Argul was having a bad morning and she already had had a bad day yesterday. Really, she would like to do something against it, but herein lay the problem, she was suffering from a severe case of ‘waiting for to go’.
She had an appointment of sorts, had planned something and now she couldn’t do anything but wait until it was over, even though there were hours between now and then. That social media wasn’t really a thing anymore thanks to her didn’t make wasting time easier either. At least she had her domain she could watch, unlike all the other poor sods out there.
Argul let out a sigh and looked over at where her daughter and niece were playing UNO. “So Aly…”
Alyra let out a long suffering groan and looked up for a second, sneaking a +4 card on the table while Mia was distracted with their conversation. “Muuum, you already asked me 15 minutes ago and if you can remember I told you the stupid bishop was having an unnecessary luxurious breakfast back then, which he isn’t done with yet, so no, he isn’t on his way to his unannounced appointment with you yet!”
She gave Argul the stink eye, which she absolutely deserved considering that she had been annoying her daughter with questions about the priest for a whole day already. Argul didn’t want to admit it, but it was clear that her social anxiety had followed her through death.
Mia, focusing back on the game, looked down at the card Alyra had played, at her own three cards and lastly, at her opponent's full hand. For the entire round now it had looked like she was winning, but whenever she came close Alyra quickly prevented it and not even two +4 cards had been able to save Mia from this fate. This was definitely suspicious.
Mia stared at the cards for a moment longer before her eyes widened in realization and she pointed accusingly at Alyra. “You, you are CHEATING!”
Alyra raised both her hands in played innocence. “What? I would never!”
“Pfft!” Argul snorted to herself. Her daughter knew where which card was no matter how well you mixed them and while she usually did not abuse that knowledge, every now and then she would play you like a fiddle just for fun.
Shaking her head in amusement Argul blended out the little fight that had broken out next to her and absentmindedly traced the lines on the Plate of [Analyze] she had made two days ago.
Originally, she had planned to enchant it yesterday, but the arrival of the bishop had prevented her from doing so. She didn’t want to have to stop midway through, partly because she didn’t know if it would somehow affect the enchantment if she left it incomplete and unattended for too long, something she would have to test in the future and partly because she would hate to interrupt the immersed state of mind she always found herself in when she worked with mana.
Normally she would be able to plan around all that, but the problem with the damn bishop was that he had not deigned to notify her of his visit and now she didn’t know when he would come. Not even Alyra could tell her, because the fucker constantly changed his mind!
It was infuriating and she would make sure to let him know that, and depending on how he acted his little god too.
Really, they weren’t helping themselves with their approach to her. Argul was already heavily biased against them and now they were additionally antagonizing her before their attempt at forceful recruiting.
She squinted her eyes and mentally smirked. They could try if they wanted. She wasn’t gullible enough to fall for it and she was way stronger than any of them knew!
Argul’s finger arrived at the stone sphere in the middle of the plate and she gave it a little boop.
Generally, she didn’t have a problem with religions and religious people. Everyone was free to think and believe in whatever they wanted as far as she was concerned. What she had a problem with was when people started to force their beliefs onto others, mentally tricking themselves into thinking they were right and then taking some sort of pleasure from their illusory morally superior standing. It started with stupid small things like people having a problem with pineapple on pizza and usually ended with concentration camps.
Admittedly, Argul did the former too at times. To realize that what you were doing is wrong and stupid not only required a lot of self awareness, but was also more difficult than enjoying a bit of false superiority and while she tried not to force her opinion on others, sometimes she spoke without too much thinking and it happened. Constantly trying to regulate oneself was exhausting and mistakes sometimes happened.
The problem with the church of Meran was that they were decidedly practicing the latter and she didn’t like it, no, she hated it. Intolerance bred more intolerance, often with the intensity of a vicious cancer, and, if nothing was done against it, would spiral into a miserable cycle of hate, racism and suffering.
