The Good Book (Jygust 30, TT)

[Arnholt]

This seems familiar.

And why wouldn't it? A mysterious book. A closed room. The mixed sense of dread and wonder as he tried to brace himself for a possible disappointment. All exactly as it had been when he first knelt to read the Book of Righteous. Hell, Arnholt even had his staff braced against the doorway, again, in a bid to prevent anyone from entering too quickly for him to hide the evidence.

Only just now the disguised cultist was kneeling in his own cell of the Light of the One Monastery, instead of a rented room in the Dog's Home Inn. And that meant that rather more in the way of caution was necessary. So, for one thing, he had asked one of his junior cultists to watch the door. In any case, this time Arnholt had not one book laid out before him, but four. One was the Book of Righteous. One was the tattered Oneist prayer book he had carried with him for as long as he remembered. One was the new 'Book of Righteous' that Velvel had brought to him. And the last was Alfie, the Littlest Sheep. Not that that one had anything to do with daemons or religion; Arnholt had it out to remind him that he had promised Ushiya he'd be by to read it to the orphans she tended that Trade Tide.

The cultist's mouth twitched slightly in the barest hint of a smile. In many ways, his disguise had blended with the reality of his position. Over the course of the last half-year or so he had more or less turned his back on the old ways of thinking left over from his time as a thug on the streets of King's Court. He was now more priest and scholar than warrior... at least by temperament. He hadn't had a woman or a night on the town for tendays without measure, and rather to his own surprise, hadn't really missed it as much as he ought to have. He was a true monk in that way, at least. At the same time, it was a little bit sad... his worship of Righteous and his plans to change the world had consumed Arnholt, exactly as it had Carminello. His mission was everything to him now.

Aylmari would be disappointed. But thoughts of the young adhiel woman only stirred up the old hatred once again, and turned his thoughts back to Justice. Arnholt's face was steely as he flipped open the new 'Book of Righteous' and began to read... seeking the hidden truths within its disguise as Oneist lore.

[Haikan]

There was little cause for fear of discovery, as a loyal junior cultist watched the door, but Arnholt's caution was still wise. As Arnholt opened the Book of Righteous, his heart rate suddenly increased and the musty smell of an ancient tome filled his nostrils. The first two pages held a table of Preface followed by a few table of contents. The table of contents made the book appear to be a cookbook of some sort.


The Preface read as follows:

"...Only the truly Righteous Eye can fully interpret these recipes..."

The Table of contents read as follows:

Chapter One: Gaining flavor in your Righteous Gord

Chapter Two: Dishes that are best served cold

Chapter Three: How to bake a pigeon pie

Chapter Four: Pudding trifle with a glaze

Chapter Five: Filling folks with lots of cake

Chapter Six: The secret to smoking a ham

Chapter Seven: Awakening the chef inside you

[Arnholt]

"Another 'cookbook?'" Arnholt muttered rhetorically. His eyes narrowed in faint confusion. That wasn't how Velvel described it. A 'copy of some of the One's tales,' was what he'd said. Perhaps he had only called it that to avert suspicion, but if that were the case, Arnholt had to wonder how a seeming cookbook had wound up in a shipment of religious artifacts in the first place. "Or maybe," the cultist murmured thoughtfully, "the answer is here?" He traced the preface lightly with one finger.

It didn't take a great deal of deductive reasoning to figure what the words "Righteous Eye" referred to. Granted it could be argued that Arnholt was seeing the book through "Righteous eyes" already; as a cultist, he would interpret the text far differently than would an unbeliever, to whom the book would have seemed like little more than a cookbook written by some profoundly disturbed chef. But the "Righteous Eye" could be one thing and one thing only. Twisting aside the wooden Oneist "Eye" which he also wore, Arnholt pulled the Eye of Righteous from the neck of his robes and examined its jeweled surface reverently. Looking his Goddess in the Eye, as it were. He had long wondered what the significance of the artifact was. Whether there was also some hidden power attached to it, beyond its use as a symbol of the Righteous Order's faith. Could it be possible that the jeweled amulet was necessary to decode the meaning of Righteous's words... perhaps even to reveal her holy texts for what they really were...?

