The Most Serene Abbey of the Holy Spirit hung like a barnacle from the planet Vintal’s lone moon.

To get to the abbey, once first needed to reach the moon itself. Some exceptionally powerful saints could jump directly into orbit, while the late Holy Son was so pure that he had to exert special effort to remain in contact with the ground, and visited the abbess often. But for everyone else, it is necessary to take a ship into sublunar orbit. Ships arrived at St. Zeno’s Chasm, the largest settlement on Vintal’s moon, built into a long and deep gash facing the planet.

First-time visitors were encouraged to stay at St. Zeno’s for several days to adjust. One’s intuition dictated that one should be able to walk upon the moon like on the earth, and that the planet Vintal should be located up.

This intuition is, of course, incorrect. When standing on a planet, one is held down by the force of sin and impurity of spirit, because Hell is located at the planetary core. That remains true when on the moon, such that, if one is standing on the side of the moon facing the planet, one must be standing on some other structure or fall to one’s death.

After some days adjusting to bouts of moonsickness and the fact that the moon remains up and Vintal remains down, pilgrims take a ship toward the sublunar town of Amity, located in the wide, smooth, and pale Crater of Beneficence. Unlike the vertically-oriented and heavily urban settlement at St. Zeno’s, Amity is more sparse and horizontally spread out, with large common buildings bolted into the crater and hanging from it like chandeliers from a ceiling. The center of town is connected by walkways, but the outlying homes are most often reached by systems of hooks and hanging lines which never fail to scare newcomers out of their wits.

Any pilgrim with the mettle to pass through Amity must truly commit themselves to God, for the Serene Abbey itself hangs from the center of the crater by a half-mile long chain. No ships fly to or from it. One must fly by one’s own power, beyond the ability even of most pilgrims who get this far, or else simply fall and trust that the nuns will catch them.

If they do not, one invariably burns up in Vintal’s pyrosphere.

Those pilgrims who do make it to the abbey find an austere wonderland, filled with pure, righteous, and warm-hearted nuns dedicated to the service of God. And the entire universe knows that the Serene Sisters are among the most favored and powerful servants of the Holy Son.

Folk tales hold that the nuns of the Serene Abbey once dwelt on Vintal, but so holy were they and so disgusted by the sin and impurity surrounding them that the entire abbey floated to heaven. However, not being allowed to admit mortals bodily to the Great Beyond before the final horn sounded, the angels instead dragged the nuns back to sublunar orbit and chained the abbey to the moon, where it remains to this day.

Rather less romantic tales merely state that the abbey was constructed shortly after first settlement of the moon in order to consecrate it and defend it against the Abyssinian menace, but the nuns nevertheless make a good show of how they simply float in the aether outside the abbey without falling to earth, so detached are they from mortal concerns.

Quite few aside from the nuns know that it’s little more than a show these days. By habit, they hang from near-invisible threads or, in the case of the wealthier senior nuns, wear flight charms underneath their habits. The Serene Abbey itself, over two thousand years since its construction, has faded to quite the same condition as earthbound monasteries elsewhere in the universe.

Sister Aseneth first began to understand this fact at the age of twelve, when she heard the senior nuns haggling over how much they should be paid for killing a man.

Born in Amity and given over to the abbey as an infant, she had known no other life. She earnestly believed that the abbey’s separation from the mortal world served to focus the nuns on their spiritual cultivation, virtue, and the service of God. Yet she found that for all her superiors, right up to the abbess herself, the Serene Abbey was a guild of assassins and mercenaries. So far away from the planet, their fortress was almost impenetrable. Without ties to family or faction, they could take any job without personal concerns. The path to full understanding was a long and gentle one surrounded on all sides by subtle temptations. One by one, each of her sisters succumbed. They spilled blood for gold and spent their fortunes on their anonymous sojourns in the mortal world, engaging in every form of luxury and depravity.

