fending | heaven pcs: marcoh

[ with the clothing store advertising new arrivals, fidelio stopped by to see what they had. neither him or basilio are much for swimming, but after spending weeks on the world's hottest island dressed in their long-sleeved suits for some fucking reason (atlus), he figures getting some more fitting attire might not be a bad idea, even if heaven is apparently temperature-controlled.

he's currently frowning at a shirt on a hanger, like he's having trouble picturing how it would fit without something to physically compare it to.

...and then he sees marcoh and calls over to him. ]

Oi. Mind if I borrow you for a minute?

[ Runs in here!!!

Marcoh doesn't spend a whole lot of time in the clothing store for a few reasons but even he's gotta have more than just one set of clothes. He usually tries to come in when it isn't crowded though, and he mostly had just assumed it was empty until he's called out to. ]

...

[ Looks down and immediately... looks a certain way... but he withholds. ]

What is it?

[ holds up the hanger with the shirt. probably a nice subtly-patterned green linen shirt or something. ]

Need to see how long this thing'd be on someone your height.

[ he does not want to accidentally give his brother a crop top. ]

Okay.

[ He just takes it and will put it on over his shoulders. Hopefully the arms aren't Atlus-width.

And just stands here waiting for Fidelio's assessment. His eyes keep glancing to the flopped ears. He can't help himself. ]

[ looks at it... tilts his head a little...

nods. ]

Yeah, all right, that oughtta work. Thanks.

[ and now that he's not completely focused on the shirt he notices that last ear glance. and just kind of raises an eyebrow. what. ]

[ Removes the shirt and returns it to him. ]

...

Are you related to Basilio or Jiaoqiu?

[ Or perhaps both? ]

[ asking about basilio is valid because they are very much brothers and have the same last name on the profiles and everything, but he's kind of ??? at jiaoqiu getting added here. all paripus have to be related to each other huh... ]

Basilio's me little brother, yeah. [ and the reason you just tried this shirt on. ] No relation to the other one.

[ Navigating the phone is hard on his big hands...

The way Fidelio is purple so like he could go either way on the colour family spectrum. ]

Little?

[ Dude's huge. ]

Younger.

I wouldn't have guessed.

You being here together is...

[ Not a good thing. He looks that way where he kind of wants to say sorry. ]

[ it's... complicated ]

Sure as hell wish he weren't dead, yeah, but I'm not gonna complain about us bein' together neither.

[ Wait nvm I misread something. ]

That's fair I think.

It must be better than being here alone.

Did it happen at the same time or was it different? A lot of others seem to be the second...

Different. Me first, him 'bout a month later, apparently.

I'm sorry to hear that. I wouldn't want to see my little sibling in a place like this either.

...

Well, it isn't so bad here... but I'd feel better knowing she's alive.

[ nods... ]

Yeah, I get ya.

[ feels bad leaving them behind, feels bad seeing them here. like you failed them somehow either way. ]

She still all right out there now, far as you know?

[ That gets a very grim look on his face. He's now thinking about it, sorry he's not a very chatty person. The expression is probably telling though. ]

[ fidelio is already crouching down in front of the tree looking at the gift boxes in the morning, so he just picks up the present with marcoh's name on the tag and holds it out when he notices him. save him the effort of coming all the way down here from way up there. ]

For you, apparently.

Oh.

[ He looks... surprised? ]

I have one?

[ ...Looks around... ]

Am I supposed to open it... now?

Everyone's got one, from the looks of it.

Didn't exactly give us any rules to follow, so I reckon you're free to open it whenever you feel like it.

Do you have some too?

Got one, yeah.

[ holds his own box up and gives it a little shake. he hasn't opened it yet either. ]

They're not too big. It's probably not more swords and knives.

[ Everybody arrived with SO MANY OF THEM, WHY. Just opens his I guess, breaks the ice.

It's just a little brass insignia ring, nothing special. ]

Trinkets, I think.

