The next day, Hunter was led into a secret passageway below the campus.
As he followed Iphis deeper into the mountain, and as those tunnels steadily contained more and more bones, Ianthe’s memories eventually informed him that these passageways were actually catacombs, and that the university’s founders had built their school on top of an ancient necropolis because…
Well, technically there were a few reasons, but in Hunter’s opinion the biggest one was because they were all nutjobs.
That said, he’d grown so used to this place being casually creepy that a mountain full of skeletons felt very on brand. In fact, he assumed the only reason Aegis didn’t advertise this in their brochure was because taking classes on top of a constant reminder of the inevitability of death might increase the dropout rate.
Luckily for the students, both Aegis and the Temple had implemented a lot of intense safety measures to make sure that nobody without authorization could enter those catacombs.
Unluckily for Hunter, Iphis was both a high-ranking death priest and a professor, and was therefore able to subtly and silently bypass all of those safeguards so that by the time Hunter realized where they were it was too late to turn around.
“Hunter, are you doing alright back there?” Iphis asked, looking back at him.
The corridor they were in was narrow, so walking abreast was not an option unless Hunter wanted to risk brushing up against the mortuary burrows carved into the walls, or worse, against Iphis. Above them, a bluish magelight bobbed in midair, emitting the perfect wattage for barely illuminating anything while simultaneously making all the shadows look darker and more sinister.
Shivering in the cold underground air despite wearing a coat and having his arms wrapped around himself, Hunter griped, “No, something horrifying snuck up from behind and grabbed me when you weren’t looking, and once it’s done murdering me I’m gonna come back and haunt you.”
“Don’t be frightened, I promise I’ll stop anything before it can grab you,” Iphis reassured him, turning back around now that he’d confirmed Hunter was still alive.
Hunter soundlessly mimicked Iphis’ words under his breath with disgust.
If not for the damn mana cuffs, he wouldn’t have had to worry about bumping shoulders with the unquiet dead. Alas, the necromantic knowledge he’d inherited from Ianthe was basically useless without magic, which meant he was forced to rely on Iphis to keep him safe down here, a fact which needled him to no end.
The moment they let him take the damn cuffs off, he was throwing them in a fucking lake.
“Are you being quiet because you’re pouting again?”
“Fuck off, I’m a grown man, I don’t pout! And you could have at least told me how ridiculously cold it would be down here, I’d have worn a thicker coat…”
“Would you like to take mine?”
“Not a chance.”
“Ah, is it because you don’t have big muscles yet? Don’t worry, I said I’d help you, didn’t I? You’ll look as good as me in no time.”
…
Damn it, Hunter really regretted getting so grabby with Buff Iphis the other day. Ever since then this guy’s shamelessness had been steadily ramping back up, and without Moros around there wasn’t another target available to distract him.
“Hunter, don’t get mad, I was just teasing. Here.”
Iphis reached out and grabbed a corner of Hunter’s coat before he could move away. A second later there was a dim red glow, and then he felt a warmth spread through the fabric, almost as though he’d just taken it out of a dryer.
“Better?”
“… Yes,” Hunter admitted, tugging his coat back unhappily.
Up ahead the corridor widened, and Iphis slowed to a stop at the base of a staircase that disappeared up into the gloom. Hunter paused a few feet behind him, rubbing the now warmed fabric of his coat against his sore thumbs.
Yesterday, having proved himself essentially useless to the Ianthe investigation, Moros had tasked him with recording everything he could recall about the cult and its members from her memory instead.
The result was that, even though he wrote alternating between both hands, he ended up with muscle cramps so severe they still hurt today. He was just wondering if it’d be worth it to ask Iphis for some painkillers when a noise from his right surprised him, and he whirled to face it.
Something that looked like the lovechild of a possum and a snake, startled by his presence, scurried out of its hiding spot in the wall. It knocked over a skull in the process, which Hunter reached out and caught on reflex before it could hit the ground.
… Ah. Whoops.
The moment he touched it the white bone began to ooze a dark, smoky cloud of magic. Unwilling to deal with whatever bullshit it was about to pull, Hunter immediately moved to drop-kick it away.
However, before the skull could reach his foot, a dark strand of ectoplasm appeared and snatched it out of the air. Iphis, now standing on the lower steps, gave Hunter a judgmental look as he took the skull from the tentacle.
