The Visitor Center became restive with Mujahidin activity upon Tutoria’s succinct yet safe return from her doom-fated trek. Yet High Priestess had little time to enact any penitentiary actions upon the Neophyte Paladin regardless of how worthwhile her newly acquired intelligence of the Temple’s unwanted occupants was. All attention now has been gazed upon the two, if both equally vulgar in their own respective rights, new arrivals.

First was an Otherworlder Man of rotting flesh who self-proclaims himself to be of a ‘Ghoul’. Under traditional militant doctrines, he would have been smitten down by the first Championed Cleric. However, the Sarenite Clerics had cast their rending spells only to be left flabbergasted that the one called ‘Raul’ to chitter into a tickle if not be straightly aroused by the touch of Positive Energy being engorged into his body.

“Let my mind be clear of what I just heard, you just confessed that you are a ‘Ghoul’. As our Ranger Guests here say?” High Priestess discerningly interrogated Raul Tejada. “You sure know how to drive my patience thin Navideh.” She irritably glanced at the Bard. Of which she received a silent but confident huff from the azure-haired maiden.

“Si, I used to be all smooth-skinned just like you until some Atom Bombs dropped in my city. I was lucky to even be alive… but, I mean look at me. I may not be the prettiest gentleman on the block, but I am an honest man in a dishonest world.” Raul Tejada answered as he leaned lazily over his chair as kicked his feet up by the table.

“High Priestess, I know of this man from where I live. You can trust him, just like how you trust Navideh.” David vouched for the irradiated Ghoul.

“Ey, that’s not a ‘Ghoul’ you’re calling yourself sir. I think I remembered reading someone like you once in a book! Eh…” Tomos timed himself out for some distance as he scrambled through his head. “Some type of Fleshspawn right? You’re body.

“Is that what you Gringos call us now?” Raul’s eyes furrowed. “Drools, Ghouls, Lepers, Freaks now Fleshspawns? Ay Caramba… I can’t believe I have lived for two hundred years long to hear all this shit.” Raul sulked.

“You ought to start explaining to me what Sarenites have against ‘Ghouls’ in Golarion because Mister Tejada here is actually quite a hero back from Arizona and I would hate to see him be treated badly here at the Welcome Center.” David shifted to the High Priestess. His stoic eyes displayed his candor to the doubtful Kamala and her fellow Mujahidin.

“To enlighten you, Outlander, Ghouls are these gaunt humanoids with pale and bruised skin. Very feral with the taste for the Flesh of other sentient folks.” Kamala explained.

“Cannibals, David. With big sharp teeth and large pointy tipped ears.” Tutoria summarized.

“Dios mio! Cannibals?! You think I am a Cannibal?!” Raul wretched, his emaciated and necro-like body shaking upon such a disgusting thought. He then proceeded to raise his hands onto his ears and caress them, showing them that they weren’t indeed elongated without his notice, in fact… part of the flesh on his ear had chipped off. “I still prefer to eat some Roasted Mutfruit with Ant Nectar and Razorgrain Flakes... But I guess if you want me to eat some meat, you got any Iguana Bits? Running around the sewer all boiling rats is boring.”

It didn’t take much for the Sarenites in the room to be taken aback yet at the same time relieved by the Otherworlder’s revulsion. Of how Raul winced at such a disgusting thought. One couldn’t fabricate such a performance even if one tried. For all this necrotizing corpse of a man is saying, he is not the monster these Holy Paladins of Sarenrae have thought of him as.

“Navideh, again you and your starry-eyed mysteries continue to astound me…” the High Priestess rolled her eyes tiresomely. “You are free to avail yourself of the Welcome Center, Ro-Ouul. Please help yourself to what food we have. We may not have ‘Ig-wanna’ or this ‘Razorfruit’ you speak off, but we have some Flatbread and Hummus. I do say, your food is quite… eerie for my ears to imagine their taste.”