[ man, he fuckin' WISHES he'd arrived with a knife now. ]

Really? That's a little anticlimactic.

[ he goes ahead and opens his own, then, without expecting much, and finds... what i GUESS is a fake version of one of these things?? metaphor please illustrate your items. anyway it's wrapped up in a wire like it's supposed to be used as a pendant or something. ]

...Huh.

[ They won't, the whole art budget went into the UI and also the characters. ]

...What... is that? Bone?

[ the thing i'm still most offended by is that they fucking have casual versions of their models without coats in the game and yet they had them in the regular coats-on models the entire time they were on eupha's 42°C island

he blinks for a second before realising that yeah actually it does kind of look like bone, doesn't it ]

Oh. No, it's— well, this one's a fake novelty version, but it's s'posed to be a white sand rose. Sort of a crystal thing, grows in the desert. Use 'em as lucky charms where we're from.

A sand rose. I can see it.

[ Kind of. ]

If this is fake, does the real one have magic?

Nah, pretty sure that's just superstition.

[ it DOES give you +5 to all of your stats, though. ]

Fakes are common back home, even. Takes a while for 'em to form natural, so real ones aren't easy to find.

They do that a lot. What is it... commodify?

But even if it's fake, it can change one's mindset.

Yeah. Still sort of feels reassuring havin' one around, even if it's not really gonna do anything.

[ too bad he has to immediately lose it tonight! ]

[ NO YOUR TRINKET ]

That's not so bad, for being free stuff.

[ Our tree presents... ]

Yeah, I don't hate it.

[ puts it in his pocket that mysteriously has a hole to another dimension in it ig ]

Yours wasn't anything you recognised though, huh?

[ I think I was on the go and truly just bullshitted something random as hell, I'm losing it. ]

No. Well. It kind of looks like the rings the... some of the guys I used to know like to wear. But they're not really for me.

[ Just looking at the thing. It's got gaudy written all over it. ]

[ help that's totally valid i just didn't want to gloss over it if it actually was something

squints at it ]

Yeah, s'pose it don't really look like your style.

[ which is a compliment. kind of sucks as a gift in that case, though. do better, tree. ]

Fellas you used to work with or somethin', you mean?

[ God bless you Eric. ]

You could say that. Not work with, but more... eh.

[ Well it's not untrue but there's a slight distinction. ]

I helped them out sometimes. Here and there.

[ Me typing w1 Monday and then backtracking so fast like no...

Anyway Marcoh is just leaning on a wall somewhere, being as shadow of a guy as anyone his size can possibly be. He nods vaguely when Fidelio comes around but he looks grim about it. ]

Again.

Again. Times two.

[ he'll come lean too. he's fucking tired. ]

What the hell.

Two is worrying.

...Same person, do you think?

I hope so. Didn't find 'em all that far from each other, it sounded like, so it seems plausible.

It feels like the easiest truth we could swallow, at this point.

[ Hard to imagine two whole people would want to kill. ]

Still just... don't fuckin' understand how this magic barrier thing comes into it. I mean, it's gotta be connected. Did everything we could tryin' to bust that damn door in the library down, and someone managed to just walk on in after we fell asleep?

We tried in the Whoville as well. Even tried throwing Yves high up as I could to see if there was an upper limit.

[ Fidelio can probably extrapolate from the lack of anything else said that it failed. ]

I don't know if it goes down when we sleep. It's like it's chosen.

[ winces at the mention of yves, because he's got to be having a rough time with this...

he's also not sure if it's reassuring or even worse knowing other groups were making their best efforts to get out too, and failing just the same. ]

...Yeah. I was thinkin' last week, since Jing Yuan was actin' so off afterward, that maybe there was one entity behind everything. Gettin' in someone's head so that they wanna go out and murder somebody and givin' 'em easy means to do it, all at once.

Like the Devil's offerings.

We should be knowing better than this.

[ devil's offerings... ]

D'you think he chose to do that? Like whatever took control of him did it 'cause he made a deal with it or somethin'?

...I don't know.

