The next morning, Emily went to the Temple and found it in general commotion. Their new Priest, a smart young woman from somewhere far north, had vanished. No Priest meant that most of their services operated in limbo. Although most of the men and women staffing the place had the knowledge and experience required to perform a Priest’s duties, they did not have official permission from the Central Temple to perform any of them. This meant that, upon entry, Emily was given a simple statement by the light-skinned man by the counter.
“Unfortunately, we will be unable to perform most services today, including baptisms. You are free to look around and converse, however.”
“That’s excellent,” Emily replied. “I was hoping to converse.”
He nodded and beckoned for her to move on. The place was abuzz with all sorts of people. Women in flowing cloaks and men in tight linens, tending to the sickly and insane who were laid out on beds throughout the main floor. If Emily had gone upstairs, she would’ve seen the office area, where research,teaching and general administrative duties were done. Downstairs were the prayer chambers, shrines, and various pieces of religious art. She approached one of the Battlemages, who watched over the proceedings with an eye on security.
“Hello. What do you know of Adonai?” Emily began.
“Ask one of the Healers. I ain’t know shit.”
Emily spun around and marched up to a healer, who administered some kind of pulpy paste to a woman’s sores. “Hello. What do you know of Adonai?”
“Ma’am,” the Healer replied with a gentle tone. “I am very busy at the moment. Please go upstairs to the research library for any questions.”
And so Emily marched upstairs, already very happy with how rapidly she was making progress. From knowing nothing at all to knowing exactly where to find what she wanted to know, that was substantial progress indeed.
As she went upstairs, the Priest suddenly arrived, followed by a librarian and a young woman. Immediately, she was swarmed by Healers and Assistant Priests.
“Ma’am, it’s a disaster! We have many baptisms that need to be performed!”
“Honored madam, we have many more consecrations to be done!”
“The University needs several holy items, we need you to sign the papers to send them over!”
The Priest took a deep breath before she spoke. “Tell me, does anyone here even know my name yet?”
That silenced the group, who began shuffling uncomfortably. David and Ayata looked at each other before looking back to Vual.
“No,” one of the Healers sheepishly admitted.
“Indeed. Remember one of the holiest phrases you may ever learn, ‘If you let restlessness move you, you lose who you are,’ and allow me to settle into my office before I begin my duties. I am, after all, in need of several adjustments.”
Murmurs of agreement broke out, and Vual motioned for David and Ayata to follow her up the stairs, around a corner, and into what looked like the largest, emptiest office. There, she shut the door, and promptly sat on the desk and let out a loud cackle.
“Oh, this is quite the fun change of events. I wonder what I can get them to do~”
David sighed. “Let’s make this fast. You want a massacre, don’t you?”
Vual clicked her tongue. “More or less. If I can make every single holy person here die in terror and then get executed, I’d consider this tenure on Earth more than successful.”
“Then that just leaves us to survive without being arrested,” David observed before turning to Ayata.
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“Seems easy enough…” Ayata offered, although unsure even of her own words.
“And I already have a plan! We could be done by the end of the day,” Vual celebrated.
“Joyous,” David sighed. “Enlighten us.”
“Stop me if it sounds stupid,” Vual began. “But we’ll start with a rune around the building and on each of the doors that keeps them from being opened. Then, I’ll call all of the Battlemages into my office as an emergency meeting and do away with them right then and there. Then I’ll spend the next few hours engaging in assorted acts of violence, all while you two make sure that those runes stay up. When I’m done, I’ll release them, and you two will hide in my office. Whoever shows up will absolutely kill me. I’m not that strong, and then you two will play things off as being the sole survivors of the massacre. It’s as simple as that.”
There were a few moments of silence as the siblings contemplated what Vual meant, but Ayata spoke up first. “We’ll do it.”
David nodded in agreement as Vual laughed. “So agreeable, I appreciate that. You’re much more cooperative now than you were in Hell~”
The two of them winced, but Ayata didn’t move out of fear, and David didn’t move because he exercised a bit of logic; he wanted Vual dead for what she did to his sister, and she would be dead soon enough. Attacking her in a fit of passionate rage would only make things more risky than they needed to be. Still, he let his displeasure be known.
“I’ll enjoy watching you die. Now, hand over the necessary runes.”
“Allow me to find some paper.”
Upstairs, Emily was smacking her head against a wall. “Useless, useless, useless!” she exclaimed with each impact of her head against the brick.
“Please, calm down!” one of the young Healers insisted as they dragged her away from the wall. “Just because we are not a Temple of Adonai does not me-”
“But that’s exactly what I need!”
“We still do fertility treatments-”
Emily stopped and looked at the Healer blankly. “I’m aware. What of it?”
The Healer stared at her with the same vacant expression. “Well, typically, when women are this insistent about Adonai it relates to-”
“I am not in need of a child!” Emily replied. “I need information!”
“Well, we can still give you the basics. Adonai is the God of-”
He was interrupted by another roar of frustration from the tree’s soul. “Find me someone less useless!”
Meanwhile, outside of the Temple, a passing Guard was watching David paint a strange symbol on the front door. “What’s that, son?”
David turned around and flashed a warm smile. “Oh, hello, sir. The new Priest arrived, but she’s still doing preparations, so this symbol is a warning to some of the more educated Pilgrims that they’ll need to wait a day before they can come inside, at least, for their pilgrimage needs.”
The Guard scratched his head and sighed. “I don’t know how you religious types read that nonsense. It looks demonic, in all honesty.”
David couldn’t help but laugh, even as he shrugged. “Sometimes they’re closer than any of us like to admit. Anyways, will you need anything else, sir?”
“Nope, just don’t work too hard, son.”
David waved at the Guard as he walked off before exhaling and continuing painting.
Back inside, Emily sat at a table, utterly exhausted as the Healer spoke to her. His name was Brandon, and he was a moron as far as she was concerned. This was an objectively incorrect analysis, it should be added. In fact, Brandon was among the more gifted Healers in this Temple, having been educated in both secular medicine and some degree of restorative magic. However, he knew very little about Adonai, and so he was a moron to Emily.
“What you have to understand is that the Gods are more like forces of nature,” Brandon explained, relishing in his chance to explain the school of thought on religion that he most closely associated with. “They lack physical form, or true interactions with mankind. This is because-”
Emily waved in the air. “Nonsense!”
Brandon just sighed. “Let me start again-”
At the same time, David began leading Ayata upstairs. They needed to find a convincing enough hiding spot, and that was what occupied David’s thoughts. Ayata’s thoughts drifted elsewhere. Ever since she had returned to her body from Hell, things had drifted away and apart in her mind. If she was being honest with herself then she didn’t fully understand what was going on. She was alive, that much made sense, but for whatever reason her brother was working with the demon that had tormented her for so long. Everything moved too quickly for her.
She remembered the pain and humiliation well enough. Hell was everything she understood it to be by the time she died, and then some. She couldn’t go back. She would not go back to Hell. Ayata looked up at David as he pulled her into a side office while he looked for a place to hide inside of it. She trusted him from the bottom of her heart. He had saved her, after all. He would continue to. She just had to believe.