A Theological Discussion during the Voyage Back to Hetha

The voyage northeast is fairly uneventful, which does surprise Sister Hilan a little bit. Not that she expected any great event, but surely there would be some repercussions for the escape of the feared piratical captain. And, as she wanders the ship taking in the rest of her crewmates, the monastic sister can tell she is not the only one who feels that way. After her morning prayers, she looks back towards the ship, but her good companion Alessari is still not there. Ever since they had brought the group of ten guests aboard the ship, Sari has not left her post atop the mast. Whether that be to avoid the far more crowded than comfortable ship, or due to a concern of some battle breaking out, the Sister could not tell, but she knew something was different. Unfortunately, that meant that their usual breakfast was somewhat delayed. It would be cut off entirely, except that several of the guests who have joined in helping sail wholeheartedly are capable of fishing almost as well as the huntress would be. Combined, one of the dwarfs, the orkish man, and two of the caravaners prove capable of providing for the rest of the ship. None able to cook particularly well, not whilst they were trying to catch enough fish to feed near thirty people. Which left cooking duty to Felazo and his strange spicing habits.

Felazo’s food isn’t bad, per se, Sister Hilan notes, it just makes up for his lack of attention span with intense flavors to overwhelm the occasional over or undercooked section. And that attention span on this trip is even worse than normal. When she herself turned in for the evening, Sister Hilan could hear her captain in his quarters, muttering to himself. And when she wakes up in the morning, he is already awake and muttering in his quarters. To the point that she isn’t sure he has actually slept any. He seems intensely focused not on any of the strange artifacts from either of the boxes, but on the coffin from the ancient dwarf captain’s tomb. The monastic sister might be more concerned, except those long gone are Felazo’s specialty, so he seems to be careful to do research without upsetting the nature of things. That said, all that staying up at night has clearly taken away what little capacity he has for focusing on other things, and his cooking has suffered for it.

Denlo has yet to leave the holds of the ship, and also seemingly hasn’t slept much either. Or did, it’s hard to tell at times, how still the massive man can stay while awake and watchful. And he has been carefully watching the guests, especially the seventeen caravaners among them. Which means there is something he sees with the sea elfs that the monastic sister has yet to realize. Likely from the time he spent alone with the only one of those twenty three guests not free to roam the ship. Some aspect she might later ask about.

At least Ren, for his part, is not being paranoid. The musician is acting like himself, helping out where he can and chatting with everyone he can, all while quietly singing the same tune to himself, some epic ode he’s trying to work through composing. He seems especially fascinated by the stories the guests tell him of their battle against the terrifying creature of the archipelago. Perhaps he is planning to add that to his story, but the monastic sister suspects it is more that he wishes to understand their feelings of despair and hopelessness, which was evident when fighting their captain. So some part of his story involves a hopeless defeat. Sister Hilan wonders which element of what they have experienced that the bard believes to imply hopelessness, as all she had seen was evidence of resilience. Yet another thing she would have to ask on after their ship became less crowded with people who the crew did not trust.

Finishing their breakfast, Renalt takes a group of plates down below for their crew’s killer and their prisoner, as well as a few for the guests not yet awake. Felazo looks over at the monastic sister. “I take it the scion is still above us?” he asks.

The sister nods. “As far as I know.”

The wizardly captain nods and raises his hand. The ropes of the ship respond, wrapping around his outstretched arm and raising him up the mast. Evidently, he has some business with the noble huntress. They should arrive at Hetha by the end fo the day, though to avoid docking at night Felazo might choose to find some way to delay their arrival until the following morning, but either way, whatever has him calling on Sari must be somewhat urgent if it could not wait for their second arrival in Hetha. Yet another thing she would have to ask about. Rather than interrupt, she begins her own rounds. To each of their guests on deck, she asks if there is anything they need prior to the arrival at the shore. After being momentarily distracted by the somewhat unsettling appearance of Kalzia scurrying up the mast to join their captain, Sister Hilan tries to get back to the work, only to quickly realize that, while she has gotten used to it, the vision of a small, monkeylike creature apparently made entirely of blood running right through the area they’re all eating or just finished eating at is not the easiest thing to just move on from. Taking a deep breath, Sister Hilan decides to walk the ship. To see if everything is still in order. Making sure everyone is still okay can wait for once they’ve recovered from Kalzia’s passing.

Walking around the cramped areas between sections of the ship, everything seems to be in order. As she leaves, she notes the human, who she did not see much upstairs over the course of the evening, moving things around in the deep hold. “Good ser,” she asks as she walks into the hold. “How goes things? Is there any aid of which you are in need?”

The man shakes his head, his face hidden by the doctor’s mask. “No thank you, priest,” he states and, while his face’s expression is hidden, the disdain in his voice is relatively apparent.

