"Intelligence is much of the time a kick in the head."
Illaoi's capable physical make-up is predominated just by her unstoppable confidence. As the prophet of the Great Kraken, she utilizes an immense, brilliant icon to tear her enemies' spirits from their bodies and smash their impression of reality. All who challenge "Reality Bearer of Nagakabouros" soon find Illaoi never fights alone - the divine force of the Serpent Isles battles close by.
Notwithstanding, to genuinely know Illaoi you should comprehend the religion she has given her life to. Nagakabouros, the divinity of her confidence, is normally delineated as a huge serpent head with limbs spiraling around it in interminable movement, with no start and no end. Likewise called The Mother Serpent, The Great Kraken, or even The Bearded Lady, Nagakabouros is the Serpent Isles' divine force of life, sea tempests, and movement. (The strict interpretation of its name is "the unending beast that drives the ocean and sky.") Central to the religion's religious philosophy are three precepts: each soul was destined to serve the universe; want was incorporated with each living being by the universe; the universe just advances toward its predetermination when living animals pursue their wants.
Lesser priestesses are entrusted with looking after sanctuaries, calling sacred serpents, and showing individuals the methods for Nagakabouros. As the religion's Truth Bearer, Illaoi's part is to serve the god straightforwardly by unblocking the stream of the universe. To this end, she has two hallowed duties.
The main obligation of a Truth Bearer is to be the lead in the war against undeath. Having fallen outside of the typical stream of the universe, the undead are viewed as a cursed thing against Nagakabouros. While it is the duty of each priestess of the Kraken to shield the indigenous populace from the Harrowing, a Truth Bearer specifically connects with its most intense spirits and drives the Black Mist back.
Second, Illaoi is entrusted with searching out people of awesome potential and testing them with the Test of Nagakabouros. This errand is the weight Illaoi's title reflects. With her huge, blessed relic, The Eye of God, the Truth Bearer strips the subject's soul from their body at that point constrains them to remain against her to demonstrate their value. She does this knowing the individuals who come up short will be totally destroyed, for the considerable Kraken has no resistance for weakness, uncertainty, or limitation. Yet, pulverization is never the objective. Survivors of the trial are perpetually changed and frequently discover the will to seek after their actual predetermination.
In spite of the fact that Illaoi is the most capable and regarded Truth Bearer in a hundred ages, it is the place she has broken the customs of her confidence that talks the most about her. Having finished her preparation as a Truth Bearer, and at the stature of her energy, Illaoi left the brilliant sanctuaries of Buhru for the dinginess of close-by Bilgewater.
The privateer city is the main place nonnatives are allowed on the Serpent Isles, saw as a rank canal by Illaoi's kin. Past Truth Bearers disregarded the city and saw the arriving nonnatives as meager superior to untouchables. Illaoi broke with convention when she shielded inhabitants of Bilgewater from the Harrowing, or significantly more dubiously when she chose that some of its occupants had souls deserving of the colossal test. Regardless of this, lone a modest bunch of sanctuaries have been opened in the city, and not very many paylangi (islander slang for inhabitants of mainlander plunge) have ever been allowed inside. Notwithstanding, it is Illaoi who has brought the across the board attention to the Mother Serpent to Bilgewater, and it is her dauntless soul that has brought her religion into support there.
Gossipy tidbits hold on that Bilgewater's most ruthless and scandalous privateer had his heart broken by the transcending priestess. To any individual who has ever met her, this is nothing unexpected. Illaoi's harsh way gives a false representation of inconspicuous knowledge, quality, and an attractive certainty.
Close to the Hierophant, an elderly serpent guest stood. He wore a vestment produced using ropes. Every indigo-colored rope had been woven to twist; their fluctuating thicknesses and blurred kraken ink gave him the deception of being hung in harsh cut appendages. His face was totally secured by a dark tattoo delineating the unlimited teeth of a leviathan's throat. Priests and serpent guests were continually attempting to look unnerving. It was an irritating propensity for generally men.
"The best monsters won't approach Bilgewater," the serpent guest said with a wheeze. "They remain out in the profound water, far from the stench of the Slaughter Docks. Best case scenario, a couple of half-starved younglings will regard our summons."
Just the best offspring of Nagakabouros were sufficiently solid to expend the fogs and safeguard the city from the Harrowing. Whatever is left of the Serpent Isles didn't have this issue.
