Felazo Speaks with Sister Hilan Comparing a God and an Aspect

As the silence consumes the valley, the crew stops for a moment. Sister Hilan, looking towards the statue, seems deep in thought. Felazo watches the young scion approach the good sister, to clean and deal with her wounds, and so he heads over to lend some aid. He does his best to help organize and swiftly hand off her tools as she works, but the young woman seems distracted. Both of them actually. Eventually, the monastic warrior speaks up. “It’s odd, this predates our arrival in the Vyrroltea,” Sister Hilan states aloud, moving in a way less than conducive to the stitching up of bear bites.

“By a significant amount of time,” Felazo replies, “Assuming it is even remotely temporally comparable to the box. Predates even the Noble Nations’ arrival.” The elf is fairly confident of that. He follows the sister’s gaze upwards, towards the statue. It’s of Ankelny, the orkish god of peace and balance. Or some version of Ankelny, though it is missing its usual accoutrements of armor and quill. “Why do you ask?” he wonders aloud.

Sister Hilan shakes her head. “It is just, there is an interesting resemblance between the statue and the sixth aspect of the Tripartite Throne in a lot of the details around the statue, though it’s far more detailed an appearance than one would ever deign carve into the form or face of any aspect for the seat of Law.”

“Interesting,” the captain replies, momentarily forgetting that he is trying to help Sari mend wounds. Fortunately, it seems Sari also was lost in some sort of thought, or merely frustrated by the sister’s movements. “As I would swear it was almost a less warrior form of Ankelny. Like an Ankelny that assumes peace as the default, rather than peace as a temporary armistice.”

“Ankelny?” the holy sister of the Cold Fist asks, turning to face her captain mid stitch. Sari throws up her hands in frustration and heads back to check on Denlo and Renalt instead, leaving the two scholars alone to talk religion.

“Ankelny is the old orkish god of peace. But we don’t really have a concept of peace as anything but transactional and temporary. So most of our gods of peace are also our gods of negotiation or spying or reinforcing or some combination. The orks have four gods of peace, and Ankelny is the god of fair peace, balance, and treaties,” he explains as best he remembers his old lessons on the culture of the Heart. He knows it isn’t perfect, there are a lot of nuance to the gods that those of other cultures, even similar cultures, would probably struggle to understand, but it’s a solid foundational basis for discussion.

Sister Hilan frowns. “It is the Just Face of the seat, so that would fit with this balance and fair peace thing. I wonder if there is something deeper here, or if it’s merely similar symbology to represent feelings.”

Felazo frowns, thinking about her words. “I doubt there is a direct connection between the Cold fist and the Gods of the Land and People,” he begins, “But perhaps Ankelny, or their predecessor at least, was a god of justice of some sort, and the iconography around them matches that of your aspect because of similar philosophical tilt.” Then, he realizes that, if true, a better understanding of that particular aspect might give them a better understanding of what might await them within the complex. “Tell me a bit about this face of that seat of your tripartite throne?” he asks.

“Happily,” the sister replies with a smile. “The Tripartite Throne is the civil aspect of the Cold Fist, where one would look for laws, leadership, command, or strategies. Anything that is not personal nor greater than us. The three parts of the throne are the seat of Law, whose aspects hold sway over matters of everyday life and community, the seat of War, whose aspects hold sway over matters of the military or organized militia, and the seat of All, whose aspects hold sway over matters of the Fist, and over the other aspects, somewhat. Though the specifics of those relationships are complex.”

Felazo nods. Much like his discussion of the Gods of the Land and People, there is undoubtedly much complexity that he would need much more time than this breather to understand. “So what of this seat of Law?” he asks, “That is the one who you see the trappings of in the statuary, right?”

Sister Hilan’s face brightens with realization. “I see. And if the trappings are indeed an indication of similar structures of beliefs between cultures, understanding the Just Face of the Seat of Law would help to know what sort of things might lurk inside the complex beneath this dome. Clever.” Then, furrowing her brow, she adds, “Though we might want to mix in some elements of your Ankelny’s personality, right? If this is a predecessor or previous view of her, there are bound to be some elements in common as well.”

Felazo nods, and waits for the sister to continue. A moment later, after seeing what order her captain wished their discussion to happen, she does, “As I said, the seat of Law holds our daily, common, and more secular aspects of the Fist. The Just Face in particular is who governs whether someone is deserving of punishment or mercy for a transgression against society, as well as who governs whether things deemed transgressive to society are truly transgressions or merely words of the Emperors and Governances to maintain order. If the priests of the Just Face of the Seat of Law of the Tripartite throne deem something declared illegal to merely be words, the only punishment anyone can inflict on those accused of such a thing are minor fines. And if a priest finds someone deserving of mercy, the only punishment that anyone can inflict on that person is a social shunning of a specifically defined period. For instance, a thief found worthy of mercy might be let off without punishment, or might be made to wear an L on their clothing for a period of two years.”

