"Come on Barley, we're hungry!" Vessa whined, cleaning her nails with a ceremonial dagger. The group sat by their fire, huddled close against the alien world's chilly night. Barley, known as Fat Barley to his friends, crouched above the fire in meditative concentration, ignoring her completely, slowly rotating a huge slab of meat speared on a spit.
Jonah, the expedition's religious figure, gave Vessa an exasperated look, then continued his quiet discussion with Adam.
"The primal belief in Animism, with which humanity was fascinated some tens of thousands of years ago, eventually lead to the more enlightened Church of Nature". Adam, generally quiet and uncaring, listened with stoic regard before interrupting him.
"But that was bollocks as well."
"Not precisely," Jonah looked pleased.
"The Church of Nature furthered extremely, ah, shall we say, good interests in civilization - a simple respect to living things was the base line, and it was well-spread even among non-believers, and no central ruling power would discard a belief that held crime rates firmly down."
 
Vessa, ignoring the history lesson, eyed the meat hungrily. They haven't eaten since breakfast, some twelve hours ago. True, they didn't feel hunger at all throughout the day - busy as they were - but now it came down on her with a vengeance.
"Barley," she pleaded, playing with her little jewel-studded dagger,
"Why don't you let me cut a piece just for meself, I like it more raw than others anywho..."
"Shush" Barley muttered, never breaking his rotation of the meat.
"You eat with everybody else, you're not special."
Vessa pouted, idle thoughts of petty vengeance lazily blossoming in her mind.
 
"But there was this, uh, schism -" Adam struggled with the word. He was not a talkative man at all.
"Yes, precisely, the Great Naturalist Schism, two thousand years ago," Jonah explained.
"It began with a splinter faction within the Church, a rebel group who believed mankind to be intruding upon nature, a hindrance to the, as they said, purer forms of living, and they called back to the Animist heritage - mankind is befouling creation, mindlessly destroying all the wonderful rocks and trees that they believed to be sentient."
"And then the massacres -"
"Yes, the Schism Pogroms," Jonah looked genuinely sad, speaking of horrible events thousands of years ago.
"The splinter faction rapidly grew, lead by extremely charismatic and fanatic leaders, christening themselves Nature's Attendants - sworn to undo mankind's damage,
"And, as you said, then began the massacres."
 
It was a dark time in history. A blot in the history books. Attendants killed non believers and believers that weren't firm enough in dozens. Sudden, vicious attacks in city squares and markets - a group of seemingly random passerbys would pull hoods on their faces, reach into hidden pockets, unsheath cruel wooden gutknives, spread poisonous sap in the air, trample children who tried to cling to their bleeding parents, busy staring down at their own exposed guts in shock. Then they would disappear in a haze of blood and panic. You could argue that by their weapons alone the Attendants exploited nature themselves, but naturally and easily they could find explanations that lifted the responsibility from them.
 
"The original Church was helpless to intervene," Jonah went on, "A peaceful organization through and through -"
"Sorry to interrupt," Barley announced, looking around, "But dinner's ready."
The group quieted down as they cut off choice pieces and chewed hungrily. It was truly a long day.
They had explored a forest, as a way of breaking the monotonous exploration of the desert they initially emerged in. It was absolutely flourishing with woodland critters, completely alien but still quite docile to the human intruders, and one of the larger specimens, after being sketched carefully and described for later data output, was dispatched and now went down, in finely smoked pieces, into the explorer's hungry gullets. Adam carried out the execution swiftly, but wrinkled his nose at the great gouts of blood that stained his hand and knife, and the dying cries of the animal.
 
"Barley," Jonah spoke, unusually friendly that evening. "You've studied some ancient theology as well, isn't it?"
"Well," Barley said, seemingly sedated by the meal and wiping his greasy hands on his pants, "Yes, I did. 3 years, in fact."
"Really? 3 years?"
"To be precise, I had to take a course as part of my degree" Barley explained patiently. "Stoneside College students have to take a theological course for any degree at all".
"Oh." Jonah looked somewhat put off. "So I take you weren't really-"
"Well no, it WAS interesting, you know? Church of Nature and Disciples of Mother Mountain and Cave Children and that, but really I just wanted the easiest course." Barley smiled apologetically.
Jonah raised his eyebrows and kept on eating, silently.
 
They slept harried that night, feebly trying to ward off the Fifth Corps, as Barley had nicknamed the annoying, buzzing insects. Adam half sat, half lay next to the fire, seemingly lost in thought until sleep took him. Barley lay flat on his back, his belly sticking upwards like a gentle hill. Vessa haughtily lay down farther away, hidden behind a few bushes, and Jonah lay at the feet of a tree, half-hugging the roots.
A small, insect sound, chirping in a strangely repetitive pattern, woke none of them.
 
Jonah was naked. Naked and terrified.
He was sitting on an altar, dazed as if just awoken, in a great stone cathedral - like the ones he heard stories about as a small child. His head swam as he looked around, trying to put the scene together.
The floor was awash with blood and guts.
The smell hit him like a fist to the stomach. He almost retched.
The strong smell of iron and putrefying remains filled the air like an invisible force, weighing everything down. It was almost as if the weak sunlight from the stained glass windows was filtering through it, a stench so powerful it was like smog.
Laughter was all around him.
All around him, naked women, their faces cruel and malicious, knives in hand, were playfully stomping through the blood puddles. A distinct cry of agony was heard, and one of the women bent down to deliver a dying man out of his misery. She laughed at his panicked last gasp.
And then they saw him.
They all turned as one, eyes glowing, to face him, their jaws dropping down slightly, purple serpent tongues flashing out, slavering like mad dogs. They approached him, slowly, smacking their lips at the new delight -
 
Jonah woke with a start, cold sweat running down his back. It was very early, and everybody was still asleep.
He threw a fearful look around him, noticed Vessa still fully clothed and sleeping easily in the bushes, like a cat napping, and shakily put his head down again to the grass, begging for a brief restful sleep before morning sets in.
 
