The High Priest stared evenly at the tiny Nature Cleric. "So are you denying that you were riding a Bloodbath Spider through the woods, or that you were operating as a team in combat?"

Lotus shook her head. "I do not. I just wanted to clarify that the situation did not involve a wild Bloodbath Spider, She belongs to Karl, and she's bonded to him with his class skills.

Also, I should probably mention, before one of the guards mentions it later, we did take a little outing to play in the trees earlier."

The High Priest John sighed and rolled his eyes. Priestesses like Lotus were the reason that half the clergy had grey hair and was balding from pulling it out in frustration, he was absolutely certain of it. However, that was just the way of the Nature God, and even if they tried to stop her, they would be going against the will of the Gods, and it probably wouldn't work.

At least not in the long term.

"Yes, I already heard. It caused quite the commotion among the civilians to see a monster in the Cathedral Forest." He replied, then let the other High Priest continue the meeting.

"While we can dismiss the experiences of Sister Lotus as a case of curiosity meeting the Nature Goddess' favour, that doesn't actually explain much about your group's most recent outing. For example, the total Commander Rank kills for the combat zone that your group just left, do you know what percentage of them were yours?" He asked.

Everyone shook their heads.

"One hundred percent. There were four other sightings, but in all cases, the groups were forced to flee. Every Commander Rank kill in the area is credited to yourselves and your attached military unit."

Alice nodded in understanding. There was no way that wouldn't look suspicious on the official records. The logs of the disciplinary matter would be filed separately, so they might not have put together the fact that there was only one group in the area that was capable of efficiently dealing with Commander Rank monsters, with the numbers that they were seeing in front of them.

"Did you know that there were fourteen other groups assigned to patrol duty that had three or more Ascended Rank fighters in them, none of which managed to score a single Commander Rank kill until after the Church Guard took over command of the operation?" He asked.

That implied that there had been at least one since then, and that couldn't have been an easy feat, even with the help of a Church Guard. The patrol groups there were definitely not the most combat minded of units, they were mostly only there due to minimum combat duration rules within the army.

They were desk jockeys by day.

The Lieutenant would probably get a perverse sense of pleasure out of the current situation, where the laziest of his counterparts were being forced to do their jobs by an uncompromising High Priest, and actually succeeding at the tasks that they had been too scared to do on their own.

Alice shook her head. "I wasn't aware that any of the groups had multiple Ascended Rank fighters in them. We were informed that we were the only group capable of taking on Commander Rank challenges, though there weren't supposed to be any there, according to the scout reports."

High Priest John waved that off, and a flash of golden light from his eyes showed that his internal emotions weren't as settled as his facial features. When Priests got emotional, their magic tended to flare up. "That matter has been taken care of. But it's the string of coincidences that have brought us to this point that are the real highlight here. I have a spell that checks for Divine Magic, essentially for luck. What we plan to do is check your group, and see what sort of bonds that magic might have formed, and if sending you all together in the future is likely to have similarly positive results."

Karl nodded, then remembered that Thor had a literal pond full of Holy Stones just sitting there, leaking Holy Magic into his space. That was bound to throw off the readings at least a little bit.

But it was too late to say anything, and the room had already begun to glow with golden holy light, creating strings of magic that reminded Karl of Rae's webs.

The connections between Lotus and Tessa were forming rapidly, which made sense to Karl, as they had been friends for a long time. But the number that were coming from him to the others dwarfed anything except the friendship between the two clerics, and they were still growing in number and intensity as the spell progressed.

Dana smiled as the links continued to grow between the two of them, with some encircling their bodies without actually touching them, and some starting and ending at their bodies in a straight line.

There was certainly some meaning to how each of the links formed, especially since there were multiple designs, but everyone had some. Even Alice, who wasn't as often with Karl in the past, had quite a few of the links.

Karl checked his spaces, and noticed that some of the stronger links went straight from Alice to Thor and Rae, while only a few weaker ones went from Alice to Hawk. The links between Tessa and Thor, and Rae and Lotus were also both numerous and strong, indicating their friendship and frequent interaction.

Hawk's with Karl were the most plentiful of any of his partners, as they had been together the longest, but Hawk's to everyone else except Rae and Thor were limited, as he preferred to observe from a distance, and certainly wasn't going to let people manhandle him like Thor enjoyed.

"That is astonishing. Look at the density." One of the clerks along the wall gasped, breaking everyone from their observation of the links.

The elderly High Priest nodded and spoke in a raspy, even tone. "I would only expect a number of fate links this high among an old married couple, not among a group of young adventurers who have just met. Other than Lotus and Tessa, who we already knew were fated to be lifelong friends, the rest of you can't have met more than a year ago, and yet already the bonds are so strong.

But more importantly, we have a central focus for these events. Almost all the fated bond links involve Karl in some way. There are a number which involve the whole group, others that involve only part of the group, but almost always Karl and someone else.

Perhaps we should bring in someone skilled in Divination?"

The other High Priest shook his head. "I doubt that is necessary. They won't be able to see past the interference of the Divine to see what is going to happen, at least not the important parts, and these youngsters won't want their futures spoiled for them with foreknowledge."

It took a moment to realize the true horror of having your future told to you by an Oracle. Once you had been told, how could you trust that any choice you made was your own? Would you deliberately sabotage the good things that might happen to you while attempting to change the choices that might lead to the undesirable options that you had been informed of?

Worse, would you lose all sense of direction once you felt that your fate had been settled, just going through the motions of life?

"Alright, I think that we have seen what we need to. There are more people involved in this tangle of fate, I could feel the tendrils reaching outside the range of the spell. I suspect that the Sergeant who arrived with you is one of them, though she will be occupied for some time, and there will surely be other Elites entangled in a fateful event this large, but we have enough now to know that it is best to keep you all together, the closer, the better."

The High Priest paused and then continued. "Do not take the direction to stay close as permission to sleep with a Bloodbath Spider in the Cathedral Park, either, Sister Lotus. I know how you think."

Lotus smirked, while everyone else in the room tried to stifle their laughter. Even without implied permission, she had probably already been considering it. In fact, if Karl left Rae out tonight, the two of them would definitely go on a misadventure together, there was no doubt about it.