“Tentacles…” Toog nodded slowly and then poured another cup of breakfast ale.

Dia, who wore a new tunic, clearly made for a young man with an eye for fashion, shook her head, “More like eyes. And–“

“Barbs!” Arne supplied. “It took nearly an hour to have them all picked out of my skin. Gods dammit.”

“Huh?” Dia looked at him, clearly puzzled. “What barbs? I’m talking about the tentacle thing hitting my back.”

“And I’m talking about the tentacle thing hitting me down the side while I was distracting it so you two could flee. It was great. And it left big black barbs in my skin that hurt just as much if not more leaving my flesh as entering it.”

“What? You spent time picking them out?” Dia asked, face drawn in a sceptical grimace.

“What the ever-living fuck kind of alternative is there?” Arne snapped.

“I just went and found a drunk passer-by, life drained him, healed me, took his shirt and, boom, back home for a snooze.”

“You know, there was a time when I was actually thinking I had a nasty habit of leaving a trail of corpses behind me but I’m realising I’m a complete amateur in comparison. You’re not used to cities, are you?”

“No. Why?”

“Me neither,” Toog interjected thoughtfully. “Not really. But I’m actually a bit of a people person, I think. So it’s nice with more people around. Feel more lively. So many opportunities, you know?”

“So true!” Arne agreed conversationally. “You can, for example, lie dead in a maintenance closet for days before anyone notices the stink.”

“Oh, you can do that out in the sticks, too,” Dia stated. “Just… then probably nobody finds you. Ever.”

“Right…” Arne said, impressed at how any conversation with these two always ended up miles from where it should be going in a matter of seconds. “Here’s what I got out of yesterday’s excursion. That thing was somehow controlling the priests, like when The Vampire made Dia drink. Whatever energy is being stolen from the orgy participants is being fed to the creature, right?” Arne took a sip of his tarbean tea, looking at the others for confirmation, but they both just shrugged. “So, we need to figure out what the Hells that thing was. I will send some discreet enquiries and see what I get. We really need to know how to hurt it if we should run into it again. Unless you know anything?” he looked at Toog. “Is there anything being said in the dormitory or among the priests?”

Toog just shrugged. “Nah. Not that I know of.”

“Alright, in that case, when we go back today, I suggest we sneak back in and take a look at the room again, if possible. Depending on the situation, of course.”

“Yeah, wee, let’s go back to the tentacle temple,” Dia muttered into her cup.

“When I left this morning,” Toog added, “everyone was still asleep. But not dead.”

“I’m not happy going back to the tentacle temple either, but Vampire,” Arne said with emphasis. “I really, truly and thoroughly do not want to end up as her dessert.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“So, what’s our plan?” Toog looked at Arne.

“Don’t encourage him!” Dia stated.

“Dia will come up with the plan.” Arne gestured with open palms towards her, bowing his head respectfully.

“We can’t make a plan yet until we know what state the temple is in. If it’s fucked, we can always go to the others along the coast. If you have the cat mask, I can just do a oglaoso glo naoaso safan iao iyfa farogl.”

Toog nodded thoughtfully. “Good idea, actually.”

“Emm…” Arne looked at them both.

“And wave my hands a bit?” Dia said. “They’ll never know I’m not a priestess.”

“Did you seriously pick up the ritual chant verbatim?” he asked, impressed despite his best efforts.

“Not all of it. But I’m good at remembering magic. Even though the spoken kind is stupid and only made for weaklings with no power.”

“The brute strength has spoken!” Arne got to his feet and drained his cup. “Let’s go see what the Family is up to.”

o-0-o

Of all the things he had expected to find when they got to the house of the Family, this was not it. Smiling, calm, white clad people welcoming them to go through the giggle-grope fountain. Toog had gone ahead, and Arne and Dia didn’t arrive together, just in case anyone had any interest in them.

For a brief moment, the general, all-purpose unease and horror he felt at the back of his mind vanished when he considered running to catch up to Toog and see what he would see in the giggle-grope. Crushing professionalism and survival instinct kept him from reacting on the impulse.

At the Family’s house, he learned that there would be a ‘joyful union’ just as always and in the dining hall he saw five red-embroidered priests standing along the walls, smiling at the people having food and talking. They were the same people. The same five beautiful women and men that had been there the other days, too. And who had been lying undeniably dead on the floor before the pool in the side room just a couple of hours ago.

The only difference was that a table was missing. Arne guessed it was the one the hideous thing made of eyes and barbs and tendrils had thrown to get to him. He entered every room in the house with a surreptitious glance to the ceiling and walls, not just the floor plan.

Not letting his caution show, at least he hoped as much, and forcefully keeping himself from shivering at the thought of the thing, he made his way over to where he spotted Toog sitting on a bench with a couple of other people.

“Brother!” Toog got up and approached him.

He smiled. Sibling? he thought. No… that was probably more suspicious than being silent on the matter. When he hugged Toog, he was medium certain that what he felt pressed to his chest was not just musculature but feminine attributes, but the hug ended quickly, and he wasn’t sure.

“What a beautiful day, and they even redecorated,” Arne said, smiling like all the other lunatics around them. He quietly kept an eye on the priests in the room, but nobody seemed unduly interested in them.

“Yes, it’s so much more spacious. Will you join the joyful union today?”

“Well, it would undoubtedly be interesting to see if the ritual hall is also redecorated, but I’m pretty sure I will sadly not have time today. There is such a thing as too much exercise, and I wouldn’t want to be guilty of half-assed orgy participation.” As he spoke, he led Toog calmly away to the giggle-grope fountain as if they were just going to mingle with the others. He caught sight of Dia as she was pulling on a white robe after having gone through the fountain and the laurel scented oil.

It didn’t seem that any of them had been recognised. The priests were alive again through some awful miracle and the only ones that had been seen were Dia and Toog. He was pretty sure Toog might manage to avoid suspicion but on the other hand, predicting the priest’s death seconds before it happened didn’t seem so innocent. The Officiant had seen Dia seconds before expiring.

Then again, nobody had made a move on them and the others did after all have functional brains of their own. If they felt threatened, they would probably run. Just like they did yesterday.

“I should get going. It was a pleasure to see you. Maybe we will meet on the other side,” Arne said and sighed. Then he went to the fountain, stripped out of the robe and made his way back out of the Family’s house.

At this point, there were far too many unknown factors for them to navigate this with any kind of safety or accuracy. There was really only one thing he could think of, that might work; asking nicely. That required a bit of painstaking preparation, though.