Day 8 – God’s Day

From the diary of Vida Pankhurst

Deceived they pray, to the one they believe is not the same.

Today I woke up and prayed to the mighty shrew for the power to detect evil within this village. Dear goddess do I miss having a sturdy rock ceiling above my head, instead of these rickety wooden ones which seem to give these overlanders comfort. No wonder I’m having bloody nightmares.

Today is God’s Day. Pfft what a concept, as if the gods should only be bloody worshipped once a week! Bloody part-timers!!! Anyway, Sameson and I decided to split up in our hunt for the agents of the Temple of Elemental Evil. He went with the worshippers of the old faith to go pray in some bloody glen, where he could cast detect evil on them all surreptitiously, whereas I went off to the Shrine of All Gods to praise Joramy and see if anyone else used the shrine.

No-one else was at the shrine and so I placed my holy symbol in the appropriate place only to have a voice resound within my head. The voice of the raging volcano herself! She said ‘Mitrik’s Whelp. On 3, in 6, dwells 9.’  Wiping the blood from my nose – no mortal can contain the might of my majestic goddess within herself completely unscathed – I decided to decode this message later and so continued my search for spies at where the poor godless people resided in a sea of tents near the south of the village.

Amongst the squalor I detected evil only in the hearts of an old woman and, by Moridin’s beard, a bloody little boy I caught pulling the wings off insects. Hardly the task force of the Temple of Elemental Evil! So I took note of their faces to report back to Hestia and proceeded to the ceremony being held at the temple of St. Cuthbert.

There I found Joe and Ugg lurking outside and they warned me against marching into the temple and casting my Detect Evil spells. Apparently human priests take umbrage to such things. No doubt the real reason is that the sickeningly masculine faith of St. Cuthbert does not like the idea of a woman taking charge within their halls. So I deployed the aforementioned tact and cast it on those exiting the temple after the ceremony instead. To my surprise none of the worshippers detected as evil, even those of Burne’s Badgers whom were present. Sameson arrived and reported that no one at the Obad-Hai ceremony had been evil either. Therefore it must be concluded that those working for the Temple of Elemental Evil were at neither ceremony.

During the afternoon we hatched a plan between us to plant a false note by the Shrine of All Gods requesting a meeting behind the Stonemasons with the temple spies. We waited in ambush but the bloody plan went to the furnace when Burne’s badgers turned up and moved us on. Joe however, managed to hide from them so hopefully he’s having some luck out there. Anyhow I’m off to bloody bed.