Still holding the Eye of Righteous before him, Arnholt dipped his head in prayer. "Goddess of Justice, I am your servant. You are the flame in my heart that can never die. Though imprisoned in the Nether, Your power is vast... and now, more and more, I feel it stirring. One day," he said heavily, "Your voice will be heard across nations, and You will rise again. Please, grant me the insight I need to know and serve you better."

And, thinking it best to begin at the beginning, he held up the Eye of Righteous like the talisman it was and turned to read Gaining flavor in your Righteous Gord.

[Haikan]

The words in chapter one were incohesive and made little sense, aside from the title. As Arnholt held the talisman over the book however, he probably noticed that the light in the room reflected off of it and onto the book, giving the book a red hue. What was very strange, was the letters were of a bright red color, as opposed to the plain black they consisted of moments ago. He turned to "Gaining flavor in your Righteous Gord," but as he held the talisman over the book, the bright red text instead read:

Gaining Favor from the Righteous Lord.

As he glanced over the text, it appeared the general message was religious propaganda of Righteous, Goddess of Justice. There appeared to be secrets to becoming closer to Righteous within this chapter, and it seemed to pull at Arnholt's heart, tempting him to read it through. After a burn of silence, the words of an ornery woman could be heard in Arnholt's head.

Read it... Read the book!

[Arnholt]

Arnholt laughed, harsh and low, as the light reflected from the Eye of Righteous transformed the words on the page before him. Full of surprises, the Goddess of Justice. Always mindful of the need for secrecy. Arnholt respected that. It was the cult's best chance for survival, after all. Carminello had been an upfront and honest man, as cultists went, searching for converts in ways that had been remarkably forthright. But that had only gotten him killed, and his iteration of the Cult of Righteous wiped out almost to a man. The new Righteous Order would not make those mistakes. Their greatest weapon was deception.

In any case, the power the Eye had displayed in magically decoding the book's text would have been amazing to the cultist in itself. It was a small thing, as miracles went, but it was also an unambiguous display of the Daemon-Goddess's power. The daemonic trick was neatly upstaged, however, by what happened next: actual mental contact by the Goddess of Justice Herself. Arnholt blinked, thunderstruck, literally dazed by the unfamiliar sensation of an alien voice speaking inside his head. For the barest instant he wondered (not for the first time) if he was really just off his rocker. But the self-proclaimed Priest of Righteous had come too far down this path, already, to succumb to doubt so easily... and a terrible awe stole over him as he accepted the voice as Righteous's own.

"I hear, Goddess, and obey." His voice, pitched very low even in this empty room, rang with chill certitude. And that was that. The Goddess had spoken... and She didn't sound like she was in the mood for an extended conversation. So, as bidden, Arnholt read the book. One way or another, he was certain that Righteous's intentions would be revealed.

[Haikan]

As he agreed to read the book, a rush of satisfaction spread through his spirit. Very good...

The first page of text was written in a strange form of the common script, which seemed almost satirical of dogmatic texts in it's phrasing.

Chapter One: Gaining Favor from the Righteous Lord!

O ye inquisitive souls of justice. Dost thou seek Righteousness? Righteousness is inherent in all thy hearts, if thou art willing to seek it out. From whence spawns this righteousness? The redemption of thy soul by destruction of thy enemies. Thy righteousness depends greatly on thy willingness to oppose thyself against those who wrong thee. Thou hast an ally in righteousness, o curious soul. Righteous, the Goddess of Justice hears your plight!

Wilst thou pledge thy allegiance to Righteous? Stake thy claim in Her kingdom by swearing loyalty and proclaiming Her truths within thyself. If thou art willing to do this, Her might will wash through thy veins and cleanse away weakness, replacing it with nothing but powerful hatred and force.

Naught is he who denies this opportunity upon sighting these scripts.
Great are ye who accept Her glory and embrace these scripts.

Under the shadows of secrecy Her deeds must be carried out, and thou shalt partake in Her wond'rous might of Justice and Revenge. Woe to those who oppose you! For Righteousness will cut through their hearts as a scythe through grain!

