[17:14] "Aphros, from its inception, has been a religious city." Falke sways her hands down, and folds them behind her back. Reality warps around her, and an illusion manifests in her rightmost non-real palm. An archaic image pulled from a history book, a scrawled drawing of the beginning of the city. Effectively, a memory photographed and manifested.
"The purpose of us, Aphrosi, has always been to follow the Lord Warden. More than any city built in a place of convenience, or resource, Aphros was built between golden fields and the shadowlands, split down the middle, for the explicit purpose of mirroring His duality."
"To serve Him is the reason we exist. So let us consider, Athelios."
The transparent suggestions of limbs swirl in a circle about her head, and reach out in front. Another image, a black-robed figure with a stark-white mask.
"There are many images of the Lord Warden, but this figure is the most common. He is Athelios, honorarily referred to as the Lord Warden; for he is the Warden of Helheim. He resides in a citadel, orbiting Helheim's edge. It is there that he wages his war with eternal soldiers on the mass hordes of demons that would otherwise tear our world apart."
"Intrinsic to him, and to our culture, is duality." Falke motions with one physical hand, the twin daggers, one black and one white, swirling about her head. "Contradictions, opposites. Our capacity for betrayal in the same life as loyalty, and the mess of mortal information that we are. To understand the Ordinance—the sect of our faith most commonly practiced, and the one you will learn today—is to understand that every individual is a mix of dark desires and grand aspirations. Only the truly delusional believe themselves wholly just, only the truly insane can be wholly depraved."
"So let us consider the Doctrine. The four pillars of the Ordinance, the law by which we live."
The phantom limbs condense the illusion into a diagram of a man, painted white in a black abyss.
"The first pillar is of the Self; and it means to understand who you are. We portray ourselves many ways, we believe we are many things; but the Self asks, what we are exactly. What do we believe in, what do we hide. What rabid, despicable desires reside within our hearts, what insane aspirations, delusional beliefs—and it asks us to master it. Not to hide, stow them away in the backs of our minds, but to confront our flaws directly. To stand before our depraved inner selves, and overcome them. There is nothing to gain by hiding who we are, pretending we are someone else; there is everything to gain by solving the puzzle of ourselves. We are bundles of sin and lies, love and truth. As there is the good thief stealing bread for his family, so to is there the blind zealot wielding his faith as a tool for bloodshed. To master oneself is to understand this, and conquer our flaws instead of hiding until they conquer us."
The image warps, colours inverting. A black-painted man, in a white abyss.
"The Question is the second pillar, and it pertains to the extremes of a soul. Many of you are familiar with Na'Ria. Formerly an imperfect of horrific proportions, who caused the deaths of thousands. Purified by our city, freed from the shackles that bind a demon's mind into only accepting evil, shown the truth, the light, of redemption. And there did she vow to repay the evil she had sewn. I understood she died for such a thing in my absence.
So does the Question ask; at what point has a soul descended to a depth we cannot redeem? When have they, of their own will, their own volition—gone to such an obscene end that there is naught we can give them but death? This is a constant in Aphros, and the very thing we breathe to answer. Not an ignorant defiance and a head under the guillotine, but a pondering of one's life, one's story, and a clear, understanding judgement of whether their soul has fallen beyond His light."
The image pushes out, to a slightly-hazy image of the original Aphros.
"The World is the third pillar, and it asks us to understand that we live. We, and everyone else, live. Many other faiths ask for a specific way of thinking, a strict set of rules to be followed—they ask you to put a lens on the world, their lens, through which it is viewed. We, Aphrosi, remove our lens. The world is a tainted place, with unchecked witchcraft, necromancy, and other such demonic taint as that which threatens war on Meranthe even now. We see the world as it is, see the taint for what it is, and do not suffer it. It is our purpose to cleanse the world of such taint.
Others will see us, and shun us. They always have. Believing the Occult insufferable while they go mad with Holy ether, sanctioning their Nyctorre weapons and making pacts with their unrepentant demon friends because it's all in the name of their own selfish goals."
(Falke Bargiel)
[17:14] "We are different, because we are better. To be Aphrosi, so to must you, be better."
One final time, the image pushes out. A vague sketch of lines depicting the realm of Helheim and a castle orbiting around it.
"Finally, the Beyond. The judgement of our souls. For we, the living, possess a unique right"
"It falls only to us, to judge a soul."
"So removed as the gods are from our vicious cycle of death and rebirth, they could not hope to understand the weight of our souls. When we of His word die, we arrive in the Citadel upon the Edge. There is our measure taken. Most will be returned to the cycle, to begin anew. Those rare few who have fallen beyond the light, are sentenced to His soldiers eternal, where they will fight back the waves of Helheim—or perhaps, their soul will disappear entirely. It depends on the severity of their sin.
The best of us, however, are given an opportunity—to be welcomed onto His council, where we, and we alone, perform the judgement of the coming souls. For it is we who understand what it means to live. And, therefore, it is we who judge us. Ourselves, our peers, the world around us."
"We bend our knee to no false divinity. Athelios is not our master, he is our teacher, our guide; he paves the path we walk, he does not hold our leash. Only we can choose where our feet take us."
Falke exhales, the image fading from view. Her metaphysical hands take a new position, phasing into her flesh which has taken to a motion of prayer.
"Please ponder what I have spoken today. Consider how the Doctrine might guide you, how His word might take you further on your path. Consider what sins you hide, and how it is you will master them, not by hiding them away in a box, but by understanding and overcoming that they exist. Consider how you look at the world, both the people and the places, and how it might change. People you thought irredeemable, cities you despise—and how we as a people might overcome it. And consider what will become of your soul when all is said and done."
"If you would all be so kind as to join me in silent prayer while we reflect."
(Falke Bargiel)