Within the Temple of the Unholy.

[LordVare]

[Going to work on some character development here with Vastgoten. For now, I'd like to keep this between the two of us. After the change over, which should be self explanatory once it comes about, then I fully intend to open the thread to anyone who might be in the Canite Temple. FYI - Some of my initial posts are going to be very..um.. wordy. I apologize in advance to those who might want to join in eventually for the eyebleeding walls of text which I am soon to produce. Also, the Ch'tian writings are just to get some of what I have written on the topic out there. None of which is intended to reflect canon, merely my character's musings on the topic of Ch'tian theology. Thanks.]

"Whence cometih the Destroyer?"
Inquires the terrified youth
"Peace child, 'tis I."
Soothes the compassionate Mother
- Ch'taian Proverb

Baliska brought their exploration of the building to a rather sudden halt near a stone arched doorway that lead to one of the many vast rooms of the temple. The momentary respite from physical movement allowing her to set the majority of her considerable willpower on simply maintaining the stalwart yet losing battle with the unwavering forces of exhaustion within. Those grasping claws of weakness had seemed to rally anew since the ritual with Marrent, and now they struggled all the more fiercely against her continued state of conscious. And still, despite the sweet temptation to submit, Baliska fought against her weariness in an effort to remain standing for the time being. She had little enough else left right now, and only a deeply ingrained sense of dignity kept her focused enough to not show any more weakness than necessary to the cleric who had been leading her though the halls. This was not a time to be unwary, she needed to think now. Possibly now more than she had before at any point in her existence.

In the space of this stillness Baliska cast her mind about to try and understand where she was now, as well as where she needed to attempt to be. Like everything else it was proving so very difficult to manage any kind of useful focus mentally. There was so little of it left to her to work with now it seemed. Most of her perceptions such as the pain of the wounds she had taken reaching this place and the pangs of hunger which had gnawed at her for so long had since dimmed down alongside her otherwise vibrant draconic vision. Her mind latched onto that path of thinking for the moment.There was something to the dimness she was almost sure, though she could not bring herself to fully rationalize what it might be right now. Despite the well lit interior of the church, her vision had become something of a blur around the edges. This loss of focus had been slowly causing the room to appear gradually darker and blacker than it should have been. At first she had merely assumed it was another product of her weariness, though perhaps there was another reason? Was there not something about the shadows here, something quite singular? With a unintended shift of thought she instead considered briefly that her previous loss of blood to Marrents ritual had doubtless become a contributing factor to her current state of weakness. Such was her entire existence now it seemed, an utterly consummate haze of weakening resolve to manage more than falling into the sweet oblivion of sleep. She realized that she had come here to regain something of her objectives, and what sort of end was this for such a journey?

It had taken months to make her way to this place, to find this dark warren of exile, and to approach its keeper with all of her questions. Weeks on end without true sleep, eating only what sparse food she could catch. The driving force to keep moving forward had ached with an almost physical potency within her, prompting a seemingly endless march towards the only destination she could think of in her desperation. Weary and burning with a need to understand, she had entered this desecrated place and laid her queries down at Marrent's feet. The dark cleric for all this time had remained the only small hope of explanation and reason. And, for a sparse moment during the height of his ritual, she had thought some small measure of clarity had come upon them. Some stray glimmer of an idea had come in and tugged at her sense of reason from some distant corner of her mind. Yet if it had truly been so, she had not been able to hold on to it nor frame the thought fully enough within her mind to comprehend it. Then, like so much mist it had faded away from her. Because of this she had a lingering and terrible sense of losing yet another answer to the frayed threads which made up the enigmatic tapestry of chaos in her mind.

Beyond her faltering willpower and strained dignity, she found only a single sliver of contentment which remained despite her state of weariness. A small self assurance that all could still be sorted in time. That everything which had fallen apart could be yet mended, that there had to be some method of putting all back to order. While she clung with a desperation to this idea, she knew that perhaps such thoughts were only a soothing falsehood. A mirage crafted by her exhausted psyche to coax and lull her into what ever state was necessary for sleep. This understanding aside she let the thought rule and allowed herself to continue moving ever forward, if only mentally now, based upon it. After all, she trekked the great distance to this forsaken place with an unquenchable desire to witness a reconstruction of sorts, had she not? So impatient she had been to watch at Marrent's command the pieces of what remained fall together into some chaotic paradox of clarity or, maybe even, just into nothing at all. Anything that would verify her course or to give her an absolute knowledge that her goals were futile. Anything would be better than her current situation, wading though this damnable mental morass of confusion.

