Atheist Peace

[Brian]

From Chapter Two -- for Phil

You wake up to someone shaking you gently.  Opening your eyes, you feel disconnected, not all there.  This is about the feeling of waking up in a new body last time, though.

A child, maybe seven years old, a little blonde girl in a nightgown looks fearfully back over her shoulder.  "Father," she whispers harshly, "you must leave.  There is a Questioner, newly arrived in town."  She hesitates, tears shining in her dark eyes.

Looking around, you see that you're in a room, probably an attic, judging by the slope of the roof.  The area is tiny, barely large enough for the bed you were sleeping on, and a bedside table bears a trio of flickering candles.  "I'll leave you to dress," she says.  "Meet me in the kitchen."

She quickly scurries away before you can master your new body's tongue.

[Dracos]

Mentally reflecting on the fact that rolling out of bed in a hunted condition was becoming entirely too standard, Dracos dressed himself quickly, relaxing to let the body's own instincts generally guide his sense of balance and such.  He took a brief glance around the room, seeing if there was any mirrors, or more importantly, things neatly hidden that he should probably take with him.

'there are probably more pleasant ways of entering fatherhood,' Dracos mused silently while he swiftly readied.

Dracos

[Brian]

Phil's body seems to remember how to remove the dressing gown it was sleeping in and quickly finds the bag at the foot of the bed.  This is also an occasion of interest.

Within the bag are: Spare changes of clothes, non-priestly vestments, and ... well, what looks like a priest's vestments, pretty much.  There's a holy test (presumably), too, along with a number of scrolls, and a writing kit.  Much of the clothing is stained with ink, presumably from spills and such.

There's also a small pouch with four ... copper? ... coins in it.  They're about the size of a standard U.S. one dollar coin, actual value unknown.  There's also some candles, a tiny bit of steel and flint, and that's about it.

There's not nearly enough time to read the book, and there's no title.  But the symbol on the front (which is also the symbol on the front and back of the priestly vestments) is of a large, red double-doorway, one door white, one door black.

[Dracos]

Dracos dresses in the normal clothing, packing the back quickly and taking it with him as he followed where he  saw the young girl head earlier, presuming it to be the way to the kitchen.

Dracos

[Brian]

Phil finds he was in the third floor (attic, really, after all) of a classical house.   Taking one of the candles after extinguishing the other two, he finds that it is just as old as it looks.  It's got tons of creaky wooden beams everywhere.  But he does manage to find his way to the kitchen.  When he gets there, the girl has just finished filling a small sack with bread, cheese, three apples, and a waterskin.  Light here comes from a small, Arabian looking oil lamp.

"They're almost everywhere," she says unhappily.  "Liza says that they won't go into the grasses ... but you'd need to go through the regression gate to get there."  She winces.  "If they found out about that, then they'd stake you for sure.  As it is...."  She trails off, then bows her head.  "I don't know where you want to go.  But I believe what you taught us.  Momma and Poppa will distract the Questioner -- but you should hurry."  She bites her lip and looks up at Phil forlornly.  "Will you come back, someday?  Will you really show us how we can go through the progression gate, too?"

[Dracos]

"Some day," Dracos replied with a simulated heartfelt nod of remorse. his mind already miles away trying to map out possible symbolic meanings of progression and regression gate and what grasses he supposedly could hide in to stay away.  "But now, haste must serve..."  He quickly considered routes to leave the house, giving a half second to see if the young girl would suggest a direction by posture or word which he should already have known.

Dracos

[Brian]

"I...if you go out the back," she says slowly, "you can go down the creek.  It would be dark, but the Questioner couldn't see you, and the water would keep their dogs from scenting you.  It's almost a day's walk to the crossroads, but you can find your way from there, right?"  She licks her lips, jumping in fright as there's a loud crash against another door.

"Open!" a distant, angry voice cries.  "The Church of the Gates demands it!"

"You mustn't tell me where you go!" she cries in an urgent whisper, leading Phil to the door.  "I don't want to tell them!"

[Dracos]

Dracos turned her back, "Know nothing of it then... thank you for your bravery," He moved swiftly, trusting the young girl's advice which seemed sound to him, heading out back, he stayed low, moving quickly as he dared.

Dracos

[Brian]

It's dark outside, but there's enough ambient light from ... where?  No stars.  No moon.  But it was so dim inside....  From the back porch, Phil can see that there's light from around the side of the house -- bright light, like someone with a lantern is approaching.  Ahead, the ditch or depression that probably represents the creek is visible.  If the rear door faces north (no clue, with no stars), then the creek runs east-to-west, though the girl didn't say which way to go.  It's about forty feet from the back door, and Phil is able to cross the yards and scramble down a ten foot slope until he reaches the creek.  It's about seven feet wide, and maybe a single foot deep, at a glance.  In the dim non-light illuminating it, it's black and sluggish, nothing reflecting from the surface.

[Dracos]

Hurrying towards the depression and eager to stay out of the approaching light from the side of the house, sideplacing figuring out the various puzzle pieces as to his identity for the moment as he focused on not getting caught.  When he reached the creek, he listened briefly for what sounds his pursuers were coming from, testing the water quickly with a foot before heading down the center of the stream, attempting to keep the noise to a minimal as he went away from said pursuers.

He mentally noted he needed to read  this book of doors and probably commit it to memory pretty soon.

