The Truth is Out There

High Priest Shma le Cherus jumped up from the couch startling the lovely young lass and flinging grapes everywhere. "NO!" he screamed.

"YES!!!" screamed Fred back.

Even as a troupe of monks in off-white robes and a gathering of nuns in light-blue robes entered into the main plaza of the Temple they saw with amazement their high priest sprinting alongside a stranger in foreign armor. They also then saw the doors of the Confessional shudder as if something of great weight and size were heaving upon the other side. The few guards that were inside ran towards the Confessional but did not enter the main door, fear was written on their faces.

The high priest stopped running at the altar of Sog Moth. The other clerics and religious who had heard and seen the commotion were gathered about him, Fred was at his side as well.

"It's loose!" he cried again. "But I don't even know what in the Nethervoid IT is!!!"

The others mumbled, murmured and whispered their amazement at Fred's ignorance. "Must be a tourist," said one of the scribes.

High Priest Shma le Cherus began to explain: "Stranger in our midst," he said pointing to Fred. "Yup," whispered the scribe, "a tourist." "What you have witnessed this day is none other than an Old One. Long ago the ancestors of our people painted grey skulls onto wooden talismans, they hurled them into the fire that burns forever on Mahmed's black altar. They did this to call out the eldergods who favored this earth with their presence before the dawn of Man, in the age when troglodytes and neanderthals and lizardmen ran free. Our priests and priestesses whispered the ancient Names to the silver ghosts that haunt the uplands of the Dark Land, they sent out carrierbats over the Mountains of the Dead and they drew images in blood on the sabertiger's white hide that hangs before the longhut where sleep the Four Sisters of the Night. Within that hut the Great Serpent coils about their feet and the stars burn like fireflies in their hair." The high priest took a breath, then a drink from the wine bag offered him by a nearby monk.

Then he continued: "From the Misty Lands came the answer to our people's prayers and supplications. From the Misty Lands the loon sang out, the son of Jhebbal Lu cried out, and a great blackness shone in the day-sky. The Eater of Hearts came down from the Outer Abyss. She came to us and we built her this great Temple. Jhil is her Name and she was content for many generations to dwell within the House which the great architect Jack built for her. She took our form - the form of Woman, and she would even sit with us at times though not speak unless a great Truth needed uttering. Our fields grew rich, our rivers flowed strong, our mothers gave birth to twins upon twins. All was well, until a fortnight ago."

"What happened?" interrupted Fred.

The crowd of believers shhhhed him, and the high priest continued: "Our goddess, our light from Afar, spoke a new Truth. It was awesome in its simplicity yet filled us with horror. We instinctively thrust this new Truth away from us, to our great shame and with no effect upon its reality. And now you have confirmed our worst fears; the Truth is out there." He pointed to the shaking walls that separated the wing of confessional booths from the main worship area.

"Yet not is all lost," continued the high priest. "With incantations and sorcery and spittle - lots of spittle - we shall reign her in, show her that even after uttering the great Truth that we the people still love her!"

The clerics, monks, and nuns cheered and lifted their hands palm open. Fred tugged at a cleric's tunic while the others ran hither and thither preparing for the ritual. "Hey," said Fred. "I still don't know what this truth is!" The cleric looked at Fred, then the floor, then the ceiling, then his slippers. "Um, well, as a non-believer you know, well, you won't understand, cause it's like you lack the clarity necessary to comprehend the great Mystery." "Try me," said Fred defiantly. "The Truth is, She who Eats Hearts is bored." "Bored?" said Fred blankly. "Yes, a fortnight ago she cleared her throat and said: I am bored. Oh the horror!" said the cleric. "You must be nuts!" grumbled Fred. "Like I said you lack the proper clarity to understand," and then the cleric ran off to help with the preparations.

1. Oh my! Will the clerics be able to put this goddess in her place? exactly how much spittle will be needed? and why is the bald barmaid from the bar a few blocks away carrying a large keg into the Temple Precinct?
2. Fred attempts to entertain the goddess

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