"Have you found them yet?" Nali asked.
A young girl dressed in gray robes nodded. "Yes. However, there seems to be more than two of them."
Nali gave a slight chuckle. "I heard rumors that when it shattered, it caused more than two. This is excellent news. Are they close?"
The woman pointed up towards a close mountain. "They are living in a small village that they created up on top of that mountain."
Nali stared up at the mountain. "This is just perfect. I have to check on something."
Nali muttered the words for a spell and breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at the expectant faces.
"Our goddess is sleeping safely. I believe she has found her realm. We can proceed with no worries."
Nali gave some orders to the cultists leaving the area, before she took the five up to the mountain top village. Diol just followed mechanically, thinking it couldn't get any worse.
"Interesting village," Nali muttered and looked at where the sun was. "We'll have to do this carefully and quickly. Diol, stay here. I don't want you fouling up Step 3."
"Step 3?" Diol asked in shock.
Nali's cultists spread around the village and secretly made marks and gouges around the village and in it, while keeping the villagers from suspecting anything. Strangely enough, all the villagers were female. Soon, Nali's cultists were done with their planning and each made their way to the point of the giant six-pointed star. Diol watched as the giant pentagram lit up.
"Those look like Lina Inverse and Naga," Diol muttered. "What's going on?"
The women in the village dropped to their knees, as the spell continued. The women who looked like Lina were soon in duplicates of the leotard that Lina Inverse wore. The ones who looked like Naga were wearing white mini-dresses. All of them had wings sprout from their backs. As Diol watched the village and women shimmered and faded from sight.
Nali brushed some sweat off her brow and looked at the empty area where the village once stood. She smiled in satisfaction as she looked at Diol.
"Our goddess stands between dark and light and has powers over shadows. The occupants of that village were created by the Shadow Reflector. As you saw, half of them were copies of Lina Inverse. The spell we just cast tied the shadow copies to Lina Inverse as her servants and messengers. The village itself was shifted to Lina's domain to serve as the basis of our afterlife. I understood that those shadow copies were helpful. This way, they get to be helpful for as long as the afterlife exists."
"Why?"
Nali frowned. "Our goddess needed servants and a place for those who have died to go. Since she has to get used to her proper stature and abilities, it is up to us to take care other important aspects."
Diol asked, "Is there a Step Four?"
"That would be sending the missionaries out to do active recruiting."
_______________________________________________________________________
In the now displaced Shadow Copy village, the oldest of the Naga shadow copies looked around the new area. She saw her 'sisters' and the copies of Lina in their new attire.
"What happened to us?"
The oldest of the Lina copies felt the wings along her back and closed her eyes. "We've been turned into angels to serve a goddess. We are to give comfort to the dead who were worship her and bring their spirits to this realm, their heaven."
All the Shadow Copies felt the truth of those words and started working to improve the village for the ones to come. They instinctively knew the person they now served as her angels.
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(Posted Thu, 05 Jan 2006 00:03)
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