The Dead God's Priest (Open)

[Eridanus]

Eridanus recognized the latter name, for who wouldn't know the name of Alvadas' patron deity? However, that first name caused the ethaefal to direct a sharp glance at the mountainous man.

Xhyvas...?

The man continued to speak of ascendents, conflict, murder and conspiracy. Most of it escaped the ethaefal's understanding for it was the way the man phrased the words. Only people in the know would know what he was talking about. It was filled with words tinged with insider knowledge, with references that strangers like himself could not hope to understand.

"What is this about Xhyvas' murder that Ionu knows about? Who is Xhyvas?"

[Ulric]

Though hardly given over to incredibly, the sight of that short, stocky man creeping to the benches drew a distant look. The tug of his lips, jerky in a discord that presently yielded before the scar of a grin. That was the lying rictus of his visage. “Thought you’d be dead by now,” he grunted, the inherent gravel of his voice breaking over the rafters. That’s what you get for hiding, he snorted. “D’you know, I nearly expected there to be a deluge of harlots clinging in your wake, or the gods forbid. That’s certainly better than a crazed artist. There’s room enough by the altar, if you can promise your dog won’t foul my floor.” He extended his arm, the wrong arm, and his features were broken by a grimace. The burning in his shoulder, the chips of reset bone under mending flesh, weren’t his only scars.

There was value in suspense. The nudge of a toe, testing dark waters. He’d pawned the discordant vagaries of divinity, and now, concerns of the trivial eluding him again, he returned his gaze to the other. There was a restless desire to glean, fixated by arcanely shifting eyes. That told him enough.

Ulric gave his fingers a curl. He’d culled the shadowy corners, but they kept misting with ghouls. He could hear it, the hymn of rattling chains, broken by a turgid draining. “Xhyvas, you see, was a god,” he grunted, as though the irony might further ignite his lonely brazier.

This wasn’t a farce, but he, most certainly, was a mummer. There was a revelatory huff, sifting in a dry, creaking laugh. There was a frailty in it. The masonry, though scrawled by legions of faded graffiti, was inscribed with the sincerity of his invocation, if not the skein of doubt. There was a god. That god was not him. The thought, like an ulcer, was constantly rebelling in his chest, like a scab he was direly averse in peeling. “Xhyvas,” he spoke at last, “was patron not merely of possibility, and also transcendence. There aren’t any cults that bear his name, apart from my own. There aren’t any scrawls of him in dusty tracts, in the creased, leather tomes stacked up to the arches of any temple. That’s no mistake. The gods have scoured, and rinsed his name away because of what he dared. There are surely clues, fragments of veracity lying concealed. That is beyond my knowing, for I only comprehend by the lady of time’s intrusion, and by hearing Xhyvas.”

Vaguely, his jaw tugged up, and there was something leonine in the feverish smolder of his eyes, a glint of conspiracy. “Though they tried, they couldn’t destroy every vestige of transcendence.”  

[Eridanus]

The large armor-clad man spoke to someone behind Eridanus, and the ethaefal turned his head to find a familiar midget and the dog that was always with him. What was with their constant affinity? It was as if the city liked bumping these two together for some reason. The most interesting thing about it all was how individually Bob and Eridanus had a penchant for attracting trouble, though the ethaefal's was a passive thing while Bob was more due to his actions. However, together they attracted the worst sort of trouble.

The ethaefal cringed slightly.

Turning around, he listened to what the man had to say, and he cocked his head to one side, intrigued. He had always been interested in forgotten and lost knowledge, and the idea of a dead god scoured by divinity proved to be an attractive bait.

"And you are his priest? Xhyvas' I mean. What... does a god governing the domains of possibility and transcendence do?" His mind whirred as he tried to find an idea on what domains the god was in charge of, if the man was telling the truth. Possibilities... does that mean he was similar to Tanroa in a way for him to see possibilities in the fluid stream of time?

"What is transcendence?" He wondered aloud, more to himself than to anyone else.

[Bob Barton]

Does everyone from Ravok have to think that Bob was dead by now? That was kind of sad especially "after what we've been through together, I'm surprised we're both not dead catching something from those harlots..." It was not Bob who was cruel enough to drag a child to some grimy brothel. An experience that still brought a chill to his spine just thinking about it "...or painted red by an artist?" Could that small weirdo be thought as one? When he fought, if it was something someone would call that failed clash, Bob thought that the man was something like a janitor who did not like drunkards pissing around to increase his workload. That was enough cockfighting. Before taking his seat Bob promised that "Jinsen won't foul up your place." It was the truth because in his opinion, anything the dog does would be an improvement to the ruined place though with the face that Mr Grumpy is pulling showed otherwise.