“Hey, it’s alright. At least this place is going to finally live up to its name then. All of these leers from the smooth skins here were giving me the creeps.” Raul shuddered as he grabbed the small jar of water and took a sip from it. “We got to stop those stinky-mutes like him over there from taking getting all of the Water Wells or we will be running on fumes by next sunset. And if you want my advice? That fella looks more like the ‘Ghoul’ you talk about than it is me.” He pointed to the captured Filth-Drinker across the hall.

He had been struggling against his Mujahidin captors being disarmed and disrobed of his weapon and raincoat. His emaciated body was then forced to crawl into a makeshift prison cell to keep him captive. He reached out his hands, hurling his rabid tongue and his voracious hands towards the outside of the bars to the disgust of all of whom he and his ilk had transgressed before.

“Amake dao! Amake dao!” he reached angrily outwards as the apathetic Guards distanced themselves from him. His body, corrupted with malachite filth, frothed with salivation as he kicked and screamed ferociously against his most hated captors.

“Gozreh’s breath he stinks like moldy tack!” Merizi crassly covered her nose as the coral-skinned Azarketi stepped back to let the Mujahidin deal with the feculent captive.

When he realized his cries fell on deaf ears, the juvenile marauder sulked and retreated to the corner nibbling on his flesh and licking the filth from his refuse-ridden skin for temporary sustenance.

“I must say Neophyte, you being able to accomplish capturing one of them alive is quite brave and impressive of you. Even with Navideh’s help.” Kamala noted. “Still, I have to admonish you for your insolence earlier.”

“I apologize, but I am still failing to fully grasp what has come to pass from the Temple. There are still a few questions I need answers to.” Tutoria stood insubmissively upright to the High Priestess. Her erudite mind still contained so many questions left unanswered, not helping is Kamala’s reluctance if not unwilling to let her know what is truly going on.

“I must apologize then Neophyte, but I didn’t want to risk losing more of you to the Filth Drinkers, which was why I had to agree with the Ranger’s plans. Their numbers and weapons had taken so many of us that I could not afford to risk losing more of what few of us is left.” Kamala explained.

“High Priestess, if I can add, I think to recognize that gun you have around you Tutoria.” David gestured to the weapon that the Paladin had confiscated earlier.

Handing over the weapon, the two Sarenite Women quietly observed David probing the weapon’s features. He caressed his gloved hand across the short twin barrels of wide gaping mouths before he snapped the firearm into two from its handle and their shooting apparatuses.

“A good’ole Double-Barrelled Shotgun, sawed off to fit in your pocket. Fun thing about this little fellow is that you can either shoot one or two of the same shots at the same time. Lethal… very lethal at close range and is holding a buckshot… wait no… Flechette round still in the chamber made out of… sewing needles no less. I got to say, you manage to take someone down holding this is actually very impressive… from a Motor-Bike no less.” David snapped the weapon back up to its original place before he tossed the Shotgun to Isaiah. “Go ask Leon if he got a few Twelve-Gauge rounds on him he can spare off… he still owes us quite a bit.”

Isaiah nodded, it was always wise to have a secondary weapon to fallback to in the event your main one ran out of ammunition, broke or was dislodged from their hands.

“As I was about to say…” Kamala shifted her voice. “During the first few days of the Cataclysm, Katheer had experienced a great upheaval where a significant number of these Otherworlders suddenly materialize in our great city. Regrettably, Children most if not all of them were. Katheer’s food reserve was stretched to the breaking point since our farms have been cut off from the outside world. It was inevitable that a riot transpired caused by them. And so, the survivors of Katheer sought refuge at the Temple where I and the rest of the Mujahidin live. That was when the first signs of the Abyss’ influence seeped in. After keeping them out, those Otherworlders fell into the wicked seductions of this big brute, a Hezrou Demon, Bogros the Satrap of Spoilation offered them gifts of rotten food that they ate and promised them more if they followed him into the Temple and so they oh so ravenously charged at us. There with his twisted magicks, he turned the Temple’s defenses against the Mujahidin. It was… a Massacre…”

“Xoveron… the Lord of Ruins… is it that not his Unholy Symbol branded upon that child’s body? They are being led by one of his own Hezrou flunkies by the name of Bogros, the Satrap of Spoilation he calls himself… can’t seem to find his name on the pages, however.” Tutoria held out a Demonology Book from her hand until it had reached the Demon’s respective chapter.