As things stood, there would ultimately be war even without the fanatics to the east and all that only because it heavily helped one organization and or god in the short to middle term.
Really, one more reason to leave this country together with family as soon as possible. It wasn’t an environment she would want a kid to grow up in either, though she feared that with her desire to see the effects mana had on the world and with that the need to travel around, she wouldn’t be able to give Mia a singular place to reach adulthood. Whether that was good or bad she didn’t know, she wasn’t really a parent after all, and ever since she had taken over responsibility for the girl this weighed heavily on her.
Argul gave the two still bickering children next to her a loving gaze before she looked down at the wooden plate in her hand again and continued her musings about morality and parenting, not realizing she had effectively distracted herself from her boredom.
It took a few more hours until the source of Argul’s anxiety finally got moving. She had almost believed they would be able to eat lunch before the bishop came or that he was waiting until they did exactly that and barged in to be extra annoying. There were, after all, always some people who had to be reporting to someone watching the inn and who knew if they managed to look inside from afar somehow.
Argul looked at the entrance, stretching her mana senses to pierce into the soup of intents that were outside of the house and felt something bubble up inside her chest when the guarded carriage entered her range. It was only then that she started to consider that maybe it wasn’t anxiety but indignant fury that she felt and what happened next only vindicated her more.
—---------------
Thaddeus sat inside of one of the church’s carriages wondering about how his upcoming mission would go. His holy majesty Meran had told them that, in ancient times before he had been forced to leave humanity in fear of endangering earth in a fight with his enemies, witches were a somewhat common occurrence and served him to spread the magic and wonder to his believers. The witch-hunts that happened after Meran left were a tragedy and ultimately eradicated the strain of humans that were able to wield the extraordinary: magic.
Now that Meran had returned and not only forgiven them, but also gave every human the ability to wield magic, it turned out however that not all witches had died. Somehow, somewhere a few of them had to have been able to survive, for there was no other explanation for the existence of Argul Agren, the Silver Witch.
This would have been, no, should have been a reason to celebrate. Someone had survived humanities misguided cruelty and managed to preserve an ancient legacy. The problem was that witches served god for a reason. The power they wielded, for all its beauty and usefulness, could easily corrupt a person. God protected the witches from said corruption and guided them on their path, but to do that he required their servitude.
The Silver Witch however, did not follow ancient traditions and wholly ignored his holy majesty. Whether that was by choice or because of ignorance didn’t matter, as long as she remained uncontrolled the Silver Witch posed a threat to society.
Here Thaddeus came into play. His mission regarding this wayward witch was twofold. He was to show her her place in the grand scheme of things and, most importantly, bring her back into Meran’s shielding embrace.
When he had been assigned this duty a few days ago, Thaddeus was overjoyed, so much so that he immediately rushed to travel towards Newport. Receiving any job, not even speaking of one this important, from god was the greatest honor he could think of and quite a few priests were jealous of him and probably still are.
Ever since then though, his plans of approach had changed quite a bit. If he was just meant to recruit the Silver Witch then rushing there would have been acceptable, especially since the government wanted to have her for themselves. But, his job was also to knock her down and perhaps intimidate the witch, show her her place and as such he couldn’t just rush to her or risk giving her the impression that she was important. Though, going by how the military had treated her during the time she helped people acclimate to God's presence, she likely already thought that way.
Anyway, since he couldn’t immediately approach, Thaddeus instead gave sermons and tended to Meran’s flock for a whole day. It was only now that he was on his way to visit the witch.
The carriage continued to roll down innstreat, as people had come to call this particular street and stopped a few minutes later after the driver announced their arrival at the wooly sheep, though most just knew the place as the Witch’s Residence.
Thaddeus looked through one of the windows and gestured towards his guards to proceed with their plan, to which they nodded in acknowledgement. One of the four armored and armed men broke away from the carriage shortly after, approaching the inn and coming to a stop a few meters in front of the door.
