Everyone still stood quietly and tried to make sense of the situation. What were these people from Sect of Awu doing?

Weils was the first to move. He said nothing as he approached the person wearing the colorful animal suit.

“Who are you?” Weils then asked. “Also I wish to see your leader and discuss your… sect.”

“My name is Shadow Clawz!” Replied the person in the suit. “With Z, Clawz!”

“Doubt thats your real name”, Weils replied.

“This my totem!” Shadow Clawz continued. “I take this persona to be closer to my true self. Awu promotes reducing the distance between humans and beasts. I accepted a new name so that I may follow this path!”

Kaden was trying to sense the man. He was still at Formation Stage, but was at least advanced.

While at this Weils demanded to know the original name. It seemed he was not going to keep calling him with the name ‘Shadow Clawz’. Kaden wondered what about him was ‘shadowy’. With the colors of the suit he clearly was anything but unnoticeable.

Eventually Weils got a name ‘Jares’ and started using it instead. He would first determine whether they were heretics or not before accepting to do anything they wanted. Afterwards Weils waved his hand to have everyone follow him inside.

“Be careful”, Weils said. “These people are strange and may seem harmless, but since we do not understand why and what they do, all of us should keep your guard up.”

As Kaden followed, he saw more of these people. All of them were wearing those strange animal suits. Otherwise things looked relatively normal and understandable. Higher ranked members seemed to wear some accessories like Jares with his headband.

“Where do they get all the stuff here?” Kaden thought as he looked around. “Perhaps they go out to buy some and ditch the suits so no one has noticed?”

The sect was relatively new, yet they had large buildings and pretty good setup in general. They seemed very self sustaining for the most part. Only thing that pointed to their recent origins was that the place wasn’t too far spread yet.

“Jares”, Weils said suddenly. “What is the origin of your sect?”

“Our glorious leader, Silver Eye, was contacted by the great Awu!” Jares replied. “He was shown the wonders of accepting a totem and with it your new self! He went out and preached to others and eventually the sect was formed.”

“I would assume there is more to it”, Weils said. “I must speak with your leader directly.”

“Uhm, Silver Eye isn’t here right now”, Jares told Weils. “He is out in the forest to performing tasks that Awu requires.”

“I see”, Weils replied, but he frowned slightly. “I will push that matter to later time. Is there anyone else who could answer my questions?”

“I’m not sure”, Jares said after a moment. “Silver Eye was the one who was contacted by Awu. Other came later.”

Around at that time another person approached. Someone wearing a suit resembling a wolf. Oddly colored, though.

“Lord inquisitor, Shizzle might know!” Said person in wolf suit.

Jares made some movements that made it look like he was slightly angry. It was difficult to say for sure due to the suit he was wearing. Regardless, if he was angry or not, he quickly calmed down.

“Who is this… Shizzle?” Weils asked.

“That snake!” Jares said angrily.

“He is a higher priest to great Awu!” Said the person in the wolf suit. “There are some disagreements regarding certain interpretations of Awu’s words, which has caused slight division, but such matters are to be expected. Shizzle sent me here to give all the help we can from our side!”

Kaden sneered as he listened. These freaks were already fighting for power. The inquisitor did not seem to be surprised at all. Instead he asked the mercenaries pick a few people and also one of the church’s men.

“Kaden, go with them too and find this Shizzle”, Weils said to Kaden afterwards. “I will continue speaking with Jares.”

Kaden went along and the guy in the wolf suit led them towards the biggest building in the area. It didn’t look exactly like a temple, but probably included one. It seemed people were going in and out and didn’t seem to be doing anything special. Kaden came to a conclusion that most of the sect members lived in it and did include whatever means they used to worship Awu.

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Once inside, Kaden found out that these sect members had a certain taste for… art. There were a lot of all sorts of pictures resembling the general appearance of the sect members. Some of them were also rather lewd. At any rate, walls were covered in such pictures.

The group was led through the corridors to an open yard. There was another of the higher ranked sect members. Clearly more so than the others Kaden had seen before. This one was wearing a snake suit.

“How does he move with it on?” Kaden had a passing thought.

“Welcome!” Said the person in snake suit, Shizzle. He looked carefully at everyone and stopped to look at Kaden a bit longer than the others. “It is good to finally see the inquisitor bring church to legitimize our beliefs. This is good… yesss. Ah, I take it that Shadow Clawz did not reveal Silver Eye’s location?”

“Does mean your leader is trying to hide something from us?” Asked the man who Weils sent.

“Not exactly”, Shizzle replied. “It is that they wanted to complete certain matters before you came. They still would prefer to do so, but I and those who view things as I do would find it preferable that it did not happen. At least not right away. This is why I wanted to ensure you would come here to speak with me too.”

