Ahead of the Storm - Day 44

Sasserine, Two Months Ago

My, have these been troubled times here at the tower... Just today, one of the clerics came to inform me that this afternoon's ceremony to Wee Jas was held in front of a completely empty church. I remember the days when every religious occasion, on any given day of the week, brought forth followers by the dozens, if not hundreds. Now, we've come to be content just at seeing a few familiar faces turn up every now and then... often only to beg for forgiveness for some horrible crime they've commited out in Shadowshore...

It has come to a sad realization, one I've tried to avoid for far too long now - our church is dying. Surely bad luck has had a lot to do with it... being the church that gave Embril Aloustinai her start as a cleric is far from a high honor... Yet, I also believe that there is change going on, and the religions of old may one day become forgotten - perhaps to be replaced by a new set of gods, perhaps to leave us without religion at all.

One such wave of change has already swept the nearby city of Cauldron, in the wake of its being saved by the Outsiders. I have heard much talk of this new "Amalgamation" that the neraph mummy, Eadfrid, proposed to the town. A church where all gods are respected and faiths are taught from one group to another... Perhaps it is not ideal, but from what I have heard, it is certainly popular. I hear talk of full temples, of followers paying large sums of money to collect holy symbols... I even hear that they intend to spread to neighbouring cities...

Perhaps this is indeed the wave of the future. Maybe the best way to save the church of Wee Jas here in Sasserine is not to close it down, but to convert it - making it into the first church of the Amalgamation here in Sasserine. With it as my own idea and my own proposal, I might also gain a certain measure of power out of it, perhaps even bring some dignity and respect back to our family's name. Certainly dignity is something that has been lost in the wake of Gabriel's folly with the Sea Wyvern that tore this family apart... just look at those two good-for-nothing sons of his running around town trying to pay off the last of their father's debts. Garland's working for the whaler's guild - but that's nothing more than being a glorified fisherman, is it not? Certainly not respectable work, nothing that could support a family, in any case. And Glaive... dear God, were it not for the magic I have taught that boy, he'd surely be dead by now, making enemies of everyone and skirting his responsibilities.

No, I fear that if this family is to be happy again, I will have to be the one to do something. I shall write to the heads of the Amalgamation, and see how open they might be to my expansion project for Sasserine. I will also instruct some of my clerics here to start spreading word to the people in the streets of Sasserine... the commonfolk. If this is to be a success, they need to hear the hype, and start looking forward to the day when the Amalgamation might come to their own town.

Yes, I can start seeing how all of this might work out...

I had better start getting to work. A project like this could take a couple of months...