That was almost enough to make Bob not want to take that arm which he did not because he was thinking whether he was going to be dragged off to someplace horrible again. "Should've brought the mask" he mumbled to himself while he waited for the discussion to continue. What else could thise meeting actually be about? "Xhyvas? What happened to your Rhysol" which Bob knew everyone who was from Ravok obsessed over. Even the season there could not tell him why, just like he could not tell now what was up with Ionu for everyone in Alvadas. They were all complicated things just like the idea that were being expressed now by the so called leader of the cult.

From his experience, Bob knew that anything to do with religion is bad. Forget about the gods, even the followers were nuts like this one although what he was talking about seemed interesting. "The only thing I like about possibility is that one chance" which can make anything happen. However since Bob never bothers with preaching he found himself asking "what did he dare to do?" with a lot of curiosity. He heard about the exploits of some of the other gods and while a lot of them just seemed out there, nothing important to him, there were always some of the more noteworthy ones. This could be one of the latter since those other gods thought it was important enough to hide.

Just like "how do you know something that the gods tried to hide?"

[Ulric]

Ulric gave a shrug. “Xhyvas, even for me, is purely a deity that used to exist, like a vast, nebulous worm in whose belly reside myriad ways of seeing. There’s nothing inherently powerful about him,” he grunted, biting his lip. That was a simple query, but it levied upon him the entry of a deeper catacomb. The veracity he sought, just waiting for delving. There was a vague clank as he unclasped the altar, and he trudged from behind that preponderance of stone, his eyes like embers. “There’s more to him than that, though. There’s always more. That’s what he wanted to convey to me, when he ignited that inferno in my veins.”

Drawing nearer, he surveyed the planes of their faces. There was a cryptic silence, like a stain that wouldn’t scour away. The patina of his eyes betraying a desire to wrest away the chimera. “Tanroa was the conduit,” he rasped. “Through her, I was him for but a fraction of an instant, and I saw everything our existence could be. The furl of a sail, the sorrow of a heart, the trajectory the balmy gusts traced over my fevered flesh. That was his power.”

“Xhyvas’ ingenuity, and his wisdom, permit us to foster harmony, or discord if that’s your desire. There are infinite tracks, such a wealth of possibility. Thing is, there’s only one decision you can make at any juncture. That’s the fringed veil of his power. That you must choose, an in a way, trace the lines of fate.”

“But he’s dead.” And here, he gave a sigh. A soft, almost pitiful thing, wildly dissonant with his steely visage.

Ulric had already, in the conjuring of this temple, formed an accord with his delusion. Though he wasn’t anything like a priest, didn’t bear the whorl of a mark, he was intractable in defying the cantrips of the gods. They wouldn’t thwart him, not in this pursuit. There’d only be neglect, and a turgid forsaking of all he’d fought for, but he had to try. Though he didn’t perceive the way, as would his god, he’d made a choice. That, above anything else, was sacred.

Taking a nearer look at the midget, he forced a chuckle. The insinuation was nebulous, sprouted of an incessant japery. That wasn’t so uneasily subdued, like a skin of sour, vinegary wine. “Rhysol, for all his power, and his tricks, is but a pitiful thing. To rise, he must destroy. To control, he must betray, and deceive with his mirrors. There’s nothing truthful about him, and that’s inherently the way of a craven.” The scar of his lips came together, in a savage grin. “Rhysol never yanked the wool over my eyes, tiny man.”

[Eridanus]

Tanroa, the Goddess of Time. Though her name was invoked carelessly by many a mortal, true understanding of her was scarce. There were rumors; whispers of a cult dedicated to her that facilitated the flow of time. Yet, they were often little more than folklore and hearsay, for he could not quite a proper understanding of her ways.

If this man was speaking the truth, if he was not merely on a dreamsmoke trip when he experienced what he said, there was indeed a greater conspiracy at work. The ethaefal could not be surprised though; the divine and their complicated and messy politics often worked on the world of Mizahar, using mortals as pawns of their larger and grander game.

"If that is Xhyvas power... we have lost a powerful tool for harmony," Eridanus muttered. He had assumed such possibilities were Tanroa's domain, but apparently there was a real god that governed such a concept. That appealed to him, for he was constantly finding the pattern. Life was not random; it was a series of deterministic events. Cause and effect, and every person's actions contributed to a greater scheme. The divine were quite aware of this, granting their gnosis and assistance appropriately to steer certain paths in their way.

The possibility of gaining such knowledge tugged at the scholar, and he glanced at the man again, this time with a glint of curious hunger.

"What would you do then? What do you hope to achieve by invoking Xhyvas' name, to explain your experiences with a cluster of strangers?"

