📜 Sacred Scripture of the Ending Sun 📜
The Sacred Testimony
The Arrival
had been expecting him. Emberus himself told me to watch for the crawler. Not in so many words — one does not receive direct memos from a deity, yes, yes. It is more of a feeling. A knowing. A sense of impending sacred foot-related duty that settles into the bones of a devout cleric and does not leave until the work is done.
I had been waiting by the portal entrance, pacing. I pace when I have important things to attend to, and this was very important. I did not yet know how magnificent those feet would be. I know now.
He arrived covered in slugpox.
I want to pause here and say that this did not diminish the sanctity of what followed. A Martyr's feet are holy regardless of what the rest of him is doing, and what the rest of Carl was doing, at that moment, was having slugs burst out of his boxers in the entranceway of Club Vanquisher while Potsy made a sound like a sheep falling down a flight of stairs.
He had not. Carl had not done that. I want to be clear. I pushed through the door because I could hear the commotion and I knew — I knew — this was my moment. There he was. No shoes. Barely clothed. A creature of pure suffering and oozing spiritual potential, standing in a puddle of things I will not describe further out of respect for the sanctity of this document.
"Can't you see he's suffering from slugpox, man," I said. "Step aside and let him in."
Potsy stepped aside. He is apostate trash, but he is not entirely stupid.
Carl followed me inside.
Through the Lodge of the Club
We moved quickly. I move quickly. Carl moved quickly to keep up with me, which I respected. The lobby looked like a ski lodge. It smelled like a ski lodge. There was a fireplace, large leather chairs, dwarves playing chess. Trophy heads of monsters covered the ceiling, including a black dragon above the fireplace with marble eyes that caught the light.
I was not interested in the ski lodge at that moment. I had feet to attend to.
"We don't have much time, Carl," I said, marching across the room. "We need to get you to the healer. You are not a full member, so you're only given a single pass a day. You can only visit one location within." I paused to gesture at a pair of mantaur guards. Large. Blue paint. Bowties around their necks. "They take the security here quite seriously. Especially since the caprid incident."
He asked about the caprid incident. We did not have time for the caprid incident.
We reached the stairwell. We went up. A fairy wisp named Yasmine gave me a look. She always gives me a look. I did not have time for Yasmine's look. I pushed through the glowing portal door and we stepped through into what I can only describe, and have only ever described, as the sun.
The Temple of the Ending Sun
No roof. Black sky. The ground: fire. Burning, fulminating, occasionally spurting tendrils upward. The smell of fire. The heat of fire. But not the pain of fire — Emberus does not permit the pain of fire here, not for the faithful and not for those the faithful have brought in under his grace.
About two dozen worshippers prostrated on the ground around us, large blue-skinned humanoids, all facing the same direction, toward something glowing on the horizon that I have never been able to see clearly but have always trusted was there.
I turned to Carl.
The fountain appeared when I called it — marble, perfect, boiling gently, absolutely no question about what it was for. The stump appeared beside it. Charred. Black. Smoking faintly. The ground did not resist. The ground here does not resist anything I ask of it.
"I'm not wearing shoes."
"Oh yes, I see that. Sit. Hurry."
He sat. I went to my knees. And then I reached into the water and I began.
The Sacred Washing
I will not apologize for what happened next. I do not believe an apology is warranted. I believe the opposite of an apology is warranted: a statement of pride, clearly worded, publicly accessible. Which is why this website exists.
I washed Carl's feet.
The water was boiling. This did not concern me. The boiling is part of it. When I first took his foot in my hands and began to rub, the worshippers around us groaned in a way that I found entirely appropriate and Carl found disconcerting. He jerked back.
"I am washing your feet, Carl. You are a martyr of Emberus, and I am paying respect. Now put your feet back in the water."
He hesitated. He put his foot back. This is the moment I think about when I need to remind myself that the universe is, on some deep level, correctly ordered.
I worked. Sole first. Then the arch. Then the heel. I grunted as I rubbed — I am not ashamed to say I put genuine effort into this. Sacred work deserves genuine effort. The gods were not paying attention to the other gods at that moment. The other gods could not eavesdrop during the sacrament. The feed had gone dark. It was just me, Carl, the fire, the fountain, the stump, the groaning worshippers, and the feet.
Carl tried to ask me if I was the AI. I told him we all have our roles and our limitations. He asked again. I told him to stop asking silly questions. My eyes may or may not have gone milky white at this point. I have been told they did. I do not always remember the moments when the divine speaks through me. I am a vessel. Vessels do not always know what has been poured through them.
What I do know is what came next.
The Apex of the Ceremony
I will describe this plainly. There is no other way to describe it that does not add unnecessary drama to something that was, at its core, a straightforward act of religious devotion.
I picked up Carl's foot.
I put his big toe in my mouth.
I groaned. I arched my back. I am told the worshippers around us groaned as well, in what I choose to interpret as sympathy and reverence.
Carl said "Okay." He jerked back. He jumped from the pool.
I shook my head. I came back to myself. My pupils, which had apparently been absent, returned to color. The ceremony was complete.
I looked up at him and I said what I needed to say:
Then I stood up, brushed off my robes, and told him we needed to hurry and get him to the healer. He still had slugpox. There was still a practical matter to attend to. Sacred does not mean impractical. Sacred and practical can coexist. Yes, yes. Let's go.
The Boon, the Feed, and the Aftermath
The system awarded Carl the Martyr's Path before we had even exited the temple. Every step he takes outside a structure is marked on the map, and if his health should fall to five percent, he may release a gout of flame from each spot he has walked. It will activate automatically upon his death.
This is what the washing did. This is what reverence does. This is what a properly performed sacred foot ceremony can accomplish, if carried out with conviction and clean hands and a truly boiling fountain.
The galactic feed, I am told, resumed shortly after. Zev — the fish-person assigned to oversee Carl's run — had a reaction that I found somewhat disproportionate, though I understand the universe had never seen anything quite like that on the feed before. It had enough footage to provide context for the quest, which is all that matters. Quadrillions of beings across the Syndicate saw it.
Good.
They should all see it.
Carl received a ten thousand gold bill from the healer shortly after. That was unrelated to the feet. But I helped him with the loan for the ring too, and that went fine, and the mantaurs banging on the shop door were only a minor inconvenience, and the whole day, taken together, was one of the finest days of my ministry.
I am Pater Coal. I am High Cleric Supreme. I have washed the feet of a Martyr of Emberus in the fires of the Ending Sun, and I would do it again.
— P. Coal, High Cleric Supreme
Emberus High Temple of the Ending Sun
Club Vanquisher, 8th Floor
Reward: You now know more about Carl's feet than you ever intended to. This cannot be undone. Consider it a gift from Emberus. He may revoke it at any time.