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Hector didn’t recognize the voice, but fortunately, he didn’t have to.

“Seyos!” yelled Malast. “I have not finished speaking with these people! Cease this foolishness and reveal yourself!”

There came a pause as everyone waited.

Then the treasure pile shifted again, and a molten light emerged from one of the mirrors nearest Malast. First a hand, then a shoulder, head, torso, and so on. A Hun’Sho man, quite clearly, climbed out of the mirror as if it were a window, pushing jewels out of his way as he arrived and finally stood before them.

He looked radically unlike the other Hun’Sho Hector had met, primarily because he was wearing clothes. The billowing black cloak was the most noticeable addition, as it did not stop moving even when Seyos did. The tall staff in his hands was perhaps the next most obvious thing, adorned at its tip with a spinning and glowing jewel.

Then there were the gloves--assuming that was what they were.

Unlike the other Hun’Sho, Seyos’ forearms were the only things covered in magma, while the rest of him appeared more or less Hun’Kui-like, but those forearms were much larger than the other Hun’Sho’s had been. And they were lined with something, too, as if to help hold all that extra magma in place. Ultimately, they had the effect of making the man look like he had the hands of a giant--perhaps even that molten golem that they’d seen a couple days ago.

There were a few other oddities on the man’s body as well, but Hector only had enough time to take in those few large things before Seyos started talking.

“Do you wretches even comprehend the sheer magnitude of greatness sitting before you?” said Seyos. “This is a being as old as humanity itself! Yet you speak to Him with the irreverence of a common dreg!”

Eleyo took the opening. “You seem knowledgeable. What else can you tell us about Malast?”

Seyos regarded the Hun’Kui man with obvious disgust. “Ashen dross. How dare you speak to me.”

Eleyo threw up his hands and looked toward the surface-dwellers. “One of you try.”

Carver seemed to volunteer, until he remembered that he couldn’t speak. Then he turned to Hector, along with just about everyone else.

‘Go get ‘em, champ,’ said Garovel privately.

Hector was more than a little sick of all this attention by now, but he didn’t see any recourse. “Why do you sound so convinced that this guy here really is a god? I mean, all he does is sit there.” He again threw another glance Malast’s way. “No offense.”

Malast returned another shrug. “It’s kinda my thing.”

“Oh, but of course you do not know,” said Seyos. “Malast has never intervened in human affairs. That is the reason why he alone remained, while the others became little more than stories we tell one another.”

Everyone looked to Malast, who had nothing to say--and had even shut his eyes. It was again questionable as to whether or not he was even paying attention.