eastbound | proclamation (aka devil worship is alive and well) video. un: sinnabon.

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proclamation (aka devil worship is alive and well) video. un: sinnabon.

( the video opens on a young man, wearing a fine black suit with gold detail - wrath's colors. he stands in front of a table full of pastries - magic-ed to travel long distances without ruining. it's important to note this video does not come from wrath's device ( un: a civil serpent) but his acolyte. )

Hear ye, hear ye! My name is Ferndando. I have come before you today to spread pastries and most importantly to spread the good word of Master Wrath and his school. Over a year ago, Master Wrath taught me and three of my fellow acolytes the ways of necromancy, the intricacies and strength of magic, and the power and importance of choice. ( shadows appear behind fernando as he speaks, creating a wall that slowly rises as he speaks. Wrath's gaze flashes a brighter gold as he controls those shadows. his expression is unreadable, but inwardly, he is pleased - finally some respect in this world. Fernando shivers as the temperature cools. ) His school in Taravast now numbers sixty acolytes in total, and we plan to expand to the North and here too. I want to spread the good word of Master Wrath to all of Unkharil!

The most important tenant of the School of Wrath is to both greatly and deeply fear and respect Death as we should deeply fear and respect Master Wrath. Necromancy is so much more like the Undead armies raised around this world as slaves to kill people, and let it be known! Our good Master will find and strike down those who are disrespectful of Death.

( the ground shakes beneath Fernando's feet as Wrath merely tilts his head to the side with something predatory in his demonic gaze, and Fernando squeaks before he clears his throat. ) See? Spreading the good word but also a warning. With strength and guidance from those of us who have learned and believe in the ways of Master Wrath, you too can learn to harness your anger, to wield it, to use it to destroy and decapitate your enemies. ( he raises up the zombie-looking pastries with a wave of his hand, the hint of shadow following his palms, before swiping - the shadow cuts through the neck of the pastry and the head falls off - red jam flies off into fernando's face.

Wrath sighs from behind - pastries do not quite sell the point. ) This was just a demonstration. But come, join us. Let Master Wrath change your life as he has changed mine, as I know he'll change the world.

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...what.

[ He opens his mouth, fulling intending to say something, but just as quickly a sentence forms in his mind, Lockwood is once again struck speechless. In the end he just ends covering his eyes with his palm and shaking his head. ]

...an old acolyte from Taravast. ( Wrath picks up one of the pastries to slide a portion of it into his mouth - it's Emilia's recipe since Fernando learned from her. )

Apparently, my school has grown quite a deal since we left.

( Fernando chimes in at the reaction, "Ah, I see. I understand. You're speechless at the prowess demonstrated before you! A common and understandable reaction. I nearly fainted the first I saw". Wrath raises an eyebrow at him and Fernando returns to the pastries and people who have come in person!! So exciting. )

Fernando is... enthusiastic.

[Chew with your mouth closed, please.]

You haven't felt that? [Maybe she thinks belief in princes of Hell works a lot like belief in fairies.]

( Changing the world................ one pastry at a time. )

Your tart is deceased.

[ Lockwood has a knack for managing to keep a straight face in what is otherwise an absolutely absurd situation. It holds him in good stead with a lot of his clients back home, and comes to his aid when Fernando is talking.

The man might be a bit ... extra, but he doesn't deserve to be laughed at. Even with the recent memory of the decapitated pastry.

Attention turned back to Wrath, Lockwood's smile is more sincere; if a little strained. After all. He did just lead the charge in trying to roast three necromancers. This could cause some awkwardness. ]

You seem to have provided him, and others, with a great inspiration.

( Excuse - if nothing else, demon princes are entirely and incredibly polite. )

...no. My connection with this world is unlike my connection with my own. Even there, this is not how it works. ( People fear malvagi, and most believe in the Seven Princes as they believe in the Goddess of Fury, as they believe in the devil. They whisper their horror stories about the demon princes to warn their children away from doing anything ~sinful~ lest they catch the attention of one of them. )

( Wrath is in a strangely (for him) good mood. It is highly possible there is amusement behind his flat response: )

It is important tarts are deceased before they are consumed.

I had been intending to teach four disciples in an effort to learn information and gain influence in Taravast - a city we visited before you came to be with our group.

The inspiration for them to expand my teachings to this level was unintentional, but certainly not unwanted. ( It could come of use after all - already Fernando has provided Wrath with a tithe as it were. ) And he speaks important truth in a world overrun with the Undead and restless spirits - necromancy is not only the twisted perversion we saw in Taravast and in the House of Manouk.

[ He can't help it.

Even though he knows Wrath, and in so much as Lockwood trusts anyone, he has no reason not to trust Wrath, the young man's expression becomes shuttered. ]

I keep hearing a number of people say such things, but to this point it has not aligned with my actual experiences.

[ Learning about the Huntress' influence, the potential influences of the undead lieges, had all come as a nasty surprise. Lockwood hated being controlled, whether by necromancers or government bureaucracy. He was not a fan. ]

Wrath. Spare his dignity.

