47: Revelation

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## Summary

### Hook, Line, Sinker

Uneasy, Luca leaves Mujie and Cat behind at the village head’s house to meet up with the rest of the party in the tunnels. But as he flies out to the woods west of the village, he hears a familiar voice: Tai, frantically beckoning him to follow her into the Elders’ Lodge. As she leads him deeper into the cultist’s stronghold, though, his suspicions grow. Despite her suggesting there’s some kind of trouble, the place appears deserted. He makes it all the way upstairs until he finds the pale-haired man tidying up a room with an ominous altar and the symbol of the Illumined burned into the floor. With Tai—or whoever it was—vanishing into thin air, Luca hops into the room as a crow to engage with the mystery man instead, still curious over his role in the ritual he witnessed through the blinds.

### Tristus, Angel of Suffering

The man is startled by the bird, but begins talking to it, as if lonely. He moves to open a window for the crow to escape, but deciding to take a different tack, Luca instead reverts to his true form. Immediately, the nameless man recognizes him from the prophecy as the Angel of Torment, Aftemelachus. Surprised to hear that Luca does not know of his own destiny, the man begins outlining their respective roles and the place they occupy in the sect’s beliefs. Realizing the depth of the cult’s brainwashing, Luca pivots the conversation and finally asks after his real name. The man tells him he has no need of a name until he becomes Tristus, but reveals that one of the hunters who knew his birth mother told him she wished to name him Vallor.

### The Escape

The two would-be angels are interrupted by Brother Phobos appearing in the doorway. After a brief introduction, he casts a powerful spell on Luca to command him to drink the Ichor of God, which Luca recognizes as Wrath. Luca resists, and takes massive damage as a result. But thinking quickly, he casts Erupting Earth, destroying the south wing of the Elders’ Lodge and raising a barrier between himself, Vallor, and Phobos. Though he pleads for Vallor to come with him and escape, the man isn’t ready to take such a leap, and Luca instead leaps through the window on his own, nabbing an ominous wooden box on his way out.

Luca makes his way back to the village head’s house, but before he can get back to Cat and Mujie, he sees two hooded figures enter ahead of him. A scuffle ensues in the house, with Cat counterspelling another use of the cult’s mind control, and Mujie commanding the other bishop to leave. Amidst the chaos, though, they notice another bad omen: the gnomon in the middle of the village has been set aflame.

While Mujie and Cat search for a hidden entrance to the tunnel system below the village, Luca runs into one of the bishops outside, who beats up on him further before he is able to meet back up with his friends. The three of them disengage and enter the tunnels from the house’s basement, intent on getting back to Tira, Bran, and Mahi beneath the village.

### You're My Dad Boogie Woogie Woogie

They manage to navigate the darkness of the tunnels below and make it back to their friends, reuniting the party after a long stretch apart. But it’s not the only reunion, with the reveal of Rhodos’s name leading to a revelation that he is Luca’s father. Having known only that Rhodos once attempted to kill him, he learns that he had his motive wrong. Rather than killing him out of malice, it would have been an attempt at mercy, knowing what his future would be under the cult’s prophecy. As hungry as he is for answers about his past, though, Luca will have to wait, because the ritual dagger he stole from the altar room has something to say to Cat.

## Quotes

#### ***THE MAN WITH NO NAME:***

> “Brother Phobos tells me that our God needs me. That I will be this flock’s salvation. That my blood is a remedy... Am I really so important? Or am I merely a tool? And for what purpose?”
>
>

*—Vallor*

#### ***SORRY, WRONG NUMBER:***

> “I have the girl.”
>
>

*—???, speaking through the ritual dagger*