"It's coming soon," Aaradhya sat in his room a few weeks later, dreading what would come in a few minutes or more likely, a few hours. There was no clock in his room so he couldn't tell the time.
"Today is my birthday," all he knew was that he had woken up before the sun rose on this auspicious day. He stared out the window that oversaw the entire island and contemplated the highs and lows of his first year as a Champion to the God called Death.
'There have been no changes to my achievements and no quests other than clearing the main temple of the Shepherds. I have not gotten a single point since the starter package that all of the other Champions and I received,' he sighed and refocused on the present.
"More than likely, my father has something big planned for today considering his recent avoidant behavior," Aaradhya had seen his father on a near daily basis but it was mostly to talk about medicine and biology, his father's specialties. There was no time for the two men to really get to know each other or even talk about this big day but thinking of biology, he shuddered.
"I can only hope that there is no death today. If anything, today should just be a festival, similar to the third day of the Conclave," He left the window and sat in the middle of the garden that was placed in his private abode. He heard two honor guards speaking to each other in a language that he did not know and, after closing his eyes, could even see their awakened souls just beyond the door. Feeling frazzled, he oriented himself to stare at the small waterfall. It was a long time before he took in the shambling shapes that were shuffling around the garden.
'I would love a break from the rituals,' Aaradhya shuddered as he recalled the sounds of rituals past.
'I am reaching a point where collecting more souls will be detrimental to my growth. Maybe even my health since I am in a state of constant worry,' he ignored the ten blue tinted humans that stood or sat around him like mindless zombies and the five others that stood on the edges of his vision as they endured the erosion of the Verdant.
"My focus is not enough to keep track of more than this," he admitted his limitations as he pulled on the strings that connected him to the menagerie that he had collected. He tried to pull the human souls that were on the edge of his control but all he did was succeed in turning their heads and forced them to take a single step in his direction.
Aaradhya shook his head and walked over to one of the spirits and wrapped his arms around the woman's leg. With a shadow over his face, he pulled his arms through her body. Light that could only be perceived through
"I can only be conscious of so much," he had just recently learned how to mold his spiritual energy into simple shapes by using thickened Verdant to pressure his spirit body and threads. By thickening the Verdant around his body and the threads that came off of it, he could touch and pull their spectral bodies. Once his attention left the souls that were in danger of being damaged by the Verdant, he looked up at a nest that had recently been made in one of the trees that was in his garden.
"Speaking of," he approached a lump of beak and feather that had fallen out of the tree. As of right now, his hands were glowing green as he connected blue thread to the creature in his hands.
"The only bright side to all of this death is that I am getting better at this," there was a dead bird in his hands. Despite being dead, The warbler in his hands moved its wings and head in alternating jittering movements.
"Nothing broke as it fell out of the tree, good," like a puppeteer with a new puppet, Aaradhya tested the movements of the bird in his hands as he controlled its body with spirit thread. After getting it to flap its wings a few times, he moved the Verdant to call upon the soul of the bird that had just died to the poisoned food that he, or more accurately his servants, left out.
"Come here little one. You died before your time, I can fix that and make you better," the bird flew above its own body and didn't want to come down. If the bird was not careful, it would fly out of the sphere of his influence that ensured its safety. Specifically, he chewed on the inside of his cheek as he saw the bird fly up through the hole in the ceiling and back down.
"Maybe I can make this work," Aaradhya parsed through the dozens of threads that were all around his body and grabbed the one that was attached to a beetle that flew around his person and used the egg visualization technique. He gathered and shaped the Verdant into a long corridor in his mind before he set the particles to boil. The beetle, caught in the spell, began to fly up toward the bird that was connected to him via a single thread, to get away from the boiling Verdant.
The Warbler, not realizing that it was dead, swooped down to eat the beetle. The simple souls counter went down by one as the beetle was swallowed by the spirit of a greater creature. The realm of the dead also worked by the laws of predation and survival of the fittest according to what Aaradhya observed about how his spirits interacted with each other. As a result of his actions, however, one more thread connected to the bird. It was not enough to pull the bird down without breaking the connection so he sent another beetle.
He then thickened the Verdant above the bird to the point where it had to come down to avoid bashing into a wall of green flame. Naturally, the creature dropped right beside him as it was the only place that Aaradhya left free of thickened Verdant. This was the third bird that he had attempted to gather, with the previous two being brought to him by his Vivaan and Neela as they handled all of Aaradhya's admittedly strange requests.
It was why he knew how many threads were needed to pull on the bird and bring it toward him since the first one flew away after snapping its connections and the second flew away after he accidentally released it from his control while he was removing the dozen or so threads that he overcompensated with.
He placed the soul of the bird back into its body and waited for the still corpse to move. According to his experiments, it took exponentially more time to connect a soul back into a body based on the size of the corpse, the complexity of the mind, and the compatibility of the body and soul. This time, he counted ten seconds before the bird hopped to its feet and started batting its wings. He hadn't thought of reuniting a human with their soul just yet, not that he believed he could thus, Aaradhya lifted the bird up and let it fly around the room and nest as it bade its natural habits.
