Deepwood was smaller than most of the major stations along the pilgrimage route. It was a city dedicated to church ecclesiastical offices, and they were chiseled into the trunks themselves. Groundside log cabins were rarer than the occasional treehouse high up in the smaller trees.

  “Smaller” here was understating things; even the most diminutive tree within Deepwood’s city limits was wider and taller than the largest oak in Riverglen. Even a single, red-barked mammoth surely contained more plant mass than every forest in the first among towns.

  This was the end of most laypeople’s faith-mandated pilgrimage. On aesthetics and religious significance, the route saved the best for last. Religious strictures were carved into the bark around town and along the roads heading north and southwest.

  As they passed through the ceremonial stacked-log walls of Deepwood, Calaf spied one such etching into the bark above the gate:

  Mia, the Ancient Cleric of Yore and Holy Priestess who founded the Church, etched these formulas into the very bark of this unassuming grove. These were simple commandments, expanded upon by bishops and doctrinal councils through the centuries.

  Using this formula, Calaf could determine his Effect Resistance – essential for Shielder-classes – to the exact decimal point. The highest-level Paladins possessed enough Eff Res to tank all status effects! Alas, Calaf’s calculations were foiled, for he was bad at math.

  There were descriptions of leveling stats classifications. Teachings on the nature of the Holy Menu and its purpose. Random exultations of faith and well-wishes. This holy town was the most direct window into Cleric Mia’s mind during the time of the ancient heroes. The other heroes had fought their battles and disappeared into history without any public testament. It was no stretch to declare that these wood-engraved etchings were the foundation of the church!

  Scholars could spend centuries amidst the Deepwood groves, deciphering the Cleric’s teachings. Many had, and new commandments were discovered and interpreted each pilgrimage season.

  Two Branded, one self-excommunicated apostate, and a brandless walking into town on the off-season would arouse suspicion. But Jelena had an elaborate alibi: noble Calaf and his niece were escorting a poor woman who’d accidentally Scoured her brand in a haberdashery accident, alongside her foreign father from overseas. They’d come to explore the tenets of the faith before a (re)-baptism.

  The relic thief was entrapping our Paladin-aspirant into a lie! Still, playing as eager converts would provide them with surefire access to the Cathedral of the Deepwood and its adjacent archives. Perhaps aiding the thief in this lie would help produce more noble ends, therefore upholding Calaf’s chivalry.

  The Cathedral of the Deepwood beckoned, its gargantuan trunk a commanding presence from every point in the forested valley. The tree that had been home to most of the Holy Priestess’s etchings was a natural headquarters for the church in this region. Trained clerics had helped hollow the tree out while preserving its life and the legibility of the bark-engraved etchings as the tree continued to grow.

  Huh. Calaf pondered his surroundings as the group approached the wide-open hollow cathedral hall. Come to think of it, the church wastes no time in Branding every beast and dire-animal in the realm, but never plants.

  Was that possible? The answer was likely to be found within the cathedral library itself, located in an adjacent great-wood tree trunk accessible by some carved-out stairs and an interjoined branch. Church personnel waved them in; the church always was a sucker for willing convert sob stories.

  “Hey, I’m going to hang around,” Zilara said at the entranceway. “Check out some of these carvings.”

  “There’s copies of every etching on parchment in the archives,” Calaf explained.

  Zilara shot him a piteous look. “Getting impressions of the real thing will be more useful. There’s more to gleam in the System metadata…”

  While everyone else pretended to know what ‘metadata’ was, Zilara stood there with her hands crossed.

  “Very well. Enkidu, look after ‘Zelda.’” Jelena nodded towards their glamor-ring wearing charge.

  Enkidu grumbled his displeasure, and acceptance, of the command.

  “My mission is the archives,” Calaf announced.

  “I’m going to take a look too,” Jelena said with a smile. “What a coincidence.”

  Zilara snickered. “Have fun, you two.”

  The group went their separate ways. Enkidu tried adding something but was poked in the ribs by Zilara’s elbow and dragged off back outside.