Blinking her eyes a few times quickly to try and clear her vision she suddenly realized she had been standing for quite awhile doing naught but breathing and holding herself upright. With a visible effort, Baliska forced herself to turn her head and look Marrent in the eyes. "I will do all that you ask of me, Master.", she intoned the words and then with another blink paused everything else once again, struggling within herself for a moment. Closing her eyes and straining her mind for a reason as to why she had said such a thing. What was it exactly that Marrent had done to her again? For that matter, what had she done? The ritual had been.. had been.. had been, what? She could not manage to recall now, only some how she knew that the words were appropriate and so opened her eyes again to stare down at the priest. "These things must however remain for another day. The end of endurance finds all of us in time, and I have nothing remaining at present. I require a place to rest, Father. Once I am restored, then shall I endeavor further as you wish.", she managed to both inquire and assure, or at least she thought she had. The effort of just these words taxing her to the point of visibly swaying on her feet. The quickly waning resources of her effort allowing her to just manage a continued upright position as she awaited the priest's reply.

[vastgoten]

The Vampire watched the half-blood woman in front of him. He felt her weariness; he felt the shadows reaching out for the last glimpses of light within her. He felt the pain wrecking sorrow, torment and chaos that consumed her entire being.

A cruel grin spread across his lips.

The potential power unleashed in her would be most interesting to follow. But even though he enjoyed her agony he knew continued steps had to be taken not to lose his grip around her.

He reached forth and stroke her powerful jaws gently.

”Hush child, of course you need rest. I will make sure you are safe. I will show you… ” he explained with a caring voice and then continued luring her with a soothing tone toward the Sacristan and the spiraling stairway leading to his chambers…

[LordVare]

"There is always first and foremost the concern of danger in the finding of new truths, and no other hazard is quite comparable. Truth commands a forcing factor unlike any other, one which is capable of sundering and then reconstituting entire worlds within the same breath. Often this sweeping change occurs regardless of the desires of those who come to find said truth. Many of whom seek to shut out all such change but what their own ideals provide that truth should be. Rail against it as you like, yet all you may have to combat the truth are these things; The ignorance of the unlearned mind lead astray, and the cognitive dissonance of the zealot. Our work herein stands to deny the continuance of both." - 'On the Nature of Truth' - Cysilla Vetalis


Baliska watched with continually dimming vision, having no words to offer in reply as the devil grinned at her. Some how without thinking she knew with certainty that the cold touch of his hand against her scaled skin would have sent a shudder though her in another time or place. There was something in that certainty which moved her in the effort of further consideration along that track. There was a loose irony here she mused, that at this moment exhaustion was serving the cause of dignity rather than striving against it. How curious, and how.. comical? Thus focused on her internal concerns, she nearly missed the words Marrent spoke to her. His tone seemed oddly comforting, and some answering voice in the recess of her mind warned that she should not trust words like that. She ignored the advice and shifted her eneriges from thinking into starting herself moving once again as the priest lead her onward. One foot forward, then the next, and at a slow pace she followed.

The torn and bent remaining fragments of Baliska's shattered mithril platemail creaked and groaned in protest as she moved. The still glimmering metal giving out all the sounds she was sure her body would create if were able. She had inspected it before she had arrived here, with little else to do on the road leading towards her destination. The majority of the articulations between the the plates no longer properly functioned, and the bent fluting along the central and sub central plates was a sure sign that this suit was going to have to be replaced entirely. At the moment it was little more than another weight bearing her down, but dignity once more refused to allow her to remove it. Not yet, not till she knew she was in a safe place where the meager protection it still offered would be unnecessary. This was a soldiers line of reasoning, but she still considered herself enough of a soldier to be content with the ideal.

After only a few moments of following Baliska found herself almost startled as another groan sounded in her ears, and it took her several seconds to realize that it had not come from her tattered armor, but from her own lips. She had reached the first major obstacle in following Marrent, and only part of her had been aware enough to notice. Her Master was leading her up a flight of stairs. Stairs. How wicked an artifice to set before her now. A stray thought came that if there were hells, they surely had to be filled with naught but endless paths of stairs, all with the promise of relief just beyond reach. Another thought followed, that what ever Marrent was leading her towards had better be worth this agony. With a grunt of effort she placed one foot on the first step and propelled herself upward.

"So then, Master, what do you have to show me?", she asked though gritted teeth as she managed another step.

[vastgoten]

The cold stone offered a coiled path, not unlike what the priest had spoken about in the ritual. Half luring half supporting the large female to the top of the stairs Father Arghivius opened the door to his own sanctum for her.

”Look child, feel the warmth… ” to the left a fire cast its vibrant heat. In front of it a warm fur separated the heat from the chilly floor.

