"Hey, handsome, looking for a good time?" one of the woman hollered.
"You looked stressed, why not relax with us for a while?" another added.
"Sorry, girls," Valtaires called back regretfully. "But I've got business inside the temple."
"Oooh…kinky."
"Er…okay." Val entered the temple, eyeing the women until they dropped out of sight.
The Temple of Hroth-Sul (so named after its' founder) was a massive building, although its' delicate structure made it appear somewhat smaller than it actually was. On the interior, an enormous sermon hall took up most of the space. It was ornately decorated with gold plating and stained glass mosaics. A raised platform some ten or so feet off the ground housed the lecturing priest. A small wooden door in the back led to the clerics' quarters, although the general populace was never allowed anywhere near. The sun had set several hours earlier, and thus the entire area was lit by hundreds of light spells – an ostentatious display of Church power.
Currently, a rather corpulent cleric was passionately giving a sermon on – Val presumed – the evils of Evil. Several families sat in the front, eyes glazed over with religious fervor…and occasionally toppling over. Several others families were fighting a losing battle against slumber. And the vast majority of families were visiting their sick grandmothers. Regardless, the cleric rambled on, seemingly unaware of his less-than- thrilled audience – or merely enthralled by his own voice.
Val quietly took a seat near the front, directly in front of the cleric. Time to start working for his pay.
"…Evil must be resisted wherever it lurks," the rotund cleric bellowed. "Remember, my faithful, it is not truly paranoia if they're really out to get you! Resist the evil rabbit demons! I refuse thee, rabbitspawn!! I refuse-" He looked up to find Val sitting quietly, staring at him. He lost his place, shocked beyond words at Val's appearance. He wore a black cloak, the cowl raised and covering much of his face in shadows. A blood-red eyepatch covered his right eye, but the second one – white as frost – bored into the flustered cleric. Several daggers could be seen poking out his boots, and a rather beaten-looking sword hung from his hip. From the sheltered cleric's perspective, it was as if the very gates of the Abyss had opened.
"Yes, my faithful? You have a question? Ask, and it shall be answered by the wise Theodoric," the portly cleric stammered, beginning to sweat profusely.
"Oh, umm, right." Val paused for a moment to think. "Would you believe that I'm here for your soul?" he ventured.
With an inarticulate scream, the cleric jumped off the dais and ran, flailing, out of the temple. He was screaming something about the 'evil rabbit demons come to devour his soul'. Coming from a cleric, most people ignored him.
"Well, what can you expect?" Val sighed mournfully. "Those clerics are even crazier than I am. Ah, well." He jumped atop the dais and hailed the crowd. "Run free my people! You are free! Free to run and frolic through the streets! Free to get roaring drunk and marry your horse!" With a great cheer, the remaining worshippers ran out the temple doors.
Val surveyed the sermon hall, ensuring that he was alone. When he was satisfied that no one remained, he slipped through the small wooden door into the clerics' quarters.
He found himself in a long, dimly lit hallway. Several dozen doors lined both walls. He swore softly. His employers hadn't told him there would be complications. He knelt by the first door and traced a few glowing runes on the surface.
The door shimmered and vanished – well, not vanish so much as turn transparent. Inside a grotesquely obese man slept, ale bottle in hand. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of his lip onto his pillow. He was exactly as Val had envisioned the Abbot – but further examination of the room yielded nothing besides piles of empty ale bottles and heaps of dirty portraits.
He spent considerably more time at the next few doors. Apparently, women could become priests too. It was almost enough to make one want to convert.
He finally found the correct room nearly an hour later. The door appeared normal enough, but it was always best to test for traps. Priests could be right bastards that way.
Val murmured a small cantrip, causing nearly every room in the hall to grow red briefly. He whistled softly. The Church certainly spared no expense.
"Lucky for me clerics are such pansies when it comes to spellcasting," he chuckled to himself. Tracing an intricate rune in the air, he had the wards disabled in a heartbeat. He crept into the Abbot's room, careful to keep the door from squeaking as he did so.
For a man of such power, the Abbot of Hroth-Sul Temple certainly didn't look the part. He rather resembled a wrinkled prune. He couldn't have been a day under eighty, but he looked to be twice that. He slept in his ceremonial robes, and clutched his staff of office to his chest as he murmured in his sleep. Just beyond him, on his writing desk, lay the artifacts Val had been sent to acquire – a faded parchment map and a nondescript brown book. He pussyfooted over, taking care to stay to the walls, where the floorboards were less likely to creak.
