Chapter 42

"I'm terribly sorry, this never happened before."

"There's no need to worry. It happens sometimes. Would you like to have another one?"

Anthony had to think for a bit before answering but he managed to make it seem natural. Even he was surprised by his own acting.

"Thank you for the offer but out of consideration for your glassware, I think I'll be declining."

For Peter this interaction was enough proof that Anthony also knew that something was very wrong.

The two of them came to a silent agreement that they should prevent the others from drinking. Specifically, James.

Since whatever was wrong with the drinks didn't affect Peter, it was reasonable to assume that the other three would be fine as well.

Helen, who could have also been in danger, seemed to have caught onto something since whenever she touched her glass she immediately excused herself to the bathroom, which she blamed on an infection.

James on the other hand didn't have the luxury of knowing the future and he was already thirsty when they arrived, so he had to be distracted every so often.

There was one close call when he attempted to drink the entire bottle in one go. Fortunately, Drake also figured out what they were doing by that point and resolved the problem by copying Helen's trick and going to the bathroom kicking James' chair on his way.

After the more than a little stressful dinner, the group was shown the rooms they would be using during their stay. They decided to divide themselves so every room had an adult in it.

Helen was obviously staying with Manda and Anthony took it upon himself to look after Sarah, leaving the remaining three boys with the last room.

Before retiring for the night, however, they held an improvised meeting in one of the rooms, which started off with an apology.

"Sorry James, but it was crucial that you didn't drink the blood."

"Wait, you did it on purpose? And what blood are you talking about?!"

For those who tasted them, it was pretty obvious that their drinks had blood in them. What they had to figure out was why it was there.

Their best guess was the Siphon ability which was still a mystery. What they knew about it was its name and the implications thereof, most of which came from Sarah's contributions.

"Its name is similar to mine. However, it's a lot less specific."

"What's yours called?"

"It's called Soul Siphon."

Even though most of them already had an idea of what her ability did, it turned out to be a much grimmer than they expected.

They also had a few questions for Helen which went nowhere. Her prophecies were not as omniscient as they thought, at least not in their current circumstances.

"Why didn't you tell us there was something wrong?"

"'cause I didn't know anything either. I only saw you messing with James when he was trying to drink so I decided against doing so myself. The reverend wasn't much help either. Whatever he did, it didn't require direct action from him."

Despite them not having any actual proof, all of them had a strong feeling that something was off about the place. The messages the kids got and the bloody drinks were only a part of it. Obviously, the order being openly cult-ish didn't help but there were other problems as well.

One of which came as an extension of Peter's observation about the average power level. For an organisation that supposedly healed people with miracles, there were suspiciously few healthy, or even recovering, people around. They met only one so far and it was the high priest.

They planned to investigate in their own ways during the following days. Anthony would simply do his job and talk to people, while Helen would try to cover as much ground as possible with James in case her ability reacted to something.

The kids had the task of occupying their hosts while trying to find some physical evidence to back up their suspicions.

312.4.66.

In the morning, Peter and his roommates were woken up by the same enfeebled priestess who greeted them the previous day.

"Good morning dear guests! I have been appointed as your guide during your stay with us. I can assure you that it will be a pleasant experience."

Her mood was completely unaffected by the fact that she looked significantly worse than the day prior and Peter had a pretty good guess why that was.

[Entity class 7]

[Ability: General Enhancement]

It wasn't natural for someone to have their classification lowered overnight. As far as he knew, he was the only person capable of doing it to others and that was anything but natural.

This piece of information made it very clear what the Siphon ability did. The only question left was how it worked. It was clearly different from what him and Sarah were doing as both of them required direct contact to use their abilities and there probably wasn't enough blood in the head priest to infect more than a couple people.

He did have an idea what was used for it, but he had to see it first before declaring anything for certain.

"Thank you for your generosity! We actually had a place in mind that we would like to visit. Could you maybe show us the main chamber?"

Their guide was more than happy to show them the pride of the order so they went on their way, immediately after the three adults found excuses to not tag along. It took a little over ten minutes to reach the place they were looking for, which was an unnecessarily long time to walk through a single building but they did have to stop at every location that was even slightly important.

The main chamber was where the order did all their rituals, making it the primary reason why it was called a religion in the first place. It was a circular room that was almost empty aside from the benches used by the worshipers and in the middle there was a large stone statue of a bear with a spear impaling it through the chest. There was also a fountain of blood built into the base of the statue.

"Do you use all that blood for something or is it simply decorative?"

"It might be hard to believe, but that blood is why most of us are still alive. It is the miracle left behind by the Great Bjorn to help those in need. We all share it amongst ourselves so we can keep sharing it with the less fortunate."

It was a nice story. Unfortunately, reality was not cooperating with it. The blood indeed had something special about it. But while the priestess seemed to believe that it came out of the stone, the kids knew it's true source even though they would have liked to forget about it.

[Entity class 15]

[Ability: -]

[Star attribute: Eternity]

[Divinity: 1.00]