I thought it was the "madness" he talked about, that his people are prone to getting, but I was told it might be something else.

The angels keep insisting it's impossible though. But I think it is hard to deny now, for sure.

[ ...huh. first he's heard about the susceptibility to madness, and he doesn't like that, actually. ]

I'd figured it was some outside force doin' it to him against his will, like possession by a spirit or whatever. Hadn't really considered that he might've consciously left himself open to it.

[ it didn't seem like he would, at least not from the way people closer to him described him, but that's all he really has to go on. ]

...Anyway, the angels don't know shite about anything, it seems like, so disregarding whatever they say is impossible seems reasonable.

Ay. I don't like it, but we cannot rely on them to think for us. We are seeing what we are seeing, and even though they promised it would not happen again, it did.

...

I guess we should expect everything else to go the exact way as last time.

[ Probably no point in hoping they'll prevent it, somehow. ]

[ Greaaat. ]

Don't know how open we will be to opening up new fun places but hopefully there is a clinic in it.

[ Seriously...they're gonna need it. ]

Fuckin' hope so, 'specially if we have to worry 'bout groups disappearing and coming back ripped to shreds like the other day.

Ay. That part is worrying.

[ LIKE WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. ]

It bodes bad, since it was... related, to the whole place Jing and Jiaoqiu are from?

[ Seriously rubbing salt in the wound there. ]

Yeah, don't even know what the implications of that are. Hopin' it was more like that... cloud cave by the beach, and not some actual contact with that world.

[ when they've got some Mysterious Malicious Force infecting people's minds here, who's to say it wouldn't spread to their own worlds if it had access? ]

Like a more real illusion?

[ He frowns. That's concerning for sure. ]

Whatever it is, at least it was not permanent, since we got Claude and Taair out of the... whatever that was.

[ Of course, he doesn't know but Jiaoqiu's reaction and what he kind of vaguely understands about the situation is that that's maybe not normal? ]

Whatever that was.

[ shakes his head. ]

...That sin theory you were talkin' about before. Mind sharin' some more thoughts on that now that we're not in the middle of accusin' people of murder?

Uh. Yeah. I can try, but it is mostly Jiaoqiu's theory. You might want to talk to him...

Maybe worth asking Anders too but I'm not sure if he will be able to tell if being really angry is something this place is causing.

Think he's got sort of a lot on his plate right now, what with the not havin' a clinic situation.

Don't gotta get too specific, I can get the details from him later, but. What's the basic idea here?

[ you do not have to name sins!!!! ]

[ NAMES THEM ALL!!! ]

Jiaoqiu himself said that during the expelling, he felt a lot of old anger and pride welling up, that made him feel like he could not lose the battle. Despite being willing to offer his name for being voted culprit instead.

He said that the general was known for being laid back and doing things at his own pace. And when I talked to him, he said his reason for killing Charlie was because he was bored.

Wait, so he said he felt like he was affected by somethin' like that too?

[ but only during the execution...? those are definitely details he'll have to get from jiaoqiu himself, but. damn. ]

That's... Huh. All right. So maybe whatever it is, it's emphasising our worst traits specifically when it wants us to kill someone? Either as a murder or an execution.

Nobody can say what Jing felt. But for Jiaoqiu, yes.

[ He grimaces at the specification of 'when it wants us to kill someone'. He hadn't thought of it exactly that way but he can hardly say otherwise. ]

Might be.

Honestly not sure if that'd make it better or worse, but... maybe better if it means it's not necessarily an all-or-nothin' irreversible thing.

I think it may be good to consider some kind of containment, if someone like that gets free.

[ They chose possessed over willing killer this time, but what if there's more later? It's clear he doesn't consider this possibility impossible. ]

Sounds like it, yeah.

[ nods... ]

Thanks. First even potentially promising news I've heard in a while, it feels like.

[ gonna feel real bad if it turns out that whole execution that just happened was the wrong judgement after all, though!! ]

...

Not my credit to take.

