"Below these waves lurk some of the hardest to catch beasts that ever lived, and I've been trying for years. If you can snag 'em, these treasures are yours. Catch me a Crab, a Lobster, an Octopus, and a Squid."

She is at this very moment struggling to contain an Octopus, and he can't possibly have failed to notice, but she can't actually figure out how to hand the damn thing over so after a few seconds of fruitless wrestling she has her crown pocket it. It's alarming and mildly offensive how it's possible to cram so much wiggle into such a small creature.

"Take this," he says, indifferent to her struggles. "As a gesture of good faith between two non-fish friends."

And he hands her a tarot card with a picture of a dead-looking one-eyed fish on it, eerily reminiscent of his own silhouette.

Her crown absorbs it, but either can't or won't tell her what it does.

"...th...anks...?" she says, and after a moment, when he seems to have gone back to his fishing and be totally ignoring her now, she shrugs and trots over to check out the lighthouse.

An elderly axolotl presides over a congregation of robed figures in a room filled with flickering candles.

They look enough like Old Faith cultists in general silhouette that she almost starts stabbing before she has time to think about it, but after a very tense moment she decides against murder.

"WHAAA! Who dares enter our sacred house of light?!" wails the leader, but, very importantly, absolutely no actual violence ensues.

"...I can go?" she says tentatively.

The leader sighs heavily and shakes his head. "Apologies...it's just that the lighthouse is getting dimmer no matter how hard we worship, and the ships keep sinking on the rocks. No ships means no new pilgrims to walk the sacred path!" The axolotl begins trembling violently. "If only our leader was here - she would know what to do! We have not seen her since she went for a walk on the pier late one night."

"That, uh, doesn't sound good," ventures the Lamb.

"We begged her not to go, we all know of the 'Teeth in the Darkness'. But she would not listen. Now we have no choice but to pray until the lighthouse is lit once more! ALL HAIL THE MIGHTY LIGHT!"

The followers bow repeatedly toward the scattered candles.

...she's just... she's just gonna go. These people clearly have a problem but it is not her problem and she's really not sure she wants to load it onto her plate when her plate is already full of lightly mind-controlled worshippers who refuse to cook their own meals for cultural reasons. Speaking of which, (she sighs) she'd better get back and put on another pot of stew for everybody.

With tomorrow's breakfast safely bubbling away, she spends the rest of the night expanding her garden, resolutely ignoring the knowledge that the second gate is open and waiting for her. It is going to be such a good garden with so many berries and potatoes and whatever other shit she can find, and her followers will not starve even though they're all useless louts—no, stop that, don't think of them as useless louts, if you resent people under your power you're going to end up fucking them over for your own convenience and then you'll be no better than the Bishops.

Bright and early the next morning, a follower approaches her, wringing their hands nervously.

She's so curious what's going on, but despite her crown vibrating with the urge to find out directly, she decides she'll let them explain in their own words. It feels less weird that way.

"Glorious Leader, I have a craving..."

They lean in and lower their voice.

"I need to eat a meal made from a Follower!"

She's almost afraid to read their mind, but okay, let's hear it.

This is Hutrear, the follower who she bought from the creepy spiderfolk.

Among Leshy's cult, eating the flesh of other followers was a special honour reserved for rewards and celebrations, and was also one of the only times followers were allowed to eat properly cooked food that tasted good. Having spent entirely too long strung up on a web listening to Helob mutter about delicious flesh and crunchable bones, and now here in this safe, relaxed setting where absolutely nobody seems at all worried about being eaten, Hutrear is slowly finding that they can no longer get the thought of delicious flesh out of their head.

"I'm not feeding you a person," she says immediately. "I'm not—I want this to be a place where nobody has to be afraid I'll kill them for my own convenience, I'm not killing somebody just because somebody else wanted to eat them. But," she says before Hutrear can get too disappointed, "I'll try to find something for you to eat that tastes better than potato berry stew, okay? Maybe even some meat. That is definitely not people meat."

...that's honestly a better response than Hutrear expected, in that they are still alive. They sigh semi-disappointedly and nod. "Thank you, Glorious Leader."

She opens her mouth to ask them to cut it out with the Glorious part, then hesitates for a second—the One Below is always watching—and closes it. Probably she shouldn't have even said the thing about not wanting people afraid she'll kill them for her own convenience. Maybe if she has to she can spin it as manipulating them into trusting her. Ugh.

Now in a much worse mood, she stomps away to go bless everyone again. A couple of them glow, but it's not quite enough to add up to another Doctrine. And besides, what would she even make? Surely Resurrection is the pinnacle.

The last one to be blessed this round is Valefar, who wasn't worshipping at the Shrine when the Lamb first passed it a few minutes ago but is now.

"Leader!" they say as soon as they see her. "May I speak with you?"

Right, she remembers this one even without reading their mind. The necklace helps jog her memory. And the purple.

"Yeah, sure." That didn't sound very glorious of her but she has no idea how to increase her glorious-soundingness. "What is it?"