“Come on, I know you know better than this.”
“It wasn’t my fault, some critter knocked it over!” Hunter protested, pointing an accusing finger down the dark hall the creature had vanished into. “What, was I supposed to just let it fall?”
Iphis made a ‘tsking’ sound and petted the skull, coaxing the dark magic back into it as he replied, “You didn’t want it to fall, so then you tried to kick it?”
“Well, I wasn’t planning to at first, but then it glowed at me! Threateningly!”
Iphis sighed as the tentacle returned the now inert skull back to its resting place, then used it to grab Hunter by the sleeve and tug him towards the stairs.
Hunter slapped it away, grumbling, “I thought I told you not to touch me with those things.”
“And I thought I told you not to touch the remains.”
“Be honest, did we really have to come this way? You just took me down here to mess with me, didn’t you?”
Iphis turned his back and began to climb as he refuted, “I’m not permitted to move you aboveground during daylight. Would you have preferred I stuff you in a sack? I could do that next time.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Hunter growled, following him up.
“And for the record, the cold thing wasn’t on purpose, I just didn’t expect you to be so delicate. What kind of necromancer can’t handle a little cold? That’s like a stellar mage who can’t handle heat, it’s ridiculous.”
Hunter, whose new body did in fact struggle with both of those things, glared wordlessly at Iphis’ back, fantasizing about pushing him off the railing-less stairs.
“And how was I supposed to know you’d be uncomfortable around the dead? It’s not like you killed them, so what’s the matter?”
“The matter is—”
He paused. He’d been about to reply that, having spent countless hours watching Euphy play Skyrim, his brain was convinced that any moment now one of these damn skeletons was going to go ‘blargh!’ and then get up and chase after him.
Even worse, Ianthe’s knowledge meant he knew how reasonable that fear actually was.
However, he was pretty sure Iphis would make fun of him if he said that, so instead he snapped, “You’re walking too slow, just hurry up and get me out of here!”
Iphis sped up obediently, leaving Hunter scrambling to catch up to him.
The stairs eventually came to an end at a blank stone wall high above the original floor. While Hunter looked around in confusion, Iphis casually reached up and pressed his hands against the ceiling, infusing the stone with mana to reveal a hidden door. He pushed it open and slid it back, then grabbed the edge, pulled himself up, and climbed through.
Hunter, who was a bit too short to reach the opening and, even if he could have, lacked the upper body strength to do a pull up, was then forced to take Iphis’ hands so the man could help him through.
Regaining his feet, he let go of Iphis and shot him a warning look, then quickly focused on adjusting his clothes.
Iphis, thankfully, kept quiet.
The room they’d entered looked like some kind of ancient chapel, its high pillars and looming walls carved with complex imagery, its dark windows blocked up by stone. All around the echoing sound of trickling water could be heard, and a wide rectangular pool in the floor took up most of the room. It extended from the midpoint all the way back to the far wall, and in front of it stone benches were arranged like pews surrounding a bowl-shaped altar.
“Is this the campus temple?” Hunter asked, wandering towards the pool as Iphis re-sealed their entrance.
While Ianthe had been through the catacombs before, she’d avoided the parts that directly connected to the temple, and now that he was here he wondered if there might have been a reason for that.
While the temperature was much more bearable and the room itself seemed rather peaceful, something about it made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn’t place, like the disquiet born from the rapidly fading memory of a bad dream.
“A few floors below it. This place was a monastery before it was a school, and most of the current campus was built on top of it.”
Having said this, Iphis stepped aside to record a message for Moros, so Hunter kept looking around, observing how different the architecture was here compared to the rest of the campus. It wasn’t right to call it crude, but it was definitely simpler, its art and motifs more stylized. Studying it further, he noticed that all the carvings in the room seemed to converge at the far end of the pool, where they met together to form one huge stone relief.
Since the only light in the room came from semi-translucent lotus plants gently glowing in the water, it was hard for him to make out what it was a carving of. At first he thought he was looking at a big bundle of wheat, but as he drifted closer he tilted his head and began to rethink that. Maybe what he took for heads of wheat were actually long hands with bulbous fingers, with the stalks as arms, all reaching upwards to hold aloft something big and round.