  “Well, they’ll be out of my hair for a while,” Jelena said under her breath.

  Calaf looked to the relic thief. She had an expression on her face as if she was plotting something.

  “Just what are you planning?” he asked, peerless.

  “Oh, nothing.” Jelena hummed. “Come on, before the cathedral guards get suspicious.”

  The Deepwood Archives were open to the public outside of mass and ceremonial periods. They waited, preserved since antiquity, in the hollowed-out and petrified remains of the second-largest tree in the grove. The entrance was only available by carefully-cultivated branch pathways from the second floor of the cathedral proper. All the church’s holy texts were stored in more permanent and accessible forms than bark carvings in rows upon rows of towering bookshelves.

  “So, Hot Shot.” Jelena shot him a smile. “I’m headed to the demonology section. Wouldn’t be surprised if its access has been restricted.”

  “Restricted? How come?”

  Jelena chuckled. “You poor na?ve little Squire. Just, go find us a quiet study table and start researching whatever it is you’re looking for.”

  The ‘ground’ floor of the archive (though it was thereabouts five floors off the ground) covered the hollow from bark to bark. Hundreds of concentric circles along the floor were testament to the mighty tree’s age before it had died. Dozens of other floors spanned the length of the trunk above them, mostly consisting of small balconies and walkways that spanned the hollow.

  “Higher floors should be quieter,” Calaf muttered to himself.

  “Try the third one.” Jelena winked, then turned and began to walk off.

  Calaf grabbed her hand.

  “What’re you planning?” he frowned. “Trying to sneak off and raid the reliquary?”

  “Perish the thought!” Jelena grinned at Calaf. “That’s down in the roots of the cathedral anyway. I’ve been there before – during my pilgrimage.”

  “You have?”

  Calaf hadn’t even visited the Deepwood reliquary during his brief initial pilgrimage.

  “Yep. Worry not, there will be no relic thieving today.”

  Jelena skipped off as Calaf watched her go. What an interesting person. One he had the sudden compulsion to study in more detail…

  Calaf found a secluded table on the third floor of the archives, then began gathering tomes from all publicly available floors. He collected a great stack of books and scrolls, far more than would fit in his Inventory. The excess sat on the table, forming a veritable wall on either side of the Squire.

  Hours passed with Calaf digging through the archives. Descriptions on each book helped him sort through things, though not even in the most promising tomes did he encounter anything dubbed “the Spark of Life Unbridled.” In this way, his mission from Deacon was heading towards failure.

  The plan was to work his way through official accounts of early church history. This entity that had set up shop in the Port Town sewers possessed some conflict with the Interface. It was harder – though not impossible – for it to subvert Branded corpses. Little was known about the Holy Menu and its intricacies prior to its discovery in that scorpion nest far to the south by the ancient heroes. Perhaps the all-consuming rot was some force in opposition to its holy System?

  Instead of finding the slightest bit of info on this threat, Calaf found himself neck-deep in the minutiae of Branding protocol.

  Did you know that a pregnant woman who undergoes Branding will not pass the Interface on to already-conceived children naturally? An unconverted woman with a Branded partner would produce offspring Branded right out of the womb. Likewise, a converted woman with an unbranded partner would pass on the Brand via bloodline ties. Scoured Brands on either parent would not clear the Brand from children in utero, at least, though a Scoured parent could not pass on the brand to any newly-conceived children either. Obviously, the inheritable location of the brand would default to the branded parent in a “mixed” marriage. But only in that specific scenario: an unconverted mother taking the Brand while pregnant, did the children require additional baptism. It was for this reason that missionaries were encouraged to apply the baptismal branding ceremony early, to maximize the spread of the Menu and its glory.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Calaf yawned. Fascinating stuff, but little that would shed light on why that entity that commands the rot would have a harder time subverting cadavers of the Branded.

  Still, the books piled higher. There were plenty of tomes speculating on the purpose of the Holy Menu, but surprisingly little about its origins.

  Scouring etiquette, though, there was plenty of that.

