"Peace be with you, Crusader. I seek only the truth and the light. But I may be of service to you."

"Yes, that's what you said the last time."

"Fine, let's get this over with."

"I hate you and everything you stand for."

The Lamb takes a deep breath and says as sweetly as possible, "Of course."

Crown, can you pick a follower who's less likely to be terrified this time?

How about Agares?

Sure.

Agares pops out of the ground, smiling.

The mothfolk dances.

Agares smiles even wider.

The crown pockets their newly mind-controlled follower, and the Lamb very rudely stomps out of the clearing without even waiting for the mothfolk to finish saying creepy things about it.

The path leading up to the Big Monster Place is by now very familiar. But right in front of it, there's a... there's... there's what looks like an ominously glowing red pit??? Crown: what?

Her crown inspects the pit, and says that whatever they find there may be disturbing, but it shouldn't be more dangerous than anything they've faced before.

The Lamb thinks about it, and shrugs, and descends...

...into a dark and bloody dream of her fight against Leshy.

It proceeds much in the way of the original, though her tactics may be a little better since she's already done this once. She has the time now to appreciate a few subtle details she missed in the original, like the look on Leshy's horrible monstrous face as he dies, or the fact that before he devours his cultists' souls or whatever the fuck he did to gain that monstrous form, they all stab themselves in the heart with simultaneous quick little motions of their ritual daggers.

"GyaAAAUGH," she says, when she and her crown emerge at last onto the lovely familiar stone circle in her lovely familiar camp. "Nope! Nope nope nope!!! Absolutely not! No more trips to the nightmare realm!"

Her crown is surprised. Personally it thought the dream-place was very generous, to offer them the chance to relive their triumph.

Triumph is gross and upsetting, the Lamb says firmly, though she doesn't quite dare say it out loud.

She dusts herself off and staggers down the steps into camp, heading for the smaller circle to unpocket Jular.

Jular is just as ecstatic to be indoctrinated as new followers always are. Pajul rushes over as soon as they're done floating.

"Oh Leader, I am so grateful! My brother is here at—" and then he is interrupted by a brotherly tacklehug.

...at that, she can't help smiling.

Pajul's eyes begin to glow.

The crown politely connects as gently as possible, so as not to interrupt the siblings' reunion. It's not quite enough energy to declare their next Doctrine... but maybe soon?

She does some light gardening and sips Devotion from the Shrine. All in all, life is looking g—

—why is Amdusias shuffling toward her with a guilty expression.

"Nothing's wrong!" he says hastily when he sees her looking. "Or—nothing's wrong with me. Or not—um." He clears his throat. "I was... in the woods, with Gusion, um... well, anyway. My Lady, there's a camp of strangers out there who are having a really rough time, and I think they'd join our Cult if you asked. We didn't lead them here, but I can show you to them, if... if that's all right?"

"Yes, of course," she says immediately, while she's still working through the baffling question of just what put that look on Amdusias's face.

She follows him up the steps, past the big stone circle, through the trees and out into the woods, still puzzling over it, and then stops in her tracks and blurts out, "Oh! You were sneaking out here to have sex!"

"...yes, my Lady," he admits. "Sorry. I—I know we aren't supposed to be out here alone—well, we weren't alone, but—"

"It's fine," she interrupts. "I'll, uh. I'll see about maybe building the two of you your own cabin, how's that."

"...my Lady is very generous."

They proceed toward the strangers' camp in an awkward silence.

One of the strangers is a bright yellow donkeyfolk with red stripes painted on her face. The other is an ordinary grey-pink pigfolk, wearing clothes so threadbare they're nearly disintegrating and lying on the ground clutching his stomach.

"...are you the Lady?" asks the yellow one. "My name is Julnana, and this is Joobre. Please... will you take us in? We're lost in the woods with no food, eating grass to survive..."

"Of course," she says without hesitation. "Absolutely."

...she looks dubiously at Joobre. "Can he walk? It's a while back to the camp... no, you know what, I don't want to risk something happening to you on the way. I'll have my crown carry you both."

"Thank you, Lady!" says Julnana, and Joobre nods weakly, groaning.

Her crown sweeps them both into its bottomless pocket.

She follows Amdusias back to camp.

Julnana's indoctrination proceeds normally, but Joobre, when it's his turn, collapses onto the ground as soon as the levitation is no longer holding him up.

"Sorry..." he says. "Not... feeling good."

His eyes flutter closed.

First things first: the Lamb unpockets a handful of raw berries and gives them to Julnana, who starts munching gratefully.

"I'm going to go grill a fish for you both," she says. "I'll be right back."

It's almost the fastest fish she's ever grilled, and a sick dread rises in her as she stands over the fire, because she's remembering the last time she grilled a fish in a hurry. Joobre's just hungry, right? He'll pull through, right? She won't have to kill another of her followers so soon, right?

Right?

She hurries back to them with the fish.

Julnana alternates eating it with helping feed it to Joobre, one morsel at a time. But try as he might, Joobre can't seem to swallow the food. He can barely even chew it. When the Lamb tries pouring a few sips of water into his mouth, he coughs weakly and it trickles back out.