Kael pressed himself against the walls and forced his way deeper with his good hand. Dark stones glinted red with his blood as they scraped his exposed back. But pain didn't enter his mind, not when the creature was behind. Even less when his thick leather suit was now paper-thin.

  His glass helmet was worse. Cracks multiplied on its surface, turning his vision into a fragmented mess until he couldn't see anymore. The glass tube at his waist shattered, the fluorescent liquid devoured by the corrosive water.

  He would be next if he didn't reach the other side.

  Would there even be solid ground?

  Don't think about it. Advance. Again, and until you do it or can't anymore because your bones will be the latest decorative addition to the damned bed of this lake.

  Then, a soft light above. The walls pinning him began to widen. He hauled himself onto a shelf of rock, the corrosive water dripping from him in burning streams. For three terrifying heartbeats, he waited for the pull at his ankles, for the howl of the creature, or the voice of his mother to whisper in his ear.

  The soft hum of glistening gemstones answered him.

  With a groan, he tore the ruined helmet from his head, then the tatters of his suit and clothes. Only then, in the relative safety of the silence, did pain slap his mind fully awake.

  The red tinge of fresh burns covered his skin. He had to wipe the water before it consumed him. Now!

  He stumbled forward. Wherever his gaze landed, he saw collapsed statues. They cluttered the ground in a circle of shattered limbs. Amidst the fine carving of what remained of smashed heads, one reminded him of the sculpture of Morvana displayed in Sister Harrow's shelter. The others bore different features, yet shared the divine aesthetic of the weaver of fates.

  His observation faded when he locked onto what he had been searching for.

  He rushed to the epicenter of the circle drawn by the statues and ripped the dry cloak off a kneeling skeleton. Bones thudded, rising dust as he wiped his burning skin clean.

  The sensation of being gnawed at vanished, not the sting. Sighing, he noticed the blood smearing the cloak. Less than he had imagined. The corrosion likely cauterised the wound. At least, it did more than almost kill him... Should he be happy that he wouldn't bleed out? Scarily, he was...

  Shaking his head, he wrapped the cloak around his shoulders and tied the sleeves to keep his broken arm pressed against his chest.

  Though the slums didn't house any temples, Sister Harrow told him that they erected statues of the gods they worshipped on their grounds. Was this place a temple? But why eight gods, with most he couldn't recognise? If it was indeed a temple, was the creature its guardian, and did he... scavenge the cloak of a dead bishop?

  Well, the bishop no longer needs it. And what was that creature? In any case, I'm a highly sacrilegious individual in their eyes for intruding on what it guards.

  He tensed for a second before the dust made him cough, and his gaze shifted down. On the smooth ground beside the skeleton, he saw a sharp-edged stone pointed towards a white mark buried under a layer of grime.

  Frowning, he wiped the ground with his palm, revealing the smooth stone underneath. The mark extended, carving shallow grooves that formed words. A message written by the bishop?

  Faith is a cage.

  Kael's eyes widened as he cleared more grime.

  November 19th, the temple feeds on belief. It mirrors the faith you bring. I prayed for salvation... and it gave me an endless altar to pray at. It answered my faith with eternal captivity. The only way out is to believe in NOTHING it represents. But I am a believer... so I die here. I hope these words will never reach you, my son. If they ever do, trust only in yourself. I love you and Nessa... and I'm sorry, Kael.

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  "W-what..." Kael let out a shocked sob, his hand trembling on the grooves.

  Dad? The mines claimed him and his team thirteen years ago. A slip of the ceiling. No one's fault but his own bad luck. That's what everyone said. So... how?

  Above the warning, he cleaned something that looked like an entry.

  November 17th, the coal was too frail in this section of the mine. It took everyone to The Quiet Hand's divine realm with its collapse. I can't explain it, but something awoke in me. What and how, I don't know, but the gravel avoided me.

  November 18th, I'm stranded. The ceiling closed on itself. I noticed a submerged passage at the edge of the temple, but my broken legs can't carry me through these corrosive waters. The passage seems too narrow anyway. Without food, I could perhaps become skinny enough to fit, but I'll die from thirst long before that. All I have left is praying that a rescue team finds me. The gods might answer since all eight are carved from gold and jewels. If I can bring out a handful, we'll be kings in the slums...

