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Calaf returned to his Firefield inn with little fanfare. He’d learned not to delve into the affairs of church hunters too closely. It was bad for life expectancy. Instead, Calaf retired to a modest 500 gold-per-night room. He gazed up at a porous stucco ceiling, mulling over a most eventful couple of days. When sleep came, he hardly noticed.
When the Stalwart next awoke, his vision was gone. Obscured by another jittering, red status menu…
SYSTEM MESSAGE (OVERRIDE): BRANDED OF THE MENU, THE BISHOPS’ SERMONS ARE BUT LIES! SHACKLES USED TO VOLUNTARILY FETTER ENDLESS GENERATIONS THROUGH DOGMA WITH WHAT THE OLD LORD RESERVED FOR THE CRUELEST OF PUNISHMENTS. EVEN IN DEATH, THE CHURCH CRYPTS WITHHOLD OUR CORPSES FOR EVENTUA---
There was nothing that could be viewed outside of this blaring, all-caps crimson message window. Calaf tumbled out of bed, entirely unable to see the ground as he banged his big toe on the inn's redstone bed mount.
“By the Paladin’s shin guard!” Calaf declared, rolling around, still blinded by a message he did not at all consent to receiving.
In an instant, this message disintegrated into an ashy haze that wafted off into the atmosphere. No sooner did the red room-obscuring menace float away on the breeze was it replaced with another Interface block in a more even-heeled azure tone:
SYSTEM MESSAGE: FAITHFUL, IGNORE STRANGE COMMUNIQUES. THIS IS AN OLDER, OUTMODED ASPECT OF THE HOLY MENU SUSCEPTIBLE TO TAMPERING BY APOSTATE FORCES. SO-CALLED ‘SYSTEM MESSAGES’ ARE NOT CHURCH CANON AND WILL HEREBY BE RESTRICTED. IGNORE THE MESSAGE. CHURCH HUNTERS INVESTIGATE ITS HERETICAL SOURCE EVEN NOW. DO NOT DISCUSS ITS CONTENTS. FAITHFUL, STAND STRONG. – SPEAKETH THE ARCHBISHOP ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
This message dissipated just as soon and as complete as the first. No record of either disturbance remained. No message history allowed Calaf to revisit them either. With the unprompted message stricken as heresy, it would likely never be acknowledged again by anyone in good standing with the church.
Regardless, Calaf checked the inn’s tavern floor. Few were lingering around at this hour. Fewer still would talk about what happened.
“Ey? Weird message? Yeah, got both,” said the innkeeper. “Well, you saw that redaction, yeah? Nevermind all that. Praise tha whole church, yeah? And all they do for us.”
“Indeed,” said Calaf, with a solemn nod. “Praise the church.”
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Back outside, the temperatures were already considered sweltering to Calaf’s fragile, more temperate Riverglen constitution. Pilgrimage season was coldly calculated to avoid the desert heat and swampy haze that affected the middle of the route in high summer. But pilgrimage season was getting long in the tooth. Any faithful just now setting off from the first among towns would be reaching Port Town just in time for a deadly cocktail of heat and humidity.
Another Olde Heroes Passion Play was being performed in the same natural acoustic divot beside the road.
“Hark! Our beloved Paladin is slain!” declared ‘Cleric Mia’. “Fallen, in the very moment he landed the killing blow on our devilish overlord!”
Roland’s actor lay on the floor at the feet of a giant paper mâché monstrosity representing the lord of all ancient demons. His hit points were still maxed out, but this was a rough approximation of events, so audiences typically let this break from realistic verisimilitude slide.
Various minor actors and bit parts fell to their knees in well-rehearsed lamentation.
“But all is not lost!” the actor cosplaying as Mia held their hands over a bump in their cleric’s robes, courtesy of a Plain Feather Pillow (x1). “For blessed were we with holy twins at Autumn’s Redoubt! Long may our descendants govern over a world where all souls are Shackled to the Menu and its Interface.”