There was always a reason for something. Ionu might have led him here, or it might have been the city. The man mentioned Ionu holding a secret regarding Xhyvas, and here he was listening to the stranger's tale. Something strange was at work, and he was going to discover the truth.

[Bob Barton]

Yawn! That did not come out did it? As not-powerful and uninteresting this god seemed to be the only way those psychotic devouts of theirs claim to be, Bob was brought up better than that. He would express his boredom when he left possibly with some window shopping. Now salesmen knew how to sell things. If preachers were as persuasive as them, they would not have any troubles spreading their beliefs would they? Of course first impressions were important as well and this man did not do a good job with that. Even on the second chance.

Another thing that did not make the god stand out from so many others whose followers love to claim is the bestest ever is that they were also busy bringing down another. They-were-all-the-same which was why he never really took the interest in finding out more about them resulting in "I don't know who this Tanroa is." Until the twist that Xhyvas is dead. If memory serves, no one ever follows someone who is dead unless its to the grave, even with a taste of power. Power. That was another thing and knowing the gods, "this Xhyvas just let you use this power?" Sounded fun. "How did it feel? What did you see?" How can Bob get this power? He knew history somewhat and knew that he would want power like that as well. Just like Sagallius who ascended.

That is a choice worth making if Bob ever gets it. While defending Rhysol was not anything like that, the god still knew what he wanted and "he is the same as everyone else. You're haven't done things to get what you want?" That would be a first. Even Eridanus with his looks which makes Bob feel like giving a kick when he took a look at him to affirm that statement is shit in a nice wrapper. Forget that little remark he made about harmony, the ethaefal made a real killing back in Sunberth.

Of course Eridanus was right in asking the why in explaining these things to anyone who came into this rotten building just like a real temple. As though he asked the question himself, Bob leaned close to listen to what the answer would be.

[Ulric]

The brazier spat.

Ulric glared at the cage of metal, glowing redly under its burden of lazy coals. The cinders are uneasy, he grunted, kicking at the squatly unfurling strakes to give them a stir. They scraped up in a choking mist, but he’d already shambled away. The clanking of his scaled casing was muffled, just a dull, jerky murmur under the whistle of the wind through cracks in rock. It’s more of a groan, he reflected, sweeping his palm over the crumbly mortal. Tiny lumps tugged away like drying plaster, madly strewing the flint-veined floor. They’d do for now, though.

Xhyvas had only one priest, and Ulric wasn’t fussy. That was partly because couldn’t afford it, but mostly because he just didn’t care. There’s no use for gaudy trappings, he mused. They just get in the way, make us fat, dull, and indolent. They lure us into deviating from our faith, toward conspiring for ourselves, instead of the sake of a patron deity. That’s profoundly wrong. The judicious priest requires only food, wine, and rafters over his head, nothing more.

Ulric shifted into the first rank of benches, lobstered gauntlet scraping over the crude planks. They sprang from beams set into fixed slurries of mortar, rocks. There was rusty goblet perched on a crossways spar, and he picked it up, rolling it over in his palm. There were flecks of earth inside, mixing with the deeply pitted, inky pocks of rust. This was just another piece of refuse, unearthed from this wreck that refused to submit to the burden of time. “It doesn’t matter what I do,” he intoned, though inwardly he was mulling over the query. What am I doing? It was difficult to explain, but he’d shed some light. “I’m not a godling. If my feet lower over the ground, it doesn’t shake under an enormity of power. I can slay my god’s foes, but that won’t bring him back, will it? I’m just the husk of a priest, damningly impotent in my futility. I can’t do anything. I’m just a man. Xhyvas can’t do anything about that particular neglect, and I can’t say with any certainty if he’d claim me if he did. I merely unfurl my tongue, cry out Xhyvas’ name to the bustle of crowd and chimera. They laugh, they frown, they forget.” Ulric tossed the goblet up, a chuckle rasping from his chest.

The yawn wasn’t remotely well received, but then again, he wouldn’t condemn the dwarf for his lapse of respect. The shabby use of rhetoric rankled, though. That’s why he forced a frown, vaguely cautionary. “You twist my meaning,” he grunted. “If I felt a fragment of power, it was merely caught in time, like a reflection skewed by the presence of a particular kind of lodestone. I found myself suffused by it, as if immersed by the tepid waters of an estuary. It was a shallow ripple, though. There’s no power to call upon, you see. The thing with dead gods is they’ve nothing to give, but demand everything. I’m inured to that sacrifice. It’s a lonely cause, maybe a hopeless one, but I do this because it’s just. It’s insanely desperate, and more hazardous than you’d imagine, but I can’t cease in this pursuit. There’s no travesty more insidious than forgetting.”

Ruthlessly, the dead god’s priest twisted his lips into a mocking grin. “But that’s precisely what we’ve done for thousands of years.”