“Indeed, you study fast Neophyte, I can attest to that. Xoveron is also known as the Lord of Gargoyles and Gluttony too.” Kamala raised her finger to add. “He revels in the destruction of cities. Souls and Demons under his domination, to say it as forthright as I can tact, they just want to see the world burn.”

“That explains the Gargoyles I also saw too then!” Tutoria exclaimed, remembering

“Gargoyles? Sarenrae have mercy! They weren’t there when the Temple had been taken over by the Hezrou when he turned the Magic Runes against us. Bogros must have summoned more of his ilk from the Nethysian Wound to add to his forces. The tear in the veil must have only grown larger as the Wound was allowed to fester.” The High Priestess wistfully collapsed to a nearby chair in utter defeat.

“And Abrikandilu’s too…” Tutoria also added.

“Unsurprising yet disheartening.” Kamala sighed exhaustively. “Demons, Witches, Undead, the Mujahidin could cut down in swathes but… but Children? What has our world come to?”

“Our worlds,” David added.

“Demons making monsters out of children? Color me not surprised.” David crossed his arms.

“Have you fought such monsters before Ranger?” Kamala asked him.

“Not necessarily these ‘Demons’ you point out but I have seen something similar. Their times were back in the Wastelands me and Isaiah roamed when desperate folks would do terrible things if they are pushed to the edge. Then lo and behold, this ‘Bogrus’ comes in and offers them everything they want and now you got a bunch of these dirtied rats like that kid over there ransacking this city like they own the place… but I guess they do so now.” The Elder Ranger explained. “Hunger, fear, desperation. They can make you do things you can’t even begin to imagine you religious folks would do.”

A cold sweat fell upon the Sarenites brow as David spoke. So, used these champions of a Goddess of Righteousness to fight evils as material as power-maddened sorcerers, Undead and Demonic abominations yet for injustices of abstract construction? No number of their curved swords and fiery spells could slay such a beast fully from the face of Golarion. Their martial valors only ever can decant the freights of a space in time, never supplants its emptied contents.

“Tell me more of your journeys Otherworlder.” She leaned over curiously. Several of the other Mujahidin and even Navideh also couldn’t help but listen to the Ranger. They could take any advice to heart right now at such a dire time.

“Colorado Springs, a place I was responsible for guarding. There was a riot among Refugees about food and shelter who fled to go there. Desperate folks just like that kid there. They attacked everything and everyone in the city without any hesitation. But I was ordered by my superiors to stop them from breaching the defenses.” David’s voice broke upon each painful word he spoke of his memories in Colorado.

“You… did…” Kamala couldn’t fathom what the Ranger was trying to say.

“I fire my gun at them, High Priestess. Every last one of them… I told them to surrender. I tried, I very much tried. But… no they just kept trying to come at the gate I was in charge of Guarding. I learned something harsh that day. When people have nothing to lose, they are at their most dangerous. Every monster these folks were when I saw them ransacking Colorado Springs. Katheer? All those barricades and ruins reminded me of that Riot. However, if I had not taken that shot… Colorado Springs would have fallen and everyone… and I mean EVERYONE will starve. I mean, I could have NOT shot them down with my rifle here… But yet I did. Now I have to live with that for the rest of my life. So when I did fire at those refugees… they broke things in me that I can never fix.” The Ranger explained. He was seething and shaking upon every further word he delved within himself to say. His body was wracked with guilt.

“What are you exactly trying to say Outlander?” one of the elder Sarenite Paladins pressed.

“I am saying we are all at a point where we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Two difficult choices the way I see it when dealing with these marauders.” The Ranger clarified.

