Ekari walked up to the front doors of the church building. They were made of bronze and had held up to the fighting fairly well; there were only a few marks on the doors themselves. The doorframes, however, had seen better days. It was clear the doors had been dismounted at some point recently, probably by something slamming into them repeatedly, but they were back in place. The repairs weren’t perfect, but they were good enough to make it obvious someone had tried. They simply hadn’t had the material on hand to completely reframe the doors, which was what they really needed.

If this church was like the others Serenity had been to on Lyka, the doors were usually kept unlocked. He doubted that was the case now, and Ekari didn’t even test them. Instead, she pulled the small dagger she carried at her waist and knocked on the door with its pommel.

She’d just sheathed the dagger when a voice came from the other side. “Is someone there?” It sounded like a child, but Serenity guessed it was probably a young woman instead; a child wouldn’t be watching the door.

Serenity had to force himself not to facepalm. They should know if there was someone there; there should be lookouts, in case more monsters attacked the church. With the damage he was seeing, they’d been attacked more than once; Serenity couldn’t tell how often it was, but he suspected it was relatively frequent. They should have seen the group done the black outer coats, as well; they’d been well inside viewing distance when they stopped to get ready.

“Yes. Please open the door.” Ekari’s voice sounded cold when she spoke; Serenity couldn’t tell if she was simply being formal or if she was thinking the same thing about their lack of preparation as he was.

“I can’t open the door for anyone without permission.”

Serenity closed his eyes and shook his head. Whoever told this girl to watch the door should also have told her what to do if someone came to the door.

Ekari’s voice sounded a little gentler when she replied. “Then find someone who can give you permission and tell them that Priest-Investigator Ekari and her team are waiting outside. I won’t wait forever.”

The door opened without warning a solid ten minutes later. A Priest stood framed in the doorway, but this wasn’t a Priest like any Serenity had seen on Lyka. He wore the robe, certainly, but it only poorly concealed a suit of leather armor. He was also openly armed, something Serenity had only seen on the priest he’d fought on Zon.

This priest also wasn’t the young to mature adult the other priests appeared; instead, this priest seemed to be just this side of elderly, in the age range where strength was being lost but was not yet gone. Serenity had no idea how old he was, but on Earth he’d have guessed him to be a very fit seventy-year-old who’d spent his entire life using his body.

“Priest Evan?” Ekari stated it more than she asked. “I’m Priest-Investigator Ekari.”

Priest Evan nodded. “Welcome to Steadfast Seventeen, Investigator.” His gaze swept over the rest of the group. “Please come in. How can we assist you?”

After his question, the priest stepped back, clearing one of the doors for them to enter. The doorway led into a hallway; it was also coated in marble, but this marble didn’t have the signs of damage the building’s exterior had. Instead, it was dusty, clearly showing that cleaning and maintenance was taking a back seat to the difficulties of living right now. The hallway led to both the left and the right; strangely, there was a sign set in the wall in front of the entrance that simply said WORSHIP HALL with an arrow pointing to the right.

Ekari didn’t answer until they were all inside and the door was closed. Priest Evan slipped a large metal bar into a set of hooks that had clearly been added after the doors were built, barring the doors closed. Serenity suspected they were a very recent addition, meant to keep the doors from springing open unless the entire frame was destroyed.

Ekari nodded once the priest was facing her again. “Priest Evan, we are here to reestablish communication with and investigate the status of Steadfast Seventeen, especially your residents. I am empowered to take whatever actions I deem necessary.”

Serenity noticed that Ekari didn’t say who she was empowered by, but the priest didn’t seem to notice the omission.

“Steadfast Seventeen is one of the Old Churches,” Priest Evan started. He seemed a little nervous; his eyes kept flicking between the different members of the group instead of staying on Ekari. “We aren’t the same as many newer churches; we have additional dispensations for the condition of the church and the altar, as well as the living quarters.”

Ekari nodded. “I am not here for the condition of the church itself. You have not reported in since the dungeon breaks started; that is what brought me here.”

“We’re fine; there’s no way to get a message out, but we’re fine here. There’s no need for an Investigator.” The priest seemed surprisingly unhappy with Ekari’s answer. Perhaps Investigators had a bit of a bad reputation? Serenity didn’t know, but he wouldn’t be surprised if they effectively functioned as an internal secret police. If anything, that would line up well with his other guesses.

Ekari smiled and shook her head slightly. “Wouldn’t a little help go a long way? Show me where you stand and we’ll figure out where to go from here.”

