26

After the unexpected meeting with the Emperor, Dax found that the level of security that he was surrounded with had noticeably increased. There weren't just the one or two guards at the gate anymore. Every time he tried to get a moment to himself to just be alone and maybe try to get some more information out of the System someone would find him and hover around in the background.

He hadn't thought that he would find the orb more appealing to talk to than an actual person until now.

It seemed that no-one could hear System speak or see it flying around with him but that didn't mean that Dax wanted Dythos to be misunderstood as talking to invisible things either.

People already seemed to think that he was crazy.

Being followed everywhere was definitely starting to become annoying fast. Dax could understand that they wanted to be supportive and to keep an eye on him because he was so weak right now. He also understood that the previous owner of the body he was inhabiting had been killed by something and that it was tantamount to a miracle that here he was walking around again in the land of the living. That didn't stop people watching him eat bread, sleep on couch cushions on the dusty floor of a large salon and struggle to make his way around this palatial home without stopping to take rests so as not to black out, feeling intrusive though.

'If they are going to be here,' he thought 'they might as well do something actually helpful.'

No matter how he tried to talk to the guards or engage them in helping him complete tasks he wasn't currently strong enough to do on his own, they just stood and watched Dax struggle. Adapting to this new life with a body he couldn't trust not to pass out at any given moment was stressful. 

He silently observed them too now, when they thought that he was no longer looking at them.

This was weird.

Presumably they were reporting back to someone. Probably the Emperor, considering that they had appeared after Dax's meeting with them. There wasn't a lot for them to say, Dax felt as weak as a newborn lamb and their presence in his life was making him uncomfortable.

He wasn't doing anything wrong but every way he turned there was a guard watching him and it made him feel like he was going to get in trouble for something.

Right now, as he slipped on the polished marble floor of a now somewhat familiar corridor Dax was feeling pretty pissed off. Surely, if you really cared about someone you would want to ensure that their house was safe for them to be in when they had suffered a life changing injury.

As he hit the floor again and glared resentfully at the guard who was barely paying attention to him laying on the cold hard surface and kicking his legs wildly in frustration Dax decided that he had, had enough.

It was time to make a daring escape.

He sprang to his feet with new found energy given to him by his anger, determined to break out of the routine that he had found himself trapped in.

Dax put on a big show of being tired, yawning dramatically and alternating between squinting and rubbing his eyes for several minutes before declaring loudly that he wanted to go to bed.

He still hadn't found an actual bed yet. The palace had so many rooms he hadn't even seen yet. It had multiple floors he hadn't seen yet.

He used his ruse to get rid of the guard. Apparently they had decided that watching him sleep wasn't necessary anymore.

Having someone watch you whilst you were asleep was incredibly creepy.

Dax then shimmied open the large wooden sash window of the salon that he was currently using as a place to sleep. It was heavy but didn't stick as he had worried it might do. Some of the paint flaked off of the timber as he did so but Dax swept it into the corner with his foot along with all the other dust.

Using an overly ornate looking green velvet sofa or maybe chaise longue as a footstool he climbed up to the windowsill and escaped out into the night.

The garden was dark, lit only by small lanterns and the golden glow of several abnormally large moths sitting on the plethora of open camellia blossoms. As he crouched between two of the densely flowering shrubs, trying to regain his breath and plan on how to get out of here without being seen or disturbing the moths, Dax really wished that he had his phone with him to take a picture.

As far as he knew, he'd couldn't have been here for less than three weeks and this was the first time that he had truly had the luxury of taking a look around. After moving in he hadn't been physically strong enough to do more than look through a few rooms on the ground floor and walk to and from the gate to get his food delivery and recently there had been the constant monitoring.

Even then, he was still relying on being able to rest every few steps.

Dax didn't want people thinking that Dythos didn't know his way around his own home. The System and he had talked about it extensively. It was better for people to think that he had forgotten people and events rather than his entire job as a God. Dax had tried to sweet talk a map of the palace out of the AI 'helper' and it had refused stating that it thought that was cheating.

"Cheating will result in a fine of 100 points." It helpfully had informed him. Right now he didn't have many points to lose but the upgrades that he was saving for were vital in being able to not be murdered by a cantankerous glowing floating orb.

It would be best not to invoke its anger.

So they were taking priority.

Right now he had the chance to actually see what this palace had to offer. A building this large had to have a lot of interesting rooms, after all the entrance hall was a dedicated personal bread museum. Who knew, maybe there was an illicit butter knife museum in here somewhere?

Dax finally felt ready to set out from his uncomfortable position between the two flowering shrubs and carefully squeezed beneath them. The cloud of glowing moths he had been worried about creating didn't happen, they were too busy feeding to notice being gently jostled.

Dax walked slowly around the right side of the palace, marvelling at the sheer amount of flowers that had been squashed into the garden and cursing whoever had decided that gravel should be what the path was made from. It crunched beneath his feet in a way that seemed like it might have a vendetta against him.

There were countless windows at the gable end of the palace but eventually he found one that was easy to open from the outside and close enough to the ground that he could actually climb in there.

Pulling himself up into a window and climbing out of a window were both difficult but at least this time there was a plush carpet for him to land on, on the other side. It was a lot more comfortable to fall onto than pea gravel.

~

The next few... hours were spent walking in and out of various boring rooms and leaning on dusty formal furniture until he found a locked door.

