I look up at the clean night sky, terrified as well as disappointed by the sight. My vision made me realise something truly beautiful once existed in Creation... An actual night sky. It wasn't just pitch black because that is all mortal eyes can comprehend of Nothing. It was a velvet and silk sheet of blacks, blues and purples. Studded with gems of yellow, white and red. Stars, nebulas and more... Planets other than our own even if they lacked life as ours does.
It would be an endless ocean of curiosity and wondering thoughts, unsatisfied with any theories they might come up with. There would be whole institutions for such people. The cities centred around the moons would instead be so much more. But, because of those very things, those fourteen dreadful things... All we have is the pitch black.
And were it not for the light they shine with as they wax and wane to being a full, eclipsing moon then...
"Please, do not be Jhrarda." I beg the night sky as my ignorance of the lunar patterns sinks its teeth in. I can only wish it's not the emboldening power of our great, heretical enemy... But even that would not mean much in the grand scheme of things.
It's a reminder, plain and simple. An ominous, sinister reminder. We are reduced to our last city in the same way Creation only has All-That-Remains alone. There is no Orbital-Halo to keep Thurn's Forge safe. There is only the Valkinvar who have failed to the very walls of the city.
I turn towards the Grand Temple of the Valkinvar, and I march on in. Though my posture and thoughts are not what one should carry into such a holy place, this week has not been very encouraging. Nothing has come of my thoughts, nothing has come of it. What the Zaphadren-Valkinvar encouraged has yet to happen.
The visions have not come back, and no signs have beckoned me. I'm spending entire cycles repeating shallow, empty thoughts just to find something to make of it. Day, night. It matters not.
It's the same either way, there are no visions to be had. Not here. And because I know so little of what really caused my visions to begin with, I've no idea what I need to do here. The Zaphadren-Valkinvar revealed so much to me and yet, all of it is proving to be meaningless. She has not seen me once since then, like this is all an act to keep me busy.
"At the very least... If nothing comes of this, surely there will be something Sister Pymonsia and the other two can do about her? A first among equals can only be a first through so much bad faith... Right?" I ask myself, not entirely sure what I can expect of the Points of the Compass.
Whatever it is I can expect of them, I know Sister Pymonsia owes me far too much. She bloodied my cape in an act of holy, truth-building fervour. I can count on her. I know that much... I can count on her to help me.
A sigh parts my lips and I come to a stop in the vast cavern of a temple. I look around it, paying attention to all the shadows drenching the art. Be they paintings, mosaics or statues. The candles are not lit, they faded out earlier in the week. The incense is not burning.
It's a cold faith that defines the Grand Temple of the Valkinvar, right now. An unwelcoming sight that seems so paradoxical given why I am here. But those were the Zaphadren-Valkinvar's suggestions and orders. The dark would let me focus on my thoughts, the visions... But nothing like that has happened.
I twist sharply and pull out but one of many ornate linstocks. My hands spin its end close to my nose, and the bitterness of charred and burnt rope makes itself known. For all its stench, however, it's not fresh. None of the items in the entire temple have been used.
A holy site in which no holy relics are used in acts of holy thought... What a baffling thing to consider. I glance around and find what I need. For the first time in a very long week, candles come to life, an incense fog building up.
"One last night of trying to recall my visions and if this doesn't work..." I mutter and grumble, going through the motions as my ceremonial armour flutters and rattles. My feet keep to the ground, but, in the impatience and haste of it, flight takes me high. Many candles remain dark, solid and stodgy with a lack of heat above.
Only the main attraction of the Grand Temple of the Valkinvar is truly allowed to shine. A magnificent statue that goes on for such giant lengths of our- their husband-to-be, Waionr. The God of War, within *the* temple dedicated to his law and craft. And, at his side, the ever-vigilant Beast of Pride, Par'tryont.
I smile, somehow nostalgic for the simpler times of Giant's Victory. Back when I was just a simple Feather, despairing over a lack of chances to prove herself. Back when all I had was a small, redstone brick temple to pray in while being in the shadow of a grander statue to the God of Thunder. With all that is happening nowacycles, it might be nice to have such simple pains.
No worries about prayers involving mysterious visions. Ignorance to all the problems facing the Valkinvar leadership. A time where the empire and our country was whole, abrased only at its impregnable, fortified borders. But that's just not it. All we have is this... Thurn's Forge is all we have left of note.
While some sisters and brothers might continue to pray in isolation. They cannot help us and they will not be able to help us. It's hard to say how many are still out there, even. The Ordoar Staguiffmani bring back so few and those they do are injured beyond repair. They lay in beds, resting and recovering naturally...
