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Day Six
It
is a beautiful day. The sky is clear. Birds are
chirping. Yet you feel a darkness in your heart. You have
a feeling that something is waiting for you. That something
knows you are comming.
Eva seems a
little excited. She keeps shifting around in the pirogue.
Looking expectantly. You have the feeling you are close to the
settlement.
The bayou looks calm and the
muddy water looks almost blue as it reflects the clear sky. The
moss hanging from the trees is swaying gently. Everything looks
right. But your heart is very concerned. You feel
paranoid.
You round a bend in the bayou,
and suddenly the village is there. Everything looks well
tended. The lawn is groomed. The homes look lived in.
The church has a new coat of white paint. You have the distinct
impression you are being watched. Eerily there is no one to be
seen.
As y'all pull
up to a grassy bank and get out of the pirogue, Eva is beside herself
with the sense of home comming. "Eva, why didn't your
preist get out?" She is running off to one of the houses
and calls back "I don't know." You pull the pirogue
further up the bank, and walk after her.
The homes are all two story and have stairs on the front porch, not
inside the house. Except for the absence of people everything
looks alright. You go inside.
The
room looks swept and clean. Eva is going from room to room
calling out softly, almost hesitantly "Hello, hello?"
She walks over to you. "There is no one here. Not
even bodies." She goes out the front door. You turn
to follow again. Once outside she is standing there, like it is
her porch, looking at the other houses like she expects to see
someone.
"Eva, come with me to the church." You set off and she follows. The church is a simple one story square building with a little raised roof with a cross on it. The door is slightly ajar. You push it over and see everything where it should be. Everything except for all the spider webs. The place is infested with them. Big yellow spiders, about the size of your hand. Front to back, top to bottom, they fill the room. Sitting in one of the front pews facing the altar is a man. His head is slumped over and he doesn't look alive. He may be the priest.
"I'm
gonna need some fire to burn all these cobwebs out of here."
You say to Eva. "Are there any torches in town?"
She says "I'll go see." She walks back to her house,
and you turn to examine the chapel some more.
The altar is there, and cups and bowls are in place. The candle
sticks and crosses are still in their positions. Except for all
the spider webs the altar doesn't look like it needs to be
re-consecrated. There are two windows on each side of the room
and they are all open. You can see the door on the side of the
altar that leads to the priest’s quarters. It seems
closed. Next to the front door is a small wall mounted holy
water basin. It seems to still have some water in it.
Eva comes up with two flaming torches and hands you one. Y'all
make short work of the spider webs. It is creepy and the webs
don't burn that well, but they do give way to direct heat.
Fairly soon you have made it to the body of the priest.
Eva, who is also a physicker, says "It looks like he starved to
death. Look how wasted away he is." In his hands,
clutched to his chest is a book. He looks like he died holding
onto it. Up at the altar you notice that all of the 'hosts' or
holy bread have been eaten. Small crumbs laying around.
There is a little wine left. You go back and take the book from
the body’s hands. "Maybe this has some answers."
The priest looks very old, maybe eighty, and shrunken from
starvation. You flip open the book to the begining. It
seems to be a treatise on theology. It is hand writen.
You say to Eva, "Was his name Father Thias?" Eva, who
has just finished burning webs from around the altar comes over.
"Yes. Yes he was." She looks a little sad and
scared. "Eva. We need to bury him."
She shows you where there is a cemetary on the edge of the village
right next to a large cleared farmers field. A lone leafless
tree stands guard over the few graves that are there. The two
of you spend hours digging with a couple of shovels and they take a
bedspread from her house to carry the body on. Father Thias is
laid to rest six feet under and with proper blessings.
You and Eva quietly go back to her house and she starts cooking, maybe just to keep busy. You sit down at a table and start to read the book. The altar is fine, your mission is accomplished. You expect to be contacted by astral projection on the morrow. As you plow into the book the smell of great food comes from the kitchen. String beans, fresh bread, creole gumbo, even sweet potatos. You have a strange feeling that you are not going to get any sleep this night. Even though your mission is accomplished you feel there is a bit left to be settled. Someone or something has its wrath aimed at you, and you can feel it.
[Get one hundred and thirty experience for completing your mission. Eva gets two hundred and sixty for completing both of hers. With the book you can take theology as a study if you wish.]