  Excommunicated heretics and the like were to have their Brand scoured – by raking off sufficient layers of skin or tissue until the Interface became unusable. Or, if necessary, by simple amputation of the limb or offending body part. Either punishment to a Brand on the neck was ill-advised. Once excommunicated, the Menu and all church services were cut off to the Scoured subject. Inventories could be accessed only to summon items out, but nothing could be placed back in. All gold reserves therein were likewise cut off. Scourings by accident were appealable – though a pious subject who lost their access to the Menu in a freak haberdashery accident ought to rush right to the cathedral to reapply a Brand, and therefore regain their inventory. To not do so was suspicious, evidence of self-excommunication, a far more dire crime.

  Calaf thought back to Jelena. She’d taken out her very eye, losing access to any gold in her coffers, just to be rid of the Menu. For someone out to sustain herself through a life of crime, losing the free gold repository must’ve been a massive sacrifice. Yet, she’d judged the trade off worth it all the same. It was testament to her strong will and determination… and there Calaf went, blushing at the thought of her again. He refocused.

  Even those with Scoured Brands maintained some marking of the System on their soul. It was a matter of much speculation whether these poor souls could be consecrated even without a working Brand. The exact nature of this soul-imprint was ambiguous, but the treatise confirmed repeatedly that these excommunicated were cast out from the System so long as their Brands were gone.

  Nothing on six floors full of church documents referenced any kind of rot or impurity at all. Just then, Calaf had an idea: he went to the seventh floor, the highest publicly available bookshelves, and returned to his nest with the most snooze-worthy church tomes of all.

  Proper Preparation and Burial Procedure of Deceased Faithful for the Coming Day of Glory. Authored by a barely known friar some three decades after the death of the Demon King.

  Within were hundreds upon hundreds of pages regarding how to properly consecrate a dead body for eventual resurrection in the Golden Era some unknown (but always far-off) distance into the future. There were protocols for Branding ill or infirm converts on their deathbeds. Care and maintenance of the church crypts. Crematory preparations if a proper consecration spell could not be implemented for whatever reason. And lastly, in the final volume of three, a description of the purpose and procedure for burning unconverted bodies – or those who could not be commended to the crypts in time.

  Calaf hunched over the table, reading the tome manually as his Inventory was full. He even pulled up his Menu, its soft glow serving as an ersatz torchlight, to read by.

  Burning anyone who could not be consecrated, converted or otherwise, was of the utmost importance. “To keep the rot at bay.”

  No further elaboration was provided.

  Calaf sighed. His mind was going numb, and he hadn’t even addressed the massive pile of books on the table itself. So tired was he that he nearly missed a figure slinking up behind him.

  “Found anything?” Jelena asked.

  Again, Calaf yawned. “Ah, nothing but minutiae. What’ve you found on your end?”

  “Something big. Take a gander.” Jelena held forth a tome larger than most of the ones on the table.

  Jelena held the book open manually, sans Menu such that she was. Calaf observed the book via Interface:

  “Demonology?” Calaf arched an eyebrow.

  “Yeah. Take a gander!”

  Jelena flipped to a specific page she’d preserved with a folded page-tip. What Calaf saw, however, was…

  “It’s… fuzzy?”

  The page bled, as if the ink had melted off. White page and black text swirled together.

  “What?” Jelena looked at the page again. “It looks okay to me.”

  She angled it over for Calaf to see again, but once more he could not see a thing.

  “Odd.” She checked the page again as if it was going to change when she didn’t look at it. “It sounds like it’s scrambled specifically for Branded.”

  The pair looked at the page themselves and found they were looking at two very different views. Whatever the cause, it seemed to be a filter that prevented Branded from viewing sensitive church documentation.

  Regardless, Jelena narrated:

  “Okay, so what I’ve found is this: Templar. Noun. The highest tier of foe among the Demon King’s ranks. The only form of Demon possessing a rare sense of autonomy beyond serving as a pawn of their Lord.”

  “Templars? What other forms of demons do they have in there?”