The top of it was cracked open like an egg, with what looked like a big flower blooming out of it, and as he continued to approach he saw that the patterns etched on the egg looked like craters. Hanging above it he spotted a second smaller, unbroken version.
Seeing that Iphis was done sending his message, Hunter pointed at the wall and asked, ”Hey, didn’t you say you guys only had one moon?”
Confused, Iphis approached and squinted at the carving, then gave Hunter a pitying look and said, “Hunter… that’s just art. Depicting two moons is a visual shorthand indicating a scene is pre-Covenant.”
”Oh. Then, do you know what this is supposed to be?”
“Probably just the birth of an important spirit? This might have been their shrine, though I’m not entirely sure. A lot of the records from back then are incomplete.”
Hunter studied the relief again. Cydonians believed spirits were born from the Full Moon aspect of the Celestial Eight-in-One and the Weeping Mother, so now that he thought about it, the meaning seemed pretty obvious.
“Hey, uh… you guys worship spirits?”
“The Temple doesn’t usually facilitate the practice, but a lot of people do, especially powerful local spirits.”
Hunter nodded, grasping that pretty easily. People did that sort of thing in his world too, though again, it did feel a little strange that here those beings could be interacted with directly.
“Do you worship any spirits?”
“Sometimes, to be polite.”
“Oh.”
Hunter turned away from the carving, continuing to pace along the edge of the pool, and was soon distracted by a sparkle in the water.
Once, when he was much, much younger, he went for a walk on a beach at night and discovered that the crashing waves were full of a mysterious glittering blue light.
At first he’d assumed it must be moonlight reflected from the sky, but the closer he got, the more he became convinced that the glow was coming from within the ocean itself.
Hypnotized by the sight, he’d waded into the surf and kicked it up, then watched in awe as those droplets fell and splashed back into the water, sparkling like drowning stars.
It was one of the few moments in his life when the world truly felt magical, as though he’d stumbled upon some secret that wasn’t meant for human eyes.
Anyway, it turned out to be because of plankton.
Bioluminescent plankton to be precise, which was pretty neat, but hardly an ineffable mystery.
Now, crouching down beside this pool, he saw water sparkling with a similar light as it eddied around a lily pad. He splashed it gently and was rewarded with ripples that flashed and shimmered.
Huh, wasn’t life funny? Before he’d been tricked by plankton, but this time it really was magic. He could tell just by touching it that the water was highly saturated with mana, and wondered if that’s how the waterlilies were growing even though there was no mud at the bottom of the pool.
“Hey, what’s up with this water?”
“It’s probably pumped up from the spirit spring within the heart of the mountain. We used to have a few fountains like this that students were able to access, but they kept throwing random things in them, so we had to seal them off.”
Hunter paused and looked down at his wet hand, now vaguely remembering what Iphis was talking about.
“The mountain… that's full of dead people?”
“Mmhm. The spring is where most of the mana from their bodies collects.”
While Hunter didn’t think he was wrong to consider the founders nutjobs, this was technically the main reason Aegis had been built on a necropolis.
People in this world retained their mana upon death, and then naturally emitted it as they decayed over time. Since some of it would float upwards, the amount of ambient mana in the air over burial sites tended to be denser than normal, thereby allowing anyone living there to use and regain it more quickly.
However, mana from the dead could sink as well, and often collected into springs and aquifers underground. Tapping into those sources to create pools like this was how the university tried to reclaim that unused energy, at least before the misbehavior of its attendees got in the way.
While Hunter couldn’t help but admire the efficiency, he nevertheless complained, “I really wish you’d told me this was corpse water before I touched it.”
“There’s no need to look disgusted. Everything down there’s very old, so at worst it’s bone water.”
Hunter splashed a handful of bone water at Iphis, who calmly dodged and said, “Not in this outfit, please.”
Iphis had spent a great deal of time sprucing himself up before they’d left. Most of the outfits Hunter had seen him in before were noticeably worn, but the dark grey suit he was in now looked new, as did his polished black gloves and shoes.
Privately Hunter thought it was a little adorable that Iphis insisted on wearing his Sunday best to see his grandma. In fact, right now Iphis looked so respectable that Hunter might have mistaken him for an amiable young gentleman if he wasn’t already familiar with the unhinged pervert he actually was.
“Sorry,” Hunter apologized.
