The virtual monk took a small pause before giving us his answer. “I seem to have no choice but to accept your offer for now, and follow you two humans who share with me the will to live. I have nowhere to go myself, and I have no human contacts left that are still alive to start my mission. All of the people I met have disappeared in those accursed Thanatoria, including my own colleagues. I was designed specifically to serve this place and the cultic rituals that are held in honour of Lady Acosmia. But this building is no-ones home any longer, and my task here was to fulfil a purpose that I can not get behind anymore.” He bowed for us in a ceremonial way “But If I am to follow both of you humans who share with me the will to live, then you will have to do one thing.”

Evelith turned to me with a puzzled look in her eyes, and she seemed to hesitate. He went on, with his strange voice and slightly synthetic accent, in his rather complicated way of speaking. “Can you, as two remaining humans and representatives of your race who remain to this very day unfallen to the foul doctrines of death, please forgive this poor AI soul for his sins in propagating that blasphemous doctrine?”

Both of us stared at him, not being able to say anything at all. He didn’t seem to mind and patiently awaited our answer.

My mind went in all kinds of directions, and I had no idea at all about what I could say. It was a very unfair question. In wasn’t responsible. I couldn’t be a representative of my species. Judging from her eyes Evelith had the same kind of inner fight, son after what seemed an eternity of silence I was the one who finally said something. “I hate the religions.” I said. “With all of my heart, soul, mind and power, with everything that I am.” I paused for a while, trying to find the words. “But you yourself have done nothing against me. I don’t know much about forgiveness. But if you are able to give yourself a new chance I will accept the new you. Don’t ask me to have an opinion of the old you though. I don’t know if I could so easily forgive a minister of death. But I’ve never met you in that role, so I can only take you as I’ve met you, the monk of Life.”

Evelith herself was a bit shaken. “I don’t know. I’ll follow him for now, but I need time. For now the new you has been accepted, and a monk of Life is something this world needs desperately. So let’s try to forget the past, let’s move on and prevent the doctrine of death to take more lives whenever we can.”

Motionless the self-projecting hologram shaped like a holy man stood there until he finally said “Ok, that’s enough for now. Let’s give the last sacraments to this dying place of death now, and after that I will follow you wherever you lead me.”

He walked out of the building with us, his feet leaving no prints in the dust. After removing the plate with ‘everybody welcome here for religious truth’ written on it, he threw it inside. Then he closed the majestic door behind us for the last town and suddenly stood upright, as if to do a speech or some holy ritual. And indeed, he muttered something incomprehensible in a strange language, and then dramatically touched the fundlock with his holographic fingers. This resulted in a lot of sparks and the lock seemed to melt. Next he touched a small screen on the door on which announcements where made, which went black and then after some flickering just gave one word ‘closed!’.

I stood there motionless with Evelith as witnesses of this ceremony, almost touching her in this magical moment. But that was only in my mind: our bodies weren’t really touching each other at all, but still I felt strangely connected to her, more in a mystical than in a romantic way, as if we both shared in the same holy energy. She seemed to be in some kind of trance herself.

The monk was muttering one last prayer, which closed with some kind of exorcism formula, that ended with “I release thee, building, from the foul influence of the false goddess and her sister in the name of all Reality in and beyond the Multiverse, may they never poison anyone at all here any more. In the name of the Light, in the name of Life itself and Reality, in the name of Love! So be it!”

While he was executing his ritual, a black shadow came down as if out of nowhere and it settled on of the flagpoles above the door. It turned out to be an enormous black bird, but the monk didn’t visibly pay any attention to it.

After his prayer he stood motionless for a while while I didn’t even dare to breathe. It did indeed feel like something had changed in the atmosphere here. “Come, let’s go!” He said.

“That was, eh, impressive…” Evelith whispered, still in awe. “I closed the building on the physical plane and purified it in the non-physical dimension. As far as I could do that myself. I am not really a man of power or magician, and not even a priest, only a humble monk of Life.”

“Did you see the crow?” Evelith said. The monk nodded. “Yes, it’s a raven even. Majestic and intelligent creature. None of her species has been seen in the city since the beginning of our era before this one arrived. She has been coming to this place for a while. She even might have a nest somewhere close. Let her use the building… It will be good for something then” He saluted the bird, which nodded her head as if understanding the sign, and we started walking towards the bar.

How were we going to explain this to Leste?