I woke up in a soft feather bed, I wasn't in any pain, looking under the covers I saw I was completely naked, all of my gear, clothes, and weapons gone!

  "What...the hell?"

  It was then that I heard a voice, "Oh! prin harul lui Dumnezeu! el se treze?te!"

  I looked up from under the covers and blinked hard, standing at the foot of the bed was a nun, she looked to be in her late 20s, looking around I could see I was in some sort of monastery or a convent. I'm not sure what you call a place where nuns live.

  "Uh...I must've hit my head, please tell me you speak English and you're not speaking something else." I sit up, the sight of my unclothed toned midriff causes the Nun to look away nervously, "??i voi aduce haine..." she turned and left, while she was gone I did my best to try and remember when I'd heard that language before, It was familiar to me.

  She came back carrying some jeans and a plain T-shirt, she tossed them at me and left again.

  "Great...I'm a victim of the age old language barrier." I got dressed, the pants and shirt were both overlarge so I used a small length of what looked like a flagellation rope as a belt. the room I was in had a true Gothic appeal to it, it had stained glass windows and everything but the wood furniture was stone.

  It was not very long before three older nuns were in my room looking me over, reading from a large leather-bound book and inspecting me, "Is that the bible?" I asked tentatively as they babbled at each other in the same language that the younger one was speaking

  One of the older nuns shushed me and they approached closer, running their hands through my hair and feeling my face with their gross old hands.

  "What...the fuck?"

  One of the not-so-old ones (still old tho) whacked me on the ass with a stick, "Hush! We're looking you over." The accent was unmistakable, I was in god damn Romania, "Okay...so you guys DO speak English."

  The stick came round again, PAP, "I said HUSH! I'm one of the few here who can understand you, I will answer questions later."

  They seem to finish their examination, and then the oldest flings a vial of water on me, muttering this time in Latin.

  "In nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti" she mutters, apparently it was a test because she nods at the English speaking one who walks away, "come with me."

  I follow, now thoroughly confused, she takes me out into the courtyard and I see the crater I made in its full glory, inside the crater is a pile of bones, it's the Dragon's skeleton, blackened dry bones unmoving in a blackened pit that took up half the courtyard.

  The crater still wasn't as big as the creature had been, depending on when he broke apart, his bones must have been scattered further than this.

  "Hey..." I ask, "hrm?" Asks the old nun as we continue past it, "how long ago did we fall out of the sky?"

  The nun laughed, "you fell at 8:00am on Monday week before last! Gave us all quite a fright."

  I shrug, the knowledge that I had been gone a week not as hard-hitting as I assumed it would be, I responded to her with apologies, "I'd assume, since I destroyed your courtyard, I'm so sorry, this must be very strange for you."

  The Nun smiled at me with genuine joy on her face, "My child, Pietra Nonia has been a hotbed of odd comings and goings for years, everyone here is used to it... it's not often we get visitors however, it is an honor to play host to so many unique visitors."

  I blink, "you get a lot of people like me?"

  She shakes her head, "no, not like you. Just very similar...I have to thank you."

  I must have looked confused because she smiled widely, "Thank me?"

  She nods, "You slew that horrible monster, we heard its roar before you hit the ground, a fearsome creature to be sure, and it must have tuckered you out, you slept a whole fortnight!"

  "A whole...two weeks?" I blinked hard, the weight of my missing time finally hitting my brain, "and I'm in Pietra Nonia...Romania?" The Nun and I reached the other side, at the chapel, "exactly, my sisterhood has overseen this chapel for so long, I've seen so many things, this is not the strangest, but you are, by far the most vocal of our visitors."

  "Did I have a sword with me?" I hadn't seen Blasphemy in the crater, it must have vanished again.

  "No, no sword, did you have one before you crashed?" I nod fast, "it's very important that I find it."

  She placed a hand on my shoulder, "We must first introduce you to the rest of the convent."

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  She pulled the door open and walked in with me behind her, the heavy door shut behind us.

  Inside the chapel were a dozen or so postulate nuns clustered around the statue of Mother Mary, praying. Postulates are nuns who haven't taken their nun vows yet so they wear different colors, and that is exactly all I know about that. "why are there so many new nuns?" Green asks, the sound causes everyone to look up from their prayers. The Nun I was with smiled again, "There was a bout of illness that took a large amount of the sisters last year, we've received an unusually large amount of new Postulates since then."

  I nod pensively as the older nun turns to the Postulates, all looking to be in their late teens, some a bit older but not much, telling them in both Romanian and English in turn that I was the one who fell out of the sky.

  After they all looked at me with these shining pure eyes, Green got all sorts of sacrilegious thoughts and I decided all of this needed to stop.

  "Ladies, I'm very far from home, and I just need a phone!"

  The postulates continued to ogle and it began to bother me.

  "Its not like I'm the archangel Michael, My name is Green, and I need a phone."

  In the midst of their contemplation of me, the older Nun sighed, "no phones in here, you'd have to go into town for that." As she said this, one of the Postulates reached out to touch me and for some reason it really freaked me out.