There was a short intense break during which Thaddeus could feel his connection to Meran grow more active and then the guard cleared his throat loudly.
“Announcing the arrival of Bishop Thaddeus, messenger and agent of his holy majesty Meran!” The man shouted out. “Argul Agren, Silver Witch and nominal citizen of Erdanien, your and your daughter’s presence is demanded now! Be aware that this is a command and non-compliance is not acceptable.”
A few minutes of silence, during which the guard looked around nervously like he was expecting something to happen, followed. There was no reaction whatsoever though and after one more minute of waiting the guard shrugged before he took his one handed battleaxe from his belt while he started to approach the door.
Not two steps later a silverish white light appeared right next to the guard and shot towards his head. The man let out a startled yell, but wasn’t able to react to the sudden attack and the light slammed into his cheek with enough force to send him flying to the ground.
Thaddeus watched all this, unable to process what was happening besides the startling clear sound of a slap connecting to a face and the intense interest radiating through his connection to Meran.
—----
Argul was left speechless, staring at the door and, through her mana sense, the group of arrogant imbeciles on the other side. Then the person that had approached to sprout his nonsense reached for his weapon while he walked towards the door and Argul felt herself snap violently for the first time in years.
i wonder how meran came up with his lie regarding witches... since there is no way he doesnt know the truth, he had to have deliberately made this lie... seriously, how can any god of christianity even if its born of faith commit such a sin? this Meran is clearly not the god of true christians, but the flawed product of a cult.
will we ever see a god born from faith actually be true to that faith's bible/teachings? and where is jesus through all this? he is a far bigger figure to christianity than god is, so why wasnt he manifested?
this false christian pseudo-god is gonna have an eye-opener.
hmmh, the lie is pretty convenient for him and as for why he is the way he is, faith is part of it and the reason he came to be and, through that faith, also came his knowledge and his personality. It's just that I don't look at faith as just the believe in something/someone. For me faith is all, the believe in something, the dedication towards it (the bible doesn't help, you know) and the actions carried out in its name, as such you could say that Meran is tainted by all the misdeeds committed by christianity that people know of (even if they don't want to acknowledge it) and because he is a new born entity, all these things went into making his personality. I put it together in a way that he is kind towards his believers, but an obsessive asshole towards everyone else. (I do not mean offense to christianity btw, though I do think that the religion is a bit misguided at times, but that's just my opinion. At this point in the book, Meran already doesn't present christianity anymore, but is the one that took over anyway)
Jesus didn't manifest because he is in a way an extention of god and faith towards him got put into the pool that birthed Meran. Then when the new consciousness that is Meran got born, with all the knowledge and the hodgepot of believe, he could choose who to be in a way and why be the son when you can be the one in charge?
Another reason why I envision the religions in my story this evil, for a lack of a better word, is because they are old. Now, I'm an atheist for as long as no god doesn't directly interact with me and so from my point of view, religions are pretty much organisations that work on spiritual happiness and at some point in their existense they got corrupted by all the selfinterests of people. The fact that dominant western religions only have the one god makes that even easier in my opinion, because there is no other god in the pantheon they have to compete against. In the end I want to slowly bleed out modern religions (or change them, my world my rules) and then put fantasy religions in the void they left.
The Abrahamic god (referring to the god worshipped by Jews, Christians, Muslims, and their various offshoots and denominations, who all generally claim that the god they worship is the same god that Abraham worshipped) lies a lot in his holy books. The bible and its specific writings are likely to be less important in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to the whole of a religion. It's no secret that most Christians tend to only selectively follow certain teachings from the New Testament, while outright ignoring the Old Testament, except when it suits them personally. Jews also have a long standing tradition of actively questioning and reinterpreting the holy texts... And pretty much every denomination has a different set of books that they all believe are more "correct" than the others. Ancient texts matters a lot less than current traditions and views.
