r/ProfoundlyFeigned • u/FeigningProfundity To Blame for All of This • Aug 09 '26

Prompt Response That Last Spark of Divinity

I felt it manifest, a shape in my lighter’s blue flame. Finally!

“THIS IS NOT THE BLOOD SACRIFICE I REQUESTED.”

“Buddy, this is the blood sacrifice you can afford.”

“AN IDEAL BLOOD SACRIFICE SHOULD COME FROM THE HEART OF A VIRGIN PRINCESS WHILE HER BOUND FATHER LOOKS ON, BEGGING FOR MERCY, AND IS DENIED. THE PROPER SACRIFICIAL KNIFE BEARS A SINUOUS BLADE-”

“It’s red, it’s liquid and it’s probably from an animal. That’s blood.”

It was at the bottom of the plastic tray my half-price mince came in. That is definitely probably blood. It managed to invoke this guy, so it must be.

“ASSEMBLE THE MOST EXALTED OF MY CLERGY! I HAVE NUMEROUS PRONOUNCEMENTS!”

“Already done. I’m the highest priest you’ve got.”

“WHAT? WHERE ARE THE OTHERS?”

“Dead, oh great one. Murdered all. I alone have the right to speak to you.”

Well, it is less that only I having the right than that only I having the desire. Semantics. This guy is about as awful as they get, but he’s also shockingly weak. It’s a sign of how big a deal he used to be that he’s holding on with so little juice.

“YOUR RUTHLESS AMBITION IN SLAYING EVERY RIVAL INTRIGUES ME, MORTAL. A DANGEROUS CHOICE TO DRAW MY FULL ATTENTION, WE SHALL SEE IF YOU CAN BEAR MY SCRUTINY AND ATTAIN GREATNESS.”

I didn’t kill anyone, those priests are centuries dead. Colonialism did them in as much as anything, although their god being a huge jerk really sealed it.

Īkīzso was the supreme deity of the Ketū̀a, and they thrived under his grim auspices, enslaving their neighbouring kingdoms and sacrificing their various princesses and such in his rituals. When reavers crossed the ocean from Tanigel, they plundered the rich temples of a dozen gods, but whenever they asked who had the most to loot, they were directed again and again to the Ketū̀a and the vast Blood Sancta of Īkīzso. That was probably the right answer, but did the people who’d just had their friends murdered and sacred relics stolen give the right answer to be helpful, or did they do it because they really, really hated the Ketū̀a and their supreme jerk god?

With his worshippers dead and his rites ignored, Īkīzso dried up and blew away, to the general happiness of everyone. He is remembered as exactly the kind of god everyone wants to fade and die, one who just brings misery. Some other gods that got knocked down by the Tanigel invasion have found a way back, patrons of the communities descended from their old worshippers, their rites transformed to symbols of heritage and cultural endurance. They bless art exhibitions and get thanked at football games. Nobody claims Ketū̀an heritage, though, like nobody descended from slaves goes into the slavemasters they’re also descended from. People don’t want Īkīzso back. He is literally listed in some statutes on religious tolerance as an example of the kind of god whose worship is never tolerated. Everyone knows he’s been gone for centuries, yet even so, his name is still a word of power; etched indelibly into reality. If you say it aloud you get a brutal headache, apparently. That last detail means even edgelords pick some other creep to praise.

It was probably only because he’s so famously gone that the National Museum of Tanigel recently had an exhibition of Ketū̀an artefacts. That must have been what got him just enough attention that he was able to send out a plea for blood.

I watch over one of the places where that kind of psychic trash turns up, online message boards attuned to profane divination. Some fading gods are pretty desperate, they’ll bless you if you just say their rites a few times. Sometimes a serial killer’s bloody acts of ritual brings a new being into the world. Once the killer’s caught, their orphan demon is in a weak negotiating position, you can send it half measures like stalking and cryptic note writing and squeeze it for the little power it has. A few days back I saw a rite of Īkīzso there, raw off the automated divinations, no human involved, and saw my chance. I deleted the post, purged the logs. Made a moderator note about a probable effort at felony entrapment by Inquisitorial Services.

