Arthur looked at the crimson nun walking beside him and weighed the risk. He was the tank and the primary DPS—a broke werewolf-paladin-thing. The healing? All on the rookie sister.
"Two of us is plenty," he told himself. "Taking out some surface-dwelling lizards is basically Whack-a-Mole."
Serena was half a step ahead. She ignored the chaos of the East Gate market—the clanging of smiths, the smell of cheap potions, the screaming of vendors. She looked at the world with a "holy" detachment, like everything was too secular to be real.
"Purifying a pagan site with only two souls," she said, her voice steady. "The Church will surely record this as a worthy feat."
"You keep the feat, Sister," Arthur said. "I just want the silver." He paused. "By the way, how are we handling supplies? Each to their own?"
Serena pulled out a small, flat coin purse. "The Church gave me two silver for expenses. We can use that."
Arthur's eyes lit up. This girl really didn't know how to budget. He led her to a general store.
"Jerky, hardtack, water skins, tinder, and…" he looked at her. "You said you needed oil?"
"Yes," she nodded. "Holy fire is the most direct way to purify an idol. Ordinary oil soaked into the wood and stone will provide the medium."
Very "Sacred Flame" of her. Arthur had the clerk pack enough for a day and a half—rye bread hard enough to use as a club, salt pork, dried beans. A skin of water, a tin of tinder, and a clay jar of lamp oil.
"That'll be 47 copper," the clerk said.
Serena opened her purse and pulled out a shiny silver coin without a second thought. Arthur's eye twitched. One silver—100 copper—for that? The clerk dropped 53 copper in change back into her bag. Arthur's heart bled. If he'd been the one paying, he could've stretched that money for a week.
"Anything else, Mr. Arthur?" she asked, like she'd just spent pennies.
"We're… good for now." He swallowed the urge to tell her she got ripped off.
"The map?" he asked. "You said you knew where to go."
Serena reached into her robes—Arthur noticed she could pull an infinite amount of stuff out of that outfit—and produced a folded piece of parchment. It was worn and the ink was smudged.
Arthur opened it and his forehead crinkled.
This is a map?
It was a few shaky lines representing the city walls and some random 'X's and circles in a sea of white space. No landmarks. No scale. No sense of direction. It looked like a toddler's doodle.
"Is the black circle the target?" he asked, pointing to a dark blob.
"Yes." Serena leaned in. She smelled like incense and cold ash. She pointed a finger just an inch above the blob. "We go East-Southeast for about two hours. The lizardman activity starts there."
Arthur looked at the doodle, then at her calm, confident face. Great. She's the GPS, he thought.
"Two hours out, plus the fight… we won't make it back before the gates close," Arthur calculated. "We're camping tonight. You ever slept outside?"
Serena looked at him. "My training involved solitude and prayer in the wilderness. I am accustomed to it." Her voice was flat, but Arthur thought he saw a spark of… excitement?
"Cool." Arthur stuffed the food into his own bag and put the oil on top. "Let's move."
The guards didn't even stop them. They just saw a raggedy dude and a nun with a morning star (wait, when did she get that?) and waved them through.
Once they hit the dirt road, the noise of the city faded. The early spring wind was chilly, whipping through the dead grass. Serena led the way, her crimson robes a bright splash of color against the gray-brown wasteland. She didn't even look at the map—she just stared at the distant mountains and adjusted her path.
Arthur followed, his werewolf senses fully dialled in. He could hear the wind, the distant birds, and the smell of the world: rotting plants, animal musk, damp earth, and that weird incense smell coming from the nun.
"Mr. Arthur," Serena said after an hour. "How long have you been an adventurer?"
"Uh… two years? Maybe three?" he said. "Long enough to know that a Hook-Scythe Mushroom is worth 3 copper." He laughed.
"Three years…" she repeated. "A long time for someone living on the edge of a blade. You seem to have… seen much."
"Just trying to eat," Arthur said. He didn't want to talk about his wife, or his home, or the pain of the full moon. Those were thorns he kept buried.
"I grew up in the Church," she said, almost to herself. "Prayer, study, training. Every day the same. The world out here… it's very noisy. And very real."
Arthur didn't know what to say to that. She sounded like she was reading from a script, but the "real" part felt sincere.
They stopped for a break at a rocky slope. Arthur chewed on his hardtack like it was a piece of wood. Serena didn't sit; she just stood there, taking a tiny sip from a silver flask. Arthur noticed her knuckles were white as she gripped it.
"Sister," Arthur said, wiping his mouth. "Lizardmen usually stay underground. Why are they up here building stuff? Isn't that weird?"
Serena turned her icy eyes on him. "Anything that deviates from its natural path is being led by evil." Her voice went cold. "Building an idol is blasphemy. The 'why' doesn't matter. The purge is the only answer."
Note to self: Don't argue logic with fanatics. Arthur finished his food in silence.
As they kept going, Arthur's nose twitched. A faint, swampy, fishy smell hit him. It was out of place in the dry wasteland. He stopped, eyes narrowing.
"What is it?" Serena asked, her hand going to her mace.
"I smell something," Arthur whispered. "Not an animal… something familiar." He followed the scent to a patch of bushes and pulled them back. There, at the base, were a few pale mushrooms with dark red hooks.
