It had been a long day of looting secret weapons caches, collecting support items like spyglasses and hoarding gold krúricks for our travel budget, but we were finally heading for our main objective: Green Mountain Beach Temple, also known as Dynamite Temple in the speedrun community.

In the anime, the priests found the underground dynamite warehouse after a heavy sandstorm moved the beach dunes. Crys and Rain originally came to the Pier City to buy the dynamite, but due to unfortunate incidents they decided to take if for free. The big sandstorm wouldn't happen for several years, so we needed to dig up the dynamite instead.

“We'll make the priests dig, then kill them.” (Crys)

Crys offered a practical solution and I wasn't opposed to his plan. Dancer also seemed to have some personal grievances with the cultists.

“Can I shoot the priests after that, Crys?” (Dancer)

“Sure.” (Crys)

“Yeah, no need to dance around it.”

According to game lore, there were many religions before Strangers, but they all disappeared in the mass graves with their believers. The Cult of the Green Mountain was the biggest of the new religions that rose from the dungeon mines after the Strangers Era, and in all their temples, they kept slaves in the basement – girls and boys collected from the streets, abused and exploited by the priests.

It was basically the same situation I saw in Seitheargnagh, but this time there was no fear of Lucranah and we were armed to the teeth, so attacking them directly was fine.

The weapons and ammunition we carried now wasn't merchandise; they were booked for the run.

Speaking of ammo, we really needed the canal house cellar for all the exotic stuff we found from the secret caves: we collected periscope rifles, punching daggers, body armor, spike gauntlets, trench raid clubs, fire bomb catapults – the type of stuff we didn't really need now or couldn't sell immediately, but might become useful in the future.

We just equipped the best gear and moved the rest to the cellar.

Vampire Rifles plus good amount of ammo for Rain and Mirim were the most useful finds. The working Torch Gun was something only machine-Mirim of the future would be strong enough to carry like a normal rifle, so we had to leave that. The bulletproof undershirts from Snowflake Fortress weighted more than I expected, but I felt determined to wear the shirt every time there was even a hint of danger ahead.

We were on a good roll. Encouraged by this, I talked about my slave basement plan with Crys.

...That sentence might sound weird out of context. I told Crys that I wanted to free the slaves, but he wasn't fond of the idea.

“I know this might cause trouble, but we can think of it as public relations work for Revolution Movement. A mysterious group releases slaves, kills slavemasters, read all about it!”

“No. Blindfold them and send them to the woods.” (Crys)

Right. Crys didn't really care about this good guy reputation thing, but at least he gave his permission. He trusted that I worked for the long-term good of our party. In the anime, Rainwoman and Crystal Pencil didn't open the basement at all, so the slaves were trapped and burned with the temple.

But I finally had an opportunity to save some slaves and I wanted to seize the day.

Raid the temple, free the slaves, make the priests dig, take the dynamite, kill the priests, and burn all evidence.

Plan A is for Arson, plan B is for Blaze.

The Green Mountain Beach Temple at Cur Lagoon sub-area was originally an abandoned church-type building of unknown origin from times before Strangers. The Cult of the Green Mountain had occupied the building and retconned it to a temple of their own creation.

The outer stone walls with spikes had mostly sunk into sand, but the temple foundations and wooden inner walls were above ground. In a way, the temple looked like a massive beached houseboat or seasteading platform repurposed into a place of worship.

Digging into my art student memories, there were clear hints of Cambodian Khmer-style architecture in the bell towers, but mostly it was just good old Strangers brutalism: stone slabs stacked on stone slabs.

The evening mass had ended and young cultists had been sent back to the city to earn more money for the cult, so there wasn't much action in the temple grounds. There were still priests, armed acolytes and cultists inside, but they weren't expecting any trouble.

This place was just one of the many middle-tier temples in Pier City, after all. There wasn't anything special to this place until they found the dynamite and the cultists were still completely unaware what kind of treasure was waiting just around the corner under the sand.

