The priests of the Campbell faith have the honorary title of 'Teacher' while the normal believers have the titles of 'Student'. They are called so because Campbell is seen as the first Teacher, with all sentient beings being their students.
Of course if you were to ask someone that belongs to the other three major faiths of Yvon then they would simply call Campbell the teacher of only humanity, with their respective Gods being seen as equal or greater than the patron deity of humanity.
If you were to ask Fabian about what he thinks, he would instead say:
'Our Lord Campbell is the Teacher of those who wish to learn Their Teachings. They are not the only teacher, but they are our Teacher. We should not try to compare our Gods and instead strive to be as close to them as possible.'
Fabian's day had been as ordinary as always. He woke up when the two suns rose up and then did his daily prayer, asking Campbell for guidance, ask some of his questions and also his recent accomplishments.
Campbell, being a Teacher, prefers to answer prayers made out of curiosity or seeking guidance. Many scholars and students are believers of Campbell as they can sometimes get help when it comes to studying a certain subject that they find difficult, a helpful nudge towards the right answer or simply affirmation when they finish a difficult or important task.
Being the deity of emotions, Campbell knows that sometimes something as simple as 'Good job' or 'I'm proud of you' can make someone feel seen, loved and encouraged, and so when needed, they will do so. They are by no means a deity that answers each and every prayer, but when they do answer, it is all the more special.
Much like a strict teacher that congratulates you when you manage to improve your test scores after studying for a long amount of time.
So Fabian was very surprised when he heard Campbell's voice after he finished saying his recent accomplishments.
-"I'm proud of you Fabian. Congratulations for becoming Head Priest, I know that you have been studying hard in order to become one."
Campbell's voice was completely androgynous, sounding both male and female while also not. It was a warm, kind voice. It was not overly loud or heavy, Campbell didn't need to infuse their voice with power in order to be heard.
They were simple words, something that some people might simply see as simple praise, but for Fabian, they managed to make him tear up. This was not the first time that he heard Campbell's voice and it probably won't be the last, but for him it didn't matter.
His deity, his Teacher, someone that he saw as his true parent, acknowledged him, and that was greater than any miracle or divine intervention for him.
-'I thank you with all my heart Great Teacher. I will continue to learn and teach so that I may better serve you and hear your words of praise.'
-"And I thank you for continuing to persevere and spread the gift of knowledge to those eager to learn. I have a request that you are able to complete and I was wondering if you are interested in completing it."
Deities asking their believers to perform simple tasks isn't something rare but it isn't a common thing either. If having a Deity answer your prayers is a rare thing then receiving missions is even rarer.
-'If I am able to help you in any way then I will do so without hesitation Great Teacher, you have helped me many times, this is the least I can do.'
While not overly worried about receiving a dangerous mission, as deities usually give missions that can be achieved relatively easily, he was still curious. Divine missions are encouraged to be reported to the churches so that the receiver of these tasks can either receive help or to make sure that they don't receive interference.
Most missions given to Head Priests are things like 'teach this certain child in a more attentive manner' or 'punish this priest that works under you'. Fabian hadn't noticed any children that might require special attention nor did he think the priests or nuns working under him are doing anything wrong so he thought this might be a more unique mission.
-"Someone from your village has prayed to Enos, earnestly requesting for the misfortune of one of their neighbors. Enos decided to answer this particular prayer on a whim but something went wrong and they won't tell me what happened.
I am worried that something might have gone wrong and someone was punished unfairly, could you check if anything odd happened within the past three years? Any abnormal events, gruesome accidents or any odd accidents?"
(Enos is the deity of Envy. Most times they answer the prayers of people that are envious of others and perform small tricks or annoyances.
Stuff like tripping and falling on something that isn't there, waking up with a stiff neck or other small annoyances.
They are not known to cause any great bodily harm or death but they do happen from time to time if Enos were to also be envious of said person.)
The deities of Yvon are not all-knowing or all-powerful but they do gain information from their believers based on their level's of faith and their connections.
For example, if a random believer died in a gruesome way, that deity would be none the wiser. If a priest were to commit some misdeed, they might have a vague sense of something being off.