[ Shakes his head. ]

And I wish you didn't need to experience it first to find out.

Eh, still took the time to answer when I asked. Appreciate it just the same.

...Though yeah, definitely wish that too. Havin' to wait for more people to die to figure out how to stop 'em from dyin'... seems like a bad joke.

And that's just to figure out if it's true at all. Not if we can undo it.

...Yeah, probably so.

[ i'm sorry this is the entire tag because now he's just getting lost in worries again ]

[ I keep doing that to everyone this game so that's fair honestly. ]

You must be worried.

[ Considering he's got a brother here. Things are rough as it is without people you know. Generals, lovers, family. ]

Don't much like the odds when it's been a person with someone important to them from home here both times so far.

...

It's frustrating to know you could have the strength to stop anyone if it happened but you can't.

[ Local guy who curfewed with all three murder victims so far. ]

[ meanwhile he's just waking up where dead bodies are every week... ]

And knowin' you probably can't even trust yourself not to be the one who does it.

...

[ He often looks grim in response to topics like these, but something about what Fidelio says seems to make him extra uneasy. ]

I don't want to hurt anyone.

[ he's just going to assume that's because the strength thing goes both ways — can make him a great protector or a great killer. and there's really nothing reassuring he can say to that when character means nothing. ]

...Yeah. Me neither.

I know. You have someone to protect too, on top of it.

[ Big brother to big brother communication... ]

[ the memory that plays across the mirrors this time is one that's both very personal and very painful, and feels all the more raw after last week's events. fidelio winces as soon as it starts, but lets it play as-is. ]

[ Ah. Healing magic, something he doesn't really know anything about -- but everything else about the Metaphors' world seems rather fantastical in nature. ]

...

She is right. Even if you think otherwise.

...Sort of hard not to, but. Thanks.

I do mean it. Sounds like you did everything you could while you were where you were.

...

What was that? Why were you...

[ By god I have so much catching up to do. ]

What, the place we were in?

[ he pauses for a second to consider just how much of this probably needs explaining. ]

...In our world, there's these tools called igniters people use for casting magic. It's a whole industry, and the Crown Theocracy's got its fingers in it at every level. Facilities like that one are where they test out the ones that are in development.

Their recruiters go out lookin' for people who are struggling to survive, tell 'em it's a way to make a living that guarantees food and a roof over their heads. Most of 'em are paripus, and a lot of 'em are orphaned kids who've got no other options.

[ This is like the reverse Anders. ]

So they test magic on you?

[ The disgust is obviously palpable. He knows a thing or two about the poor being extorted by the rich and powerful but Almighty, he isn't that privy to child torture. ]

[ meanwhile, fidelio's so used to things being this way that he sounds almost blasé about it, but there's still the sense that there's fury simmering just below the surface. ]

Hardly think of us as people, lots of 'em. Probably figure it's not so different to experimenting on animals.

You, and Euphausia too.

They do not treat you with any respect, do they?

[ he nods, though it's not quite the same for eupha; she always lived among only her own tribe on her island, and they're relatively few and scattered on the mainland. they're looked down on as uncivilised pagans, but there are never enough of them in one place for the majority tribes to complain about them overrunning the cities like rats. ]

Very few of 'em, anyway. Saint Rella there was one of the exceptions.

[ so was louis. ]

Were you able to escape it?

I mean, we didn't go back to bein' test subjects after that, at least, so we escaped that much.

What do you do now?

[ Or. Well. What were you doing. ]

Joined the army once we were old enough. Count Louis brought us into his private forces sometime after that, and we eventually ended up his top officers.

Stepped away from that in the end, though.

... Ex-soldiers then. Dismissed or deserted?

...Complicated, but more the latter. Thought he was dead and that we were free to go.

I would not consider that deserting, but army people always seem to have different thinking.

[ Just the whole of Italy in a fucking train car.

