The Font

John frowned as he finished exploring the second of the three passages. Where the first had just contained statues, the second opened out into what looked like living quarters. Sparse living quarters, but living quarters none the less. While there didn’t appear to be anywhere to sleep, the passage had ended in a pleasant room with benches surrounding a well, with solid looking oak doors set into the walls. On trying the doors, John had found that they opened into a dining hall, kitchen and what after a quick glance around he assumed to be a toilet - at least, he hoped that was what the wooden bench with a hole in it was for.

Making a mental note to never need to use the bathroom in the temple for fear of getting splinters in his backside, John turned his attention back to the culinary facilities. The kitchen was small - barely large enough for two people, and he pondered what Matilda would make of it, especially given the dining hall was easily large enough to seat ten or twenty on the long stone benches. It didn’t make much sense, but he shelved that thought for the time being while he made his way back to the rotunda once more. As he walked he also noted that along with the size discrepancy between kitchen and dining room, there also hadn’t appeared to be any of the pots, pans, plates or other utensils he’d have expected them to be stocked with.

On reaching the entryway once more, he found that Rebecca had finished her contemplation. “Given the statue and, well, the fresco above our heads I… umm…” she began the instant she saw him, blushing furiously before blurting out, “…I’m sorry I had doubts you were really a follower of the Lady.”

John paused, wanting to say something reassuring as his classmate was clearly quite flustered, but remembered Malal’s warnings about the Order and so took the time to choose his words carefully. “I… appreciate the apology, but it’s fine. I’m sure everything I’ve done might not fully line up with your expectations, but I do try and pay my respects to the Lady in exchange for all she has given me.” He was rather proud of that little speech, but decided to change the subject quickly to safer ground. “Although, if I’d known this… well, this temple was going to have catering facilities and no catering equipment, I’d have probably brought some cutlery and stuff with me to get it stocked up.”

Rebecca blinked at that, the sudden mundanity of his words clearly not what she had expected at all. Seeing her puzzled look, John gestured vaguely down the passage he’d just come from and explained what he’d found. The brunette took it far more in her stride than he’d have expected, but when he’d finished she pointed to the far archway leading deeper into the temple. “It’s just that one left to explore now, right? You’ve checked everywhere else. So far we’ve seen a shrine to the Lady - although I’m not sure what the other plinths were for - and apparently a place for the faithful to eat and rest. Which begs the question, what is down there. It’s directly opposite the entrance and… well, that’s usually where temples put the most important areas, don’t they?”

The final passageway was far longer than the first two and curved slightly as it went so that the end was not visible from the main rotunda. John and Rebecca walked along the hall, great stained glass windows letting in pools of multicoloured light as they passed. After a minute or so of walking, John paused, turning to stare up at the nearest pane of glass. “What is it, John?” Rebecca asked, coming to a halt a few paces further on when she realised he wasn’t with her.

“The windows don’t make sense. They’re stained glass - but it’s all the same colour. Why not just make one big pane of glass in that colour? Stained glass windows are supposed to depict things - or at least, they do whenever I’ve seen them in churches and stuff - but these are just… blank,” he replied, gaze still locked on the window above them. “Gaia may move in mysterious ways, but she never…” he paused, because his vision had suddenly filled with a blinking blue and white box.

Doing his best to hide closing the window by stretching, John turned to Rebecca and shrugged, opting not to mention the Quest given he’d already been vague about how he got his mission from Gaia previously. “I’ll figure it out later, I guess. Let’s keep moving.”

The walk down the passageway continued for some time, and John was just beginning to worry that the temple might never end when they suddenly came upon a set of great doors ahead - ones carved of stone, unlike the timber elsewhere in the building. With a goal in sight, the pair sped up, before coming to a halt in front of the stone portal as Rebecca tried both shoving and pulling on the heavy rings set into the doors, to no visible result.

As she stepped back and shook her head in frustration, John frowned and ran a hand over the stone, more to see what it felt like than anything else. The brunette had opened her mouth to speak, but then left it hanging open, staring as the doors slid neatly inward under John’s touch.

The room beyond was dark - far darker than anywhere else in the temple had been, with only a pale flicker somewhere in the middle visible from the outside. Fishing around in his pocket, John retrieved his phone and, using it as a torch, stepped through the doors gingerly. Behind him, Rebecca took a pace forward… and bounced off an invisible wall where the doors had been. Spinning around at her concerned shout, John walked back the way he’d come - with no difficulty at all. “John… what is this? Why can you go further and I can’t?” Rebecca frowned as she spoke, looking almost like a street mime as her hands traced the barrier that prevented her from going any further.

“I don’t know why she’d be blocked here… unless there’s something in there that’s just for me?” John thought frantically, trying to figure out why his companion was prevented from accessing this chamber in particular before she grew too irate. “Maybe it’s, like… an inner shrine? One intended just for me while the temple as a whole is open to more people?” he managed, hoping that would at least appease her for the time being while he stared into the gloom beyond the doorway. “Do you mind if I investigate quickly? I promise I’ll be right back.”

The room beyond the doors was circular, with a repetition of the same pattern of three further routes leading out from a central chamber. Where before these had been long passageways or the oak doors in the living area, here they consisted of doors that were again made of some kind of stone, this time one that reflected the light of John’s phone oddly in the gloom. Opting to check the central area first, John surveyed what he could, and found the source of the flickering he’d seen from outside. A thin stone wall ran all around the chamber at waist height, enclosing what looked like an empty fire-pit at its heart.

Pausing, John frowned and shoved his phone into his pocket. In the sudden gloom, he was pleased to see his hunch had been correct. The fire-pit wasn’t as empty as he’d first thought; at its center, a tiny blue-green flame danced. Getting closer, John’s eyebrows raised as he stared at it, not because the fire was burning without any discernible fuel source (that much he could have chalked up to the general weirdness of this part of the temple) but rather because floating above the flame was a familiar-looking blue box.