If a high ranking clergyman were to posses both high faith and a divine core, then the deity would know more. This varies from deity to deity and believer to believer but this is the usual way of things. The more faith, higher quality divine core or personal relationship with the respective deity, the more that deity knows about you and your surroundings.
Fabian wasn't particularly shocked that someone prayed to Enos, he knew that even simple farmers and lumberjacks can be envious of others, but he was shocked that something went wrong. Such scenarios aren't unheard of but they are once a generation events.
He started thinking about all that had happened over the last three years in GreenWood village.
-'One of Henry's Lana died from an infected wound...Thomas almost chopped off one of his fingers while cutting some Vintu's...Sofia is..Sofia....After Mrs. Smith gave birth and was treated there was a group of mercenaries that came a few months after to chop down some Vintu's and one of their member's disappeared in the forest after they got attacked by a small group of Letos'. They told me that the circumstances were very suspicious.
After managing to chop up enough tree's to complete their task they were suddenly attacked by three Letos' that were behaving strangely, and just before they attacked, a young lady called Mirelle disappeared deeper into the forest while screaming.
Being attacked by healthy Letos' that were outside their territories, at night, was already suspicious, but Mirelle's disappearance was even stranger. One member of their entourage ran after here mere moments after she disappeared, and the gentleman was known to be quite fast, and yet she was nowhere to be found. Her torch was also laying on the ground where she once stood.'
-"That does sound suspicious. Considering that they either waited until they were about to be attacked or even lured the Letos' to them, then they must have been trying to abduct her for some time. It is possible that the misfortune that was supposed to befall one of the villagers instead fell upon that poor soul. From what I've gathered from Enos, the target of the misfortune was a beautiful woman, does this Mirelle fit that description?"
Fabian managed to see Mirelle because the Sunset Trio came to the church to pray before their journey into the forest and to talk with him about any possible danger's that the villagers did not know about. While Fabian was by no means a lustful man, he can appreciate beauty, so in his eyes Mirelle was indeed a beautiful young woman.
-'Yes Great Teacher, I do think she fits the description. I will issue for an investigator to come and try to deduce what exactly happened and the fate of the Miss Mirelle.'
Campbell was satisfied with Fabian's decision and decided to not look further into the matter. They were currently watching over a particularly...unique Goddess that had been acting strangely in recent times, asking for different weapons, knowledge and other things so they did not have time to further investigate what seems like an unfortunate accident.
-"Thank you for listening to my request. In return I will give you some Divine Energy that you may use in today's sermon."
Fabian bowed deeply at the statue of Campbell that he was praying to and then thanked his deity once again. Once he felt Campbell's presence disappear he immediately went to write a letter to the Royal Cathedral, asking for a private investigator to come and find out what had happened to Mirelle.
[••••••••••••••A few hours later•••••••••••••••]
The churches on Yvon do not have a particular day which are seen as 'holy' and so most churches hold their sermons around the evening of days in which most villagers don't have work or which were established beforehand.
Fabian was dressed in his Head Priest garb, a black robe with no adornments or jewelry. He made sure to repeat the parts of the Holy Book that he will be reciting that he found fitting. Once inside the relatively small church, when compared to the ones in the other cities or even the capital, he immediately focused his hearing so that he may listen in to any petty arguments among the believers that came.
This was a small ritual that he did every time he performed a sermon so that he may know which 'students' require special attention. He is well aware of the backhanded insults that they give each other and while he may not feel angry towards their actions inside a holy building, he was disappointed.
-'You give them rules and they always find ways to circumvent them. If the people are this unruly now then I shudder to think about how the first humans acted before the Great Teacher. I must follow in their example and have pa-'
-"Just becawse you can't waise your son pwoperly dwoesn't mean mommy can't!" (Just because you can't raise your son properly doesn't mean mommy can't!)
A small, childish voice came from one of the pews near the back of the church and once he heard what it said, Fabian had to make himself not crack a small smile in order to maintain his dignity among his fellow Teachers.
