This is not, actually, the last thing she wanted—it's no Chained God Surprise—but she has an incredibly hard time keeping a smile on her face and vaguely appropriate words in her mouth long enough to escape into the Temple, where she can wedge the door shut with an unpocketed rock and lie down on the floor and cover her eyes and tremble uncontrollably.

Fuck this!!!!!! Fuck her life! Fuck the One Below and fuck all three remaining Bishops! Fuck being someone who people worship and FUCK standing on a stone circle ringed by devoted cultists who it's APPARENTLY possible to DEVOUR ON THE SPOT for UNIMAGINABLE POWER!!!! Fuck!!!!!!!!!

Okay. Okay. Okay. She needs to stop doing this. She is being constantly watched. She cannot have breakdowns on a daily basis or her loyalty will begin to be questioned and nothing good will come of that. Fuck. Okay. Get up, little Lamb, and go tend to your flock.

She takes a deep breath, drags herself up off the floor, repockets the doorstop, and trudges up to the altar to see about devouring that heart.

Her crown is trying very hard to respect her disturbed state and not bounce excitedly, but, also, is very excited about devouring that heart.

The moment the heart is unpocketed onto the altar, there's a sense of potential pulling in a number of different directions, and in the very next moment her crown has pounced on the one it likes best. There is a sense of...

Why is the grey gribbly heart covered in eyes here?? she demands, incredulous with an edge of hysteria.

Her crown tries to explain—see, she keeps seeing that symbol out in the world and being afraid of it. But actually it's really useful and nothing to be afraid of at all! And now it will be with them always, and she can see for herself how much it helps!

The Lamb takes a deep breath, and then another. I know you were just trying to help, she says, and I appreciate that. Her crown can read her mind; she amends after a moment to, At least I'm trying to appreciate that. But next time you have a great idea for how to reassure me about something by shoving something I'm scared of directly into my soul? EXPLAIN. FIRST.

...yes, okay, in retrospect the crown can see where it went wrong here. It is sorry. Would she like a nice sermon to cheer her up? ...she doesn't like sermons. Maybe she can go dig in the garden? Or build something! They could build something together!!

...despite herself, she smiles slightly.

Yes, okay, they can go build something together. Do they have the coin to put together those stacks of wood and stone? They do! Excellent.

A few hours later, when as far as she can tell her heart is not covered in eyes, and she's built the stacks of wood and stone and then assigned people to help organize them and pulled enough Devotion from the shrine that her crown managed to Inspire her with a way to turn wood and gold into a sort of half-assed leafy bedroll (which she's pretty sure is its idea of another apology gift), and she's gone through the dormitory and made one of those for every follower plus some extras, she finally feels settled enough to preach another sermon. Her crown insists on going around to give everyone blessings first, which she doesn't see much point in until after the sermon when it feels like half the crowd is glowing. Actually only three people are glowing. Is that half the crowd? How big is her crowd? She'd rather not make them hold still to be counted.

Anyway.

Three glowing followers is enough to add up to another Doctrine, apparently, and she's downright eager as she trots back up the steps. Her crown weaves its mysterious bits of something-or-other together, and presents her with a result that she gleefully leans into: Resurrection, the power to raise the dead. At least if they're her own followers. Dead strangers fall under somebody else's purview.

This time, when her followers celebrate, she really, truly feels like celebrating with them.

The sun is sinking. Her crown suggests she should probably unlock the next gate before her followers go to bed, since she doesn't like waking them up in the middle of the night, and she might want to go hunting in the next bishop's realm sometime tonight. She reluctantly agrees, and asks her followers to assemble by the gates.

There's the clearing, with its statue of her crown bleeding black ichor from its open eye. There's the four gates each with a crown depicted on it—not hers; she's well-versed enough in all the different crowns now to recognize the triangle and the circle, and the crescent eye must be the final bishop who has never accosted her.

Above Leshy's gate, what was once an emblem of his diamond-eyed crown is now a cracked and broken circle.

And there is a fifth gate, up a set of steps, which she has never paid attention to before because she's only ever come here on a single-minded mission to get through that green door. That fifth gate is tethered by four massive stone chains that remind her uncomfortably of the One Below's fog-smothered dwelling place. Except that one of those four chains, now, has crumbled away leaving only a dangling fragment.

Well. She approaches the triangle-eyed door, since it's nearest. Does she have enough faith to open it...?

Yes. Yes she does.

Her gathered followers exult in the chance to contribute their streams of mysterious red energy to this project.

Oh fuck it looks exactly like when Leshy ate his own followers to ascend into an enormous monstrosity.

Definitely not hyperventilating because that would be inconvenient, the Lamb lets the crown conduct the energy through its statue and through her to open the door that leads to the next bishop's lands.

By the time it's over, night has fallen, and she's wishing more desperately than ever that sleep was still a thing she could do. She attempts to content herself with the knowledge that her followers are all sleeping in beds more bed-like than piles of leaves, and it helps, but it doesn't help enough.

The door with the triangle-eyed crown stands open, but she doesn't want to step through it.

So, on a whim, she stands on the big stone circle and tells her crown to take her to that place the fish(er)man spoke of.

It's a quiet little place, with a sandy shore and a scattering of berry bushes clustered where the grass gives way to the sand. Off to one side there's a lighthouse with no light on top; straight ahead there's a little pier.

The fishfolk(?) is standing near the pier, opposite the lighthouse, casting a line into the water.

She snags a few berries from the bushes on general principle, then heads down to the water to talk to the fish(er)man, not really out of any desire to speak to him, more because it's an acceptable way to avoid doing anything else.

"Well, look what the tide dragged in."

Great, he's being rude again.

"What're you just standing there for? Think I'm gonna fish for you? I'm not one of your mindless acolytes!"

...

Crown, can you be a fishing rod?

Absolutely.

Great, she's fishing now. Never mind that she's never used such a fancy fishing rod before in her life. The basic principle should be the same, right?

Whatever creature first bites her bait is a real fighter. She nearly loses it several times before she finally manages to drag it squiggling onto the shore.

"Hm," he sniffs, glancing over at her. "Not so useless after all."

She is holding an octopus. It's a very unhappy octopus. Why is this her life.

"Listen, perhaps we could help one another. I happen to have caught some extremely valuable treasures in my time." He leans in conspiratorially. The mouth on top of his head opens and closes without apparent relation to the sounds of his speech. "Things that a fish like me—er, I mean a fisherMAN like me—has no use for. But to you... well. You look like you like valuable things!"

Does she??