I spoke up before anyone else had a chance to.

  “Arianna, I didn’t tell you because this is, as you might imagine, a rather touchy subject. Order summoning a Champion for the first time in Trial history has rather obviously seismic consequences for the future of Axius, and it’s no secret most of the world hates my patron deity. Just wanted to get a better read of your character before divulging. Before you ask, yes Richard knew. I told him after we delved our last dungeon together.”

  I turned to face Yashas, who was giving me a very mixed expression.

  “Same deal with you. Though I’ll remind you it was you who jumped to the conclusion that Aerion was Order’s Champion. An understandable mistake considering she’s an elf… Or it would be were you anyone else. Honestly, I was a little shocked you got it wrong.”

  Yashas looked like he’d just swallowed a lemon. “Yes, well,” he said with a face full of anguish. “I pay a cost every time I wish to access the information broker that comes with my ability. You can understand why I would use such a thing sparingly.”

  “And I hope you can understand my caution, given how much you knew about everything,” I said. “I needed to ascertain whether you were the sort of person who could be trusted not to blab this secret to the world.”

  “And were I to,” Yashas said with a frown, “I would have ‘blabbed’ a lie. Clever, I must admit, though your acting skills could certainly use some work. I began to suspect quite some time ago, though I only became sure on our ride back. No one, aside from a Champion, could possess such powers.”

  I glanced over to Arianna, who was playing with her fork pensively. “I suppose this does explain your incredible proficiency earlier. Though if you are the Champion, it means that Aerion is of Axius? I admit this is nearly as shocking to accept, considering how much she knows of our world.”

  “Aerion’s something of a genius,” I said, earning me a footstomp under the table by my significant other, who was throwing me the ‘Stop it!’ look with an angelic smile... which only made it more terrifying.

  I shot back a ‘What? It’s true’ look and kept on talking anyway. Because I was a masochist. And because nothing in any world gave me more pleasure than boasting about my elf. Well, maybe aside from watching her ears blush—and oh were they blushing now. “She’s incredibly curious about anything technological, and learns shockingly fast.”

  “I’ll say,” Richard said with a chuckle as Aerion did her best approximation of a bird burying her head in her chest.

  “And you were in on this charade,” Yashas stated accusatorily, turning to Richard, who raised an open palm.

  “You’ll not catch me betraying my mates!”

  “Ordinarily, I would find your loyalty admirable,” Yashas muttered, rubbing his temples like he was nursing the mother of all headaches. “Though with Greg's rather pathetic acting skills, I wonder how long you could have kept the deception going, even if I chose to ignore it. And I would not have ignored something as critical as this. Had you not said something today, I would have.”

  I shrugged. “Didn’t need to keep it up. Not in the company of such fine people. Arianna? Yashas? I formally apologize for keeping our identities a secret.”

  I delivered my line with a bow of my head as was the local custom.

  “As do I,” Aerion replied, mimicking my gesture.

  “We had our reasons—justified reasons—but I still feel bad about it,” I said.

  “As you should,” Arianna scolded. “It is not a good feeling risking one’s life beside a group of liars.”

  The room went silent for a moment before she spoke again. “I have experienced too much of that in my life. It is… a sore topic for me.”

  “Well, we apologize again,” I said, meeting her eyes. “And now you know.”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “Now we know.”

  “But one thing still bothers me,” Yashas said, running a finger across his lips in thought. “If Aerion is not the Champion, then who is she? And how does she boast powers on par with one? Furthermore, what exactly are your powers, Greg?”

  I sighed. This was gonna be a long conversation…

  — —

  In hindsight, I suppose I should’ve anticipated that learning I could bless living beings and imbue objects with souls would come as more of a shock to the Champions than learning of my identity.

  “You are telling me you bear the very same ability that the gods possess!?” Yashas cried in disbelief.

  Arianna shook her head. “Vigor never gave me any choices. Let alone penalties to gain rarer Blessings. I can’t even see what rarity mine is. If it even has one.”

  “Nor I.” Yashas scowled. Not at me, but off into the distance, at the Tokyo skyline. “The question to me is why Greg’s summoning experience was so markedly different from ours. I take it Passion did not grant you a choice either, Richard?”

