Greetings, Sapience,

Though I grieve for the loss of my brothers, I know that - someday,
sometime - they will be cleansed in Light and they will be returned.

It is to the two most recently departed, however, that I am truly
addressing this post. So...


Mathonwy:

First and foremost, who do you think you are to make threats against the
Church? I have seen the scraps you clung to and called victories while
you were Archprelate, so you'll have to forgive me if I don't quake in
my boots just yet over what crimes you might commit.

The way you left the Church was as lacklustre and disappointing as the
way you led it. Though young, you have long been a man of many promises,
but an unshakeable inability to deliver. As you rail against the
unfairness and injustice meted out to you by the Church, take a moment
to consider why this so-called corruption and incompetence was allowed
to sink so deeply into the roots of the Church that you led for the last
20 years. Your own spineless incompetence has been the biggest burden to
the Church moving forward for the last two decades, and I think that's
been made clear to all in the way we have flourished since your
departure.

So, yes, I grieve the threatened loss of your soul from the Light, but
allow me to make one thing clear: should you attempt, in any way, to
attack the Holy Church that I serve, you will die as many times as is
necessary for you to reconsider your path. I urge you now, don't let
your folly become fatal.


And now, Azor:

Honestly, I never thought I'd see this day. It pains me more than
anything I've previously experienced to hear that you will be committing
yourself in service to Evil. I've watched family, friends - some of my
best, in fact - make that long, dark trek west; but to see you follow,
well... words quite simply fail me.

The path I have walked since I left Loom Island has been littered with
inspirational figures, but few have been more enduring or more constant
than you. As an Elysian, you were the example to aspire to; as a citizen
of Shallam, and a member of the Church, your quiet zeal, the sheer depth
of your knowledge, and your ineffable wisdom were cornerstones upon
which the Light's most enduring successes had been built. Your loss
will, as I'm sure you know, resound more deeply than many will care to
admit.

But yours is a choice I almost made myself. Far more than I ever could
with Mathonwy, I truly sympathise with your plight. Though I have made
my peace with the Te'Serra, and though I have since willingly placed
myself once more under Their authority, I know well how it feels to have
your faith in your Gods shaken. I have lived through the frustrations
and the disappointments, as have you, and I too succumbed to the desire
to bring those frustrations to an end. It shall ever remain, though, my
truest hope that you find like I did that the frustrations never end:
that we feel how we do because we demand better - of ourselves and of
those around us - and that the disappointments we experience are
inevitable, no matter who or what we serve.

It is my hope that you will never allow yourself to be blinded to the
truth that only through Light might things truly be made better.

To all of Sapience, as I write to you today, I implore you to open your
eyes to this simple truth, if nothing else, as you see the Light
continue to flourish even without the service of such a great man - a
man far greater than I had ever previously hoped to be - and I ask that
as you see this truth unravel before you, you remember that all souls
may find a home in the Light, should you only seek to serve.


In faithful service,

Silas Maynard
Commander of the Holy Conclave

Penned by my hand on the 12th of Phaestian, in the year 541 AF.