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Your oath is greeted with silence, dumbstruck in the case of the pilgrims and confusion from the Cathagi masses. The wiry old form of your confessor steps forward. Despite his rough cloth and ragged appearance, he walks with all the grace and authority of an emissary in a foreign court. Sinking to his knees at your feet, the wizened Reclaimant priest takes your right hand in both of his as he presses his forehead against the back of your palm.
<span class="mu-i">“…God wills it.”</span> Father Towbray rasps, clutching your hand with his skeletal hands like a sailor clinging to a lifeline. The man rises to his feet, turning about and scanning the crowd of shocked pilgrims as his eyes bore into theirs with a defiant fury. <span class="mu-i">“God wills it!”</span>
<span class="mu-i">“…God wills it.”</span> A voice carries from the mass of pilgrims, at first alone. And then not.
<span class="mu-i">“God wills it.”</span>
<span class="mu-i">“God wills it!”</span>
The muttering and murmurs of the pilgrims grows in strength, building from scattered shouts to cries of affirmation. It is not just the Reclaimants, not just the Angelites, but even the pilgrims that once gainsaid your worth and refused to recognise your divine mission. But even amongst those doubters, not a man among them doubts your conviction after today, not one believes you speak your oath falsely or without true intent.
<span class="mu-i">“God… wills it.”</span> Mikail whispers at your side, eyes wide at the scale of his sire’s ambition.
<span class="mu-i">“…”</span> Brother Rousseau clasp his gauntlet in a closed fist, a single thump across the chestplate mirrored and repeated by his fellow holy knights. Well they know the cost of the vigil against Ardenne’s malicious reach.
<span class="mu-i">“God Wills It!”</span>
Confusion mills among the Cathagi bystanders, the significance of the moment lost on all but a few. Even the lines of the disciplined stratiakos shift uncertainly, wary if this outburst from the foreign procession is about to signal a suicidal charge at their lines. It takes the barked order of their local commander, the same Kyrios Leon you from your arrival the previous week, to still their ranks.
<span class="mu-i">“GOD WILLS IT!”</span>
By now the chorus of cries from the hundred pilgrims present has erupted into an explosion of fervent declaration, a cacophony of chanting by the faithful that fully recognise the significance of the oath and that of the one who made it. The Comitas sworn to silence thumb gauntlets against breastplate. The pilgrims of the south, men of the desert who may never have even heard of the Ardenne, begin ululating in their strange tribal cries in recognition of what must be a great undertaking of the One True Faith.
<span class="mu-i">“GOD WILLS IT!!”</span>
<span class="mu-i">“GOD WILLS IT!!!”</span>
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-i">“GOD WILLS IT!!!”</span></span>
The path is set before you. You <span class="mu-i">will</span> drive out the Dread Lords and their deathless minions from the Ardenne and thus make Cantǒn, the Kingdom of Heaven, whole again. Or you will die trying.
God Wills It.
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