Just because he had a grudge against Iphis didn’t mean he wanted to embarrass him in front of his grandma.
Especially since his grandma was basically the Pope, and currently held Hunter’s freedom in her hands.
“No harm done,” Iphis reassured him. “Though, I’ll admit I’m a little disappointed you still haven’t said anything about my haircut.”
Iphis’ wavy blue hair, which yesterday had been almost as long as Hunter’s, now hung to just above his shoulders. In honor of the Saint’s visit, he’d even tied back part of it with a little gold ribbon.
“Oh… yeah, it looks nice,” Hunter replied absently, most of his attention still on the sparkling, lotus-strewn pool of bone water. “But why that length? I thought you said you hated long hair.”
“To entice you, of course,” Iphis replied, his eyes curving with his smile. “Since you were so enthusiastic about it yesterday, I thought I’d give it a try.”
Hunter sighed and lowered his head.
God, he was so fucking ready to get rid of this guy.
Undeterred by Hunter's theatrics, Iphis walked around with his hands behind his back as he continued, “You know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you dressed up since you got here. You look very handsome.”
Wanting to make a good impression on both Euphy and Calliope, Hunter had given up his vacation dad outfit in favor of a black suit and a coat with a chest-length capelet. He hadn’t even known what a capelet was until becoming Ianthe, but Aeonian fashion was currently going wild for the damn things, and the design ended up being very convenient for helping to hide his chest.
He’d also trimmed his nails, brushed and tied his hair up, and picked out one of Ianthe’s less intimidating eye patches. Now, even if he still looked like a villainess, at least he looked like a tidy villainess.
“Gee, thanks.”
“And just to clarify, I meant that in a ‘platonically masculine’ way.”
Hmm.
Hunter wondered if it’d be worth it to throw himself into the creepy bone water just to escape this conversation, and didn’t reply.
With a sigh, Iphis paced as he complained, “Oh, come on, why are you being so quiet today? It’s starting to weird me out—are you nervous? I feel like you are, but normally you’re more talkative when you’re nervous, well, talkative and handsy—”
“Is there any chance I can pay you to shut up?” Hunter asked, turning to give Iphis a sullen look.
Acting hurt, Iphis replied, “I’m just trying to be considerate.”
No, you’re trying to distract yourself from your own anxiety by focusing on mine!
Hunter had noticed Iphis’ increasing discomfort as well, but he didn’t understand where it was coming from, nor did he care.
Unless, that is, Iphis was worried because—
“Shit, you don’t think your grandma’s gonna hate me, do you? Is she the easily offended type? Is she gonna lock me up if I say something stupid?”
To be honest, a part of him was convinced that pissing off the Saint was inevitable. He had a stupid mouth, and she was a very important and powerful person, so it wasn’t a promising combination.
Plus, even if he did manage to make it past Calliope, he still wasn’t sure how to actually resolve things with his daughter.
Coming back from the dead was bad enough, doing so in the body of her enemy was worse, and to top it all off, he’d also caught onto the whole ‘her being a girl’ thing without her knowing…
Fuck, he wished Chiron hadn’t stolen Hebe back. He was pretty sure Euphy would’ve been willing to forgive just about anything if he handed her a giant fluffy cat first.
“No, no, Calliope isn’t like that at all! I mean, she can be a little fierce sometimes, but she’s a very generous person, and a big believer in second chances, and sometimes even third and fourth and fifth chances…” Iphis trailed off, his expression becoming strained, and Hunter got the impression he was trying harder to reassure himself than he was Hunter.
Oh, I get it now. Someone’s in trouble with grandma, huh?
“Is that so?”
“Yes!” Iphis insisted, still trying to convince himself. “I mean, she’s let Moros and I wander about freely for years, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”
…
Actually, that was a good point.
Even though he was a demon-possessed murderer, Hunter was still pretty sure he wasn't as bad as Iphis.
“Wait, I get why you’re a problem, but what did Moros do?”
Iphis just smiled, and then they were interrupted by a soft chime from his receiver.
“Ah, that means they’re almost here!”
Unable to contain his enthusiasm, Iphis grabbed Hunter by the shoulders and half-dragged him over to the huge double doors that made up the room’s real entrance.
Unwilling to wait, Iphis pulled open the doors to reveal Moros, who had his hand raised to knock.
