Chapter 47: The Cult Of Logos

“So, Penny… Do you know much about Dwarves?” Hope asked around another camp fire, sitting by a large river, they were in the last stretch of their journey before they hit dwarven territory proper.

Junior and Utarou were fishing nearby while Rhiney and Pinklia slept.

“Not much more than anyone really, live underground, they have their whole weird cult stuff, really good at making things…” Penelope shrugged as she roasted her salted fish on a stick above the fire.

“Cult?” Hope asked, cocking her head.

“Oh right, you’re from the north right?” Penelope laughed as she realized how ignorant Hope would be considering how little influence the Dwarves have past the most eastern Aurora.

Hope nodded as she chewed her fish.

“Well lemme think… They’re short… Stocky… Big beards… They are very uh, passionate I guess.” Penelope shrugged.

“Have you met one?”

“A few, before Utarou took over they were probably the only traders we got in Dracons outside of Burtcons and Lolcons.”

“Really? What happened?”

“Yep, this probably explains how Dwarves are. The old governor had made a deal with the Dwarves and not with Dracons, so when he was kicked out so was the Dwarven trade.”

“Eh? Did he tell them to stop?”

“No, the deal was to trade with his family's territory, so they just moved their trade routes to whatever tract of land he has in Lolcons.” Penelope sighed, she was quite partial to the sweets the Dwarven traders would give out when she was a kid.

“Oh… that seems… loyal I suppose.” Hope remarked, she was used to merchants being brutal when it came to profit and never honouring their word unless it came at the cost of their coin.

“Kinda, Dwarves are weird. I think it’s because of the Cult of Logos. I don’t really get it but apparently it’s all about worshipping this God of Logic. Apparently the true father of The Saviour.” Penelope explained, recalling her brief chats she had with the Dwarven trader about it.

“Heh, no wonder Adam got so serious when you said we should bring them with us.” Hope laughed meekly.

“Yep, honestly I forgot…” Penelope pouted, wondering why the old governor was allowed to get away with it.

Then she remembered the old governor absolutely did not have a Templar breathing down their necks like Utarou did.

“So what does this so-called ‘God of Logic’ say anyway that’s so different from the Saviour?” Hope asked curiously.

“They have this whole split thing. God is Logic who sent his Son to rescue us from our own passions.”

“Weird…”

“Yeah I know, but they have this whole thing where they follow promises to the letter, not more, not less. So if you have a Dwarves promise then it’s worth more than its weight in gold.”

“And let me guess, if they swear revenge it’ll last a 100 generations or more?” Hope asked with a chuckle as she looked up to the starry sky.

“So you do know about them!” Penelope laughed as she pulled her fish from the fire.

“Ah, it was just what Henrek warned me about before we left.” Hope sighed wistfully, eyes tearing up slightly. Penelope panicked and quickly tried to think of a way to change the topic when a walking pair of interruptions ran towards the camp.

“WE GOT A BIG’N!” Junior screamed as he struggled to hold the massive fish in his arms as the red skinned fish flailed around in his arms.

“Utarou! What are you doing letting him hold it!?” Hope shouted as she quickly snapped back into mother mode, grabbing the oversized fish from the boy before he hurt himself. Utarou panted as he walked up to the camp, clearly exhausted from the physical trial that was fairly standard fishing.

“He… grabbed… After… baelrgh…” Utarou panted before falling to the ground.

Penelope watched the scene unfolding, her mind drifting back to her childhood.

…

“Are we there yet?” Junior asked.

“No…” Pinklia sighed as Utarou continued spilling his guts over the edge of the shaky basket they were being carried in.

“What’s that?” Junior asked.

“Probably just a tree… again.” Pinklia groaned, it’d been a long last leg of the trip.

“It’s glowing, I think it’s-” Junior was cut off by a spear of light engulfing Rhiney’s left wing and burning the edge of the basket they were sitting in.

“C-crap! Hope what the-” Penelope shouted, losing control of Rhiney as he started to crash towards the ground. Pinklia grabbed Junior as Utarou was flung off.

“GRAB MY HAND!” Pinklia shouted, leaping out of the cart and stretching her arm towards Hope and Penelope.

Hope quickly grabbed Pinklia’s hand and snatched the flailing Penelope as she was dragged in by Pinklia, the ground quickly approaching, Utarou spiralling away as Rhiney dived directly towards the ground.

“PENNY! SHIELD!” Hope screamed as she scanned the ground, quickly spotting the attackers on the ground, she didn’t know what they were doing exactly but she saw a large tube filled with the same light being pointed at them.

Penelope stopped her flailing once she felt Pinklia’s gooey hand.

“Shield?! SHIELD!” Penelope exclaimed as she saw an explosion of light coming from below, channelling Pinklia’s magically imbued body into a shielding spell, manifesting as a pale bubble around the group that deflected the spear of light around them as they continued falling to the ground.

As this beam exploded in the sky, Utarou finally crashed into the ground, turning into a puddle before reforming with a shake of his head in the middle of a very frightened Dwarvern platoon.

“IT MUST BE A DEMON! UPDATE THY PRIORS!” A stout man with a golden braided beard shouted.

“FOR LOGOS!” The rest of the men shouted as Utarou composed himself, hearing the loud thud of Rhiney crashing on the stony cliffs just above.

“Huh?” Utarou asked as he looked around at the short angry men surrounding him, pointing their weapons at him.

They weren’t the battle axes and swords as he expected.

They were muskets.

“THE DEMON SPEAKS! UPDATE THY PRIORS!”

“FOR LOGOS!”

“What are you-” Utarou began before his head was blasted off by a blonde braid bearded boss of the platoon.

“- guys even talking about?” Utarou finished as his head regenerated.

“THE DEMON IS IMMORTAL! UPDATE THY PRIORS!” The blonde dwarf declared, flicking a switch, tossing his musket away and turning around.

“FOR LOGOS” The other men shouted, quickly joining their leader as they ran away.

Utarou watched in confusion, before noticing the same glowing light that had shot Rhiney down began to emanate from the muskets.

“Oh for fu-” Utarou began before he was engulfed in light, the explosion causing a landslide on the mountain as Utarou regenerated from nothing at the center of the crater.

The canoneering crew of Dwarves watched as the rest of Utarou’s squad fell, the shield popping and providing a safe, if uncomfortable, crash landing several hundred paces away from both Rhiney and Utarou.

“Meachin, status?” The brown bearded leader of all of these dwarves asked, speaking into a crude radio transmitter.

“Intruders be demons Sir Aitken, survived a blast to the head, some kind of regeneration. Conventional weaponry ineffective.” Meachin, the blonde bearded dwarf replied, his voice crackling through the radio’s simple speaker.

“Hmpth, priors updated. Get out of there.” Aitken growled as he shut off the radio.

“UPDATE THY PRIORS! SET THE CAMP TO EXPLODE AND WE RIDE LIKE HELL BACK TO THE FORTRESS!” Aitken shouted, turning to his cannoneering crew who quickly slammed their right fist into their open palm.

“FOR LOGOS!”

Dwarves were mysterious creatures.

Interaction with them was strictly on their terms.

Those who fell outside the established rules would find themselves dealing with one of the most suspicious, distrusting groups in Aurora.

Armed to the teeth, loyal to their brothers to a fault and fanatically finding explanations for any and all phenomena they encountered.

These were the true adherents to the Cult of Logos.