OOC: West if I can't figure out which way is away from them.
OOC: Borrowing: Speed Reading (3), Deduction (3), and Persuasion (3) for the immediate future from my real self.

[Brian]

Moving away from the town (it looks like it was a town, judging by the occasional lit window through the trees), Phil heads the approximate 'west' direction -- assuming the door did face north.  The creek gurgles occasionally on its own, so as long as feet are raised, there's no undue splashing.

The chosen course seems to lead upstream, judging by the occasional resistance.  But that is the way away from the town.  In the distance, a mournful cry sounds, like the howl of a dog.  No shouting, or bright flares of large fires, at least.

[Dracos]

Dracos distracts himself with a soft hum as he keeps moving, not trusting himself as safe until the sky changes above or he starts getting really tired.  He did take note of the terrain as he traveled, trying to get a better grip on the new world.  Apparently, the general level of culture was somewhere around the era of ..mmm, the Crucible as he recalled it.  No electricity that he saw.  Hopefully that meant a lack of guns with hunters after him, but more  hopefully he'd not get the chance to find out.

Dracos

[Brian]

The walk, for some reason, makes Phil wish for a horse.  After a few hours, the sky does lighten, though it's curiously non-directional, and there's no _sun_ in the sky.  A few clouds dot the horizon, but nothing else.  There's no sounds of pursuit, at least, though at this point his feet are cold, and very wet.  Still, the river water is refreshing, and by the time some of that cheese, and maybe an apple start sounding good, birdsong is filling the bushes lining the upper reaches of the creek.

It's hard to make out details through the thickets, brambles, and so on, though the view might be better from the top of the slope.  The creek bed also curved gently throughout the trek, so it's difficult to tell which direction the house actually was....  But that quickly becomes moot, as a bridge comes into view ahead.  It's a simple affair -- a single support column in the middle of the river, and essentially a great slab of boards.  No railing, and no roof, but wide and probably sturdy enough for a horse and wagon.

[Dracos]

Climbing out of the creek at this point, Dracos perused the area around him with his gaze, consider both what cover was available and which way roads traveled.  He paid particular attention to which roads seemed like they were heading back towards the village and which ones were heading 'any other direction'.

Finally, if there is nobody along the roads at this point, the hungry and tired preacherman finds a clean spot among the bushes where he'd be at least somewhat obscured and opens his pack, starting in on the cheese with one hand and reading the book with his other.  A diary might be more useful at this point, but his other self's religious text would have to do.

Dracos

[Brian]

The surrounding area is mostly flat, with occasional low rolling hills.  If Phil went west, then the town would be east (roughly), and at the top of the bridge a road runs next to the creek in that direction -- until it reaches the bridge.  South of the bridge is what looks like an orchard, trees planted in a regular grid, though they aren't bearing anything yet.  They look like apple trees.

North, the land levels out, less hilly, but more thickly forested.  Not far past the bridge is a crossroads, with one road going south to the bridge (and then turning east towards the village), one road going northeast, and one going west.  The creek seems to lazily drift southwest, if one wanted to go that way.  From the creekbed, Phil is able to find a hollow cluster of brambles that will provide perfect cover for a man sitting and taking his ease.

A great place to catch your breath, and after you sit, it has a nice view of the creek (which is clear, no longer so ominous looking, in the light), and then Phil notices that there are berries on the brambles.  They look like blueberries.

Turning his attention to the book, Phil is able to skim through it fairly quickly.  A few of the pages are probably hand-made, judging by the illumination (details and scroll work in the margins), but the vast majority look like they're from a printing press.  In fact, in a few places, the edge of a printing plate's indentation is visible.

The book's premise is pretty straightforward.  It's divided into four sections.  The first one is the story of Creation, which works out to:

The Creator cast the spheres across the anabaric shroud (which is some sort of reserve where all souls and energy come from, and eventually must return), and linked them with the gates.  Then the Creator assigned the task of maintaining the gates and how they should be used to his chosen followers, who obviously became the clergy years down the line.

There's some scattered stories of various awesome clergymen throughout ancient biblical history -- there's a mesiah-like character named 'Rasheed', who brings the secret of crossing through gates without triggering progression or regression, to that the clergy (and they alone) could travel freely, spreading the Creator's word.

After that is a listing of commandment-like rules and such, which is only a handful of pages.  They tend to follow the religious mean of any standard real-world religion that Phil can recall: Do bad things, and the Creator will punish you.  Heavily implied in the book is that the Church will fill in on the judging and persecuting part if the Creator can't be bothered.

The next section is larger, and is filled with random parables, tidbits, and is the section someone would flip through and point randomly to a passage if they wanted to solicit some kind of guidance.  That resonates with some half-memory Phil can't ... quite ... dredge up, but mostly reminds him of classic Knights of the Round table type stuff.

After that is a short section on what's going to happen in the future.  That someone will come and try to bring the secret of crossing through the gates without using them to everyone, instead of just the clergy.

Looking into the gates, which appear in every section, they appear after some study to be some sort of weird instant-evolution/de-evolution thing that the Creator gave his followers as a gift.

By the time Phil puts the book down (speed reading or otherwise) about two hours have passed, and there's the sound of horses leading a cart as a leisurely pace away from the village.  They'll reach the bridge soon, judging by their progress.  No way to tell which path they're going to take, though Phil does recall a signpost being at the crossroads.