Day 13b

Yeah, that was far less than pleasant. Little frightening, in fact. Max and I introduced ourselves, though he said that I was part of the town's security forces. Can't blame him. This guy called himself Brother Francis, a Missionary of the New Church. You could hear capital letters and emphasis on the names. He was kinda short, stocky, wearing a robe but with bulges of weapons under it. And he appeared to be alone, but something about him made me suspect he had some cohorts or guards or something hidden nearby. Max told me afterward that he had the same impression, and that's why he asked me to come out with him while the rest of the Guard watched from the walls.

Under my advice, Max refused him entry to the city. The guy just had this...look to him. Like, his face looked like his mouth was full of gopher meat that he refused to spit out and he was pissed about it. And the more he talked, the more intense he got, until it felt like electricity radiating off of him with every word. He read and quoted from a black binder he carried, which he said contained the Word. He made no mystery of the contents, occasionally holding it up to point and highlight some passage from pages torn and scrapped and glued into the binder. It made it obvious that these bits were selected piecemeal, mere parts of some larger whole. But this Brother Francis believed in it with the fervent fire of a zealot.

I didn't understand all of what he said, much of it seemed to be cloaked in parable, myth, and metaphor. But the parts that stood out to me most clearly left me shaken. His god was a forgiving god, but only if you gave yourself to him, body, mind and soul, utterly and completely. If your every waking action was not dedicated to worship, to the Church, this god would punish you in both this world and the next. There were ways to live which could not be forgiven, save through blood and death. Many undesirable types that had to be “cleansed” from the world. And any who refused this path, refused to join the Church, went against this will and would have to be killed by the faithful followers.

Neither of us really knew what to say to all that, when he finally wound down. He panted as he waited for our response, obviously expecting us to throw the gates open wide for him. Instead, we explained, calmly, that we'd have to speak to the rest of the town. Max asked if he had a spare copy of the Word, to show the others, but he only hugged his copy, his binder, tightly to his chest as he replied no. All we could do was to thank Brother Francis, and to then ask him to give us a few days, maybe even a week, to prepare for him properly.