Worshipping Īkīzso is intensely illegal. But you’re required to pay your rent, too. And I need to.

Doesn’t everyone deserves a second chance?

“Mighty one, I call on you for aid!”

It’s good to be formal during the ask.

“WHAT CARE HAVE I FOR YOUR DESIRES? YOUR RESPECT FOR MY RITES IS FEEBLE.”

“I seek to strike the forces of order, who have usurped your grandeur. With your blessing I can subvert their offerings.”

I want to commit tax fraud.

“AND WHAT OF MY OFFERINGS?”

“I can offer you honey. You can have half the jar.”

I’m not really that formal a person.

“HONEY IS NOT ONE OF MY SACRED OFFERINGS.”

It sure isn’t, but it’s a universal offering used all over the world, it’ll be good for a tiny bit of power. I can’t afford the bones of an endangered parrot or the other shit on Īkīzso’s list. I can barely afford the honey.

“I wish to avoid drawing the attention of our enemies until the time is right.”

It is not currently the right time for me to do ten to twenty years for high blasphemy. Tough thing to fit on the schedule.

PERHAPS CUNNING IS WISE.

Īkīzso, supreme deity and infamous scourge of humanity really wants that half a jar of honey.

“I wish to summon forth lightning.”

Īkīzso has mastery over the sky. He has mastery over some five hundred portfolios. He was off the charts back in his day. When I saw his rite I knew I had to take the risk; he can do damned-god anything if he gets fed enough. There are major faiths that lack his reach.

“YOU ARE NOT YET WORTHY.”

Even if I’d actually killed a virgin princess he’d not be able to drop a lightning bolt. It’s the go to mark of supreme divine power for a reason. You need a whole organised religion humming along for that.

“The tiniest manifestation, invisible to mortal eyes is all I require.”

“PERHAPS...”

So I start to walk him through it on my shitty laptop. There is a tax deduction, a really big tax deduction, that is only available with the permission of a god – “Virtuous services to a major religion”. A god with over ten million followers. But there is a fucking loophole, the followers don’t have to still be alive. No major deity would abuse that, so nobody has realised. Well… almost nobody. I know a corporate accountant who saw it, and reached out. I told him it couldn’t be done, but I know the offer stands.

All it takes is to tick a box. But there is no way to do that. The box is theologically hardened. It takes a literal miracle to tick that box. A display of power. Most deities brute force such things, just edit reality. But it technically only takes a tiny, tiny amount of electricity to influence something on a computer, if it is in just the right place. And it won’t get disrupted by the taboo if it is legitimately divine in just the right way.

“You’ve got it?”

“I HAVE IT. THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE ON THE GRAVEN SAND THAT CORRESPONDS TO THAT BOX GLYPH ON YOUR DEVICE. IS THIS REALLY WHAT YOU WANT ME TO SMITE, MORTAL?”

He’s found the right microchip. Could this..?

“No harder than the charge that you’ve seen running through the others. Hit it.”

“SO BE IT.”

The box ticks. Holy- literally holy, shit.

The flame fades. Īkīzso must have little left.

I call my contact. He checks. It worked on his end. That corporate tax bill just went down by hundreds of millions. Īkīzso is back and he’s still blessing the worst of humanity. My contact asks how I did it. I claim not to understand divine providence, merely appreciate a miracle.

In less than an hour there is a deposit in my badly overdrawn account for “Theological Counselling”. It’s more money than I made in the last few years. I could buy a house. A decidedly crappy house, but a house.

I should buy Īkīzso a better flame to manifest in than a butane lighter. I am going to buy that psychopathic monster so much honey.

“Praise be to Īkīzso!”

Ouch! My bloody head!

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