Black water bubbled under a dark sky, thick and tarlike as the unknown substances hidden within the packages began to break apart and dissolve in the boiling heat. Steam rose black against the white backdrop of crystal as the red robed beings continued their rumbling chant. Hollow tubes along the sides of their crooked necks flared and then flattened creating the deep rumbling sound that underpinned the strange dark chanting. Alien tongues skipped over strange alien syllables.

Adam was filled with a sense of unease eyeing the pool of water before him, bubbling black.

It wouldn't take much for someone to tip him in.

Lord Celex might be fine, but he was pretty sure the surgery didn't make him immune to boiling alive, so he kept well back from the pool as the zealots finished whatever dark ritual they were performing. He chided himself slightly at that thought, there was no reason to assume that it was a "dark" ritual, whatever they were doing didn't have the same connotations as it might have had back on earth.

Back on earth red robes and chanting and cryptic packages thrown into boiling water were generally associated with cults, or occult rituals associated with evil or the devil. It was his own human thoughts and experiences that were making him uneasy. But still, he didn't like this very much and neither did lord Celex which proved that behavior like this wasn't simply a condition of human cults.

He wasn't sure.

Maybe it was the secrecy.

Maybe it was the way they behaved. The chanting and turning the water black was indicative of a society that might have been secretive or trying to exude a false sense of power which wasn't a good sign either.

Still, he tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, and left the skepticism to lord Celex.

In a way it was like having two minds, one mind to think innocent friendly thoughts and the other mind to be paranoid and suspicious.

Nice that he could experience both at the same time .

And then the chanting died away, leaving only the sound of the boiling water and the low base tone that shook the crystals. The tubes on the sides of their necks inflated , one after the other so someone was always sustaining that continual deep note.

They were still for a long moment, standing as statues over the natural boiling cauldron of black tar, and then, the creature at the center of the group stepped forward raising its hands from under its robes. Behind it, the glowing crescent of their accompanying gas giant hung high in the sky above it, and the silhouette outline of the bason edges.

And then, finally, it spoke, "Greetings outlander." Its voice was high, almost nasal and held within it a sense of abiding superiority that could only be held by those who knew for certain they had unquestionable and abiding truth, "They tell me you speak with a divine tongue, that you understand all language, is this true."

The creature's thoughts were strange and muddled as if filled by soke. One moment a clear thought would appear and the next the thought would fade back into an incomprehensible soup. The creature didn't think so much in words as it thought in concepts, images, and feelings. Adam's own, primarily language based thought process had a tough time keeping up.

But its intent was clear.

He stumbled to speak.

The alien tongue felt thick inside his mouth like cotton, his tongue to big for the words he was trying to speak, and his throat too tight. When he spoke he knew it was only a facsimile of what the creature could produce, like the sound a bird might have when it is trying to mimic human speech. Strange, eerie, wrong but understandable in most cases.

"I do."

A muttering went up around the circle.

Whispering.

"He understands the divine tongue."

"It is Divine!"

"It is a deception!"

The first creature raised its hands and the muttering died away. The group shifted nervously from one side to the other.

"That is a rare gift granted to you by shanshara." The creature said, "Rarely is it bestowed."

Adam briefly wondered if he should correct the creature, that his gift was not bestowed upon him by Shanshara, but by an angry Vrul with a very sharp knife. But looking at that boiling pit of black water, he decided against it. The didn't need to know everything, and he certainly wasn't going to be the one to correct the council on their own turf if h didn't absolutely have to.

"Yes, it is a great gift" He agreed.

The muttering continued, though that single rolling note was still sustained, making the skin stand up on the back of his neck.

"Tell me outlander, why have you come."

How to phrase this.

Well, there was always one option..... Celex thought it was a bad idea, but....

"I have come bearing a warning." A good start anyway. They could interpret who sent him or why, and if they wanted to think that their god had soemthing to do with it, all the better.

The muttering only grew in intensity.

"A warning." Their leader seemed almost amused, "And what is it that you have to warn us of."

"A great Evil." He said. This felt sort of odd, almost like he was roleplaying. It felt sort of disingenuous but he didn't really know how to stop.

"We are listening."

Standing beside him, Mitzen had neither moved nor spoken since entering the room, his head turned down towards the floor his one eye half closed in rapture. His thoughts raced inside his head, his body shook with anticipation that was akin to a fan meeting their favorite celebrity. Adam felt bad making that comparison because it didn't really encompass the religious and cultural underpinnings that were attached to it, but he just couldn't relate.

As someone who had briefly met the architect, probably, Adam was not impressed by weird aliens in funny robes.

