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Chapter 1: With the Goddess Love!

  So, let me tell you a story.

  It’s a story about one simple, travelling nun.

  Always doing her very best to help the people she meets.

  Her real name was probably something utterly boring like Sister Mirella or Clara of the Seventh Pew. But nobody remember it anymore. Everyone - and I really mean everyone - friends, enemies, random villagers, Kings and Demon Lords - everyone just called her Fanática. Faná for short.

  And you would be wise to wonder, why such [powerful] beings had to invent a new name for some random nun. The reason was simple.

  Because when Faná believed something, the universe had only two choices: agree with it, or get religiously corrected with extreme prejudice.

  Our story thus starts on a perfectly fine day, just when the party was trudging back from slaying a particularly obnoxious wyrmling.

  One which has been terrorizing the nearby Hamlets for days.

  Faná was marching at the front, humming a hymn melody.

  She was the only one relatively unharmed; the rest had various degrees of burns, scratches and bruises.

  “By the Goddess's most holy luminous left sandal,” Fanática gleefully declared.

  Her arms were spread wide as if trying to embrace the entire sky.

  “Today we have once again proven that righteousness tramples evil like a child stomping grapes for holy wine!”.

  She recalled how her maul finally felled the beast.

  And muttered to self, “Noble Sister Fanática, a vanquisher of vile dragons!”

  The party mage, Erian - still a young lad, only seventeen and perpetually looking like he was about to cry - muttered: “It… it was just an overgrown salamander. With some anger issues.”

  “It was a HERETIC salamander!” Faná corrected him, her eyes blazing with holy fervor.

  Erian opened his mouth, hesitated for a moment, then closed it.

  He knew how this always ended.

  So he resorted to his usual tactic - lowered his eyes and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

  Instead, Gorzod the barbarian let out a deliberate grunt:

  “How can a lizard be a heretic? Their higher instincts only encourage them to breathe fire and devour livestock.”

  People considered barbarian a fool, just because he was seven feet high, covered in scars, didn’t care about hygiene and had unwashed braids.

  Would you believe me if I told you that he was actually smarter than half the idiots in the team?

  “A livestock and fire… that’s basically a steak waiting to happen. Preferably with a company of a barrel of fine ale.”

  He may have been smart, but unfortunately he was also a hopeless alcoholic.

  The dwarf, Thrain Ironspit, nodded sagely while stroking his soot-stained beard.

  “Aye. Speaking of-” He jerked a thumb toward the nearby town.

  “I’ve heard that the Guild brewery’s got a new stout. Aged in troll-bone barrels. Let’s go before the elf starts lecturing us about ‘nature’s purity’ again.”

  The elf huntress, Liora, sighed with impeccable elegance.

  “Alcohol dulls the senses and insults the forest spirits.”

  She shook her head solemnly,

  “It fascinates me how eagerly men consume things that have already begun to spoil and rot. It’s disgusting.”

  The nun listened to this conversation with curiosity until a statement was made that did not fully agree with the content of the sacred texts.

  “Forest spirits can kiss my holy hammer,” she snapped, raising her oversized maul engraved with seventeen separate prayers, effortlessly toward the sky.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Even mighty Gorzod struggled to swing it properly.

  “The Goddess generously permits fermentation - it says so in Canto 4, Verse 12: And lo, the fruit of the grape shall gladden the heart… provided it is not consumed on Her Feast days, nor watered down by cheapskate innkeepers, nor-”.

  “Yeah yeah,” Gorzod interrupted.

  “We know. That’s why most of the taverns are off-limits tonight. Holy day. Brewery it is.”

  Faná froze mid-stride.

  Her saintly halo flickered dangerously.

  Ale. Brewery. Gorzod and Thrain planning a visit.

  It didn't take a genius to figure out that someone didn't have enough respect for the holy scriptures.

  “Thou shalt not drink on holy days,” she whispered, her voice suddenly soft, sweet and terrible.

  Thrain scratched his ear.

