soul-duh-roy

Old-Saint-Sol

The mad prophet of Val-ar-Aion. When he deigns to return from his wanderings, he sits astride the tower of Heaven's Knell to roar incomprehensible sermons to the city below. The sight of the great golden serpent wound about the spire like the rod of Asclepius is a rare but treasured one: not because Solderoi is particularly wise- even the greatest of Light's scholars would struggle to glean jot of sense from his ramblings- nor is he even particularly well-liked. A visit from Old-Saint-Sol is simply an occasion, like snow in summer; a perennial oddity to break up the evening's idyll, and a conversation piece for days thereafter as scholars and smallfolk alike attempt to unravel his labyrinthine rhetoric over bowls of golden wine. Treatises have been written on the meaning of his most infamous speeches, and apostles have spent their lives meditating on his words to no avail. Whatever wisdom the ersatz stylite seems determined to impart, he isn't giving it up easily.

"O ignorant masses! You who hear the tolling of the bell, yet lift not your heads to know its source- I now come to you, hierophant and fountainhead, in the light of Her Most Luminous & High, to bring you this holy discourse. To speak at the hour of zenith- of highest ascension- is to crush the serpent of deceit, for only in this sacred hour are we not beset by darkness. See now how the shadow shrinks and recoils, for this is the hour of truth!"

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"There was something on the other side, I saw it! I swear it!"

Once upon a time, Val-ar-Aion's mad prophet was but a humble priest, a servant of the Chapel of Light. He was devoted, a keen scholar and seeker of truth, and as his wisdom and eloquence grew, so too did his following. He traveled far and wide in search of new insights to share with his budding flock. He studied the myriad dogmas of nomadic tribesfolk and wrung histories from the memories of ancient lore-keepers. From the arcane clans he learned to study the movements of the heavens, and gleaned divination from the oracles of the Inland Sea. Of his contemporaries, few could refute that he was one of the last truly enlightened scholars of the age.

Where once he had to raise his voice to be heard above his peers, he was now attended upon by a crowd of thousands. His word was etched into countless tablets and echoed within grand amphitheaters across the land. Solderoi's sermons grew ever more complex and self-referential, winding back on previous works in loops and knots- the oroboros eating its own tail- to the point where years of prior study were required to decrypt his latest rhetoric. In time, he was no longer the humble scholar his flock had once known, and those who had appreciated him for his simple aesops fell away, while an increasingly fanatical cabal of apostles cleaved to him all the tighter.

When he sensed his influence waning, he despaired. In his desperation and arrogance, he would devise a drastic ploy- his most brazen experiment yet. He would climb up and up- all the way to the very sun, and finally see what was behind it. Here, at the peak of Heaven's Knell, he would begin his ascent. Up past the clouds, past the mountain peaks, until the very air grew thin, then further still, until his vision swam and he could no longer tell which way was up or down, save for the one all-encompassing sight.

The great mass of the sun hung suspended in the empyrean like a burning jewel in a bed of black velvet.

The other side was almost within his sight, if only he could get a little closer. It now seemed to eclipse all of his vision- was it because he was so near, or had his pupils simply shrank to pinpoints, like looking up from a bottom of a well? Slowly, ponderously, the sun turned. And then it blinked.