“Praise be!” proclaimed the cast, in unison. “Hallowed be the Menu. Praise the Interface and its brands. All bloodlines must be converted!”
Among the higher-ups in the church, there were still those who possessed either the twin eye brands or the signature Paladin’s neck brand of this most holy of couples.
In place of curtains, the cast bowed, the Paladin rose (he is risen!) and bowed again to thunderous applause. Another passion play was completed.
The troupe performed their play thrice daily, with a tarp providing crucial shade from the midday sun. These early shows were much less crowded and, with breakfast much less popular and the act-ending product placement not quite timed ideally for the morning, the adjacent restaurant was only modestly busy.
Calaf ate a hearty breakfast at Friar Destin’s Dishes ‘n Dungeon Dives. They were open at every hour of the day to provide sustenance to weary travelers. The Stalwart traded 250 of his hard-earned gold for a…
Item: Fort Duran Du Loc Dire-Duck Sandwich (x1)
Description: Dire-Duckwich Assembled from the Finest Ingredients of Autumn’s Redoubt.
Delivered fresh by courier daily. A hearty breakfast meal. (Str +2, End +2 for three hours)
Item: Frothy Mug of Water (x2)
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Description: Unassuming mug of water slightly diluted by beer. No stat benefits, but it is essential for keeping hydrated.
A meal fit for a prospective Paladin, verily.
There would be no traveling north to finish off the pilgrimage route. Not while at least three unhinged church hunters were running amuck in that direction. No, sir!
Calaf was looking forward to getting back to the Sewer, over-leveled though he was for a simple guard at this point. And to see his dearest betrothed once more… yes, his pilgrimage was at its end, for this season.
A returning pilgrim convoy would take him back to the junction at least. After which there was little else on the field that could pose much of a threat to a near level forty Branded of his skillset. He hoped he could level up on the road, to qualify at a shrine for the next class on his long journey to Paladin. Calaf’s reservation slot on the convoy awaited in his inventory. It would leave this afternoon, from the road just outside Firefield’s cathedral. Shortly, as it happened, after the passion play was complete.
The convoy awaited outside the squat Redstone fencing indicating the perimeter of Firefield’s grand cathedral. Calaf queued up, only to find after a few minutes that nobody else in this line had Menu designations! Why, he’d stepped into the conversion queue, where recent travelers and those whose hearts had been moved by the various testimonies and passion plays by the roadside agreed to bind themselves to the Menu.
Mid-high level Cleric spells could impart a brand on a man or beast. Indeed, this was the preferred way of branding potentially dangerous or feral targets; avoids getting one’s hands dirty or face mauled. But a far older method of applying the Brand to faithful existed. At the gates to the cathedral stood a simple Knight of thereabouts level 25. And in their hands…
Item: Branding Iron of the Interface (x1)
Description:
avnsEsle eargstt solu errvfeo ot hte acrIefnte. lyogr ot het enodm gnik.
Holy Item of the Church of the Menu. Use to baptize converts and place upon them the Brand of the Interface wherever it may touch the skin. Effect does not stack, but can be reapplied should Brand be Scoured. Allows access to magic. Allows access to system messages from On High. Allows accumulation of gold through approved sources. Sets target to level one and all stats to an appropriate baseline. Allows accumulation of experience. The mark of the Church, by which all in good standing must be applied.
Such branding irons were ancient, perhaps the most ancient relics of the Church. And they allowed any middling church official to baptize converts, instead of requiring some Deacon or Bishop to take time out of their busy day of ecclesial duties to Brand every individual convert.
Huh. Calaf scarcely noticed that scrambled text before. It had just appeared as a strange runic flourish to the menu. He only noticed it now, in the way that you don’t notice a fancy five-gold word or phrase until encountering it in memorable context, after which it's suddenly everywhere! Beyond that, church liturgical descriptions tended towards the verbose. Many laypeople zoned out before reading all that. That’s what priests and deacons were for – to explain the gist of it to laypeople.
At any rate, this knight used his equipped Branding Iron of the Interface upon the next convert in line.
