GRP Chapter 2

The man's unhurried bearing and the steadiness of his stride had something genuinely heroic about them—the kind of thing people meant when they talked about heroes, the way the stories went. And the situation itself was unreal enough to fit any number of those stories: a single man walking toward a giant, alone, with nothing in his hands. Could he really be that hero—the great one they told of? The old woman's eyes filled.

He stopped at the base of the altar. The god, vast as a mountain, looked down from atop the golden edifice at the small human below. A moment passed in complete silence.

The giant moved. An enormous hand reached down and plucked the man up without effort. The biggest man in the prison—the one who had looked so large standing among them—went into the giant's mouth like a small snack. The giant's throat worked.

Gulp.

Quite literally—one mouthful.

'A damn fool... all that hero posturing, and it ended—'

The old woman's eyes went cold. Die like that, she thought, and you’d be too ashamed to return to god’s embrace.

The priest led the chant, and the zealots raised their hands and sang. The song told of the birth of the five giant gods and the great deeds they had accomplished. It was a hymn celebrating the fact that the youngest giant god, having murdered his four elder siblings one by one, had claimed their divinity and been reborn as the most perfect of all gods.

The zealots moved into the prison with lassos to drag out the next offerings. Their eyes were glazed and clouded—from the outside, hallucinogenic plants had been burning without pause—and saliva trailed from the corners of their mouths. Whatever guilt they might have carried, the smoke had dissolved it. A zealot looked at a crying child and went on grinning.

The old woman stepped in front of the children. She had made her peace with dying. And at that moment the giant opened its mouth, producing a sound like rolling thunder.

"This is the god's revelation!"

"Oh, great and mighty god!"

Everyone flung themselves to the ground at once. The zealots who had already entered the prison did the same.

"Ugh."

The giant made a strange noise. It was strange enough that the priest, forehead pressed to the floor, couldn't help stealing a glance upward.

"Urk—urgh."

The giant lurched, grabbing at the golden altar. Its body heaved the way an animal heaves before it vomits. The throat worked.

And then:

Pop.

Something erupted. At the same moment, the giant's head was thrown clear, as though struck by some enormous force from within, and went flying.

Shwaaak—blood geysered from the neck.

Thud-thud-thud-thud—divine blood fell like heavy rain, staining the white- and gold-clad faithful red.

CRASH!

The giant's head, which had been airborne, came down.

A blessing for the faithful, who had pledged to spare no sacrifice for their god—more than a dozen of them were crushed dead where they stood beneath the massive skull. The lurching body toppled forward and landed across the golden altar.

The altar went red.

Blood overflowed along the golden channels and ran thick.

A stunned hush fell over the crowd.

From the cut-open neck of the giant, a man walked out. His entire body was stained red. He cupped the holy water from the basins on either side of the golden altar and washed his face; finding that insufficient, he upended a jar the size of his own torso over his head and let the water pour. Chunks of flesh, blood, and viscous fluid washed away.

He shook the water roughly from his hair. Then he nudged the giant’s enormous body aside with one foot—lightly, the way you’d move something that had fallen in your path—and settled himself on the blood-soaked golden altar and looked down at the people below.

A deeper silence took hold.

It was the moment the offering on the altar transformed into an absolute god seated on a throne above the heavens.

The Festival of the Grand Temple's Founding was underway. It was the largest state event and celebration there was, and people had poured into the Holy Capital of the Thul’Mhoriae Alliance from every direction—and kept pouring. The leaders of the alliance's thirty-five member groups—great and small alike—had come, along with people from across the continent and dignitaries from other nations, and even the forest spirits from the nearby woods had been pulled in by the noise and melted into the crowds without quite deciding to.

Beyond the white-roofed Grand Temple, a tree as enormous as a mountain greeted everyone who had come to the capital. It was the sacred tree the Great Mother Goddess had granted at the beginning of all things—the symbol of the Thul'Mhoriae Alliance.

Beneath the Mother Tree, which stretched into the sky, people in white garments enjoyed the lavish festival in full swing. Small children brandished toy wooden swords and sang songs. They were songs about the greatest hero on the continent—Garthe, the Anir of the frozen land of Olgidphaenn—and the deeds he had done.

Every alley had its bard, each demonstrating their talents through Garthe’s history. They knew which story the crowd liked best.

Portrait stalls scattered here and there piled up and sold the heroic tales of various heroes alongside their likenesses. The best-selling item, predictably, was the portrait of the hero Garthe.

The amusing thing was, every stall showed him differently. His hair was the same black in all of them, but one shop showed it short and curly, another had it long and straight, another in a neat crop. In some he appeared as a young man barely past youth; in others, a middle-aged figure; in others still, an old man with grey in his hair. Some shops rendered him as a woman. He had never once removed his helmet, even at the occasional victory parade, so virtually nothing of his appearance was actually known.