Marcoh is here just seeming extremely nonplussed about the whole thing but not in a bad way? Just. Whoa... he's in some area with street food, eating some bread while leaned against the wall and taking in the scenery with an expression that just seems vaguely confused. ]

[ comes over to also lean. he's still slow and limping but better than a few days ago. ]

How far does this even go?

It's pretty big. I've mentioned it to the angels a few times, but they always just tell me that I'm underestimating how big heaven really is.

[ Offers an arancini? ]

Yeah, somehow it's a lot weirder when it's supposedly inside a train car, though.

[ accepts! ]

Oh, thanks. [ looks at it. ] ...What is it?

Popular food where I'm from. This place is basically almost the same as where I come from in some ways. Maybe it is the Vatican City they all keep thinking about when I mention it.

[ Vatican City but two inches to the left. ]

Vatican...? So this is a place from that Earth so many of you came from?

[ takes a bite ]

[ I don't want to think about if his planet is still called 'Earth' or not. ]

Might be, although it also sounds a little different from what I know. It's hard to try to make sense about it.

Huh. What's different about it?

They asked if it was in Italy, for one matter, which isn't a name I am familiar with.

[ And seeing Italy here he kind of sees why they thought the way they did, it's very close. ]

Italy... Oh. Had a kid ask me last week if I was Italian. Guess this is what he meant.

[ ok ]

...

[ Debates it. ]

Maybe somewhere like northern Rondonian if I had to make a guess. [ Or Gaelia... ] If I was going to say you sounded like someone from my world, anyway.

...Yeah, I got no idea what those places are but I'll take your word for it. Think it was more about my name anyway.

[ which was fair...

takes another bite. ]

This is real good, what was it called? 'S like a croquette.

That makes sense. Fidelio, and Basilio are not too uncommon names where I'm from either.

[ If anything Marcoh with his spelling is probably somehow rarer. Also I didn't mention it in the previous tag because I went into shock but I went to pull up a Fidelio video to listen to his voice since I got a text memshare and YT really mercilessly went FIDELIO DEATH on me like CAN YOU PLEASE HOLD BACK EVEN A LITTLE BIT :sob:. ]

Arancini. You can find it pretty easily, make it too. But food you get from these places is pretty good for the price.

[ NOOO HELP YOU COULD HAVE JUST GONE BACK TO MY PUBLIC MEMSHARE FROM THE PARTY... though i'm honestly kind of surprised you made it this long because i feel like between becks and me we ended up spoiling half the game that week ]

Really? Interesting. Don't really know where our names came from.

[ are paripus italian...

anyway, last bite. good stuff. ]

S'pose we don't need to add it to our own menu if everyone can get it here, but good to know.

[ he's going to be so annoyed to learn that tiramisu is italian when they just made it a special this week ]

[ I JUST DIDN'T THINK IT'D BE SO BLATANT AS TO AUTO-FILL IN THE SEARCH BAR FOR ME AND THEN BE THE FIRST VIDEO EVEN WHEN I PURPOSEFULLY LEFT IT OUT... ME LIKE OK! I SUPPOSE SO!! ]

I would be interested to try your take on it anyway.

[ auto fill is so fucking dangerous ]

Yeah? Might pass it on as a suggestion, then. Probably a pretty good place for inspiration, honestly.

I think that isn't a bad idea. Always nice to try your takes on it too.

The tavern makes people happy.

Hard not to be happy when you're eatin' Bas's cooking, if you ask me.

[ but it's nice to hear that about the place in general too, including his own contributions. meagre as he thinks they are in comparison. ]

Oughtta come over this Thursday. Can't guarantee another party like last week, but. It weren't bad.

I can agree with that. He is a good presence. And you are a good brother.

...

I will consider it, but I don't do too well with crowded spaces. If I don't, it's definitely not personal.

