Tales of Midbar: Religious Intolerance

The cudgel exploded into many glowing blue fragments. I was now laying on my back and could see Breeze fall off the other side of the alter with a thump. Iandris looked around, she was bleeding from lots of small cuts and clearly unsure who to tackle or if she should deal with Lishrashic who was now doubled up on his knees in a pool of blood. I started looking around for anything else I could throw or otherwise do some damage with.

Breeze stood up behind the altar, still with the tube on but the flame was still out. She looked at the machine on top of the cage and said, “This thing’s interesting!”

“Fornicating Zexa!” screamed Iandris throwing herself over the alter at Breeze as the machine on top of the puppy’s cage exploded, with bits hurtling all over the place. A burning hot bit of metal hit my leg. Lishrashic fell over backwards.

Then there was screaming from the other side of the altar, either Breeze or Iandris but I couldn’t see. The puppy was still making its pitiful cries. The strength seemed to be returning to my legs a bit. I started crawling towards the puppy’s cage but looking at Lishrashic. He was breathing heavily and looking at me. He was bleeding from lots of small cuts, either from the cudgel or the machine or perhaps both.

“I’m not a prostitute!” shouted Breeze angrily. “Winemakers don’t have them and just one small, controversial sect had priests molesting kids!”

“How does this help?” asked Iandris between sobs and gasps. “Prostitution is part of Trulism and has been since before our ancestors left Earth. It’s just human nature, arrr! You can’t stop it and it’s been prophesied that, ow, you’ll become a Temple Prostitute. Don’t under rate my arr fornincating fortune telling!”

“You saw me kiss a man in a temple,” I said. “Does that make me a Temple Prostitute?”

“No it doesn’t,” said Breeze. “You’ll probably just visit a temple with your boyfriend or something. Can you find my shorts and get me out of this artifact?”

It seemed to take forever to crawl to the cage but was probably only a minute. Then I released the poor puppy, pulled the tube out of her that seemed to have been draining her blood. Then I pushed the cage out the way, into the flower bed and got to Breeze. Iandris was laying beside the idol of Astrigis, clearly very badly hurt, moaning and muttering swear words. Breeze used her magis power to remove the spells which Iandris had put on me so I could move faster. I got up and started looking for her shorts.

“What’s going on?” asked Veran, entering with Ice, River and Rainbow. “Briad’s afterbirth!”

“I can explain,” said Lishrashic.

“He was trying to use us like prostitutes to remove his tether spell,” said Breeze.

“Help the girls!” Veran said. “I’ll get, I think everybody.”

River ran over to Breeze.

“We don’t have prostitutes!” Ice screamed at Lishrashic. “Our women are supposed to loose their virginity willingly to their husbands on their wedding days and not until they’re at least twelve!”

“Don’t leave us with these fanatical Winemakers!” shouted Iandris.

Veran turned and said, “I’m seriously tempted but I suppose, Rainbow, you go and get help! I’ll stay here!”