"There is a great battle being waged between two entities of great power, the Makers and the Void. These entities encompass thousands if not millions of beings and their battle is slowly expanding to cover the entire universe. It has already corrupted my lands and my planet. We have been forced to fight against this entity on our own soil and struggle to keep our lives. These beings are much more powerful than we are, and there is little hope of stopping them. I was..... sent here during the midst of one of these battles, and I believe this means the Void has found your location and may seek to corrupt your people and turn them against each other like it has done mine."

More muttering.

At least three of the thirteen entities seemed visibly concerned, turning to each other with pointed looks.

The others.

Did not seem so impressed.

"Shanshara protects us!" One announced, "What do we have to fear of your Void."

Adam shifted on his crutches, "I do not wish to deceive you. What I say is nothing but the truth Even if Shanshara protects you, is it not your duty to assist her in your own protection?"

That was a long shot. He was almost sure that aliens weren't going to understand a phrase like god helps those who help themselves, but the gist was the same.

A few of the figures nodded.

Others seemed skeptical.

"Do you have proof of this." Asked their leader.

Adam shook his head in mild frustration not sure how to answer, "I don't, not right now, but it won't be long before you see for yourselves. I had no reason or desire to come here other than to give you warning."

"Perhaps, or you have come to divide us." That was another voice from the back. They were clearly very prone to paranoia, but it seemed to Adam that they didn't need him to be all that divided. There was a pretty evident split through the group in who believed him and who thought he was just bullshitting. There were three of them in particular on the far-left side that seemed willing to hear him out. The rest of them, including their leader seemed almost amused that he would be so brash as to suggest anything to them.

"Please." What else could he say.

One of the three on the far side made a soft sound, calling the others in to a sort of group huddle. Clearly they didn't want him to hear their debate, didn't want him to see how divided they really were, but little did they know that he could hear them just fine.

"how can we not believe he is telling the truth. He speaks with the tongue f the divine. Surely that is evidence that Shanshara is with him." That was the one who had called the timeout, and all of its friends seemed to agree with it.

The others, not so, "A thing of Bargore." One of them spat, and at the name the group of them flinched.

"Do not speak that name here!" their spokesman said, "But I do agree. Shanshara's foes are many and some of them quite powerful."

"But are they powerful enough to give this creature all words."

That sparked another debate that seemed to revolve primarily around confusion as to why, if Shanshara did indeed grant "the gift of tongues" as Adam would have translated it, why didn't any of them receive it. If Shanshara needed a holy messenger, there were plenty of them right here. Why choose an alien that clearly didn't know of her true existence.

It was that that eventually won the argument.

They didn't trust him, at least not completely.

They turned staring at Adam from under their hoods.

"You don't believe me." Adam stated flatly. They weren't to know that he could read their minds, so he simply let them think that he was just very observant.

"You have no proof." The first stated, and that gives us some measure of pause you see.

Okay

Time to move on to plan B.

"I have proof." And here came the bluff, "The proof of the power of Shanshara and that I have been sent as a messenger to aid your people in a time of coming war." Celex tried to warn him against it, but when he could give no other better options Adam executed his plan.

"if you wanted proof, here is your proof."

He held his hands out to the side and then closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

He wobbled a it on his remaining leg.

There was silence.

He cracked an eye to see the council staring at him with something that seemed like amusement. Their thoughts were annoyingly distracting especially as laden with ridicule as they were.

He held up a hand, "Give me a second.'

He closed his eyes again and tried to block out their amused tittering.

"A delusional fool."

"I think this one is mad."

And then

He felt it.

The burning inside his chest that, when he grabbed it, seemed to set fire to his entire body, rolling out through his veins like lava and into his skin where it burned. The world and universe around him seemed to expand. His awareness stretched outward, until it seemed he was aware of every atom in the universe around him, a sea of small particles moving quickly or moving slowly.

There was a gasp around the interior of the room.

And Impetus opened his eye, aware of the dim glow that permeated the room, radiating from his own skin. He no longer cared for the absence of his missing leg, as instead he was born aloft two or three inches by a field of power that crackled through and out of him.

The council of zealots pulled back in fear and shock cowering against the stone.

Adam tried to resist the urge.

But it was to great.

He held out a hand, "Be not afraid."

On his shoulder Incubus jabbed him hard with a foot. Impetus couldn't help but laugh to himself.

How could he NOT make that reference?

It was funny, and probably a requirement for holy messengers, not that he was exactly holy but the point still stands.

"I am here to prepare you for what is to come, for they will come." Now if only he could stop using such archaic ways of speaking, it might be ok. "And when they do you must be prepared."