  “The first volume is a lengthy discussion of demon-types. Imps, Sentries, flying scouts, and so forth. They mostly correspond to our modern classes, oddly enough. But look at this.” Jelena flipped through a few more pages, until she reached a lengthy section that was ripped out at the seam.

  “There’s nothing there.”

  “Exactly. It’s been removed.” Jelena shut the book and scooted it over to the very edge of the study table. “So not only have these pages been bewitched to prevent the converted from reading them, but more pages have also been removed wholesale. Which is fishy, right?”

  “Where did you find this book?” Calaf asked.

  “Seventh floor. Highest before the restricted section.”

  The restricted section. A sealed-up eighth floor with scarcely even windows for ventilation. Only the most important, and most secure, books were stashed within. The only entrance was up a winding half-circular staircase from floor seven, always guarded by two level seventy-plus paladins.

  Calaf sighed. It sounded like the only way to proceed would be to access this extra, uber-restrictive archive. His temporary partner assumed he was still too noble to engage in breaking and entering the restricted section at this point. Likewise, there was no easy way past the guards without battle, no easy way back out either. Top all that off with the fact that there was no guarantee that the texts within were not also scrambled, and sneaking into the restricted section was likely more trouble than it was worth.

  With their plans dashed; Jelena pulled up a chair.

  “C’mon. Let’s read through this collection you have here.” She pulled up a book. “Church funerary practices? Good a place as ever to search for that weird plant monster.”

  “It’s more of a fungus…” Calaf managed, checking his own book via Interface.

  The pair read for a bit, side by side. They reorganized the wall of books to form a near-perfect barrier between them and the world at large. Jelena’s extra eye helped confirm there was nothing in the text that had been altered for those marked with the Menu.

  “So.” Jelena let out a whistling exhale. “Once you’re back to Riverglen, got any plans?”

  Calaf, for his part, was buried in a tome on the earliest church history publicly available. The Menu did allow him to quick-look for ‘rot’ and ‘life unbridled,’ rapidly speeding up the search.

  “May not stay for long,” he admitted.

  With the search for the origins of their fungal nemesis not going so well, Calaf found himself seeking out Scouring protocols and monastic regulations. These subjects proved even denser than the last, until…

  “The vow of silence,” he said. “It’s… regular protocol.”

  “Hmmm?” Jelena looked over. “What is?”

  “The monastery at Port Town. Metzger had dissidents forced into a special brand-augment that removed their ability to talk.” Calaf flipped through the book again to re-read the passage. “It’s common to all monasteries. Here in Deepwood, Riverglen… it’s standard protocol.”

  “Japella wasn’t large enough to have a monastery,” Jelena said. “Did see some surprisingly quiet monks around the Firefield cathedral from time to time.”

  “They’re all dissidents. Attempted reformers.” Calaf’s scanned the page to ensure his eyes did not deceive him.

  He pushed the book over so Jelena could see.

  “Well,” she said under her breath. “Even I did not know that.”

  Just another stack on the pile of things Calaf would have to confront Charlotte over, in time.

  Jelena scooted the books around to give them a wide, blank space on the table. There were a few fellow visitors to the library down on the second floor, but the third floor was quiet, intimate.

  “I didn’t leave the church due to some major blowup or revelation. Smashing the System was not my intent.” Jelena motioned to her eyepatch. “Merely burnt out. Live for me and mine, now. Guess I’m not the horribly apostate rebellious spirit you’ve been searching for.” Jelena punctuated this with a weak smile.

  “No, no. It’s okay.”

  Their hands drifted closer.

  “I’ve been… surprised by you,” Calaf admitted. “While perhaps I said some things early on I’ve come to regret…”

  “Remember when you ambushed me in the hot springs? ‘Stop right there, criminal scum!’ - you said that a lot.”

  They chuckled, and Calaf’s cheeks grew redder.

  “Yes, yes. What I mean to say is… I find you to have a fascinating story and would love to learn more about you.”

