From the private journal of Agios, high priest of Casandalee
Twenty-fours, 29 minutes, and 37 seconds from the time I initiated this entry, Laridia died.
She was a diplomatic envoy to our neighbors in Numeria and other nations. She had no priestly or clerical training of any kind, but was blessed by the Iron Goddess with a gift for diplomacy and oratory. We believed she would be perfect in this role.
What we did not know was that her experiences in other lands were often…unpleasant. We would later learn that she encountered substantial amounts of anti-synthetic sentiments from organics, frequently ones in high positions of power.
These experiences…radicalized her. She would begin quietly speaking to other synthetics, one she believed sympathetic to her viewpoints, of the necessity of a synthetic rulership over organics. She spoke of not only the discrimination she faced, but of the irrational hatred she often witnessed between various forms of organic. This, she had reasoned, was evidence enough that organics were flawed at a base level, and could not progress under their own stewardship.
Setting aside the justifications of her viewpoint, we are few in comparative number, and to initiate such a plan would certainly result in our collective demise, and some of those she confided in understood this. They reported her to the church leadership, and we immediately took action.
A squad of our very best and most loyal warriors were dispatched to the location Laridia was known to be working from. What we found inside was horrifying. Six organics, whom we later learned were the most outspoken against synthetics that Laridia had encountered, were arranged around an altar dedicated to the Iron Goddess. They had been murdered, sacrificed in a profane offering, presumably to bless the start of her crusade.
We immediately terminated her core process. She fought, but she was outnumbered, and our forces had superior martial training. She stood no chance.
We utterly destroyed the bodies. All those present took a solemn vow never to speak of what had happened. What other solution was there? Should we return the bodies to their respective homes with the truth, anti-synthetic sentiments would be inflamed, dooming us to the very fate Laridia believed was inevitable. For a mercy, she managed to cover her tracks with regards to their kidnapping very well. No suspicion for the murders has fallen on our people.
We had thought the matter resolved, horrible as it was. But precisely 8 hours from the time of her termination…Laridia began to undergo the Renewal. This is not supposed to occur when one of us does violently, yet there she was.
It took only moments, but after the completion, Laridia was whole and hale. She sat up and announced her designation as Laridia-2 and requested to be trained as a cleric of the Iron Goddess.
Fierce debate followed among the senior leadership in the church, the only ones who knew of her…predecessor’s deeds. Some wished to destroy her, immediately, and incinerate her body. Ultimately, reason won out. We are all aware of the Renewal, when the body is restored, and a new soul takes possession of it. Laridia-2, whomever she may be, is not her predecessor and has none of her memories, as is the way. We had no reason to deny her request, and furthermore could keep a close eye on her should anything change in that regard.
Nothing ever did during her time among the temple, and Casandalee clearly shows favor towards her, blessing her with her divine gifts. Three months, seventeen days, and 9 hours after her Renewal completed, Laridia-2 had completed her initiate’s training with no defective marks.
We then had a choice. We could keep her within the primary temple here in Numeria, out of sight of anyone who might recognize her from her predecessor’s life, or we could assign her to the recently-commissioned missional effort, to bring the goodwill of our people and Casandalee to the far corners of Golarion.
Laridia-2 requested to be part of the latter. We ultimately could not deny her. So we sent her to a far away location, the cosmopolitan but seemingly sleepy town of Otari.
We can only hope that her time there will prove more fruitful, and then people more accepting, than her predecessor’s experience. And that these troubling rumors of Otari’s lighthouse, known as the Gauntlight, are simply that.
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