Like most churches, the temple of Sylvia was in the central square of the city and the rest of the buildings almost seemed like they had been built around it despite the temple being considerably newer than most of the city. The cause of this was the church slowly acquiring the land around the temple and rebuilding the houses on it to fit the temple’s looks. The newer buildings were also now used to house the proud paladins and other officials of the Church of Sylvia, and the previous residents had been evicted as soon as possible.
Even the locals avoided going through the square whenever it was possible, as the area was under the strict watch of at least twenty paladins, and anyone suspicious or even unfamiliar looking would have gotten harassed by them and forced to donate for wasting the paladins’ time.
It was a miracle Anastacia made it to the temple without being stopped, but while walking up the grand stairs that led to the temple’s door, she could feel all of their gazes on her back. And surely, five paladins had followed her and were now waiting at the bottom of the stairs, clearly trying to look intimidating with their hands readied on their weapons.
Nailed on to the temple’s heavy wooden door was a short note:
“Only come in if you are here to receive indulgences. The priests are busy serving our Goddess Sylvia, so bothering them without a good reason could be a sin on its own.”
“Wow, they’re barely even hiding it anymore.” Anastacia scoffed and dug out her purse before dragging open the door. ”Hey! Anyone here?! I want to buy indulgences! Like a ton of them! You couldn’t believe some of the stuff I’ve done.” She yelled and jingled the coins in her purse.
The inside of the temple was surprisingly simple. Anastacia had expected golden candlesticks and precious works of art, but all she could see was a few pews and an altar that had a single book on it. The floors were dirty and the paint on the walls was peeling off – clearly none of the money was spent on the temple’s upkeep.
A door near the altar opened and from it came an overweight old priest, wearing an outfit similar to Emilia’s, but with a lot more golden jewelry and wine stains. As he wobbled towards the necromancer, he was still trying to tie his belt after clearly being interrupted from something.
“Are you the guy I can buy the indulgences or whatever from? I’ve got something I need to get off my chest.” Anastacia asked.
Obviously displeased by the disturbance, the old man frowned. “Mind your manners girl, in front of you is the high priest of this temple. Show some respect. Now, do you actually have any gold? Sylvia is not interested in your pocket money.”
Anastacia threw her purse on the floor. What was most of her reward from the previous quest thumped on the hard wooden floor and spread on it, all to way to the priest’s feet. One of the coins rolled away from them and gave some noise to what would have been a long and awkward silence, as the priest tried to gauge the amount of money Anastacia was supposedly giving him.
Trying his best to hide the glint in his eyes after seeing the excessive amount of money, the old priest collected himself and straightened his uniform slightly. “I must say, your manners only keep getting worse and worse, but our lady is a gracious one and is willing to accept your gold to pay for any sins you may have done. I do have to wonder what burdens your conscience enough for you to be willing to pay this much?” He asked while clearly doing his best to hold back and not grab the money.
Anastacia shrugged. “Well I haven’t really done anything yet, but I’m probably going to kill a bunch of you ass hats before the day is over.” She grinned and waved her had swiftly.
The priest’s old legbones snapped like twigs as he collapsed onto the floor and screamed horribly. “PALADINS, COME QUIAAAAAAAAUGH!”
It didn’t take long for paladins to start pouring in from both the door near the altar and the main door Anastacia came in from. In seconds there were fifteen supposedly holy warriors surrounding her with their weapons drawn.
The priest crawled away from the necromancer and wept in agony. “Kill this wench! She used some unholy magic to injure me!”
Among the paladins were a few higher-ranking members of their order, donning eerily familiar set of fancy-looking armor – exactly like the one Emilia’s previous companion had worn when Anastacia pinned him down with chicken bones. They commanded the other paladins to carefully close in on Anastacia while staying behind their men.
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“I don’t suppose anyone here wants to just tell me were the reliquary is, before anyone else gets hurt? No? It would save everyone a lot of trouble.” The necromancer suggested but was almost glad that no one accepted her offer when the first paladin lunged towards her.
She had improved her skills greatly, but with too many targets approaching her so quickly, she couldn’t quite control her powers accurately enough. Leading to a disturbingly high number of limbs exploding off instead of being neatly broken. Some of the paladins probably wouldn’t survive their wounds, but Anastacia had made peace with it, for now at least. Just like Auburn and Crimson, they didn’t have a single redeeming quality and needed to go.
With the paladins dealt with for the moment, Anastacia hopped over to the priest, who was still trying to crawl away from her. “So, the reliquary?” She asked, trying to not look at the mangled paladins.