He was just slipping the artifacts into his cloak when the Abbot stirred. Val froze, hastily fingering through the gestures of a sleep spell.
"Lestor," the Abbot grumbled, not bothering to open his eyes, "fetch me my smiting stick!" He waved a weak fist in the air.
Val relaxed. The old man was obviously senile. He retreated into the nearby shadows, just in case. "Beg your pardon?" he droned in his best monotone.
"It's these filthy unbelievers, Lestor," the ancient Abbot groused. "They all prance around in those skimpy clothes – I can see these women's ankles, by Trias –"
"Yes, you should watch that heart of yours."
"-And refusing to obey my divine words!" the Abbot continued. "Why, back in my day, I'd have stoned them all! I was a one-man stoning brigade, I was. Left, right, it was whack-a-heathen-discount-day, yes it was! Filthy unbelievers…" he dozed back off.
"Hmm, of course we believe in Trias, we just don't believe in Trias. Lady Luck's all the divine aid I'll ever need," Val whispered to the comatose Abbot. He crept towards the door once more.
"I shall smite thee!" the Abbot screamed out, coughing up a lung in the process. "Eh? Wha…? Oh, well, perhaps I could smite the heathen filth if someone would bring me my smiting stick! Lestor, step on it, by Trias!" The Abbot waved his staff of office in the air threateningly, before the weight became too much for his frail arms to support.
"Yes, I was going to get it right now, you desiccated old reptile!" Val snapped, dropping the pretense and marching out the door.
The Abbot lay there for several long moments, stunned. Finally:
"Why, the sheer impudence! A few stonings would do that Lestor a world of good!"
* * *
Valtaires stepped into a dimly lit tavern, the Smoking Dragon. Few bothered to look up at his entrance. The Smoking Dragon was a haven for outlaws, thieves, assassins, and the other less savory elements of society. It was located in plain sight just outside the docks district, but only the terminally insane would have ventured within without an invitation. To the City Guard it was a nuisance they hadn't the power the rid themselves of. To Valtaires, it was his home away from home.
Once his eyes had adapted to the light, he surveyed the room for his clients. He found them in one of the darker corners of the room, observing him intently. A chill ran down his spine – as it always did when he laid sight on these two. At first glance, they resembled two cutthroats – hardly out of place in this tavern. Yet, there was something subtly wrong with them – something in the way their eyes looked, in the way they walked, in the way they spoke. Nothing he could consciously single out, but all those thousand little things all added up into mother's 'Don't play with strangers'. Val sighed. These two were about as strange as they came.
He made his way over, pulling up a seat. His clients glanced at one another, then back at him.
"You have the artifacts?" the first asked in a sibilant whisper.
"Yes, I have the artifacts," Val replied loudly. "And quit that whispering, it's bloody annoying!"
"Very well then, give them to us," the second demanded, only slightly louder.
"Uh-huh." Val nodded skeptically, keeping his spoils safely tucked away in his cloak. "And then we can all go frolic in the land of Magical Naked Ogres. Payment first. Then you get you precious little 'artifacts.'"
The two looked at each other once more. "I am afraid you have misunderstood our agreement, Master Greywind," the first began.
Val's eyes narrowed. "No, I don't think I have. I risked my life entering that temple to steal your little toys – from under the Abbot's nose, no less! – and now-"
"Perhaps we were mistaken. We assumed you would be more than happy to disgrace the Church of Light," the second interjected.
"Yeah, well, I like to keep my personal life and my business life separated," Val replied dryly. "Now I strongly suggest you just hand over what you promised."
"We promised nothing. This was merely a test," the second said smugly.
"You passed," the first added.
"I jump for joy," Val said sarcastically. "Look, the basic problem with hiring someone to do something you can't would be that that someone could kick both your asses. Kay?" he asked sweetly.
They both laughed weirdly. "Once again you misunderstand. Entering that temple would have been most uncomfortable for us. That is all."
Val frowned slightly. This was spiraling out of his control. He didn't like that. "Yeah, it was no walk in the park for me either. I think you two need to be taken down a notch or two. I say we just settle this right now." He stood up and laid his hand on the pommel of his sword.
The two laughed again. "We have a much more pleasing solution. Hypothetically, if we were to rip off that cloak, what do you suppose we would find?" the first asked. The second was still laughing.
