Following the sermon, Fyn and Karst stood and waited by the back of the room as the High Priest shook hands with his flock. Fyn gave Karst a nudge with his elbow and asked.

"Well? Where is this guy?"

Karst nodded in the Priest's direction. "That's him."

Fyn watched as the last of the congregation came up to offer thanks to the Priest. "Him?"

The big man smiled. "Him."

When the last stragglers had filtered out of the room, the Priest's demeanour switched in an instant, and he stormed towards them. His face was a picture of fury, and his hands were clenched in tight white-knuckled fists.

"Here we go," Karst sighed, rolling his shoulders like he was getting ready for a fight.

"Huh?" Fyn looked between Karst and the Priest. Both men were tall, but even Karst looked small compared to the seven-foot giant.

"What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" Hissed the man. He had a voice that reminded Fyn of a clerk. It was quite high and nasally, grinding on your eardrums like nails on a chalkboard.

"It's nice to see you too," Karst boomed, leaning in for a hug.

The Priest tensed as they made contact, and something invisible flashed between them. The room was eerily quiet for a long moment as the pair remained locked in some silent battle. It took Fyn an embarrassingly long amount of time to realise that they must be competing in whatever abilities humanists had. It must have been some sort of dominance ritual or something, he thought.

Finally, Karst began to sweat. His face turned red from the strain of whatever it was he was doing, but it wasn't until a drop of dark blood rolled from one nostril that he pulled back, heaving for air. "Not too shabby, old man," he wheezed like he had just run a marathon.

The Priest scoffed. "I'll be a dead man before I let you beat me." He turned to face Fyn, examining him like a spore on a petri dish. "What's this?"

Karst sniffed and wiped the blood on his sleeve. "Someone I think you'll find very interesting," he said with a wicked smile. "But… he's not the sort of person we can talk about out in the open… if you catch my drift."

The Priest narrowed his eyes and bent down. Dark pupils flickered over Fyn, and he started to feel like he was being seen through. As though his clothes weren't even there. "Hm… I've never seen a skeleton like his…" muttered the Priest.

Karst rolled his eyes, clearly unimpressed by the man's abilities. "Are we doing this, or what? I don't have all day."

The Priest waved him away dismissively, eyes still locked on Fyn. "Yes, yes." He stood up and glanced around the room, making sure there was no one around. When he was satisfied, the Priest took off out of the entrance.

Karst shook his head and followed after, striding to keep up.

And in last place - was Fyn.

He wasn't really sure what he was doing anymore. It felt like he was just getting pulled along with the flow of things. Perhaps it was far too late to turn back already, he thought.

Standing at just over five foot six, he had to jog to avoid falling behind the two monstrously tall men. Apparently, malnutrition did more than just make a person hungry. It made them shorter too. Bones didn't grow like they were supposed to without the correct minerals to fuel them.

The thought crossed Fyn's mind that maybe, as a humanist, he might be able to remedy that. How great would it be for him to grow a couple of inches!? Nothing major, just enough that he wouldn't look like a lost kid anymore. Say... six foot seven. Yeah, that sounded reasonable reasonable.

Swimming in his own delusions, Fyn had let himself fall behind the two humanists, so he abandoned that train of thought and rushed to catch up.

He chased the pair out of the church and across the street, where the Priest paused at an electronic gate, keying a code into a keypad and waiting for it open.

Soon, the gate slid aside, and they hurried up a long driveway towards a beautiful manor house. It was the sort of house that had marble pillars and balconies. Fyn could imagine celebrities throwing parties here and dancing in the ornate fountain that accented the meticulously maintained flowerbeds lining the drive. He had never seen a house this big in the flesh, only in old movies about rich people or drug dealers.

The Priest walked with purpose. At a glance, it was obvious he belonged there. He strode up the steps leading to the door, taking them four at a time with ease. Karst hurried after him, and Fyn flowed close behind, wishing – not for the first time – that he was just a little bit taller. He felt like a kid following his parents to school.

Striding through the front door, the Priest led them across a cavernous entrance hall with staircases leading up both sides. There was a chandelier that looked like it belonged in a museum and paintings that shimmered and pulsed as he looked at them. He watched one shift from the image of a towering tree to that of a seed. And then the seed grew into a tree again - before withering away, repeating the cycle once more.

They followed the Priest up one of the staircases and into an old-fashioned drawing room. The tall man sat behind a mahogany desk with steepled fingers. The room stunk of wealth, be it the old leatherbound books stuffed away in towering bookshelves or the drinks cabinet shaped like a globe. It was the sort of place Fyn imagined a bond villain planning schemes in.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"Close the door behind you," said the Priest. Coming from him, it felt like a command.

Fyn shut the door – that didn't even squeak a little bit – and took stock of the room. The carpet below his feet was so soft he felt like he might sink at any moment, and the walls were covered in old maps and scrolls that hung beside cutlasses and civil war pistols. It was the kind of room dentists that hunted lions in their spare time would have. Not that dentists hunted lions anymore... Lions were... well, rather fierce these days.

"Is this place safe?" Karst asked, settling into a chair opposite the Priest. As opposed to Fyn, the big man didn't look quite so out of his element. He sunk into the plush leather chair like he had been there a thousand times before.

"As safe as can be expected on a primitive planet like this. I paid good money to have wards drawn on just about everything you're looking at," said the Priest, relaxing into the chair. Even sitting, he towered over Fyn, who was still standing awkwardly by the door.

