The crew made sure to arrive at the north entrance of Plains Junction under the cover of night. They hadn’t been here in a week or more. Still, it was too soon since their last heist at the relic emporium. Jelena liked to give major settlements a month or more before trying to mosey back through the gates, and even then they kept their heads down.

  Even the main drag was quiet at this hour. They took a detour around the cathedral district, and again around the now-out-of-business emporium—wouldn’t do to revisit the scene of the crime!—and moved swiftly but silently to the southern end of the junction.

  With no walls around Plains Junction the city limits were wherever the collection of merchant’s tents and pilgrimage infrastructure happened to taper out, particularly on the north and south sides. The east and west spans bulged with more local buildings and houses, but the land beyond the city’s border in all directions was flat. In the dark of night, the horizon was flat and featureless.

  “We sure about this?” Calaf asked.

  “Relax.” Jelena patted him on the shoulder. “Burning a potential escape route, I suppose. But there are plenty of pilgrim caravans. If we need to lie low we’ll just take another.”

  “Besides,” Zilara added. “This caravan company will only ban us if we’re seen stealin’ our rides.”

  Prime real estate along the pilgrimage path usually belonged to inter-settlement transportation services. Often, particularly in Plains Junction, the foremost buildings were pilgrim and traveler convoys. The yearly pilgrimage made up over twenty percent of the economy and a large percentage of the church’s coffers.

  From the outside, these buildings were plain one or two-story plainskarst warehouses. High fences of imported wood around adjacent yards betrayed their true source of value. For these fences were not meant to keep people out or hide stores of goods.

  A great chain wound around the gate’s doorhandles. It was sealed with an Interface-incompatible lock, no doubt to discourage burglars with lockpicks. Enkidu cut the lock with uncharacteristic concern for stealth since Jelena was breathing down his neck. The doors swung open on rusty hinges.

  “Bah! In two levels I’d have access to a sound-dampening ability,” Zilara said blithely.

  Too late now. With a shrug, Jelena propped the door open and waltzed inside.

  There ought to be nobody around, save for perhaps a few field hands. Maybe one person at the desk inside, tasked with remaining on-hand in case the dire-horses needed tending. The yard was empty when they waltzed in.

  Calaf took up the rear, ready to block the open gate with his shield if need be. Jelena and Zilara went right for the stables. There was no special trick by which they tamed the beasts; Zilara summoned Autumnal Sweet Carrots from her Inventory and goaded two dire-horses into the yard.

  With a hushed ‘onward!’ the crew was off into the night. Jelena and Calaf rode on one dire-horse and they made Enkidu escort the holy child on the other, fearing she was still too small to ride unsaddled by herself.

  The gate remained swinging open, though they had the decency to close the stables before heading out. They were there to rob the place, not to spread domesticated dire-horses across the arid plains.

  These were the more common four-legged dire-horse variants, of a kind imported from other lands. The rarer but locally sourced six-legged dire-mare was faster and hardier, capable of riding the pilgrimage route while stopping only twice. Not that it mattered, for even the standard foreign steeds made a better time than four humans on foot could hope to manage.

  Where before they would have spent a day ascending the route to Twelfthnight, now they were there before sunup. They kept up the ride, stopping only at a waystation along the path to provide the domesticated dire-beasts some water before continuing.

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  The Holy Menu provided Interface-compatible riders with detailed dehydration information about their steeds. With one bemenu’d rider each, Calaf and Zilara, they could instantly tell when their steeds were rested again. Off they rode, through the rocky highlands of Granite Pass and south past Riverglen.

  The suspected location of Gustavo’s next gospel breadcrumb was on a slight detour further north. Still, Jelena insisted they check out the location of this southernmost church monastery. To those ends they, at Calaf’s pleading, avoided Riverglen and followed the roads as far as could be.

  These were lands seldom-tread even by residents of Riverglen. No reason to head down here for trade if there were no other settlements. Sparse farms near the rivers faded into an ancient woodland.

  As their dire-steeds marched at a slow pace, Calaf liked to imagine they were the first group to tread this path since the ancient heroes.

  “Heh. Are you sure you want to head this far south, Hoss?” Zilara asked Jelena, still clinging to Enkidu’s back as he navigated some rough terrain.

