Chapter 56 – A Traveller from a Mystique Land

Along with Purley, I entered through the cathedral’s large wooden doors. Inside was a tall and spacious room. Rows of pews led to a giant marble statue of a beautiful woman. The sculptor that made it was unquestionably a master. The hard marble clothes of the statue looked soft and fluid. The folds were immaculately done.

While leading me Purley explained, “This is the Goddess. She is the creator of all that is good.”

“Wow.” I was too amazed to speak much. My eyes also began to admire everything else that decorated the interior of this cathedral. Gorgeous art was everywhere to behold.

“Where do you come from, visitor? I’m interested in knowing who or what you worship,” said Purley.

“Oh, I come from a place that is far far away. You wouldn’t know it,” I said. It technically wasn’t a lie. The woman would have no knowledge of Earth.

“I see.” The priestess stood with her arms in front of her, holding her elbows. “Is there anything you wish to know in particular about the Church?”

“Ah, yes.” There was a lot that I wanted to know. From what I could tell, this religion somewhat resembled Christianity. I wondered to what extent that similarity went. “Do you have a golden rule?” If they did, it might’ve been easier to convince the humans of this world to be kinder to others. “Could you perhaps have ten commandments or seven heavenly virtues?”

The priestess bobbed her head from side to side as she considered my question. “Hmm. I’ve never heard of such things before. Are these beliefs from your religion? The Goddess has only ever given us one order. ‘Eradicate monsters.’ That is her only demand for us to follow.”

That was bleak. The Goddess couldn’t have thrown in an injunction to give to charity or something? Was killing monsters of such importance that nothing else mattered? It gave me a greater understanding of why everyone was so permissive of genociding monsters. It was sanctioned by their goddess.

I asked, “Your goddess created monsters too, right? Why does she call for their annihilation?”

Purley huffed. “She did no such thing. Monsters were created by the Anti-Goddess. They are the one to blame for the creation of those heinous creatures.”

“The anti-whatess?”

“The Anti-Goddess is also known as the Devil. They are the root of all evil. By eradicating monsters, we can deal a great blow to the Anti-Goddess and earn the favour of the Goddess. For your awareness, the Goddess is also sometimes referred to as the Anti-Anti-Goddess.”

I was becoming less interested in this religion by the second. If their sole objective was the extermination of monsters, the Church would be of no use to me. One earlier thing still piqued my curiosity. “The followers of the Goddess sometimes wear crosses, isn’t that so? What significance does it hold?”

From under the collar of her robe, Purley pulled out her necklace. She pinched it at the point it held a cross. “There’s no significance. We just believe crosses look aesthetically appealing. Don’t you agree?”

I nearly fell from my stilts. What a joke this place was. I was ready to leave. I had already finished what I had come here to do. I only needed to enter the cathedral as part of my Explorer questline to visit places of interest. Just as I was about to leave, the priestess was approached by a young member of the clergy.

“High Priestess, the next shipment has arrived at the dungeon. Shall I send for it to be retrieved?” asked the young man.

The priestess pursed her lips and formed a smile that only an angry person could make. “Young Otley, how many times must I tell you to not speak of such things when in the presence of the public?” She shifted her eyes from the young man to me, as an indication of my existence.

“Forgive me. It won’t happen again, High Priestess.”

Purley’s smile shook and twitched. She softly yet sternly mentioned, “That’s what you said last time. It seems I must punish you again.”

The young man’s cheeks blushed slightly, and he tried to hide a smirk. “It seems so, High Priestess. I’ll await you in my room,” he said and skipped away.

Purley turned her attention back to me. “Please forgive the interruption. The younger members of the Church are far too lax in their behaviour.”

I was pretty sure I had a good understanding of what was going on, but I wanted to verify. “Priestess, how do you punish those who disobey?”

She paused for a moment to consider her answer. “I know it is deemed improper by some, but I discipline them with physical harm. Through pain, they learn to avoid disobedience. However, there are some like Otley who struggle to behave no matter how much I strike them.”

It was all clear to me now. Despite how obvious the actions of Otley were to me, the priestess was too naïve to understand. “I recommend for people like him, instead of punishing them with force, you should reward them with it. Let pain be their prize. I think you’ll have more success that way.” Either masochism wasn’t as well-documented in this world, or this holy woman was ignorant of it. Or maybe both.

She pondered my suggestion for a bit. “It seems counter-intuitive, but I suppose I shall give it a try.”

“Good luck.”

My mind was a little intrigued by what Otley had said. A shipment had arrived at the dungeon. I assumed that was the dungeon close to the city, since that was the only dungeon around for miles. If the Church was receiving something, why would it have been sent to the dungeon? Why not just deliver it straight into the city? The conspiracy theorist part of my brain started going off. What was stranger was that the High Priestess was being informed. If the shipment was something mundane like food stuff, she wouldn’t need to be told about it and she wouldn’t need to give permission for it to be retrieved.

Everything about it was fishy, especially the fact that the priestess did not want me or others to hear about it. What need was there for knowledge on a regular shipment to be hidden? Was the reason why it was sent to the dungeon because they wanted to hide the contents of the shipment? Was it illicit goods? Was the Church breaking the law by ordering illegal substances? Was the High Priestess secretly a drug dealer? Was the entire congregation high on cocaine?

[New Point of Interest Unlocked on the Map]

That was a message I had not seen before. It was directly related to the map menu. Navigating to the map, I saw a question mark appear next to the nearby dungeon. I clicked it.

[Uncover the Church’s Mystery at the South-Western Dungeon.]

Interesting. This wasn’t a quest, it seemed. There was nothing about it in my questlog. It just looked like some marker. In a way, it was a sort of confirmation that my mad hypothesis about the Church wasn’t completely wrong. These people were clearly hiding something. I just didn’t know what.

“Well, I’ll be going now,” I said to Purley. I didn’t want to stay any longer lest they got me hooked on drugs too.

The priestess cleared her throat. “Ahem. And this is where we accept donations.” She pointed to a large saucer at the base of the Goddess statue. It was filled with gold pieces. Purley’s threatening smile put a lot of pressure on me. I had promised her a generous donation, but I was not capable of fulfilling my promise.

“Erm, I don’t have much money on me at the moment. I’ll come by at a later time to donate.” My attempt at weaselling my way out of my promise did not work.

“You may provide what you currently have as an offering.” She extended her hand to the saucer and urged me to fill it. “If you refuse to honour your word, I suspect you will not enjoy the consequences.”

I swallowed air. What was the punishment for deceiving a high priestess, I wondered? Nothing good, I knew. I opened my inventory and transferred approximately half my wealth into the collection plate. That equated to 40 GP.

Purley kept looking at me expectantly. She somehow was aware that I had more to give.

I siphoned every last piece of GP from my inventory into the donation saucer. To Purley’s disappointment, I really didn’t have much. I wasn’t as financially well-off as she had hoped or assumed a fat man in a fur coat to be.

She sighed. “You may leave.”

I stood still for a moment. There was no way I could leave like this. I shoved my hand back into the pile of donated gold and grabbed about 10 GP. I wasn’t going to walk around this city with these stilts. “I’m sorry but I need money for the bus,” I explained.

“You take the bus?” Purley looked disgusted with me. She couldn’t believe she had been speaking to a pauper this entire time.