”What?! I can’t believe you’d doubt the high priestess like that! If she says that Lady Sylvia carried out the cleanse, that’s how it must be. No one but the paladins and priests got killed after all. I find it hard to believe a demon would limit its rampage like that.” Argued a man who had accepted Emilia’s explanation. He had been tired of the churches oppressive ways for a while now.

“That’s exactly what one would do! They seek to destroy all that’s holy. The high priestess is simply trying to calm the masses. Look, I was no fan of the way the church operated either, but I wouldn’t call them corrupt” Responded the man on the opposite side of the bar table.

The relations between the two factions of the new church of Sylvia were slowly getting tense, there had been a couple of fist fights between drunken followers, but that wasn’t exactly uncommon with or without religious debates. Nevertheless, Emilia needed to figure out something that both sides of the argument would agree on.

“I’m doing a terrible job, aren’t I?” She muttered with her hand on her face.

She, Anastacia and Rosie were sitting at a corner table in Edgar’s inn.

“Demons aren’t even real… I guess some of the more chaotic gods could be called that, but even they aren’t unholy beasts. They’re the same type of being, we just don’t worship them. My Lady doesn’t even have enemies among them. Anna, you didn’t happen to get a glimpse of her or anything?” Emilia turned to her friend, trying to make sense of the situation.

“Like I said, I was blindfolded the whole time. I know it was because of the blood, but to be honest, it kind of makes it seem like she had something to hide…” Anastacia said while rubbing her throat.

The newly promoted high priestess sighed and buried her face in her arms.

“I wouldn’t be too worried though. Shouldn’t gods be able to look like whatever they want? Maybe she just wanted to be scary for the occasion? Also, I take my guidance from a lady who has six skeleton hands and gets washed by prostitutes, and from her friend, who I assume kills hundreds of people for his research. What I’m trying to say is that if your goddess happens to have some horns and offed a few scumbag paladins, it’s not really that bad by our standards.” the necromancer continued.

Rosie put her hand on Emilia’s head. She had been hiding in the basement for the whole time and it annoyed her to no end. For the tigerfolk, hiding from their enemies instead of fighting was downright shameful. But Rosie also knew that this was way beyond her abilities, she had no powers of any kind, nor any angry deities looking after her. She just cooked food and acted tough to drunken idiots. There had to be a way she could help.

“What if you just say ambiguous shit like every damn fake religion? Not that yours is fake…” The tigeress said jokingly. “Like, it’s not for us to know how the divine work, or some shit.”

Emilia lifted her head. Anyone looking at her could hear the gears turn inside her head as she went through different scenarios.

“That… might actually work! Rosie, you’re a genius and I love you!” Emilia shouted as she suddenly cheered up.

The priestess kissed Rosie on the cheek and stormed outside.

“I think it’s nice how you guys are friends now. She used to be afraid of you, you know?” Anastacia remarked, displaying near legendary amounts of naivety.

On the way to the central square, Emilia stopped everyone she came across and told them to gather some more people and come to the square.

While waiting for the square to fill up again, the high priestess decided to check out whether the temple could be used by the new church. As soon as she opened the door, the smell of carnage hit her. Unlike the streets, the temple had very little ventilation, allowing the stench to grow stronger. The broken window above the door helped a little, but it was still one of the worst things Emilia had ever smelled.

Inside lied the bodies of the paladins that had challenged Anastacia. Many of them had died from their injuries from the fight, but others were mauled to pieces, no doubt by the goddess.

“Help… anyone… help.”

Emilia heard a faint voice from behind the altar. At first, she thought that someone had gotten stuck in the temple during the massacre and were now scared out of their minds. She wasn’t wrong, technically.

“Help… please… NO! NOT YOU! ANYONE BUT YOU!” The old high priest yelled in panic as he dragged himself away from Emilia. “You brought demons into this city! It is, your fault that everyone is dead! Take my gold and leave! Please…” He continued to plead as he threw whatever jewelry he had at Emilia.

“Quit it, old man. I’m not interested in your knickknack. First of all, everyone is fine. It’s just you and your rotten cult that has been destroyed. Secondly there are no demons, the small one is a friend of mine, a very sweet and honest girl, and the second is the Goddess whose name you have defiled. And lastly, I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.” Emilia explained while grabbing on to her mace.

The cleanse is complete. My dearest child, go outside to confront your flock, while I purify this nest of wretchedness.

As soon as Emilia closed the door behind herself, the temple burst into flames.

The square was almost as full as it was during the first gathering. Some arguing could be heard but the appearance of the high priestess silenced them. Anastacia and Rosie were waiting near the stairs and waved as their friend noticed them.

“Please ignore the burning temple, It’s now empty and the fire is under control. Let’s talk about what happened today, we can all agree that the church was oppressive and needed to be changed, am I correct? And now something has gone through the city and done it the hard way, but what? This is where our problem lies, perhaps it was Our Lady herself? Perhaps it was a demon that was later banished by her? Perhaps this or that. After having tried my best to usher forth an explanation, I realized that perhaps it’s just not for us to know. Endless theories could be constructed on the matter, but how to prove one to be correct? All that matters, is that Our Lady Sylvia is watching over us. So let us bury the hatchet on this and look for a way to rebuild the church as what it was supposed to be.” Emilia declared using all of her spare charisma.

The crowd stayed silent for an awkwardly long time. Long enough for Emilia to start thinking her cop-out of a speech didn’t have any impact.

Eventually the same old man from the last gathering came out of the group.

“I see what you mean, your holiness. For as long as we have faith in Lady Sylvia, she will protect us from the beast.” The old man figured while stroking his beard.

“Among other things, yes. Her blessings shall be granted to this great city, like back before the church had not gone so far astray.” Emilia explained.

She was glad she got through to this group of followers in particular, as they were the most likely to cause trouble with the others.

“Are you going to stay with us, your holiness? We need a leader to guide us so we don’t go astray again.” The old man said while pointing at the burning temple.

“At first, I thought so too, but ours is not a church in need of much organization. In fact, I feel like having clergy would distance us from Lady Sylvia. She doesn’t require complex rituals or services to feel your devotion. At times of doubt, seek guidance from your fellow believers and not someone who claims to have absolute understanding of Our Goddess, as there isn’t anyone like that. So no, I fear I cannot stay as too many of you would be influenced by my views.” Emilia declared and shook her head, feigning sadness.

The divine mission given to her by her goddess was to return the power to the people and stabilize the situation afterwards. As she was just a young priestess with no experience being a leader, she was in way over her head trying to organize a religion for an entire city full of people. So the best she could do was to give them the freedom to figure it out for themselves, and now that the corrupt church was no longer hindering their faith, Sylvia could more directly guide them as she pleased.

The crowd started to slowly disperse and Emilia’s friends came to congratulate her for her successful cop-out. As they were sitting on the stairs, a group of maybe 20 people, consisting mostly of young men approached them.

“Miss priestess, we were…” One off the men started before getting interrupted.

“No, there will be no breasts here today. If you missed them earlier, you just have to search your heart and maybe you’ll find them again.” Emilia said while rubbing her brow.

“But your…” He tried to insist.

“NO.” The priestess yelled in disgust.