But there's still so many weird discrepancies in the story when relating to the Abrahamic religions. The biggest one that has stuck out to me? Why is he called Meran? Like, anyone who's done a bit of study would know that the Abrahamic god has a couple of names that one might call his, those being "El" or "YHWH" (pronounced either Yahweh, or by some as Jahova) so believers with this knowledge would be VERY confused at the sudden name change, and the fact that nobody's really questioning it was kinda just glossed over. In fact, there's the whole bit about "don't use the lord's name in vain", which a lot of groups take VERY seriously, hence why nearly all denominations only ever refer to him as "god", or "the lord", and Jews take this a step further by spelling god as "g-d" to further avoid invoking him. So the fact Meran is seemingly encouraging people to openly use his name is likely to be a red flag by a ton of Meran's supposed believers. That, or there's a ton of Jews and Muslims whose prayers just aren't going to any god.
Honestly, it doesn't look like you're bleeding out modern religions---you've completely gutted them from the start, and then draped the skin over your fantasy religion. And for some reason, everyone just went with it without question, simply because they heard a voice in their head. Like, there are going to be a lot of people, both individuals and entire denomination, whose worldview are just incompatible with Meran, but would still fall pretty safely into the Abrahamic category. There are two possibilities. There are now a lot of people with a voice in their head claiming to be their god, who refuse to believe him, OR there are a lot of people who didn't get added to Meran's religion despite believing in God just as much as the next Christian, but because they care slightly more about a certain aspect than most others, they don't make the cut.
@TUSF you make a good point, I did gut religion from the very beginning. Back when I started I didn't put all that much thought into this and neither did I do research. I was also (and probably still am) in a weird spot because of my depression. There is a lot of stuff I learned either in school through personal interest or by sheer accident over my teenage years and I can't for the best of me remember the majority of everything until I get confronted with it again. It's gotten a lot better over the last year of introspection, sure, but that doesn't make the serious disconnect between reality and myself back at the time disappear. Now, I could and could have edited it all, but I'm way to lazy for that and so I did a hack job and put duct tape over it.
Thanks for the lesson (and reading). I will endavour to, ah, keep in mind that not all religious people are stupid in the future. Looking back, that was very insensitve and biased of me, but sometimes I lose track of stuff or get lost in my own world, so it's good that there are people who like you who give me a good bonk on the head to open my eyes.
I seriously gotta think this other, though I'm pretty sure I won't change things in Erdanien and the theocracy because I need the former to get Argul moving faster and needed the latter to get the lizard-kin into Argul's domain. Anyway, thanks again for the criticism!
PS: People did in fact not just go with Meran and accept everything. It was only mentioned a few times, but the church of Meran operates reeducation camps where they put the people who actively oppose and or refuse to believe in Meran and well, reeducate them. I know, I know, that leaves quite a few different questions open and adds a few new ones, but it's a step forwards (or backwards depending on how you look at it).
ALSO, and I do not mean what follows seriously I just want to flex my author privilege of being able to make f*ck up, never ever has there been said that people have accepted Meran as their Abrahamic God from a people point of view, as a god yes but not this one in particular, perhaps the only exception being the misguided Bishop. The King for example complained about now having a god above him, which means in conclusion that you are assuming things that may or may not be (Gosh this is so much bullsh*t , but it's fun and I gotta do it, sorry!)
@Otjag this helps a lot, even if it is bs... the concentration camps is a lot better explanation though. at least we dont have to worry about argul being called the devil anytine soon...right?
@Tavonis nah, evil maybe, but calling her the devil would be like admitting that she is equal to Meran or at the very least extremely powerful
@Otjag yep she is no devil like she can crush Meran under her feet (figurativly) like it was implied by her daugther.
@Aniel I see what you did there. She can crush him though. The problem is finding is physical location (meran doesn't have a like a physical body, but is like a cloud chilling out somewhere). Argul is the Origin of Mana and that makes it generally speaking a very bad match up for any being of mana