Dance of the Gods

After Veronica managed to calm her joy, she sat down on the bed and pulled out that piece of paper with the strange sentence.

She read it over a couple more times, then tried to use her knowledge of this world and Earth, in hopes of figuring out the second volume's hiding place.

"Okay, so the first part before the riddle is quite obvious, since it refers to me... The second part though, that's a bit more tricky."

"'Ever wanted to visit London, or maybe a city similar to it?' This one is pretty straightforward as well. London is a capital city which is known for its boring and gray weather. It's also gigantic and has a lot of historical value..."

She looked at the sentence again and after thinking for a while longer she had a pretty good idea what it was referring to.

"'A city similar to it'... So there has to be a city in this world that is big, beautiful and has always mild weather... That narrows it down a bit, but my memories don't exactly contain that much information about cities other than Hammon... Non of them is famously known for their weather either..."

Since thinking about only the first sentence would lead her nowhere, she decided to jump to the next one.

"'The weather is quite awful, but also liberating!' Yeah, definitely talking about the weather in the British Isles, but what does the writer mean by liberating?... How can a weather be liberating?"

This time she stayed silent for a few minutes, then when she began thinking outside the box her eyes widened with enlightenment. She even laughed and began shaking her head... Whoever this person was, he was smart.

"So, you didn't mean that the weather was liberating... but the place where the book was!"

It was really obvious that the liberating was a reference to freedom, and which was the freest country in this world?

"Okay, so the second volume is in the Free Cities, in a large city that has similar weather patterns as London... There are still multiple possibilities, most of the port cities had mild and cloudy weather. Even Hammon could fit these two descriptions!"

Eventually she looked away from the second line and jumped to the next one.

"'It is especially nice where the Thames meets the North Sea!' Hmm... The Thames is the river that flows through London and it connect to the North Sea near the city... Could this mean that the city I'm looking for has a large river flowing through it and is near the sea?"

With this much knowledge she managed to narrow down the search area to only two cities.

The first option was Luros, the largest port city in the east of the Free Cities. There was a large river flowing through it called Munden, which also enters the Quiet Sea within the city limits.

The second option was Vindra, the capital of the Free Cities. This one has a different large river splitting it in two, its name is Verren and it also flows straight into the Quiet Sea.

"Okay, so one of these two places. Now the only question is where within the cities?"

This next question was answered really quickly, when she read the last part of the message.

"'Be sure to bring a snorkel!' Goddammit! It is underwater, most likely where one of the rivers meet the sea... That is a huge area to cover... *sigh*"

She was a bit dejected by this find, since she wouldn't be able to go and try to find said book for a long time. It was nice to understand the riddle, but actually acquiring the book seemed like a much taller task.

Eventually she realized that she haven't seen if the book's first volume had any more hidden messages inside. With unnatural speed she jumped of her bed and got the book out of her wardrobe.

She went through each and every page, trying to find something that could help her in any way, but it seemed there were no other messages. With nothing else to do she read the previous message with the emoticon again.

After a few minutes she was about to put the book away, but then she remembered something even better.

"Since it's already out, I might as well read learn something new from it..."

She remembered from yesterday that there was a chapter about the organizations which control the ascended world. In the table of contents she found the page number quickly and in a few seconds the book was already opened there.

After the large 'Organizations' title, there were a few sentences explaining what organizations actually were. She read through it just to be safe, but there wasn't any new information there.

She then immediately jumped to the first orthodox organization, the Lawbringers.

The author seemed to be very judgmental about them, and actually called them hypocrites too. It was nice to know that she wasn't the only one who felt weird about them.

These ones Veronica knew well, so the book hadn't provided any real insights. She also read the next one which was about the Unbroken, but the book didn't say anything new about them either.

The third one was at last something Veronica knew little about, the Creator's Will. They are the Dracon Empire's main religious organization. Their ranks controlled the Cultivator path and their higher echelons were only made up of this path too.

They were of course under the control of the Church of Life and they had foothold even in the Free Cities.

The book didn't go into details about their command structure or anything like that. The only other thing the author wrote was that they worshipped the Creator, which Veronica already knew.

She was starting to get disappointed, these organizations aren't as interesting and exciting as she presumed. With an audible sigh she turned to the next organization.

Suddenly her eyes widened a bit. The next organization was way different than the first three. It was the Church of War, but what was strange that there didn't seem to be another name for its secret organization.

Curiously she jumped a few lines and looked at the next name on the page. The Church of Desire was the same as well, no organization name. She went to the next one and the Church of Serenity was the same as well.

Quickly she went back to the Church of War and read through the whole paragraph. After that she began nodding with understanding.

In these three countries there was no secret organization and every supernatural affair was handled by the church directly.

It was kind of strange, but she just thought that the Western Continent was a lot different than where she lived.

The three churches weren't anything special. The Church of War was very close to becoming a fascist warmongering regime. The Church of Serenity was a bit on the patriarchal side and only wanted peace.

The Church of Desire was a bit more interesting, their higher leadership could only be woman from the Sinner Path. That was a strange reflection of their whole society, which was heavily matriarchal.

Only woman could be in leader positions, they were the also the leaders in a family, but that was the only unequal part of their society. The man could do whatever they wanted, they weren't forced to do anything they didn't want to.

After reading about the six orthodox organizations she turned to the next page and a large smile appeared on Veronica's face. The next bigger title read, 'Unorthodox Organizations'.

There were seven of them all together, each containing little explanation about their structure or purpose.

The first was called the Chaotic Order, which worshipped a God named the Insane One. Their order were mostly made up of the Lunatic path, which wasn't hard to figure out from either their name or their God.

For a few moments Veronica thought about Drunk McLean.

'Could he be part of this possibly evil organization... I highly doubt that something named 'Chaotic Order' could want anything good to happen... But again my only friends are criminals so what does that tell about me?'

She laughed to herself a bit, her new life was truly ridiculous. Living with a family that hid pirates in their basement, while she was a person with superpowers... Just how did all this happen? She wasn't even here for a month!

When she was done reminiscing, she looked to the next one. This organization's name was Bleeding Reality and they worship a God named Bloody Monarch.

Their echelons were made up mostly of the Outlaw path and their hobby was being psychotic serial killers who sacrifice people for visions... a fun bunch...

She was about to read further, but something very strange happened. Suddenly the rest of the words on the page became fully smudged only leaving one word for her to read. It was the last organization's name on the paper, but it didn't look anything special, only confusing...

"What the hell is Remot's Rise?"

Suddenly somewhere nearby lightning flashed and a loud thunder reverberated all over the building. Veronica jumped up from surprise, her heart beating so fast that she could hardly take a breath.

The book fell on the wooden floor closing itself in the process. Her eyes kept staring at the closed book and in her mind those last two words kept flashing...

Remot's Rise...