Temple run

John and Matilda waited while Flyx applied her illusion before leaving the Barrier. After the ladies had marvelled over the shrine and they’d exchanged numbers, they’d all returned to the front of the church to say goodbye to the pictsies. John noted that all of the supplies he’d brought had already vanished, and made a mental note to try and bring more if he passed by which would probably be quite frequent, given his temple key opened in the mausoleum behind the church.

Walking around the side of the church undisturbed, John pondered how he was going to explain everything to Flyx, or if he even wanted to. Pausing and checking the coast was clear, he pulled the key from his Inventory and stepped forward to the same place he had entered the temple with Rebecca a few days before. It was then, as he moved the key towards the mausoleum’s lock, that he learned just how foolish his assumption about what the key opened actually was.

Flyx stared at the door, then at the mausoleum, then at the key and the lock as it expanded. “Why did we bother walking all this way to enter through the graveyard?” she asked, looking confusedly from John to Matilda and back.

John paused, the door half open in front of him and glanced back at her. “What do you mean, why? The key fits the lock here so…”

The green-skinned woman interrupted him before he could finish. “But it doesn’t fit!” she said, shaking her head rapidly. “The key makes the lock take it - didn’t you see the lock expand? I bet it’ll work with any lock. Have you tried it anywhere else? I mean, this is a quiet place, I suppose, but if that’s what I think it is, then we could have just used the main church door, or that side door we passed on the way around here that’s even more sheltered from nosy people!”

John frowned, then glanced at Matilda before he answered, “No… I mean, I’ve just tried it here, so I thought…”

Matilda moved forward, pressing her curves against him as she stepped past and into the temple. “It doesn’t matter now, John. Let’s get inside so you can show us this temple of yours, and you can put your key into other holes later.” She winked as she said it, which combined with the proximity of her softness led to him coughing to cover a rush of blood to his crotch as he turned to follow her in.

Flyx joined them a second or two later, and to John’s delight the reaction from both women was as he’d expected. The pair stared around in wonderment, craning their heads back to take in the fresco and the passageways leading out. As they turned slowly, John coughed again, this time to get their attention. “Most of it is… well, not abandoned, but not fully decorated as such yet. There’s a door to the outside that won’t open, and living space down that passageway that lacks utensils…” he began, then turned to lead them to the room with the statue in it.

“Down here we’ve got the statues to the gods. Well, goddess, singular, at the moment,” he babbled, hoping that the scale of the architecture would make up for the lack of anything detailed to look at besides the statue of Gaia and the rooms by the Font which he wasn’t even sure the ladies would be able to access.

Flyx looked around in awe as she walked after the two humans. She’d heard of private spaces - who hadn’t? Magical pocket dimensions that powerful mages created to escape distractions, or to hold stock for their shops or hunting grounds for rare ingredients. She’d even contemplated buying one herself once, back when she’d thought potionmaking would earn her enough money to live richly. That’d been before she’d realised how hard it was to mix potions without either bulk-buying ingredients (which she lacked the money for), being practically enslaved by a Guild (which she obviously didn’t want), or making high value potions (which she lacked the combat skill to gather ingredients for).

Then John, in addition to seemingly being a complete newbie, had somehow also gotten his hands on a truly massive domain. Even the bits he was allowing her to see were huge - admittedly, not in floor space, but that main atrium alone had been larger than the pocket home she’d considered buying, assuming she didn’t mind putting in scaffolding to make use of the verticality!

The shortstack bit her lip nervously as they entered another room and John gestured to a statue of Gaia on a pedestal on the far wall. He was saying something about how he expected other gods’ statues would join it sooner or later, but Flyx wasn’t really listening. The statue’s eyes seemed to bore into her as she stared at it, looking deep into her soul as if to say, ”You’ve been begging to get laid for months, and I’ve just dropped not just one but two hotties into your lap and you’re playing coy? What is wrong with you, Hoarseroot?”

She wouldn’t be swayed, however, no matter how much her body was demanding she take immediate action. She had her rules and she’d stick to them - single partners were easy, couples could be way, way too messy to just jump at. Frowning, she glanced away from the statue and found John staring at her with a curious look on his face. “What?” she asked, a little harsher than she’d meant to, and promptly blushed.

John flinched slightly at the tone Flyx had used, then repeated himself, “I asked if you worshipped any particular gods or goddesses?”

The woman in front of him shrugged, then gestured back over her shoulder at the statue. “Just Lady Gaia. My folks were keen on some of the gobbo deities, you won’t have heard of them, but I could never gel with the shamans. Mostly because they were either young and tried to connect with ‘the youth’ by sitting on chairs backwards, which is stupid, or they were so old that they could barely see to do the rituals without setting their beards on fire. Why?”

Glancing thoughtfully at the statue, John shrugged. “I’m interested. As a cleric, I’m always curious about what gods people worship.”

Flyx’s eyebrows both went up. “You. You’re a cleric? You, as in the guy that hit dryadrones with a stick until they died, are a cleric? Aren’t you guys supposed to be all standing in pulpits preaching the importance of having a specific amount of sex, or hovering behind actual fighters to heal them?”

John shrugged. “Maybe? I dunno. I’m just trying to survive, it’s been a weird week or so.”

That final comment broke what was left of Flyx’s sense of proportion. “A… A WEEK?” she yelped, before turning to Matilda as if for confirmation. “Y…you’ve been in the Abyss for a week, and you’ve already gotten a place like this?!”

Calming the greenskinned woman down had taken quite some time. Matilda had been a natural at it, thankfully; after they’d waved Flyx goodbye with the promise to meet up at the weekend somehow still intact, John asked his girlfriend how she’d managed it, hoping for something to take his mind off what Flyx had told him about the value of pocket dimensions like his temple.

Matilda shrugged. “I got pretty shocked myself between the fox monsters and when you told me about the Abyss and everything, so I’ve got recent experience in handling sudden surprises. And that book you gave me has a load of meditation stuff to practice; I’m pretty chill now. Also, have you forgotten my day job? You would not believe the amount of professional development days we get as staff at Ashcroft that are all about ‘how to ensure the future head of a major company doesn’t have a heart attack at eighteen just because someone said he couldn’t have a second helping of tacos’. It’s a whole thing, and so dull!”

John sighed. “That makes sense.” Then he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “Did I tell you today how wonderful you are?” Matilda turned almost the same colour as Flyx’s hair, before turning to him with smoldering eyes, any thoughts of the goblin rapidly fading.

“You mentioned something about a bedroom, John? We should probably go there. Right now.” Her words were a purr that sent a great deal of John’s blood rushing south - but not so much that he didn’t remember a fairly large problem.

Leading her at a rapid pace down the stained-glass corridor, he explained as they ran, “I don’t know if you’ll be able to get to it. There was a forcefield or something that stopped Rebecca, so we might have to make do with one of the other rooms… although, I wonder…” He frowned, then glanced sideways at her. “It might be because Rebecca’s not a follower of the temple? Maybe the inner sanctum’s for adherents only.”

Matilda didn’t hesitate. “In that case, I pledge to follow the spiritual teachings of John Newman and any goddesses or gods he sees fit to put before me.” The words rang like a bell in John’s ears, and sure enough, when they reached the doorway to the Font, there was no barrier to Matilda entering. Inside and floating above the flame (which looked a little brighter to John’s eyes), the text now read two out of ten - although he had little time to process this as his girlfriend dragged him on, pushing open door after door until she found the bedroom and tugged him inside.