“Here you go,” Sholto, the High Priest of Destarious’ temple in Eldingholt said as he placed a pair of sparkling silver underwear on the table in front of Jay. “Your new underwear, as requested.”
Jadis, Eir, and Noct all stared at the shiny briefs that the orange-haired goblin had set before them. Then, as one, they looked up at the priest, who was in the process of picking his ear.
“You… why are you giving these?” Jay finally asked.
“Because you asked for them,” Sholto looked at her like she had just dumped a few braincells out of her nose. “Don’t you want them?”
“Do I want them?” Dys exclaid as she gestured at the weirdly shimring underpants. “I an… why!?”
“Well, if our Lord Destarious didn’t inform you as to their use, I don’t believe that I should overstep my boundaries,” the small goblin said as he shrugged nonchalantly while flicking wax off of his finger. However, when he saw the looks on Jadis’ faces, he sat up straighter. “But I suppose a brief explanation is in order.”
“Pun?” Noct asked abruptly, interrupting the high priest.
“Hm? Oh, ah, no. But I’ll take responsibility for the verbal treachery.”
The Valravn nodded her head seriously, as though Sholto had just accepted ownership of so dire fault but otherwise leaned back and let the conversation proceed.
“…right,” Jay said slowly before turning her attention back onto Sholto. “So, what exactly is the point of giving a pair of shiny underwear?”
“This is not just shiny underwear,” the goblin said with mock offense. “This is a sacred relic of our temple! Passed down through generations of priests that date back to before the Alfhilderunn Empire was founded! This pair of undergarnts is one of the most holy objects of our entire faith!”
“…underwear is one of your sacred relics?”
“Don’t act as though it is any stranger than so of the other relics held in places of high honor in the other temples,” Sholto snapped. “Has Lady Eir here ever told you about Lyssandria’s Holy Wand of Relaxation?”
“That is a topic for another day,” Eir quickly interjected. “Please, High Priest Sholto, what is the purpose of this holy relic you have so graciously provided to us?”
The orange-haired goblin gave them all a suspicious glare, but after a few seconds, he motioned with one hand towards the undergarnts.
“These are Borvo’s Pantaloons. Do you rember who Borvo was from your history lessons, Saint Eir?”
“I… believe you are referring to one of the companions to one of the Heroes from several thousand years ago,” the elf replied hesitantly. “Saint Borvo the Openhanded was a mighty healer, and there are many relics from his ti that have survived even to this day. I’m sorry, I do not rember the specific Hero or cycle, but Borvo is still revered by so who follow Destarious to this day.”
“Lugh,” Noct spoke up. “Lingones.”
“That’s right,” Sholto nodded first at the elf, then at the dark-haired woman. “Lugh was the Hero from the invasion of nine-hundred and thirty B.A. as the modern calendar would count the years. Saint Borvo was his healer. You may have heard of the Sacred Healing Springs of Lingones. Borvo was the saint who blessed those waters and gave them their purported power.”
“So, he was a saint who fought beside a Hero nad Lugh?” Jay summarized as she extended a finger out to poke at the sparkling bloors. “And these are his old drawers?”
“Wrong!” Sholto pronounced as he slapped Jay’s finger away. “Borvo was a fraud! He wasn’t a saint and he had no healing powers at all!”
“What?” Jadis blinked in confusion.
“High Priest Sholto, what you are saying doesn’t make any sense,” Eir said with deep concern lining her beautiful features. “Are you making the claim that Borvo was not a companion to a Hero?”
“Not at all,” Sholto grinned toothily at her. “He was Lugh’s companion all right. He just wasn’t a saint or a healer. Borvo was already past CLR sixty when he joined up with Lugh and beca his companion. His primary class was High-Stakes Gambler, and his secondary was Crafty Craftsman. He didn’t have a single healing skill or spell. Ever.”
“That… that is preposterous!” Eir cried out, utterly aghast at what the goblin was saying. “He must have been a saint! His class would have been verified as a companion to the Hero Lugh, never mind the rarity of a Saint! Even if he was sohow not confird, how could he have blessed the springs in Lingones if he was not a saint capable of greater rituals?”
“Because of these underpants,” Sholto stated smugly as he held the pantaloons up by their waistband.
“Look,” Jay said after staring at the goblin for a long, long while. “I know you’re having fun here, Sholto, but I’ve had a really long day today and I still need to fly a couple of thousand miles tonight before I can get to bed. Can you please just clearly explain whatever it is that’s going on with Saint Bordo and his special underwear?”
“It’s Borvo,” Sholto scowled, “and you’re being a wet blanket, you know that?”
“Yes, I know, but I’m trying really hard not to shove those things up your nose right now, so can you cut a break?”
“Fine,” Sholto huffed before tossing the pantaloons at Jay. “Try those on and you’ll see what I an.”
