Alex regarded the young-looking man and woman with suspicion. “Ekta and Yuti, can we speak with the librarian?”

  “You mean old Ekta?” Yuti,the priestess, tched onto that. “He doesn’t do ceremonies though, we only go to him to ask questions.”

  “The normal purification should work though.” Ekta sounded confused. “Everyone that comes here in need gets that.”

  “Can we just take the carriage inside?” Alex whined. “There are a bunch of cursed maids that we were looking to get helped, but it is a little cold out here.”

  “That is a really weird and big carriage.” Ekta eyed the carriage and the trailer home being pulled behind it. “You don’t have any demons in there do you?”

  “No, we didn’t even run across the ice demons out there.” Alex felt lucky. “Last time I was here we ran into one and he was very arrogant.”

  “You were here before?” Yuti eyed Alex. “You don’t look like someone who came here before. I usually can tell by just a gnce.”

  Alex thought that they were not even trying to keep up the charade at this point. “Look there are no demons, can we just come inside? Please open the gate.”

  “Fine,” Ekta turned a wheel that opened the gate. “But you better be telling the truth.”

  The irony was not lost on Alex, and Fufi too, who just looked at each other.

  They wound up the carriage, put it in gear and with a ticking noise entered through the gate. Everyone shed some of the yers of clothing when the temperature wasn’t punishingly cold anymore and exited the carriage.

  The maids of course swapped back into their maid outfits. More accurately, despite the cold, they swapped out of the plumber outfits as soon as they could get the fire going and just put yers on top of their maid outfits to stay warm enough. At least that is what Alex thought when they unbundled and were wearing maid outfits again instead of the plumber outfits.

  To be fair though, Alex also swapped into the cold resistance outfit as soon as they got through the portal and got the carriage up. But still, the maid curse was real, these people needed help, even if they couldn’t admit it. They all wanted to be called maid. It was not okay to have some kind of an identity loss going on.

  “Is everyone okay?” Alex inspected the maids for frostbite.

  “Yes, magical girl Alex.” The maids arrayed themselves in a line standing straight with their hands down and in front of them.

  Ekta came down from the ramparts of the gate. “So simir. What are your names?”

  “Maid.” The maids said in unison, overing the young priest a formal bow, also in unison.

  “It is the curse.” Alex looked from the group of maids to the young male priest.

  “We can lead you to your rooms.” Ekta gestured towards the rge temple. “I’m sure you’d like to rest after the long journey.”

  “It wasn’t that long.” A maid spoke up. “We were able to get here in less than a day’s journey.”

  The robed man inspected the maids arms. “Odd, did you not fly here? You don’t look like harpies.”

  Alex threw up her arms in exasperation. “Look, no one here has bird flu. We are going to the library and I know the way. You don’t need to help us.”

  The magical girl remembered taking the offer to sleep and having her clothing swapped out for a priestess outfit.

  “Okay, go ahead then.” The priest gestured them forward.

  Alex and Fufi led the maids into the temple proper and through the hallways into the library.

  The procession of maids entered, following Alex into the rge library tended to by the single, quiet librarian in priestly attire.

  “Um, hello child and women, how may I help you?” The priest had a slightly bewildered look on his face. “I’m Ekta, priest of Catalina.”

  “We’ve met before.” Alex felt slightly offended that he didn’t recognize her. “I’m Alex, remember?”

  The priest shook his head. “I met Alex a while ago, but she was a harpy. Then there was that unfortunate situation where they got a little too eager to help cure the bird flu. But you don’t look anything like Yuti. And you are much younger than the woman that left.”

  Alex had to facepalm. “I only looked like Yuti for a little while. As time passed, I became younger looking and turned back to what I normally look like. Well, as normal as I can say it is normal. I’ve looked differently quite a bit in my time here on Terre.”

  “I suppose I’ll take your word for it.” The older-looking Ekta chortled. “Again I ask, what brings you back? How can I help?”