Never again doubt.
Never again fear.
Only exact your revenge.
And embrace the joy of Her Righteousness.

After Arnholt finished reading this, he could feel the pleasure and approval of Her washing all over himself. You have been chosen...

[Arnholt]

Arnholt had to wonder: were these the same promises that Righteous had made Carminello? The 'pretty promises she whispered into Carminello's ears,' as Joachim had called them. There was no telling, of course, whether the disillusioned former cultist had meant that literally or figuratively. For Arnholt, however, this was the first time he had seen so much of a hint of a promise from the Goddess of Justice. Her followers had been full of fine words, but it had turned out that the first Book of Righteous had dealt almost exclusively with the 'how' of Righteous' worship. It had explained in great detail how to build a shrine to the goddess, how to offer sacrifice, and... having accomplished those things... how to summon daemons. But the first Book had not explained why anyone should want to do so.

When it came right down to it, Righteous really hadn't needed to offer Arnholt any reasons to follow Her. He had manufactured his own rationale for that, and had embraced it without hesitation. Accepting the words of this new Book, therefore, did not require any great leap of faith on the cultists' part. Setting aside her customarily loopy mode of expression, the Goddess was telling him more or less what he had already told himself. It was nice at least to have it in Righteous's own words so that he could feed it back to Her other followers.

As usual however, he had to wonder whether there was some deeper meaning or purpose to the Goddess's words in this Book. Take, for example, "Her might will wash through thy veins and cleanse away weakness, replacing it with nothing but powerful hatred and force." What exactly did that mean, anyway? Was it mere figurative language, or something else entirely?

In the short run, he decided, it hardly mattered. "I am ready," Arnholt murmured serenely. "Goddess of Justice, like all of Your followers here, I have dedicated my life to Your cause. We will fight to the death until the injuries we have suffered are answered in blood and You resume your rightful place in the Aether. Already we have gathered the necessary materials to raise Your shrine, and require only an appropriate place to house it." His hand tightened around the Eye of Righteous unconsciously. "Our position in the monastery is strong. Our enemies remain ignorant of us. You will see: this time we will not falter."

And, absent any new command from Righteous, Arnholt read on.

[Haikan]

O Good and trusting servant, the power that runs through thy veins will be the Righteous wrath unto the wicked. Thou and thy followers will be the vessel through which Her wonders come to fruition. While the wicked burn, thou shalt be saved, for thy righteousness aligns you with Her agenda.

Who shall challenge thee, O glorious chosen one? Many in time, but all will fall. Perish will they who oppose the Righteous. Perish will they who betray the Righteous. Those who turn their Eyes from Her shall fall to the earth as ash!

Rise will they, who embrace Her glory! Rise will they who carry out Her missions! Those who focus their Eyes on Her shall fly as a phoenix from Hell to Glory.

Heathens shall fall at thy sword. Those who call themselves just shall take arms against you, only to have their limbs revoked by what is the True Justice! Wilst thou swear Her to be thine as a Saviour? Wilst thou spread her Flames and stand behind her Shield?

He who calls himself the one justice, will find himself in not one, but many pieces by our doing! To gain this power thou must focus your Hatred. With Hatred thy Holy Wrath will smite thy foes, thy wounds shall close and thy souls shalt soar among She who is Righteous, as she claims her throne in the heavens!

Those who cast thee out, those who do not understand thy goals, those who impede thy actions, and those who disobey our Justice. Hate them! Thy Hatred is thy Power, and thy Power is thy tool to gaining Favor from your Righteous Lord.

As Arnholt read on, the Eye began to glow, and the text as well began to glow a brighter red. If he was paying attention, his fingertips were also glowing, but they were glowing a refreshing blue, that seemed an oasis to his eyes in a room full of red. You have been doing well... And your hatred begins to turn to holiness...

[Arnholt]

We could really use some of that Righteous wrath. It was less a comment to the Goddess than a snatch of Arnholt's interior monologue. His hopes for the new Righteous Order hinged largely on their successfully summoning the Goddess of Justice and freeing Her from Her prison. Without Righteous's power, the cultists' covert campaign of sabotage and corruption could only take them so far. They were not a fighting force. They could not field an army. While they could continue to undermine the Oneist Church in any number of quiet ways, Daemonism remained their best, and perhaps their only chance to destroy their enemies and change the world. That was the reason most of them had turned to Righteous in the first place.

