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The mountain was cold. It had not taken Clown too long to gather what he would need, nor did it take him too long to find the first village.
It was a nice village, not too far into the mountains. It sat in a mountain valley close to a river that ran from the peaks of the mountains and down out of the mountains into the plains.
The streets were lined with goats minding their own business. None stared at him like they did in the last town.
Soon enough, Clown came across a library. On the sign out front it listed a bunch of things it contained, from fantasy to history to records.
‘Ah! Records! That's what I need!’ Clown thought to himself as he walked up the steps to the library.
He swung the door open and the sound of a bell went off, signaling to the librarian that someone had come in.
The librarian looked up from the book she was reading. “Hello!” She said, her tone cherrie. She had a smile on her face that fell when she saw that ClownPierce was the one that entered her library. “Can I help you find anything?”
Clown sparred a glance around and saw no one else in the library as he walked over to the counter.
He leaned on it and spoke in a quiet voice, “Yes, you can. I saw on your sign that you have records. I was wondering if you have the record book of the people who have lived here.”
The librarian nodded.
“Yes we- uh… we do. If you would just follow me.” She stood and walked out from behind the counter and led him all the way to a back corner of the library.
“These books are organized alphabetically. Each one three letters, in eight books. It goes by first name.” The librarian said as she stopped before a bookshelf, and pointed at the top shelf.
She took the first book down. “For example,” she said, flipping to a random page. She stopped on a page in the a section and pointed to the name Aour. “It says the name, Aour in this case,” she moved her finger next to it, “where and when they were born,” next to it read some numbers as she moved her finger onto it, “the years they lived here, 1949-1967 for him,” she moved her finger to a word to the right of it, “and if they are alive or dead.”
She closed the book and put it back on the shelf.
“I will be in the front, don't hesitate to get me if you need anything. If you need any additional information about someone, come see me and I can look it up in our private archives.” She said, immediately turning around and quickly walking out of view and up to the front desk.
Clown took the first book off the shelf again, and began flipping through it until he got to the ‘Br’ section. He carefully scanned over each name until he found Branzy’s.
It read; “Branzy, born 1999 in Valtin. Resident for 5 years, 2014-2019. Alive.”
Clown picked the book up and brought it to the front desk, turning it around for the librarian to see.
“Branzy. I need more information on Branzy.”
The librarian nodded, and pulled out a book from underneath the desk. She flipped through it and stopped when she found Branzy’s name in her own book.
“It says in my records that we have the information about him for when he lived here, and if you need before that you might need to take a trip to Valtin.”
She took a key out of her pocket and approached a door behind her, opening it and going inside.
She returned a few minutes later with a small book in hand and handed it to Clown.
“Here you go. Do you need to check it out?”
“Yes.”
“Allright, um, what name should I put it under?”
ClownPierce remained silent and stared at her, book in hand.
“You know what, I'll just put it under my name.” She stamped a page on a book in front of her. “The due date is in three weeks. Please have it back by then.”
“I will.” Clown began to walk to the door, but stopped before he left. “Which way to Valtin?”
“North East for about 2000 blocks.”
Clown nodded and was just about to leave when he heard the lady say one last thing.
“Oh, and just be aware, they're nuts.”
After being kindly redirected by the nice townsperson, Clown walked for thirty minutes, making his way to a more densely packed forest.
He entered the forest and walked quite a bit further in before he found a small town. It had no gate, no wall, and no guards, it was unprotected.
The streets were also barren. There were no small children playing about, no merchants trying to sell their wares, no people gossiping in the streets about who no whats.
As ClownPierce continued down the street he began to take note of the odd statues and symbols that were everyware. The statues, although they were not all large, were made out of copper. From the way that the statues were shaped, Clown could tell that they were some kind of religious idols, and he assumed the same for the symbols. He did not recognize them. In all his years of being around, in all his years of seeing religious things, he had never seen these signs.
Clown stopped when he found a large group of people gathered together. At the very front of the crowd, there was an elevated stage. On one side of the stage stood an older boy, a priest and a hand saw. In the center of the stage there was a lectern and behind it stood a second priest of some sort. The priest was reading from some kind of book.
“-has just turned 15. He is ready to surrender himself and become defenseless, placing his safety into the hands of Our Divine.”
The priest that was reading stopped, turned to the other priest and nodded. The other priest grabbed the hand saw.
ClownPierce’s eyes widened from his spot in the crowd as he watched the boy duck down, offering his horns to the priest as the priest began to saw through them with the hand saw.
The boy's face scrunched up in pain, but he remained silent, letting the priest cut all the way through the first horn, then the second. When it was done the boy stood up again, his face sweaty and his eyes staring off into the distance, seemingly at nothing. The people in the crowd began to cheer as the priest in front of the lectern returned to reading off the book.
