NOVEL WEB 28: The All-Encompassing Crimson Cancer
Cuddling up on the bed next to Valencia, Astrid noticed Valencia had fallen into her thoughts.
Taking advantage of the moment to look around the room, Astrid had to thank the designers for one small detail: bed placement. It was close enough to the edge for Astrid to get a good, unobstructed view of the stars and the ocean. At the same time, it was far enough from the edge for Astrid to not worry about somehow plunging into the sea far below...
“Alright...” Valencia tapped her chin as she wrapped an arm around Astrid. “Give me a sec to decide where to begin. I don’t want to talk circles around you after all...”
Valencia was... conflicted. Obviously, she wanted to tell Astrid everything, but... that was just a little hard at this point.
Astrid still wasn’t a huge fan of deities, was getting used to a new city, a new lifestyle, still recovering, and... well, the list went on. Valencia knew half the reasons probably didn’t mean anything and that she’d always be able to find more, but they just gnawed away at her.
Astrid seemed to have a couple of doubts, but nothing super major, not enough where it wouldn’t blindside her with a whole life-shattering piece of information...
Electing to just tell Astrid as much truth as she could without... absolutely dumping everything on her, Valencia leaned her head against Astrid’s while pulling the blanket up a little tighter. “Well, I’ll just keep it simple, I guess? I currently own a lot of property dotted around the city, as you know. But since I was away from the city, I just handed it over to some friends, like Sylvia.”
With Astrid pushing to further cuddle up against her, Valencia raised a hand to her face to hide the faint blush climbing onto her cheeks before continuing. “Two of them, Solomon and Joanna, work in the Library of Truth, the organization that kinda functions as a government in this city. They don’t have their hands in the governmental side, but Joanna manages the training of their members.”
“So, this is a training facility?” Astrid murmured, looking around the room with a faint air of doubt swirling around her, “This doesn’t quite look like a training room though...”
“Well, since I was back in the city, I contacted Joanna and found out they’re temporarily not using this part of the building,” Valencia shrugged, motioning to the rest of the room, “So I asked her to clear out a room for me and she was kind enough to outfit it with everything you see here.”
“Ohh... that’s awfully nice of her, you should introduce her to me sometime!” Astrid suggested as a shy smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, “I mean... it’d be kind of, just a little, nerve-wracking to meet one of your friends but... you know, so we can thank her together for this.”
“I’ll try and see what I can do then,” Valencia laughed, “I can also try and introduce you to some others, like Solomon, Estelle, and Sylvia. Though Sylvia’s out of town right now.”
“I see...” Astrid sighed, pulling herself just a little closer to Valencia, “How are you supposed to even use this missing wall in the training room though?”
“Ahh, well, you see how it faces the ocean?” Valencia pointed forward towards the ocean below, “You can just launch attacks into it. It’s kind of just a nice place where you can run wild without worrying about hurting people. There’s no life in the sea anyway so no need to worry about that aspect either.”
“Huh, that’s nice...” Astrid murmured, her voice trailing off before a yawn pushed its way out of her. “Sorry, I’m just a little sleepy, still listening though, don’t worry.”
“I don’t have too much else to say,” Valencia comforted as she wrapped Astrid a little better in the blanket and pulled her closer. Leaning over and giving Astrid a couple of kisses, Valencia sighed as her shoulders relaxed. “We can just look at the stars for a bit before sleeping, okay? Don’t worry about falling asleep here my dear, it’s not like we’re going to get kicked out or anything.”
Getting a quiet “mhm” and a squeezing hug in response from Astrid, Valencia settled down to just cuddle and watch the stars.
It was... nice. And, well, Astrid sure was warm.
---
With Astrid and Valencia resting in the Library of Truth’s training facility, they dozed off soon enough, unaware of the chaos transpiring outside.
Perched on the rooftop of a tall skyscraper was Casimir. With a pair of binoculars in one hand, Casimir was whispering a stream of words into the radio device strapped to his collar.
Watching the battle unfolding down below, Casimir could only let out a sigh. They had been blindsided. First, there was a traitor in the academy leading to a controversial ending to their performance.
Next? Well, an entire attack by the cult.
Therefore, with the alarm bells ringing, he and the other deities had taken battle positions on a handful of key buildings owned by the Federation. Yet, with only half of them back in the country run by the federation itself, the situation in Marcen’s Cliffs wasn’t looking good—after all, they couldn’t do their classic, “everyone gets one building” protection strategy.
“How is the situation looking on your end, Cyril?” Casimir questioned as he cast his gaze across the fights unfolding below.
“One moment-” Cyril’s out of breath voice came crackling back over the radio. “Fighting.”
Replying with a quick “Take your time,” Casimir couldn’t help but massage the bridge of his nose.
The strategy was adopted as the Federation standard and, though contentious, had held up throughout their history. Said strategy consisted of leaving a deity in each critical area while leaving the non-deity combatants to fight out the battles. It was only during the most critical moments that deities would step in.
Casimir’s reasoning behind implementing such a strategy was simple: too often did invasion plans include a second, stronger punch to not save their energy for it.
With Cyril already in the field fighting though, Casimir was... worried. Sure, Cyril was a hot-headed battle junkie at times, but Cyril knew not to step in unless he felt the lives of those serving under him were in danger.
“Cyril, you can leave battle now, the enemies you’re fighting are running into my territory,” A voice crackled to life over the radio. “Also, Rowan and Alfie, be on guard, it seems cultists are congregating towards your areas. Due to both of your positions relative to the central building, I would be aware of the possibility of a large-scale ritual.”
“Thank you, Tessa,” Casimir murmured into the radio before being followed up by Rowan and Alfie. “Please also let me know if it seems like any of the appendages plan to enter the battle to ensure the success of this potential ritual. Especially if it's one of the two Claws because I doubt the actual leader, the Shell, will be joining.”
Casimir was... curious. Just why was the group that worshiped the All-Encompassing Crimson Cancer attacking them?
Sure, the leaders were not quite right in the head, but they still had some sort of brain on their shoulders. The little pod-like structure to sequester information was quite ingenious to keep the organization alive after all the conflicts they had gone through.
But this certainly wasn’t a plan conducive to keeping their member numbers up. Why attack one of the largest, most powerful groups in the world?
Indeed Casimir had driven off the crab they worshiped the last time it had made landfall, but that was purely because it had attacked his country—and that was a couple centuries back anyway!
Why... just why? What was the reasoning behind the sudden activity with these usually hidden cults?
Something was certainly up...
