“Nobody’s running around. No shoutin’ or people carrying water to a fire. No ghostly apparitions or demonic incursions.” Brouse set his work bag on the grungy floor of the temple and removed a tattered, black briefcase from it. Inside the case, an array of crystals sat in neat rows in a black velvet setting, each with a small plaque beneath it. The one labeled “Al’Matra” was glowing green. “Oh, it’s an emergency, they says, but it’s got none of the hallmarks of an emergency, so far as I can tell.”

Sister Varia stiffened a little bit. “The high priestess and the high scribe are both very concerned about this matter.”

“Ha! ‘Very concerned,’ she says. The high priestess and the high scribe should both know that I don’t come running for ‘very concerned.’” The portly Human snorted. “If your goddess isn’t dispensing fiery justice or trying to stop a fated end-of-an-age sort of prophecy, she can wait until after breakfast like everybody else.”

“It’s almost noon,” protested a nearby acolyte.

“Had a late call last night at the Temple of Dogs,” snapped Brouse, giving the young man a nasty look.

“We are sorry, sir.” Sister Varia did her best to smooth things over with the portly friar. “They thought it was very pressing.”

Brouse cast a sidelong glance at the young Elf. “All right,” he grumbled. “I’m here now, ain’t I? Save the apologies for whoever’s handling my bill. In the meantime, what’s wrong with the statue of, uh…” He paused to read the plaque at the base of the sculpture. “High Scribe Niln?”

“It’s his face,” said the acolyte.

Brouse considered this. “Good lookin’ enough to me. Maybe a bit mousey.”

“It looks fine. It’s just… different.”

“Different from how he looked when he was alive?” asked Brouse.

“Different from how he looked yesterday,” said Sister Varia. “Brother Aphius discovered him this morning.”

“Hmph,” said Brouse. He reached into his bag again. Holy symbols, translucent crystals, bundles of herbs, strings of beads, and the other tools of a theological support friar lined the interior of the case, neatly arranged within an intricate system of pockets and straps. He selected a few from the bag and laid them on the floor.

The copper coil spun. The blueish crystal flickered with inner light. A string of beads between two yew twigs swung back and forth with metronomic rhythm. The crushed leaves were crammed into a long pipe, which Brouse lit with a match.

“There is no smoking in the sanctuary,” chimed Sister Varia.

“Incense,” said the friar around the pipe. “Helps soothe angry spirits and align cosmic waves.”

“Really?”

“Probably.” Brouse puffed furiously as he stared at the string of beads, conjuring blue-gray clouds around his head. “You’re getting higher than normal causal waves here, but that’s just population destiny. Seen it all the time.”

Sister Varia looked confused.

“It’s all the people in the city. Get so many fates crammed together, does funny things with predestination, it does.” The portly man waved away her question and the smoke in his eyes. “And the latent fate around here is…”

He glanced down at the bluish crystal, which had sputtered out in a plume of azure smoke.

The friar shrugged. “Well, it’s probably high as well. Doesn’t matter though. Aside from that, everything in here looks mostly normal.”

“Normal?” the priestess exclaimed. “The statue moved!”

“No, some metal moved, and it happened to be part of a statue,” explained Brouse. “Spatial distortion from your standard predestined event can warp materials. Maybe some warrior down the street realized his true power, or some mage figured out some whizzbang secret. Or something. Point is, your basic fluctuations in fate can twist a hunk of bronze, and you might think it looks like he’s moved.”

“He—he’s got an entirely different facial expression!” protested the priestess.

Brouse shrugged and waved his strange device at the Al’Matrans. “These readings don’t lie. No magic. No concentrations of power from any known deity or fiend. No recent miracles. This is just mundane, everyday destiny. See it all the time.”

“You don’t know that.” The priestess drew herself to her full height and then stuck her nose up a little more. “The gods work in mysterious ways.”

Brouse grunted and rolled his eyes. “Drake spit. No they don’t.”

“I beg your⁠—”

“They do the same thing over and over,” said the support friar. “The sun rises, the seas wave, rivers run downhill, plants grow, animals eat each other, people eat the animals and plants, and then kill each other even though they’re full. Happens every day. Nothin’ mysterious about the gods’ ways; they work in repetitious and predictable patterns. Sometimes to mysterious ends.”

