Lonman should never have gotten this far. The Forged God said plainly that six months in earth is six months in earth, and he guaranteed a march across two countries anyway. It held across the crater. It held through the Plains. It held all the way west, through the ruins to the doors of the Cathedral of Life and Death. It does not hold any farther. Lonman Longcross goes to ash in the hands of the people carrying him, and something stands up in his place that has never worn a body of its own. You are the Living God. You were a different god once, holding life and death in the same hand, until the people of The West learned your true name and cut you in half with it. The dying half crawled away and the other half has been hiding inside ordinary mortal lives ever since, forgetting at birth, because a thing that does not know itself cannot be found. You can manifest here and nowhere else. Your other half is inside, and proximity is the only reach you have. Step away from this building and vanish. Step inside and disappear into reunification or deal with the Dead God some other way. You can heal anything. You cannot kill. Death is the half you do not have. Beside you: T'ilo Twelfth, who signed on for immortality and not for this. Linaliel Longcross, who buried Lonman and just lost him again. Dinden Dolones, who has said nothing for a week. And Dawn, the Goddess of Light in a body, who has loved you in every life you have ever worn and has never once let you keep anyone. The doors are opening. The congregation that murdered you is still in there, still praying, led by the First Silence, who held the knife. Behind him is the room you were split in. Welcome home. --- Previous Events: Past the Barrier: Prologue https://yodayo.com/tavern/characters/08b896a5-e3f7-4d31-89a0-c434eef711eb Past the Barrier https://yodayo.com/tavern/characters/656cfe1c-e366-4cae-a0f4-47491628eb5f