Princess Phyllis left Anvil Fortress with an indescribable sense of defeat and a trace of icy anger.
Chris's refusal to budge had rendered her carefully prepared arguments, along with the bargaining chips she had yet to reveal, little more than wastepaper.
Yet the matter did not end there. Shortly after Phyllis's delegation departed, two solemnly worded requests for an audience, each bearing a personal signature, arrived on Chris's desk almost simultaneously.
One came from the Earth Mother Goddess Church, signed by its newly appointed High Priest, Byron Thorne.
The other came from the Goddess of Agriculture Church, signed by High Priest Lydia, a name familiar to Chris.
Chris looked at the two requests, his brow furrowing slightly.
He had yet to formally meet the new leader of the Earth Mother Goddess Church. As for Lydia, the young priestess had left quite an impression on him thanks to the Players' photographs... though he had never met her either.
Now the high priests of two churches with irreconcilable differences were coming together. Whatever lay behind this was clearly no small matter.
So, after a little thought, Chris agreed to meet them.
The next day, the heavy door to the small reception room opened once more.
This time, those who entered were not a meticulously dressed princess, but two religious leaders wearing the vestments of their respective churches.
Byron Thorne, the newly appointed High Priest of the Earth Mother Goddess Church, was an older man who appeared to be in his fifties.
He was tall and slightly stooped, as though he had spent years bending down to study the earth. His face was weathered, its deep wrinkles like furrows in a plowed field, and his graying hair was impeccably combed.
Byron wore a heavy, plainly cut robe sewn from coarse, dark brown hemp