  I threw my hands up and left, pushing the doors back open to go look at the crater, followed by ALL the postulates, falling over each other to keep looking at me. I turned to the left and jumped about a mile high when I saw the older nun who had not left my side since I stormed out, she looked at me with raised eyebrows as I straightened my shirt, "We need to bury this thing...do you have concrete?"

  A few of the English-speaking postulates run off around the chapel and come back with powder in large bags, "We found this, is this what you're looking for?" I walk over and inspect the bags, "Brick Mortar...close enough."

  The older Nun put another hand on my shoulder, "But what about your sword?"

  I rubbed my nose with my thumb and forefinger, eyes closed in exasperation, I was just a guy who lost things and it bothered me.

  "we'll get to my sword later, it's not going anywhere.

  The older nun nodded, "as you wish." And with that, I began the lengthy process of breaking the bones apart and filling the crater with Mortar to keep this thing from rising again, The Postulates that I hadn't asked to help all watched in apparent awe as I used the one sledgehammer I could find in the abbey to shatter the thing's bones, legs, arms, toes, fingers, wing bones, jaw, tail, all the while pouring mortar and lime between the cracks and fractures, hoping this at least would keep it down for a little bit.

  You see I was under the assumption that it wasn't dead, when in fact Blasphemy had killed it pretty damn dead, but I didn't believe that for a second.

  The T-shirt was soaked with sweat and itching me so I pulled it off to wring it out, this got a collective gasp from the surrounding postulates.

  "Come on ladies, don't you have THINGS to do!?" I turned to face them to see that some had pulled up chairs, my scalp prickled with embarrassment.

  Now I want it understood that I do not consider myself handsome, nor do I consider myself physically appealing as my body was a tool for my job, all the time I was forced to put into honing it was like sharpening a blade or cleaning a gun, I had no idea what kind of figurative tunnel into hell, I was digging myself into when I took off my shirt that day.

  Later in the day, the hole was finally full of Mortar, Lime and Bone chips, I hadn't bothered to put my sweat soaked shirt on and was now using it as a hat to block the sun and cool off my back.

  All the while I'd been working and the Postulate Nuns had barely left me alone, only leaving for chores and meals, after which they would bring me food and water. They even attempted to make conversation with me.

  "You said your name is Green?" Asked one named Sister Eva, "Yes." I groan as I swing the hammer into the wedge I had placed in a hole in one of the shin bones, driving the wedge deeper and causing the bone to crack wide open, "like the color?"

  I stop swinging the hammer and she hands me the mortar pan, I take a glob out of the pan and slather it into the fracture, "Yes, like the color." I sigh and she rushes back towards the small crowd and I hear a slew of giggles before I continue hammering away.

  That's most of what I was dealing with, other than that, a few more asked if I was an angel and I usually didn't even dignify those with answers.

  I still don't know why they persisted in this delusion.

  Finally, after I had made sure the whole corpse was buried properly, I muttered to one of the nuns that I was exhausted, staggered into the room they made for me, and fell face-first into the feather bed.

  What felt like an instant later I was snapped out of a dreamless sleep by the nuns who had flagged down a car to take me into town so that I could use the phone.

  One of the younger, non postulate nuns was sent to accompany me, she spoke English as well as romanian and was willing to translate for me.

  "Hello, I am Sister Madelyn, I apologize for our Postulates, most of them come from incredibly repressive families and have read too many filthy books."

  I blink, "That doesn't make any sense."

  She laughed, "You've never been repressed."

  We set off and arrived in a quaint little town whose buildings looked to be older than most of the older residents.

  "Welcome to Busteni, where you will find a phone to call whatever masters you serve and be gone from this place."

  I look at her disgruntled face with a furrowed brow, "Sister, have I upset you in some way?"

  She looked at me with a serious glare, she wasn't bad-looking honestly, looked about 20 or early 20s, "I meant no offense, I only meant that once your masters hear you call, they will come to get you and there will be trouble for this town."

  I look down for a second, "you sound like you've experienced this before."

  Madelyn nods, "There have been other visits and other retrievals, often messy and troublesome for the people of Busteni."

  I became more and more concerned with each word she spoke, "How bad are they usually?"

  Sister Madelyn looked away, her eyes becoming glassy as she remembered, "There were fatalities last time...two children and their father."

  I blink, shocked, "Do...you know why?"

  She sighed, "One of the children got too close to the retrieval team and was reprimanded by the leader, the father stepped towards the man, whether to strike him or chide him for yelling at a child, we will never know, because the leader ordered his men to open fire on the family...they didn't stand a chance."

  I paused, the idea that such a simple mission could go so badly really put me off, but I had faith in my squad, I put a hand on her shoulder, making her jump, I tried to smile to reassure her, "I'll make sure it's not messy."

  She looked up at me out of her reverie, "How can you do that? Even if you ask, how can you be sure?"

  I smile wider, the solution was all too easy, "I have a different number to call."