Jay frowned as she held the sparkly undergarnts up between pinched fingers. They were shiny, silky, and obviously ant for soone a lot smaller than she was. In fact, Jadis wasn’t sure the non-elastic waistband of the holy pantaloons was wide enough to fit around just one of her thighs. Borvo had clearly not been a big man.
“How—”
“You don’t have to fit them over your giant pale arse,” the goblin said as he impatiently rotated his wrist. “Put it on your arm. Or better yet, put them on your head. That’ll be interesting.”
Still frowning, Jay slowly slid the garnt over her left arm so that her wrist was sticking out one of the leg holes. As soon as she had, the silvery material of the pantaloons glowed with an unnatural light, causing Eir to gasp and Noct to scoot away. Before their eyes, the underwear shifted and folded in on itself, changing both color and texture, until after only a few seconds, it no longer looked like underwear at all. Instead, it had beco—
“Is that a garter belt?” Syd exclaid as she leaned over her other self’s shoulder.
“I… have no idea what a garter belt is,” Sholto comnted as he examined the black lacy item that was resting on Jay’s wrist. “But if it is so foreign type of underwear, then yes, that is exactly what it is.”
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“So, let get this straight,” Dys said slowly. “The holy relic of Borvo is a pair of underwear that can change its shape?”
“That’s not all that it does,” Sholto said as he plucked at the matching garters that dangled from the main belt. “Borvo’s Pantaloons are a product of divine inspiration. The tertiary class he gained when he beca Lugh’s companion enabled Borvo to craft wondrous enchantnts, many of which are hidden in plain view throughout the empire and kingdoms beyond to this day. This underwear is one of his greatest creations, and is also the most hidden, as its existence is a secret passed down from one high priest to another since Borvo passed away.
“These garnts are capable of completely changing what classes and skills you appear to have to any outside observers. Detect stones, identification spells, rituals, even the skills of the highest CLR individuals known to history are incapable of piercing the illusion that these pantaloons place upon the wearer. That is why Borvo is known as a saint. To anyone with the ability to check his class, that is what they would have seen. ‘Saint of the Openhand.’ Along with appropriate primary and secondary classes, of course. With these pantaloons, one can appear to be any class you want.”
“Why would Borvo even need an item that can do that?” Jay questioned as she took the garter belt off her wrist. It did not transform back into silvery underwear but instead remained black and lacy. “Is that really even all that important?”
“Oh, my understanding is that there was quite a bit of political brouhaha going on at the ti, to the point that assassination attempts were being made by so of the different kingdoms against Lugh’s companions. For the safety of the actual healer of the group, Sir Duncan the Red, Borvo pretended to be a saint and a healer so that he would targeted instead.”
Pausing for a mont, the goblin priest gave Jay a knowing look.
“I assure you, the infighting between the princes of our little empire isn’t anything new to this world.”
“Alright, so, they’re magical underpants that can obscure your class information,” Jay summarized as she put the garter belt back on her wrist. “…why underwear?”
“Because underwear is the least likely thing to be removed during a search,” Sholto shrugged. “A guard might stick their hand in your trousers, but they aren’t generally going to yank your briefs off your arse unless they have other, more concerning, intentions. And if that’s happening, keeping your class details hidden is the least of your worries.”
“Can they be anything other than undergarnts?” Jay asked as she quickly brushed over Sholto’s implications.
“No, just underwear. But they can be any kind or type you want. Just focus on what you have in mind, and that is what they will beco.”
Doing as she was told, Jay focused on an image she had in mind. A mont later, the black garter belt transford into a pair of pink panties with white polkadots.
“That’s actually pretty cool,” Syd laughed as she took the garnt from her other self and examined them. “I’d love to have sothing like this just for regular use. It’s really hard to get underwear that fits —wait. If these can only be underwear, why did you tell to put them on my head?”
“Because it would have been entertaining,” the priest said without sha.
“Right, of course,” Syd muttered.
Putting the panties over her wrist, Syd focused again, only instead of trying to change the way the pantaloons looked, she tried to change her status sheet. In her mind’s eye, she saw her class information pop up as normal, except a second screen appeared a mont later, slightly off set from the original. The screen was in the sa format as she was used to, but all of the fields were blank. With a little bit of concentration, she found that she was able to fill the empty boxes in with whatever she wanted. Soon, she had a whole new status sheet filled out, one that described her as a gno nad Eileen with a level eighteen primary class called Midnight Runner, and a level sixty secondary class called Karaoke Singer. Interestingly, it seed that the class information on the fake sheet didn’t have to follow the actual rules of the system, and she could fill it however she chose. Even her skill descriptions were changeable, and Syd amused herself by making a few up.