  “Er, the verse says drink, lass. It doesn’t say anything about visiting a place where it’s produced.”

  “Production of sin.”

  It was Erian's turn to attempt diplomacy: “M-maybe we can just… get some bread? And water? Goddess likes water, right? Rivers and stuff?”

  Faná turned to him with the serene smile of someone about to commit war crimes in the name of true love.

  “My dear Erian, the Goddess absolutely abhors half-measures.” she said gently.

  Ten minutes later, the party stood in front of the Guild-operated brewery.

  It was a sturdy stone building with copper vats steaming gently under the evening sky.

  Workers tirelessly rolled barrels.

  A small drinking hall sat next to the brewery. Patrons laughed merrily inside.

  A big chalk sign outside proudly read:

  “No Church tithe = No Church rules. Drink up!”

  Fanática stood before the building, her eyes narrowed to slits.

  A faint, holy glow rose from them and floated upwards.

  A halo appeared above her head, and radiant golden light slowly illuminated her silhouette.

  Her party lingered some odd twenty paces behind her.

  “She’s gonna do it, isn’t she,” Liora sighed.

  “Aye, she always does.” Thrain nodded solemnly.

  Faná raised both hands.

  The air around her began to shimmer like a heat haze.

  “O Goddess of Absolute Standards!” she cried. “Your child sees abomination! A den of vice flaunting holy dates in Your sacred calendar! Let not one drop of this heretical brew touch mortal lips tonight!”

  A low rumble answered.

  The nearest vat suddenly belched - it was not steam, but a pillar of pure golden light that shot from the ground toward the heavens.

  Then another vat exploded.

  Then the entire roof began to glow with bright light.

  Workers sprinted out of the building, screaming “IT’S HOLY! IT’S HOLY!!”

  The barbarian and the dwarf exchanged a look. Very meaningful look.

  Then, they both bolted toward the brewery.

  Inside, seeing them bravely charge in, the fat foreman flung his arms wide in relief.

  “Help!” he cried.

  Gorzod simply pushed him aside, while Thrain ducked under the man's arms, and both headed straight for the crates.

  They began frantically packing bottles of alcohol into their bags.

  Faná kicked the door with a loud bang.

  It practically shattered into a cloud of broken pieces of wood.

  She marched forward and dragged her companions by their collars, while they were still clutching the bottles.

  “Unhand me and me brew, ye Fanátic lunatic!” Thrain roared.

  “Repent!” Faná shouted back, hauling them back effortlessly like misbehaving puppies. “The Goddess has spoken! Also the building is about to-”

  KA-BOOOOM!!!

  The brewery erupted in a glorious mushroom cloud of golden fire, and glittering malt sparks.

  Liora’s keen ears also heard the faint sound of angels making disappointed tsk-tsk noises.

  Not a single barrel survived.

  And not one sinful drop of alcohol hit the ground before evaporating.

  The shockwave knocked mage flat on his bottom.

  Liora’s perfect hair somehow stayed perfect.

  Fanática stood unscathed near the epicenter of the explosion, her arms still gripping her two party members, dirty and burned, but whole.

  Her halo was blazing like a second sun.

  She turned to them with tears of pious joy in her eyes.

  “See?” she said, beaming. “The Goddess provides. Now today we may all drink… holy water instead!”

  Gorzod stared at his broken bottles.

  Then at the crater.

  And then, slowly, back at Faná.

  “…I’m not gonna drink water like some animal. It’s ain’t hygienic.”

  Thrain spat out soot.

  “Next holy day I’m takin’ a barrel three hundred feet down a mine shaft an’ sealin’ the door behind me. If the Goddess wants it purified, she can take the whole bleedin’ mountain with it.”

  Somewhere in the distance, the local guild master wept openly into his ledger.

  And so the party marched on - one nun-shaped natural disaster, two alcoholics in various stages of recovery, one traumatized teenager, and one very tired elf - toward the next inevitable holy misunderstanding.

  With the Goddess' love.

  Whether the world was ready for it or not.

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