In the Royal Library......

Willian la Post, newly crowned Kind of Aqualaria, turned to his loving wife.....who looks a bit ticked.

"I suppose we're about to have another argument over religion?" Will asks innocently.

"Not....this time," Astra says, remembering that she and his husband didn't even believe in the NUMBER of gods (or goddesses) there actually were out there. She her belief was in polytheism. Will said he believed in monotheism (though how three could be one still made her head spin.......she never did understand those stupid priests of the Church......).

"But this has something closely related to it?" Will asks, guessing. "Something to do with the Oracle?" Will had always had a suspicion about clergy. Oh, he believed in a Higher power, but not always in those who delivered the Messages. The distrust stemmed from Father Rivera, who seemed bound and determined to infect everyone of his parish with the same rabid bigotry that he himself was infected with.

Even though you may be a man of God doesn't mean you're always on the side of His angels, Will quoted from one of the lessor known sayings from his friend from Gala, a man who went by the name of....Voltaire.

"Exactly!" Astra says. "Frankly, something was decidedly odd about her. Something I don't trust."

"Should we send the guards out to detain the Oracle?" Will asks, reaching for a pullrope to summon the Captain of the Watch.

"No.....to detain an Oracle.....if she is truly on a mission handed down by the gods would invite disaster on Aqualaria," Astra says, backpedaling from the very idea, aghast.

"So," Will asks. "What do you want to do about the Oracle? Just let her go on her merry way to Walants, without any hassle?"

"Actually," Astra says, looking out the window. "I was thinking more of sending someone out to check on the Temple of the Oracle. It's actually something of a religious retreat for High holidays, and this is the time that the Oracle and her prophets would have gone there." The retreat was for a whole two months of praying, meditating, and seeking the Will of the Gods.

Actually, it had been a good long while since ANYTHING....besides this unprecedented visit by the Oracle.....had been heard from that direction. With the madness of the last month and a half, it was understandable, but.......

Later, after a pale and shaking young man reports what he saw at the Temple, the dead bodies and the one body of the Oracle.....her neck cleanly broken......is causing a good approximation of hell breaking loose back at the Royal Court.

The order goes out to capture and kill the double of the Oracle, but nobody has any luck. You see, it's amazing how quickly one can move when they have a rocket bike at one's disposal. Right at this moment, the rogue AI known as Seeker is not having much luck with capturing Fred 3 and Para-Astra (Astra 3). The AI wanted to use them as a bargaining chip to get the magic users to hand over their Crystallics, so a cure for the Phage wouldn't be found.....so the impending civil war between the Company and the Military wouldn't happen after the defeat of the Enemy......

1. Meanwhile, an enraged Astra calls Walants. Duke Dredrick, tells her that the Oracle had left a while ago, hears what Astra knows, and runs out of the room, sword at the ready.....Meanwhile......

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