“Ah! But our goddess works in obsessive, irrational patterns!” the young acolyte said, with the eager gusto of a lawyer revealing a brilliant new piece of evidence. His look of triumph withered under the priestess’ glare.

Brouse shrugged and started packing his bag again. “Oh. Fine. Her. I’ll give you that one. But even if we’ve got no idea what their holinesses are plotting up there, we can see how they’re doing whatever it is down on Arth. And they don’t seem to be up to anything here.”

“You can’t⁠—”

“The beads in this here causal numenometer would be dancing a jig if any god in the hall so much as blessed your lunch.” Brouse waved the device at the priestess before shoving it in his bag. “The smoke in my pipe would be turning purple if it was a wizard messing with the weave. This is your standard act of fate, and given that all that’s happened is a bit of bronze shifting by an inch or two, it probably ain’t a big one. No emergency. Send for me if he hops down from the pedestal or eats a pigeon. That sort of thing.” He picked up his bag and touched the tip of his cowl.

“But…” The priestess pursed her lips. “It’s just… creepy. I really feel like something meaningful is happening here.”

“Well, feelings and meaning are your realm, your grace,” said the support friar. “Never pay much attention to that sort of thing myself. We just keep the water holy and the eternal flames lit. There’s not anythin’ here needs me.”

“If you say so,” said the priestess uncertainly. She looked up at the bronze cast of the most recent failed incarnation of the Seventh Hero of Destiny. The statue of Niln held a book in one hand, while the other was raised from his side in an upturned fist, as though bracing himself against the winds of a storm. His face was twisted into a manic grin.

“It does seem a little odd.” Thane looked around as he and Poldo made their way down the winding, scrabbly path toward Adchul’s dock.

“What does?” huffed Poldo. The path zigzagged down a steep slope toward the water, making a pattern almost like slanted stairs for a Troll of Thane’s height. A Gnome such as Poldo, however, had to run back and forth for several yards to descend the same amount as one of the Troll’s steps, and Poldo was almost winded trying to keep up with the Troll’s leisurely pace.

“That we’re leaving now. It doesn’t look like a good day to sail,” Thane said.

Poldo looked down the path. The sky and the sea beneath it were both a dull gray, and an ominous shadow darkened the distant sky. A steady wind kicked up small whitecaps on the ocean and chilled the Scribkin through his thick, black coat. The weather shook him a bit, but he was reassured by the stout Dwarven ship that waited at the dock, banging against the pylons with an irregular rhythm as it rocked in the surf. It was nothing like the sleek Elven schooner that had brought them out to Adchul months before; this boat was wide, low to the water, and covered with enough steel to arm a battalion of knights. Instead of masts, thick pipes extended from the middle of its deck, belching black smoke into the air.

“Fortunately, we’re not sailing,” he told Thane with a nod to the boat. “Our ship has runic forge-engines, and it’s probably watertight belowdecks. Most ships catch the wind and race the storms, but Dwarven vessels ignore the weather.”

Thane nodded reluctantly. “It still doesn’t seem like a particularly good day to begin a voyage.”

“It isn’t a particularly good day, but soon every day will be a particularly bad one, and this is the last scheduled delivery this week.” Poldo clutched his hat against the wind and stared with naked envy at the bevy of Wood Gnomes riding in the Troll’s fur. “The winter storms will start in earnest by Highmoon, and they’ll last well into next year. The lawyer-monks said that when spring finally settles the water, the kraken and sea wyrms start their mating seasons, and there are few captains mad enough to brave the waters at that point. There will be few ships in Adchul until Bloomtide.”

“And that’s longer than the lawyer-monks would care for us to stay?” asked Thane.

“Burn what they care for,” wheezed Poldo. “It’s too long for me. Besides, it’s a short voyage. If those clouds hold and the currents are favorable, we’ll have dinner in Chrate this evening.”

A profane shout rang out. The Dwarven sailors had noticed their passengers approaching, and now they pointed and cursed, backing away from the Troll.

Thane wavered at the edge of the dock. “And did you⁠—”

“All your information is on the manifesto I sent the captain,” said Poldo, wheezing as he stumbled past Thane and onto the wooden planks. “It’s their problem if they didn’t read it carefully. Come on.”