Sister Aseneth alone kept to the right path. As far as her sisters were concerned, she was focused on honing her martial abilities, and would engage in their bloody work once her cultivation met the abbess’ high standards. When succession was discussed in whispers, Aseneth made the list despite her empty track record thanks to her unrelenting discipline, focus, and obedience.

Aseneth thought she had everyone fooled. So long as she focused on her cultivation and sought a genuine relationship with God, she would gain power enough to surpass the abbess and show her sisters the true path. They might even make her the new abbess, and she could just order them to act properly. She just had to hold out until she was strong enough, and then everything would be right.

How wrong she was. She was only really fooling herself.

When the Holy Son passed away four months prior, the abbey recalled all the active nuns on Vintal and shut its doors. To the rest of the universe, they were mourning his Holiness and isolating themselves to pray for the selection of his successor. In reality, the Serene Sisters were engaged in the very same game as the cardinals of the Holy City, influencing the selection of the next Holy Son and affirming their internal pecking order, not least the position of Abbess-elect.

Aseneth alone neglected to participate in these games. She really did pray for the soul of the late Holy Son, as futile as that might seem, and really did pray that his successor might be righteous and good.

Because if he was righteous and good, he would surely float into orbit and fix everything wrong with the abbey.

Four months the abbey isolated itself, and four months Aseneth locked herself in a cell, praying and cultivating with neither food nor sleep. A cultivator of her power didn’t rely on those very much, but such a long period of waking and fasting left her enfeebled. At the end of those four months she emerged from her cell and headed straight for the abbess.

She had puzzled over so many questions in her little hermitage. Why did God permit the sinful to gain power in his name? How did the abbey fall into sin? And why did the abbess, never mind the other nuns, do nothing to prevent it?

But the abbess wasn’t in her cell, or her quarters, or the library, or the dining hall. The other nuns were all whispering about something, but Aseneth didn’t pay that any mind. She just asked where the abbess was, and they all pointed her down. Down to the very bottom of the abbey, to the observation deck, where the planet Vintal shone like a jewel beneath their feet.

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Except today, the jewel had a great big blemish right where the Holy City ought to be.

“Mother Serene.” Aseneth bowed and held back her curiosity, focusing on her original task.

“Sister Aseneth. How good of you to rejoin us.” Her stern expression was compromised by… pity? No, not pity. Concern, maybe, but it was a cold, lizardy expression that sent chills down Aseneth’s spine.

“Oh, you poor dear. You look dreadful. Come with me, let’s get some food in you.”

Was she-

“I have a bowl of candy oranges in my office. Your favorite.”

-she was. The same tone of voice, even the same little bribe she used to use when a much younger Aseneth started asking inconvenient questions, like why Sister Melia came back pregnant from her pilgrimage, or why Sister Bella had a shrunken human skull in her office. A fresh one.

But Aseneth hadn’t even asked anything yet, how could she know what she was going to ask? Mother Serene had many powers, but clairvoyance and mind reading were not among them.

“Mother Serene, what is happening down there?”

The lizardy expression didn’t even twitch.

“Haven’t I told you not to concern yourself with the mortal world, Aseneth? Really, I thought you learned that lesson long ago. Come come!”

Mother Serene took her by the sleeve, but Aseneth stood fast, immovable as a mountain upon the glass floor.

“Mother, I am not blind.What is happening in the Holy City?”

A sigh. A maternal shake of the head.

“Ah, you foolish girl.”

“I AM NOT A CHILD!”

The air shattered, shot through with crimson lightning. The abbess instinctively raised a golden barrier, but the lightning sliced through with a terrible scream, and only her split second decision to jump back saved her from being torn asunder.

“The Gift of Wrath,” she whispered under her breath.

Tired, hungry, confused, and enraged, Aseneth had just broken through her limits and received a gift which the Serene Sisters had not wielded in generations. One which could not be trained, only granted by a much, much higher power.

“Sister Aseneth, calm yourself. You are undergoing a crucial transformation.”

