Location: Velbrunna Cathedral → Midgard's Outer Parishes → Armathane
Time: Day 241 After Alec's Arrival
The Voice from Velbrunna
The letter arrived on red parchment, edged with gold ink, and marked with a seal no one in Midgard dared break without trembling: the Sun-Flame of Velbrunna, symbol of Archbishop Arthenias the Second.
It was short.
It was final.
"The influence of the foreigner must be reassessed in light of spiritual integrity. Prepare the region for public reaffirmation. If it cannot align in voice, it must align in silence."
That meant only one thing: Soft Purge.
Bishop Taran read the letter in full twice. Then he sat in the dark and whispered into his palm, as if expecting Auron Himself to intervene.
He didn't.
Auron rarely did.
Unrest in the Parishes
Three days later, priests in the outer parishes began preaching sermons about the "Age of Builders Without Blessing." They never named Alec directly — but they didn't need to.
"The harvest may be larger… but who is thanked?""Roads are straighter, yes… but to where?""And what of the foreign tongue the children now learn? A holy tongue? Or a dividing one?"
Suspicion moved faster than riders.
One elder was found beaten outside a rural shrine — accused of teaching Company-scripted first aid scrolls instead of Velistra's herb-blessings.
Another priest burned the posted Midgard Company charter.
A third simply disappeared.
The Bishop's Breaking Point
Taran sent word to Vaelora.
She refused an audience.
He sent word again.
Alec responded instead.
They met in the Lower East Library, a space full of half-lit scroll shelves and forgotten knowledge. It was neutral ground — no guards, no altar, no politics. Only books.
Taran arrived in full vestment. Alec wore a plain tunic and long coat, his only mark of rank a stylized Company pin of obsidian and iron.
"You've stirred something I can't quiet," Taran said.
"I didn't stir it," Alec replied. "I built something louder than your silence."
"That's blasphemy."
"That's reality."
Taran's hands trembled slightly.
"You are unbaptized. You teach unblessed methods. You teach a language of no saints. And now you train soldiers without the Light's approval."
"They're not soldiers," Alec said. "They're instruments of order."
"Not divine order."
"No," Alec said evenly. "Just efficient order."
Taran's voice lowered. "Do you know what happens if the Church declares your work formally divergent?"
"Yes."
"And you're not afraid?"
"No."
"Why?"
Alec took a step forward.
"Because your Church needs me more than I need your Church."
That hung in the air like a knife.
Taran didn't answer. He couldn't.
Later at The Midgard Company Hq
The chamber had no windows.
That was by design.
The war-room beneath the Midgard Company tower was built for silence, not spectacle. A single long table stood at its center, surrounded by diagrams, ledgers, black-threaded maps, and parchment pinned with inkwork more dangerous than weapons.
This was not a room for war in the physical sense.
This was a room for ideological assassination.
Alec stood at the far end, writing on the slate-board with a piece of bone-white chalk.
Across it, in clean block letters, were the words:
THEOCRATIC SYSTEM ANALYSIS
Faith → Hierarchy → Fear → Obedience → Power Retention
Serina watched him work, arms folded, lips pressed thin.
"You're dissecting the Church like a diseased animal," she said softly.
"I'm dissecting it like a failing organism," Alec corrected. "Because that's what it is."
🔍 The Structure of Control
Alec moved down the board, speaking without emotion — the tone of a man unraveling a machine.
"The Church of Auron and Velistra thrives on three things," he began. "Mystery, monopoly, and mortality."
Serina stepped closer. "Explain."
"Mystery gives them distance — divine authority no one can question. Monopoly gives them control — on knowledge, truth, literacy. Mortality gives them leverage. Fear of death, sin, damnation. All abstract. All profitable."
He tapped each column of the diagram.
"They don't guide. They gatekeep."
🧩 Serina's Doubt
She stepped back, brows furrowing.
"This is more than strategy," she whispered. "This is… doctrine."
Alec turned toward her.
"Exactly."
"You're not trying to kill the Church."
"No," Alec said. "I'm trying to render it obsolete."
He crossed back to the main board.
"I've seen this pattern before," he continued. "A culture becomes reliant on belief instead of systems. They stop asking why, and start asking whom they must obey."
He tapped the board again.
"Remove the need for divine interpretation — and the hierarchy collapses."
Serina was quiet for a long time.
Then: "Is this why you're teaching French and Spanish to students?"
"Yes."
"So only Company-educated citizens will understand the new knowledge streams."
"Yes."
She looked up. "And me?"
"You'll help run it," he said without hesitation. "You'll know how it was built."
And the way he said it…
Not as praise.
As trust.
It made her knees weaken more than his embrace had days ago.
The Archbishop Responds
Back in Velbrunna, Archbishop Arthenias sat in a marble chamber surrounded by smoke and gold.
He listened to Maviel's report, then stood slowly.
"Let him build," he said at last. "Let him flourish."
Maviel raised a brow.
"Until?"
"Until they forget we were once necessary."
He turned.
"Then we remind them with flame."