The Second Nun's Tale
I'm not sure if it was because this story was really bad, or because my glass of bourbon was slightly too big, but boy this was a rough one.
Without any hint of interaction between our travelers—not even a "hey, you're up next"—the Second Nun begins her prologue, which is entirely-vague, half-baked preaching extolling the virtues of Saint Cecilia. The story of Cecilia's sainthood will be the Second Nun's tale, and she has to set the stage by letting you know that even her name can be conjugated into virtuous aspects in, like, four different ways. Eventually, she begins her tale:
Cecilia was born in Rome and raised as a good Catholic girl in a time when not everybody was into Christianity as a concept. Growing up, she decided she would make virginity her whole thing, kind of like how some people make bowling their whole thing.
However, she is eventually betrothed to a young man named Valerian, and they wed. The wedding night comes, and Valerian is expectant, because certain things tend to happen on one's wedding night.
"Hang on," says Cecilia, "before we do this, I have a secret I need to tell you. I have an angel who is always keeping me company, and he's going to watch you, and if he thinks you're going to be a true lover to me then you'll be fine, but if he thinks you're kind of an asshole then he'll kill you on the spot."
(For some reason, this reminded me of the protagonist from the movie Teeth. If you know what I'm talking about, you get it. If you don't, do not look it up, I implore you.)
Valerian replies, "As a man, I don't believe what women say. I'm going to need to see that angel. But I'm warning you now, if he's just your lover who turned invisible or something, I'm stabbing you both."
"That's fine," says Cecilia, "but if you want to see the angel, you'll need to go to the next town over and tell them Cecilia sent you. They'll hook you up with Urban. He'll tell you what to do."
Valerian finds Urban roaming around—an odd choice, given that Urban is the pope—and Urban proceeds to call out to God to inform him that Cecilia sent him another one. An old man in glowing white robes appears; it is heavily implied this is God himself, although it could also be Gandalf the White. The old man opens a book with words printed in gold lettering, and speaks: "Okay, it says here that God (me) is real and that he's (I'm) everywhere."
Then he asks Valerian, "do you believe this?", to which Valerian answers, "yeah, I guess so." The old man disappears, and Urban declares Valerian a Christian.
Valerian returns home, and now sees the angel standing next to Cecilia. "'Sup", says the angel, "I brought you guys some flowers. I picked them out of Eden, so they'll never die. Anyway, Valerian. Since you converted suspiciously easily, I'm going to grant you a wish."
"Well, I have a brother named Tiburce," says Valerian. "I think he should convert too."
"Good choice," says the angel. "I'll make you all martyrs so that you can join God in heaven."
"...Wait, what was that last part?" asks Valerian, but the angel responds, "Hush, I have your brother on line two."
There's a bunch of faffy dialogue for a bit as Valerian talks Tiburce around, and he eventually joins Valerian and Cecilia as an ally.
"Great," says Cecilia, "now that we're all servants of God and I've locked Valerian into chastity with me, you two need to go be baptized. Go find Urban again."
Tiburce says, "Wait, Urban the pope? How are we supposed to find him? He's on the lam because all the non-Christians want him dead. You recall that we're not particularly popular at this point in history."
"You'll be fine," says Cecilia. "Remember, you're being watched over by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
"Waaait," Tiburce replies, "that's three gods. You sold me on there only being the one."
"Oh, it is just the one," says Cecilia. "I promise this religion isn't confusing or anything. If it helps, think of it like how a D&D character has their mental stats broken up into Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma."
So Valerian and Tiburce go find Urban, and they get baptized, and everybody is happy.
Well, except for the Romans. One of the Roman prefects, Almachius, finds out who the brothers are, and takes them to the shrine of Jupiter to worship. They refuse, so Almachius says, right, then cut their heads off.
An officer of Almachius, named Maximus, stays the execution, and he takes the brothers and his axemen all back to his place. The brothers' preaching converts Maximus and his goons, and in the middle of the night, Cecilia sneaks some priests in to christen them. "You'll still have to cut their heads off," she says, "but you're pre-forgiven on this one."
Valerian and Tiburce are executed shortly after. Maximus gets a little too preachy about how he watched their souls ascend to heaven, so Almachius personally flogs him to death.
Next he calls for Cecilia to be brought in. At this point her influence has converted a good deal of Almachius's court, so he needs to see who exactly this person is.
When she's brought before him, he asks her, "Okay, so tell me about your religion and belief." Right off the bat, Cecilia gets pedantic, replying that, "actually, those are both the same thing to me, so it was silly to ask me to tell you two things when I can only tell you one." This is obviously a great start, and the rest of the conversation goes exactly as you'd expect from somebody who is clearly aiming to martyr herself in defiance of The Man.
After arguing in circles for a while, Almachius finally decides to have her put to death, ordering that she be placed in her bathtub and a fire be lit underneath it. Despite the fire burning all night, nothing actually happens to Cecilia, so Almachius just shrugs and tells the executioner to chop her head off instead. The executioner hits her neck with a sword three times, but only succeeds in horribly mangling her rather than fully decapitating her, so he too just shrugs and everybody in Almachius's court gives up and goes home.
Cecilia, despite being the O.G. Nearly Headless Nick, preaches to her followers for three more days before she finally succumbs. Pope Urban leads a black ops mission to recover her body, and proclaims her a saint.
Here ends the Second Nun's Tale.