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28. Meet the pagans
🕑 Added 2025-08-30 09:14:21 +0000 UTCThe negotiations with the Norwegian sect took only three weeks. Apparently, the lynx was good at what he did, as we got permission to witness the ritual and promise of the ent creation technique.
We used this time to get some fake documents for the human sacrifice so that we could smuggle him to Norway. The entire operation cost quite a bit, but I hoped it would be worth the struggle.
So, after a busy month of juggling crime, uni life, and slowly building up my third circle, it was finally time to go to Norway.
I arrived at the airport with all my belongings tightly packed into a backpack, this time alongside my God’s idol, after I had learned my lesson in Brazil.
In place of my robe, I wore green hiking trousers, a gray flannel shirt, and good brown walking shoes, looking like a proper tourist ready for some sightseeing. However, getting to Norway proved to be much harder than I initially imagined. Not due to the airport security or some arcane world politics. No, there was another issue.
It was my lungs. My lungs were in a horrible state, on the verge of exploding for the past couple of minutes as I tried not to look at a traveling cage sitting to my side on the ground with a massive Maine Coon inside.
“Say a fucking word and I will claw out your eyes.”
“I’m not saying anything,” I said, pretty sure I was becoming red in the face.
“This is outrageous. I should travel like any other person. We could have just bought a plane seat.”
“Yes, we could have, but you would still need to be in a carrier, and you are the one who insisted that the ones that fit in the cabin are too small and insulting. So we got you this palace-like cage, and now I have to put you in a cargo hold.”
“The travel carriers were terrible. If you think I will let you stuff me in some glorified plastic bag, then you are out of your mind.”
“You wanted to go with me. You knew we had to take a plane.”
“Yes, the whole talk about messengers of God descending got me interested. And now I regret ever listening to your bullshit.” He grumbled. “Even this thing gets to travel normally,” he said, twitching his tail at the soon-to-be sacrifice standing not too far away, dully looking in front of himself.
The spell was not meant to be used continuously, and it was starting to take its effect, dulling his mind and slowly crippling motor functions. But as long as the soul was attached and not injured, I did not care.
“Well, he is human. Quite a good passenger at that–silent, calm, obedient. And the God thing is not bullshit. You will see.” I smiled. “Anyway, let's get you loaded and get it over with.”
I picked up the massive cage and made my way to the special window for loading animal cargo.
“Hello,” greeted a smiling, happy-looking woman. Her eyes quickly stopped on the massive cage and its fluffy inhabitant. No wonder she was interested, the cat was a massive black Maine Coon, beautifully groomed and well taken care of, with green eyes that had a spark of intelligence in them. Any cat lover would be interested.
“Oh my God, he’s or she's beautiful.”
“He’s.”
“What a handsome fellow, what’s his name?”
“Mr. Fluffington,” I said, not missing a beat, using every ounce of my willpower to get my face under control. I did not need extra senses to feel the eyes with burning hatred in them looking my way.
“Ohhh, Mr. Fluffington. Who's so handsome? Yes, you are.”
The woman was not making my job any easier as I had to turn my face sideways and start coughing weirdly. I needed to get away from there as I was starting to risk a Vatican investigation if the cat opened its cage and started flinging spells at me.
I quickly prepared all the documents and passed them to the woman. After my broker was loaded on the plane, I went to the boarding gate. Aside from the customary personal search I always received thanks to my aura, everything else went without a hitch.
The flight was a long one. And after around 13 hours of not enough leg room, I was in Norway, waiting for my probably very pissed off luggage.
“I will kill you,” Said the luggage the moment I got it.
“Don’t be like that, I had no choice in the matter. It’s the airline policy.”
“And Mr. Fluffington?”
“I panicked.”
“You literally can’t panic even if you tried, you Moron.”
“Ah, right, forgot about that one. Let’s get out of here so I can open that cage.”
We went out of the airport into the parking lot. The sun was slowly rising in the early hours of the morning. I could see mountains in the far distance, with a clear blue sky over them. It was going to be a beautiful day.