'You no longer have to eat, sleep, or defecate. You will sustain yourself on my spiritual energy until your soul can no longer bear the burden of undeath or until the Verdant claims you,' Aaradhya recalled what he knew about Wilfred's Soul Sanctuary Blessing.
"Unfortunately, I do not know how long that will be, I don't even know if you will be unable to continue for as long as I envision since you are connected to me. I am hoping that you do not fly off while I am not paying attention. I can already see you dying after a few days of not being connected to my threads," he frowned and examined an anthill that was made by the ants that had been reborn under his blessing. Each one had a single thread binding them to him.
Just as he was about to cross his legs and meditate to practice his boiling egg visualization technique, the door opened and someone came in. There were only eight people that could come into his abode without announcement; the four Tomb guards, Prath, Vasuman, Kangan, and Anila; the matron of the crystal peak Mrs. Lagrange; his personal maids Nairobi and Elora; and his father Masih Sr. Aaradhya simply opened his closed eyes and turned around to see who it was. His father, Masih Sr, walked in with dark circles under his eyes and an unkempt appearance.
"You look like you have seen better days. Will you finally share what has been keeping you so busy these past few days," Aaradhya spun around and crossed one leg over the other with a pensive gaze.
"I have no choice do I," Masih Sr swallowed a mouthful of dissatisfaction and sighed sharply when his son merely smiled in his direction.
"Not unless there was some other reason that you came here so early," Aaradhya knew that his father called upon their connection to know that he was awake.
"I have been having trouble arranging the movements of the Shepherds," Masih Sr revealed the truth that had been plaguing him the past week.
"Why and what for," Aaradhya asked.
"There has been some resistance from some of the elders regarding how I am handling the transition of the Shepherds into the public domain. Due to recent events they feel as though I am unfit to lead us into this new era of the faith and agreed that we should start to invest in the next generation," Masih Sr laid it all on the line as he said his piece.
'So it's the first elders people that are causing a problem huh,' Aaradhya thought.
"What specifically has been going on," he asked. Masih Sr shook his head and said, "I honestly don't know."
"What do you mean," Aaradhya uncrossed his leg and leaned closer to his father as if the change in posture would allow him to understand better. Masih Sr rubbed the bridge of his nose and frowned.
"Apparently, due to my reshuffling and acquisition of assets, I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I simply don't know where the money went," Masih Sr combed through his hair with abandon as he recounted his misery. He merely frowned when several strands stuck to his hand.
"How?"
"I don't know. I utilized the channels that we have established a few years ago to increase the funds that we already have under the names of prominent followers but the money was lost and now it's untraceable," Masih Sr lamented.
"Maybe we need to talk with the first elders faction about this loss," Aaradhya got straight to the point.
"I thought so as well, but I first had Prath look into their financials as per your orders but I haven't found anything that would suggest foul play now and back when assassins were hired to come after you or our guests," Masih Sr crossed his arms over one another.
"Have you looked into the neutral elders? They might have something to gain," Aaradhya narrowed his eyes on one of the souls that started to wander off toward the edge of his blessing's reach. Thankfully, there were walls in the way and the souls had not yet realized how to go through solid objects like that one lost soul that could walk through people that were not awakened.
"I had thought of that and found nothing suspicious in any of the elders' statements," Masih Sr shook his head once again.
"Interesting, you found nothing at all," Aaradhya had his own thoughts on the matter.
"No. Hm, your suspicion my son. I can feel it as though it were tangible," Masih Sr pressed his son's furrowed brow.
"Yes, well, think about it like this. The Shepherds, though not as open with its membership as the Church of God or the Monolithic Sun Church, are regarded as one of the pre-eminent forces in the world due simply to the popularity and reach of the members that are on the council. The high profile of our members is what sets us apart from other faiths. It's also what the Grand elders bank on when they sit and fight for control of the flock...", Aaradhya started. Masih Sr did not rush or press his son for more information and gracefully waited for his Lord to speak at his own pace.
"What I mean to say is, it takes a lot of influence and money to sway council members onto different sides of the court I seem to now possess. I am sure that you are familiar with bribing some council elders over to our side of the faith," Aaradhya was confident in his statement and only smiled when his father nodded in his direction.
"Now, you and the Grand Elders on our side of the court may account for these bribes in your statements but that doesn't mean the rest of the Elders have. My guess is that each, or at least the leaders of each of the other factions has a unified account stashed away that the Shepherds don't know about to accomplish their goals when normal methods fail to sway the majority of the council over to their sides. You will most definitely have missed this hidden account if they hid it well all these years," Aaradhya shared what he thought was most likely. For there to be no extra costs in what Prath and his father found was essentially impossible unless the Grand Elders had money stashed somewhere for a rainy day.
"How are we going to catch them then? If the first elders faction or the neutral faction have hidden accounts and know how to siphon money away from our funds, how am I supposed to catch them," Masih Sr frowned as he thought of the impossible.
"I will handle it, but first, I need you to bring me the last few years of financial records for the Shepherds. I want to see for myself, what everyone spends and on what," he crossed his legs over one another and waited for his father. Hours passed as Aaradhya got into the records of his most influential followers.