AotB's Money Guideline

Rion- Currency. Value is at 1 point per coin.

1 Small Copper = 10Rs.

1 Medium Copper = 100Rs

1 Large Copper = 1000Rs

1 Small Silver = 10000Rs

1 Large Silver = 100000Rs

1 Small Gold = 1 million Rs

1 Large Gold = 10 million Rs

So for convenience's sake from now on, it'll be SC, MC, LC, SS, LS, SG and LG.

Hilarious Ending! Finally Legal!

When the doors shut tight, the voices really DO echo it was irritating.

When the doors are shut tight, a blue-robed priest slowly walks in front of it. He waves some sort of wind chime-like bell, attached to which is a strangely-colored stone. It jingles. In the next instant, the voices of the other children disappear, as do their echoes, leaving only the faintest ringing that quickly fades to silence.

A mystic code, perhaps?

The procession continued.

The interior of the temple is like an atrium, long and with a high ceiling. The walls on both sides of the room are covered in intricate carvings, and thick, round pillars are lined up regularly along them. Tall windows, stretching nearly four stories high, line the walls in even intervals, letting long, straight shafts of light into the room. Both the walls and the pillars are white, with the exception of gold ornamentation here and there, and even in the dim light they still seem bright. The only place rich with color is the far end of the room.

The white stone construction makes the room feel very unlike a Shinto shrine or Buddhist temple, and the colors don't match any of the vibrant shades from southeast Asia.

On the innermost wall, a multicolored mosaic stretches from the floor all the way to the ceiling, bearing an intricate pattern. It glimmers where it's hit by sunlight from the side, reminding me just a little bit of a mosque for a moment, but there are stairs, too, over forty of them, going from the floor to nearly the height of the window. The stone statues that are arranged on the way up only reinforce how alien this all is.

Perhaps these stairs are meant to evoke the idea of climbing towards heaven and the gods?

On the upper-most stair, there are two statues next to each other, one man and one woman. Based on how they're arranged, they give the impression that they're a married pair. Between that and the fact that they're on the highest stair, they're probably the highest-ranked gods in this religion. Even though they're made of white stone, the male god is draped in a glittering black mantle set with countless golden stars, and the female goddess wears a golden crown, with long, tapered spines coming off of it like rays of light.

Perhaps this is the goddess of light and god of darkness? Or perhaps the goddess of the sun and the god of the night? Either way, the mantle and the crown stand out.

A few steps below that, there's a stone statue of a slightly plump, gentle-looking woman, holding a golden chalice that glitters with gemstones. Below her, there's a woman holding a staff, a man holding a spear, a woman holding a shield, and a man holding a sword. They're all made of the same white stone, but the fact that they're each holding just one brightly-colored item makes this even more mysterious to Main. These statues were made to hold real things; is there some meaning to that?

Something like a Holy Grail or a Holy Sword, perhaps?

On the steps below that, there are flowers, fruits, bundles of cloth, and other offerings laid out. The path down to the center of the room is clear so that we can walk though, but on either side thick red carpets are spread out, spaced about one meter apart from each other.

At the front of the room, there are a number of desks, where a number of priests garbed in blue seem to be performing some sort of procedure. The children who finish going through that procedure are guided by gray-clothed priests to either side of the room. They're led to spots on the carpet, from the outside of the walls in, and told to take their shoes off before sitting down.

As the procession slowly makes its way forward, Main noted that all kids get pricked for a Blood Seal on a mystic code.

This world sure is fond of bloody contracts. A geas would've been sufficient.

Benno had both told her that after my baptismal ceremony was over, she'd be acknowledged as a resident of this town and granted citizenship rights.

She sees brusque blue-robed priests jabbing their fingers with needles, then pushing those fingers firmly into what look like medallions of flat white stone. Those kids have their mouths open in what look like screams of pain, but she can't hear anything coming from them at all. Seeing them clutching their sore fingers while being lead away towards the carpets has me trembling in fear.

They sure ain't gentle with kids simply because they haven't had access to baths.

Then again, the priests and priestesses here are ahem, magically-failed nobles, and rare commoners who have magic. The gray ones are the commoners and the blue ones are the nobles. For blue-blood, obviously.

'Next please, this way.' says a priest.

The line of people in front of her has thinned out, and a voice calls out from one of the empty desks. So she starts heading towards where I'm being called. The blue-robed priest smiles at me a little, looking me up and down, and then holds out his hand.

Yare yare, she looks like she'll be spared from needle-jabbing for being clean and pretty.

'Please hold out your hand, palm up. I'm going to prick your finger, but it'll only hurt a little bit.'

