Chapter 296: Meeting Prelude
Seeing the person who opened the door wasn't the Temple Head Lake wanted to ask them who they were but left it to Tiff to handle since she would probably know who it was. "The Temple Head is holding a meeting in the auditorium and told me to get you two to come." Tiff nodded after what the person said and said. "Thank you."
After the brief interaction Lake guessed that person didn't have any actual importance and watched them leave with no introductions. "Are you ready to go? Sometimes meetings are kind of long so it might be a good time to go to the bathroom." Lake knew the reason Tiff was saying this was because they had been together for a while and he hadn't stopped and with him not knowing the Temple well he wouldn't know where the bathroom was but he didn't actually need to go so he said. "I'm fine."
"Alright follow me." Being led down the hallway just a few doors, Lake saw a huge room with a large number of people already sitting looking up at the Temple Head. "I'm going to sit next to Dawn, feel free to come. I'm sure she would like to say thank you to you for saving her." Lake did as Tiff suggested since it would be weird if he went to sit with random people who didn't even kind of know who he was.
"Dawn this is Lake." Lake could see Dawn had already kind of known this before Tiff's introduction because her face didn't change much. "It's nice to meet you. The Temple Head told me about how you helped save me and Tiff from the coliseum. Thank you for helping us."
Lake didn't really have much to say about this since he planned to get paid for it but it was good to be gracious when someone thanked you from the bottom of their heart so he said. "It was my pleasure. I owed the Temple a bit anyway since they kept me safe after I killed someone from the assassins guild."
He could tell by the fact that dawn didn't look as surprised as most people did when he said this that the Temple Head had probably mentioned this detail about his past with the temple while they had been talking. "So how did finding the dagger go?" Lake decided to just silently take his seat and let Tiff explain what had happened to Dawn.
...
Tiff didn't know how much time they had before the meeting started so she kept the story short. "It seems to be in the Metal Domain. We're going to be waiting for a few more days before we try again." Dawn seemed to be a little disheartened by this news and said. "It's never easy for you is it?"
If it had been just a few days ago Tiff would have just nodded to this since she had always had bad luck but with the amazing opportunity she had to receive a Legendary job from the God of Light she wasn't sure if this was entirely true anymore. She couldn't say this out loud right now though with Lake here so she just gave Dawn a small smile.
Dawn seemed to be reminded of this with nothing but the look she had given her and they both giggled a little. Looking back at Lake to see if he was watching their insertion she saw he was digging around inside the shaft of his boot with his finger. She had no idea what he was doing but she was happy he wasn't just staring at the back of her head as she talked to dawn.
...
Trying to figure out what had happened to the inside part of the boot Lake eventually guessed the friction from the constant running had destroyed the cloth inlay. It made him wonder if he had almost caused his boots to catch fire with how fast he had been moving.
He was annoyed at the fact that his gear already needed to be replaced but did find the thought of him spontaneously catching fire kind of funny. The ripped up fabric was tickling his ankles though so he knew he needed to find some new boots.
Looking at Tiff, Lake saw she was talking to Dawn about something and decided to ask about new boots later. He was sure they would have something he could wear since the first time he had come to a temple there had been a room filled with clothes. Thinking about the robes they had for guests back then, Lake wondered if he would be wearing that style of clothes again soon since he would be joining the Temple.
"Alright, thank you all for gathering so quickly. I just wanted to explain a few of our current goals and how they seem to coincide now. The situation in the Metal Domain and the search for the dagger both require that we drop the barrier that is around the Metal Domain." Lake realized that maybe lying to Tiff and saying that the Dagger had started to move all of a sudden was no longer an option.
It was too bad but at least it gave him more time to get used to how being a member of the Temple of Light could affect his life. "Since the search for the dagger was a mission given to us by the God of Light I plan to send more troops to reinforce the current group to make sure the Temple Has enough sway over the group to influence its decisions."
Thinking back to the group that was on its way to the Metal Domain, Lake was pretty sure the people from the Temple made up around 10% of its current members. This was already pretty high so he wondered what percentage the Temple Head was going for. "Any volunteers?" Lake had missed some of what the Temple Head had just said but saw a few hands near the front of the room go up so it must have been pretty convincing.
"Not as many as I would have hoped for but it's still better than nothing. The rest of you can go." Lake understood as he watched all the people walking out that these people had been the people with higher positions in the Temple by how they looked so it made sense that the Temple Head hadn't just told them what to do.
It was extremely similar to how Lucas treated the Masters of the guild. Once someone was as strong as you were it was kind of hard to tell them what to do especially if there were a lot of them. That being said he would have figured the religious aspect of this organization would have made them more willing to help than the masters of the Alchemist guild but he guessed he was wrong.
It probably had to do with the fact that if you wanted to live long enough to be old in a world like this you had to be selfish enough that you didn't end up saying yes to heading towards an unknown situation like what was happening in the Metal Domain. People still hadn't even figured out why they had attacked the Metal Domain as far as he knew which meant you didn't know what would happen once they tried to drop the barrier.
The lack of obvious high ranking Demon Worshipers in the Metal domain made it even worse in his opinion. No giants, no Demigods, just seemingly normal people and undead were what he had seen while fighting in the Metal Domain. It screamed of a sinister plot that went a lot deeper than just killing all the people that lived in the Metal Domain.
"Alright the people who decided to stay raise your hand if you wanted to ask a question because I can tell there's a lot more of you than the number that had raised your hands earlier." Seeing around ten hands go up Lake realized Tiff hadn't been wrong when she had told him to go to the bathroom before the meeting started.
He still didn't need to go but he could tell if he was someone who drank and ate a normal amount this would be a problem. "You first." Seeing the person the Temple Head had pointed at Lake remembered their face but not their name. It was the person who had come after he had accused that other guy as a traitor.
Turning and asking Tiff. "What's his name again?" Lake got a quick answer but not from her. "Ronnalis go ahead." The Temple Head clearly knew this person well because she used his name when telling him to go ahead. "Would this be a good time to talk about the Davin situation? I'm not saying right this second but everyone we need is here or was here."
Seeing the meeting had just gotten more complicated with there now being something else to talk about, Lake wondered if he even needed to be here. He wasn't actually a member and Tiff knew all the stuff he had said to her as good as he did. "Maybe later but you are right this would have been a good time to talk about it. It's too bad most of us have already left the room."
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om