Closer, Ever Closer

[Titania]

Murmurs and whispers of success echo out from amidst the deepest levels of Unreality. Of a sudden uptick in grey, unlit aether, swelling around the one who partook in it-- of an embrace offered from a distant source, a mirror-like cocoon that surrounded her. Of a blessing bestowed by Athelios, and of the ascension of His Holy Oracle unto something more. For a time after, she was remarkably quiet-- reportedly exhausted from the change...

...but now?

A public address is made and arranged, to announce the results of her ritual.

"Faithless, they called me. A spoilt child, they spit, like a youngling in a schoolyard, unable and unwilling to grasp that they are not the arbiters of right or wrong, and that we need not answer to their morality."

"I am the Oracle of Aphros. I am Ysayl dul Vique. And I, am the secondborne Daughter of Athelios, blessed to bear His might on the field. His holy sword, with which His lands might be defended from those who would defy His designs. Faithless, they called me. Heretical, they declared. Look at me now. See how He has chosen me-- See how He has declared my path righteous. Whosoever continues in the fallacious decree that I am somehow unholy, that I do not follow His designs, can only do so if they refuse to accept reality itself."

"My Lord, the Lord of Duality, has made me His blade. He has offered me His greatest of boons, picked His side. Any who continue in their foolhardy refutation of a better path, of the discovery of a means to annihilate the very basis of our enemies' continual existence... defy His will."

"Two Nephilim of Athelios at once. Something once thought impossible, now made manifest. What more proof do you need?"

"Defy me not, ye faithful, for I am His weapon, His holy will, His righteous hand on Meranthe. I will not - be - denied."

And with that? The Oracle returns to her Keep, the success of her ritual made clear. Word of this speech spreads, no doubt, to every corner of Meranthe-- from Prospera to Arcadia, from Serenity to Xuefeng, from the Frontier to the Citadel.

No doubt, that was the Oracle's desire.