I opened the cage. Q’Shar looked for a second as if he was considering clawing my eyes out. But after some more thinking, he just sighed and also looked around, stopping his eyes for a second to take in the beautiful Nordic panorama.
“So what now?” I asked my companion.
“We have to get to a mountain lodge near the forest. From there, a guide sent by the village will escort us. But watch out, we came with the offer practically right after they got the oracle about the messenger. They suspect you are planning something.”
“Really? For once, I'm actually not planning anything, just here on vacation, and they have to think that it's some kind of a scheme.”
“You have to agree that it is suspicious. They get an oracle once a century, and you give them an offer for a special sacrifice right after one. That’s a big coincidence.”
“Not if you know about the veins. Hopefully, they won't cause us much trouble. I just want to see the messenger and get the ents while I’m at it.”
“Then let’s get to walking,” said the cat, and jumped onto the sleepwalking guy, using him as a mount.
We took a train to a small village next to the mountains, then a bus to an even smaller village, and from there we started walking, stopping at a tourist shelter. It would be a whole day of hiking from here to the hut. I was starting to feel the strain of holding up the spell as a headache began to surface. The man’s psyche struggled to break the spell on instinct.
The next day, we started on our way first thing in the morning to arrive at the meeting point the same day. If not for the rising headache, I would almost say that the hike was pleasant. Beautiful Norwegian forests and mountains truly relaxed the mind. The whole thing was accompanied by quite an enjoyable talk with Mr Fluffing-, I mean Q’shar. He was a very good conversation partner when not furious with me.
Around sunset, we finally arrived at the hut. It was a typical log house made for hikers to stay the night when on longer trips, now abandoned as a proper tourist shelter took its place. But we would not be staying here, I assumed, as I saw an older man with a wizard staff doubling as a walking stick get up to greet us.
The man did not stand out much. He had old, worn leather shoes and gray trousers made from some sort of natural material that didn't look very soft, giving off potato sack vibes. On his upper body, he was wearing a green jacket that ended around his thighs. The jacket was fashioned from a hide of some sort, with a pattern on it that looked a bit like tree bark.
He had a hunched back and a face frozen in a permanent scowl, as if we had just insulted his grandson. The scowl was made worse by thinning, once brown and now graying, long hair cascading to his shoulders, making him look even more like a ghost.
But one thing caught my attention. It was the staff. It was made from wood with pictograms and runes carved into it. A couple of leaves were attached at the top, creating a crown of sorts, which I realized was the arcane focus. The whole staff had a feeling like it wasn't there, you might mistake it for another tree, as if it was part of the forest, blending in even when held in someone's hand.
When we got closer, I could also smell a strong scent of earth and freshly cut pine coming from him, like I was standing next to a sawmill.
“You must be Samuel and Q’shar. And I assume that would be our gift.” He spoke in English with a strong accent.
“Correct, Mr-”
“Sune.”
“Pleasure is ours, Mr Sune. We thank you for a warm welcome,” said Q’shar in his business voice.
“What part of this was wa-” A claw to my leg stopped me from speaking, followed by a murderous gaze from my companion.
“Let me do the talking,” whispered my broker, a request I was happy to fulfill as I was not much of a conversationalist in the first place.
The man looked around and then spoke.
“You can end the spell. I will take care of him.”
I happily obliged, relieved at not having to keep the magic running and curious about the spell the old man would use. Our hostage started to groggily come out of it, looking around, his eyes gaining focus. But before he could orient himself, the man came over and, using the lower part of his staff, whacked him on the side of the head with a force I did not see coming from an old mage.
Once the future sacrifice was on the ground, one of the leaves on the staff wilted, announcing the use of a precast spell. Roots climbed from the earth, tying around the man and blocking his mouth.
“Neat,” I commented absently.
He then waved his staff at the forest, and we saw an ent lumber from the line of trees. At first, we did not notice it. Both Q’Shar and I were surprised by the creature, which initially looked like a tree and felt like a tree.
