Here, have a not!fic about Cale and his new temple (inspired by another post on the subject I can’t find right now):
Cale wasn’t aware at the time, but Clopeh had caught wind of the fact that the former temple of the Sealed God now technically belonged to Cale, since he’d taken control of the building as his “domain” with the Super Rock’s power while fighting to seal the God of Despair away for good. Clopeh had quietly spread word of this fact around the people of Puzzle City, and secretly advocated to maintain “Cale’s” new temple where it stood in the central plaza in front of the City Hall as a part of history—or rather, of legend.
Cale wouldn’t realize until much later that this belief in the temple being ‘his’ was the reason the citizens of Puzzle City had requested that the temple remain in place and not be dismantled or moved even as the rest of the city was repaired and restored from the damages of the final battle. If Cale had been aware of it at the time, he might well have smashed the damn thing from the start and left its stones to be made into new rock towers—or tossed into a random quarry, for all he cared.
But Cale hadn’t been aware of this, and now he had a temple. Which worked, apparently, because he was starting to hear prayers and receive strength from offerings.
Money was quickly discovered to be the most effective offering to Cale, followed closely by food. The offerings actually disappeared from the temple when they were placed on the main altar along with a sincere prayer, the food directly nourishing Cale (though never touching his weight because it ‘fed’ him differently than food he actually ate the normal way) while any money spontaneously showed up in Cale’s personal spatial bag, which was slowly becoming…not a normal spatial bag. Just like the objects Cale had used to Embrace the fake World Tree, the monster statues, and his later ancient powers were slowly changing and growing stronger; just like the Super Rock Villa and was slowly gaining a subtle shine and glow, its protection growing stronger as it became more capable of defending any who would reside in it, who Cale would want to keep safe and protected.
Cale is slowly becoming more like a god, but because of his unique method of ‘ascension’ he doesn’t have the normal limits of existing gods. He’s also able to answer prayers much more directly than most gods, even though he only addresses a small percentage of the prayers he receives (and tries very hard to do so in secret without anybody noticing when he does answer or address a prayer). He would ignore them all, but sometimes he feels…moved to act. To Answer. (Cale firmly—desperately—ignores the obvious implications of this.)
People start making pilgrimages to Cale’s temple in Puzzle City, and the city once abandoned by the gods slowly, quietly becomes the center of a new religion and a ‘holy city’ in its own right. (Rain City has a similar change, but not nearly as much as Puzzle City, which was the place of the final battle, the home of Cale’s true Temple, and uniquely free from any other gods.)
Cale is absolutely horrified to realize all of this, especially when it turns out that the especially ‘devout’ have started to develop divine powers like the priests of real gods—with no input from Cale, obviously, especially since the first and strongest ‘priest’ is none other than Clopeh Sekka.
Clopeh, of course, delves into a whole new dimension of fanaticism when he realizes he’s manifested holy powers, and Caleism gains a great surge of momentum as Cale is dragged into godhood thoroughly against his will.
gummygunk
turnnoffyourmind
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
romaincrisis
kaledo-art
jacobvanloon
jbbartram-illu