“These Filth-Drinkers and their Demon Overlords, insulting our Goddess, desecrating her temple and commanding children to fight in battle. We have to stop them.” Tutoria quipped.

“No, you are missing a few details on that Tutoria.” David shook his head.

“Why?” Tutoria raised her voice tearfully. “We are the Goddesses Champions. We have no other choice but to confront them.”

“Second so, beneath the Temple is the main reservoir of Water for the entire city.” Kamala reminded.

“Choice? You always have a choice. Look at what your ‘choice’ earlier you nearly got yourself into Tudie. You could have stayed with us and helped grab these Raincoats, but no… you went off on your own. If Navideh wasn’t there you probably would have been dead!” Tomos sided with David.

The Neophyte averted her gaze from her brother soberly yet inwardly she was ashamed.

“So what are our possible courses of action Outlander?” Kamala interrogated.

“Children like that Filth-Drinker there were raised in hate. You are all weren’t. They have nothing to lose, and when people have nothing to lose, they become feral, fearless, and dangerous. They will fight and die with every fiber of their being.” David advised. “We can go for a bid for a very difficult assault on the Temple where more of us could be killed if not fail completely or… we flee out of here and all life to fight another day. But yes, if we manage to succeed we might be able to get some hope back into Katheer but at what cost? The Temple is just… is just… the way Tudie told us there’s just too many of them roaming around for all of us to handle.”

“Perhaps Taldor northwards from here High Priestess?” Tomos suggested. “Since we had slain the Sandstorm, we should be able to reach the nearest Taldan town without worrying about getting attacked. I can only pray to Sarenrae that they will grant us mercy. Given these trying times of ours… the Taldans could grant us clemency. Even with… history being not so kind to the likes of us…” he gulped.

“But with little food and drink for our supplies to make the journey for all of us, I doubt many of us would be able to reach even Golsifar. Or worse…” Kamala apprised. “But with just so many of them to deal with, perhaps our chances are better abandoning the City and the Temple to its fate.”

“High Priestess surely you are not consid---” Tutoria protested.

“I need time to think Neophyte!” Kamala stood back up. “I need to retire into my quarters and I will make a decision. As both an order and as a penance for your previous transgressions. I assign you to the Welcoming Center’s scullery as you distribute the rations to our wards.”

And with that, the High Priestess retreated to the Welcoming Center’s sanctums.

[-]

Have nothing to lose…

Feral, Fearless, Dangerous…

Afraid, Parentless, Audacious…

Abandoned…

Without hope…

Tutoria arose from her beddings, wet with palpitations and tears dripping from her face. her eyes pinked and dizzied with insomniac stirrings of the knight. Despite her exhausting charity work most colloquially dressed as a form of ‘Penance’ for her insolence actions earlier she couldn’t find a wink of sleep. Her early risings however were not left unnoticed by her twin brother who slowly arose from his slumber too.

“Tommy… I need… to go to… check on something… for the High Priestess right now.” She explained to her brother.

“Don’t come running off again Tudie… or the next time I am taking all the next time we get breakfast Potato Fritters.” Tomos nodded as he fluffed his small pillow before returning to sleep.

Slowly, the Neophyte Paladin stood upwards and quietly journeyed to the Kitchen a few rooms away from where her companions rested. There were already several of the Mujahidin who arose just as early as her and were lining up for their early day rations. Quietly, Tutoria grabbed her a measly piece of flatbread, a cup of lukewarm pre-boiled water no larger than her fist, and a side of inferior-tasting chickpea spread. She was free to choose where to consume her meal as long as she cleans as she goes and then report for the next set of assignments from the High Priestess as per instruction.

Tutoria looked over the makeshift cage where the captive Filth-Drinker had been kept in for over a day. It smelled of rancid refuse with droppings of every unsavory dropping the human body can excrete from their bodies. Yet despite the horrid facsimile of the desecrated Temple of Dawn’s Light it had for the faithful Sarenite, the young Paladin felt a strange resonance beckon her to come closer. She just couldn’t look away upon seeing the young boy’s pale white eyes and his fecund skin that glistened with sweat and dirt. What David had spoken about his experiences with these folks of ‘Nothing to Lose’ both haunted and rivet her to examine such a tragedy with her own two eyes.