The thing was around 3 meters high, made entirely of black wood, almost coal-like, as if it had burned in a fire. I could feel an energy of death radiating from it, but only once it moved, meaning it could conceal itself as part of nature.
The creature was humanoid, without a distinct head, with two dark eyes that looked like tree hollows, making the construct look intimidating. The thing lumbered forward and lifted the future sacrifice, now in full panic mode, trying to get away or bite through the roots binding him, but to no avail.
“Ok, let’s go,” announced the man and turned around, not even looking at us to see if we were following.
I locked eyes with my broker, both of us were surprised at the presence of the ent, considering it must cost quite a bit of mana to move it around just for it to work as a carrier.
“Show of strength.” Whispered the cat.
“I got that much. I hope they show more of it because this is a bit exciting.”
“Get yourself under control. I want to leave in one piece.”
“Calm down, I’m not some battle-obsessed barbarian.”
“No, you are a magic-obsessed abyss wizard. Not sure that’s better.” After that exchange, my broker sped up his march, matching his gait with the man leading us to start some small talk. Leaving me behind.
Instead of joining the boring conversation, I locked my eyes on the ent, trying to figure out how the thing worked. I could sense distinct energies of nature and death coming off it. Those were not easy to mix. Besides its aspects used in curses, I did not know much about nature magic, so it was something new.
We walked for quite a bit, now only the moonlight lighting our way. I also noted the changes in the forest. As we walked, the woods around us changed a bit. Nature became stranger. The trees were longer and darker but also twisted into weird shapes here and there.
As we progressed, more and more signs showed. The exposed roots and tree hollows covered in moss were shaped like faces, just enough for your brain to suggest this, but not immediately obvious.
I initially thought it was done on purpose, but soon discovered the source of the strangeness. I could first sense it in the air, like the smell of pine and moss, but much stranger. It gave a feeling of ancient gloom, a spectral forest.
We were walking into a sacred land.
A place blessed by a God, where some artifact or special altar was present. The divine power permanently changed the laws around such a place. Most of those that survived through time were places where the blessing made them hard to find, changing the landscape, creating illusions, or making people trying to get to it, lose their way. No mana was needed since the land was permanently instilled with God's power, although the blessings that did not consume it were usually weaker. A permanent change to the laws of any place was costly, even for the Gods.
We approached a tree with the skull of an elk carved into it, along with some actual elk antlers stuck into the sculpture. The man placed his hand on what I assume was a small altar, and a shift occurred. It was like a pathway opening, like some wrongness correcting itself that you did not notice until it was pointed out to you, but your subconscious screamed to you about it. Some trees were in different places, but I had to look for them, like they were trying to tell me they were always there and to stop looking.
I did not even feel that my sense of direction was messed with until the shift happened. If not for our guide, finding the village in the middle of the forest would have been impossible. We would probably get lost and end up walking out of the forest sooner or later at some random point.
The blessing apparently was strong enough to even shift sound, since when it opened, I could hear drums in the distance echoing through the woods.
"The village is in celebration of our god’s blessing. A new generation of priests will be chosen," explained our guide. “Some of the younger generation insisted you participate with us, so feel free to join the festivities."
If the unwillingness in his voice did not explain what he thought about us joining the party, the ‘younger generation’, of which he was clearly not a part, made it abundantly clear.
I was curious about the whole thing, setting myself up for some good old fun with the younger generation, as they seemed pretty chill for isolated pagans.
As we exited the forest, I saw a scene I would expect in a festival in some historical drama. People were dressed simply, almost medieval, as they danced around massive bonfires.
Some just seemed to jump and sway for fun, while others moved in a much more organized manner. The ordered dancers wore elk-like masks and hides tanned to look like the bark of a tree, performing some kind of routine around the biggest bonfire in the middle. To the left were massive tables with meats, bread, cheese, and a couple of barrels of alcohol.
At the middle table sat what I assume were the village elders alongside a couple of younger people, probably their successors. The drums beat a crazy and wild rhythm, accompanied by screams of euphoria, laughter, and the sound of a roaring fire.
It was time to join the festival in the name of the Father of Ancient Trees.
