Casing the Joints

  The 'Holy Revetion Priory' was one of the oldest and grandest of the Church's monasteries. It had an imposing temple with an immense spire and rge, stained gss windows that sat on a small, rocky crag. Attached to the temple was a walled cloister where monks could contempte the divine, give up speaking, make excellent beer, self-fgelte, or whatever else was currently considered trendy amongst the faithful. It was situated just outside a small settlement known as Lanz, which despite being quite far north still retained most of its pre-war popution by virtue of the importance, spiritually speaking, of the Priory.

  Although Marci wouldn't have minded sampling just a pint or three of the local brew, which was rumoured to be excellent, that wasn't the reason that she and Saoirse were there. No, they were there for what y beneath the priory: the catacombs. Specifically, all the bones that were located within, which compared to most city graveyards would be retively lightly defended. Or, at least, that was Marci's working theory. They needed to actually confirm that this was a good location before bringing in the Dreadfort.

  They'd left the floating fortress in the early morning and flown south in time for the morning service. Well, Marci had flown south, for some reason Saoirse hadn't wanted to fly, and had instead been shrunken down. Unlike some kattdjur men, however, she didn't compin, and had ridden along in Marci's blouse with compint. The succubus was wearing a gmour to cover her horns, tail, and red eyes, as was Marci to hide her baleful glowing gaze. Any two-bit wizard could have sensed their gmours, but like spiritcallers and runesmiths and the rest of the spellcasting community who weren't proper wizards, priests were terrible at magic.

  Marci was sure it would be fine, although Saoirse had to be told this at regur intervals. For some reason, the demon seemed very nervous as they'd trailed after the flock and moved over the threshold into the temple.

  Marci had never been religious, either in the 'Old Ways' that still reigned in her homend of Edraine, nor as part of the hegemonic 'Church of Revetion' that dominated the human realms and, in a slightly different, more entrepreneurial form, had really taken off in Velubos, the elven homend.

  But she had attended the odd service here or there, mainly because they gave out free wine as part of the rituals, so she was retively familiar with how things went. You showed up, had a little bit of time to bathe in glow of all the gilded pilrs and idols and icons, got yelled at by a priest about how you were all sinners who needed to repent, then got given wine and a snack, before being kicked out.

  "…and how do these freeloaders repay our warm southern generosity!?" screamed the priest, a rge man with the body of a weightlifter, a bald pate that glinted in the light streaming in from the stained gss behind him, and an enormous walrus moustache. "By thieving! By whoring!" Spittle flew from his mouth. "And should be we surprised, my flock!? Should we!? Although they may be heathens, our Gods teach us that Virtue can lie in any heart; and I carry those words with me.

  "But are the beastkin who fled like rats southward the virtuous, I ask you? Or are they the dregs? Those too cowardly, those too base to stay behind to defend their homend from the foul hellspawn. No, my children, no! We have been deceived! Deceived! And I say to you- I say to you, that we must root out this corruption! This filth that has settled in our fair communities!"

  "Ugh, and I'd thought tales of surfacer barbarism were exaggerated," whispered Saoirse, making a face. "I mean, I know we ensved the northerners, which obviously wasn't very nice, but… aren't they supposed to be on your side. She cleared her throat. "Well, not your side, m'dy, but- but you know what I mean…"

  Marci nodded absently, only half listening as she gnced around over the crowd who seemed to be both enraptured and utterly cking in any of the northerners the priest was so angry about 'being in their midst.' Although Marci hadn't actually spent much time in the town, she was almost certain she wouldn't find any 'beastkin,' to use the incorrect term for northerners. The refugees had settled in the major towns and cities, predominantly—pces they could find work, small towns that served a religion they didn't hold, let alone ones so close to their ensved homend, were hardly ideal pces to settle.

  But the crowd was pping it up, red faces nodding along and muttering darkly under their breaths. Which was good-

  Well, no, it was bad, but it was good for Marci and Saoirse's purposes—no one was paying attention.

  "Come on, let's go," whispered Marci as the priest began to scream at the ceiling, tugging on Saoirse's sleeve and coaxing the disgusted looking 'elf' out from the pew they'd strategically chosen next to a rge pilr, only a short space across from a door that might lead to the catacombs.

  It was locked, but locks were optional to wizards, and with a click and a creak they were in. The antechamber or vestibule or whatever it was called in a temple was not quite as ostentatiously appointed as the central room, but still reeked of money. A mahogany desk sat underneath a window that looked out over the temple's grounds and the town beyond, a closet with a mirror contained priestly frocks and hats and other essential items for preaching, and there were several delicious smelling barrels of wine stacked along one wall, which Marci very much wanted to try but resisted, and a set of stairs leading downwards beneath the temple.

  Bingo.

  "Let's have a look," said Marci, flitting through the room and making her way down.

  There were another few doors, but no one around, and Marci and her demonic minion passed through them easily, descending deeper and deeper until the ostentatious trappings of the temple vanished and they entered what was unmistakably a dry and dusty crypt.

  "Hmm," said Saoirse, casting a critical eye over the remains of one 'Father Hembruck the Selfless,' who had lived and died hundreds of years earlier. "This looks like good base—little to no weathering, and a high mana-conductivity—likely a spellcaster in life. If there all like this, and there are enough, this would be an excellent source of raw materials. Let's get some samples, to help you practice, m'dy."

  She pulled a sack from one of her pockets, shook it out, and then started looting the bones, tossing aside the scattered remains of the priest's frock and stuffing the skull in first.

  Although it was the reason that they'd come, Marci still felt just a little queasy watching her work. Her people had different traditions regarding the dead—they encased them in crystal and then interred them in great, hollowed out trees—but it was still extremely taboo to defile the remains of the deceased. But, she reminded herself, this was for a good cause—saving her friends from unwarranted accusations of colboration with demons.