"Erm, mayhaps a bugbear? The secret of life? My startlingly feminine figure?" Val replied innocently.
"I believe we would find an elf."
"Shhh!" Val hissed, glancing around the room frantically. No one seemed to have heard.
"And what do you suppose these people would do if they found an elf in their midst?" they asked rhetorically. "I don't believe humans are very tolerant of the other races. Perhaps they would flay you alive? Draw and quarter you? Or perhaps even-"
"Yeah, yeah, you proved your point. What do you want?" Val asked resignedly.
"The artifacts, of course."
Val shoved the map and book across the table, muttering dire imprecations. His clients' eyes lit up when they caught sight of them. They reverently picked them.
"These are what we have searched so long for…" the second whispered, fingering through the book.
"The Keys…" the first added, poring over the map.
Val coughed loudly, cutting short their reverie. "Well, I see you're both pleased, so off I go. Pleasure to serve, and all that rot." He made for the door.
Not fast enough. "Master Greywind, we are not quite finished with you yet," the first called out, stopping Val in his tracks. "This was merely the test. We still have several more tasks for you to complete."
Valtaires glared daggers at them. He still sat down. Did he really have a choice?
* * *
"No, Lord, I am afraid that Trixie and Linda would not make decent champions," Integrity sighed for the hundredth time.
"Whysh not!?" Trias bellowed belligerently.
"Why? Why, they're whores, Lord."
"There yoush goesh, judging persons again!" Trias hollered, taking another drought from his ale jug. "Alwaysh judging peoples, you are! I'sh sick of yoursh labels!" He belched.
"Quite right, Lord. You're a drunken lech no matter what I label you."
"Ha! Mebbe drunk enough for yoush, but nots for me!" He poured himself another drink. "Now, aboot Zora…"
Integrity sighed once more. They'd been having this argument for the past week – which of Trias' favorite girls to choose. And then of course Integrity would have to dissuade him, only to have him pick another harlot. Fortunately, he was saved from having to go through the ordeal by the appearance of Harmony, Trias' other right-hand Servant of Justice.
"What is it, Harmony?" Integrity asked of her.
"Bad news, I'm afraid," she replied sadly. "The Keys have been stolen from the Temple of Hroth-Sul. The Abbot is in quite a knot about it to. When I went down to investigate, he was barricaded behind his door with a pile of rocks, singing some old marching song."
"I knew we should have relocated those Keys – or the Abbot – but I never thought they would move so quickly…" Integrity fretted, beginning to pace.
"Well, don't think too much about it. We'll get them, sooner or later," she tried to reassure him.
"It's the 'later' I'm worried about…" he sighed. "But I suppose we can do nothing about it now, so best not to worry."
Harmony nodded. "So, what are you two doing?" she asked, indicating Trias.
Integrity groaned. "What do you suppose? Our Lord is still fixated on his girls. He won't listen to reason."
Harmony nodded sympathetically. "Well, here's an idea, if you're open to suggestions."
"Please, do."
"Why not ask him to send out someone from Hroth-Sul Temple to find the missing Keys? If they succeed, well then, we have one champion down."
"Well, I suppose anything is worth a try…" Integrity agreed. The two went over to Trias and attracted his attention.
"Lord, we've come up with a proposition on this matter," Integrity began. "As you may have heard, the Keys have been stolen…" he paused for dramatic emphasis.
Trias snorted. "Dat's why we'sh make copies…"
"I'm afraid we can't make copies of these Keys, Trias," Harmony berated him gently.
"As I was saying," Integrity resumed, "This theft is a timely event for us, as we are searching for worthy champions-"
"Trixie'sh worthy…" Trias mumbled into his glass.
"And we are thus provided with a golden opportunity here," he continued without missing a beat. "We can send a champion out from Hroth- Sul Temple, and if he succeeds, then we have found our champion. All we need is your approval to set events in motion…" Integrity waited for a response.
And waited.
"Now you can speak, Trias," Harmony prodded him.
"Eh? Okey-dokey!" Trias thought hard. "So…any heroesh who wins will be our championsh?" he asked.
"Yes…" Integrity responded guardedly.
"Wellsh! Sends out da pretty girls!"
"No, you missed the point entirely," Integrity began vainly.
"HA! Sends out da pretties girl in da Temple! She'll smite dem bad guys! SMITE!" He began to sing off-key.
Integrity turned to Harmony.
"I don't suppose there's a deep, dark hole where we can stick him…"
"Integrity!"
