Intergalactic Summit

Note: this is intended as an entry in the Academic category of Lady Aspenstar’s writing contest.



The four walls of the Red Temple form an isosceles trapezoid, the parallel walls being the front and rear of the Temple, the front wall being longer than the rear and both being shorter than the other, non-parallel walls that make up the Temple sides. The vertical cross-section of the Temple also forms an isosceles trapezoid, the ground wider than the roof. The entire Temple is decorated in but two colors, gold and red; to the extent the congregation’s wealth makes possible every surface is to be gilded. On the walls, attached there on all four corners hang banners emblazoned red-on-red with the U-shaped symbol of God familiar from the orthodox Amarr faith.

The entrance has three doors: one in the center for the Chosen; the others to its sides for the slaves. The slave doors are only a meter or so high so that the slaves must crouch to enter: a visible sign of their inferiority. Directly in front of the Chosen entrance is the Blood Fountain through which bubbles the remaining consecrated blood of previous days’ sacrifices. Upon entering the Temple, the Chosen purify themselves by dipping their finger into the blood and making on their foreheads the symbol of God.

Behind the Blood Fountain lies the single largest element of the Temple, the rectangular Pit, approximately a meter deep and initially filled with water. Along the sides of the Pit is the standing section for the lay Chosen: due to the level of physical activity required to participate in the Blood Liturgy, congregants stand throughout and no pews are provided. Praying over the Pit in a ritual reenactment of Satach’s prayer over the fountain in the Carved Fortress of Satach’s Spite, the congregation sees the water turn to blood (piped into the Pit from a hidden mechanism). The Pit is then drained (again by a hidden mechanism) and Minmatar slaves driven into it. The slaves being in place, the congregation begins striking them with the electric lash and otherwise committing acts of violence against them, a liturgical replay of Satach’s slaughter of the Udorians.

Following this, three slaves are taken from the Pit to a clear space just beyond it; here occurs the Culling of the Strong. Because God can make a worthy sacrifice out of even the most wretched subhuman, it is not necessary for the faithful to sacrifice the strongest and smartest, and so the two “better” slaves are destroyed, their bodies left to bleed out there for the remainder of the liturgy, while the weakest is selected to be the ritual sacrifice. On either side of the Culling Space stands the choir, whose guttural droning throughout the proceedings gives the Blood Liturgy much of its flavor.

The sacrificial slave is led further towards the rear of the Temple into a Demon Summoning Triangle drawn on the floor in consecrated blood. On the three sides of the Triangle are written the sacred words Garrulor, Frisceas, and Sefrim, all words taken from the Scriptures. The presiding Priest stands adjacent to the Triangle in a Circle of Protection again drawn in consecrated slave blood and surrounded with the words “the Blood God” written in ancient and forgotten tongues. By means of the most forbidden and dangerous of rites, the Priest summons the spirit of Molok the Deceiver himself and binds it to the body and soul of the sacrificial slave.

Chained as was Molok the Deceiver in Chapter I of the Epitoth, the slave is led up a series of five steps that extend across the width of the Temple toward the Altar of God near the Temple’s rear. A massive golden block, the Altar of God can hold a prone slave without any of his or her limbs extending over the edge. Standing behind the Altar, facing the congregation, dressed in the fashion of Emperor Amash-Akura, a replica Avetat upon his head, a replica Ametat in his left hand, and a ceremonial dagger in his right hand, the Priest intones the story of Molok, the most sacred of all Scriptures, concluding in an elevated voice, “And Molok the Deceiver was sacrificed upon the Altar of God”, whereupon he plunges the dagger into the slave lying outstretched upon the Altar.

The blood of the slave thus consecrated by the Scripture reading flows into a drain in the center of the Altar of God (the surface of the Altar being slightly concave and almost perfectly smooth to accommodate this) where it is decontaminated by a hidden mechanism and then drains into a golden chalice accessed from a door in the rear of the Altar, hidden away from the congregation. Taking up the chalice once it is full, the Priest descends the steps into the Culling Space, where the congregation lines up to accept the blessed Sacrament. If the slave had been Brutor, the Priest says to the congregant, “The Blood of the Brutor” and the congregant replies, “It gives Strength to the Chosen”, whereupon the congregant takes a sip from the chalice. The equivalent replies for Sebiestor and Vherokior sacrifices are “It gives Intellect to the Chosen” and “It gives Wisdom to the Chosen”, respectively.

At the extreme rear of the Temple, behind the Altar of God, a Takmahl Holy Statue looms over the congregation.

There's lunatics and Lunatics. And then there's this guy.

It's the sheer banality of this stuff that offends me, more even than the evil. One sees more imaginative wickedness on the late night horror channels, with Z-list actresses squealing at the hands of badly lit and poorly wardrobed old men who used to be mildly famous.

Why doesn't CONCORD arrest this guy? Why do they let him post here?

No. Not yet.

We should work on your creativity sometime! Existential horror is much more terrifying than blood and gore!

Because CONCORD Directive Sigma-Omega-Omega prohibits them from doing so!

I may or may not have pulled that out of my arse, but regardless, CONCORD are a bunch of backwards inflexible twats.

But your rituals are pretty horrible anyways, Mister Nauplius. At the very least we can try to correlate gore with glory!

Science demands as much!

Not sure which one's worse. The fact I am not in the slightest surprised by this turn of events, or that Miss Doctor Valate bothered to create a clone of herself just so she could be a punchline for Blood Raider inside humor.

Probably both!

By all things Pure and Holy your Temple is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Oh the horror, the depravity of the site.






Just a side note Nauplius mate, any room for a stall out-front. I've come into possession of a whole wardrobe of Blood Raider fashion items I would like to off load. Don't focus on my newly acquired security status, just the cheap clothing prices.