You have mail - RPLOG
Participants
Date
10/7/476
Log
Tis near noon, and the bell rings out over the hot summer day, calling those who wish it to come to the church, while most others stop and face the church a moment in a moment of stillness.
Cedric approaches the church grounds seeming a little bit hesitant. He hasn't done this in quite a while, and he's a bit unsure if he'll be able to pass himself off as a normal attendee. Even so, he's dressed up more than usual for the occasion, hoping that he'll be able to glean something new about the creators by attending mass today. The badger follows behind a few shorter beings, looking over above their heads to make sure he's still walking in the right direction.
Unless someone looks in pretty dire straights or is particularly famous for some nefarious deed, the security to enter the church is minimal at best. Those who wish to do so simply walk in, getting the occasional nod or smile from a loitering priest as the chairs fill up with fuzzy, feathery, and scaled forms.
Cedric probably isn't nefarious enough to draw any attention, fortunately. He returns one of the priest's nods as he crosses the threshold into the church proper and points himself towards a chair to take a seat, folding his paws in his lap and waiting for the service to begin.
A large female priest steps up, quoting from the First Text a little passage about courtesy to one's neighbor. She looks up over the crowd, flashing a bright smile. Cedric has heard worrying rumors, something about the priests not wanting to conduct the ritual, but here they are, doing it anyway. A relic is wheeled out from the back, the sacred oracle, and they get right to it without delay. One might wonder why they'd bother doing it at mass if they didn't want to do it.
Cedric had heard some rumors to that effect, and decided he might as well look into them. Even though he's rather out of the loop when it comes to creator church rituals. He keeps his eyes on the priests as the roll out the relic. He watches, fidgeting a little, nervously tapping one finger against the back of the other hand as he watches.
With the song of awakening and the dance of supplication, the machine spirit is appeased and roused to vibrant life, shining an image above itself that the priest manipulates expertly. It speaks in the old tongue, but there, did you hear it? A number, a large number, and many lines of words float in the air. The priest gapes at this, her jaw hanging and eyes wide, seemingly unsure what to do about it.
The badger leans forward in his seat, narrowing his eyes into a slight squint as he tries to take a closer look at the words that have appeared, trying to make them out clearly. He definitely doesn't understand what they mean, though. He slips a quill and notebook from an pocket and starts to copy down some of the words that are indeceipherable to him. If the priests aren't willing to explain what's going on, perhaps he can later find someone else who might know what they say.
A sudden swipe of a furry hand, and the words are banished, and the priest spins to face the crowd, though not before some notes are taken by a quick badger, or before the crowd begins to murmur nervously. "It seems," speaks the priest, "That we are not forsaken by the Creators, blessed may they be. They have sent us..." she stammers, searching for the right word, "We must review it, carefully, translate, and then we will know for sure." she says, holding up hands placatingly.
Cedric tries to guard his expression from showing too much suspicion as he places his notes pack into a pocket. He doesn't want to look too out of place, and looks around at the other beings expressing surprise and other emotions, and attempts to play along. He pushes back the compulsion to loudly ask for more clarification, as he's not particularly excited about the idea of being thrown out of church just yet.
That's alright. Even if Cedric holds his tongue, others are quite willing to demand information, "Again!" claims a robin as he surges to his feet, "Again! Every time there's a message from the creators, you make us wait and wait. Tell us what you can read and let us decide!"
A thin jackal of a female rises after, her small folk badge pinned prominently, "We have a right to know what our creators are saying!"
The gifted badger is certainly pleased that others are voicing some of the questions he has without him needing to, it enables him to keep a low profile for as long as he needs to. He nods his agreement as the robin and jackal stand to voice their questions, shooting a curious glance in the direction of the priests.
As the crowd becomes increasingly agitated, the priest relents with a sigh, turning back to the device and conjuring the image and its many lines of text. She looks to the side, and a small figure darts forward with a notepad and quill, scribbling busily as he runs. He begins to speak, but it's so soft and low, the crowd drowns it out until the larger priestess starts to repeat it in her much more respectable voice, "We support you. In response to, Please sign this petitioning. We love you." She moves down the lines, many are encouraging, if somewhat baffling, a few are harsh or even angry, one or two, outright hateful, but overall, a great heaping serving of not entirely understandable but well meaning missives from the Creators, none more than a sentence long.
Cedric listens to the fragments of translation for what seems to be... some sort of survey of creators? That's as best as he can figure given the information. He raises an eyebrow at some of the more hateful statements translated, though most of them seem positive... assuming that the translation is accurate, of course.
The crowd begins to settle down as the translation comes. When the noise dies out, the soft spoken little scribe can finally be heard as he continues his dutiful work. There's just so many lines, but he hacks away at it, writing each down in turn. Some are extremely technical sounding, alien and unknowable.
When the translation finishes, the priestess moves to the podium, "And there you have it, my brothers and sisters. I am sorry, for trying to judge when the word of the Creators was ready for your ears. We all deserve to hear their blessed words. We will study them, and when we have drawn further meaning, we will share, this I do swear."
Cedric seems fairly satisfied with things as they are, and doesn't stand to voice any concerns as the priestess finishes speaking. He'll have to check the fragments he's copied down later with someone further from the church who has knowledge of the first tongue. In any case, he looks around himself to see if there's anything else that requires his attention. He briefly wonders if he should ask about the rumors that brought him here today, but decides against it.
The tiny scholar has to bring over a stool to reach the device proper, and begins to manipulate it, making more creator words come up and go away as he scribes away, writing it all down dutifully for later studying. So much, just... so much. He has stopped reading outloud though, absorbed in the task of writing down massive quantities of the raw words.
With the crowd mollified, the priestess tries to move on right to community events. There is talk of the upcoming Sweetwater cup, some disagreements to work out, and a wedding to plan. Lots of little things that occupy the rest of the mass pleasantly enough.
Cedric keeps listening intently, figuring it'd seem a little bit weird if he just left after that was over. The badger slouches into his chair as the uninteresting stuff is discussed, although he seems pretty interested at the mention of the lowball tournament. He'd managed to go without hearing about that, actually. He'll have to ask about it after the service is over, and learn how to go about signing up, perhaps.