  “The maid here are cursed.” Alex pointed at the rather simir looking group of maids. “They were made to wear outfits that turned them into obedient servants. And even it looks like when the curse runs its course to completion they can remove the outfit but not turn back to who they were before.”

  “You are in luck, there are many items of purification here.” The man looked at the maids. “Who created these garments?”

  “Mistress Yvne came up with the patterns for the maid outfits.” One maid stated. “She would do the finishing touches herself before we presented them to the trainees.”

  “They mean the demon that was possessing her.” Fufi corrected the maid. “I don’t think Yvne actually knew how to put demonic curses onto clothing.”

  “Demons,” Ekta mented. “They’ve been the biggest problem on Terre for almost a century now. For normal people they would have to find out how the curse was created and use that to form the magic for a reversal by altering the original. However, with Catalina’s gifts those with a divine css of the goddess can break them using a skill.”

  “Can you do that?” Alex gave the most reasonable man she’d come across in the temple a pleading look.

  “Yes, but it’ll destroy the cursed clothing item in question.” The priest noted the group of maids all wearing their maid-like outfits.

  “The mistress gifted these garments to us.” One maid stated. “It is our duty to don them.”

  “This is what we’ve been dealing with.” Alex grumbled. “We have lots of other clothes.”

  “A maid should dress in what her master or mistress expects of them.” Another maid stated.

  “Yvne expects you to have the curse lifted.” Alex narrowed her eyes. “And maybe when the demonic compulsion to be perfect maids is gone then being dressed up as a maid might not be as appealing.”

  None of the maids answered. She just received looks from them like a mother would give a spoiled child who was being bad.

  “If you care about modesty,” Ekta spoke. “Then Yuta could do it. Otherwise I’d suggest getting changed.”

  Alex muttered something about how she’d made a bck and white maid outfit back at Yven’s mansion but it got rejected even though it had stat bonuses to cooking and cleaning that were better than what the cursed outfits offered.

  After a bit of hesitation, the maids agreed to wear the priestly robes temporarily because fulfilling the mistress’s orders was more important than maintaining their maidly appearance. After cleaning up a room that badly needed dusting across from the library they got everyone changed and pced the pile of cursed clothing on the reception desk of the library.

  “Break curse!” Ekta held the maid dress aloft and it crumbled into dust on the ground.

  Alex winced at the mess it made, and so did all the maid except for one.

  The maid, who apparently just had her curse broken, blinked in surprise, went wide eyed and fainted.

  “Is she alright?” Fufi flew over and nudged the unconscious maid with her beak. “She’s still breathing at least.”

  “I think it is the shock of having agency returned to her.” Ekta kneeled down to inspect the priestly-robed girl. “She probably just needs to rest. A room could be prepared for her.”

  “No.” Alex shook her head. “I don’t trust the people of this pce to not use that as an excuse to take her to the spring and decide that she needs to undergo the ritual to be inducted into clergy. No one should be alone here.”

  “Fair enough.” Ekta sat back down behind the library reception desk. “It is going to take some time before I can use [break curse] again though. You are welcome to read if you’d like. Please no food or drinks in the library though.”

  Alex nodded and looked at the shelves. “Do you have anything about the demon queen or her generals?”

  Fufi seemed a little nervous about that subject. “That is some heavy subject matter Alex. Maybe something a little lighter might be better suited to pass the time. I don’t think we’ll be able to pose a meaningful threat to her for some time.”

  “I can answer that.” Ekta looked grim. “But are you sure you want to know?”

  Fufi shook her head, but Alex ignored the fmingo. Certain subjects Fufi had been evasive about and this was one of them.

  “I’d like to know.” Alex sounded sure of herself. “Did she come here on her own or did someone summon her?”

  “Does she know about the falling out of Luna and Catalina?” Ekta looked at the fmingo.

  “No.” Fufi sounded nervous. “It is an embarrassing story. Alex is retively new here and doesn’t need that baggage.”