It was yet another indication of the obliviousness of Bilgewater's populace. The mainlanders and their relatives didn't give time for crisp water to move through and clean their docks. Rather, the paylangi settled changeless harbors around each shore in the straight. It was so silly. A large number of the ministry stated it was confirmation the paylangi really needed to be devoured by the Black Mists.
"Poo," Illaoi said. On the off chance that she would stay, she would need to figure out how to guard the city without serpents. She picked at the sustenance from one of the offering bowls around her, before choosing a mango. She required an arrangement, and these two dolts were pointless.
Illaoi strolled between the two pastors, overshadowing the match of them. Notwithstanding for an islander, the Truth Bearer was tall. It had dependably been so. She was taller even than the biggest Northman. As a young lady, she had been unsure about it, continually feeling like she was lurching into individuals, however she had learned. When I move, they should know enough to escape my direction.
She lifted the Eye of God from its stand. The brilliant symbol was bigger than a wine barrel and commonly the weight. Her fingers shivered against its icy metal. It had been put by the monster thundering flame, which lit up the room, however the Eye of God remained perpetually cool and moist to the touch. Illaoi deftly carried its gigantic weight. In twelve years, the Truth Bearer had never been more than two steps from it.
"Hierophant, I recollect my obligations," Illaoi said as she headed down the stairs. "We won't withdraw to Buhru. I will stop the Harrowing here."
The high priestess had done nearly nothing however grumble since landing from Buhru, yet there was some fact in her words.
At the point when Gangplank's ship had detonated, Illaoi's heart had bounced. It had been numerous years since they had laid together, numerous years since she had finished the relationship... in any case, a few emotions still waited. She had cherished him once… moronic, old jerk.
Encompassed by tall dividers of interlocking stones, the yard to the sanctuary was formed like the fanged mouth of a leviathan. The passageway investigated the blue waters of the narrows far underneath. Illaoi stepped down the stairway toward the front entryway. She expected she would need to smack Gangplank in the mouth; he was inclined to egotism and rum. Yet at the same time, it is decent to see him.
She was not ready for the growling animal in her sanctuary's passageway. She knew he had been harmed, dislike this. He was limping seriously and twisted around from smashed ribs. He supported what was left of his arm.
He swung a gun around the live with his other arm, in a half-distraught endeavor to constrain the priests and priestesses to move in an opposite direction from him; negligent of the way that these were the very individuals who had pulled his suffocated body from the sound just a couple of hours back. More terrible, his gun was obviously unfilled and totally futile.
The priests and priestesses encompassing Gangplank strained at this upheaval. That Gangplank was sufficiently stupid to influence such to a claim while remaining in a structure a huge number of years more established than his city, was perilous in itself. Be that as it may, a paylangi yelling at the thrice-honored Truth Bearer in her own particular sanctuary? Some other man would've been dumped into the ocean with broken knees.
Illaoi realized what she needed to do. She knew it before Gangplank had talked. She had known a long time before his ship had sunk.
Gangplank had strayed. For a really long time, he had putrefied in the disdain and self centeredness his dad had beaten into him. Illaoi had overlooked her obligation. She had overlooked it since she had adored him, once, and on the grounds that she had driven him down this way when she cleared out him. He had been content as an executioner, a corsair, a genuine privateer, and never inspired by his dad's title of Reaver King.
He had just set grapple in his grisly mission to end up noticeably the ruler of Bilgewater after they had gone separate ways.
Illaoi felt a soddenness in her eyes. His chance had passed. He had been not able push ahead. To progress. To develop. Furthermore, now? Presently he would not survive the Test of Nagakabouros. In any case, he should have been tried. He was here to be tried.
Illaoi took a gander at the old privateer before her. Might I be able to send him away? Assume that despite everything he has some bit of quality or aspiration that may see him through? In the event that I send him away, he may live, at any rate…
That was not the method for Nagakabouros. That was not the part of a Truth Bearer. This was not the place for questions or second-speculating. In the event that she believed her god, she should believe her senses. In the event that she felt he must be tried, at that point it was her god's will. Furthermore, what trick would pick a man over a divine being?
Grasping the Eye of God's handle firmly, Illaoi brought down the substantial gold symbol from her shoulder. A well-known delicacy supplanted it, yet some way or another she could even now feel its weight there.
As the priests and hierophant came back to the vestibule, Illaoi recalled there were a thousand things she expected to do. A thousand little weights she expected to convey. The Truth Bearer would need to meet with Sarah Fortune. Illaoi presumed Nagakabouros would soon need to test the abundance seeker.
She started strolling up the means from the yard to the internal sanctuary, the Truth Bearer's venerated image on h
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