He heard what Sofia said beforehand and he wasn't surprised, if anything it further solidified the theory he had about the identity of the person that prayed for the misfortune of one of their neighbors.
-'I should start the sermon before Sofia further embarrasses herself. She will feel enough embarrassment after my sermon anyway. '
Yes, Fabian was planning to embarrass both Sofia and the other people that subtly insulted their fellow man, and yes, he knew that he was being hypocritical.
What others called 'Hypocrisy', he called 'One of the many perks of being Head Priest'.
[••••••••••••••Back to The Anomaly••••••••••]
Neiro had chosen to change his appearance as he grew up, choosing to differentiate himself from his brother, Vamas. While Lana was starting to resemble his mother and Vamas his father, he decided to have be a bit more unique.
His hair was a light caramel brown while his eyes were a grayish blue. His face was still somewhat similar to his brother's but he decided to change it more as he grew in order to not worry his parents.
He was now calmly sitting besides his sister and father, with his mother being at Lana's left and Vamas at his father's right. Stephen was floating right above his head and calmly watching as Teacher Vamas slowly opened up the Holy Book of Humanity and started reading the first story ever written by humans.
-"In the beginning, when humans were no better than apes, one Human started becoming curious about the world around them. They wondered why the sky was blue, why things fell to the ground, why the suns and moon moved along the sky and many more things.
When they first went hunting, they needed to get enough food to feed their fellow humans, but because they weren't sure how much they should hunt, they invented numbers and started counting how many humans were hungry and then hunted that many animals.
When there was leftover food after the humans ate, they saw that there was still meat left over, but not as much as before, and so they remembered how much meat they brought and counted how much meat was left and invented subtraction and addition.
When they saw someone die and then saw how they were forgotten over time, they wanted to do something that would last long after they died, so they created writing and taught their fellow humans how to do so as well.
Thus, the First Teacher was born."
-'Do you think that is how it really happened Stephen?'
-"I do not know sir. While the company gave me information about the religions of Yvon, they only gave me the stories, not what actually happened. This is one of the many versions of this story, some say that Campbell wasn't actually a random human that was simply curious and instead that they created Humanity in their own image out of their own body or the earth.
Another was that Humanity was made as a byproduct of Campbell's thoughts. They had so much knowledge at the time that some of it burst out of their head and took the form of a group of humans, the first ones to be precise.
All I know is that Campbell and the other chief gods of their pantheons are both belief-based and self-actualized deities."
Neiro continued listening to the other stories told by Teacher Fabian while also listening to what Stephen was saying. He looked like a kid that was watching a very entertaining cartoon show.
-'Very interesting, why did you not tell me about this different versions when you told me about the different religions?'
Stephen started panicking, thinking that he maybe pissed off Neiro by omitting possibly important information.
-'W-well I just thought that it would be best to tell you the widely accepted stories, the version where Campbell created Humanity is seen as untrue due to the power needed to create life. Campbell and the other chief deities are low-ranked deities when compared to the ones in other places so they only have the power to create only around 5 or so sentient beings every decade."
-'These beings, they are their 'angels' correct?'
Stephen started feeling better now that he managed to change the topic of conversation.
-"Indeed, since they can only create so many beings, they decided to create 'demitic' gods, that is also why certain members of the churches that amass enough power are called 'angels'."
-'And what are these ranks? It seems you have 'omitted' this piece of information as well.'
Stephen let out a nervous laugh, apologized for his incompetence and then started explaining what he currently knew about ranks.
Beings have different 'ranks' of existence. If we were to use an example where beings have levels, a rank 1 being that is level 100 would be weaker than a rank 2 being that is level 1.
Having a different rank doesn't simply mean that you are stronger or smarter, you are simply 'better', you are above them. Much like how a single ant cannot match a human, but we replace physical strength, size and mass with their ranks of existence.
On the planet of Midor there are 10 ranks of existence:
-Basic
-Enforced
-Ascended
-Royal
-Transcendent
-Soulful
-Monstrous
-Progenitor
-Demitic
-Apotheotic
With 5 basic sub-ranks:
-abysmal
-low
-medium
-high
-peak