“With this act I declare this man worthy. He has proven his trust in us, Our Divine, and our prophet Aour. He has shown that he is willing to abandon his horns to show his loyalty to Our Divine, and our prophet Aour who first listened to our Divine.”
The boy began to hobble off the stage with the direction of one of the priests, and down the steps on one of the sides. He was barely able to descend down the steps before he fell.
“We may now begin our celebration.”
The priest closed his book and made his way down the stage, leaving it empty.
Clown looked around at the other goats in the crowd to see if they were going to say something about what was happening.
But they all just stood there, the odd one turning and heading off to where the boy was and congratulating him and his family.
Clown began to turn to approach the priest when he noticed something he hadn't before, the priest didn't have horns. Like the boy who was laying on the ground, his head held hair and ears, but no horns.
Clown looked around him as he realized none of the goat hybrids had horns.
A cult. This was a cult.
“Can I help you, sir?”
Clown turned around and saw the priest who was reading from the book who was standing behind him.
“Do you happen to have a library here, one that has the record for the people that lived here?”
The priest looked at him suspiciously. “We do. However we don't just give out our records to people. Why should we trust you?”
Clown looked around them quickly, ensuring that no one was watching them. He sucked in a deep breath and he snapped his fingers, a pile of gold appearing in his hands.
He watched as the priest's eyes widened, sparkling with the reflection of the gold.
“Your ‘devine’ sent me. They needed the records of some people.” Clown lied as he handed over the gold to the priest who pocketed it eagerly.
“Well then, I believe anyone who has gifts like yours and serves Our Devine is welcome to access our records. Please, follow me.”
Clown handed the priest the gold before following him away from the rest of the group, towards a small stone brick library.
They entered, and the priest walked behind the counter and took out a small key, sliding it into a door and unlocking it.
Before the priest entered, he stopped and turned back to Clown.
“And whose record do you need, exactly?”
“Branzy’s. I believed he lived here from 1999-2014?”
The priest's mood fell slightly.
“Ah. Will do, I can get that for you.”
The priest disappeared through the door, reappearing a few minutes later with a book in hand.
“I have the information you need, so why don't we make a deal?” The priest asked, not handing Clown the book.
“Oh? What kind of a deal.”
“A simple one, information for information. I give you the book and you answer some of my questions. Sounds fair?”
Clown hesitated, remaining silent. He weighed the pros and the cons of accepting. But at the end he decided to accept, he would be willing to answer some questions to learn more about Branzy.
“Very well. What do you wish to know?”
“You said Our Divine sent you. And I know not to question their choices, but Our Devine has not spoken to anyone except for Aour, who wrote down their word for us. So what are you? Why did they send you?”
“I already told you why, they needed records of some people.” Clown lied, he hadn't ever heard of the thing they called Their ‘Divine’. “And does it really matter what I am? I came here to get information.”
The priest stared at Clowns' mask before he spoke again, “I feel you have a question of your own. Please, do ask it.”
Clown asked a question that had been on his mind, “Back there, near the stage you had performed a ritual of some sort. What was that?”
“That is our coming of age ceremony, I expected you to already know that because you were sent by Our Divine.”
Clown continued to lie, “Yes, well, I remember most of it, but the horn part, what was that about?”
“The ‘horn part’? What are you- Oh! You must be talking about the surrendering. Aour wrote down that Our Divine wishes us to remove the horns of our young when they reach the age of 15 to prove that they trust Our Divine to protect them completely.”
Clown stiffly nodded. It hurt to cut off horns, while he still had his own he couldn't imagine what amount of pain it would be to have them removed.
“Any more questions, or may I take the book and leave?”
The priest sighed and pushed the book over to Clown who picked it up.
“Only one I wished you had answered, what are you?”
Clown let a smile creep onto his face, not that the other could see it because of his mask. He put the book in his bag before he snapped his fingers, a flame appearing on the end of them.
He watched the priest stumble back with fear evident on his face as Clown reached towards the bookshelves and set them aflame. The fire spread quickly to the other bookshelves and soon enough almost the entire inside of the library was one fire.
“I,” he began as he walked towards the door, “Am a goat demon. I don't know what kind of messed up cult this village was built on, but it won't exist any more. Soon enough, all that will be left here will be burnt houses and memories. And if I ever hear that this cult is trying to start another village again, I will find it, and I will destroy it.” Clown finished as he walked out the door.
The fire had spread quickly and was now no longer contained by the library, instead corrupting and burning every house it could.
Clown took one last look at the burning town before he began his trek back to the first mountain town he found, the one where he got the first book. When he arrived, he rented an inn, and began to read through the books, savoring every piece of information he could find on Branzy.