Abandon The Lie!

[blindmind 350]

((Spoiler for music))

 
 

Archbishop Osterwald looks down on the square of Abresi, from over the profane statue of Adeodatus, on the scrambling and shouting of a mad people. A boy tugs on his mother’s dress, asking where they are off to, as she in turn is clipped by a patchy man cupping a heap of bread in his arms who passes in a flight for the docks. The throng writhes in a panic, fiery shouts concerning the departure of the dominant class issuing from the crowd like volcanic steam. Reprobates, his thoughts fume. Reprobates, the lot of you.

But it was not so much the people before him for whom he held so much contempt. For truly, despite their rotted spirits, Osterwald’s lot is the rotten. Nay, it was the fools that lead them to rot that earned his ire, that poisoned the people, that drove their minds down gruesome alleys, that called their hands to take up torch and blade to toil against the flesh of the gentle, hitherto innocent hearts of any whom were disparate from their cherished Crown, and the values he and his created to satisfy the whims of his cult of personality. The fools who, even now, clamber onto their gaudy ship to sail away from their horrible accomplishment; a forlorn and soulless people, strangled red by their own ambition and avarice and hatred.

Perhaps part of him was glad for their departure. Perhaps his prayers had come to fruition when he asked on high their treacherous ilk be driven from the land.

A hot breath escapes him as he fails in massaging away the ache in his temple. He leans forward, his knuckles white upon the stone wall before him, and with a gray voice he bellows:


With tremulous hands, he rubs his face and straightens his habit, given pause by his own words. But with the clearing of his throat, he finds his voice once more.
 
“Look at all of you. Look on each other, on your brothers, your sisters, the mothers, the fathers, sons and daughters, look on each other and know that what you see is something pitiful, something made pathetic and weak and brittle. Look at what you’ve all become, what you’ve been reduced to. Like iron sitting at the bottom of an acidic basin, or the oak betwixt the wildfire, you have thought yourselves protected and strong for the force that surrounded you, that coddled you, that burned away all foes who might approach you if only you would fuel it and give yourselves freely and entirely, but at the core of this nation, atop the heap of your minds, your bodies, your spirits, we have sizzled away. Our minds have been possessed of this pain, this heat, set on fire to cast, to spark, to rage on one another and upon those who are called “my enemy” by the powers that be, and for this we have seen the hearts burned out of us.
 
"Look at you scramble! Look at you panic in the wake of a fevered elite! Where is the steel that chambered your spines? Where is the righteousness you called on in the heat of battle? Where is the cold decisiveness that made you revel in your strength? You know it to be gone, rent from you like the blanket off a weeping babe, for truly it was not yours to hold. Nay, these qualities belonged to the men who boarded those ships, who’ve allowed you their warmth if you would give them your numbers, who, in turn, took from you your minds, the goodness in your souls, the genuineness of your solidarity, and replaced it with cruelty like a pit at the center of your heads, gleaming in your eyes, and a sword in hand. What have we to call our own but the misdeeds commanded of us, now that we are alone?

 

 

"Do not give yourselves to the lie; that we are a people deserving of such strength, that we are a people who have served to the benefit of order and divinity, of goodness and all that is righteous. His divinity is false. It is true that Godfrey knitted together a parted nation, a parted people, but he sewed it together with the sinews of monsters and gave birth to monsters and made all of you... monsters. Look on your misdeeds that you have committed at the beck and call of he and his, I beg you, and realize for true the charnel house you have built on every hill that is our land. Look on the bloody blades you give your children, the legacy of death and betrayal you once stood for... Look on his divine majesty’s ship as it departs, watch it totter on the ocean as it forsakes you, as it leaves behind a realm of creatures, and ask yourselves if this lie was worth the cost to us.

 

"Look at you now, headless, as the divinity fabricated for the comfort of your stolen minds flees... but refrain from despair. Refrain! For this panic you feel, this clamor that shakes you at the core, this fear that swells in the gut of you is not defeat. It is but the pains of transition, the sensation of yourselves returning to yourselves, your minds, your souls, in flight from across that ocean whereupon the great lie sails away, broken free of the thrall that you yourselves have given them to. All you need do is take them back, open yourselves and reclaim your spirits, and all shall be well.

"Look on each other, and know your family, for we, now, are all united in this tragedy. We have all seen ourselves humbled by the lie, made small and mewling by those turncoats who despised us. For truly, if they did not hate us, if they did not look on us coldly and without mercy, with no intention to relent the clutch upon the people, they would not have taken so much from us, from the world, and fled to watch it crumble in their wake. It was a lie! And we have all been lied to.
 
"But in this, we may know unity, we may recall true strength, to pull honor from its grave and breath life into breathless chivalry, and stand as one for the virtues we forsook, and heal the devastation visited upon the souls of the people.

"His divinity was a lie. But we will not give ourselves further to the lie. Our strength, our dignity, our love... each were lies! But we shall no longer allow ourselves become these lies. We shall no longer be indebted to a lie, or be grateful for a lie, but hold this treachery in greatest ire and condemn such a lie, for we have been betrayed! And swiftly we have been made the fool. No longer, I say! We must watch that ship sail out without so much as a whimper, but with a cheer for the beauty of this opportunity, that we may once more stand, side by side, my brothers, my sisters, as a nation of liars no longer!