After they all woke, batting at their clothes to get the dust off. Vessa was particularly energetic, and seemed ready to set off at once.
She was hard to pacify after their first raid, and even she would grant it was a bad one. They almost died in that hellish desert mausoleum, the walls and the floor and the very air growing hotter and hotter as they escaped with their treasures clutched close. Scientifically it had very little intrigue - no hieroglyphs, no statues, no sarcophagi. A blank tomb, with no identifying qualities except the architecture - doorways just slightly too low for human standards, corridors occasionally turning abruptly into narrow tunnels.
And treasure. Marvelous treasure, with no discernible cultural traits to it whatsoever.
Vessa was the first to get a hold of herself and grab - and got the piece everybody was looking at. The dagger. Jonah settled for a simple but elegant grail, made of lacquered wood and carved with meaningless patterns. Adam picked up a red dice, with strange markings etched unto the sides, and put it in his pockets without much deliberation. Barley eyed what looked like ancient cutlery, but shrugged and left it there.
As soon as they turned to leave, a gentle rumble was heard, and the temperature started to rise, attempting to boil them alive for their transgressions.
 
They tread through the alien forest, growing more comfortable with it. Jonah was still shaking off his night terrors, and found solace in teaching Adam some history.
"So where were we?"
"I'unno," Adam shrugged, seemingly half asleep.
"Ah yes, the Pogroms, yes, I assume you know how that ended -"
"King put down the law" Barley mused, interrupting. "King put down the law, hard."
"Yes, that's true" Jonah ran his fingers through his beard.
"Yes, that's true entirely. The majority religious practices were banned during a period of emergency regulations. Nature's Attendants and anybody suspected as their accomplice were hanged, publicly, by the dozens. They tried to survive, feed off the resentment to the king, but it wasn't enough."
"Organized religion was extremely limited from then on," Jonah mused. "Original Church of Nature was still tolerated, but it was stripped of all privileges - they paid his majesty tax, and their followers thinned dramatically. No longer could they take in criminals as monks to forgive their crimes, no longer could they hold major celebrations of any kind. The legendary Season Festivals were all but forgotten."
"Mm," Adam muttered, trying to prove he wasn't falling asleep walking. They were walking for what seemed like hours, following a seemingly planned path through the woods. Barley trudged on, keeping pace but a tad behind. He was absent mindedly looking at Vessa's behind when a daydream crept unto him.
 
He was sitting in a circle in the dorm common area. Everybody around him was talking and laughing. It must have been his first year at Stoneside, and he barely made any friends yet. He was quite nervous of the other students, always seemed to think they're all a lot smarter than him. He didn't expect this invitation at all. Somebody nudged him from the side.
"You ever mull?" It was somebody from his class, he remembered vaguely. Dave or Doth or something.
He shook his head. Wasn't particularly sure what this was all about, actually.
"Well don't worry, it's no big deal, you just gotta... go with it, understand?"
Barley nodded, somewhat relaxed. The guy seemed friendly enough, and nobody seemed to act like they were doing anything wrong - nothing gave it away except that it was very, very late at night.
One of the students, who in Barley's eyes had a commanding aura about him, quieted everybody down with a few coughs.
"Alright fellas, today we have a couple of newbies!" Everybody cheered at that, and Barley felt cold sweat at his back. Was this hazing? Was he going to be hazed?
"Roger, and... Barley, is it?" He nodded shyly. "Barley! come, sit at the center."
Barley ponderously got up and sat at the center, facing the student he later learned was named Al. Roger, a skinny, scared-looking student came and sat next to him.
 
"Now fellas, we all did this once, so keep it cool, alright?" Al threw big smiles around him.
"Barley, Roger, do you know what Mulch is?"
Barley gave up talking, he knew he would stutter too much.
"It's uh, uhm, there's this stuff that you, you, mull in your hands and it gets you -" Roger nervously said, Barley certain his voice was breaking.
"That's right, that's precisely right, good on you." Al gave him a warm smile for that.
"But the first time you do Mulch you don't just mull it, man, you gotta have it all the way first."
Everybody around them was smiling. Barley was praying to high heaven they all really did that, too.
"Wha-what's that mean?" Roger stuttered.
"No point in explaining, dear Roger, when you can just go ahead and do it!"
Al then handed them both a handful of the strange, dry and yet somewhat sticky substance Barley presumed then was the so-called Mulch. It seemed worthy of the name.
"Now you're gonna mull the Mulch in your hands, but it won't do anything just yet - you gotta wait for it to secrete the oil, and then..." Another one of Al's big warm smiles, "You gotta drink it up!"
Barley was almost overcome with terror. Nightmarish visions of him going insane, becoming a disgusting addict to the substance, being thrown out of college, twisted in his mind like a horrific tornado. Slowly, after a few deep breaths, a numbness took over him.
He ignored everything else and just followed Al's instructions. He said them so casually and simply, it can't be anything other than the way to go.
 
When the Mulch in his hands started secreting it's oil, he lifting his hands to his face, and let it drip into his mouth.
A strange taste, like sweet vinegar, the smell of an overripe apple in his nose, actually quite good -
And the doors to Mother Gaia's world opened to him.
 
Present-day Barley shook his head suddenly, realizing he must have been gone for several minutes at least. He was still staring at Vessa's ass, but nobody seemed to notice.