Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

We came to one stall of an organization that wanted to place stricter controls on magic (but insisted they weren’t spreading hatred against magi).

“You notice they allow this but not groups wanting to ban using children as Temple Prostitutes,” said Dad.

“Well that would suggest Nuhar was wrong to marry a little girl,” I said cynically, “and we can’t upset Nuharas.”

“Don’t take this personally,” said Mum. “Anyway, there have been all these magic accidents lately.”

The stall had pictures relating to the recent supposed magic accidents. They had a picture of the Minris Disaster with the word First added to the front. There was also a picture of the Cascade Hotel with smoke coming out of it, captioned, Second Minris Disaster. Another picture was of Breeze with a silly expression on her face and a caption, Should a 13 year old be a magis?

“We were at that one,” said Dad pointing at a picture of the devastated courtroom in Targrath.

“We had our memories erased though,” said Mum.

“I didn’t,” Dad, Dwendra, Egrindreth and myself all said at once.

“How come you didn’t have your memories erased?” asked Attan.

“That was your friends,” I said, looking at Mum, “trying to assassinate Dwendra and making it look like a Nuhara terrorist attack, which the authorities wrote up as a magic accident.”

“I know what you claim but I don’t believe that,” said Mum.

“You know the truth about them,” I said pointing at a picture of her Benai Nibeyim friends who’d committed suicide.

“Do you wish to sign a petition to restrict access to magic?” asked a woman who was standing behind the counter.

“You realize none of these were actually magic accidents?” I asked. “Your whole campaign is based on lies.”

“They’ve all been officially ruled as ...”

“Well the authorities are lying!” I said. “We were at that one!” I pointed to the Targrath picture.

“I was also at that one!” said Egrindreth pointing to the Second Minris Disaster. “It was an attack by monsters who said they wanted to kill the avatars.”

“I expect you know some of ...” the woman pointed to a picture of the rape gang.

“They weret found where his sister,” Dwendra pointed to Screld, “who useth Old Magic, claimed a man wert trying to rapeth me.”

“These,” the woman pointed to the victims of the Laraget Temple accident, “were mature people who ...”

“Killed themselves because they didn’t want Breeze to find out who to complain to about their immoral and illegal actions,” I said.

“Oh Breeze!” said the woman. “You don’t honestly think it’s a good idea to have a ...”

“We know her!” I said. “She’s always been very friendly and helpful to us.”

“She rescued me from a very dangerous associate!” said Dwendra.

“These things can’t all be linked to you!” said the woman. “What about the First Minris Disaster?”

“That was his mother and sister ...” I started saying patting Sceld’s shoulder.

“Half sister,” said Screld.

“... using Old Magic to help a pedophile to rape girls.”

“The temples didn’t really have anything to do with us,” said Dad.

“Except we know Breeze,” I said, “and she probably caused the avatars because they became avatars on the day of the Minris Disaster, the first one.”

“We hath spoken with an avatar,” said Dwendra.

“Well what interesting lives you lead!” said the woman crossly. “But have you thought how many people are getting killed because of it?”

“It wasn’t kids,” said Vrenloa, “well not most of it. It was all at least partly because adults did things wrong. I don’t know how you could devise laws to stop that.”

We all walked away from the stall leaving the woman looking angry.

“Do you have to say things like that?” asked Attan. “You’re upsetting Preldin and I really can’t believe all these things connect to you.”

Later we ran into the Love Priest who looked at Dwendra and myself crossley and said, “You must know I don’t approve of what you’re doing.”

“Thou organizes the systematic rape of children,” said Dwendra, “how canst anybody approveth of that?”

“I’m disappointed with what Haprihagfen has done with you,” the Love Priest said to Egrindreth.

“Oh, you recognized me. Well Haprihagfen treated me a lot better than you would have done.”

“The law’s on my side,” said the Love Priest and he walked away, sadly.