"Potential plot development found." System chimed adding more points to his growing pile. It wouldn't be long before he could finally make a purchase and make his life here a little easier. The door itself was a heavy dark wood and although it had glass panels inset into it they were made from frosted stained glass, so he was unable to see through them into the space beyond.

'How very convenient.' Dax thought as he attempted to peer through the glass.

"What is it?" He asked System, incredibly curious as to what lay beyond the locked door.

"This door leads to the Prayer Processing Office. All prayers to Dythos God of Wheat are reviewed here." System explained as it hovered close to the door. The light from the orb illuminating the coloured pieces of glass revealing that it was a complex design of wheat swaying in a field.

"There is a room specifically for that?" Dax asked, amazed. He hadn't thought about what prayers actually looked like yet or how he was even going to try to answer them. Though thinking about the sheer amount of rooms this palace had it made sense he supposed. "Can we get back in?"

"As the lock on the door is attuned to Dythos the Wheat God you should be able to open it" The orb explained, shining its light upon the door handle in question.

Dax grabbed it and attempted to turn it more firmly than before, the handle rattled but it remained stubbornly closed.

"Your god powers are very low, you might have to remain in contact with the door handle for a prolonged amount of time." System explained.

Dax sighed, nothing was ever easy.

So he stood there for... an hour. Testing whether or not it had opened yet every few minutes trying not to lose his mind from boredom as he waited. It felt like time was inching along at the pace of a tired snail. His feet were starting to hurt by the time something happened.

Eventually though, the prolonged contact with the door handle actually did something and Dax turned it excitedly.

Once the handle was turned the door practically exploded open. The sheer pressure of papers building up behind it almost knocked Dax off of his feet, pushing him backwards several metres. They spilled out in a tidal wave across the floor of the corridor and into an adjoining room. By the time the movement stopped Dax was up to his mid-calf in papers, scrolls and letters.

He picked up one of the many scrolls from the floor, unrolling it gently not wanting to accidentally rip it. So many of the papers looked like they would disintegrate if even something so small as one of the moths from the garden landed on it. Despite not being the person that the prayers had been made to originally, Dax could feel the reverence that needed to be taken with them instinctively, not treating the prayers of people that had at least believed in Dythos at some point in their lives well felt like a crime.

He was inhabiting his body and he owed the God the respect of treating his believers and their prayers well. It would be both embarrassing and shameful if they were ever to meet one day and he had to answer for damaging the prayers.

Now was not the time to be clumsy.

Written in blue ink on the prayer scroll he had lifted from the pile were the words, 'Please don't die.' and it was signed 'Elgaldir' in a large looping hand that made it almost impossible to read in the dim light. He wondered who this Elgaldir was and what their message meant.

The rustling of the papers falling out of the prayer room finally silenced as they reached a new equilibrium. It was easy to see now that the room was completely packed with papers.

Completely packed with prayers.

From ceiling to floor and wall to wall, the entirety of the space was one crammed with the prayers of believers. So densely were they stuffed into that space that they had formed a texture almost as strong as the wood that they had once been made from. Dax brushed his left hand gently over the papers jutting out of the solid mass at odd angles and another mass of them fell out onto the floor fanning in every direction as if they were relieved to be out of there.

They were prayers that had gone unanswered.

If Dythos was a God that had been forgotten, it had obviously taken a long time for that to happen.

The sound of someone clearing their throat behind him caught him so off guard that he jumped and fell against the papers causing more of them to rain down on the floor. The light of the System disappeared and was replaced by the lantern light of a being behind him. Dax stifled a scream in his throat, knowing that that would only bring more unwanted attention.

He tried to shove whoever it was back but their body was the body of a martial deity and he was no match for them in strength nor size.

In the dim light Dax could see that they were trying to get closer to him but were taking extreme caution so as to not touch the piles of scattered prayers covering the floor.

"Only Dythos or deities that belong to Dythos' household can touch his prayers." System supplied before Dax could even think about how he was going to word his question to it. "There's a big taboo about it actually." The A.I finished using the tone of someone talking about celebrity gossip.

The tip-toeing deity offered him a bag. Dax looked at it and started stuffing the papers into it as gently as he was able to whilst also doing it quickly. Despite its small size, it held considerably more papers than you would think it would be able to by looking at its outer dimensions.

It did not however weigh less than you thought it would so Dax left it to the unknown martial deity to carry it with them as the two attempted to force the door to the Prayer Processing Office closed once more.

Cleaning finally completed, Dax was escorted back to his room by the stranger who placed the odd bag in the centre of the salon he was sleeping in currently.

Dax laid in his nest of cushions on the floor and fell asleep almost immediately.

The stranger turned to leave but one of the scrolls had fallen out of the bag. Seconds passed slowly as they stared at it, seeming to wrestle with themselves before they knelt down and picked it up.

It unrolled.

Written on it in large looping blue letters were the words 'Please don't die!' beneath which was the signature of the God of War.

Mini Theatre

System: Author are you okay?

Author: No word of a lie, it took me twelve hours to edit this one chapter. It had 576 words when I first opened it.

System: Maybe you should take a break?

Author: I'm fine. It'll be fine. I'll edit it all before NaNoWriMo2022. *laughs* (A/n: That did not happen. I finished editing this chapter on 31/7/23)

System: ...