  Kael tightened the cloak around his shoulders with a trembling hand, tears plopping onto the entries. The cloak of a man he didn't remember. The cloak of a man who thought about his wife and son even when death and despair consumed him. The cloak of his loving dad.

  For a moment, he picked up the skull and brushed off the dust. Then, he placed it over the broken statue of the faceless god—The Quiet Hand—as if he were more important than the god himself. If only he had a candle to honor his dad's resting place...

  Instead, he spat on the statue.

  "You'd better take good care of his soul, you bastards and your cursed temples. Fuck off, gods. I've never counted on any of you. I'll get out of this hell and lift myself out of the slums you threw me in."

  His clenched fist trembled when he finished and closed his eyes. A tremor shook the temple. Then, the same deathly silence was all that answered his blasphemy.

  "Not so intimidating anymore. Thank you for your warning, Dad. But I won't need it. Mom... missed you. I hope you're together now." He wiped his tears and turned.

  He searched through the ruins for the treasure Garrick wanted. But his mind wandered to his father's second entry. Something that made the rubble evade him awoke within him... What was it, and how was it possible for rocks to bend their fall?

  People like sister Harrow told him about bishops and high priests who could perform miracles. Besides making him feel inferior without even a glance in his direction, he never believed they could. But what if it was true?

  If it was, the gods were even less deserving of his faith. Which cruel bastard made a man hope to reunite with his family, only to strand him until he died of thirst, surrounded by the riches mirroring his faith?

  The gods were cold, like the world they ruled. That's why he saw a decrepit temple.

  In disgust, he kicked a block barely balanced on the cracked bust of Theda, the martial goddess. It crashed behind its back, but the sound was off. Not stone on stone, but something like metal.

  He circled the statue. Amidst gravel and dust, a metallic glint reflected his thin face. He picked up a silvery case the size of his arm after clearing the rubble. Frowning, he lifted the two knobs and unlocked the lid.

  Inside, he found three items: a pair of dark gloves with sharp nails and diamond parts on the knuckles. There was also a curved knife. Its frame was white, while the edge seemed to absorb the surrounding light.

  The third item, he didn't know. It had a polished wooden grip, a metallic cylinder divided into six, and ended in a long pipe. What... No, it didn't matter.

  He closed the lid without even thinking about stealing one of them. They rested in grooves that would make their disappearance too obvious. Well, that, and he had nowhere to hide or sell them that wouldn't report him to the Black Cask gang in the hour.

  If only it were gold... Now, how do I leave? I felt a tremor when I cursed the gods. Should I... continue?

  "I piss on your temple." A tremor that made rubble shoot up rocked the ground.

  "You can't weave shit, Morvana." Another tremor, but this time, it barely disturbed dust.

  Kael smirked. "I deny this temple's existence. I wish everything it represents freezes in my disregard. You can't hold me. I'm returning to where Brannick is."

  The tremors intensified until the sound of shattered glass replaced silence. Kael turned to a rend in the temple's reality. One that led exactly where he wanted. Through it, he saw the two thugs firing arrows into the water. Shadowy tentacles tried to grip their ankles or to crush their skulls. Brannick blurred between them, hurling punches that created deafening shockwaves to repel the creature.

  Kael hoisted the case by its handle and rushed through the rend.

  ***

  As the rend began to close behind Kael, the depths of the temple stirred.

  Seated on a broken chair, shadows thickened around a figure. It tilted its head, then tossed a thick ledger. Its voice tore through the silence and forced reality itself to vibrate with it.

  "I watched prophets burn in light, heroes beg for borrowed flames, and angels fold their wings for smaller names. But a lad who believes in no one?"

  The ledger vanished mid-fall, and it smirked beneath the shadows.

  "A small gift to a non-believer. I'll observe you with great interest, lad."

  Unbeknownst to Kael, a fourth item materialised in the case he carried.