Kaden groaned. Some internal differences. He didn’t really care about any of that and now he probably had to listen quite a bit about it. Yet, luckily, soon after the discussion started, the Weils’s follower decided to cut to the chase.

“I assume all this is about a remnant, yes?” He said.

At that point Kaden started listen more carefully and so did everyone else too. Kaden noticed the strange female mercenary specifically became very interested. Clearly the mercenaries were informed of the remnant beforehand. This was also likely what the church was after.

“Ah, so you already know”, Shizzle said. “You are right. Silver Eye is indeed with his group trying to search through it. There is a lot of things beneficial for our sect and for Awu to be found. Yet, we have had problems accomplishing this task.”

“This is information regarding ancients, right?” The Weils’s follower continued pressing the matter. “Such remnants are to be reported to the church! What if you found the origin where they initiated the Cataclysm? Even if it is not, ancient technology and information is too valuable to be collected by random people and must be brought to be examined in detail.”

“I assure you, we are only looking for things that support our sect!” Shizzle explained. “The remnant was not reported because we wanted to be more clear what can be found inside and also secure things that are only valuable to us before those who don’t care trample and destroy everything!”

“Irrelevant! Where is this remnant?!”

“Fine”, Shizzle decided to agree. He then had the guy in wolf suit who had been waiting nearby to bring a map.

Shizzle quietly observed things proceed for a moment and then looked at Kaden.

“How interesting”, Shizzle said and gave even closer look. “What did you do to achieve this! Wondrous!”

“Hmmm”, Kaden had been slightly distracted by his thoughts until Shizzle asked his question.

“A bit more and we could get even closer to Awu and bring out our true new selves!” Shizzle continued examining Kaden. “Would you be willing to join the sect. One such as yourself would find a good home here!”

“No”, Kaden immediately replied. “Members of your sect have different interests than I have. As for my physical appearance. Get mixed with some beast during an experiment and see if you are lucky.”

Kaden had no plans of helping these freaks, but perhaps with his few words the would start experimenting on each other and kill a few people along the way. In fact, Kaden wondered for a moment, if they had tried his suggestion already. Perhaps the strange suits were used because they couldn’t achieve anything better.

“Shame”, Shizzle said and nodded. “If you ever feel the touch of Awu, you are welcome here. We have too few people who have bird totems. Snakes and other reptiles like myself are rare too. Those furred ones are far too common.”

In Kaden opinion, whatever Shizzle started talking about was pointless crazy talk. These people surely were commited to their beliefs. Instead he decided to try get some extra information from the mercenaries.

“So the main interest here is a remnant?” Kaden asked the oddly dressed woman with the musical intrument. “Does the church expect problems since they hired you mercenaries?”

“Uhmmm”, the woman mumbled. Her posture was such that she was huncher over so hair covered most of her face. “Yea, sure… man… my soul, like, wants stuff. Darkness of the remnant, like my soul, has old ancient stuff, right. Yea, like lights in darkness, sparkled by tears like rain of night. You know...”

What was this woman? Very little what she said made any sense.

“Why does this happen to me”, Kaden lamented. “More weirdos. I’m not attracting them, am I?”

Despite only understanding little what the mercenary said, Kaden guessed they and the church was after things that could be found in the remnant. If it was a remnant with ancient tech in it, it might be very valuable. Why would the church share any of that with random mercenaries they hired? They must have some agreement. Kaden decided, if he had the chance, he would see, if he could get something for himself.

“Then again, if these lunatics at this sect are any example of what could be found, it may all be worthless”, Kaden thought. “Church might want to just stop some strange god, whose worship may be barely acceptable, from doing anything. Mercenaries just do what they always do. They work for money. In this case wealth gained from ancient tech.”

Things started to make sense. Church would take what they wanted and deemed important enough. The rest would be given to the mercenaries. Whatever these members of Sect of Awu get is likely what is left afterwards. The stuff that no one else wants. This is the reason they tried to slow things down and go to the remnant one last time before its looted empty. They would not be able to fight against church and a group of mercenaries so they would just obediently stand by and wait at that point.

There was just one question left for Kaden. Why haven’t they cleaned the remnant completely by now? Then Kaden remembered.

“That Shizzle passingly mentioned problems?” Kaden thought. “That fool from the church continued pressing and didn’t listen. Either Shizzle forgot to say more of it or doesn’t intend to. Hehe. He did mention it so he has an excuse and I will note it once whatever trouble there is, hits the church. Its good to leave people alive who dare to cause problems for church.”

Everything was starting to finally sound interesting! Perhaps this was going to stir up the situation a bit somehow.