Blood 42

Chapter 42
We return to Verna, who is languishing in her cell. She's given insufficient food and water and nobody tells her anything. Yeah, medieval jail sucks, doesn't it? This goes on for a couple of pages before another Nun, Sister Leoma, comes by to inform Verna of the results of her trial. Turns out the Nuns were holding her incommunicado until her trial could be completed, and she as been found guilty of being a Bad Nun, with Sister Ulicia being named Popette in her place.
Verna objects that Ulicia is herself a Bad Nun and that she attacked Hypocrite, but Leoma, quite logically, counters that the only witnesses to that were Verna herself and Richard. Ulicia and her compatriots claimed that they were attacked by Verna and Richard and fled to save their lives. Furthermore, Verna was heard explicitly telling Kevin the Guard that he should be loyal to Richard over the lawful Emperor.
Beautiful. I seem to recall commenting on the stupidity of that myself. \~/
We learn that it's been two weeks since Verna was imprisoned, and all of her directives have been reversed: young wizards have to face the test of pain, the Big Stone Witch House, will continue to provide infinite gold to all and sundry, etc. Verna objects, but Leoma points out that these policies have been in place for thousands of years. Yes, they've been handing out unlimited amounts of cash for thousands of years. \~/\~/
Verna kisses the place where her Popette's ring used to be, and challenges Leoma to kiss her ring, something you may remember Bad Nuns are unable to do. Leoma dismisses the suggestion. Verna insists that she knows Leoma is a Bad Nun, and since she's going to be killed anyway, what does it matter if Leoma tells her her Evil Plan?
And Leoma . . . does so.
Yes.
Leoma falls victim to one of the hoariest of villainous cliches: with the “hero” at her mercy, she reveals her evil plan.
\~/\~/
Leoma says that she serves Jagang, and that loyalty to Richard protects one from Jagang's power, which, sure, Verna already knew, but Leoma didn't know she knew. As such, she's handing her mortal enemy some pretty critical information for absolutely no reason whatsoever. This can't even be excused as infodumping for the reader, as we already found this out chapters ago. \~/
Leoma elaborates that her task is to force Verna to forsake her loyalty to Richard, although exactly why is not made clear. Presumably it's so Jagang can control her, but why bother? Verna is going to be an implacable enemy of Jagang – she already is, in fact – and Jagang's stated goal is the destruction of all magic everywhere, forever. Stab her with a death dildo and be done with it, you morons. \~/
Verna declares that she will never submit, and Leoma reminds her that she now wears a collar, and one of the collar's main purposes is to inflict pain. This terrifies Verna, as she had forgotten that, despite it being mentioned literally the same scene. \~/
Morons.
Drinks: 8
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