"I was exploring the woods near our camp and I found a stranger camping nearby! When I asked if they wanted to join our cult, they cursed our way of life but then said they wanted to join anyway. What should I do?"

The Lamb tells herself sternly that the answer to this question should NOT be 'kill them'.

"Can you show me their camp?" she says instead. "And did they say why they wanted to join if they don't like how we live?"

"I think they were hungry. It was just this way..."

Valefar leads her past the big stone circle, takes a right at the gates, and pushes nervously between the close-set trees at the edge of the clearing. Slowly, counting every tree and every step, looking back frequently to sight on the glimmer of light from the crown statue, they make their way out into the woods.

This is more caution than the Lamb is used to when exploring forests, but hmm, then again... maybe it's related to why, in the Bishops' woods, there's always only a few viable-looking paths in between all the trees that are otherwise almost too dense to squeeze through. That is also a weird way for forests to work. Maybe this is what it looks like when you take a forest like that and subtract the usable paths.

It's not far—just barely out of sight of that glimmer of light, in fact—to the stranger's camp. They huddle next to a small fire in a tattered old cloak, without even a tent or a bedroll.

When the Lamb and her follower arrive, the stranger looks up hopefully. "Oh? So—so I can join, then?"

The Lamb sighs. "Maybe, maybe not. First I need to hear why you want to join, and why you don't."

The stranger's gaze darts warily around their tiny camp.

"I... want to join because..." They look up again, searching her face, then sigh heavily. "I've been lost in the woods for ages and I'm barely scraping by and I'm cold and hungry and miserable, okay? And—but—I told myself I'd never join a cult. I hate all that worship stuff, it's creepy. I just want a warm bed and a good meal. I—I promise I won't make trouble, though."

Well, the crown thinks they should pocket the stranger immediately. The Lamb isn't so sure.

Is the One Below watching her right now? Is she going to be punished for acting too compassionate?

"Having somebody in my cult who thinks all the worship stuff is creepy sounds like trouble even if you don't mean to make any," she says. "Now go be lost somewhere else."

Then, because she can't stand leaving it at that, she adds, "You can build a house with just sharp rocks to cut branches and flexible vines to tie them, and another heavier rock to hammer stakes into the ground. It's hard work and it takes a while but it sounds like you've been out here for a while already. Find somewhere near water, and maybe some of those good wild berry bushes."

"O-oh," says the stranger, clearly surprised by this approach. "Thank you."

They kick some dirt over their fire and huddle miserably off between the trees.

Valefar watches this interaction curiously, but doesn't say anything. They turn to lead the way back to camp, just as slowly and methodically as they came out here.

The Lamb tries not to have any observable feelings about what just happened.

Maybe if she helps her followers take down this huge boulder sitting in the corner of the main encampment she can have bodily exertion instead of thoughts? Yes? Good?

No. Not good.

FINE, she'll go try the new gate. She doesn't even know why she's so scared of it. Maybe it's because she's had time to get used to the Darkwood and doesn't know what the next Bishop's realm will be like. Maybe it's because she's one step closer to completing whatever the One Below's actual goals are and she doesn't want to think about that. In fact, she doesn't want to think about that so much that she is going to barrel straight through the gate in search of something to kill and not even read the sign that probably tells her the name of the Bishop before she stomps past it into the next clearing. There are rocks, and grass, and cultists. Then there are FEWER CULTISTS. Was that a frog? She killed it too fast to notice.

Okay, that was definitely a frog, the next clearing has one too. And instead of trees there's big mushrooms everywhere...? That is pretty weird. Whatever. Where's the next thing to kill.

ah fuck it's that time again

"Pathetic, snivelling, vile puppet of the Red Crown," says the froggy Bishop whose presence is upsetting her crown so very much. "You have felled the youngest of us."

nice to meet you too asshole

"We are the Bishops of the Old Faith. We protect against heresies such as yours. We are the guardians of the true word, and we shall not tolerate such blasphemy. Your sins are many, and for that your loyal Followers must SUFFER! They shall Starve!"

The pool of roiling blackness beneath the Bishop spreads out a little farther, and Valefar appears as though dragged out of it.

"Wh... wh... where am I?" they say hazily. "Leader?"

Streams of crimson energy pour sluggishly from Valefar into the Bishop, against some unseen resistance. But pour they do.

"Aaaaaugh!!"

And then Valefar sinks into the ground, and a moment later so does the frog.

There is a PROBLEM here and the problem is that the Lamb's sword is not ALREADY INSIDE THAT FROGGY BASTARD'S SKULL.

In a towering rage, she speeds forward, heedless of obstacles, heedless of whatever she has to kill. She snatches cards from Clauneck's hands almost without looking at them, and nearly ignores her crown hinting that one path ahead probably leads to food until the crown practically drags her that way; there's some sort of gaudy shrimpfolk running a restaurant, and she doesn't stop to say hello, just pockets some fish and moves on. She doesn't even demolish the obligatory frog bishop statue, because having her crown suck out all the Devotion on the way past is faster.

Gradually, over the course of a copious amount of murder, she begins to calm down. Her crown prompts her to step out of a puddle of noxious bile she didn't notice on the ground. The usual position of Big Monster At The End is occupied by a froggy sort of creature and she mostly does not pay attention to tactics in that fight and by the time she beats the monster out of it, she's actually pretty badly beat up herself.

She has to take a couple of deep breaths before she can look at the still slightly froggish monsterfolk without bristling. She does manage it, though.

"Convert me to your Cult!" the ex-frog-monster pleads.

Into the pocket they go.

Home?

Nope!