In the plaza, a theatrical reenactment of Garthe's heroics was well underway. The plaza was so packed with people there was nowhere to put a foot. Children and elders alike watched with shining eyes. The story was about the giant god of Ryvalle—the greatest headache the Thul'Mhoriae Alliance had been dealing with lately.

Ryvalle was, as the stories told it, one of the few regions where the remnants of the Void lay thick—and it suffered accordingly, beset by monsters and gods gone violent. The five giant gods of Ryvalle had driven out countless monsters and violent gods and purified the land—or so the account went.

Their fame had carried even to islands far from the continent, and many peoples had taken to worshipping them, hoping to shelter under their protection. It might have ended there, becoming a beautiful myth, a clean chapter of history—and perhaps it would have been better if it had. But roughly a century ago, the telling of it changed entirely. The youngest giant had murdered the four elder siblings one by one and taken their divinity for itself—or so the story was told. The enormous power it had gained led the Ryvalle giant god to slaughter without mercy the gods and spirits protecting neighboring lands, along with the countless living things that inhabited them.

And yet the factions who worshipped the Ryvalle giant god did not shrink—they grew. The god could turn stone into gold. As though dazzled blind by that brilliant golden light, people didn’t blink at offering up their own kind as sacrifices in exchange for riches and glory—this, the stories agreed on, whatever else they disputed. As the group swelled, the damage multiplied, and the Thul'Mhoriae Alliance found it could not escape the effects.

Thirty-four of the thirty-five faction leaders convened in grand council—and these were not ordinary men. Each had subdued dozens, some hundreds, of monsters and gods. And still, by all accounts, the atmosphere in that chamber was bleak. Because the opponent was a monster that had grown stronger still by absorbing four siblings' divinity. Armed with immense divine power, the giant possessed a strength that even a comparable god—to say nothing of an ordinary hero—could not match. The existence of more than a thousand zealots could not be ignored either.

This was not a problem one or two heroes could resolve. It was clear it would become a war between the Alliance and Ryvalle—not a clash between heroes and a god. The entire Alliance was said to be trembling with fear—and then the news spread. The giant god had been suppressed. Garthe, the leader of Olgidphaenn—the one faction leader who had not attended the grand council—had done it alone.

A name already celebrated grew brighter still.

The theatrical reenactment playing in the plaza was a dramatized version of the confrontation between the giant god and the hero Garthe. It was stitched together from whatever the wandering bards had been circulating, so accuracy was hardly the point and exaggeration was liberally applied—but for a festival, nothing served better.

“Ryvalle’s giant god—hear me well! I am Garthe, lord of the frozen land of Olgidphaenn, guardian of the sacred tree bestowed by the Great Mother Goddess and protector of all living souls—and it is I who shall bring your wickedness to an end!”

A man in a black wig and a giant puppet twice his height performed an elaborate sword-dance together to portray the battle. The offerings imprisoned in the cage sang: "Ohhh—even to look upon you fills the heart with dread! Hero, punish that terrible giant—" When the song ended, the giant puppet tipped backward with a thud.

“I have saved those who were made into offerings—and yet when I think of the lives this cruel giant has claimed, it is as though my heart is being rent in two. Still—with this, peace will come to Ryvalle as well. Great Mother Goddess. May this bring you joy.”

The lead actor, who had by now covered his face in red paint, murmured softly. A beautiful woman who had been imprisoned in the cage came running out.

“Can it truly be—you are he who subdued the Paradise of Olgidphaenn, the black dragon of the Empire of Lutha, and the nine-headed demon bird of the Paldoa Mountains—Garthe, the Anir of the frozen land of Olgidphaenn?”

"That is correct."

"How could I ever repay this kindness?"

The lead actor showed a bitter smile and shook his head slowly.

“It was simply what had to be done.”

“Truly, as noble and magnificent as your reputation!”

"Then I'll take my leave."

The woman grabbed urgently at the man's cloak.

“Where do you go without so much as tending to yourself? You have taken wounds in your struggle against the giant god.”

The man turned his gaze skyward, as though looking at the face of the Great Mother Goddess herself, and smiled faintly.

“If there be a place that has need of me, then there I must go—wherever that may be.”

The woman wept. The offerings who had escaped the cage danced and sang.

Oh, great guardian of the sacred tree, who came from the frozen land—save us in our wretchedness, and save the world in its suffering!

The hero turned, raised his sword aloft in a flash, and stepped down from the stage. His cape swept behind him in the wind. A grand figure, like something out of a famous painting. The crowd cheered and applauded.