The glow of daemonic energy around Arnholt did not go unnoticed. Something was happening here. Righteous wrath... the power that runs through our veins... Without question, the cultist wanted it. His eyes slipped closed for a moment as he made a serious effort at heeding the Goddess's advice... by embracing Hatred.

It was harder than it sounded, really. While he was an angry person, in some ways, hatred had never been a guiding force in Arnholt's life. His sense of disillusionment in Dominicus had pissed him off, sure, especially when he wound up tossed out of the house by his fanatical father. But he had gotten over it, more or less. He'd even sort of forgiven the One God for a while. Arnholt's seeking after of new religions had been motivated as much by curiosity and the lure of the forbidden as it had by his resentment of his former Church. Even his taking up the mantle of Great Dark Cultist Priest owed a lot to his simple fascination with the idea of a Daemon-Goddess of Justice, of all things, and his desire to become something more than a mere street tough.

Aw, hell. His eyes squeezed shut more tightly as he tried to steer his thought to more productive channels. Dig deep. Think about--

Aylmari. And that was really all that it took. He hadn't known the girl very well, or for very long, but she had made a major impression on his life. She been a friend to him when he'd needed one. And she had been arrested by the vile Inquisition when she had called out a warning in order to save Arnholt's life. The young elfess was a gentle soul. Certainly not a cultist. And she'd called out a warning not because she had thought Arnholt was guilty of heresy or whatever, but because she had believed him to be (what passed for) an innocent man. She couldn't have known that he would go on to flee along with Carminello, even killing a Purificatio soldier in the course of their retreat. And where was she now?

Did they actually let her go free when they found out she didn't know anything?

Is she still being held in some Inquisitor's dungeon beneath World's Mouth?

Did they execute her as a heretic?

And there it was. Arnholt may not have built his life around his anger, but his machinations with the Cult of Righteous would never have come this far if he hadn't had a flame of hatred burning in his heart. Aylmari was the focal point for it. The young woman's fate, so undeserved, had put a very personal face to the Church's increasingly ghastly abuses of power. He had seen firsthand the abuses suffered by the adhiel people. He'd had his fill at last with the lies and the hypocrisy and the acts of cruelty, both great and small, that seemed to go hand in hand with the One God's worship. And in the end Arnholt had decided that he would have Justice or, failing that, that he would fuck up the world so badly that the Purificatio would regret forever ever having been born. Justice would be nice, but vengeance would do. He would cheerfully see the Inquisition drowning in a barrel of blood for every drop they had shed in their own time. And the rest of the Church could go straight to hell with them.

Arnholt's eyes were fairly blazing when they opened again. His face set in a steely mask. "I feel it," he growled aloud. "The hatred. I'll make it my sword and my shield, if that will help me kill the fuckers quicker. If that will bring Justice to the world." His hands shaking with the unbottled emotion, he reached to turn the next page.

[Haikan]

You miss her... You can revenge her... The lives of those who took her from you, are yours for the taking... Loyal Priest, your hatred is becoming holiness! As these malicious words filled Arnholt's head, the blue on his fingers became brighter blue, and the hair on the back of his neck was raised. His scalp began to itch, and his fingers were throbbing until finally his arm automatically straightened from an electric jolt and a white bolt of electricity seared out of his fingertips, emptying into the metal handle on the door. His body was not being controlled, but the electric force that channeled his hatred forced his arm erect. The blue disappeared from his fingers and his soul felt relieved of it's hate. Quickly a flow of supernatural ecstasy coursed through him, not halting his mind, but pleasing all of his senses at once, for the briefest of moments.

If thou art truly a chosen Priest of Righteousness, thou hast surely just learned to channel thy hatred into force. In revenge there is relief, and thus it takes time, and training to deepen this well of hatred beyond one release. Try if thou might to channel the hatred once more... Practice thy anger. Become a vessel of Righteous agony to accomplish thy goals. The relief shall reward you, but do not be consumed by that joy, for no power comes in joy. Revenge is gained through power, nothing comes from weakness. If ye can hate as Righteous does, none will match thy power!

