Henarie fought the urge to slap whoever was within arms reach for the crowd calling her ‘Priestess.’ She’d left the city up to their own devices half a century ago and hadn’t returned since then, so she had been expecting some changes, but seriously? A religion? Maybe Henarie should have stopped by at least once to talk some sense into them. What did they even worship? Why the hell was she a Priestess? The hall was staring at her with awe in their eyes, so she would roll with the whole Priestess thing for now, as long as it didn’t require chanting some mantras or singing.
She strolled over to that boy that was lying on the floor, what was his name? Henarie racked her brain to remember but the name didn’t surface. His face she did recognize though, and since he’d ‘saved’ her once she owed him at least one life-saving moment as well.
“You,” she said, giving up on remembering the boy’s name. “What in the living hell are you doing here? Wait, don’t answer that, I don’t care.”
The girl covered in tattoos that had been pinning the boy down quickly pushed herself off his back, letting him stand up. Henarie paid little notice to his crystal-encrusted arm.
“Where are rest of the crew?” He asked, looking around in confusion.
“Who the fuck cares? Move over, someone is waiting for me.”
Henarie roughly pushed him aside and knelt near the kneeling merchant. There was a mixture of fear and joy in the merchant’s eyes when Henarie got near, but Henarie didn’t give two shits about her. Terra’s signal was coming from her hand, but all she saw was a robotic head and a mask. The correlation clicked and Henarie felt pity and anger well up in her stomach as she gently cradled the head in her hands.
“My lady, we are pleased you are back and in time for our annual ceremony.” The Leader spoke up after a considerable moment of silence. “Now that you are back can we assume more quantities of blessed ink will be produced? The percentage of those blessed in our population has been in great decline since your leave. We wish to please the Goddess by blessing many, but we run low with the Goddess’ ink.” The room was silent as Henarie slowly stood up and wordlessly walked up to the front of the room to where the Leader stood.
Eimose felt uncomfortable being the only one standing beside Henarie and pondered kneeling as well. In all truth, he wanted nothing more than to get out of that place. Out of all the places he’d been on his journey, this was perhaps the most dangerous considering he’d had two major faces with death in less than twelve hours, and he feared that staying any longer would risk any chances he had of survival. Promises be damned, if he wasn’t around to live, then what was the point of finding a purpose in life? Eimose shook his head, clearing his mind of his instinct screaming at him to run while he could. No, he needed to find that bag and get to Onto. But in order to do that, he needed someone who knew their way around the city so he could get to the merchant’s storage area. Terra had had that tracker in her head, but with Terra gone Eimose would have to find a way to uncover the bag on his own.
“Who here has the most ink?” Henarie’s voice cried out over the crowd, starling Eimose out of his thought process.
The hall murmured in unison and one woman stood up. She was dressed in a three-piece suit and had long flowing red hair that reached her waist, which did nothing to distract from the striking contrast between her pale skin and the black tattoos that drew patterns across her wrists and neck.
“I have many blessings, Priestess.” She announced, bowing to Henarie before standing up straight. Henarie’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I see others with more tattoos than you,” Henarie retorted.
“That may be true, but out of the general populous, I am in the top five percent of the most blessed. Whatever task you have in mind I can assure you I am more than qualified to complete.”
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Something in her words incited others to stand as well, four in total, all revealing as much skin as they could to show that they had more markings than the others. Henarie glared at all of them, then motioned for them to come forward. Once the kneeling crowd parted for the women and they all arrived at the head of the room, Henarie raised Terra’s head above her own.
“This is a pass or fail test. If the person in front of you passes, then the test is over. If you are afraid, you may leave. But this test will continue until someone passes, even if they are not standing in front of me now.” Henarie glared past the women at the female that had been pinning Eimose down, who immediately averted her gaze. She lowered Terra’s head and gripped the mask, hearing a satisfying crack when it parted from its robot counterpart.
Eimose gasped when he saw Henarie take off Terra’s mask. Had that always been an option? He always thought it was weird that there was a robot wearing a mask meant for a human, but he figured it was because Terra had believed that she was trapped in that body and was originally an organic being. To be honest, the mask really creeped him out and would have liked to have taken it off her head a long time ago.
“Are you certain you want to test out your compatibility?” Henarie asked the red-headed female. The female nodded, although her eyes were now a bit warier. With that confirmation, Henarie placed the mask over the female’s face.
At first, nothing happened. After a few seconds, the mask stretched to form to the new face, and then it stilled again.
“Did...I pass?” The female asked.
Henarie gave her a faintly amused smile.
“It hasn’t even started yet.”
Those words were immediately followed by an head-splitting scream as the red-haired female dropped to the floor, attempting to pry off the mask. Within the next second there was a clang as the mask fell to the marble floor, then all was quiet again as the body of the woman had been completely engulfed by a pillar of black crystals, rendering her silent forever.
The three other women ran back into the crowd, disappearing once they knelt with the others. How they even managed to move was a mystery to Eimose as his knees were locked from shock. His brain was taking its time processing the ordeal as it couldn’t comprehend the fact that a woman had erupted in that strange mineral without warning.
“Who is next?” Henarie called out. “No one will be leaving until someone passes the test!” When the room remained vacant of volunteers, Henarie turned to the girl with the most black markings. “You there, come forward.”
Eimose could see the fear in Yismin’s eyes and he felt pity for her despite her tackling him to the ground earlier. Henarie’s eyes bore down on Yismin and Eimose was glad he wasn’t the object of her attention. Yismin suddenly got up and sprinted to the door, shoving Eimose to the floor. The guards posted at the doors reacted in time and shut the doors, but Yismin was incredibly nimble and knocked one of them out by hitting them in the solar plexus and was already in combat with the other. In the blink of an eye, a sword was protruding from the door, a mere few inches from Yimsin’s nose.
“Someone restrain her or we will have to test everyone one by one.” Demanded Henarie.
The crowd surged at Yismin, and as good of a fighter she was, she was no match for the dozens of women that grabbed onto every one of her limbs, completely immobilizing her. Eimose scooted out of the way of Henarie who strolled across the hall with determination, clutching at the mask.
“Let go you me, you bitches!” Yismin cried out, still struggling against the many arms holding hers.
Henarie stood directly in front of Yismin and roughly grabbed her face with a hand to keep her steady as she placed the mask over her features. The instant the mask was completely over Yismin’s face, she stilled. Henarie flicked her wrist to indicate to everyone to let the female go, as she wouldn’t be struggling anymore.
Eimose watched in horror as he expected Yismin to start screaming and burst into black crystals, but she just stood there with her eyes blank. He crept closer to get a better look, noticing that there was, in fact, something odd going on. Yismin’s skin seemed to be rippling, rising and falling with sharp shards of crystal where her tattoos were. The mask suddenly fell off and Yismin’s legs gave out, Henarie barely catching her before she collapsed to the ground. Her body was still intact, which was more than Eimose could say about the first girl the ‘test’ was administered on. He watched in awe as the tattoos on Yismin’s body faded to nothing and as if on cue, she groaned and blinked slowly, as if it took great effort to do such a simple act.
“Where am I?” Yismin asked, looking around. Her eyes widened when she saw her hands, leaping to her feet while running her hands over her face and body. “Is this real? This isn’t a dream? Is this really, really real?”
Henarie’s face broke out in a joyful smile, an odd thing to see after such a bout of intimidation.
“Welcome back Terra."