“Well, I don’t have any way of testing it,” Jay said as her Syd self continued to play around with the internal settings, “but it seems to work.”
“I have personally used them when confronting so of our nations best detectors,” Sholto stated confidently. “Not even your father, young Noct, was able to see through their power.”
“Skeptical…” the Valravn muttered as she stared hard at the panties on Syd’s wrist.
“Have they, uh, been washed since then?” Syd asked while making a face.
“You don’t need to wash them. They will always remain supernaturally clean and in pristine condition, unless you choose to allow them to stain or show wear and tear.”
While that little bit of sanitation info was reassuring, Jadis’s greater thoughts were occupied with more important concerns. Since D had sent her to ask Sholto for a holy relic that would allow an individual to obscure their class information from all outside viewers, it seed that the mad god’s intentions were clear. He wasn’t giving her a way to unlock more class options for Alex. He was giving her a way to hide her only class option. There was really only one way to interpret the gift.
D wanted Alex to beco a Demon Lord.
But did Alex want to beco a Demon Lord?”
Jadis would love and protect her mate no matter what class she chose. Alex was Alex, no matter what. The concern over her class didn’t co from so fear that Alex would suddenly beco hostile and start trying to kill everyone; classes didn’t affect people’s minds but were instead a reflection of who they were and what they had done to get to that point. The issue was, Jadis knew that if anyone found out that Alex was a Demon lord, then there would be countless numbers of people who would seek to end her life. People who Jadis considered to be her allies could very well cut ties with her and Alex, perhaps even turn on them entirely. Not all of them, of course, but that might even be worse, since anyone who chose to defend a Demon Lord would likely be ostracized by their community, at a minimum. Neighbors against neighbors, family against family. It would be pure chaos.
Which could very well be the whole point, so far as D was concerned.
Maybe.
Maybe D wanted division among the people who Jadis was aligned with by having Alex beco a Demon Lord. But honestly, that sounded more like sothing Samleos would want. That could certainly explain why the God of Death was forcing Alex to take the class by withholding all other class options from her. Then again, if he really wanted her to beco a Demon Lord, why was he so mad about it? Certainly, his behavior in previous encounters indicated that he didn’t like the path Alex was on and was willing to do just about everything other than break the covenant to stop her progress. And he was also offering to give her other classes, so long as Alex made a deal with him. Why extend any alternative offer at all if Alex becoming a Demon Lord was beneficial to him?
It was a strangely contradictory situation. If Samleos didn’t want Alex to be a Demon Lord, he could just let her take a different option. Instead, he was forcing her to take the Demon Lord class, unless she bargained with him for sothing else. He was angry about her fulfilling the conditions of becoming a Demon Lord, but he wouldn’t let Alex be anything else. If Samleos was truly so bothered, why not just let her have one of the other possible classes he was keeping locked away? The only reason he had given seed to be that he didn’t want Jadis and Alex to skirt around the rules established by the Covenant.
Did those rules really matter more to Samleos than preventing Alex from becoming a Demon Lord did?
“Thank you for giving us these,” Jay said as her other self passed the magical underwear to Eir so she could examine them. “I promise, we’ll keep them safe.”
“You had better bring them back in one piece,” Sholto said as he leaned back in his chair. “Those undergarnts are one of the only items we have that let us hide ourselves from the perceptions of the more powerful priests of Valtar and tethys. Without those, our sacred duties will be far harder to accomplish.”
“What sacred duties could you have to perform that require your classes to remain obscured to the priesthood of another temple?” Eir asked, looking up from the currently purple silk panties she held.
“Never you mind, Saint Eir,” Sholto winked at her. “Never you mind.”
“Alright, we have to get going,” Jay said as she stood. However, as she did, Jadis thought of a question that begged for an answer. “One last question, though. When I asked you for a new pair of underwear, how did you know to bring these?”
“Oh, Destarious told to have these prepared for you last month,” the goblin stated with a shrug as he hopped down from his chair. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask for them for a while now.”
“…last month?” Jay repeated. “D told you to get these ready for a month ago?”
“As a High Priest, I hold communion with my god once every six months,” Sholto explained as he walked around the table between them, hands behind his back. “I always ask, ‘what can I do to best serve you, my lord?’ whenever I perform my ritual. Usually, Destarious’ directions are nebulous, undefined yet powerful in their presence, like an egg fart wafting on the wind. But this ti, his words rang clear in my ears. ‘When asked, give my reluctant champion Borvo’s Pantaloons.’ Let tell you, Jadis. I’ve never ignored my God’s guidance, unless I thought one of the other paths before might be more chaotic in the end.”
Coming to a stop before her, Sholto grinned widely at Jadis in an all-too-familiar way.
“I can see no way to make this world any more chaotic than it is than by giving you that underwear.”
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