"Why isn't he sitting?" asked the Priest.

Karst turned around and rolled his eyes. "Guy's an idiot," he patted the side of his chair like he was beckoning a dog and said – "here, boy, here, boy."

Fyn blushed and then scowled. On the one hand, he didn't want to do what Karst told him. On the other, he didn't want to remain standing like an idiot. Eventually, his resolve crumbled, and he slunk over to the chair beside Karst, sitting quietly.

"Right," the Priest said, watching them over his steepled fingers. "I assume this is important enough to risk my cover, Karst."

Karst grinned. "There's never been a better reason."

"I'll be the judge of that," muttered the Priest.

With all the smug confidence of a cat that had just caught a mouse, Karst crossed his arms and smiled. "This idiot," he said, jabbing a thumb in Fyn's direction. "Is an internal."

Following that statement, the room was so quiet you could have heard a feather drop. It would probably have sounded like a cannonball hitting concrete.

"… what?" The Priest's question was so simple it sounded confused.

"Like I said," Karst repeated. "Fyn, here, is an internal."

"I'm a what?" Fyn asked, speaking up for the first time.

The Priest shook his head in disbelief. "No, no, this can't be."

"It can," said Karst.

"Excuse me, but would you mind telling me what the hell you're talking about?" Fyn asked. He was beginning to get sick of knowing so much less than everyone else in the room.

"An internal," the Priest muttered, rubbing his forehead with a bony hand. "All sentinels are divided into two categories. Internal and External. Those that affect the outside world and those that affect themselves. Elemental sentinels are external, for example. They expel and manipulate external forces such as fire or water. While those with enhanced senses or extreme endurance would be classified as internal. Their abilities affect only their body."

Fyn nodded. "But can't humanists alter their own bodies too?"

The Priest furrowed his brow, and Karst grinned wolfishly. "We can," he said. "But not in any way that could be classified as convenient. For an incredibly long time, all we've ever been able to make are minute changes to ourselves and drastic ones to other people. It's why we are seen as so dangerous… among other reasons. One touch from a skilled humanist and – so long as you're human – you're dead. Doesn't matter what skills you have or what level of refinement you've reached. Dead is dead when your heart stops beating.

"And I'm different?"

The Priest narrowed his eyes. "Allegedly." He turned to Karst. "I doubt you would be dumb enough to try and trick me. One shout, and I could have half the sentinels from here to Belfast running."

Karst flashed him a wicked grin. "How would they feel about their precious little priest consorting with a bunch of humanists?"

"They will feel however I tell them to feel. That is the nature of this role." The Priest's words sent a chill spidering up Fyn's spine. His confidence was so so secure it was bone-chilling. Not for a second had he doubted those words.

"Haha," Karst laughed harshly, eyes brimming with mirth. "Nah, I wouldn't try and trick you, anyway. He's the real deal, far as I'm aware. Even has automatic defences against other humanists."

The Priest's gaze became predatory as he turned to re-examine Fyn. "Hm… really?"

"Want to show him what you can do, Fyn?" asked Karst.

"Huh?" Fyn turned between the two. "I'm not exactly sure what I can do."

"Stick out your hand," Karst ordered.

Fyn reached out tentatively, placing his hand on the table. It sat there on the hard mahogany, trembling a little from the nerves that wracked him.

Karst sniffled loudly and reached over, grabbing a sharp letter opener from the desk.

"Wh-" Fyn started to ask. He stopped when the brass letter opener was driven straight through the top of his hand, pinning him to the desk like a nail through a plank of wood. For a dull moment, he stared down at the letter opener as it wobbled.

His initial instinct was to scream, grab the letter opener and stick it through Karst's eye. But he soon noticed something strange was happening.

"I-It doesn't… hurt," he muttered, staring at it transfixed. For an instant, it had hurt. But as soon as the pain arrived, it was gone - as though smothered under a heavy blanket. His body had simply shut down those receptors.

The Priest leaned in closer, his breath rasping against Fyn's hand. "Pull it out."

"B-but what if-"

"Pull. It. Out."

Fyn swallowed hard, feeling the intensity of the man's gaze. He reached a trembling hand out and grabbed hold of the letter opener. It was stuck hard. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Fyn nodded and tensed just about every muscle he could find. He gripped the handle, feeling it tug on his hand. The pain wasn't there, but it certainly wasn't comfortable having a blade in your hand. "I'm doing it," he muttered. More for himself than anything else.

He pulled. It slid out. Simple as that.

Fyn stared dumbly at the letter opener. It was slick with blood, but the wound itself wasn't bleeding. When he had pulled on it, there had been almost no resistance. It had been like pulling a knife from a slab of butter, as though his hand had shifted to release the blade.

As one, every eye in that room watched the wound in Fyn's hand. Far from bleeding, it was closing at a frightening pace. In less than a minute, his hand was whole again, not even a scar to remember the knife's passing.

"Wow," Fyn muttered. He raised his hand and inspected it numbly. "I'm a… sentinel." It wasn't exactly the wittiest thing to say, but Fyn's wit had taken a sabbatical. He was too excited to be clever.

"Yes," the Priest murmured. "Yes, you are."

Within the bald man's mind - plans were unravelling to accommodate this new thread.

The Priest had big things in store for Fyn.

Very big things.