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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rolzup" data-source="post: 3065781" data-attributes="member: 10105">Interlude: Yesterday at The Chapel of Love“Did you ever wonder why our confessionals have the little slot at waist level?”“No.”Donatello Pazzi de Gallina, better known on the Street of Costs as the Right Reverend Don Magic Wand, known for his flashy robes, plentiful gold-seeming chains, and the sweetly-soft murmuring of his magic wand that coos at passersby from the vicinity of his belt, sighs loudly and leans back against the white plaster wall of his place of worship. It’s been a slow afternoon.“The Chapel wasn’t always a temple to the Saint of Aces. It was originally consecrated to Belli, the Lord of Law, and doubled as a kind of municipal courthouse. In those days the confessionals were actually used to hear confessions, though why anyone ever used them is beyond me, since Belli only forgives crimes through punishment.”Metierre, the so-called Deacon of Debt-Collection, idly checks his concealed knives with an absent brush of his hand.“Back then, when a man gave testimony, he didn’t swear on a holy book or an idol; he swore on his sack. It’s like he was saying “If I’m lying may god strike me in the junk. The slot was there so the priest could see if a man was holding his stones.”“What if it’s a lady?”"If it was a lady there'd be no touching stones until there was a ring on her finger.  Now…at some point the building fell into the well-manicured hands of the Church of Aja, Satisfaction Be Upon Her.” The Reverend makes a small, circular gesture with his forefinger. “They probably had no idea what a confessional was. To them, “confessing” means “gossiping”, usually while lying on silken pillows, eating laudanum-filled bonbons, and getting their feet rubbed by “eunuchs” who somehow managed to avoid The Big Snip.”Metierre lets his boss talk, polishing the grease on his brass knuckles with additional grease from his thumb.“Noting the placement of the slot, the Sisters of Desire finally hit on a novel usage that stillinvolved a sinner on one side of the booth and a person of the ecclesiastical persuasion on the other. In honor of the former owners they called ‘em “justice holes”. I don’t think the Church of Belli got the joke.”A giant cupping a keg of ale in its mammoth hand ambles by. The walls of the Chapel of Love shake, which stops the Reverend’s reverie, but only for a moment.“After the Sisters got run out of the neighborhood, the property changed hands a few more times before I bought it. Now you have to be careful when you buy in Narayan. It’s hard to find anything that didn’t once to belong to a church. So odds are you’re buying consecrated land. Sure, the seller’s supposed to deconsecrate it first, but all it takes is a little bribe to the Department of Licensing and Exorcism.”“Hey boss….”“Know that empty lot down on Mordant Circle? It used to be a barbarian cathedral dedicated to the Sky-Father. It got ransacked during the Troubles and then went condo. A year later it was blasted to flinders by lightening. Coincidence?”“Boss….”“Just to be on the safe side, the first week we were open I picked a wino’s pocket in the narthex and had the altar washed with the tears of a forty year old virgin.”“Boss, I think I see someone.”“Of course you do, man! That giant was 15 feet tall if he was an inch. Now…what was I was saying?  Ah, you see, Narayan is a city of business. And what’s the oldest business in the world? That’s right, religion. So this city is just lousy with faith…”“Boss, I think he’s invisible....” Metierre grabs for a knife.“The bread you buy from a street vendor was likely baked in one of Kruetzel’s ovens by a man made of fire. Visit a moneychanger and you’ll feel the Invisible Hand of Mr. Spidergod pushing down on the scales. It’s getting so you can’t spill your seed on a harlot without having it glow as it’s transformed into grace by Aja’s miracle of the Trampsubstantiation...”Someone puts the Reverend’s soul in a vice grip. He stops talking.  Metierre tries to throw a knife. He’s stopped by an unseen glance.The invisible man grabs the paralyzed Donatello Pazzi and hauls him, unceremoniously, into his church. Inside, Richard, the bravest of the so-called Altar Boys, tries to draw his blackjack and is frozen where he stands.Nadir Akmad-Medhi, a Shirac mind-witch and Renuciate of the Miir Valley School, carries Donatello back to the confessional. Dropping the priest like a sack, he takes his magic wand. Donatello can only watch dumbly as the Shirac magician speaks a single word; “Salomalle.”The succubus inside the wand manifests herself in a shower of longing and cold sparks. Nadir and Salomalle converse in a language that suggests rutting and other more violent mortifications of the flesh.For the first time in his life the Reverend thinks, “I should have learned Infernal”.Done with his business, Nadir sends the demon back into the wand. With a manner almost suggesting respect, he returns the wand to the supine priest and then departs.</blockquote>

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