When we came out from the forest road and traveled the flat, gray-colored strand plain interrupted by tombolos and sandspits, the temple building rose from behind the beach dunes like an artificial sea stack or some decaying monument to dead gods. Trivia fact: there was actually a small garden at the roof of the temple, but you couldn't see it from below.

We left our coach behind and walked up to a beach dune to check the situation with spyglasses. The wind was nice and cool, and the water looked fresh and shiny, but I had no desire to swim or frolic around. I wasn't a beach person at all.

I was worried about guards looking down from the windows in the upper floors of the temple, but since we couldn't spot any such guards, Crys decided that we'll continue with our plan as is.

“Remember to control yourself.”

“I will.” (Dancer)

Dancer returned to the road and started walking straight towards the front gate.

Kimono sneaked behind the beach dunes until she reached the side door of the temple, dashed in and killed the only guard acolyte we saw standing outside, and started loosening the hinges of the locked door.

While I kept watch on the surroundings, Crys kept targeting the upper floor windows with a Vampire Rifle. He had attached the laser card to his Vampire Rifle on the way and fired a few test rounds in the forest. He seemed satisfied with it, but used the telescopic sight for now.

No one came to the front gate and the gate wasn't locked, so Dancer continued to walk over the front doors.

The heavy wooden doors were painted yellow. In the anime, there was also golden carvings on the doors as well, but those weren't done yet.

Our plan was straightforward: Dancer would walk in the temple posing as a cultist, spin at the middle aisle and use his special skill to knock everyone down before they have time to understand what's happening. Then, Kimono will run in during the chaos and freely slice some acolyte throats.

In general, running in without detailed info was usually a bad idea, but a random guy walking in and spinning in the middle of the aisle probably wasn't the craziest thing they've seen here. Crazy cultists acting crazy is the norm, right?

“Liberate these marionettes struggling in Suleiman's coiled strings, huh?”

“...” (Crys)

“I stole your catch phrase, Crys. Sorry. I wanted to say it once.“

BOOM

The sudden pressure sphere of Dancer's spin shattered the stained glass windows of the first floor. Waiting for that trigger, Kimono pried the side door open from the hinge side and dashed inside.

“And so it begins; not with a whimper but a bang.”

I heard screams and gunshots.

We still couldn't see any movement in the upper floors.

A bald priest suddenly ran out of the broken side door and threw away his heavy robes. He ran straight towards us, probably heading for the road, but then he noticed us at the top of the dune (did he see the sun reflecting from our spyglasses?), screamed and beetled off the other way.

Kimono stormed out of the temple soon, trying to run after the priest, but this robeless cultist was running like a doped athlete in Olympics 100 meters. A relative of Linsapper, maybe? I was a bit jealous of this guys speed actually, even soft sand didn't seem to bother him much.

“We have a real sprinter here.”

Crys calmly turned his rifle, took aim and shot the sprinting priest in the back. That was the end of that athletes career.

We descended from the dune and ran to the temple gates.

“I'm sorry, brother. He ran outside so fast I couldn't catch him.” (Kimono)

“It is fine.” (Crys)

“Kimono, you could try strafing diagonally to add momentum from both cardinal directions.”

“...Brother, he is spouting nonsense again.” (Kimono)

After Kimono went back in to confirm that the temple was under our control, Crys said he would walk back to bring the coach closer.

I went in the temple.

The long, wooden benches and blue prayer carpets had flown all over the great hall. All the candles in the stands had been extinguished, but sun was shining in from the broken windows.

Most of the priests and worshipers inside the temple were dead. There were many frail-looking elder men lying dead or unconscious next to the walls. They probably died just by flying against the walls from Dancer's spin blast.

I did not hold any sympathy for them. They had once been young cultists, and now they simply gathered here every day to sip chifir and repeat old brainwashed cult stories over and over.

Dancer was keeping the few living cultists in check with his revolvers. I counted nine young cult priests still alive near the altar, on their knees and hands behind the back of their head. I had taught this pose to Dancer and recommended it for "arrests" like these.

I couldn't see the boss of this place, archpriest Byrknoth, among the dead. Was he in the temple at all? Byrknoth wasn't a required flag, but I felt a bit uncomfortable by the fact that he wasn't here.

