Chapter 419: A Seat at the Table

The conversation went more smoothly than Ambrose had anticipated.

The merfolk high priestess had a refreshingly direct nature. She was hardly naïve; rather, she harbored no particular paranoia. She didn't look for hidden malice where logic offered a simpler explanation.

Ambrose envied that. Only someone who had rarely been deceived could develop that kind of habit.

Ambrose, for instance, had been knocked around for several centuries. If someone offered him a cup of wine, his first instinct was to wonder whether it had been poisoned.

Ariel, by contrast, was methodical and straightforward: as long as Ambrose's reasoning made sense, she wouldn't argue, and neither would she reach for the worst interpretation.

He laid out everything about Aiolos in full: his origins, his behavior that bordered on the intellectually questionable, and his uncanny attunement to the sea.

When she heard that the man was searching for a woman named Ariel to marry, the high priestess's expression darkened with undisguised anger.

"That goddess actually dares to reach into another deity's domain? She truly is unhinged."

No woman of standing would accept being taken as a bride by force. This was no tortured romance: it was a struggle between tribes and faiths, a great deal bloodier than domestic melodrama.

The high priestess had already made up her mind that, if that eyesore of a man dared utter a single word about marrying her, she would run him through with her trident and send him to the bottom of an undersea volcano.

But Ambrose was careful not to overstate his case. "I should stress that the above is inference, not fact. Aiolos has consistently claimed to be a follower of Thanos. Who the deity behind him truly is, we cannot yet say with certainty."

The high priestess shook her head. "It doesn't matter. Whoever this Aiolos serves, his actions are a disruption to the order of the sea. Ezdolo above, these waters are troubled enough as it is. And more trouble just keeps coming."

She gave Ambrose a sidelong glance.

And the worst of it all resulted from the lich sitting before her. He had forcibly expanded the ocean, and was the cause of the ensuing strife.

"There's something I've been meaning to ask," the high priestess said. "How exactly did you banish an entire kingdom?"

Ambrose smiled. "That's a rather blunt question, High Priestess. That sort of thing is a closely guarded secret."

The high priestess came directly to the point. "I hear you're rather fond of pearl dew, Master Tiga. I can gift you a personal supply and arrange an ongoing trade arrangement with the merfolk whenever you require it."

"Done," Ambrose said without hesitation.

"You didn't even ask about the price."

"Of course not. At this point, what concerns me isn't cost, but rather access. Access to pearl dew is worth more than the pearl dew itself."

The elves were already making headway into aerial trade routes, and he had opened commercial routes through several kingdoms. Even if the individual transactions ran at a loss, vast profits would flow into Ambrose's wallet.

That was why he didn't care about costs. He just wanted to secure access to more products and specialties.

He wasn't a merchant himself; rather, he constructed the network that connected potential clients to customers. They would handle the sales on their own, while he collected his cut from the middle. So long as the network maintained its monopoly, there was no scenario in which he would lose out.

After all, he had already terrorized the entire world into fearing him. He had to aim higher than being a mere merchant.

None of this meant anything to the high priestess. The merfolk tribes were numerous and powerful, and they never lacked for sustenance, but their budding commerce was still a rudimentary affair tied to barter. Explaining economics would take far too long. Ambrose tossed out the key ideas and left her to puzzle through them.

Having agreed to the deal, he didn't hold much back. He gave a reasonably full account of how the Unholy Kingdom had come to be banished.

The high priestess listened with growing astonishment. "Your friend," she said at last, "was truly remarkable. He disrupted even the plans of the lords of Hell, and was a diviner even more capable than rumored. As I understand it, the cost of banishing a kingdom is very steep. Is that accurate?"

Ambrose nodded. "The Goddess of Fate does not permit anyone to meddle freely with what is hers. My friend has ceased to exist entirely, and not a trace of him remains. That is why I do not resort to such measures lightly."

The high priestess heard what he left unsaid: when pushed past his limits, this lich was willing to be destroyed alongside his enemies rather than yield.

Diviners were so rare that no one could truly grasp the difference between Ambrose and Mr. Misfortune. The ability to sever the threads of fate was genuinely beyond him; he could only hope Harvey would grow quickly and become a weapon he could actually deploy. ℴ

But it didn't matter. As far as the world was concerned, all legendary diviners were the same. Ambrose surely possessed a considerable fraction of Mr. Misfortune's own skills.

"Master Megaman, I understand the intelligence you've brought me. This is indeed something the Goddess must be informed of. I will perform the ritual as soon as possible."

The high priestess had reached her decision. Ambrose was more dangerous than the Silent Sea Pirate Company, and more worth dealing with.

"Would it be possible," Ambrose ventured, "for me to speak directly with Goddess Ezdolo? Beyond the intelligence, there are matters I'd like to... discuss with her."

The high priestess stared at him. "Master Megaman, do you have any idea what you just said? That kind of attitude is blasphemy."