 

 
    

 
 

"We will mend what we have torn, we will redeem ourselves and cleanse our spirits of the misdeeds that sully them, we will be true to ourselves, to our children, to the world, once more, hereafter, and evermore!

"Unite, I say! We must all unite!

"Take now this chance like the traveler might run for the break of day if it means to put the night behind him. Leave the terrors we have wrought in that cold dusk and complete good works that belong beneath the bright of day. Let the tyranny leave, and let it die, and pray that its trickery does not return to once again fabricate the truth, and tread forth unto the dawn, where liberty and goodness lay in wait.

"Do not give yourselves to the lie, I beg you, I plead you. Do not believe that all is lost, for it is not. Instead, hold fast, good people. Hold fast whilst the night retreats across the ocean, and join with me. Join with me in my rejoice, for glad I am, and glad I will be if you only heed these words:

"Abandon the lie, and unite!”

[Kickstarted and Running 965]

It is made public thorughout Oren the following message, hung up, spoken, and whispered

 

"Let it be know from here on that Archbishop Osterwald is hereby proclaimed heretic by the Inquisition of the Holy Oren Empire, and is to be killed or arrested on sight."

[3andD 1722]

Goddard exhales sharply, listening in on the re-verb from one of his novices. He had been taken back, his own novice... His own friend- had betrayed him. He quickly begins to agast back. "We separate him, Brother Osterwald, from the precious body and blood of the Lord and from the society of all Faithful; we exclude him from our Holy Mother, the Church in Heaven, and on earth and all her sacrament in heaven or on earth; we declare him excommunicate and anathema; we cast him damned, with the Iblees and his demons and all the reprobate, to eternal fire and everlasting pain, until he shall recover himself from the toils of Iblees and return to amendment and penitence and indulgence."

[Rig 17581]

Myth upon hearing this, winces.  "The truth isn't always understood Valah. None accept truth unless it benefits." He sighs.

[hex37 737]

*Nienna taps myth on the shoulder. She whispers something in a hushed voice, before sitting back in her chair. Something must be up...*

[Fid 566]

Arch Druid Cervidus's mouth sets grimly as he listens to the speech he helped write, knowing the effect these words will ultimately have. He nods at some of the points, and when the final line is spoken, he mutters it to himself.

 

"Abandon the lie, indeed."

 

His face contorts with a number of emotions as he turns to the shocked and silent crowd; pride, fury, and passion all mixed together like a good salad. He raises a hand, pointing at his great friend Osterwald high above. 

 

"There, Orenians, there stands the greatest man that I have ever known. The most pious man that has ever walked this good earth, and the man who should by all rights lead you. Hear his words, for they are the wisest you have heard shouted along the rooftops in all your lives! Hear him! Live by his creed!"

 

With a deep breath, he raises a hand to salute the Archbishop, finally grinning. 

 

"Well spoken, old friend, as always. Stay safe."

 

With a final wave to the crowd, he departs, leaving all to ponder his words, who he was, and what he was doing in Abresi in the first place.

[Heff 2460]

It is made public thorughout Oren the following message, hung up, spoken, and whispered

"Let it be know from here on that Archbishop Osterwald is hereby proclaimed heretic by the Inquisition of the Holy Roman Empire, and is to be killed or arrested on sight."

((We have a Roman Empire?))

[argonian 14254]

((We have a Roman Empire?))

((No, Holy Roman Empire. Lym's the Kaiser.))

[Agnub 605]

Please keep responses in-character as this is a roleplay thread. 

 

---

 

King Garth Hightower enters the capital city of Abresi and hears the Archbishop begin to speak. Staying near the back of the crowd to avoid as much attention as a litter can he listens intently on the words of Osterwald. 

 

After the Archbishop finishes he continues on towards the Imperial Palace reflecting on the words to himself. He mutters under his breath, "He speaks the truth though who will listen?" 

[Telanir 6975]

Billy Bob listens in awe, taking in every little bit of the speech whilst his mouth gapes open and a bundle of wheat slowly drops from his hands.

 

As the man finishes, he brings up his muddied sleeves and begins to holler, "Yup, tha's wus bin' go'un on! Tha's righ'! Nuw's tha tym fur Orun tah becum a bettur plehs." He nods his head valiantly, then proceeding to pull out a baked tater from a muddy pocket, and moving out to look for someone to sell it to as per usual.

[Terafir 90]

A white hooded figure stands amongst the crowd, his face hidden beneath a bandanna, looking up first at Archbishop Osterwald, then discreetly looks at the crowd, eyes scanning. He notices the crowd beginning to talk, some agreeing, some disagreeing, some unwilling to take a side. 

 

He hears and sees everything, noting any importances. The mutterings  from Myth and King Garth Hightower, the shouts of agreement and speeches from Arch Druid Cervidus and Billy Bob the Farmer, Nienna tapping in the shoulder of Myth before whispering something.

 

He stands, still observing the crowd, giving no indication of his thoughts towards the speech.

 

He glances to his left, where a black cloaked figure stands, face hidden by his hood. 

 

The white hooded figure reaches up and casually brushes the outside of his hood by the ear.

 

The black cloaked figure nods, before slowly moving away amongst the crowd, fading into the mass of people.

 

The white hooded figure simply stands, gazing up at the Archbishop again, before smiling discreetly beneath his bandanna, still listening to the responses from the crowd.

[Moot 1719]

Moved to the Great Library. It shall be sorted into appropriate category shortly.