As they all entered the large church, Avram says, "Everyone, let's take our seats over there. Elia and Iancu stay a good distance between everyone to give them instructions on proper etiquette."
"Ok," they both say as they insert themselves beside the rest of the group.
Everyone walks in a line with Avram in the front, Iancu in the back, and Elia in the middle, right beside Suzuka. Smiling, Orb says, "It hasn't even been a whole 24 hours since we were last here."
Suzuka, confused, says, "You came here yesterday?"
"Didn't we, Elia?" Orb says, trying to goad her with a smile.
"Orb came to get down on the altar and beg for forgiveness after assaulting me."
Disrupted, Orb says, "Hey, don't lie like that!"
Cyrus says, "Don't worry, Orb, I kn-now, you wouldn't do that to Elia."
Elia glares at Cyrus, and he croutches as he hides behind Orb, and says, "Because she is far too scary."
Fluttering her hair, Elia looks at Suzuka and says, "If you gain enough confidence, you too will be able to do that, pretty lady."
Suzuka shakes her head with Excitement, and Orb hugs her and says, "Suzuka doesn't need to become anything else, she is already the cutest just the way that she is, dummy."
Orb and Elia glare at each other, and soon they all sit down. In one of the many rows within the church. Elia, Iancu and Avram give instructions to all of them, and soon as a series of priests walk into the area, Avram raises his voice and says, "Just follow our lead."
Everyone nods, and Suzuka asks, "Why are we here instead of the other churches?"
Elia responds, "We change location each year. The last year was held in the cursed land church, and the current one will be held in the cursed sky church."
A woman in pure red priestly garbs with earrings that hold small candles in them steps out in front of a large podium in the centre of the room. Around it large seating area in each direction houses countless people within Blestemate.
Willow, turning his head to Iancu, asks, "There is no way all the people within the city fit here?"
He points upwards, and Willow's eyes move to the next level, where even more rows of seats lie. "There are nearly three whole levels like this going upwards. Though all the non-religious people just head to the burial grounds as we enjoy the mass hear first. Due to recent shifts in the 400 or so years, the number of non-religious people has allowed there to basically be no issues with spacing. Apparently, a few centuries ago, they had to use all of the churches due to how many came."
Maple says, "But there is no way all those people can see from up there."
"You have enhanced sight due to your legacy; you can probably look upwards and see what I am talking about."
Focusing her vision, Maple sees a large screen of water on each of the higher levels, and Iancu says, " In front of each level is a large screen that expands the image of a chosen area in the room on said screen, kind of like a loupe."
"That's amazing," Willow says.
"The three grand churches of Blestemate are the very height of cursed engineering. It is one of the many things this building can do. Apparently, the church even has military use and can be used as fortified strongholds. There are some rumours that can even become mobile, but that's an old superstition that no one can prove."
Dumnorix, staring upwards, starts to get giddy in his seat, and Abbán, who has regrown to the size of a child, says, "If you move, I will kill you."
"You talk as if I don't have any form of decorum. I can assure you that I won't move despite how amazing it would be to hit centre stage and scream towards the heavens as the light of the Messiah shines down upon me."
"Avram, please help me hold this idiot down."
"Nah, I think it's fine. I perfectly understand how it feels; in fact, I tried to do it when I was younger."
Turning his face to Avram in excitement, Dumnorix says, "Really! How was it?"
Abbán says, "The more I hear about your past, the more worried I get."
"Despite how I was, I think it's a feeling that many have. When you're in such a grand building. You really just want to run around and get a feel for it. Places like this fill all who enter with excitement."
Abbán, staring at the grandeur of the area, says, "I can understand that feeling, and I hope one day we of Nialathrú will be able to show off Anucroí just like this."
Dumnorix, composing himself, says, "I guess I need to make that dream come true."
The priest standing in the centre platform has two large blue rings, one which floats around her waist, and another smaller one that floats around her head. Her skin is a translucent yellow, and on the top of her head are two circular bulbs that light up along with her rings.
Holding her chest, she forms her hand into two balls, quickly claps, then binds her hands before taking a kneel and saying, "Greeting children of god."
Elia, Avram, and Iancu say, "Do the same to the person on your sides."
Everyone gets up in the well-spaced aisle and does the greeting to their neighbours at their side. Then the priest holds the holy scripture in her hand and then places it on one of her rings, and around her body it floats as she says, "The three worlds. The name of the book was given to us by the Messiah himself. A tome of learning and love that shines the radiance bestowed upon all of us down, but it has caused us lots of trials and tribulations in our history."
