[center][h3]Barney Rynsburger[/h3]
[@SilverPaw] [@alexfangtalon][/center]

At this point, all the horrifying, supernatural, and downright weird stuff that Barney had witnessed over the course of the last half hour or so was beginning to dull the shock value of each new revelation. He’d been appalled, terrified, and startled by the near-constant barrage of impossibility--one man could only be stunned into silence so many times. Even so, he could not help but be unnerved by the silver-crowned lunatic in front of him. Alarm bells were going off in his head, his brain a live wire constantly buzzing with twinges of pain and, in all probability, delirium.

Just what was this? For a moment there Barney really thought this was headed in another direction, but the oily, pompous, oh-so-human hubris of the priest’s pronouncement brought the expectations of the student who shared his face right back down. This crown-wearing cleric, Barney realized, was not someone worthy of his respect.

While Barney got his thoughts together, Mila spoke first. She thanked the priest for letting the three of them inside at least, and though her gratitude was not quite emphatic enough for her savior’s taste, he accepted it with a smile and a bowed head nonetheless. When she launched right into something he could have done better, however, the grace washed right off his face. His expression turned to one of disdain, and his chains rattled as he crossed an arm and put the other hand against his chin, like a scholar deep in thought.

“Hmm,” he mused. “Are you not home? Of course, not in here specifically, for filth has no place in my immaculate cathedral. But rather in this dark, dingy realm. After all, how could you be here, if you really had a place among humanity? Just like all the rest. Unwanted, unloved, lost and adrift, defeated and doomed to fade away into obscurity with not a soul to mourn your passing. From dust you came, and from dust you return, eh? No wonder you showed up on my doorstep!” The priest clasped his hands together, closing his eyes with a soft, understanding smile. “But fear not. No matter how low one has sunk, I will show you love and mercy. I am, after all, the saint upon whom the wretched rely, he of whom is demanded so much without anything in return.”

During the course of the speech Barney’s scowl had grown more and more intense, leaving distaste behind and diving deep into the realm of repulsion. The smug pretension packed into every word leaving this guy’s mouth rubbed him the wrong way. Just like when some butthurt acquaintance felt like playing armchair psychologist, making insulting stretches and assumptions in an audacious attempt to get to the ‘root cause’ of why nobody else seemed to like him. It stank of unchecked egotism, but that in and of itself wasn’t what was distressing Barney so much. If it were anyone else he could maybe accept it as just another absurd element of this nightmare realm, but the fact that the priest said that he [i]was[/i] him threw Barney off. That made him think twice about all the perceived nonsense the priest spouted off, and it filled him with unease. [i]What is this?![/i]

Caelum had the answer. When the other guy hissed at him, Barney took a moment to internalize not just what Caelum said, but what he meant. It started to sink in. [i]Of course.[/i] That masked judge in the courthouse looked like President Myron Pondwater, but it wasn’t him.He’d been some sort of evil doppelganger, here for the express purpose of tormenting the people who’d fallen into this place, and it was the same with this prideful priest. He didn’t have any guards or monsters around, though, and Barney was sick of being the victim. Whether because of indignant anger or some sort of primordial aversion to his ostentatious doppelganger, Barney wasn’t going to stay quiet any longer.

As Caelum stepped back, wary of the shadow’s wrath, Barney stepped forward. He put an arm out in front of him and Mila, shielding them in a more symbolic than practical sense, but it succeeded in getting the priest’s attention on him. “Hey, shut up,” he heard himself say. For all the conflict and trepidation swirling inside, he managed to put out a decently deep voice and imposing figure when he tried. That was the side he wanted the others to see, and the idea of standing stall against this persecutor emboldened him. “All that crap about inferior, filthy people? You can shove it. Everyone runs into trouble and needs a little help now and again. It doesn’t make them worse, or the people who help them better. Especially people who just do it to shore up their own egos!”

“Oh?” With tented fingers and a tilted head, the priest smirked out his reply. “Is that what you really think? Or is it what you want people to think? Well, answer me this. Why do you help people?”

Barney bristled. “Because it’s the right thing to do,” he said, firmly as he could.

The priest shot him with double finger guns. “Exactly! Because it’s right. You and I always do the right thing. That’s what makes us righteous, compared to the wrongdoers. A cut above. Cut from a different cloth. Wouldn’t you say? That’s why we’re the exception to your little rule. Your line about everyone needing help. Not us. Because we are strong and righteous, we need help from nobody. That is why we can bear the burdens of all others!”