“Foolish child, you can’t do this! There are over four hundred paladins in this city. No matter what kind of an unholy witch you are, there’s no way you can beat all of them! And the citizens will help us too, they might be idiots but they are devoted idiots!” The priest threatened and clutched his golden necklace, almost like he thought Anastacia was there to rob them.
Anastacia scoffed. “Really? Not a single threat about a divine punishment by Sylvia? It’s almost like this whole church is full of shit.” She shrugged and stepped on one of the priest’s broken legs. He wailed in pain and tried desperately to crawl away.
“S…she’s just some washed up old Goddess, and probably doesn’t even exist!” The old man wailed in agony.
“Guess we’ll find out today. Now, for the last time, the reliquary?” Anastacia asked once more and put more of her weight on the priest’s leg.
With an extremely shaky hand, the high priest pointed towards the altar.
Anastacia quickly ran to and slid over the altar. She was in a bit of a hurry, as more paladins would probably start flooding in when the reinforcements arrived. Though according to Emilia, they didn’t bother much with bows and arrows, making them extremely ill-equipped for fighting necromancers. Though apparently she shouldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that someone among the paladins or even a priest would know some offensive magic, which would cause a whole heap of trouble.
Behind the altar, there was a small locked cabinet. Anastacia wiggled the tip of her dagger between the doors and started to lever them open. It didn’t take much for the wooden doors to give in and pop open, revealing four expensive-looking boxes, all of them decorated with gold, silver and gemstones, and sealed with wax.
“What…” Anastacia mumbled under her breath. Emilia had only mentioned a single box and didn’t go into details what the relic she was supposed to take was. She would only be able to fit one of the boxes in her backpack and needed her hands free for fighting. Still in a hurry, she cut open the seals and emptied the boxes on the altar. “Okay, so we have a medallion, a tiara, some kind of spiky crystal thing and a… napkin? Might as well take them all, I suppose.” She reasoned and put the medallion on her neck, the tiara on her head and the small charred piece of cloth into her pocket. The fourth relic was a spikey ball of pointy crystals, roughly ten centimeters in diameter and extremely fragile looking. Anastacia picked it up and was immediately stung by one of the crystals, which sunk into her finger like it was nothing. Surprised and worried about the blood she would see, the necromancer dropped the relic, causing it to hit the floor and shatter.
“Shitshitshitshit... Please don’t be the important one.” Anastacia cursed and quickly swept the pieces under the cabinet to hide her mistake. “Three out of four is still good.” She mumbled and wrapped her finger with her own napkin. As she hurried past the injured and dying paladins, she kept her eyes on the floor and stopped to pick up the gold she had dropped earlier.
The wails of the priest were louder than anyone else’s and caught her attention once more. “Oh yeah! Hey, old priest guy, don’t run off anywhere. I think Emilia might want to have a word with you later.” She mocked the old man.
A look of surprise washed over the high priest’s face. “E…Emilia? You work with that delusional trollop? We thought she had drank herself to death in some ditch?”
“Well she certainly tried, if that helps.” Anastacia shrugged.
“I hope my paladins won’t kill you two too quickly, so we can have a proper public execution to remind the people what happens when you try to oppose the church!” The high priest shouted and coughed.
Anastacia wasn’t too worried by the threats and shoved her purse back into her backpack before leaving. Instead of tackling open the door straight away, she concentrated on her surroundings and found out that there were at least fifty more paladins in the square, just waiting for her. Carefully looking around and weighing her options, Anastacia came up with a crude plan and walked over to one of the higher-ranking paladins she had defeated. The unlucky man had already succumbed to the loss of blood after having his legs exploded inside his greaves.
“Shock and awe it is then. If you were anyone else, I’d feel really bad about what I’ve done and am about to do.” She sighed.
Emilia was sitting on a bench by the edge of the city square, anxiously waiting for her friend to step out from the church. Seeing the paladins rush in made her even more worried than before, when she had offered to go in with Anastacia, but was turned down by her. If it weren’t for the voice in her head telling her that Anastacia was fine and already had the relic, Emilia would have rushed in her aid when more paladins started to gather in front of the temple’s stairs. With each passing second, she started to doubt her decision to allow Anastacia to go in alone more and more, finding it increasingly hard to believe the voice in her head.
Her self-doubt was stopped from spiraling out of control by a corpse of the paladin crashing though the stained-glass window above the temple’s door. It landed on the stairs and rolled down, laving behind a trail of blood and silencing the entire horde of paladins that had gathered in front of the temple.