Behind him was what looked, at a glance, like a giant marshmallow.
Without hesitation, Iphis ignored Moros and darted around him, rushing over to wrap the marshmallow in a hug.
“Grandmother!”
“Oh! Hello to you too, sweetheart.”
Unbothered by this, Moros calmly stepped out of the way, and now Hunter could see that what he’d mistaken for a marshmallow was in fact a very short, very round woman dressed head to toe in a white veil and robes. Thanks to her outfit, he couldn’t actually tell what she looked like, but he did note that her chubby little arms weren’t long enough to wrap all the way around Iphis’ back as she returned his hug.
“Now, now, let me get a look at you,” the woman chided, her voice tinged with that gravelly quality people tended to get in old age. “Did you get taller again, or did I get shorter? Oh, and you grew out your hair, don’t you look charming—oh, but your cheeks feel thinner!”
The old woman pinched Iphis’ face with her white-gloved hands and turned her attention to Moros. “Has he been eating enough? I don’t think he’s been eating enough.”
“It’s fine, Grandmother… all he does is eat,” Moros replied warily, taking a few extra steps away from her as though worried she might come after his cheeks next.
Now finding himself next to Hunter, Moros gave him a polite nod, which Hunter returned.
He couldn’t help but notice that, despite Moros’ apathetic expression, he too was dressed up more than normal in a set of very expensive robes dyed in a soft blue gradient. Thanks to Ianthe’s uselessly thorough memories on fashion, Hunter recognized the type of fabric, the dye technique, and even estimated the outfit’s cost before he could stop himself.
“Grandmother, how are you feeling? Are you tired from traveling?” Iphis asked the Saint, checking her over anxiously. Then, glancing at the dark hall they’d entered from, he asked, “Wait, why is only Moros here? Where’s the rest of your retinue?”
“She put a barrier around this place, they’re stuck outside,” Moros replied.
“And you let her!?”
“Calm down, you. How am I supposed to get anything done, tripping over a damn crowd every time I turn around?” Calliope demanded. Then she paused, and Hunter got the impression she was looking at him as she continued, “Anyway, the less people who know about this the better.”
Iphis shot an icy glare at Moros, clearly unwilling to assign Calliope any blame as he insisted, “But still, it’s dangerous! You could have just left them in the corridor.”
“Don’t you frown at him, you’re lucky he puts up with you at all,” Calliope reprimanded mercilessly, then reached for Iphis’ arm with a hand and squeezed it. “And what’s this? Well, aren’t you bold, lecturing us when you’ve been using your divine abilities again! Did you think I wouldn’t be able to tell? Shame on you!”
Startled and guilty, Iphis took a step back and protested, “But, I…”
“What will it be, hmm? A lie or an excuse?”
“No. I was just going to say, I haven’t used them that much…”
“Tch, you can’t think up anything better than that? You and I are going to have a serious talk about a lot of things later, but for now, mind your manners and introduce me to your friend.”
Hunter, who’d been watching this exchange with quiet fascination, stiffened at the sudden onslaught of attention. He fixed his posture and straightened his coat, nervousness prickling like cold pins down his spine.
Yet, at the same time, he couldn’t help but think, This is the Saint? Really?
Every time he’d heard about her, in this life and in the game, people talked about her like she was some grand, almost mythical person who’d saved the country from ruin, so he’d expected someone noble and solemn, but this woman…
This woman was clearly just Iphis’ little bubbe1grandma.
No wonder she hadn’t adopted him as a mother. This lady oozed ‘grandma’ from every pore.
As she walked towards him, he couldn’t help but think that, even though he’d yet to see her face, she still looked so harmless and small. What was this woman doing, running a major religion? At most, she ought to be running a knitting circle, or a bingo hall…
Then, just before he got swept away by more random thoughts, instinct made him pause.
Maybe she really was this sort of cheerful, gentle, and loving person, especially around people she considered family.
But everyone he’d run into so far here had been more than what they’d seemed, and from a logical standpoint, it didn’t make sense that someone with her power and experience could be simple, especially when so much was at risk.
There was a non-zero chance that all of this was just an act to get him to lower his guard, and thinking about how he’d almost fallen for it, a chill ran down his spine.