  “But I want to know.” Alex stomped, a little annoyed that information was deemed too much for her like she was some delicate maiden.

  “Fine,” Fufi gave in. “But the demon queen's story is really unfortunate.”

  Ekta nodded. “The simple answer to your question is that the demon queen was not summoned, nor did she cross pnes to get to Terre. This is her home world.”

  “But I thought demons came from hell, and they had to be summoned.” Alex didn’t like that weird answer.

  “You are correct.” Ekta remained patient, taking a teaching tone. “But the demon queen wasn’t originally a succubus.”

  “Again,” Ekta paused. “Context is important there. The demon queen was originally human but that isn’t all.”

  “So she became a demon.” Alex looked confused. Apparently people could become demons.

  “Yes, but let me finish.” Ekta sounded a bit annoyed at being interrupted. “Before she was the demon queen, she was a princess. But not just any princess, a princess who got her css from Luna.”

  Alex blinked in surprise. Would that make her a magical girl princess?

  “It wasn’t until the camity that magical girl Cosmos and her team of magical girls pyed a major part in defeating that Luna was considered more of a minor goddess.” Ekta continued. “Before that, the books say that charisma is a better stat than cuteness. It was good for only niche uses so it was rare for anyone outside of crafters that wanted to specialize in making cute things to ask her for a css. No one asked her for a combat css until the camity started. That is when we first started seeing magical girls on Terre. There might have been others before then, but the history books don’t record them.”

  Alex listened intently.

  “Catalina and Luna have complementary domains, cuteness and purity.” Elta lectured. “So after the accords, Catalina agreed to help Luna because Cosmos, now a demi-god in terms of level, couldn't keep her role as defender because the dark deities thought being human and immortal because of her magical girl css was cheating the system.”

  “So a certain magical girl princess couldn’t age beyond being a teenager.” The priest took a breath. “But, she fell in love with a prince from another country. While in station she was a suitable partner for him, the prince shunned her because he liked more mature women.”

  Alex thought she could see where this was going.

  “But the princess couldn’t handle her feelings not reaching the princes.” The priest sadly stated. “So she found alternative methods of acquiring his affection.”

  “She became a succubus to seduce a prince that rejected her?” Alex thought that this sounded incredibly petty. “Would Luna even tolerate that? She came down on Sakura really hard.”

  Fufi shook her head. “She wouldn’t tolerate that. She wouldn’t tolerate that. Luna has dominion over magical girls but she doesn’t have dominion over demons. If she wanted to take direct action against a demon then the dark gods could respond in kind.”

  “So, the system doesn’t give demons a css.” Ekta expined. “But if someone’s race changes, they don’t lose their css.”

  “Could the demon queen not just have her css removed?” Alex thought this was needlessly complicated.

  “At this point, it is not just Luna and the dark gods that are affected.” The priest gave a thoughtful expression. “The gods try to avoid escating against each other. So the other light gods wouldn’t want Luna to do something that would cause the gods of another pne that isn’t supposed to be heavily linked to Terre to escate.”

  “I don’t understand how this turned into endless demons.” Alex felt confused. How did royal matchmaking turn into a demon apocalypse?

  “The demon queen seduced the prince.” Ekta said. “But he found out about how he was forced to love her because of her power. Her days of love with the man she pined for slipped from her fingers after he escaped her thrall. She became very bitter not just at the prince but all of humanity.”

  “Catalina, sensing her friend’s hands were tied, agreed to help.” Ekta gestured around the pce. “The other light gods saw this as a consequence of allowing magical girls in this world. Her csses sometimes function a little bit weirdly in the system.”

  Fufi nodded in agreement. She’d informed Alex about the odd match up of cuteness and charisma.

  “To make another long story short, The hero was summoned as a way for Catalina to help her friend clean up her mess.” Ekta didn’t like saying this part. “And a simir situation where the dark gods protected the hero from divine retribution led us to where we are today.”