Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest
The Grotto - part 2

“We’d come here because we thought this was likely to be the only place in Pax beyond the range of your teleportation,” said Quandat. “And we put guards on the door but that was obviously useless.”

The hipsick looked around, hurriedly but only seemed slightly phased by this.

Quandat was standing, using crutches although his wounds had clearly healed considerably, in the center of the stage and Ice had materialized behind him.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Ice.

“This is a Benai Nibeyim meeting!” said Yoldasia, she was looking around as if expecting to see something that wasn’t there.

“This is an unadministered Holy Site so anybody can come here,” said Ice. “I also ...”

“You know who to report issues with Benai Nibeyim to!” said Quandat.

My eyes were adjusting a bit more to the dark. I could see stars, or at least small points of light, above and around me but not in the dark void that had been the lake (except for two or three mage lights). If these were meant to be stars, the constellations were unfamiliar but the really weird thing was that some seemed much nearer to me than others.

“In the last century,” said Ice, “I’ve obeyed your protocol and made a hundred and seventy two complaints, none of them satisfactorily dealt with.”

“I don’t even have a protocol!” I said.

“My superiors and emergency contacts art all dead!” said Dwendra who was on the other side of the stage. “And I wisheth to complaineth about an assassination attempt.”

The hipsick near me was clearly unhappy about this and looked around with a strange expression of resignation.

“You’ve also violated the treaty by attempting to kill Dwendra,” said Ice.

“This is not the time and place to discuss these things!” said Quandat.

“I shalt objecteth to thou electing thou's slate of candidates,” said Dwendra.

“I think it will help your members to choose new leaders if they know how their current and recently departed leaders have been performing,” said Ice.

Vardnin, who’d been seated on the other side of the stage near Dwendra, stood up and said, “Don’t you watch the internet! I know you were at the battle of Minris! The temples of Strumeg and Denadria have been destroyed and there was a magic accident in Targrath! We ...”

“Thou didst that!” shouted Dwendra.

“... need unity to face what’s coming! This isn’t the time to fight each other!”

“Isn’t it?” asked Ice. “Do you really want to go into this, well probably a war, with incompetent leaders and a bad relationship with Haprihagfen?”

“You’re not respecting the protocols!” said Quandat.

“You don’t respect them!” said Ice. “We’ve been trying to keep your rules for centuries but it’s getting increasingly hard to do so! You tried to kill an unaffiliated anavah in an attack that could also have killed myself and two other anavot and did kill several other people! That’s just one of the more serious things!”

“Dwendra isn’t unaffiliated!” said Vardnin.

“Yes she is!” said Yoldasia rolling her eyes.

“Because that wouldst maketh me the Grand Vine Grower!” said Dwendra.

“Oh feces!” said Yoldasia. “I don’t accept the validity of your membership for other reasons.”

“You do realize that if we have a proper election, hipsickim will probably win most the seats because there are more of them?” asked Quandat.

“That seems like a good reason to have a proper election,” said the hipsick on the stage.

“That dost not maketh sense!” said Dwendra. “Thou’s constitution clearly stateth less qualified candidates must steppeth down if more qualified candidates art available. For example, a hipsick must steppeth down as a candidate for Grand Shepherd if there art a nibey candidate.”

“But a nibeyah priest’s wife doesn’t have to step down if there’s an anavah candidate for Grand Vine Grower!” said Yoldasia. “Not that any of this matters.”

“Anyway,” said the hipsick, “we haven’t been following those outdated, korbarist laws for centuries ...”

“Thou said thou hadst not changed thou’s constitution!” screamed Dwendra.

“We didn’t change it,” said Vardnin, “we’ve just being ignoring it.”

“Come on,” said the hipsick. “Look at what a mess you psychics have made! It’s the Merchants who make most the money and have most the members but the Shepherds, Fig Growers and Vine Growers spend most of it! Doing what? Breeding a useless anav priest!” he waved his hand at me.

“You don’t even know me!” I said to the hipsick. “I’ve done things you probably don’t even think are possible!”

“He’s been quiet industrious lately,” said Buxnir.

“They,” I waved my hand at Yoldasia, “think I’m useless because they managed to stop me from having sex with girls by having them raped and making them think I’d done it! Yes they have made a mess but I don’t think you can blame that on psychics. The man who established the rape gang’s a hipsick!”

“Benai Nibeyim wert leddeth by psychics for millennia,” said Dwendra, “and it wert run well! Haprihagfen ist still run well by anavim!”

“We’ve had hard times,” said Vardnin, “as you know!”

“Who’s stupid idea wert it to letteth hipsickim into thou’s leadership?” asked Dwendra.

“Now who’s being korbarist?” asked the hipsick.

“The likhatzim wert a subsidiary group because hipsickim useth their social skills to taketh over and then runneth things badly for they art greedy, stupid and korbarist!”

“You psychics have really fornicated things!” shouted the hipsick.

“Stop!” I shouted, getting between Dwendra and the hipsick. “Let’s analyze the problems calmly?”

“Everybody here has only a few remaining predestination lines, mostly to each other or leading north or up,” said Yoldasia, standing up and pointing. Sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ FɪndNøvel.ɴᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

The hipsick was clearly finding this very annoying.

“The rallying point!” exclaimed Ice.

“Of course,” Yoldasia continued, “the exceptions are the anavim who still have many predestination lines leading all over the place so I can only conclude you’re going to kill all of us!”

“No!” said Ice. “We need a strong Benai Nibeyim which is run well and has a good relationship with us for the Prophesized Ruination.”

“Then why are the rest of us all going to die here?” asked Yoldasia.

“I think you’re putting too much faith in Old Magic,” said Ice.

“More psychic rubbish!” said the hipsick.

Yoldasia got out a device and spoke into it, “Garis! Are you getting this? Good. This is important, you’ve got to witness this and possibly carry out decisions this meeting makes if we’re killed. Don’t talk, just listen carefully! Ice, Clindar and Sixteen are here but they say they’re not going to kill us and we only have week predestination lines linking to us so they may be telling the truth.” Then she put a small candle, that lit itself, on her chair.

“That will trap you into your own prediction!” said Ice. “And those things never help you anyway.”

“Perhaps we should get back to the meeting,” said Quandat. “Are we going to accept ...”

“No!” said Yoldasia. “We should decide what’s to be done if we all get killed. Dwendra and Clindar will obviously teleport away from whatever gets the rest of us.”

“Who here thinks it’s acceptable to rape girls?” I shouted.

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