”Rest child, and I will pray; the priest offered and presented the resting place pointing with an open palm” the vampire strode backwards, allowing Baliska herself making the decisions.

”Choose to lay down daughter, and I will safeguard you child. I will be here while you sleep, and I will be here when you awake… You will rise as a reborn and know your true destiny.”

[LordVare]

"[...] and our goal in creating such a work is thus: that within these pages we will lay out for you a set of truths. That done, we shall leave it to you the reader to verify for yourself the merit of all which we present. In so seeking shall you certainly forge of an asurity such truth for yourself. As we trust reader, that given these truths, laid out clearly and concisely, that they should become easily evident once understood. Yet, along with giving you our truths we must beg that you will not merely be content to rest your knowledge upon a foundation of our words. Beyond this reading, we would ask sincerely that you consider spending a reasonable amount of time in pondering what we have offered. As well, should you find others who seek as you do, we do formally admonish you to discuss these things with one another that both or all may grow in wisdom and understanding. Brothers and sisters, let your mind be forever moving forward in the accumulation of this and all other knowledge. And so it is, as we opened this forward, so shall we close; It is a source of constant amazement to us what immaculate beauty all mortals posses as children of the Great Mother, this beauty of mortality second only to the marvelous wonder that is the product of a mortal mind in the process of continually seeking knowledge. The grace of the Mother be upon you reader. In Her own words we challenge you; 'Yield to no barrier, seek you ever onward.'" - Foundational Apologetics of the Great Mother - Cysilla Vetalis

Baliska stepped into the room at the top of the stairs with a sigh of relief that they had finally reached their destination. Giving a quick glance around the room she failed to see any immediately evident reason to be here, and so she eyed Father Marrent in turn with rapt curiosity. She was still fairly eager to know what was here that would make the journey up those damnable stairs worth the climb. All of her interest in what the priest might be doing or wanting to show her quickly dissolving however as he gestured to a pile of sleeping furs on the ground near the hearth. As he spoke, his offer of a place of rest and of safety served to content her that all of the stair climbing had indeed been well worth it. She looked to the furs with longing and then back to the man offering him only a nod of acceptance in reply. Baliska managed to cross the room in a few strides and stood beside the hearth, the lure of the fire and soft furs serving to effectively quell all of the other questions or concerns she had for the moment.

Reaching to her waist Baliska unhooked the two adamantine chains that clung tightly to her midsection in a kind of makeshift belt. The dark hued metal links of the chains rattled against one another as they slid free and were jerked downward by the small magically enhanced leather pouch they had been holding in place. As both the chains and bag fell free to the ground a thunderous crash echoed though the room. Baliska gave another sigh of relief at the lack of weight, the removal of just over a half ton of bag and chains a very welcome change. Reaching over her shoulder she removed her greatsword from its baldric and leaned it against he hearth. With the efficiency of well practiced motions she then removed her tattered armor as well, each piece clanging to the ground near the chain bound pouch as she unbuckled one leather binding after another and allowed the broken but still glimmering mithril pieces to fall away from her body. That being done, her boots and gloves followed next, dropping on top of the pile of armor till she stood in only her arming clothes.

With a broad yawn, one very drowsy Baliska lowered herself to the warm bedding and pulled the furs around her. Laying there by the fire, and under Marrent's offered protection, she finally dared to let herself relax. Shifting onto her back Baliska stared up at the ceiling for a moment before letting her eyes fall closed. Taking a deep breath and slowly releasing it as she gave into the past few weeks worth of weariness. The soft of her breathing and the fire crackling in her ears the large half orc managed one last wistful concern as to Marrent's words of sleeping and knowing something of destiny, still idly wondering what he had meant. Regardless of her worries, only a few heartbeats later the darkness of sleep overcame her conscious mind and carried all such thoughts away into blissful oblivion.

[vastgoten]

As soon as Baliskas eyes closed and her breathing softened the vampire cracked an evil grin and approached her. With a dark voice he started to chant above her. Slowly, a pulsating cloud of darkness rouses from the cold stone floor around her, embracing her in pitch black darkness.
The Priest stood there with eyes focused in its center, chanting for a long period of time. As he finished he kneeled down and placed something resembling a small piece of jewelry on her fore head. He drew a triangle over her face and took a step back.

”Lord of Nightmares! Open your realm to this one - my daughter, force her eyes open and plunge her into eternal servitude of true darkness. Amen!” he ended his hour long prayer and then remained silent, watching the sleeping half orc. He intended to be here when she rouse from her sleep, although he suspected that would indeed last long hours, hours that would be even longer for the victim laying before him.