Her power is easy to wield... Hate thy enemy with all thy soul, and She will do the rest... However as thou art the vessel of Her power, the force will only be as mighty as thy hatred allows.

If thou hast now just succeeded in channeling our hatred, 'tis a sign from the Goddess!! Go out and do Her will and thine own! When thou needst the strength to conquer thy enemies and do what must be done! The tools of vengeance are a gift to thee from the kind, just and benevolent Righteous Lord! Surely she hath favoured you this day!

The ultimate reality of gaining Her favour is this:

Match your own agenda with Hers.

Fuse your own hatred with that which she feels.

Scorn the wicked Dominicus, and scoff at his followers!

Mind Her needs, and bring to Her many followers!

Flock people as sheep to Her, and lead them with thy Power and Justice!

Lastly, find one follower above all others, with whom to share thy secrets and hatred, as She has shared Hers with thee!


Chapter Finished

Thou now knowest how to gain favor from our Righteous Lord!

And as Arnholt's eyes passed over the last line, the book pulled itself shut, and the sound of pleased laughter could be heard in Arnholt's mind. I have chosen well, and am pleased, my servant.

[Arnholt]

For a long while after the Book snapped closed, Arnholt sat there in a daze, looking off with a thousand-yard stare. At length his eyes focused on the door where the lightning bolt had struck, and then at his own fingertips from which the power had emanated. So this was the power of Justice. There was no denying, anymore, that the goddess Righteous was beginning to awaken. The bars of Her prison were already weakening. Her power was no longer confined to the Nether; Her presence no longer limited to vague stirrings in the wind.

"It's a miracle," the cultist murmured at last. "A miracle of lightning. Righteous' wrath given form."

And how could the power of the One God possibly compare? Maybe Arnholt hadn't accomplished anything more than zapping a door handle, but damned if he'd ever seen a Oneist priest do even that much. The Book implied that more such power would be granted to him if he practiced channeling the force of his hatred. Was it possible to channel the Daemon-Goddess's power to do other things, too? More to the point, what could Righteous' miraculous lightning do to a man? One thing at least was clear: Arnholt was now armed with a very impressive secret weapon in the service of Righteous's cause. His fellow cultists would be heartened to know that the power of their Goddess was with them.

So hatred was the key. No wonder Carminello never succeeded in channeling Your power. Though that gentle priest of Righteous had had a dark side, as any cultist must, on the whole he had been a good-natured idealist. A fine man, of course. But too trusting. Too soft. And as a result, his branch of the Cult had been slaughtered nearly to a man. I will not make the same mistake. We will embrace Your power to the fullest. Let our enemies be struck down by the wrath of Righteous, each in their turn.

As to the Goddess's last commandment, to share his secrets with one follower above all others, one name quickly sprang to mind. Ushiya. Her anger and desire for Justice was at least as strong as his. He had little doubt but she could learn to embrace Righteous's power, too. Which reminded him...

"Time to read to the orphans," Arnholt muttered.

He might be a priest of the Goddess of Justice, but he was also a monk of the One, after all, and so had certain obligations to keep. He slipped the first Book of Righteous away within a pocket of his robes, and hid the new Book on his person, as well... leaving behind his old Oneist prayer book in order to make room for it. Picking up the children's book he selected, he made from the door, giving the handle a bit of a suspicious look before he turned it. Assuming he wasn't electrocuted when he opened the door, Arnholt would dismiss the cultist he had placed on watch and make his way to where Ushiya and the children awaited.

[Haikan]

As Arnholt was leaving the pendant around his neck was glowing warmly, giving off a slight heat through his clothes. The doorknob did not shock him, and he still felt the euphoric pleasure of having released his anger. The lookout cultist obediently followed his instruction, and he made his way off to take on his next responsibility for the day.



Locked and Skilled!



*Pray
*Literacy[Human]
*Demon and Darkness Lore


New skill!

Dark Emotion [Hatred] - Basic