The overwhelming examples that exist here are certainly quite negative.

You had necromancy within your own world? Beyond what you, yourself, can do? ( Because technically even being able to speak and to see the dead falls under the umbrella of the term: necromancy.

Wrath himself is really no necromancer - simply a demon, ruler of the Underworld, former Angel of Death. )

The tart?

Alas. ( His tone is droll. ) I believe it is too late for it.

I can't do anything. [ Lockwood immediately protested. A small part of his mind suggested that what Lucy was capable of, her ability to speak with Type Threes, could fall under a broad umbrella of necromancy. Just going to ignore that for now. ] All my Talent allows is for me to see the energies of death. I cannot influence or manipulate them in any way.

[ Which was what, in his limited experience, he used as a defining trait of necromancy.

Taking a couple of breaths, settling his ruffled adolescent feathers, Lockwood spoke more calmly when he continued. ]

I'm not sure you would term them necromancers, or what they do as necromancy in the way we've seen it here. There was a cult leader named Bickerstaff. He was obsessed with death, and the other side. He created something called the Bone Glass. By brutally torturing and murdering seven people, he was able to force their spirits to tie to their bones as Sources. Then he used those bones to make a mirror, trapping the seven spirits within the glass and creating what was supposed to be a window to the Other Side. It trapped anyone who gazed upon it, drove them mad, and physically caused them to burn from within and explode.

[ At least, that was what had happened with Joplin, though perhaps that had been because the Bone Glass was broken. The trapped spirits could have caused her death. Lockwood wasn't sure; he'd been preoccupied at the time. ]

A lot of people died because of that Bone Glass, and I'm only counting those who died when we dealt with it. I believe Bickerstaff tested it on countless victims before he was killed ... the first time.

Perhaps relay you require no worship.

—That sounds like a cult.

( bluntly, not even remotely a question. )

( Blood and bones, this is why mortals should not be granted such power, but it is rampant in this world. The filter between life and death so thin, and without proper instruction, many more mortals are likely to fall into similar traps, blind by the promise of power, unaware or uncaring of the results. The wrongness of it settles under his skin at times, but this is not his world and as much as he would enjoy the power of ruling its own afterlife, he has his own to return to eventually. The type of individual Lockwood describes is the very same one Wrath would see fit to appropriately punish in Hell, and there are few that ever qualify for such an eternal prison of damnation, the type he would enjoy terrifying, hearing scream, showing him what the true master of Death is.

In truth, the reason Wrath's world is so absent of ghosts and the undead is because he keeps the balance. He would have ended this Bickerstaff before he could get so far for his insolence, but this is what occurs in worlds without clear afterlives, where the dead linger when they should not. )

I would term it as necromancy - an especially terrible version of it, similar to what was occurring in Taravast (countless dead to keep the Doxe alive beyond what is natural for any mortal). This appears to be the most frequently found type of necromancy when there is no one to guide those capable of it, especially in worlds where the dead linger and there is no afterlife, no one to balance the realms.

I assume he had some way of returning to life then. ( if he was killed twice. )

Why? I'm enjoying this, and so is Fernando. ( also, having a group of people who believe in him, worship and fear him may come in handy at some point. if nothing else, they're spreading through the world that he's something to be respected and/or feared. )

A cult could certainly prove useful.

( he already got a tithe from Fernando. )

I've never known them work out well.

Good for making enemies.

You enjoy worship and admiration.

[ Were he privy to Wrath's thoughts, Lockwood would agree one hundred percent. Since he is not privy to Wrath's thoughts all he can do is feel a sense of relief when the older man validates Lockwood's own impression of the situation. At least where Bickerstaff is concerned.

He's quiet for a long minute, thoughts of Winkman and the Golden Blade also moving across his conscious mind. The way the rich of his world clamor to gather relics of dead to show off to their rich friends. A different kind of abuse, but to Lockwood's way of thinking, just as egregious.

Penelope Fittes and her relic columns. ]

I believe my world has an afterlife. [ He says, just as the silence may have been about to stretch too long. ] The Problem only became a problem fifty years ago, and those who die peaceful, natural deaths do not seem to come back and bother the living. It's those individuals who die violent, traumatic, unnatural deaths, they're the ones who seem to struggle with moving on.

Bickerstaff was killed, shot in the head and then buried in a heavy iron still, in an unmarked grave. The Bone Glass was buried with him. He stayed quiet for almost a hundred years, until the still was accidentally dug up, and the seal broken. That allowed Bickerstaff's spirit to regain agency in the world of the living, and also released the Bone Glass.

Not as much as my brother. ( But to go from being the king of Hell to... well. It hasn't been an easy adjustment. ) Admittedly, I prefer healthy doses of respect and fear, but this is enjoyable, and without me, Fernando would have learned his trade from a far worse source.

Our group already has a penchant that for the crime of existing, and we have little power on our side beyond what the Merchant sees fit to allow us to have. I certainly did not intend to create a cult, but I would be a fool to not utilize them if need be.

What kind of enemy do you believe a cult might make?

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