The next day, once both were up and ready to move they once more continued their trek to the church. Still, according to Mira, they had many hours worth of journey to still undertake before they would arrive so Mira took the opportunity to continue her crash course on how to not out himself as a non cultist. Her explanations were pretty thorough, but more or less boiled down to ‘if you are in a bind and don't know what to do, just smile and nod’. Which was pretty solid advice for life overall. But regardless after walking for a while Adam really wanted to stop the lesson so he decided to change the subject. Luckily for him, or perhaps unluckily for them both they finally encountered another cultist walking on the road nearby. He was not even looking at the two of them but the very fact there was now another cultist in the area cut short Mira’s lesson.

  “Blessings be upon you, brother, sister.” The cultist said with a polite and casual nod to the two of them as he walked past. It was obvious that the phrase was nothing more than a simple greeting as he did not even stay to chat, just acknowledged their presence. Adam turned to look at him as he started to walk away but a light jab in the side from Mira’s elbow straightened him up. At the same time she smoothly replied.

  “And blessings be upon you as well, brother.” She said with a faux saintly tone. The man said nothing more as he continued on his path, down the road, to wherever he was going. Once he was out of sight Mira spoke up again.

  “What did I say about staring?” Mira scolded, softly.

  “Sorry. I was just caught off guard.” Adam said apologetically.

  “It's alright, but from here on out we both need to bring our A-game. No more fooling around, we have a job to do.” She said with a stern tone. Adam nodded.

  “Right.”

  The next few hours were spent more quietly between the two of them. They still chatted, but nothing of real importance. The topics also were carefully picked to be about things a cultist would have access to, like activities in Midway. There was a lot of guesswork for things two cultists could casually chat about, but even in cults they still need entertainment. There is still gambling, there are still things more secular in nature, not everything revolves around religion. So for the most part Adam told Mira stories about Midway, and how it looked. As it turned out Mira had not actually been inside Midway. She had come through the gates to warn Adam about Famine, but she had never actually gone inside the city. After all, her plan at the time was to immediately flee. And before that she was kidnapped by the raiders before she really explored Chicago.

  Regardless, it was mostly idle chatter, nothing interesting, however the number of cultists in the area was quickly increasing. It went from that one man to groups of ten or more wandering around in the area very quickly. It was clear they were very close to the main base.

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  As if to confirm Adam’s theory, as they turned the corner around a half destroyed supermarket, he saw it. The Church of Salvation, formerly the Dukedom.

  The large building was very clearly designed as a high school for the kids of Chicago, Adam was familiar with the school but this was not the one he attended, this was too far south, he was in another school district. Regardless, while architecturally it was still pretty clearly built as a school, it had been completely overhauled with numerous upgrades to allow for more comfortable and safe living here.

  There once was a chainlink fence that surrounded the property but now it was surrounded with scrap metals tightly woven together to create a moderately sturdy looking wall. Guard towers existed along the wall allowing ample sightlines over the surrounding area which, from the front, was an empty parking lot. The sides had some decent clearance as well, as far as Adam could tell, and, from memory, the back had a playground, a track and football field, tennis court, and probably a few other things that Adam was unsure of because he did not attend school here. But there was no doubt it had been changed for living purposes.

  Even the parking lot outside the wall was converted into growing fields. People had purposefully cracked open the pavement to access the protected dirt underneath to start long rows of growing areas. And they were quite fertile by the looks of things. It was quite impressive. Though it had been very clearly co-opted by the cult as giant flag banners now hung down from the roof of the school displaying some sort of nuclear radiation symbol crossed with a cross shaped X overlaid behind it. In addition everyone here seemed to be in robes of the same kind as Adam and Mira, unsurprisingly.

  The front gate, a sturdy multi-layer combination of layered metal, was left wide open for the people to come and go as they pleased, clearly unafraid of dangerous elements getting in due to the heavy presence of armed patrols in the area keeping it clear of any hostiles. If they were not cultists that definitely had some shady aspects Adam could commend them on their ability to create a community. After all, this was the first place besides Camelot he had seen that left its door open for people to roam around freely. It actually felt safe, just judging by the atmosphere.

  There were cultists walking around, handling tasks, naturally, but none seemed to be frightened or in distress, they seemed to be living normal, happy lives, smiling and laughing about whatever joys they had in their life to share. It was almost surreal.

  However Adam stayed focused, he knew he couldn’t look around like a tourist. Maybe not all cultists had been at HQ before, but he did not know, so to stay in character he instead focused on the open Gate where another woman wearing a robe was welcoming people inside.

  “Brother, sister.” The woman said with a warm tone. “It is good to see you come, have you come for the sermon that will be held today?” She asked pleasantly.

  “Yes.” Mira said with a warm smile and tone of her own. “We have been out granting salvation to the nonbelievers until yesterday but felt it was time to once more come pray.” Mira finished, as if she knew exactly what she was talking about.

  “Wonderful, we gladly welcome you into our arms as warriors of spirit and soul. Please, come inside, the prayer room is soon to get full, if you do not hurry you will need to stand out in the hall.” She giggled softly to herself.

  “Thank you sister, we will make our way there now.” Adam said with a calm tone and a polite nod to her, doing his best to match Mira’s pace.

  “Blessings be with you.” She said as the two walked through the gate towards the school.