A weird look passed through Telmus’s eyes, it was filled with so many varied emotions, from loathing, anger, lust, sadness, decadence, and so many incomprehensible thoughts that seemed to be generated out of thin air, but he bit his tongue until he bled and shook his head angrily,

“I am Telmus and my road is not yours to choose.”

He took a step back and Minerva laughed, she was about to disappear when Telmus called out, “Tell me why you lot need all these gods Mother? Surely it is not to use them as subordinates? You usually eat them, don’t you?”

“You’re a smart boy, surely you would be able to figure it out.” she laughed and her figure began to fade away, but Telmus continued speaking and she paused.

“Then I shall guess,” Telmus whispered, “I have lived a short life however I know many things, and I also do not know many other things as well. Yet, one thing I do know is fear. For the past three years, it has enveloped Trion, I can smell its stench, like a Hydra’s ** placed beside my nose. Something is coming Mother, something that has the lot of you scared. I can see the signs in the air Mother, I can see it in the waters. It tells me you are afraid of…”

A small fist traveled towards Telmus with the strength to destroy a thousand stars. Telmus caught the fist with his bare hand and grinned, “It tells me you are so shaken, you intended to fight me with your bare fist. You are many things Mother, but you are a bit lacking when it comes to that aspect, Tiberius would be a better choice.”

Minerva quietly removed her hand from Telmus’s grip, and she faded away, her last words echoed in the heavens but only Telmus could hear them, “You should be careful what you wish for child. we are the foundation of your existence, without us, you are nothing.”

Telmus was quiet for a long while before he gritted his teeth, “We will see about that.”

He vanished and reappeared inside the Tavern, to the eyes of all here, nothing had changed. Telmus had made his challenge and Urroghat had disappeared as if he acknowledged the rules of this place and left.

Circe and Archimedes hurriedly stood up and began to leave, Telmus wanted to stop them but with a resigned sigh he let them leave. There was a storm building behind his eyes that was slowly covered by a veil of anger and madness that would have astonished the goddess Minerva.

He looked at his palms, there were seven lines on it, and slowly one of the lines faded away. Telmus gritted his teeth and walked back to his place inside the Tavern.

Once there had been billions of those lines, but slowly he had begun compressing them. When he could reach a single line, he would be free.

As if forgetting his previous problems, he began to whistle a merry tune as he entered his room.

?

Maeve had been quite busy since she had been captured and dropped in this place. For the first few days, she had armed herself and crouched behind a barricade she built, ready to spill the blood of anyone who came through the door.

After waiting for what felt like ages, she stopped her panicked actions and began organizing her thoughts. She recalled that golden giant saying it was sent by Rowan before knocking her out, she hoped that it was the truth, nonetheless, she did not place any faith in it.

Maeve was at the peak of the Rift State and could find no methods to break through to the Incarnation State. The Pathway she was practicing was called the Pathway of the Giant, and she had only the technique of reaching the Rift state given to her.

Normally, at this stage, her master should be the one to impact the next level of her pathway to her. As the personal maid of the Royal family, her powers were important assets and were to be carefully controlled but not stifled.

This was the method the Nobility of Trion controlled their servants on lesser Pathways, it ensured their loyalty and kept them forever under their thumb.

Maeve had been able to quickly reach the peak of Rift State very early in the battlefield, because of the intense amounts of Aether in that place, but unfortunately, without a Pathway forward, she had been struck at this Level.

She had tried to move forward, searching for her Incarnation deep inside her blood, but she did not succeed.

Maeve was lucky, she should have died countless times over, if not for a weird mutation that happened with her abilities, and until now she had not been able to figure out why such a thing would occur.

Taking the time to explore her surroundings, she quickly found out she was underground, and she was inside a vast industrial complex, with heavy cogs and gears and elaborate machines that were bigger than buildings, but everything here was silent, and the metals were cold.

Whatever this place was, it had stopped operating for a long time. Maeve found ample supplies for her daily needs, enough to last her for decades, she also found training equipment, and beginning from the next day she packed the supplies she needed and began moving towards the surface of the planet, and if she had the opportunity…her escape.

There were no locked doors in her path, and it took her less than four days to begin nearing the surface of the planet. Behind her, a tiny girl’s voice sounded, “Are you sure you are thinking this through? We don’t know what’s out there.”

Maeve groaned, “Staying down there will get us no closer to the answers we need.”

“She is right.” Another separate voice said this one was gruff, clearly a man.

“But there is no reason to be careless about it,” A female voice said, “You are close enough to the surface, you should send the boys to clear the way.”

Many new voices began to chime in, and soon a cacophony of voices sounded behind her, all of them planning and arguing amongst themselves about the best way forward.

Updated from .𝘤𝘰