2
The priest has lived a sinful life for as long as he remembers.
But are sins not just tests of his faith? Do they not present themselves to him in all their wicked fashions so he can dash them away and claim his utter resolve and commitment to the True?
It’s a life of eternal penance-seeking for this priest. He’s known it since he was a young man—since he first stared at an even younger man, a boy, really, with lust in his eyes and a stirring in his loins.
Many people would frown upon him if they learned his secrets. He’s had to keep them bottled up his entire life, hidden from his contemporaries. He’s even had to kill, at times, to keep those secrets his own.
The Archpriest of Nuhav was one such soul. He stumbled into the priest’s room at the wrong time, gasped at what he saw.
But the Archpriest was old. Ancient, really. His time had passed. And his age made it quite simple for the priest to smother him with a pillow that evening.
A big to-do was thrown over the Bishop’s death. No one lives forever, right? Old people die. It’s what they do. The priest simply gave the old man a nudge to go meet his Truehearts, as their faith dictates all holy men must do.
By this point in his life, after many trials and tribulations, the priest was nearing old age himself.
He didn’t want to think about that too much, but it was the truth.
The thing that had caused him so much torture and anxiety over the years, which would stir so happily at the sight of a young boy or girl, was no longer working properly.
It was a true travesty, and just another trial put forth by the True, he was sure.
He lived his life in sin and secrecy, yet on the outside he was a very charming, powerful individual. His name was put in among those who should become the next Archpriest, and imagine his shock when he won the delegation.
Of course, it was not shock at all. He paid handsomely for the title of Archpriest, and he deserved it. He had lived his life in faithfulness to the True, had braved the crucible of his sins, and now got to sit atop a gilded seat in the very center of Nuhav.
He had made it.
Yet there was always the worry that his age-old secrets would come to light. That his sins would be discovered. So he took every precaution to make sure that didn’t happen.
The newly minted Archpriest even went so far as to dine and deal with vampires, that most unholy of races, if it suited his purposes. He is a sinful rogue, he knows, but what must be done must be done.
At the pinnacle of leadership among his flock, he knows everyone will be out to get him, to steal what he has worked all his life for.
Paranoia runs deep, and so he must grow his flock ever-wider.
It must become inclusive, a throng of well-wishers who will keep him in their hearts, so he can never be toppled.
Those are the thoughts he’s having as he’s making his concoction before mass: It’s all for the greater good. It’s all penance.
The holy water he serves to his people is a sacred thing. He mixes it with a strange chemical—just a few drops of the stuff, not enough to do any real damage. But it makes his parishioners more pliable, makes their ears open to the truths he has to tell them about the Truehearts.
And with those truths, the priest is guaranteed he can grow his flock into the sky, with so many thousands one day worshiping the ground he walks on.
It is absolution he seeks . . . and if he has to one day dine with vampires and eventually agree to their terms to reach the immortal status he so badly craves . . . then it’s a sacrifice he’s willing to make in the name of the Truehearts.