The church in Steadfast Seventy-three was unlike any Serenity had seen before, but not because it was its own large compound. Instead, it was simply plainer than the others. It was clearly a similar design, but there were no architectural niceties. If anything, it seemed somewhat brutalist.

One particularly persistent local had followed them for the last half-mile, deterred from actually approaching by Ekari’s glare but not willing to leave them alone. When it became obvious that they were headed for the church, he hurried to catch up. “You don’t want to go in there!”

Ekari stopped and turned to the man. Everyone else skidded to a halt a bit slower; they hadn’t expected her to stop immediately when the man spoke. Sillon nearly ran into Ekari, since he happened to be right behind her.

“Why not?” None of Ekari’s previous ire showed in her voice; she sounded honestly curious.

The man perked up. “They eat people.”

“What?” Ekari’s single-word response was flat and unbelieving.

“They eat people.” The man nodded as he spoke, clearly trying to project sincerity. Serenity couldn’t read him well enough to know if he actually believed what he was saying or not, but as far as he could tell, the man did. “They steal people who get too close and they never come back out because they eat them.”

Yeah, Serenity was going to assume that that probably wasn’t the real reason. It didn’t mean the real reason was good, but eating people wasn’t the most likely possibility.

Ekari, on the other hand, seemed to take the man’s concerns seriously. “Thank you for the warning, but that only makes it more important that we head in there. Why don’t you get yourself somewhere safe while we take care of this?”

The man had an odd conflicted look on his face as Ekari gently shooed him away. Serenity was sure he was going to leave when his expression suddenly changed to horror and he spun around and started running.

That was enough of a clue for Serenity to look back towards the building. The front door was open, but no one had left yet. Serenity didn’t think that was that much of a threat, but clearly the other man did.

A short woman in a priest’s robe walked out, followed by a couple of taller men dressed as acolytes. She turned towards them and stopped; she seemed even more surprised than they were. Her eyes wandered over the group for a moment before they fixed on Ekari. “Priest-Inspector?”

Serenity looked at Ekari, visible only in the corner of his eye. She was already facing the church, as though she’d never turned away to talk to the man who was no longer there. She nodded and smiled. “I am. Are you Priest Kiilitha?”

The priestess shook her head. “No, I’m only her sub-Priest. I’m here studying under her after finishing my Initiation period; this is one of my rotation-churches.”

Ekari nodded as if she understood what the priestess was talking about. The most Serenity could tell was that it sounded like something to do with how the Eternal Church groomed its priests for more demanding roles. “I’m certain we’ll have time to talk when you get back. Where are you headed now?”

The priestess seemed startled at the question. “To the market, of course. It’s one of my duties; I go every day at about this time.”

“And your name?” Ekari seemed cold and uncaring. It was disconcerting, given how warm he knew she could be, but Serenity remembered back when they’d first met; she’d certainly seemed distant then.

The priestess almost shivered. “V-vinal, Priest-Inspector. Sub-Priest Vinal.”

Ekari nodded. “We will be staying at your Church for the next few days; you should be aware of that during your time at the market. I shall look forward to interviewing you upon your return.”

Then and there Serenity decided that he needed to talk to Ita about designing a better telepathic connection spell. He badly wanted to talk to Ekari directly but he couldn’t, without the risk of being overheard. The only people he had that level of connection with were Rissa and Ita herself; other than that, he simply didn’t.

He probably could get some sort of radio, but that would still require people on the other end to talk out loud; there weren’t telepathic electronics out there yet, other than the ones Serenity had. Serenity paused at the thought.

Aide, please start thinking about telepathy-capable transmitters for other people. An earpiece can probably work for reception but we need some way to speak to them silently.

That is not possible with the current state of technology; I will investigate magitech solutions when we have access to Earth’s internet infrastructure.

It wasn’t a solution for today but it might be a solution for the future. Hopefully they wouldn’t need to be implanted; something they could carry would be better.

Sub-Priest Vinal and her acolytes hurried away from the church. They passed close enough that Serenity could feel their auras; Vinyl was high Tier Two or more likely barely Tier Three, while the acolytes felt like high Tier One. As far as he could tell, “Priest” status in the Eternal Church seemed to require Tier Three, while Acolyte could be Tier One or Tier Two; novices seemed to be entirely Tier One.

He’d only heard of “initiate” status a few times, including Vinal’s mention, but it seemed to be a purely Tier Two category, somewhere between Acolyte and Priest but short. Serenity knew Rourke was well over Tier Two and had used the Initiate title, but he was fairly confident that that was simply a lie.

