Outside of Solaire’s Meridian Skyscraper, a rumbling occurs. A bright flash of energy lights up the night sky as a massive portal appears. The lights eventually dim and a block away from Solaire lies a new building. A huge and rather impressive looking gothic chapel with a stained glass window, which currently has a yellow crescent moon can be seen. Out near the ground, a black and gold plaque stating the chapel’s name can be found, stating it to be “The Church of the Full Moon - Meridian.”
A crowd of people are outside of it, many wearing black robes with moon phases on the back, are congregating near the chapel. A stage with a large red curtain and loud speakers is found at the front of the throng, and behind them are tents set up with food and merchandise. It’s like a block party! For a church! There’s absolutely nothing sus about this. The crowd seems to be waiting with anticipation for something to happen.
Flyers are spread throughout Meridian advertising the new church and with it, safety and family for those displaced by the apocalypse, as if offering an alternative to those uninterested in other options. Completely coincidentally, Spider wearing her trademark leather jacket and sporting furred ears atop her head and a wolfy tail walks by the chaos lost in thought. Her tail wags slowly as she goes to investigate.
The sea of church members catches Spider’s eyes. Most of the cul-- churchgoers have robes with various moon phases on their backs. Most of them are black circles with nothing in them, though a few are crescent moons, and two half moons. No full moons though. Perhaps it’s a way for different people to identify each other? They’re just standing around and conversing, not really paying attention to anything important. The scents coming from the tents in the back remind her of a generic carnival, mostly fried foods are being sold here. Spider chuckles and mutters to herself, “So what happened to the full moons? Did they all get sacrificed or something?”
One of the new moons notices Spider not wearing a robe and approaches her with a bright smile plastered on their face, “Oh hello, are you new here?” They’re about 5ft 4in and skinny. Hints of long red hair peeks out of the hood and their voice is vaguely feminine.
Spider nods, “Well all of this wasn’t here last time I was in the area, so yeah.”
The person continues to smile, as if their lips are frozen and unable to move, "Well, welcome to the Church of the Full Moon ~ New Moons ceremony!!" They seem really cheerful, but it's still weird that their mouth doesn't move despite speaking.
Her ear flicks and the frozen lips only sets off alarm bells, "New moon? Bit late for that isn't it?”
Their entire face seems to be frozen; not even any blinking. Something feels very off about them.
Spider's hand goes to her knife handle as she narrows her eyes at the new moon, "You still with us?"
After a couple moments, they’re back to their cheerful self even with their face frozen. Despite this, they can speak clearly, "Ah yes!! I was just listening to something!! Would you like to see what the Church of the Full Moon could do for you?"
Spider doesn’t trust this at all, but her curiosity wins out, "I mean...sure?"
The New Moon leads Spider through the crowd and up to one of the Half Moons, calling out to them, "Yoohoo! ADMIN Artemis, we have a new recruit!"
Unlike the New Moon, the Half Moon doesn't have the same creepy smile. And their face is able to move. They look at Spider with curiosity, seemingly interested in the wolfyness. This Half Moon is 5'11 and seems masculine with a gruff voice, with greying hair and a beard. With a slight smile, Artemis says, "Welcome to the Church of the Full Moon!"
Spider is barely able to resist growling at Artemis before they manage to pull themselves together, "So what's the deal with this place then?"
Artemis turns to the New Moon and does a hand gesture dismissing them. Then he turns to Spider, "Well, it's a family of sorts. Our goal is to provide shelter and community despite the trying times this World is going through. At the Church of the Full Moon, we're all family. All working together to ensure survivability for everyone."
Spider mutters to themselves, "Where have I heard that before… The moon's an interesting thing to base a church around, though you'll have to forgive me if the robes and insistence on being a family don't sit right with me."
Artemis tilts their head, "what do you mean?"
There's a bit more of a commotion coming from the crowd as the music dies down a bit. As they're in the middle of it all, it's coming from all sides at once.
Spider grumbles a bit at the commotion "..nevermind, so what's going on here then?" She already has some idea but she wants to hear his take on it.
Artemis looks over at the stage, "It's the ceremony for all of the New Moons to join our family! Our leader speaks a prayer whenever our family grows, and that allows all of our Moons to be a part of us! It's always a gigantic celebration anytime we do this."
Spider shrugs, "Makes sense. Though I'm curious, again, why the moon?"
"Because a great eclipse is coming. It is our destiny." Artemis's words sound almost haunting. Like he's not even the one saying it. "Ah, Sol's here."
And then it happens. A tall black-robed man walks across the stage as the crowd erupts in loud cheering and applause. Anyone paying attention to his back can see a full moon on it. He very rigidly turns 90 degrees towards the podium in the center of the stage. The crowd continues to cheer and applaud him. He seems to be rather old, with long gray hair and an amazing beard and mustache combo to boot. He's rather burly as well. As the crowd continues going absolutely wild for this man, he places a single palm up as if asking for attention. The crowd takes the hint and quiets down. After he has silence, he begins to speak.
"Family members, and new moons. I, Lunar LEADER Sol, welcome you to the CHURCH OF THE FULL MOON!!!"
The crowd erupts into loud raucous cheering before quieting down once more.
----
Sol looks like this. As many members of the Church of the Full Moon are unable to have pictures of them taken, a Picrew of their image is created instead. Please note the red eye. It's important.
----
Spider covers her ears wishing for the end of humanity or at least the end of the racket as they watch Sol walk out and talk. Once more, she is not liking any of this.