"Discuss" with a goddess? What right did any mortal have to make such a claim?

Mortals existed under the gods' dominion. The storms, lightning, the tides—all of it was created by the divine. The gulf between mortal and god was absolute.

Prayer was a humble petition for a deity's notice, not a message sent expecting a prompt reply.

This lich's attitude was deeply improper.

"Trust me," Ambrose said, "I hold every deity in the utmost respect. But I do have something important I need to discuss with Goddess Ezdolo, something that is entirely a private matter between her and myself, unrelated to the merfolk tribe."

The high priestess did not want to entertain this near-heretical request, but her mouth moved regardless. "I will relay your petition to the Goddess. Whether she chooses to grant you an audience is entirely beyond my control."

"Of course. I'll await your answer."

The private meeting concluded swiftly. Both sides had gotten what they came for, and the high priestess wasted no time. She moved straight into preparations for a large-scale ritual.

Goddess Ezdolo held to absolute neutrality. She had no taste for blood sacrifice; what she loved was the sight of life in abundance.

So the ritual was fittingly uncomplicated. The tribe's finest harvest was laid before her: the most beautifully cultivated corals, the most lushly grown sea-kelp, the fattest fish they had raised in their pools. The high priestess led the merfolk in a chorus of songs of praise.

Ambrose waited to one side, quietly marveling, "These merfolk really do sing beautifully. No wonder so many people want to capture them as slaves. If you assembled an idol group and sent them on a continental tour, you could make a fortune."

Aige drifted over, curious. "If we actually summon Ezdolo, do you think you can talk her into sharing some of her faith with me?"

Every deity, even a conceptual god, had use for faith. The God of Alchemy didn't actively solicit worship, but after the devastating blow to alchemy, if he had had a large body of believers, he wouldn't have fallen to lesser divinity quite so precipitously.

Faith was precious to any god, without exception.

Even if Ezdolo were absolute neutral, would she really consent to let Aige share in her faith?

Before, Ambrose would have put his odds at fifty-fifty at best. But having witnessed how the Lady of Mists, Leyla, became a subordinate deity under Sylvanas the Oakfather, he had developed a certain intuition for how these negotiations worked.

Faith was precious to the gods, which was precisely why they couldn't let go of it. As an enemy, he would threaten to destroy their believers; as an ally, he would explained what he could do for those believers. As long as their fundamental alignments weren't in total opposition, a transaction of faith was simply business.

And Ambrose's position had genuinely changed. He now had things to offer that even gods found difficult to refuse.

Hadn't he just helped the God of Alchemy recover from lesser to intermediate divinity? His influence on this plane had grown large enough that the gods could no longer afford to ignore him. He had earned the right to sit across the table from the gods.

Moreover, deities from every pantheon were issuing warnings about an impending divine war. The elves were moving against Loss. The oceanic gods had begun competing for faith. The wager between the Lord of Dawn and the dragon gods was approaching its final reckoning. Ezdolo was no fool. She too needed allies. Right now, she would likely be far more amenable to a partnership than usual.

At its core, faith was all just business. If Ambrose had chips worth playing, he was confident he could win the hand—and perhaps engineer a situation in which both sides came out ahead.

The only open question was whether Ezdolo would give him the chance to make his case.

The ritual continued. Aiolos, on the other hand, was growing visibly restless. He desperately wanted to tear the mask from the high priestess's face and see whether she was his wife, but he had promised Ambrose to wait, and that promise was torture to him.

Just as Aiolos's composure was unraveling entirely, a strange voice crept into his head: "Poor mortal, being played for a sea turtle, unable to see the truth in front of him... Aiolos, your father sent you here. Did he intend for you to be tricked over and over again like some fool?"

The voice was grating, sharp and jarring, like something jagged being dragged across bone, rising and falling with a feverish, erratic rhythm.

Aiolos spun around in alarm, but he could sense no one addressing him. Everyone around him seemed absorbed in the ritual; not one person had spared him a glance.

"You want to know who I am? You want to find your true wife? Then come find me. I'll tell you everything, the whole truth. And if you don't believe me, so be it. Remain the fool you are. Ha, hahaha!"

The manic laughter scraped at his nerves and left his head throbbing.

Aiolos scanned the crowd once more. No one was watching. He melded into the water and followed the direction that voice had indicated.

It didn't matter who it was. If someone could lead him to Ariel, Aiolos would try anything.

It was only after he had vanished that Aige and Ambrose turned their heads in faint puzzlement. Where had Aiolos gone all of a sudden? Had something happened?

But before they could react, the ritual seemed to bear fruit.

A shaft of divine radiance descended onto the high priestess, bathing her body in a shimmering cascade of seven colors.

A voice emerged from her lips—calm, but carrying the unmistakable weight of something vast. "As you wish, student of the God of Alchemy. I will grant you the chance to speak your case."