[coronatiger]

25th of Ratanu, year 412

O Ashtar, Mother of Snakes, Keeper of Death’s Door, hear my confession!

When Yana and I went downstairs to have breakfast in our private meeting room, none of the others were there. Hylda had fetched food for them to eat in their room. I didn’t know why, but welcomed the opportunity to enjoy the meal alone with Yana. I put Hope on the table and enticed Yana to feed her, hoping Hope would help her overcome her uneasiness around snakes.

Our friends joined us after a while, and I said I wanted to visit the temples to check up on the priests, Jaryn and Audria. Wolfram asked if we had given up spying on Elanus Larma at the Golden Arrow, and I replied that while we still had a room there to use for a base of operations, we didn’t have time to infiltrate Tivito at the third floor before the Day of Judgment. Wolfram thought a frontal assault sounded like a good idea. Xipil and I tried to convince him otherwise, but he wouldn’t listen before we said straight out that we wouldn’t join such a foolish attack. Grogg would have joined him, though, and I hoped the two of them wouldn’t do anything stupid without consulting me first.

Xipil wondered what we should do if Krago showed up with the slaves while we were at the temples. Since Grogg, Wolfram and Hylda weren’t coming, I said they would have to sit on the slaves until the rest of us returned. Xipil asked Wolfram to order winter clothes from Krago, but Wolfram refused, likely because Xipil had been part of shutting down his idea of attacking Tivito. Xipil asked Grogg instead.

The nearest temple was that under the northern temple district gate, so Xipil, Yana and I went there first. There were only five people inside. Three were strangers, although I might have seen them and talked briefly to them before. The other two were Enani and the younger guard from the chapel at the bounty hunter guild. The two of them had a private conversation, so I just greeted them before sitting down to pray. Xipil joined me at the altar, but Yana remained further back to avoid the snakes.

I kept an eye on Enani and the young guard while I prayed, for I needed to speak to Enani, but it would have been rude of me to interrupt their talk. Unease oozed off the young man, a feeling of uncertainty, and it settled around my own heart too. When he got up to leave, I rose as well, and signaled to Yana to intercept him. I caught up with them at the entrance and asked if we could talk.

I eased out of the guard what troubled him so. He eventually admitted he felt guilty about spying on me, although he assured me that he hadn’t reported on me to anyone outside the cult. I tried telling him that I didn’t blame him for trying to keep his chapel safe by watching a mysterious stranger, but I couldn’t relieve his unease. He knew me now, of course, and I asked if coming to speak at his chapel tonight might be a good idea. He agreed with me on that, and we prayed together.

We said goodbye. As he left, Enani looked about to go, too, but I stopped her. I asked if she knew where Audria was. The priestess was working her day job as a temple district guard, and was probably out patrolling at the moment. Enani said her shift ended around lunch time and believed that she would come to the temple shortly afterwards.

I also asked Enani how to get my hands on information about current and past bounties, both divine and mundane. She told me to ask at the bounty hunter guild and to start with the person tending the bar. Depending on my luck, that person might not be an Ashtarite, but they should be able to point me in the right direction.

I invited Enani to come to the chapel tonight and said I would speak at the Meet. She commented that after tonight, I would have reached every Ashtarite in Byblos with my message. Enani said that our people at the Cracked Kettle in particular appreciated my words; they would never speak up against the higher-ups the way I had, and she couldn’t either. I confessed that I had been nervous myself about berating superiors.

After Enani left, I sat down to pray again, in case You wanted to enlighten me about anything I had just learned. I received no message from You, but when I stood up, there was a flash of light. Yana hurried over and asked if I was all right, reaching out to wipe my cheeks that were inexplicably covered in tears. I assured Yana I was fine, but I felt the snakes were sad. I hissed to ask why, and they informed me something dire had happened to our brothers and sisters. I was immediately concerned for the other temple and the two chapels, and asked Yana and Xipil to hurry with me to the Terrace of the Evening Sun. From there we would go to the Cracked Kettle and then to the bounty hunter guild. That would require the least amount of travel, and since I had no indication about which place was in distress, I planned to visit them all.

On a bench near the Terrace of the Evening Sun, keeping an eye on the area, sat the assassin woman. I sat down next to her with Yana on my other side. Looking at Yana, I asked, “Anything to report? Has anything happened here lately?” The woman only replied that the weather was nice.

I took Yana and Xipil inside. We cleansed ourselves and entered the temple. I asked the snakes if they knew anything, but they hadn’t sensed the same wrongness as the snakes at the other temple. I didn’t see Jaryn in the temple and thought I should check up on him now that I was at his place, but when I asked the snakes, they said he was gone. There was no need to search the building for him, in other words.

I dragged Yana and Xipil towards the Cracked Kettle after quickly explaining what the snakes had told me. Xipil asked if we should get Wolfram and Grogg if we expected trouble, so I asked him to fetch them and meet Yana and me at the chapel. Xipil picked up the pace a little, and I estimated that we’d reach the chapel around the same time. It wasn’t much of a detour via the Lame Mule.

When Yana and I rounded the last corner before the Cracked Kettle, we could see that something had happened. A whole bunch of city guards had convened on the soup kitchen and were containing a mass of people within their circle. We couldn’t see our friends anywhere.

We tried to talk our way past the guards so we could reach the chapel, but they wouldn’t have it. A cry of pain rang out from within the crowd and I asked Yana to run back to the inn and fetch my medicine kit. She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and dashed off. I asked the guards what was going on, but they ordered me to go away. I withdrew to a corner where I could intercept Yana when she returned while keeping an eye on things. The crowd wasn’t too agitated, so I thought whatever had happened was over. As I was retreating, I overheard the guards mentioning several people having died.

I still had seen no sign of Xipil, Wolfram or Grogg when Yana came panting back. She told me they were arming themselves and would arrive soon. I hoped Grogg and Wolfram didn’t run; that would raise questions from the city guards. I told Yana to wait for them and make sure our heavily armed companions didn’t approach or antagonize the guards.

I took my medicine kit and walked around the crowd so I could come at it from another angle and not encounter the same guards as before. I saw a group of Ashtarites standing outside the chapel entrance, guarding it.

“Let me through! I’m a doctor!” I told the city guards, and they brought me into the crowd to show me two people lying on the ground. I sensed the face-down man was dead, having bled out on the pavement, so I checked on the woman. The guards said they thought there were more dead, but they weren’t allowed inside to check it out. I was certain the guards would have desecrated the chapel in their ignorance, so I was pleased that the Ashtarites had barred their entrance.

The woman’s injuries weren’t fatal, and they indicated that she had been trampled by a panicked mob. I commended the city guards for calming the situation and set about bandaging the woman. While I was working, I heard Yana’s voice insisting she was my assistant, so I raised my voice to the guards and had them admit her.

Yana whispered that Xipil and the others had arrived and that Xipil said there didn’t seem to be anyone in charge among the guards. It had been my impression too that they were waiting for an officer to take command of the situation and possibly insist that they be allowed to enter the chapel.