Chapter 3-90: Heavenbound Hall (2/2)

It gave people the faith that they could overcome it, and the stars and sun were still out there, waiting for them...

Seeing the true sky above, however emulated it was, was still enough to make me pause and bow my head. While I had read about their Rituals, I had not realized until right this moment how oppressive the Haze was on my thoughts, and even with a Shroudborn link, it felt at this moment like some invisible weight had just burned away about me, a dreary pressure from above on body and soul that had been vaporized by that blue sky.

Hope is so strong... and it had been too long since I had seen the sun, let alone these people who had endured so many decades without it.

I wasn’t sure exactly when I started singing the Salute to Aru under the false sunlight, but the Words of Creation rose with it.

I only knew three of the Words: Hope, Truth, and Valor. It was the wrong time of day, far past Natural Renewal, and so didn’t have the true power of the Salute voiced in the morning... but with Hope, carrying up to that need for the Light, it didn’t much matter as I gave voice to the Salute and the Light and the hope it represented to all who lived...

I only had a Rank in Song at this point, so while I was a trained Singer, I wasn’t very good at it. Still, just having the Words involved gave it a ringing sincerity and yearning to it that could not be ignored, and sure, people were stopping to watch as I stood there, face to that illusory sun, and sang out to a god who could not hear me.

Hope didn’t care, and didn’t care about QL, either.

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Master Fred waited politely, listening and staring up at the fake sky of what should be, of what was only seen in this location one day a year... and perhaps not at all, or extremely rarely, anywhere else on the planet. Hundreds of millions of people had lived and died without seeing the true sky since the arrival of the Shroud...

He knew this was an illusion; Devasight made him virtually immune to illusions, with a broader ability to discern colors, ignore tricks of light, and making him immune to blinding or bright lights of any kind. Trying to emulate the sun had always seemed kind of an empty gesture, especially to Heavenbound who could see right through it.

But the Word she was working into her song was thrumming on his Heavenpact, and his Hellpact was writhing to it in distaste and hate.

It was something he rarely felt, rarely even dreamed about, washing through his ears and over his soul like a soothing balm.

Hope...

It was not that the sky was fake, an illusion, a travesty that could not possibly replicate reality enough to satisfy their eyes. It was that it represented a dream, what they wanted, what they worked for, the return of something Right. Those who had put it in place hadn’t done it out of vanity, or proof of their own power, or even for it to be believed as real.

No, they’d done it to bring Hope. To remind every single person who walked into Heavenbound Hall what they were working towards, what the whole world was yearning for.

He would never be able to look up at the false sky and not feel the Hope that it embodied again...

He smiled slightly, twisting his scarred face as usual. Of all the Virtues, Hell despised Hope the most, and it was the most beloved Virtue of the Order of the Song.

There could always be a brighter day...

The young Warlocks being trained here were staring at the ceiling just like him, Traveler’s voice carrying with clarity despite the lack of true power behind it. Not all of them were Heavenbound; the Hall trained more Citybound and Stormbound than any other place on the planet, too. A fair number of Earthbound, Landbound, and Waterbound came here for professional Warlock training and to learn how to balance morality with their obligations, too.

Michigan was firmly covered by the latter two Pacts, taking excellent care of the ecology, and the Great Lakes were fully Pacted up at all times. The Waterbound were slowly pushing out along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, to the dismay of many an uncaring polluter, while the Landbound tended to go north and secure the wilder places from abuse and exploitation... especially by the dark creatures that tried to hide there.

Earthbound were an odd choice for the area, as Michigan had no real mountains, but there were Felldeep connections in the area, and few knew that a Krysmal dwelled below the Hall and sponsored those who defended stone and earth. The Earthbound were mostly dhatun, dwarves, and gnomes with aggressive mindsets against the Evils that dwelt below.

Different powers, different mindsets. The only Element they were missing was Fire, but there were no known Good-allied creatures of Fire around, and indeed the only Firebound who came here tended to have massive chips on their shoulders and wanted to challenge those being trained here. Firebound tended to be pretty mercenary, happy as long as they got to burn something, and it was the preferred Pact for those who wanted power, but didn’t want to become Sinbound basically truly selling their souls off and earning a pre-paid bullet from any Heavenbound who saw them.

It was just a song he had heard thousands of times before, an illusion that couldn’t fool him, and Hope.

Hope was indeed powerful...