“You’re full of it,” Barney insisted, his rejection guttural. “Stop lumping me in with you!” He looked back at Mila and Caelum, trying to garner their support despite not knowing either of them. His insecurity, however, came through his voice. “Look, this crazy guy’s gaslighting me. I’m not some holier-than-thou egomaniac. I’m no different from anyone else.”

“You and I both know you don’t believe that.” The priest frowned, crossing his arms. “But since you insist, I have another question. Are you okay?”

Barney gulped, turning back. “W-what?”

“Are you okay?” The priest repeated. “You’re here, where people fall after being driven to the brink and over the edge. In the midst of a living nightmare, attacked by monsters and trapped in a prison of human sacrifice, can you look at the people around you and ask them for help?”

After flashing another glance back at Mila and Caelum, Barney thought of Felipe and Maria, of his mother and father, of his sister. He considered the homeless and starving, veterans tortured by their pasts, and victims of heinous crimes. Their pain was more real than any of this cartoon nonsense. He had no right to complain.

“Look, I’m fine,” he said. “I don’t know what this is but it isn’t real life. There are so many people out there, in the actual world, who have it so much worse than me. It’d be selfish to try and get other people to worry about me. And it’s not like they’d help me, anyway.”

He spoke from the heart with a full understanding of the bigger picture, sure that the truth would make this charlatan understand, but to his dismay he found the priest grinning ear to ear. “Finally, some honesty! You’re absolutely right. We’re fine. We’re totally okay. We don’t need anyone’s help. Because we’re stronger, more compassionate, more generous than anyone else! There’s not a soul out there who’d reach out to us in kindness, but that’s alright, because we don’t need it! So it falls to us to demonstrate to the worthless peons what being a good person really is! Come, let us rejoice in our suffering!”

“SHUT UP!” Barney bellowed, his voice echoing through the cathedral. He had a hand on his head, his fingers in his hair, and his other arm was raised with a balled fist. “That’s not what I meant! Stop twisting my words, and stop saying we’re the same! There’s no ‘we’. There’s no ‘us’. You’re. Not. Me!”

The words seemed to spark something in the priest. His expression grave, he tilted his head again, cupping a hand to his ear. “Sorry, what was that?

Barney fumed. “You heard me. I’m not what you say I am. And you! You’re just a fraud, and this is...is...a hoax! A setup...!”

“The only deluded one is you,” The priest told him. “But very well.” Seemingly giving up, he kneeled with his face on the ground, allowing his klobuk and robe to cover him. “If you will not come to your senses, it’s no use. I will grant you mercy.”

Breathing heavily, Barney allowed his arms to fall to his sides. “Finally, jeez.”

The priest continued. “...I will put an end to your misery, and take your place!” Alarmed, Barney tensed up again, but before he could do anything the shape beneath the robe convulsed. A murky red spray blasted out from beneath it in every direction, provoking an instinctive step back. Flummoxed once again, Barney could barely wrap his head around what happened. [i]He...exploded!?[/i] A second look, however, suggested that wasn’t the case. Much of the visceral slime appeared to be in motion. Bending. Squirming. Wriggling. It wasn’t just fluid. It was legs. Insect legs.

Beneath the robe, the body of the priest bubbled, twisted, and rose. It lifted upward on a forest of flesh-colored, arthropodal limbs, spread like the roots of the mangrove tree. As the sickening thing continued to swell upward the robe stretched and receded, growing ever thinner, wetter, and more translucent. Scythelike arms pushed out from beneath what now looked hideously akin to a caul, and a whiplike tail extended from a bulky abdomen profuse with pulsating blood vessels in strange patterns. The abhorrent [i]thing[/i] reared back, easily twice as tall as Barney himself, revealing a beard of twitching legs but nothing one could call a face. In a strained, barely discernible squeaking reverberation only loosely describable as a voice, the [url=https://i.imgur.com/HTsksrA.jpg]verminous shadow[/url] pronounced, [i][b]"Only self-destruction awaits those who reject salvation and foolishly elevate themselves. Therefore the worthy one must cast them down!”[/b][/i]

Barney turned to run, but like a mantis the vermin lashed out with a forearm and struck him. He soared through the air and smashed into one of the offering wagons, plowing straight through its shoddy construction. In the pile of wood splinters and produce he languished, fresh bruises aching, but he could not divert his eyes from the horror before him.