"You looked stressed, why not relax with us for a while?" another added.
"Sorry, girls," Valtaires called back regretfully. "But I've got business inside the temple."
"Oooh…kinky."
"Er…okay." Val entered the temple, eyeing the women until they dropped out of sight.
The Temple of Hroth-Sul (so named after its' founder) was a massive building, although its' delicate structure made it appear somewhat smaller than it actually was. On the interior, an enormous sermon hall took up most of the space. It was ornately decorated with gold plating and stained glass mosaics. A raised platform some ten or so feet off the ground housed the lecturing priest. A small wooden door in the back led to the clerics' quarters, although the general populace was never allowed anywhere near. The sun had set several hours earlier, and thus the entire area was lit by hundreds of light spells – an ostentatious display of Church power.
Currently, a rather corpulent cleric was passionately giving a sermon on – Val presumed – the evils of Evil. Several families sat in the front, eyes glazed over with religious fervor…and occasionally toppling over. Several others families were fighting a losing battle against slumber. And the vast majority of families were visiting their sick grandmothers. Regardless, the cleric rambled on, seemingly unaware of his less-than- thrilled audience – or merely enthralled by his own voice.
Val quietly took a seat near the front, directly in front of the cleric. Time to start working for his pay.
"…Evil must be resisted wherever it lurks," the rotund cleric bellowed. "Remember, my faithful, it is not truly paranoia if they're really out to get you! Resist the evil rabbit demons! I refuse thee, rabbitspawn!! I refuse-" He looked up to find Val sitting quietly, staring at him. He lost his place, shocked beyond words at Val's appearance. He wore a black cloak, the cowl raised and covering much of his face in shadows. A blood-red eyepatch covered his right eye, but the second one – white as frost – bored into the flustered cleric. Several daggers could be seen poking out his boots, and a rather beaten-looking sword hung from his hip. From the sheltered cleric's perspective, it was as if the very gates of the Abyss had opened.
"Yes, my faithful? You have a question? Ask, and it shall be answered by the wise Theodoric," the portly cleric stammered, beginning to sweat profusely.
"Oh, umm, right." Val paused for a moment to think. "Would you believe that I'm here for your soul?" he ventured.
With an inarticulate scream, the cleric jumped off the dais and ran, flailing, out of the temple. He was screaming something about the 'evil rabbit demons come to devour his soul'. Coming from a cleric, most people ignored him.
"Well, what can you expect?" Val sighed mournfully. "Those clerics are even crazier than I am. Ah, well." He jumped atop the dais and hailed the crowd. "Run free my people! You are free! Free to run and frolic through the streets! Free to get roaring drunk and marry your horse!" With a great cheer, the remaining worshippers ran out the temple doors.
Val surveyed the sermon hall, ensuring that he was alone. When he was satisfied that no one remained, he slipped through the small wooden door into the clerics' quarters.
He found himself in a long, dimly lit hallway. Several dozen doors lined both walls. He swore softly. His employers hadn't told him there would be complications. He knelt by the first door and traced a few glowing runes on the surface.
The door shimmered and vanished – well, not vanish so much as turn transparent. Inside a grotesquely obese man slept, ale bottle in hand. A trickle of drool ran from the corner of his lip onto his pillow. He was exactly as Val had envisioned the Abbot – but further examination of the room yielded nothing besides piles of empty ale bottles and heaps of dirty portraits.
He spent considerably more time at the next few doors. Apparently, women could become priests too. It was almost enough to make one want to convert.
He finally found the correct room nearly an hour later. The door appeared normal enough, but it was always best to test for traps. Priests could be right bastards that way.
Val murmured a small cantrip, causing nearly every room in the hall to grow red briefly. He whistled softly. The Church certainly spared no expense.
"Lucky for me clerics are such pansies when it comes to spellcasting," he chuckled to himself. Tracing an intricate rune in the air, he had the wards disabled in a heartbeat. He crept into the Abbot's room, careful to keep the door from squeaking as he did so.
For a man of such power, the Abbot of Hroth-Sul Temple certainly didn't look the part. He rather resembled a wrinkled prune. He couldn't have been a day under eighty, but he looked to be twice that. He slept in his ceremonial robes, and clutched his staff of office to his chest as he murmured in his sleep. Just beyond him, on his writing desk, lay the artifacts Val had been sent to acquire – a faded parchment map and a nondescript brown book. He pussyfooted over, taking care to stay to the walls, where the floorboards were less likely to creak.