“Dancer, did you find the keys?”

“Yeah, this baldy here had a keychain. He had all the goods.” (Dancer)

Dancer threw a keychain on the floor next to my feet and I picked it up. One of the young priests started screaming.

“You are dead, all of you! Don't you know who we are?!” (young priest)

“Oh, hello there, didn't even notice you! We are a tourist group from Nectar Sector and we came to admire your nicely aging temple. The rustic architecture is quite pleasant, but the interior design is a bit lacking in my humble opinion –”

“We are the Green Mountain!” (young priest)

“Sure, sure. We actually had a scheduled meeting with archpriest Byrknoth, he was supposed to guide us around in the area. Is he not here?”

“I don't what gang you are, but everything you have will be destroyed! We are the Green Mountain!” (young priest)

“Yeah, and I'm a flaming dragon. No need to say it twice, it's not important. We know who you are and we don't care.”

“That's right, puppet priest! Shut up or I'll shoot your ankles!” (Dancer)

Dancer accidentally fired a shot at different priest's leg immediately after giving the warning, so the verbal threat was practically unnecessary and screaming continued for a different reason.

“Trigger discipline, Vincent, we don't want unintentional discharges. They'll throw us out of the range with that kind of negligence.”

“Sorry, Speedy...”

“Oh great being, I have always praised you–” (young priest)

“You, stop praying or I'll shoot your friend again!” (Dancer)

Even if the Green Mountain somehow finds out who we are and decides to send a bunch of crusaders after our party, we'll be already on a different continent.

Another young priest raised his voice. Oh, it was Jeron.

“Tree of the Father will not forgive this defilement, you filthy pagans!” (Jeron)

“The next thing you're going to say is: I am part of the Golden Branch, fools.”

“Wha-wha...?!” (Jeron)

“Jeron, I've heard your dialogue million times. Your silly slave smuggling scheme to become the next archpriest after Byrknoth is not going to work. And no, we are not part of Golden Branch, the Golden Branch doesn't mean anything to us. You think you're just waiting for the right moment? Nope, you'll move only when something unexpected happens, like, say, discovering dynamite. In other words, the sign you are waiting will never come, so you will never make a move.”

The young priest named Jeron went pale. He was probably shocked out of his mind that I knew him and his secret scheme against Byrknoth, and even his secret affiliation with the secret society known as Golden Branch.

“Yes, Jeron-chan, I am the all-seeing eye, I am the all-knowing one. I am the senate, I am the Toyota Trueno, I am the Dempsey Roll. I graduated top of my class from the Jedi Academy and I have over three hundred confirmed kills. You should check my sweet sneakers instead of worshiping some piece of wood, kiddo.”

Excuse my language. I had some pent-up anger from previous temple visits.

In the anime, Jeron was one of the dead cultists that Crys and Rain found during their two-parter adventure in the Pier City. He was an undercover Golden Branch operative smuggling slaves away from the temple behind Byrknoth's back and pocketing the money. His body and his belongings were major clues that led Crys and Rain to this beach temple in the first place.

“Anyway-yay! Byrknoth is not here then? Did he take all his bodyguards to Snowflake Fortress? You, answer.”

The priest I pointed with my revolver didn't answer, but I could see from his face that I guessed right.

That being the case, Byrknoth wouldn't return until tomorrow. Another case of double-edged RNG – we can't kill Byrknoth now, but we don't have to fight his bodyguards either.

Kimono jumped behind the priests from the altar balcony. She had cleared the upper floors.

“Well, whatever then. Dancer and Kimono, be careful with these guys; there's a secret stash under the altar floor and there are probably revolvers strapped on the underside of that large candle stand. Don't let these dudes crawl there.”

“Oh, these baldies are not going anywhere!” (Dancer)

Now all the priests had a look of desperation on their faces. I had casually taken away their last straws of hope.

The larger temples were dangerous, but it was mostly just bravado here in the secluded east coast. I knew how the cult operated and where the priests kept their treasure-level items. Interrogation and torture were unnecessary.

Now then, time to free the slaves.