Taking her seat direct across the cell’s door, Tutoria sat down on the cold stone floor with her food. But she didn’t immediately eat her meal only gazing upon the abyssal child who crawled out of the shadows and into the dim light.

The Filth-Drinker softly growled his tawny teeth as he grabbed hold of the bars that contained him. He reached out

She can still remember those somber days when she and her brother were left at Sunhill to be raised by Master Ibrahim. She could remember the faint glimmers of her mother and father’s turquoise eyes as they left, never to return. Their cloistered brethren had at first tried to comfort their worries through their childhood that they were off crusading against evil but it had been already ten years before the siblings unquestionably concluded that their parents perished, martyred for the cause of Sarenrae’s Light. She can remember the tears she and her brother shed when they accepted that their parents will never return for them but as one door closed, a new one opened by the Dawnflower’s guiding grace as the twins pursued their studies to be just as their greater selves as what their Crusader Parents had wanted. Yet there was still another somber day when her home was burnt down by the Sandstorm’s ilk. If it weren’t for the Desert Rangers who rescued them, she and her brother would have died or worse, sold off into slavery.

Two of several blessings she can count amidst the noisome miasma she swims upon.

Which is such a surreal contrast when she saw the Filth-Drinkers. Children deprived of any Want, Dreams and Hope. Forced to fight for scraps and become numb to the horrors of the world whilst blind to its blessings. It was so easy for them to be ensnared upon Bogros’ tune of perfidious seductions.

It was rather mendacious for a Sarenite who champions honesty, healing and charity to be consuming nourishment whilst another starves.

That and the feculent smell permeated from the Filth-Drinker killed any notions of an appetite for Tutoria already.

“You prolly needs dis’ more than I anyways...” Tutoria averted her as she pushed the food across within arm's reach of the boy’s hands.

The prisoner's grubby paws leaped towards the food, hungrily mowing down the freshly baked bread and chickpeas with a strangely… innocent ardor as if it was the first warm meal, a meal borne out of love rather than indemnity he had taken into his weary soul. The Filth-Drinker’s skin glistened, and the hobbling demon runes that had quailed around his heavily sullied skin began to recede. What was once poxes-upon the house of his body were lavened into robust copper. Skin bursting with supple vigor that it was no different than the caress of a newborn babe. And equally so was the now purified Filth-Drinker’s infectious enthusiasm as his teeth finished chewing the warm meal.

“Aro!” his hand reached out to Tutoria expectantly for seconds.

“Slow down child! You sure are hungry!” the Paladin was taken aback by what had changed before her eyes.

What was once a mindless mortal thrall of Xoveron’s rogue’s gallery of vandals realigned into its opposite exemplar.

“H-uh--- High Priestess! The Prisoner!” Tutoria’s words shakily escaped her lips as she summoned them forth from the top of her lungs.

Her jovial calls were swiftly answered by the arrival of a half-dressed and strained-eyed High Priestess Kamala and the rest of the Paladin’s companions. They all entered the vicinity of the cage with noses plugged and throats gagged. Navideh however, her stomach still weakened from yesterday could not stand the egregious scent to such a degree that the Sulli Bard silently conjured her newly restore magical powers to begin to conjure magical water from the Bard’s hands as her aquamarine hair glowed serenely with her extra-planar bloodline. The water began to gradually wash away the much filth the formerly corrupt Filth-Drinker had discharged during his captivity.

“What has happened Neophyte? What happened to the Prisoner.” Kamala asked as she took notice of imprisoned Filth-Drinker who had drastically changed his poise. It was almost hard for her to believe that at one moment, the juvenile marauder was an unrepentant vandal who dared defile Golden Katheer at the behest of his master’s whims.

“No… just… just look at him High Priestess.” Tutoria shook her head.

