The market had been a bit chaotic. So many new faces. So many expressions of fear on the familiar ones. A general feeling of a noose tightening. Disquieting rumors of things done in the woods. Unfortunate tales of monstrosities awakening, and then being put once more to slumber. There had been a teen girl filled with bees that had said lil Hughie an’ Lou-net had done it. There had been a vision of the future, old cycles starting again. Of pain and death. A bespeckled gal who had wanted to teach one of the chillins how to be a lady. Giant flesh tentacles, like leeches the size of buildings.

Chaotic. All over the place, really. But the stand out had been the effect of the inkysishun coming to the valley.

For years, they’d been a boogey man of sorts. ‘Don’t snitch on your neighbors, or the inkysishun will come and burn everyone alive’. It had been the chief concern of his flock when considering properly joining the children of the forest with the children of the lion. It hadn’t seemed real, so many figments of the night proved to be just that.

But they were here now. And they seemed to come to purge this place with fire. Many of the most stalwart of his friends, those he looked up to and admired, were making terrible choices in the wake of this news. Many planned to leave as fast as they could. Some planned to hide. Some planned to plead innocent. For the Friar’s plan, he intended to climb the burning pyre himself before anyone in his community was lit aflame.

It all seemed so dreamlike and… meaningless. Why were humans lining up to butcher one another over petty differences when anyone with eyes to see could clearly tell the dangers that surrounded them? Did they not hear the voice of God soothing them? Whispering that we were all once cut from the same cloth, and it was to that cloth we must return? That these sorts of fears and disputes and conflicts drove a greater wedge between humans, when the whole purpose of humanity was to unite?

The preacher sighed to himself and began his long walk once more. The great beast had been put to sleep once more; they had bought some time. Time for him to travel. To… see his beloved home, very likely for the last time. He could feel his Purpose fast approaching, and while it should be terrifying, he was frankly elated. Henri only had a murky idea of what was to be expected of him, and he was just terribly relieved that it had fallen to him rather than his loved ones.

Soon it would be time to see this thing through.