  “Choice?” Richard scoffed. “Mate, she changed my race without my consultation. Did you think I wished for these silly things!?” he said, gesturing to his ears. Then his eyes widened and he glanced sheepishly at Aerion. “My apologies, Aerion. I did not mean to offend.”

  Aerion just shook her head, giving him a small smile. We both knew the Brit far too well to be offended by something like that.

  “Jokes aside, I’m as lost about that as you,” I said. “Furthermore, Cosmo—that’s what he likes to be called—actually gave me the choice of whether I even wanted to be a Champion. At the time, I thought it was Catch 22. That it wasn’t really a choice, but now, I feel like it was. He said he’d wipe my memories and I could go back to the person I was.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Richard snorted. “Never got that option, that’s for bloody well sure. Wouldn’t have signed up if that were the case.”

  Aerion glanced at me when I didn’t say anymore, but I squeezed her hand under the table. The topic of going back home was at the tip of my tongue, but one look at Richard shut me down. I couldn’t do that to the guy. While I might have decided to believe Cosmo, I had no real proof, and I couldn’t reasonably bring it up until I did.

  “I can’t explain any of these things. Maybe Cosmo really is stronger than the other gods. Or maybe not having summoned a Champion all this time gives him some leeway—I have no idea how it’s all supposed to work. But I do know something else that will blow your socks off. Something that cannot leave the confines of this table.”

  I wouldn’t even have thought to bring it up if I wasn’t pretty dang sure that the gods couldn’t just spy on us as they pleased. At least not outside Trials, which they’d built themselves.

  “My lips are sealed, mate. You know that.”

  I nodded. “I do.”

  He’d kept my secret. My trust in Richard was absolute.

  Yashas glanced at Arianna. “Given that we’ve only recently met, I assume you mean to keep this a secret from our patron deities?” he asked.

  “Yes. I’m also asking that you keep who I am a secret. They probably already know, but I don’t want this leaking out to the public.”

  “Very well,” Yashas said, but Arianna wasn’t so willing.

  “I’m afraid I cannot agree to this,” Arianna said, shaking her head. “If it means endangering Axius, or jeopardizing our return, I must discuss this with Vigor. If that is not acceptable, I will step away from the table.”

  “If it doesn’t threaten any of those things, will you agree to keep it a secret?” I asked.

  Arianna thought it over a moment before nodding. “I will. You have my word on this. Which, I admit, may not be worth much considering how short a time we’ve known one another, but I take my word seriously.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” I replied, looking to Aerion, who nodded, having already guessed where I was going with this. “Well then, without further ado… That bit about Order not summoning Champions? Yeah, that’s a lie. As far as I can tell, he’s summoned one every cycle.”

  This time, the silence was almost deafening. Or it was, until Richard dropped his fork…

  “That’s not possible…” Arianna muttered at last. “It is well known that Order does not summon Champions.”

  “He told you this?” Yashas asked, clasping his fingers above his plate. A plate he hadn’t even touched, much like the others.

  I rectified that by taking a forkful as I met every Champion’s eye,

  Richard cleared his throat “Greg? How come you’ve never told me this?”

  “It’s a recent thing. And no,” I said, turning to Yashas. “Cosmo is oddly careful about what he tells me. He didn’t tell me why he’d summoned me. Outright refused to. Didn’t even say I was his Champion.”

  “What?” Arianna asked, giving me an incredulous look. “How could he not have told you?”

  I shrugged. “At first, I thought he was just fucking with me. And while he definitely does that from time to time, I learned it was much more likely that he couldn’t. Certain information—especially conclusions I come to myself—he can confirm or deny, though even that’s usually subtle.”

  “As though bound by some restriction…” Yashas trailed off. “How interesting. I’ve noticed nothing of the sort from Cunning.”

  “Nor I from Vigor,” Arianna said.

  “Or I,” Richard added.

  “Right, which is what makes this all so weird,” I said. “Anyway, this isn’t something he told me, but rather something I found… In the dungeon I delved with Richard.”

  I brought out Galia from my inventory, who squawked and spread her wings.

  “Bloody hell,” Richard said, gawking at the little creature in awe. “Is that a phoenix!?”