She made it sound so cheerful and helpful without actually promising anything. Serenity was glad she was the one dealing with other people; he’d probably have been blunt and told the man they weren’t going to leave. Her way was probably better.

The priest sighed and took them on a tour of the church. It was far larger than Serenity had realized; he hadn’t realized that the walls that were made of a more normal stone actually belonged to the church as well.

It was actually a large walled complex, with the area they’d entered in forming the worship area, but it was large enough between the half-dozen buildings that it was almost a small town, with a significant area planted with herbs and vegetables and even a small area for chickens and goats. The priest wasn’t joking when he said they were nearly self-sufficient; the only thing Serenity definitely didn’t see was the large croplands that would be needed for staples like flour, though the storehouses seemed well stocked.

Serenity had to wonder a little if it was a backhanded way of getting back at them; they had to stay on their feet and pay attention after several hours’ travel instead of relaxing and taking the tour when they were fresh. The other option was that the priest was trying to hide something; Serenity noticed that despite the fact that there were supposed to be Earthlings present in large numbers, he never saw one.

He was certain one or both of his guesses was correct when, at the end of the tour, Ekari suggested dinner and Priest Evan told them he’d lead them to the kitchen but they’d have to cook for themselves as dinner had already been served.

After dinner, Priest Evan showed them to a set of rooms he said had been prepared for them. They were in a building isolated from the rest of the complex by the vegetable garden; Serenity would have suspected that they were housing for workers if they weren’t so opulent. The rooms were richly furnished, as nice as anything on Aeon, and it was clear that this was simply how they were set up; they’d been hurriedly cleaned but it was obvious that not even new linens had been brought in, as they were slightly musty.

Serenity shook his head and chuckled, then set up his Tent of Comfort in the bedroom that was probably meant to be Ekari’s. It would provide both additional security and comfort over staying in the clearly isolated building.

Ita would stay and guard it. She was the best option, since she couldn’t talk to people without breaking her “disguise” as an animal; the fact that she could communicate at a short range with anyone using some tokens she’d created was a huge bonus as well. She’d serve as their communication relay if they found anything that needed someone else.

Serenity didn’t need Ita’s token; apparently her belief in him as her Shameful One was enough. Serenity wasn’t entirely thrilled about that, but at the same time he wasn’t overly displeased. He wasn’t a god and he didn’t want to be one, but there wasn’t any way to convince Ita of that. As long as she didn’t insist on trying to convert others, he’d be happy.

If no one approached Ita or needed her to communicate, she also planned to talk more with Lyka’s Core. She hadn’t had much of a chance lately; she couldn’t reach it on Aeon and she also couldn’t reach Aeon’s. All she could tell Serenity was “the connections are scrambled”, which probably meant something to her but didn’t mean anything to Serenity.

The first question she wanted to answer was how much control Lyka still had on the released dungeon monsters;

Ekari would head towards the administration areas. That was where they’d expect to see her, but she still wanted to check them out on something other than a guided tour. She didn’t actually care that much about whatever they were trying to hide, but finding it would make a useful lever once they figured out where the missing Earthlings were.

Sillon was going to check out the gardens and livestock areas. As with Ekari, he didn’t really expect to find anything, but he hoped that what he didn’t find would be telling. On top of that, he knew what they should look like; he could tell the difference between a root cellar and a fake hiding a secret entrance.

Blaze was convinced there was a healer’s area somewhere in the complex. They hadn’t seen one, but he simply didn’t believe that. Not with the signs of combat they’d seen outside; someone had gotten hurt and needed help, and simply handling it one at a time wasn’t a good choice. He was going to look around until he found it. He expected he’d find injured people, as well, which would let him both heal them and possibly find something out from his grateful patients.

Serenity was fairly confident that the healing was more important to Blaze than the information.

Kerr volunteered to look for an armory on the same grounds as Blaze’s suggestion; they hadn’t seen one, but she suspected it was in one of the buildings they hadn’t gotten to. She had her eye on a building on the far side of the complex; it had a suspiciously large scuffed-up area of dirt outside that looked like a practice area, and practicing directly outside the armory made sense.

Her motivation was very straightforward: she wanted to know where the weapons were in case they had to fight these people. If they could disarm them, it would help. There weren’t enough of them to deal with the number of people this complex could potentially muster.

It wasn’t full coverage, but that division left Serenity checking out the worship areas. They seemed like the most likely place to simply find Earthlings, since that was where they’d been kept as “novices” at most of the other churches they’d rescued people from. They’d all decided that Serenity, as the only actual Earthling in the group and the only person who spoke several Earth languages natively, was the best choice for the most likely location.