Chapter 111 – The Path of Faith Goes Wrong

It had gotten cool in the afternoon and the streets were cold.

Jace came out of the basement, accompanied by a campfire for a couple of hours slammed out into the street, a cold wind blew over him, provoking him to quickly throw his cloak over his body and wrap it tightly around him.

Saying goodbye to Ursula and Erland, who had come out with him, Jace made a point of looking at the way Erland was looking at himself to see if he was still thinking about that night.

On the surface it seemed like there was still a bit of a disconnect, but as to whether or not that counted as holding a grudge, Jess couldn’t say.

After his last experience with Gagin suddenly blocking an alleyway, he was no longer willing to jump to any conclusions.

Slipped all the way home, past the canal, thinking it would be nice to have some kind of headphones or something to listen to songs here too.

Even if you don’t have a smartphone mp3 or something, a portable music box or something like that would work, I wonder if there’s any magic to be able to play music in your own head or something.

A cloudless sky, watching the sun set a little lower into the sea, the masts of the ship’s sails standing up to split the sun into blurry pieces, like a pumpkin pie cake that’s been cut at random.

The water of the canal at his feet reflected gold and shimmered with waves.

At this time, if there was some kind of light music accompanying it, one might think of oneself as the hero of a TV series, walking through a montage of the end credits. However, listening to the sound of the water stirred up by the oars of the boat, and the high-pitched and abrupt chirping of the cold-resistant birds that flew from the garden of the mage district, there was a different kind of flavor.

Somehow, Jace felt a little lonely inside, like there was some piece of him missing.

Perhaps he had just gotten out of a bonfire, or perhaps the night scene brought back memories.

Just as he was about to find some amusement to pass the discomfort, he was seeing a round, cunty shadow sitting on the edge of the canal in front of his house, gazing likewise at the reddening sunset in the distance.

“Grady?”

The shadow jerked back at the sound of voices from this side.

“You’re finally here, I thought you didn’t even work in the afternoon?”

“There’s a party this afternoon.” Jace explained as he sat down next to Grider and said, “What brings you here?”

Grid asked, “We haven’t seen each other in almost a week or so, have we? It seems like we haven’t gotten together since we parted ways when we came back from Red Ridge Mountain. I’ve been staying at home for the past two days and haven’t gone to the Warrior’s Guild, and I feel like my arms and legs have turned limp!”

“Is it hard to believe that you’ve found another job?!” Jace felt a tightening in his neck.

Now he started to cringe when he heard Grid say something about how he had nothing to do and was planning to move his body, and gee this is an easy job, there’s money to be divided up and that sort of thing.

“Are you sure you’re physically recovered?” He asked.

“It should be fine.” Grid said, “That’s why I want to find a job to see if I’m really better, real combat will be the ultimate test of my recovery level!”

“Forget it, I’m not very good.” Jace said, “I’m preparing for the Mage District exam right now, if I pass it I’ll pretty much be reimbursed for my travel expenses, right now I’m so poor I don’t think I’ll be able to pay for the boat if I don’t pass.”

Grider sidled up to me and asked, “You spent all that money you made last time you went out to pick herbs? And hunting wolves and stuff ……”

“You go on.” Jess said, “What happened afterward?”

Grid understood what Jace was referring too, and with a dry cough said, “Alright, I’ll just have to find someone else then.”

“Right.” Jess asked, “You said you wanted to go to church last time, how about it, does the church take you?”

“Don’t mention it.” Grid said, “They wouldn’t take them, I said I wanted to join the Knights of the Silver Hand, they said they wanted priests or warriors worthy of the church’s trust, I said I wanted to become a priest, but it turns out they wanted some kind of test or something as well, saying that I didn’t believe in the Holy Light and wasn’t qualified to become a priest.”

Jess said, “It’s not like you know them well, so if you come up and say you want to become a priest, people will definitely not want to do it. By the way, taking a step back, do you believe in holy light or not?”

“So how does one come to believe in the Holy Light?” Grider snapped. This now stumped Jace, how does one count as believing in the Holy Light?

“Don’t you know quite a bit about the Church of the Holy Light? What was it you told me last time, that the Church makes torches with divine power for the cemetery at Raven Ridge, I’ve never even heard of the Church of the Holy Light making torches for the catacombs.”

Grid explained, “That’s all hearsay, I was only introduced to the Church of the Holy Light in Southsea Town, which has some graveyards that are almost as bright as those torches in Raven Ridge. There aren’t many believers in the Holy Light on Eagle’s Nest Mountain, and even for many dwarves who never leave Sintran, the Holy Light is a novelty only since the Orc Wars.”

Jace hesitated for a moment and asked, “Do you believe that the holy light can guide your life …… For example, if you do evil things the holy light will punish you, and if you do good things, the holy light will answer your call in times of trouble or something.”

“I’m not sure which counts and which doesn’t.” Grider said, “For example, does that time at Sentinel Ridge count as the Holy Light coming down? That wagon, it was full of church people. I’ve never felt holy light that real since I was in Southsea Town when people told me what it was.”

Jess asked, “Isn’t that just fine, you didn’t talk to the church people about this?”

“I said that.” Grider said, “But that priest said that the only time the holy light brings benefits is when believing in that is using the holy light, not true piety, and that you can’t become a priest that way.”

“Troublesome enough.” Jace scratched his head and said, “Guess it’s just that the people of that church are prejudiced against you Barbarian Hammer Dwarves.”

“On what …… grounds,” muttered Grider in a low voice.

Jace also knew that it was indeed quite difficult to join the Knights of the Silver Hand before the Celestial Plague invasion.

All members of the Silver Hand are either brave priests, pious warriors or noble knights.

It wasn’t until the time of the outbreak of the Celestial War that the Silver Hand began to massively recruit ordinary soldiers and knights, allowing them to join the Church to become paladins and fight the undead legions that were about to sweep through the entirety of Lordaeron in the name of holy light, which ushered in the explosion of the number of paladins across the entire alliance.

It wasn’t really that hard to convert a warrior who previously had no feelings for the Holy Light to the Holy Light faith at that point.

Facing a mountain of skeletons and zombies, facing a moment of deadly despair, a true paladin with a glittering golden blade and warhammer stands between you and absolute terror while shouting for the sake of the Holy Light, sweeping away countless evils with a single blow, and no matter how much you used to dislike the Holy Light, you have to believe it.

A gladiator like Greed would have had little chance of being rejected to join the Silver Hand during the time of the Celestial Invasion, but now, it’s much more difficult.