For once in our entire history since the Emerald Awakening we've had... Hospitals. Thurn's Forge is seeing hospitals again for the first time in thousands of grand-cycles. Nearly four-thousand of them.
We have the power to heal our wounded. Magic is wondrous like that, and yet...! We're being ordered to not help the wounded and in-pain. We're being told to preserve our magic, keep it to ourselves while being worked tireless angles and points of a cycle. A strange time and with it comes strange ideas.
"Gods and goddesses above... Give me another vision and help me make sense of this." I beg, although I am in a temple dedicated to only one. Though I don't technically have the right, I go to the blood sink for those of senior ranks. I kneel in the forward-centre most one of them all and stare up and high.
Blank thoughts assail me, a degree of uncertainty taking root as I continue to think carefully about it all. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to call upon a vision here? What artefacts possibly call this Grand Temple of the Valkinvar their home?
Near the Chamber of War, where the leaders of the Valkinvar gather, is the Crown of Conceptual War. All my visions have happened there, right there specifically. Another artefact of great power calls the deep quarries below its home. Potentially the War God's battle-axe itself, Cenotaph, the Great-axe of Eternal Remembrance.
But there is nothing like that here. There might be this magnificent statue, too real to have ever seen the touch of mortal hands. And that is it. That is all there is to this place. When it is but a Feather of the Valkinvar, it is a quiet, empty place.
Though when the aisles are packed, the seats warmed and the candles lit. Hollow becomes hallow. Silence becomes a moment of joint prayer. Whispers become holy songs that keep on climbing to the heavens for even the gods and goddesses to hear. Especially War himself.
I can't do that on my own, not even if I scream as loud as I can to the point of pain. I cannot do anything like that here. All I am is me and that is not enough, it never will be. I will not find visions here, despite how holy the Grand Temple of the Valkinvar really is.
My visions came from a specific place and that place is not here... That much is clear to me. I need to go to the Crown of Conceptual War to get another vision. If I will get one at all.
"It's better than nothing. Perhaps the vision I am supposed to get here is the encouragement to go elsewhere...? Heh..." I let out, shifting about as my lack of passionate faith makes it all too easy to focus on achy limbs and more. My mind is a busy place and it refuses to empty itself, clean itself out. It's all noise with no clarity.
Even my thoughts will not part away, there is nothing for me here. Silence is not faith. A smile on one's face as they go through the motions and the act, facading one's way throughout the prayer.
While my visions happened, I can't help not feeling as if I'm fraudulent somehow. I was there, on that plateau under a night sky. A beautiful night sky, a work of art by Ihtuntar, the One Dead God. I could draw it or paint it even if asked, and I am no talent in either work.
And yet, this week seems determined to make me doubt myself. Perhaps the Zaphadren-Valkinvar even knew this was how should could disrupt the visions. She was so strict about me being here and... Ah, what a frustrating thought.
"This isn't going to work..." I mutter, despair sapping away at my strength and ability to focus. I force my way up to my feet, sluggishly going about it with groans expected of old or lazy people. My eyes go up the statue again, wavering under the strain of such a sight.
This is as close to the God of War as anyone can possibly get. Well, that's the idea of it, anyway. Perhaps his very gear is closer to him than an icon made in his image. Something *he* touched, not something *we* touched.
"I know you're real... Even if my faith falters in the face of such extinction... I know you're real. Though I absolved myself of him, my... My former... Old... Nin. Nin showed us all that the gods and goddesses are out there. He died a man becoming a monster, then he came back, a monster with the heart of a man. Not poetically or in exaggeration... Quite literal. You've given me my visions and the very Emerald Awakening itself was caused by divine intervention. The world is full of divine proof... So... So why are you not giving me...-?"
I twist around, following a breeze of distinctly magic origins as it blows through the temple. It blows out the candles, wafts the incense too far for my nose to take in. It rattles the decorations, disrupts the peace. I blink, confused by the circumstances.
"Is this a...?" I ask myself, not sure how to interpret the moment. That was clearly magic, but magic is also the work of the divine. Mortals cast magic because we were born of divine blood falling onto the clay of the world. Sinking into it until their very image came to life to speak back to them.
No.
This is not divine...
"What the...?" I whisper, slinking away into the darkness of the statue as a pair of figures walk into the temple proper. Bodies wreathed in battle armour fitting only for a Valkinvar-Staguiffmani. They *are* Valkinvar-Staguiffmani, and dressed in the finest emerald magics. Bladed and ready to kill.