[ texting after that curse wears off ]

Oof
Sorry about that

no, I am sorry too

[ MORTIFIED, MAN. ]

Pretty sure I was a lot more aggressively antagonistic than you were but
Don't worry about it

I still took pot shots back

Well alright I guess we both sort of sucked

[ he still thinks he was worse but the last thing he wants to do is make this into another competition ]

Anyway just wanted to get that out there and make sure we were on the same page

[ The... suck-off... ]

yes we're fine really this was a really weird one today

[ Well he's gotta be in Italy again I suppose. Although this time it's not really on purpose because he got sent here via crazy doors.

He's just by the Tiberian River, staring off into the curve of it down the way. Around him you can see little flashes, visions of a place that looks quite similar but also not -- so similar to Italy but somehow darker, mistier, foggier. ]

[ ...huh. ]

Is that— the place you were talkin' about before, that's like this but not completely.

[ v name, what was it... ]

[ He gets mildly jumpscared by Fidelio walking up to him, head whipping around -- then back into his thoughts, although with a mild grimace.

Oh, it's like that other week then. ]

Vatican, yeah.

[ whoops. ]

Sorry. Walkin' too quiet's sort of a bad habit of mine here.

But yeah, that was the name. [ ... ] Is the weather there always that bad?

It's fine.

It is usually a bit misty, especially closer to the Churches. I think it is something like, fog is always strong where the line between worlds is thinner.

It's very bright here.

The line between worlds?

Like ours, and the gods.

Oh. [ nods. ] S'pose that makes sense why it's around churches, then.

Yes. The Churches of Darkness is what the Vatican was built around, technically. "Vatican" is also the name of the old organisation that made the foundation of the Ministry of Darkness.

[ So it's kind of like, place and group both, former probably named after the latter. ]

Some of the roads are different, but the river is almost the same. The historical landmarks are similar enough, at least in name if nothing else...

[ blinks... what are these names]

...I guess that name also sort of makes sense in a very literal way, but the churches I know are all obsessed with portraying themselves as light and pure. "Churches of Darkness" sounds more like...

[ well. like something i'd call them, probably. ]

...something a critic accusing them of corruption would say. Or some kind of cult.

I hear that a lot. Sort of. It sounds like a lot of you either don't like the church much, or think the Vatican is really weird...

[ Marcoh doesn't feel this way but like, you know. When it's kind of what you grew up with, it just is what it is. ]

Not that I'm here to defend it, it just is what it is, to me. Light isn't bad, but darkness isn't either, to them.

Got a few individuals who actually live up to the ideals they preach [ his own thoughts paint the image of a grown-up version of the winged girl from the memory he shared before and... a much hazier image of lucas with some cracks in it, because he still doesn't understand what happened there ] but as an institution it's rotten to the core, at least in our world.

Maybe yours is better, if they aren't so keen on putting derogatory labels on things.

[ Miss Saint Reila... Rella??? It just occurred to me that both their canons share pink-themed girls who are basically a saviour figure in a way, and their names are almost the same if I remember right. That's funny. ]

I don't know. The things this god, and Lucas's god believe in, they seem much kinder than what I grew up learning.

[ help that is indeed her name ]

Yeah? What sort of teachings were you getting?

Alll-mer is a god born of man. He is a symbol of hope and domination. He is said to have risen from the sulfurous pits after he was murdered to take revenge on the sultans and kings that killed him for his following, restoring the old world order.

He's pretty different than the likes of Gro-goroth and Sylvian. Maybe because he is a god born of man, unlike the old gods.

[ What's up, Fidelio. Marcoh is just checking in on the rats in the train car and well. ]

...Not the solution I was expecting but I suppose this is for the better...

[ frowning at their glowing foreheads... glancing at him. ]

Hmm. Well... maybe.

Where do these occasional rat hordes come from anyway?

. . . . . .

[ To be clear it was supposed to just be ONE mischief of rats. Not like, a series of multiple hordes. ]

The rats were me.

...Like, every time, or...

Just this last one...!

[ I FORGET IF THERE WERE OTHER RAT INCIDENTS BUT THOSE WEREN'T HIM. ]

I thought it'd be a distraction to get the small wizards from attacking people on sight. I didn't think they'd just end up fighting, and then... this.