Felazo thinks. Before carefully asking, “So it represents a higher form of justice in a legal sense, less about balance and more about finding righteousness or wrongness?”

“In a sense, though balance is a part of it,” Hilan explains, “There is an idea that over punishment of the serfs and subjects in an area is problematic to the seat of Law, so the Just Face acts to ensure that never happens.”

Felazo nods. “Ankelny is reserved. Careful. They are the balanced peace, bringing calm to the violent and strength to the weakened. They are also wrathful, said to bring grave misfortune to people who break their peace before it runs its course.”

“Okay,” the sister says, “So we have some kind of religious courthouse then?”

“It does have to have the power to stand up to the government of the time, if it is truly like your Cold Fist’s Just Face of Law.”

“Maybe not,” she counters, then explains, “If it is truly like a part of the Throne, it would be focused on the people. And unless one of the guards is some kind of immortal, we might not have any real threat, only what remains of the threats. Bones and Ghosts.”

Felazo gives her a look. “Ghosts can be real threats,” he counters, “But you might well be right. Elfs can live a while, but not that long.”

There is the soft crunching of grass beside them, and they both turn to look. Denlo walks past them to the temple’s dome, touching it. “Careful,” Sister Hilan says to the young killer.

Denlo looks up at the statue atop the dome, and says, “No door.”

“‘Tis likely sitting sunken in the soil,” Ren tells his companion. “Could our Captain’s magical capabilities include excavation currently?”

The Sea Elf shakes his head. “Afraid not. Unless we want to spend the night here. I usually rely on skeletons digging themselves out of graves to provide my digging needs.”

“Well, I guess we should get digging then,” Sari jokes.

Denlo mutters something almost apologetic under his breath, and grips his sword. It takes the captain a moment to realize what was about to happen, and before Felazo could react to his realization, Denlo cuts a chunk out of the wall with a single swipe of his raid-leader’s sword. “Well,” Felazo mutters, “That’s certainly an option.”

“We must be careful entering through this path,” Sister Hilan tells Den, not scolding him per se, but warning him, “If Felazo and my theories are correct, this courthouse may not appreciate the transgression of breaking in like this.”

The hulking Elfi’ika looks back at them, and says, “I doubt it. No more than it would appreciate us breaking in through the door, at least. We don’t belong to this goddesses’ world, so I doubt we would be welcomed either way.”

Felazo feels the need to correct the Elfi’ika, but holds it in. Den was born and raised in the Kinslums of a Dwarf-led city. It isn’t his fault that he uses slightly misleading words to describe the Gods of the Land and People in the same way that they use to describe the Lost Gods of the Isle of the Damned. It was all he understood, and not worth the long discussion of what is versus what representations hold and nuances of language in reference to a god. “A fair point,” Felazo says instead, after the pause. “Does not change that we ought to be careful.” He turns to the young elf woman waiting in the wings. “Scion, why do you not go in first, make certain all appears safe quietly. Den can follow once you give the all clear, and I can bring the blindfolk down afterwards with a torch.”

They look to one another, then Sari says, “The dome seems well enough windowed to be somewhat lit below it, even for Hil and Ren. But we will likely need a torch once we leave whatever this chamber below is.”

Ren smiles. “If we need not a torch in the belly of this beast, we have far greater worries than light to take hold in our minds,” he says.

Felazo understands where he’s coming from, though from the confused or dismissive looks on the others’ faces, he’s not sure everyone does. Their storyteller is reminding them that there is a chance of entities still roaming around down there, and if the passages have lit torches, lights, or lanterns, that means there are still people maintaining all of those things. Den, the crewmate whose face was dismissive, looks at his friend and says, “Worries are pointless. Just a distraction to stop any kind of action.”

Felazo shakes his head, as Alessari slides past the Elfi’ika’s bulk and drops into the dome, first clinging onto the edge, then her fingertips, one hand at a time, leave the ledge into the unknown below. Then there is nothing for a moment. A long moment, the rest of the crew watches each other, Den looks down but says nothing. Doesn’t leap in, so at least everyone knows there isn’t a fight going on below. Then, after that long silence and waiting, Sari’s voice rises up from the depths. “You will likely need a rope,” she informs her companions.

Felazo begins to mutter an incantation, running his fingers in loops and jagged lines along the rope coiled beside his pack, and it unfurls before tying itself in a perfect knot around one of the mostly aesthetic pillars that once framed the worn reliefs above their heads. Then, he tosses the rest of the rope down the hole, informing Denlo, “After you.”

The killer, taking the rope in one hand, wraps his leg around it and begins to slide down. After a moment he warns, “Ten foot drop, feet at the bottom of the rope.” That would mean, dangling from the bottom of the rope, there would be about a person-sized drop. Not dangerous necessarily, but certainly painful. And getting back up might be tricky. Felazo nods to the others, and slowly, one by one they follow suit. Heading down into the ancient temple, untouched for as long back as the Chronicles speak of history.