  “Whatever do you mean?” Jelena asked from the opposite position behind Calaf.

  “Well, other Hoss has been reading this testament about a blonde church filly. Think it’s rubbing off on him. He might be getting ideas.”

  Calaf could, of course, hear all of this.

  Behind him, Jelena shrugged.

  “We’ve already had that conflict. Manipulative blonde churchmarms are out, sultry desert sirens are in.” She motioned to herself as she said this, then squeezed Calaf’s sides to hold on tight. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

  The conversation was mercifully cut short when they approached a barricade.

  “Church Lands,” said a simple sign written with blocky, liturgically-styled text.

  A stone tower awaited through a sea of brush. Upon closer inspection, it was more a spire than a tower. A vertical slice of a mountain tapered off only slightly at the top compared to the base. Only the top five stories could be clearly seen from this distant perch.

  The noncanon gospel – for lack of a better term, as there was a Gospel of Mia and a Gospel of Gustavo within the official church books – described a prison oubliette built into and excavated out of a great spire. This matched what Calaf was now gazing at. Prisoners had been used for excavation deeper still. A modest collection of Menu-compatible building materials sat further down the road. Construction continued to this day.

  Now Calaf was kicking himself; he should’ve found a way to talk to Deacon after all. A firsthand account of what occurred in this prison-turned-monastery would be invaluable.

  Over four hundred years passed since three of four ancient heroes of yore stood from atop that very spire. The physical geography of the land was little changed. If the church had continued construction for those four centuries then the interior of the former goal could be sprawling.

  “C’mon,” Jelena said. “Let’s get a closer look.”

  Nothing was stopping the group from continuing past the ‘Church Property’ sign. They hitched the dire-horses up to a nearby tree and continued by foot.

  “The spire was only accessible from the top,” Enkidu said. “Do any of you have wings?”

  “If the church took it over surely they’ve carved out a ground entrance,” Jelena said.

  It was a prison. With the prison thrown open, there wasn’t a reason to keep it so inaccessible.

  Just a few hundred paces down the weed-eaten path, the crew discovered a high wooden fence blocking access to the spire. Another ‘Church Property’ sign sat on what counted as a gate, which was locked shut. What’s more, wooden stakes adorned the top of the wall, facing outward.

  Slipping in with the Holy Lockpicks of the Thief was always possible. Before they took a step that might force them into combat with sentries or guards, the group assigned Zilara an important scouting mission first. The holy child stood on Enkidu’s shoulders, as he was by far the tallest of the posse.

  “See an entrance. Lots of construction equipment too, Interface and off-Interface. They carved a door into the base of the spire,” Zilara said. “Hmm. Guards are at the door. High level. Paladin and Cleric. Both level seventy-plus.”

  Levels of that caliber would require a considerable, lengthy career further up the pilgrimage route. The pair of guards could trounce any dire-beast in the region with a single blow.

  “We could always have Enkidu whack them,” Jelena suggested offhand.

  “There’s no telling how many more guards wait within the monastery,” Calaf said. “Let’s head back. We can always come back and investigate another time.”

  The next installment of the testament should not be hidden somewhere in the spire. Despite its phrasing as a ‘firsthand gospel’ the first document was clearly written after the fact and possibly much later after the fact.

  “Come, let’s head north,” Calaf implored the group. “We can be at the next station with just a night in camp if we leave now.”

  “Ooh! Workers are coming out.” Zilara held on to the outward facing spikes of the wall. “They’re all… level fifty, at the least. All that experience just for grunt work.”

  Suddenly, Deacon seemed to be among the lower-ranking members of this distant monastery. Still, the fact that this spire truly existed helped grant veracity to the lost testament. The Southern Shackled Asylum did exist. Just being able to see it proved as much.

  “Is there a place to hide in there?” Jelena asked.

  Zilara shook her head. “Nope. A few construction pylons, but they’re already being carted off. Cut down all the trees between the wall and the spire.”

  “Okay, bring her down.”

  Enkidu put Zilara back on the ground. The holy child puffed up her cheeks, indignant.

  “We’ll seek out the next testament,” Jelena said, nodding towards Calaf. “We can always come back if we need to raid the place.”