  Well, she supposed that the accusations wouldn't be unwarranted once she broke them out, since she was a Shardkeeper who commanded demons. But that was… well, the context made it fine and understandable and moral. So, yes, while Marci would readily admit that grave-robbing was generally not a good thing, in this particur instance, it was fine. Moral, even, if viewed from a certain angle.

  Yes. What she was doing was fine, justifiable, and actually reflected well on her.

  "Come on m'dy, we'll go faster if we work together," said Saoirse, handing Marci a sack and gesturing to another nearby priest, 'Father Vandar the Kind.' Marci grimaced as she gingerly lifted the skull from its resting pce and stuffed it in the sack, whispering a silent apology to the long dead man.

  They made their way down further, getting a rough count of the number of bodies in the catacombs — lots— and confirming that, yes, this would be the ideal target to strike.

  Step one in Operation Free Of and Friends—loot a crypt for raw materials for army of darkness—was ready to go.

  It took them almost two hours to fully explore the winding catacombs, and they emerged back into the thankfully empty study that adjoined the main temple with heaving bags of bones, which both of them could only lift thanks to lightening charms.

  The service was over, from the sounds of things, but Marci knew that the main sections of temples were often used at odd times, so instead of trying the door she moved straight to the window.

  She was just fiddling with the tch when there was a sound outside the door to the main temple area. Both Marci and Saoirse froze and looked at each other. A moment ter the handle turned, and the walrus-moustached priest and a young-looking nun with rosy cheeks shuffled in.

  "-well, my dear, I think you'd better tell me all about it in private…" said the priest, slowly trailing off as he caught sight of Marci and Saoirse standing by the window, behind his desk, both of them with bulging sacks in their arms.

  "What- what are two pointy ears doing in here!?" demanded the walrus-moustached priest, jabbing a meaty finger forward accusingly. "Were you- were you stealing from the House of the Gods!? Thieves! Thieves!"

  "No!" said Marci, quickly. "We're not thieves! We're… we were…"

  Marci trailed off, trying to think of some kind of pusible excuse for their presence, even as, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Saoirse flexing her fingers, getting ready to cast some kind of spell.

  Despite the fact that the priest hadn't seemed like a very nice fellow, at all, Marci didn't actually wish him or his Priory ill. Well, she wanted to loot his catacombs, but she didn't want to hurt him, no matter how nasty he was about kattdjur and other northerners.

  "We were- we were snogging!" said Marci, going for the first thing that popped into her mind, grabbing Saoirse's hand with her own. "We're- we're in love!"

  Saoirse blinked in surprise and turned to stare at Marci, the priest's mouth fell open and began to turn an outraged crimson, and the nun gasped and swayed, as if she might faint. Marci frowned, why was that so shocking? People snuck off to snog all the time. It was a totally normal activity.

  "Thieving lesbians!" shouted the priest, seemingly even more enraged. Light glowed around his finger, and a moment ter a, rather weak, bst of light rocketed towards them.

  Both Saoirse and Marci shielded on instinct, their barriers sparking and crackling where they touched, and releasing aetheric discharge that washed over them, dispelling their gmours and revealing their true forms beneath: Marci with her burning crimson eyes; Saoirse with her horns, tail, and duller but still bright red eyes.

  "Demons!" screamed the priest, spittle frothing at the edge of his mouth. "Thieving lesbian demons!"

  "I'm asexual, actually," said Saoirse, a little bit of annoyance in her voice. "And you know what? I resent that just because I'm a succubus, everyone just assumes I'm hyper-sexual person—which would be fine, of course, it just isn't me-"

  "Summon the temple guard!" roared the priest, gesturing to the nun as he conjured golden magic for another spell. "I shall hold these demonic lesbians at bay!"

  Then there was a ripping sound, and Marci cursed as part of her sack tore, and a long femur slid halfway out of the canvas before catching on something else inside.

  "Thieving lesbian demon necromancers!" screamed the priest, a vein bulging in his temple. The nun behind him, who had been rushing out into the temple, outright fainted. "You foul lesbians of darkness-"

  "Stop calling me a lesbian!" shouted Saoirse, as she bsted him with a pulse of dark, entropic energy. "Just because I'm a succubus, doesn't mean you can just know my sexuality! It's super rude!"

  The priest barely managed to shield, with a very shoddy spell, and he was hurled backwards into a pew, flipped over it, and nded in a heap in the central aisle of the temple. He groaned and tried to rise, but then colpsed back onto the polished fgstones.

  Saoirse huffed and turned to Marci, adjusting her bag of stolen bones on her shoulder.

  "M'dy, can we please go? These people are horrible."

  "Um, right," said Marci, snapping her fingers and opening the tch. "Err, sorry about the… um, you know, I was just trying to make an excuse. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable; and I, um, forgot the human's Church hated lesbians for some reason…"

  "It's alright, m'dy," said Saoirse as she jumped out the window and nded on the ground. Marci waved a hand at the demoness and casting a reduce spell. As before the magic washed over Saoirse and didn't immediately do anything until she scrunched up her face and 'allowed' it past the resistance that all wizards built up.

  But then the blonde-haired demoness began to shrink, and as the temple's bells began to ring, they soared off northward, back towards the Dreadfort. Getting caught wasn't ideal, since that would put the Priory on edge, but they'd confirmed where the catacombs were, and it wasn't as if it was going to be stealthy when they rolled up to the Priory with a massive floating fortress anyway.

  "I just… I just don't like people assuming, you know?" squeaked the demon from Marci's blouse. "I'm my own person; me being a succubus doesn't define who I am."