  Now Jelena’s cheeks were a cozy shade darker than the rest of her face.

  “I think that can be arranged,” she said with a smile.

  Kiss-stealer! The most accursed status effect returned to its unwanted place next to Calaf’s hit points. The Squire was too preoccupied to lament his lapse in discipline, busy as he was with Jelena occupying the same chair.

  Further research was on hold, as the pair found it much more productive to study each other.

  Their lips jostled about. His fiendish rival’s tongue growing bolder as it snuck around in his mouth, dancing around his own. Yes, Calaf would have to learn that trick and pay it back tenfold.

  Long ago, Calaf would often fret about what to do with his hands. Now they traveled to their perfectly natural position on Jelena’s hips, sliding along the hem of her tight and functional leather bodice.

  “Mmm.” Jelena smacked her lips during a brief air-gasping interregnum. “That Deaconess must’ve taught you off-Menu.”

  Deaconess Charlotte was known to press the boundaries of Interface-appropriate premarital behavior, t’was true. But just thinking of the Deaconess, her role in Karol’s downfall as an assassin, and the multi-pronged highly uncomfortable conversation that was now overdue with his nominal fiancée left Calaf wanting to think of anything else. No sooner did Jelena mention the Deaconess than did Calaf press his lips up to hers with renewed vigor.

  Jelena let out a low hum of approval, having gotten Calaf frustrated and therefore worked up. She grabbed onto the Squire’s chest piece and scooted up onto the desk. Calaf followed like their lips were opposing magnets. He wound up standing as Jelena’s legs wrapped around his waist. In time the relic thief stopped and let Calaf’s instincts let him continue kissing along her jaw, down her neck…

  With a finger on Calaf’s chin, Jelena laid down on the desk. She wound up sprawled out there, hidden from any prying onlookers by two flanking walls of books. Jelena gazed up at him, inviting, eyepatch affixed and dull brownish eye gazing upon his body coquettishly.

  “It’s more fun doin’ it in equipment,” she said, finger beckoning. “But you’ll probably summon some librarians clanking around in that heavy armor.”

  Calaf chuckled despite himself.

  Wouldn’t you know it, Jelena’s belt buckle was already undone. Her corset had a few strings loose. How convenient! She used her legs, now wrapped around Calaf’s waist, to pull him in closer.

  The good Squire’s chastity was in danger. It was true. He briefly considered that it would be far easier to confront and formally call things off with his zealot (ex?)-fiancée if he wasn’t sleeping around beforehand.

  Still, at Jelena’s behest, Calaf clambered atop her while fumbling for his Interface.

  “We’re in a library…” he says, the weakest possible excuse.

  But Jelena shushed him with a finger to his lips.

  “Being quiet happened to be my specialty back in the bordello,” she whispered, punctuating it with a hum. “Clients always insisted on being exaggeratedly loud, but in the rare occasion someone wanted some silent fun, I was their girl.”

  Wordless, Calaf returned to kissing at Jelena’s neck. Too far gone to worry about statuses or titles or appearances. Jelena hugged him around the shoulders. He still had to unequip all his armor...

  They were perfectly hidden here by the books. Nobody would catch them. They had plenty of time to get to know each other.

  Just then, Jelena hit Calaf’s shoulder pauldron three times in quick succession.

  “Up. Above up. Calaf, up!”

  Still, Calaf nibbled at her collarbone for a time, her shirt half-unbuttoned.

  “Calaf, dodge. Dodge!”

  That broke Calaf out of his spell. He looked into Jelena’s eye, which was looking past him to some shadow on the balcony above.

  No time to look behind him or even rise from their highly compromising position. The pair nodded, silent, to sync up their strategy without a word. Calaf rolled to his right, and Jelena rolled to hers. Books toppled as they shattered their own barricade.

  A fleet-of-foot figure in jet black robes landed on the desk, long knife jabbing through the wood. The desk and all remaining books collapsed in on themselves in the middle. Curiously, the collapse happened without any sound at all. The figure rose, silent.

  An Interface designation appeared: