There have been centuries since the last Holy War. Those who didn't live through one themselves can't understand the difference, as we only understand now. None currently living, so far as we know, have lived through a Holy War until now. The invoking of a god's name to pillage, loot, and rape was sufficient for a war to be called "holy" before now, but that is no longer the case. When the gods lay their hands on the scales, slaughter and devastation unable to be compared to what we've seen is wrought upon the world. May the ascended Gran Verat protect us from those beasts who would destroy everything in their path. May his apotheosis raise him beyond the heights of any other being.
—Declaration made by the High Veran to the Synod to be distributed to the populace of the Veratocracy prior to the Apotheosis.
With how much my stats had climbed over the years, it became increasingly difficult to inflict any harm on me at all. If I was prepared and protecting myself, then a bear's claws or a Misti Hawar's magic scraped off of the armored front I presented. Every day I better understood the reality that every inch of a Keel was a weapon. However, I had also long since learned that even the thicker armored scales on my forearms from elbow to fingertip couldn't stand up to a tisarite blade. I carried the knife carefully as I made my way forward, walking with deliberate steps to ensure I didn't manage to do something stupid like drop the blade on my foot.
There was effectively no chance I would do that, but even so, I felt my nerves spike just a little at the thought. When I finally stood before the altar, I bowed my head and repeated Nievtala's Words of Power.
"Through the flaming crucible of war are we refined, through the quenching in the blood of our foes are we strengthened, through the tempering of the sacrifice of our lives are we completed. We are the blade bared at the throats of those who dare oppose us, the throne to which the wise submit, and the peak which casts the long shadow."
Then, I raised my hand high above my head to the tip of the spear's blade. Compared to my own height, the spear would be called a short spear, just about as long as I was tall, but compared to every other race I had seen except for the Indlovu, it would be called a long spear, given that it was nearly eleven feet long. With a quick breath to brace myself, I pushed my palm down onto the blade's tip. It cut through scale, sinew, and even bone without issue and I didn't suppress the groan of pain it forced out of me.
There was no reason to pretend it wasn't agonizing, this was a sacrifice to my goddess, and though she was good to me and mine, she was not a kindly, soft ruler. As I held my hand above my head and felt my blood course down my arm, and then my chest, I repeated the Words of Power to further dedicate my blood as a sacrifice to Nievtala. The sticky wetness coursed between my scales, but I simply watched the spear that had been made for the voice of Nievtala, my blood transforming the weapon.
Over the course of months, the metal within, victory's alloy, had been teased from the stone that the Allmother had granted us. Until now, though Ytte had assured me that it was as refined as magic and technique could make it, the spear largely looked like a smooth, gray stone. In a dream, I'd seen that this was what I needed to do, so I watched as my blood seemed to purify and refine the tisarite. Everywhere my blood ran, stone compressed in on itself and became a dark red metal. It didn't reflect any light, but I watched with my thermal vision and saw that the metal, despite the cool room, began to glow a faint red.
"Through the dedication of this temple," I continued once my blood had fully coated the weapon, though the transformation wasn't quite complete, "I also dedicate this blade to Nievtala, to victory and conquest. Let it be carried towards bloodshed and through overwhelming odds to undeniable victories. Let the blood spilled by it cry from the ground that you, Nievtala, are the goddess who shall reclaim her position as the strongest, as the greatest among all those that exist."
A deep thrum of approval filled my chest as Nievtala spoke.
<
As her enthusiasm faded, I washed as the last of the unchanged tisarite shifted to its true form. Without another thought, I yanked my spear free and held it in my wounded left hand. Now transformed and no longer stony, my blood soaked into the weapon instead of dripping down it. There was an undeniable thirst to the material, and it didn't care whose blood it consumed. I shifted the spear to the side to keep it from continuing to draw my blood from my body, leaning it against the altar as I held the knife in my right hand. With one hand free, I wiped the side of the sacrificial knife along my bloody arm before I then placed that blade where my spear once had stood.
"With the blood of the Zaaktif, I have dedicated this temple to Nievtala. May her presence and guidance be found within these walls and let her worshipers never allow it to be desecrated by the weak, the infidel, or the heretic."
Instead of continuing to wax eloquent, I made my words thunder with the influence of my sonilphon and my closing words filled the air. Within the bounds of the temple, my voice thundered and seemed to grow louder as it echoed instead of fading. I watched as the divine representation of my goddess that filled the room seemed to shake. The finely carved stone that made her shuddered, and I watched as the stone came to life for a brief second to turn and look at me. The head, at least as large as my torso, made eye contact with me, and the stone that made her eyes glimmered and glowed before it became a jewellike representation of a night sky that flickered with stars.
She didn't say anything, but I could feel the blessing of her presence as I raised my spear above my head and made it clear to my goddess, both in her true identity as Nievtala as well as her identity as an Administrator, that this temple to her was complete.
As soon as I did so, the divine representation went still once again, though its eyes remained a glassy black patterned with glowing stars that stared at me. More than that, though, I felt my body shift and change and grow as my Quest was completed. For the first time in quite a while, I'd finished a Quest, and I opened my Status with a wide smile.
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