchemy under Eik a little over a year ago and had helped him speed up production of more basic recipes significantly. He liked to work on his own, so the workshop for his employees was elsewhere on the premises.

For the rest of the day, he buried himself in the art of creation.

***

"Absolutely not!"

"Come on, Oli," Eik pleaded. "You know you be the perfect fit! You're charismatic, powerful, well respected and liked, and smart. Just think about it at least!"

"Oh, please, Eik, be both know this is just so you can get out of it," she shot back, rolling her eyes.

"Nuh uh! I'm totally incapable of listening to boring stuff for more than five minutes at a time and we both know it," he argued and when she opened her mouth to speak, he hurried to interrupt. "And don't even try to deny it. You complain about it every day of the week!"

Her mouth became a thin line. She was caught. She glowered and finally spoke. "Fine! I will think about it. No promises. And I won't do it alone. I want people to do the boring stuff so I can train."

"Deal!" he exclaimed and held up a hand for a high-five but when she put up hers, he slapped a crispy, freshly baked chocolate chip muffin into her open palm instead. "Reward!"

"By the way," she said, biting into the smushed muffin. "I saw that notice that you sent out, that aliens were to be treated as our equals, officially. It never even occurred to me that that wasn't already a thing."

"Yeah, well, it's already getting complaints," he grumbled.

"From that movement that's been cropping up in Forest? They're not too numerous though, luckily. Most people understand that we can't do this alone. Did you know Boulder Fist Gary is a part of it?"

"Yes, I did actually, although until recently I kind of thought he was dead, or maybe that he had left or something," he said with a nod. "But I don't really give a shit about them. If they don't like the new rules, that's fine. All I care about is that they do what I say."

Olivia snorted. "And you say you don't want to rule? Are you sure not into the feeling of control?"

"Are you sure you shouldn't shut up?" he shot back, already running before she could slap him across the back. "Away, demon!" he howled, lobbing muffins at her as he ran. "I'm going on an S-rank hunt so you're not allowed to hurt me!"

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