  Galia immediately noticed, of course, preening under the attention, completely unaware that Richard had no soul crystals to give her.

  “Oh that's right, you were unconscious at the time,” I said with a chuckle.

  “Richard, meet Galia,” I said, to which she cooed, looking up at me expectantly. “She started life as Rocky. An egg, technically, that looked like a rock. We found it in the gullet of that Ice Leviathan you almost died to, Richard.”

  “Right. That thing,” Richard said, wringing his wrists. “Scared me half to death, that did. But this is all rather unbelievable.”

  “Oh, and she's a Champion,” I added. “From a past cycle, of course.”

  Their reactions were everything I expected it to be, and the penthouse erupted in a torrent of questions and disbelieving remarks.

  “I do not understand,” Arianna said after things had calmed down a bit, eyeing the little phoenix with deep suspicion, which Galia bristled at. “You found this in a Dungeon? Not a Trial?”

  “Sure did,” I said. “You can imagine my surprise when my power read it as a Champion of Order. The 423rd, though Cosmo casually let slip that he’s up to the 4,700-something by now.”

  While Richard looked incredulous and Arianna pensive, Yashas was rubbing his temples looking like he had the worst migraine imaginable.

  Which, to be honest, was the correct response. The implications of what I’d just revealed hadn’t sunk in for the other two. If it had, they’d have had a similar reaction.

  “Let me try to understand,” Yashas said, frowning with his eyes closed like he was fighting back a migraine. “Because it seems as though my knowledge of Axius, the gods, and everything else has simply broken.”

  “What do you mean?” Arianna asked.

  “I mean that Order has been summoning rocks for millennia,” he continued. “Rocks that his Champion, Greg, can somehow Bless, hatching them into divine creatures.”

  “Just one, mate,” Richard said. “And what a cute little bugger she is, eh?” Richard said, looking very much like he wanted to pet her.

  I wasn’t about to make that mistake, however. She’d absolutely burst into flames to impress him, ruining our meals and the table, if not setting the whole damn penthouse ablaze.

  “No, not just one,” Yashas said hoarsely. “Nearly five thousand of them. And while Greg might not find them all… surely you understand?”

  Understand they did, and the looks of awe and horror on their faces almost made me laugh.

  “Before you all go and get ideas, there are some pretty severe limitations to this. Initializing Galia cost a third of my Essence and it took a month for her to hatch. Besides which, I haven’t come across a single other egg so far.”

  “Still, mate,” Richard said, growing excited. “You could build yourself a whole group if you found just a few more!”

  “If not an army,” Arianna said. “This… is excellent news, I think. With this many Champions, we will be able to vanquish the Archon once and for all. Perhaps this is why the Axians prophesize the summoning of Order’s Champion so?”

  Now that was a thought I hadn’t considered. Undoubtedly, the other gods knew what Order was up to. Maybe this was even part of their grand plan to end the Archon. It’d make sense for them to seed prophecies and myths surrounding the coming of this event in that case.

  But then why was Cosmo so cagey about everything? Why not herald the summoning of Order’s Champion with a ton of fanfare and celebration?

  Not that I was complaining. I hated that shit.

  “Anyway, now you all know my big, dirty secret. Arianna?”

  The Brazilian nodded. “Your secret is safe with me. I very much doubt any of this is unknown to Vigor, however I will keep this information to myself unless it becomes necessary to divulge at some point.”

  “Works for me,” I said, looking at Yashas, who dismissed my concern.

  “I have already given you my word, and I intend to honor it. Like Arianna, promises mean a great deal in my culture.” The Champion chuckled. “Though I fear my reputation as a knower of things has been quite thoroughly destroyed. To think I had not learned of any of this…”

  “That just means Aerion and I did our jobs,” I said with a grin, flashing him a thumbsup.

  “Now, with all that said, there is somewhere I need to go. A place Cosmo showed me in one of our meetings. It’s probably nothing, but it’s on the way to where the skellies are keeping the shield up, so I’d like to make a quick detour, if that’s alright?”

  Yashas nodded. “I see no reason we cannot. Especially since your deity seems to be so full of secrets. Now, it has been a long several days and our food grows cold. Let us eat, rest, and then, we may discuss our plan.