He continues as soon as the rabble quiets down. "As is tradition for all New Moons, I ask you take a moment to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and listen to my prayer quietly." His voice has a vague german accent to it, though also rather raspy. Despite this, his English is near perfect. Sol opens a book at the Podium. It's a rather thick and heavy looking tome with leather bindings. On the cover is a crescent moon, but no other words can be seen, even with near perfect vision. He takes a deep breath and speaks the following prayer. It's... weird, almost as though he were speaking a whole other language. "A kplkfqw owl ww smf Yee Dsgbd avu xzs ceak sx cfr Nrqazj on Dsgbd tw fyj bpw Kyyjqs on klw Tflt Dsgb. Web lw hfly. Ofhk Omodv, aw qllt ks lvpe nfv yitdiegw wy tpvww hcyqek lwxea. Fyj tlmqcc fspda jexsey bf wmfgidv. Yfhtl byif, kp hwgi xcc fwikajpnmjw xcc oci qagoemuw sbo mqjxsyps ij wmb meozrk wes Mtpadde! Afsf, HSE NLPD AZOV JLSZW RQJI. LVP NQXLL KTLT CEKH QOZVZWF!"
After finishing, the crowd is completely silent. Even Sol. It's not out of confusion though. Every single person in the crowd nods once, as if they understood it perfectly.
Spider drops her hands as Sol recites the prayer before looking around at the rest of the crowd muttering to themselves, "Yeah... cause this isn't cultlike at all."
The silence is deafening. Absolutely no one is even moving an inch. In fact, the only one to move around is Spider. Sol scans the crowd and notices exactly that. Artemis snaps out of whatever trance he was in and attempts to apprehend Spider. He tries to take their arm and lead them to the stage. Spider snarls, flinching as Artemis touches them, then socks him in the face. It works and Artemis is knocked to the ground. Seems he wasn't prepared. Sol doesn't make any moves. Spider looks over at Sol, "Not sending anymore minions at me then?"
Sol is silent, the entire crowd is silent, and Artemis is on the ground whimpering like a bitch who got hit by a wolf. Blood seeps from his nose.
Confused, Spider steps forward to see if it triggers anything but nothing happens. Nothing happens. "I'm gonna regret this aren't I?" After a minute they attempt to walk up onto the stage to check out the book with a hand resting on her knife handle. As soon as Spider arrives, Sol turns to Spider with a stranged almost-forced grin on his face. Spider gets a better look at Sol. His left eye is covered by a black eyepatch and his right eye is glowing a deep crimson. From the corner of her eyes, Spider is also able to notice the entire crowd has red glowing eyes. They’re all watching the stage completely silently.
Sol speaks with a stiff voice, “Hello.”
Spider flinches as she turns to face him then notices the crowd which reminds them of Luna that one time, "Well this is uncomfortably familiar, and hi."
Sol takes a step forward. "Welcome to the Church of the Full Moon. Would you like to join our family?" Two people stand behind her and attempt to block her exit off the stage.
Spider growls at Sol, “Not particularly.” She searches for another exit that doesn’t involve crowdsurfing.
The stage is nothing more than a giant hollow wooden crate with a thin black curtain on its back. The main exits are blocked. The side exit is blocked. The guards and Sol all take another step forward, "This isn't a request."
"Well shouldn't phrase it like one should ya?" Spider grumbles, seriously considering the crowd surfing option.
Sol goes silent, questioning its own words before taking another step forward. The guards take one more giant step forward. Time is running out.
"Fuck it" They jump off the stage to escape, 'live' to fight another day and all that
The crowd doesn't move. Seems whoever is in control of this situation doesn't know what they're doing. A couple attempt to block Spider's path, but they're not aggressive in the slightest. Another two go to punch Spider as they move through the crowd, but their attacks land on other New Moons. It's chaos, but it's not dangerous, if that makes sense. Now what is dangerous are those two guards from before. They have daggers and are chasing Spider through the crowd.
Make your move.
Mini Boss ~ The Hypnotized Horde - BEGIN!
battle theme: Chaos at the Church
As she takes in the chaos around her she can't help but laugh at how terrible this entity is, and so as she spots the guards they decide to have a bit of fun She pulls her knife out and rushes towards them aiming a slash at the closest one. The one closest to Spider gets slashed in the chest. The pain received from this hit seems to snap them out of whatever trance they were in. The other guard attempts to disarm Spider of her knife by slashing them with its dagger. It does not know about Spider's innate quirks. The rest of the crowd continues to watch as the battle theme plays over the speakers. Whoever this controlling entity is, they sure love chaos. The one who got slashed hits the ground, "Sorry ma'am."
She dodges to the side and uses the handle of her knife to bludgeon the second guard. Then they turn to the first looking almost confused for a second at being called ma'am. Her expression goes neutral as she shrugs at them, "It's fine." The same result happens. The pain leads to them blinking and their eyes return to normal. They snap out and apologize to Spider for attacking them. The music is still going, but none of the other crowd members are moving. Spider has an escape route! She takes it, as fun as it was to fight those guards she doesn't fancy becoming a cult member just yet.
As soon as Spider escapes, the whole crowd collapses. It sounds like a loud FWOOMP. When she turns around, she notices the whole crowd is slumped over as if they had invisible puppet strings attached to their limbs cut. The music has stopped, no sounds can be heard, and Sol is gone. Spider pauses and looks at the defeated cult members for a few minutes before sighning and heading back to the house. After a few hours passes, the crowd disperses, confused as to why they’re on the ground. The only people to have any recollection are Artemis, the guards that attempted to strike Spider, and the two New Moons who attacked each other like idiots.