- Cleansing Ritual

I do not understand why Muriel thinks me witnessing the cleansing ritual would make me respect the night dwellers.

As a matter of fact, now whenever I recognize a night dweller, memories would resurface of a certain night, certain images would flash in my mind which make me want to claw my eyes out.

Yeah. Those fuckers are sick...

***

On the night I would witness the cleansing ritual, we actually headed out before dusk as the ritual grounds was quite a dostance from the village.

The night dwellers sat on wooden carts that were pulled by young men. Some of the carts also contained woven baskets, and from my guess they were filled with ingredients or whatever else is to be cleansed.

They were also pulled by men, making me realize a horse would be a pretty good investment to improve the quality of life here. Unfortunately, one of those men pulling the carts was me. Despite being a night dweller, apparently my strength was wasted by just idling comfortably.

I tell you these guys have a secret fetish for child labor or something... Why else would they let an honorable night dweller like me be a pack mule!

Some of the villagers were equipped with bows or spears, I guess to fend off animals.

We started trekking, following a path that was quite well travelled as seen from the lack of plants growing on the packed dirt. After a very quiet journey, where not a single soul even bothered to whisper, we reached the base of a rocky mountain.

A cave entrance in between two wooden totems revealed our destination. On the totems was carved a hanged man man on an upside down cross.

... Isn't that the rap god? Huh...

Deciding it was too late to turn back, I followed the convoy of carts into the cave at the base of the mountain. The path was long and if not for some torches carried by some, blindingly dark. After a while it led to a large, spacious cavern, large enough to house everyone in the village and then some.

Above, the black stalactites' wet surface shined and reflected the light from the torches below, giving the whole area a dreary yet holy atmosphere.

The goods in the baskets were placed from the cart onto a clearing in front of a stone obelisk. It had a pentagonal, crystal-like shape and was at least five meters tall and smoothed to a shine. I have to appreciate the craftmenship except for the runes carved on it.

Feels evil...

Pretty sure it contains the words for depravity and murder and who knows what...

I decide to ignore whatever message is conveyed on the obelisk. Might even randomly summon some devil if I read the whole thing...if i can read runes or whatever scribbles the language is in...

Actually now that I think about it, the obelisk probably wasn't carved by the illiterate villagers...

As the preparations continued, Muriel stood beside me and started to teach me their ways. "Those are the cursed goods to be cleansed. We place them in front of the altar so that our Lord the True Creator can place his sight of them and separate the curse."

She then nudged me, "Remember our lessons? Those plants are either cursed with moonlight or twilight. Both curses never inhibit the same plant but we do not bother separating them anyway. It's simply more convenient to bunch them together and do two cleansing rituals in one go."

She then pointed at a group wearing feather headresess and bony accessories. "Those suckers will be in charge of the twilight cleansing tonight. They can only blame their shitty gwent skills. Losers get the slot.

The first cleansing will take about at least an hour and up to four. It depends on their luck and skill.

There will then be an hour break after that to prepare for the second cleansing. The second cleansing will then be done by the winners of the gwent matches. And yours truly is one of them awesome champion!"

The so called loser group began to sit cross legged around the baskets of cursed goods, forming a circle of somber looking villagers. A few young men, vountary labour I've been told, began placing wide, ceramic bowls to the front of the cross legged night dwellers. A procession of young ladies carrying earthen pots began to pour its contents onto the bowls.

Soon the bowls were filled to the brim one by one with a thick, red liquid.

It's blood isn't it? Better not be human blood...

I nudged Muriel and gestured towards the filled bowls with my chin and she responded, "It's a mixture of red dye, ground raw fish, herbs and spices."

My tense shoulder relaxed a bit until she added, "Oh. And of course human blood. At least two thirds for it to be effective..."

And how the hell do they get gallons of those!?!! Is there a blood bank nearby? How come I never stumbled upon any blood donation clinics? Did they murder random visitors for those?!?

Soon, most of the torches were quenched, leaving the whole area dim and gloomy. As the lit torches were placed behind us, the long shadows formed by our bodies seemed to stretch towards the obelisk.

The cross legged night dwellers began chanting, their voices harmonizing, creating a rather holy atmosphere if you ignore the blood and evil altar.

Despite recognizing some of the words in their chants I forced myself to ignore their words at first. Then, after about fiveteen minutes of hearing them chant and hum, I got bored. So I decided to translate what they were saying in my mind.

Honestly, it was mostly innocuous, almost like a prayer or request for help. Like "we ask for your blessing", "gratitude for your help", "accept out faith" and stuff like that. The problem was WHO the ritual was aimed at.

Pretty sure he's insane or something like that. Oops! Spirituality decreasing! Think happy thoughts! Stop thinking about evil stuff! I wonder why SpongeBob lives in a pineapple. Must be because he likes pizza. Pineapples on pizza... Yum!

If I was a mortal or a beyonder from the 22 pathways, pretty sure I would have turned to sludge from corruption by now. Those stray thoughts about outer gods and whatnot are really intrusive and hard not to accidentally think about.

After distracting myself with useless ponderings while minimizing gazing at the ritual being held for more than two hours, Muriel grabbed and shook at my shoulders to grab my attention.

She then pointed at one of the bowls of blood. The bowl was in front of a young lady with brown hair. "Oh she's good. Only her second time for the twilight cleansing and already the first to get a reaction. The initial batch usually gets the least of the curse. "

After appreciating the brown-haired lady's shapely bottom, my sight moved towards the bowl to her front. Bubbles were forming and popping in the liquid, as if the blood was boiling. Dark, gelatinous grey clumps resembling veins started to accumulate on the surface of the liquid. After a while, the contents of the bowl condensed into some kind of brownish-green-grey jelly.

Reminds me of rotten aspic.

The brown haired night dweller then picked up her bowl and begin swallowing it's contents.

If that shit contains human blood, pretty sure that's considered cannibalism. Also the whole liquid in the bowl boiling and turning into some kind of meat jelly is enough proof for me that some magic juju fuckery is really going on.

I held back a sigh at more confirmation that I am truly in a shitty world and am probably fucked. Might not even make it to the apocalypse if I am not careful...