“Did you do something to him Neophyte? You are not authorized to interact with the Prisoner. Explain yourself!” Kamala pressed the Neophyte.

“I wasn’t so much hungry a-a-after I arose from bed… and just seeing the Prisoner… fed the Prisoner some breakfast from the Kitchen.” Tutoria awkwardly explained. “But as soon as he began eating my food, the Demonic Runes that covered his body began to disappear.”

“So, you just fed this kid some food? I don’t get it.” David crumpled, baffled by what he just seen. At first, he saw just another marauder, juvenile but another bandit in all of his long years traveling the Wastelands attest. Most wasteland children who were forced to survive on their lonesome were typically uncontrite survivalists.

But now, the supposed Filth-Drinker leaped with childish glee as if he had never known nor partaken in any ungodly transgressions in his entire life. If it weren’t for the cage he was stored in, he would be seeing such a kid merrily skipping and playing along with his friends outside right now.

“Demons… I know of this very obscure fact but I had never seen it in practice before. They are living manifestations of sins. Greed, Pride, Enslavement, and Murder. They embody them with every thread of their unhallowed existence.” Kamala raised her finger and lectured the Otherworlders. “So, for those living manifestations of sin to witness the opposite... It is said it can weaken them… if not harming them greatly.”

“The Demon leading these bandits right is a Hezrou sis? That’s what exactly again from the book?” Tomos asked his sister.

“Toad Demons or Spoilation Demons. They embody by corrupting their environment in neighbors with filth. Despoiling and polluting everywhere they walk.” Tutoria recited.

“Just like the Water Wells?” David meshed his thoughts together. “This Bogrus fella literally shitting all over the place with folks like him helping him out? So, if we got by this… logic of yours. We have to clean up a Hezrou’s mess?”

“Spiff and spotless aight?” Isaiah further added.

Tutoria and Kamala, for once the senior and the junior nodded in agreement with the Ranger.

“An’ maybe also give the little tyke some REAL Food you know? Ey Navideh, can you splash some water on that kid? If my captain saw one o’ his powder monkeys smelling like that in the Mess, he would be kicking his arse to the plank with ropes tied down on some blocks so the trash can’t float.” Merizi indelicately breathed through her mouth.

The Sulli Bard smiled as she washed of the last specks of filth inside the prison cell.

“I did see these Kids and their mutant buddies are feeding them rancid food all the time whilst they run around trashing the place. I would hide from them most of the time if I can help it.” Raul Tejada added. “We’re gonna have to clean a lot of the Food and all the other dirty shit these demonios are feeding these kids with. But how would we be able to clean so much food quickly?” Raul questioned.

“Navideh can.” Kamala turned to the Bard of which she grinned excitedly as the blue butterfly above her shoulder fluttered just as enthusiastically. “I mean, who else has been keeping whats left of us together with what little drinking water we have? As you can see, she can purify Food and Drink quickly with the strum of her mandolin.”

“Just cleaning all that food may not cut it. Not whilst Bogros still holds the Water Filters hostage. The pipes are still in a serviceable condition if you can just put some elbow grease on’em. But I am going to need some tools to fix’em upper.” Raul added.

“How’d you know that?” Isaiah raised.

“Before I got turned into all of this? I used to be a repairman back in Mexico. Cars, Guns, Electronics, and even plumbing. I got myself familiar with these sewers and its water pipes that maze around below us right now and I think I should be able to fix it all up.”

Navideh clapped once again cheerfully as the two peoples of two different worlds began to unite together in one common goal as if she had awaited such a fantastic crossover to result. Just as her goddess had prophesized fate to be. To Dream of Waters reflowing down Golden Katheer, an Oasis in the blazing seas of the desert sands of Casmaron.

“The last Engineer had died during the early days of the Calamity Ghoul. I can only pray that I can fully trust you to accomplish where we had failed. For I see no more options for us.” One of the Elder Clerics bowed.

“Sounds like we got a plan then High Priestess.” David smiled confidently.

“Thank the Dawnflower there is still Hope!” Kamala praised.