The woman takes a deep breath before steeling herself, and says, "The Arba'ah Olamot, or the three worlds, is the holy scriptures we look upon for god's guidance, and tells us the tale of his ultimate mission to spread love forever. It is split into three worlds, the first world or the Nefilat HaMushlam, chronicles the stories of the perfect ones, those who we call angels and their story with the messiah. Each one of them was born into a perfect body, in a perfect world, all at the height of their own existences. Their souls had no aspect of it that was unfulfilled within their own existences; it was a world that our feeble mortal minds couldn't imagine.
Yet they questioned it. Some angels in their perfection saw a being greater than them, the messiah. His perfect glory, his divine radiance, his endless well of power, all things that were greater than even all of the angels put together, and within him, they felt jealousy, and those seeds led many of them in their perfection to strike against others.
The angel of justice, the angel of healing, the angel of hope, the angel of unity, the angel of kindness, the angel of promises, they all tried to turn back against their creator like pigs, and brought many of their brethren down with them. They were petty, they were foolish, and they brought destruction to everything they had for just a little more. These stories warn us of the evil that exists in our hearts and the type of foolishness that can lead us to hell, where the betrayers now reside with their demons.
Despite the battle and the pain brought about by the betrayal, the mission to spread love never ended, and a new world full of love was created, our world, which the Kazvei Ha'Einsof or the second world details. Humanity was placed in a paradise, but unlike before, god's presence could not be directly seen, but could be felt deep within our souls through the beauty carved into the world. Many have pondered the reasons for this change, yet to all of us here, is it not obvious? Those who wish to understand perfection must walk and understand imperfection, something those angels had forgotten."
Elia clicks her tongue and says, "That's merely a theory, don't go stating it like it's a canonical fact, you blasphemous blackguard. You know what, I am going to go up and set her straight."
Orb whisper into Suzuka's ears, and she quickly restrains Elia with her tails as the woman continues on to say, "The first humans created were given a miracle onto the planet we had called Theophila for our love for the messiah, a single fingernail of the Messiah that turn into a bountiful garden, known as Cordum. And together, all of humanity lived in harmony.
Yet those who had fallen didn't wish for such a thing to be allowed, they couldn't stand the sight of a lesses creation having a higher standing than them, so they tricked six humans and befouled them and their children with their powers, and the mutations brought fought the six other races from the pits of hell, and those six humans where crowned their gods."
Suzuka holds onto Orb's arm as the flow of thoughts around increases, and beside her, she looks at Elia, whose thoughts are so fast that they shock Suzuka.
Trying to gain some brevity in the situation, she listens to Cyrus's thoughts and within his head she hears, 'That doesn't sound like our creation story at all? Is she trying to say the dragons are just demonic humans?"
Dumnorix says, "Did you hear that Abbán turns out we have demon powers?"
"No demon would have the character to put up with you."
"You always know what to say to make me happy. I'll need it for the rest of this."
Avram says, "It's a theory; the holy scriptures don't start anything about the creation of other races before the next part. Just listen."
She goes on to say, "The power given to each race gave them an advantage against humans leaving the humans powerless against them, and soon a war broke out in which the humans where pushed to their limits and almost brought to extinction, yet the Messiah wouldn't have allowed that, and appears destroying the six false god's and bringing victory to the battlefield along with his angels. Yet benevolent as he was, he spared the betrayers and reinstated an era of unity with the humans at the head.
The second world then tells of three more stories after this, the fall and rise of the great kings and the wisdom they used to lead many of the different races together, forming the basis of what we call the first cycle of history. Yet after that, it switches to a far less grand story, the one of a woman who cries out to the Messiah, and the promises he made to her. The promise for health of her children, the promise of protection of her descendants, and the promise for her children to experience as much love as she has, the story of the woman who cries brought the existence of legacies into the world, and the promise of the Messiah to allow all those who share a similar cry to be able to watch over those that come next."
Turning to Iancu, Maple asks, "Is that really how Legacies came to be?"
"Who knows. Though I would bring up that the story of the woman is considered deuterocanonical, as the oldest living Arba'ah Olamot found has this story rewritten in a completely different style than the others, with the pages of a far better quality. Some think it was added way after the fact as a way to give the Messiah some kind of authority over legacies, even though many of the other scriptures talk of heaven as the final destination."
"Intriguing."
Throughout the entire building, a series of objects fly out and then start to spin around in the motion of a ring. Her voice becomes harsher, and she says, "And the last story of the second world is one you all know deeply. The story of the seven beasts."