He was just slipping the artifacts into his cloak when the Abbot stirred. Val froze, hastily fingering through the gestures of a sleep spell.
"Lestor," the Abbot grumbled, not bothering to open his eyes, "fetch me my smiting stick!" He waved a weak fist in the air.
Val relaxed. The old man was obviously senile. He retreated into the nearby shadows, just in case. "Beg your pardon?" he droned in his best monotone.
"It's these filthy unbelievers, Lestor," the ancient Abbot groused. "They all prance around in those skimpy clothes – I can see these women's ankles, by Trias –"
"Yes, you should watch that heart of yours."
"-And refusing to obey my divine words!" the Abbot continued. "Why, back in my day, I'd have stoned them all! I was a one-man stoning brigade, I was. Left, right, it was whack-a-heathen-discount-day, yes it was! Filthy unbelievers…" he dozed back off.
"Hmm, of course we believe in Trias, we just don't believe in Trias. Lady Luck's all the divine aid I'll ever need," Val whispered to the comatose Abbot. He crept towards the door once more.
"I shall smite thee!" the Abbot screamed out, coughing up a lung in the process. "Eh? Wha…? Oh, well, perhaps I could smite the heathen filth if someone would bring me my smiting stick! Lestor, step on it, by Trias!" The Abbot waved his staff of office in the air threateningly, before the weight became too much for his frail arms to support.
"Yes, I was going to get it right now, you desiccated old reptile!" Val snapped, dropping the pretense and marching out the door.
The Abbot lay there for several long moments, stunned. Finally:
"Why, the sheer impudence! A few stonings would do that Lestor a world of good!"
* * *
Valtaires stepped into a dimly lit tavern, the Smoking Dragon. Few bothered to look up at his entrance. The Smoking Dragon was a haven for outlaws, thieves, assassins, and the other less savory elements of society. It was located in plain sight just outside the docks district, but only the terminally insane would have ventured within without an invitation. To the City Guard it was a nuisance they hadn't the power the rid themselves of. To Valtaires, it was his home away from home.
Once his eyes had adapted to the light, he surveyed the room for his clients. He found them in one of the darker corners of the room, observing him intently. A chill ran down his spine – as it always did when he laid sight on these two. At first glance, they resembled two cutthroats – hardly out of place in this tavern. Yet, there was something subtly wrong with them – something in the way their eyes looked, in the way they walked, in the way they spoke. Nothing he could consciously single out, but all those thousand little things all added up into mother's 'Don't play with strangers'. Val sighed. These two were about as strange as they came.
He made his way over, pulling up a seat. His clients glanced at one another, then back at him.
"You have the artifacts?" the first asked in a sibilant whisper.
"Yes, I have the artifacts," Val replied loudly. "And quit that whispering, it's bloody annoying!"
"Very well then, give them to us," the second demanded, only slightly louder.
"Uh-huh." Val nodded skeptically, keeping his spoils safely tucked away in his cloak. "And then we can all go frolic in the land of Magical Naked Ogres. Payment first. Then you get you precious little 'artifacts.'"
The two looked at each other once more. "I am afraid you have misunderstood our agreement, Master Greywind," the first began.
Val's eyes narrowed. "No, I don't think I have. I risked my life entering that temple to steal your little toys – from under the Abbot's nose, no less! – and now-"
"Perhaps we were mistaken. We assumed you would be more than happy to disgrace the Church of Light," the second interjected.
"Yeah, well, I like to keep my personal life and my business life separated," Val replied dryly. "Now I strongly suggest you just hand over what you promised."
"We promised nothing. This was merely a test," the second said smugly.
"You passed," the first added.
"I jump for joy," Val said sarcastically. "Look, the basic problem with hiring someone to do something you can't would be that that someone could kick both your asses. Kay?" he asked sweetly.
They both laughed weirdly. "Once again you misunderstand. Entering that temple would have been most uncomfortable for us. That is all."
Val frowned slightly. This was spiraling out of his control. He didn't like that. "Yeah, it was no walk in the park for me either. I think you two need to be taken down a notch or two. I say we just settle this right now." He stood up and laid his hand on the pommel of his sword.
The two laughed again. "We have a much more pleasing solution. Hypothetically, if we were to rip off that cloak, what do you suppose we would find?" the first asked. The second was still laughing.
