Library of Rain

Temple Watching

Rain was excited to see Lon tomorrow, but she wanted to be able to buy his bread next time. How could she expect to be his equal if she only ever took from him? 

Since the coins she had seemed dangerous to spend, she would need a way to change them for local currency. Fortunately, the events of the morning had given her an idea. 

Slipping through the streets, Rain avoided guards whenever she saw them. Guards who let things get as bad as they were in this city should not be trusted. Though she had to admit the blue uniforms and bronze helmets they wore made a nice splash of color.

As she entered the Mid Ring, the city around her got cleaner, and the buildings became nicer. The stones were smoother, and the signs above shops were more elaborate. Eventually, Rain found the building she was looking for, a tall cathedral made of a white stone laced with vivid green veins. The stone was bright and sharply contrasted with the usual dark stone of the city. The building had a massive dome in the center with six wings of unequal lengths protruding at unequal intervals around it. The architecture of the Temple of Agro was smooth and flowing, making it stand out next to the jagged buildings around it.

Rain took a breath to settle her nerves and went over her story in her head again. Hopefully, the things she knew from “terms” were still valid, or this might end poorly. 

Comforted by the knowledge that if her plan failed, she could always warp to the coin she had hidden in a bush two streets back. Rain entered through the temple’s front doors.

As Rain entered, she saw two men dressed in green and gold holding spears standing sentry at the entrance. Despite her slightly ragged cloak, they did not react much besides giving her a disapproving glance.

No problems, yet.

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Rain moved deeper into the bowels of the temple, her feet making little sound on the cool stone. The floor had patterns inlaid in gold, and the walls had paintings of different scenes, most of which seemed to revolve around a figure with gold hair and a green robe healing people or stopping natural disasters. Rain guessed that he was the God Agros.

At the end of the large wing, it opened into the area under the dome. At the center of this large room, right beneath a shaft of light that came directly down from the center of the dome, was a pedestal where a man, in an even fancier robe than the priest this morning, stood giving a sermon.

Rain couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could see the cloud of filthy lies pouring out of his mouth. That comforted Rain; she would have felt bad about what she was planning if she thought these people were nice.

Around the pedestal were rows of seats where people could sit to listen to the sermon. They were sparsely populated with people listening or praying. 

Reaching the area under the dome, Rain looked around. The priest from this morning had mentioned making offerings at this temple. The question was, where? 

A priestess approached Rain and kindly asked, "Are you looking for something, child?"

It was time for Rain to see if she could act. In a nervous tone, that was mostly real, Rain said, “A priest this morning said that if we came here and made offerings, the bad things would stop. So I brought this coin that my grandmother said was very valuable.”

Rain showed the priestess her coin.

The priestess examined the coin, “Interesting, this isn’t a type of coin I'm familiar with from the Isles or the mainland. It must be very old.” Looking back at Rain, she smiled and assured Rain that Agro would bless her for giving up her family heirloom, which Rain could clearly see was a lie.

“Follow me, child, and I’ll show you to the offering box,” the priestess said, leading Rain to an ornate jewel-encrusted box with a slot on the top for inserting coins. Rain placed her coin into the slot and heard it clatter into other coins in the box.

“Very good child,” the priestess said, cupping Rain’s chin with her left hand. “May Agro, the god of good fortune and protection, bless you,” and with that blessing, the priestess walked away.

Yes! My plan is working.

With part one of the plan complete, Rain needed to wait for the box to be emptied. Deciding that she wasn’t likely to be bothered here, Rain sat in a pew with a view of the donation box. She listened to the rancid lies pouring from the fancily dressed priest as he preached about how shows of faith gave Agro the power to protect his chosen people. 

Two minutes in, her attention was already returning to more interesting things. This morning, when Rain had left her library, someone had tried to open the door she was using as a portal from the other side. From the man's colorful cursing, all of which Rain had made sure to memorize, the man couldn’t open the door from his side despite it being clearly open from Rain's point of view. 

In the end, she had to slam the portal shut on her side and run as fast as she could so the man couldn’t catch her. If she was being honest, it had been pretty fun. Rain already had plans for the woman who shot the crossbow at Rain. Rain figured it would be fun to use her powers to lock the woman inside her own house as a bit of revenge. 

Rain was curious about how her portals worked and would need to experiment with them soon. She happily made a few plans for tests, only a few of which involved bothering people for fun.

Eventually, running out of things to think about, Rain sighed. She guessed that this plan would be very boring for the next few hours. Maybe she should start thinking of all the bread she could eat with what she was about to get?