[ The rat and wizard hive mind. Normal mg shit. ]

[ gfjajk yeah THERE WERE RATS AT THE FAIR DURING ZHONGLI AND EUPHA'S PARTY THAT PEOPLE JUST ASSIGNED AS BEING PRESENT FOR THE LUCAS/ELYSIA DATE and then i guess they just fucked off until they were summoned again ]

Oh. ...Well, s'pose it sort of seems like a decent idea in theory.

Was that one of those magic item effects, then? Just— making rats appear?

[ OH YEAH... god that feels like one million years ago. ]

No, it's uh. Something I became able to do by praying to the God of Fear and Hunger.

Before I came here, I mean.

[ I really chose the wildest set of power skilltree for Marcoh to have for one singular joke, and that singular joke is having Shud the Frog as his item. ]

[ help these reveals keep getting wilder

where in the fuck did those other rats come from then ]

Er... were you prayin' for that specifically?

[ Apparently there was an invasion of frogs in the healing center. Maybe it is the same item, whatever it is. ]

No, but Marina said I should give prayer a shot. [ It's the only way to get a risk-free save point in the game. The God affinity points are bonus. ] There isn't really any controlling how the gods will react, though there are schools for learning that occult stuff in a more real setting.

The God of Fear and Hunger seems to deal with "vermin" type critters a lot.

[ Which Marcoh can mostly get down with but really it was me deciding to be funny, he can't just normally summon rats and talk to frogs. ]

[ this is so close to the useless lizard summoning power i almost gave datz in heroes ]

So you just said the typical prayers for health and safety and whatnot and they decided to give you rat summoning?

[ that seems like such a choice ]

...Is this that same god you were talkin' about before or somethin' else?

[ I wish Datz summoned emotional support lizards, but the apples were very good. ]

It's a little more involved than that. You draw their sigil on a ritual circle.

[ ... ]

That probably sounds weird.

[ As insane as his world kind of is compared to some of you he can at least admit that this part is probably a bit strange, since this IS definitely proper occultism territory rather than broad religion. ]

The church I usually go to is Alll-mer's. But they are both Ascended gods, based on the book I read, so it is a little similar.

[ hilariously this is probably one of the less weird things to him because he's just like sure, magic formulas ]

Honestly, the weirdest part to me is that your prayers actually got you something instead of just falling on deaf ears.

[ though the rat part is also very weird. ]

...They usually do. [ To be entirely fair. ] Gods are not known to give direct answers, ever, and even if they did, it is not guaranteed to be what you were hoping. Much is to their own whims.

[ He'd never learned about ritual circles and actually drawing them until he got lent Marina's Skin Bible though so all that was really novel. Damn, occultism is a whole different tier. ]

...If you pray to the God here, they did answer me.

[ Incidentally. ]

Yeah, I'm not countin' this one when you can just send it a direct text message. Different sort of situation.

[ also he just hates them, even if they did give eupha a snake. ]

Anyway, maybe that's true of yours, but I've never seen the one in my world respond to the people who need help the most with anything but a resounding "sod off".

I know neither you nor Basilio like the churches from your place much.

[ Which is fair enough. ]

Why do people worship them then?

[ What's your god like... ]

'Cause they're bein' lied to, mostly. The church tells them their problems will be solved if they just follow their teachings and pray to God while ignoring all the real injustice in the world and that they'll be screwed if they don't.

All a calculated way of keeping them complacent and making them believe that if bad things happen to people it's because they weren't pious enough and not because the system wants to keep them down. If their prayers aren't being answered, that's their own fault.

That's pretty nasty.

[ Just because Marcoh's religious doesn't mean he's like, all-tolerant. He knows some people aren't really into it for one reason or another, but Fidelio's case sounds more than perfectly justified. ]

And that is why you are trying to appoint a new person in charge, so no more kids will be treated the way you have been.

heaven pcs: marcoh

w0, monday

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w1, monday

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w1 friday

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w1 sunday

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w3, monday

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