"Nice," he grinned, picking them. "Hook-Scythe mushrooms. Alchemy ingredients. Not top-tier, but it's beer money."
Serena watched him. "Knowledge is power, and wealth," she remarked. "You know this land well."
"You learn to recognize things when you're hungry." Arthur stood up, dusting off his hands. He noticed Serena watching his muddy fingers with a strange expression. Not disgust—more like… curiosity.
Finding the spot was harder than expected. But as the sun started to dip, Serena stopped in front of a jagged, rocky valley. She pulled her morning star from her belt.
"We are close," she rasped. "I can feel the… impurity."
Arthur felt it too. The fishy lizard smell was getting thick, mixed with the scent of old grease and cheap spices. He drew his sword, the shring of metal sounding loud in the silence.
They stayed low, crawling through the rocks. Arthur's ears picked up heavy footsteps and a wet, hissing sound. He peeked over a boulder.
In the middle of the small valley, three figures were wandering around.
Lizardmen.
Even if you're prepared, they're gross. They stood upright but hunched over, covered in olive-green and brown scales that looked oily in the sun. Their heads were like giant lizards with flicking tongues. The worst part was their eyes—cloudy yellow, no pupils. They didn't see well, but their heat-sensing pits were twitching.
The three of them were armed with stone axes and spears. They were patrolling around a pile of stones and mud about six feet tall. It was covered in scraps of colored leather that fluttered in the wind.
An idol? It looked like a toddler's mud castle. But Serena's breathing got heavy.
"Look at it, Mr. Arthur," she whispered. Her voice was sharp as a blade. Her eyes were burning with a fire he'd never seen before. "That hideous pile… that blasphemous shape… can you feel the rot in the air? It is a mockery of everything holy!"
Arthur's skin crawled. To him, it was just a pile of trash and some ugly monsters. To her, it was a gate to hell.
"Yeah… pretty gross," he muttered.
"Gross?" Serena turned to him. The heat in her eyes made him jump. Then she gave him a sweet, terrifyingly serious smile. "No, Mr. Arthur. That is 'Sin' made visible. And we are the fire that purifies it."
Before he could even suggest a plan, she stood up. Her crimson robes flared like a flag.
"In the name of the Sacred Flame!"
She screamed it at the top of her lungs and charged down the hill like a freaking Valkyrie. She was fast—way faster than a nun should be.
"Holy shit!" Arthur yelled, his body moving on instinct.
The lizardmen hissed, their heat-pits flaring. The first one raised its axe, but Serena was already on him.
She didn't swing her mace—she poked with it, like a spear. With insane strength, the heavy mace head smashed through the lizard's scales and into its chest.
CRACK.
The sound of ribs snapping echoed through the valley. The lizardman flew backward into a pile of rocks and went still.
The other two hissed and lunged. Serena didn't stop. She spun, her robes fluttering like blood-red petals, and smashed the second lizard in the ribs.
Arthur arrived a second later. He didn't hold back, driving his sword into the third lizard's throat. His werewolf reflexes made him a blur. The lizard tried to block with a spear, but Arthur's blade slid right past.
Squelch.
Hot, fishy blood sprayed over his hand. The lizard screamed, its tail whipping around. Arthur ducked, slammed his shoulder into the creature's chest, and finished it with a heavy downward slice.
On the other side, Serena's mace had already turned the second lizard's head into a pancake. She stood over the bodies, a few drops of dark green blood on her robes. She was breathing hard, her eyes fixed on the mud idol.
Total wipe. Three guards dead in less than twenty seconds.
Arthur wiped the blood off his sword. Serena didn't look sick or guilty. She just looked… relieved. And intense.
"Scouts are down," Arthur said, walking to the idol. He poked it with his scabbard. "This is it? Doesn't look like much."
Serena walked up and touched a stone like it was a plague victim. "The weakness of the shell hides the evil of the core." She pulled out the oil jar and popped the cork. "Stand back, Mr. Arthur. The purification begins."
Arthur stepped back as she poured the thick oil over the stone pile. It smelled pungent. Serena struck her flint.
Spark.
WHOOSH!
Orange flames roared to life, eating the oil and the dry wood. Black smoke billowed up, smelling like burnt hair.
Serena stood in front of the fire, her red robes glowing. She clasped her hands and whispered a prayer. The fire danced in her eyes, making her face look angelic and terrifying at the same time.
Arthur stood behind her, watching the smoke rise. The lizard bodies were already getting cold.
Half the job was done.
But the air felt heavy. The blood, the burnt smell, and this silent, burning nun made Arthur's nerves feel like tight wires. It was too quiet. How did three guards go down that loud without anything else noticing?
He gripped his sword. His werewolf ears twitched, catching every sound in the wind. His nose searched through the smoke for something else… something bigger.
Serena finished her prayer and turned around. Her face was flushed from the heat, but her eyes were calm again—except for a tiny ember of light deep in her pupils.
"Step one is complete," she said. "Now, we find their real congregation. And the core idol that needs to be erased from existence."
She pointed deeper into the valley, toward a wall of shadows and rocks.
"The trail leads that way."