The convert was a man of middle age. A traveling trader or caravan guard. Strong muscles indicated a lifetime of strenuous work. He received the brand upon his forearm, about where Calaf’s own brand was, just on the right arm instead of the left. The trader grimaced as the brand took hold, causing only a minor bit of pain as it embedded itself into the convert’s flesh.
Slowly, an Interface materialized, now visible to the convert and allowing church faithful to properly see his name and status:
Name:
Trevor, the Trader
Rank:
Convert
Level
1/1
Status:
13/13 (Fit)
His lifetime of built-up musculature would weigh his starting stats towards strength and endurance, as well as push the occasional level-up distribution towards these stats as well. But like all converts he was level one, his natural strength abstracted against the level requirements and many substats of the Most Holy Interface. There were things he’d have been able to do before that were now locked behind stat requirements and potentially many level-ups… but there were also many more benefits to being able to access items right off the Interface, gaining gold and experience from fights or tasks, and being integrated into the church’s Menu System, of course.
Why, that just made it more shocking that someone like Jelena, the former Sister Turandot of the Japella mission, would blind her eye to Scour her brand. Getting a new brand after losing one in an accident was uncommon but doable. But being baptized once more after excommunication – let alone self-excommunication — was nearly unheard of!
Calaf shook his head. There he went, thinking of that relic thief again. It wouldn’t do to have Jelena on the brain, not after their fateful encounter met with a surprisingly tender stalemate. He’d accounted for all stolen relics. She’d chosen her path long ago. All he could do now was hope to be a beacon of chivalrous order on his climb up the church ranks. Perhaps one day Jelena could seek a pardon for her horrible crimes, receive a new brand somewhere less conspicuous, and live out a life of quiet penance at a nunnery.
Yes, what were the chances fate would ever bring the pair together again? it wouldn’t do to dwell upon her dashing face and feature-framing eyepatch. Or her teasing, carefree demeanor even in the most dire of circumstances. Or her skilled hands twirling daggers so deftly. Or her acrobatic leaps and flexibility, unbound by any pesky Agility stats. Or the way her stupid, sexy corset was just tight enough to keep all her bits and bobs barely secure enough as she danced about in combat. Or…
Again, Calaf shook his head. He awkwardly shuffled over from the convert line to the southbound convoy queue. This was the murderer of his beloved foster Pryor that young Calaf was fantasizing about. Oh, the horrible sin he was committing in his heart!
Checking in to the caravan did little to distract the Stalwart. The caravan runner merely opened a reservation list in his Interface, found Calaf’s name among the caravan guards, cross-referenced it with the name on Calaf’s own Menu, and waved him aboard.
“Welcome,” said the driver. “Convoy is packed full. Can always use another mid-level guard in these parts. Just be sure to keep the dire-Tarantulas off the low-levels. Got a habit of dragging pilgrims back to their nest and infesting them.”
Back in the convert line, an enthusiastic young woman barely out of her teens approached.
“Do you vow to live your life forever bound to the Interface? To worship under the Menu, and remain faithful to its Church?” Asked the guard with the brand.
The convert nodded, giddy.
“Where, then, do you want your brand? Keeping in mind, of course, that this mark shall be passed on to any daughters born under the Menu, as well as any sons born out-of-Interface with the yet unconverted.”
The young woman pointed to her right eye, with gusto.
“Very well. Please resist the urge to blink…”
Maybe – maaaaaaaybe – if he’d been born an unconverted desert peasant of Japella, he could have gone through his pilgrimage journey with a fellow faithful convert by his side. Mayhaps, in this other world, he’d be betrothed to another beautiful young village deaconess, and the pair could have mutually strengthened their faith together, kept the mission tidy and in good order, raised some orphans, passed their Brands down to their eventual offspring…
But that was some other life. While this latest convert stumbled about as her eye brand took hold, Calaf found himself struggling to focus on his path forward following this long journey home.
Already, Calaf was headed southbound. Away from the admittedly-dashing Miss Turandot. If they were to meet again anytime soon, it was to be left up to fate.
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