Ekari watched the three as they walked away, then headed up to the church door. Unlike the church in Steadfast Seventeen, Ekari didn’t knock; she simply opened the doors and walked in. Sillon was right behind her, followed by the others.

The halls weren’t empty, but they also weren’t nearly as full as Serenity had expected from a church that wasn’t impacted by the dungeon breaks. From what he remembered, there should be some ordinary people there at almost any time of day, and it was only midmorning; a prime time for people who were on their way to somewhere else to stop in for a quick prayer. Serenity had seen that repeatedly at the other churches he’d rescued people from, even though they had been abandoned by their priests; he didn’t see any reason it should be different here, but everyone he saw wore some variant of the local religious attire.

Ekari led the way to the worship hall, right where they usually were, then through there into the Priest’s office. The door was closed; when she saw that, Ekari did seem surprised. She stopped outside the door and knocked.

“Vinal? Shouldn’t you be at the market by now?” A man’s voice came through the closed door.

“This is not Vinal.” Ekari spoke coldly and precisely. Her voice could have cut glass.

The man inside the room either didn’t notice Ekari’s mood or didn’t care. “Then go away and make an appointment. You all should know that you can’t bother me without an appointment.”

Ekari shook her head. A fierce grin flashed for a moment, then disappeared as if it had never been. She reached for the door handle and checked it; Serenity could tell that she’d quietly discovered that it was locked. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it; the grin reappeared. She gestured to Serenity to come up, then quietly whispered to him, “Break it down, then get out of the way.”

Even in his human form, Serenity was the strongest of the group (while Ita’s leg strength could probably beat anything he could do, she was otherwise not particularly strong); he assumed that was why he’d been selected.

Serenity glanced at the door, then at Ekari. She wanted to make an entrance? He could probably do something about that.

A longer look at the door told Serenity that the door opened outwards; that would make it harder to kick in, since he’d need to actually break the door instead of simply popping the hinges or the lock. Even so, it was just wood, and not particularly sturdy wood at that. He could do this, whether or not the door was solid. It was hard to tell without testing it, and that would make noise.

There were two obvious ways to do this; either would work, but he needed to pick one. He could either split the door down the middle and bust in there or he could damage the door enough to pull it open. The first option was more straightforward but if it worked the second option would probably be more impressive. It would also leave less damage on the doorframe and surrounding area.

Yeah, he liked the second option.

Technically, he could achieve the same thing by yanking on the door handle hard enough to break the lock, but that would only work if the lock were weaker than the handle at either the mechanism or how it was connected to the door frame. Many handles would give before the lock did. He’d tried it; indeed, he’d run into that all the way back when he was first known as Vengeance on Earth, before Earth died. He’d found it out by accident when he pulled too hard on a door he hadn’t realized was locked.

So no, not going to try that.

Whether or not the door was solid could have a significant impact on how well this worked; if it was solid and two inches thick, he might have to change back to the first option. That might be embarrassing but it would still work well enough.

Serenity shrugged to himself. He’d just have to find out.

It really was too bad that he couldn’t reinforce his hand with a shield, but maybe he could stretch his armor over it?

It was easy. Serenity had expected it to be harder; it certainly hadn’t been so easy to reshape when he tried to restrain Andarit. Of course, this was still using it as armor; the fact that it wasn’t his usual preferred style for armor because he wanted more flexibility in his hands apparently wasn’t important.

Serenity glanced at Ekari. She nodded, so he punched the door near the handle.

Huh. It seemed that it was solid, but his fist went straight through it anyway. A significant portion of the rest of the door cracked, pulled along by the damage where his hand went through. What was it made of, balsa wood? He was only Tier Four!

Serenity grabbed the door on the other side at the handle, then yanked. He didn’t have the advantage of weight the way he would when kicking a door in, but the lock wasn’t sturdy enough to stand up to him anyway. The door flew open; Serenity thought he might have taken some of the doorframe with it.

Ekari stepped into the opening. Serenity couldn’t see her, but he could hear her when she spoke into the shocked silence. “I need to make an appointment? Are you certain about that?”

Serenity wished he could see the face of the Priest inside. The Priest’s expression was probably quite memorable. Unfortunately, Serenity was on the wrong side of the partially demolished door. Serenity noticed that he held the door handle; it seemed that it’d come out of the door proper when he smashed the nearby wood. That was probably why the door had popped open so easily.

The crash of metal hitting stone broke the silence nicely when he dropped the door handle.