Iphis, who was now acting like the earlier scolding hadn’t happened, cleared his throat and introduced, “Grandmother, this is Hunter of Benowitz, father of Young Saint Euphrosyne. Hunter, this is my grandmother, Her Holiness Saint Calliope of Mellitea.”
“Hello, it’s nice to meet you, young man,” she chirped, extending her hand.
He reached for it, then paused because Ianthe’s knowledge of etiquette kept telling him it was inappropriate to even think about touching her at all, and that he ought to bow instead, but he also felt like not taking her hand would be just as rude—
She saved him the trouble by grabbing his hand anyway and shaking it vigorously as she laughed. “Don’t look so frightened, I only eat naughty children.”
Deciding to play along with her act, he smiled nervously and joked, “Oh, so I am in trouble.”
The Saint stilled for a moment, processing this, then burst out into raucous laughter and grabbed onto him, smacking his arm with her tiny hand.
“Aren’t you a cutie!? Iphis you didn’t tell me your friend was funny! Why didn’t you tell me your friend was funny?”
“I’m sorry, Grandmother, it’s my mistake.”
“I apologize, Your Holiness, what I meant to say was it’s an honor to meet you,” Hunter interjected smoothly, relying on years of experience gassing up old ladies to turn on his charm.
“Psh, don’t worry about the ‘holiness’ nonsense, just call me Calliope, or Grandma, or Calli, or whatever you prefer—ah, hold on, I’m being rude, I completely forgot about my scarf! Iphis?”
“Don’t worry, I already added him to the geas.”
“Good boy, thank you. Goodness knows I can’t do it anymore,” she said, pulling off her veil to reveal a tan and deeply wrinkled face wearing an amused expression. The wrinkles above her eyes in particular were so heavy that they looked almost closed, but Hunter could just make out that her irises were a dusty purple. Above her face, a cloud of fluffy cornflower blue hair bobbed with her every movement, held back here and there by little golden clips and decorated with fist-sized black beads.
Curiously, her face was dotted with what he thought at first was shiny paint, but on second look turned out to be a smattering of small, lustrous golden scales, particularly prominent around her cheeks and forehead.
Well, the fact that she had scales was a little unexpected, but he adjusted quickly and supposed it explained why she’d been wearing a veil.
“Hunter, sweetie, you’re not squeamish, are you?”
Instinct told him he wouldn’t like where this was going, but unwilling to offend her he still said, “Um… No?”
“Great! My lower left shoulder has such a cramp, walking around like this is so uncomfortable…”
Around her thick waist, a band of white fabric he’d taken for a sash suddenly moved, revealing that it was instead another set of sleeves. The Saint then stretched all four of her arms out and winced, a few of her bones cracking audibly with the motion.
Hunter, who by now was getting very good at processing strange things, didn’t react in any way except to take a deep breath and briefly close his eyes.
So. Grandma has four arms and scales.
Honestly, by this world’s standards, he felt like it could have been worse.
“Why don’t we take a seat?” she offered, gesturing with her two left arms to the stone pews. “I’m sure you’re eager to get this over with, and I’ll admit, my schedule is a little tight. Ah, and don’t worry about filling me in, I’ve read all the reports.”
Nodding, he waited for her to sit and then sat down across from her. “So, uh, how does this work?”
Everyone had been so confident she’d be able to get answers out of him that he assumed there must be some kind of magic involved, but no matter who he asked, all the responses he’d gotten were maddeningly vague.
He half expected her to whip out some kind of magical polygraph, but instead she just offered two of her hands and said, “Well, first I’d like to give you a quick examination.”
After a brief moment of hesitation he took her hands, feeling quietly grateful that she’d offered him the upper pair. In contrast to his long thin hands, hers were so small and round that they looked almost childlike.
Then, remembering the last time he had contact with the hand of a divine mage, he braced himself, afraid she was about to sandblast his brain with ‘divinity’ like Iphis had.
Thankfully, all he felt was a full body sensation of warmth instead, and the pain in his hands left over from yesterday disappeared.
“Alright, looks good. I didn’t see anything to worry about.”
Hearing her positive response, he let out a shaky breath.
Maybe he’d been overreacting again, and this really just would be a chat?
“Now hold still, I’m going to take a quick peek at your soul.”
“Oh, okay… wait, I’m sorry, what!?”