Interesting, she notes. He seems more hostile to the Cold Fist than even the devout among the Alliance of Carrosa. “Do you have an issue with me in particular, or the Fist as a whole?” Sister Hilan asks, genuinely curious about the man.

He shakes his head. “Why does it matter?” he pushes back, as he turns to continue whatever he was doing. He’s rearranging some boxes to set up an empty region.

“Because if we know one another, I do not recognize you. And if your issue is with the Fist, I would be interested in understanding why.”

The doctor looks up at her and his head turns in the opposite direction. “You’re telling the truth,” he states, “Interesting. Have you heard the story of the shattering of Vyrroltea?”

Sister Hilan shakes her head. “I believe the elfs tell it as something about the gods striking a great continent. Ren once played us a song about it, I believe.”

“A Kingdom, based out of what is now known as Vyrrolte’ytta, survived and protected a whole fifth of the continent from destruction by understanding one simple concept. We don’t need them,” he offers, as he begins to pull out some potion bottles and a cloth, wiping down the boards in this corner with the clear liquid in one of the bottles.

“And yet, the songs I’ve heard of that speak on that event are always talked about as tragedies,” the monastic warrior counters.

The doctor shrugs. “And what is the tragedy? That they survived, or that no one else realized that they should. That they could.”

Sister Hilan sits down on one of the boxes, nodding. “You have a point. But could they? I believe the one referred to as the First King of All who Rages against the Gods Themselves was himself a mage so powerful he could stand up to the power and doing so likely drained even him greatly, hence why he could not even save his whole kingdom at the time.”

“So instead of trying, you suggest appeasement?” the doctor asks, as he pulls out a soaked leather pouch and begins to pull it apart. “Just ask those with power nicely to be kind to us? Has such ever worked?” Out comes knives, soaked leaves, and wet cloth. He begins to lay them out on the surface that he just used a different, dry cloth to put the potion onto.

He would have a point, if the Fist were like us. “You have a point for the gods of the Land and Sea, I give you that. They seem, in the stories at least, to move and think and feel like we move and think and feel. And even some aspects of the Fist have a level of humanity to them, but only those aspects closely tied to our own perceptions and understandings. The fist is so much greater and different than us, so great that us scholars only ever come to study small aspects to try to understand the vast whole.”

“Perhaps,” the doctor admits as he wipes down with the cloth each of his blades, “And yet, it is still an entity that fundamentally can’t understand what we are, how we live.”

“Unless it could,” Hilan proposes, “If we simply rage against them, such entities would never try to understand how we feel. But by giving them reasons to care about us, to see our perspectives, to feel our emotions, would those entities not try to understand us?”

The doctor nods. “That would be good, if it were the case. But as much as that might happen, equally likely is what happened in the Isles of the Damned, is it not?”

“Perhaps,” Sister Hilan admits, “Though again, those gods are yet another example of entities who mostly were said to be somewhat like us in their perspectives. But many of those stories are likely skewed by the final days of land.” Then, she finally asks, “What exactly are you doing, if you don’t mind my asking?”

The doctor seems surprised once again. “Um, okay,” he says, verbally stumbling before recovering his composure. “Right, this is kind of suspicious. Treading the water in the sandbar soaked my medical gear in the raw Stone Ocean’s water, and so I’m drying things out and cleaning it.”

Sister Hilan quickly backtracks. “No, it honestly did not look particularly suspect. It is just, I have never seen something like that. I’m not particularly familiar with secular medicine practices, and the almost ritualistic elements of it made me curious.”

The doctor shakes his head. “Not ritual, just habit. I’ve done it so often on several different ships in the fleet, it practically happens without me thinking about it.”

“Interesting,” Sister Hilan says, “I’m Sister Schnett, blessed Hilan. It’s been quite an interesting conversation.”

“Mitkhell the Lefthanded,” he offers in response, “And I hope you understand what I was saying.”

“I believe so, though I do not fully agree,” the monastic sister replies, “And you? Do you see the differences between the Gods of the Land and Sea and the Cold Fist?”

“Perhaps,” the doctor offers in reply, “Though I feel there may be fewer differences than you realize.”

Sister Hilan heads out, thinking about what he said. He isn’t wrong. There is a good chance that she has learned to not notice some elements of similarities. After all, the whole purpose of missions, historically, has been to immerse a member of the monastery, who like her had never experienced much outside said monastery, in the world as a whole to understand better how the rest of the world understands their ways of belief. And yet, as someone fascinated by the aspects of the Fist and the theology surrounding those aspects, she knows better than most that trying to understand the perspective of the Fist as one even remotely like our viewpoint is like trying to understand the flow of the Stone Ocean as remotely like that of the Exterior Ocean. A foolhardy and pointless effort, that has led many before to ruin.