Windows

Putting pressure on my fingers was impossible. I looked at my two fingers as I slumped on the ground: a bit of pink poked through the rings of ruby-red flesh. The wound on my shoulder felt equally deep. The wind howling by dried the bone, and sent waves of cold pain rushing through my body. I pushed up off the ground with my palms and walked back into the Temple of Divine Learning. My staff was lying on the ground where I had dropped it to rush outside, I bent down; hissing as the taut flesh of my shoulder pulled at the movement, and picked up my staff. 

"Hail Mary, full of Grace, I beseech thee to seal my wounds, by the power of Christ thine Heavenly Son." 

The flesh on my shoulder and fingers began to knit and mend. It was as if thousands of worms were crawling across the open wounds as the wounds closed. 

"Hail Mary, full of Grace, I beseech thee to seal my wounds, by the power of Christ thine Heavenly Son." 

I cast the spell three more times before I could even think about putting pressure on my fingers to pick up the wand and slide it into my pocket to continue the search for the altars. 

My footsteps echoed through the stone halls as I walked the length and breadth of the first floor. Behind the podium was a book with a title I couldn't read, and a small golden amulet in the shape of an eagle sitting atop a crescent moon. I pocketed it and continued the search through the building. There was nothing else on the first floor, save for books and loose leaves of paper floating around on desks and podiums. 

"Second floor, huh." I cursed and kicked the shelf next to me. "Fucking stairs man." 

Good for your health, huh? 

"I suppose," I grumble. "I fucking hate this world. Why don't they have elevators." 

I stomped to the foyer, toward the stairs on the left-hand side of the room glared up the flight, and cursed as I stomped my way up. The second floor overlooked the first through a wooden railing. Stained glass windows lined the wall in between the bookshelves up there, showing scenes of catman warriors and mages overcoming dogman hordes. One, however, gave me pause. One showed a catman and a ratman standing together to fight against a giant spider crawling up from some hole in the middle of the city, with an ally of a race that looked a lot like the butterfly thing I had encountered on the walls, but it had more mute colors: grays, and soft purples. 

"So were they allies at one point?" 

Who cares? They're enemies now. 

I sighed and continued looking around. At the very end of the balcony was a simple altar, much like all the others I'd seen. 

"...there's probably another altar on the other side, isn't there?" I glanced across the hall, but couldn't see anything over the banister. 

Should I set it on fire? No. It would be a shame. Perhaps, in the future, there'll be a way to walk through the fogwall, and I'll come back here to clean this temple out. Instead, I picked up the altar and threw it over the edge. The altar smashed against the stone floor and broke into dozens of pieces. 

Altars Destroyed 1/ 2

I sighed and walked back down the stairs and across the foyer. I glanced up the stairway and sighed out an exasperated:

"One more…" 

I cast Lesser Healing on myself to alleviate some of the fatigue and push myself up the last set of stairs. Twenty in total, I counted. I caught my breath at the top of the stairs and continued down the way. This floor was set up in a similar manner to the other. The first window on this floor that I came across showed the picture of a single catman with bright white fur, and blue crystals for eyes. Upon its chest was the symbol of an eagle resting upon a crescent moon, and a crescent moon sat on its head like a crown. My hand reached into my pocket and brushed against the amulet sitting within. I used my phone to take a picture of it. 

The second was a picture of the same figure from before standing defiant against a horde of slathering beasts created with black and red glass. The Catman stood against this horde with no weapons in hand, and blades of emerald grass fluttered around it as if the wind itself was whipping around the creature. I snapped another picture of it. 

The final window showed the picture of the catman being carried away by a large, green bird. Though the only parts visible of the catman were its white arms, and its tail dangling lifelessly through the talons. I wonder if this was some sort of myth, or an actual person in this world's history: or perhaps a mixture of the two, kind of like the stories surrounding Joan of Arc. I took a picture of it and headed toward the altar sitting at the end of the floor. Like the other, I picked it up, and threw it with all of my strength, to the floor below. It smashed against the ground. 

Altars Destroyed 2/2

All Conditions Met: Gate Back to Earth Unlocked. 

Finally. I checked the time. Almost three in the morning. Finally, I was going home. I walked down the stairs and took a deep drink of the water coming from the fountain, before heading walking through the street toward the wall. Black smoke billowed as the fires inside of the two buildings died. I squeezed past the building and pulled open the door. The swirling blackness of the space between worlds was a welcoming sight as I stepped into it.