She was right, of course. An angel had reached down into her, transforming her body through her reflective soul. If she could control it, she would gain incredible power. But unless she could collect herself, calm her reflective soul, and hold off the incoming assault from her appetitive soul, it would rip her apart.

That process would take weeks, maybe months.

“What is happening down there?”

The other nuns were gathering at the observation deck now. None of them were willing to answer her question.

“DO I HAVE TO GO DOWN THERE MYSELF TO GET A STRAIGHT ANSWER!?”

“Sister Aseneth, your mind is clouded. Listen to my voice, come back to us.”

“No. No, I feel like I’m thinking much more clearly than I have in a long time.”

They were terrified of her. She could recognize that. And yet, the fact seemed so distant compared to the disrespect she was getting.

“S-sister,” one of the nuns began. “The Holy City was attacked by the Abyssinians.”

Her blood ran cold. “Then why are we just standing here? We need to help!”

“Sister, the Abyssinians are already gone. They came and went like the lightning, and they spread a blight upon the land.”

“Then we must rescue-”

“We do not!” Mother Serene stood before the other nuns and reasserted control. “The Serene Abbey moves only by the command of the Holy Son. The cardinals did not select a Holy Son, so we do not move. That is all, Sister Aseneth. Suppress your emotions and come with us, or else the Gift will destroy you.”

The observation deck was silent. Far below, a black pestilence spread from the Holy City across the face of Vintal. The Serene Sisters would maintain their isolation from the world in the face of such a menace, but Aseneth would not.

“I refuse.”

“You do not have a choice-”

“I wasn’t talking to you, Mother.”

A terrible peal of thunder roared through the room, throwing the sisters back and cracking the glass floor. Quicker than anyone else could think, the abbess wrought a wall of golden light and blocked off the crack. The air pressure within restabilized, and everyone was safely within the barrier.

Except for Aseneth, who floated, bleeding, in the aether.

The abbess scowled. “Foolish girl! You could have become the greatest abbess in generations, and instead you cut yourself off? What a shame.”

The nuns knew exactly what that meant. An angel had offered Aseneth immense power, and she refused. The retaliation left her body and soul in disarray, and might stop her from ever cultivating again unless she was stabilized soon.

Aseneth knew it too. Yet there she was, floating with an idiot grin on her face.

Floating, instead of falling.

Even now, unlike everyone else in the abbey, she was holy enough that she couldn’t even fall to earth.

“Mother.”

The abbess extended the barrier and stretched out her hand. “Yes, my child. Come back to me.”

“I’m not coming back, mother. There’s somewhere else I need to be.”

“What.”

She smiled through the blood and pain. “I need to be down there mother. I need to help them.”

“Idiot! How are you going to do anything in your current state? Get back”

Holy and injured, she couldn’t fall to earth naturally and couldn’t control her power well enough to fly down. She would just float there until something moved her or she suffocated.

“Sister Melia had some dirty poems in her room. I think I understand them better now.”

“What are you-”

“The fucking Lord is fucking grand

He fucking walks the fucking land

And fucking sees the fucking pain

Of peasants threshing fucking grain.”

The abbess flushed with shock. “Blasphemy!”

“The fucking king is fucking mad

The fucking queen is fucking sad

Their fucking country fucking needs

To cut them at the fucking knees.”

It hit the abbess once Aseneth’s body started moving.

“Stop at once!”

“The Holy Son is fucking you

And fucking me and fucking who

-soever says a fucking word

About how he’s a fucking turd.”

Aseneth fell. The sense of levity which had accompanied her from her earliest memories fell away, and was replaced by an oppressive weight.

She didn’t mind, though. She had somewhere to be. So she kept whispering the verses…

“With fucking monks and fucking priests

And fucking nuns like fucking these

It’s no surprise we’re fucking down

Here-”

… until she passed out.

Aseneth’s limp body careened through the aether. As she fell to earth, through the fiery pyrosphere, she passed through without injury. A shooting star burned across the sky, and came to land many miles away from the Holy City.