"Erm, mayhaps a bugbear? The secret of life? My startlingly feminine figure?" Val replied innocently.
"I believe we would find an elf."
"Shhh!" Val hissed, glancing around the room frantically. No one seemed to have heard.
"And what do you suppose these people would do if they found an elf in their midst?" they asked rhetorically. "I don't believe humans are very tolerant of the other races. Perhaps they would flay you alive? Draw and quarter you? Or perhaps even-"
"Yeah, yeah, you proved your point. What do you want?" Val asked resignedly.
"The artifacts, of course."
Val shoved the map and book across the table, muttering dire imprecations. His clients' eyes lit up when they caught sight of them. They reverently picked them.
"These are what we have searched so long for…" the second whispered, fingering through the book.
"The Keys…" the first added, poring over the map.
Val coughed loudly, cutting short their reverie. "Well, I see you're both pleased, so off I go. Pleasure to serve, and all that rot." He made for the door.
Not fast enough. "Master Greywind, we are not quite finished with you yet," the first called out, stopping Val in his tracks. "This was merely the test. We still have several more tasks for you to complete."
Valtaires glared daggers at them. He still sat down. Did he really have a choice?
* * *
"No, Lord, I am afraid that Trixie and Linda would not make decent champions," Integrity sighed for the hundredth time.
"Whysh not!?" Trias bellowed belligerently.
"Why? Why, they're whores, Lord."
"There yoush goesh, judging persons again!" Trias hollered, taking another drought from his ale jug. "Alwaysh judging peoples, you are! I'sh sick of yoursh labels!" He belched.
"Quite right, Lord. You're a drunken lech no matter what I label you."
"Ha! Mebbe drunk enough for yoush, but nots for me!" He poured himself another drink. "Now, aboot Zora…"
Integrity sighed once more. They'd been having this argument for the past week – which of Trias' favorite girls to choose. And then of course Integrity would have to dissuade him, only to have him pick another harlot. Fortunately, he was saved from having to go through the ordeal by the appearance of Harmony, Trias' other right-hand Servant of Justice.
"What is it, Harmony?" Integrity asked of her.
"Bad news, I'm afraid," she replied sadly. "The Keys have been stolen from the Temple of Hroth-Sul. The Abbot is in quite a knot about it to. When I went down to investigate, he was barricaded behind his door with a pile of rocks, singing some old marching song."
"I knew we should have relocated those Keys – or the Abbot – but I never thought they would move so quickly…" Integrity fretted, beginning to pace.
"Well, don't think too much about it. We'll get them, sooner or later," she tried to reassure him.
"It's the 'later' I'm worried about…" he sighed. "But I suppose we can do nothing about it now, so best not to worry."
Harmony nodded. "So, what are you two doing?" she asked, indicating Trias.
Integrity groaned. "What do you suppose? Our Lord is still fixated on his girls. He won't listen to reason."
Harmony nodded sympathetically. "Well, here's an idea, if you're open to suggestions."
"Please, do."
"Why not ask him to send out someone from Hroth-Sul Temple to find the missing Keys? If they succeed, well then, we have one champion down."
"Well, I suppose anything is worth a try…" Integrity agreed. The two went over to Trias and attracted his attention.
"Lord, we've come up with a proposition on this matter," Integrity began. "As you may have heard, the Keys have been stolen…" he paused for dramatic emphasis.
Trias snorted. "Dat's why we'sh make copies…"
"I'm afraid we can't make copies of these Keys, Trias," Harmony berated him gently.
"As I was saying," Integrity resumed, "This theft is a timely event for us, as we are searching for worthy champions-"
"Trixie'sh worthy…" Trias mumbled into his glass.
"And we are thus provided with a golden opportunity here," he continued without missing a beat. "We can send a champion out from Hroth- Sul Temple, and if he succeeds, then we have found our champion. All we need is your approval to set events in motion…" Integrity waited for a response.
And waited.
"Now you can speak, Trias," Harmony prodded him.
"Eh? Okey-dokey!" Trias thought hard. "So…any heroesh who wins will be our championsh?" he asked.
"Yes…" Integrity responded guardedly.
"Wellsh! Sends out da pretty girls!"
"No, you missed the point entirely," Integrity began vainly.
"HA! Sends out da pretties girl in da Temple! She'll smite dem bad guys! SMITE!" He began to sing off-key.
Integrity turned to Harmony.
"I don't suppose there's a deep, dark hole where we can stick him…"
"Integrity!"