No special treatment for others. Only her.

However, it's weird.

Normally she's so used to getting stabbed that a pinprick is nothing, yet this strangely hurts? Damn mystic codes of this place...

'Smear that blood on here, if you would.'

Unlike the priest I'd seen earlier, who'd been roughly forcing kids' fingers into place, this priest just guides my hand over to a small medallion-like object. It seems like just gently smearing her blood onto its surface was good enough.

They're called over by a gray-robed priest who, despite being an adult, seems to still have a little immaturity left in him. After being instructed to take of our shoes, we do so, and then sit down on the carpet. Amongst all of the kids who are either sitting cross-legged or with their feet splayed out in front of them, She's the only one sitting with my legs propped up, like back in PE class in elementary school. Being in such a wide-open, gymnasium-like space, surrounded by other children her age, made her feel like this is the only correct way to be sitting. Had she sat in seiza, she'd get raised eyebrows.

The blue-robed priests, having finished registering everyone, collectively step back behind the desks. After they carry all of the boxes that they had been putting our registration medallions in out of the room, the gray-robed priests burst into action, bustling about as they start getting ready for the next phase. They carry out the desks, and in its place they bring out a much more extravagant altar and place it in front of the steps.

The blue-robed priests come back into the room, lining themselves up on either side of the altar, and at roughly the same time the gray-robed priests line up along the walls where we're sitting, seemingly finished with their preparation work. The way they're standing behind us reminds me of teachers keeping watch over students at a school assembly.

'The head priest enters,' intone the blue-robed priests, waving the rods they're holding. The sound of countless bells rings out, and an old man, dressed in white robes with a golden sash crossing his shoulder, slowly enters the room, carrying something. With careful, deliberate footsteps, he makes his way to the altar, upon which he gently sets the thing he was carrying.

The head priest start to slowly turn the pages, I'm convinced. That is, beyond the shadow of any doubt, a book. It feels like a bible, or some other form of holy scriptures.

It looks like it is bound in leather, and the easily-damaged corners are reinforced with finely-worked gold. Even studded with small gemstones, as well.

If the merchant's guild is on the cutting edge of gathering information, then the temple must be on the cutting edge of theology, mathematics, music, arts, and all of the other fields of study that could bring them closer to the gods.

'Today, you are all now seven years old, and you have been recognized as citizens of this town. Congratulations.'

Although the head priest seems quite old, he still has a powerful voice that reverberates through the temple. After opening with his congratulations, he then proceeds to start reading aloud from the book in his clear voice. It sounds like some sort of scriptures.

The contents of the scriptures are similar to what Benno had told her a while ago, about the creation of the world and the changing of the seasons. The priest is reciting it in simpler words that are easy for children to understand.

'For a long, long time, so long that we can't even imagine it, the god of darkness lived in total solitude.'

So the gist of it is:

After that, he met the goddess of the sun, a bunch of things happened, they got married, had many children—among them, the goddess of water, the god of fire, the goddess of wind, and the god of earth—, and created the world we live in, or so the story goes. The bunch-of-things-happened part seems like it was abbreviated for our sakes, but it sounds very soap-opera-like to me.

Myths are like that, though.

So now here's her chance to understand this world more.

After the creation myth came the story about the changing of the seasons. She'd already heard the basics of this from Benno: Spring is the season of water, where the melting snow causes sprouts to grow. Summer is the season of fire, where the heat of the sun causes the leaves to unfurl. Fall is the season of wind, where the cooling air causes the fruits to ripen. Winter is the season of earth, when all life sleeps. The actual myth itself, however, is different.

'The goddess of earth was the firstborn child of the goddess of the sun and the god of darkness. At that time, the god of life took one look at her and instantly fell in love and asked her father, the god of darkness, for her hand in marriage. The god of darkness thought that their marriage would bear many children and was pleased by this proposal, so he granted the god of life's request at the two were married.'

So the myth of the season begins. Lutz, however, yawns, seeming to find this entire thing immensely tedious, so I think I'd rather explain it in digest form.

To put it simply, the god of life turned out to be more than a little bit crazy. He locked her in a prison of snow and ice and raped her until she got pregnant, and then even got jealous of the unborn children. Winter is the season of plunder and of nothing being born. Thankfully it's made kid-friendly but if they grow into adulthood...

The goddess of the sun got worried that she hadn't seen the goddess of earth ever since she got married, so she melted the ice. The crazy god was worn out after having been able to copulate as much as he wanted, so the water goddess washed all of the snow and ice away, freeing her friend and sister. Spring is the season where the two of them worked together to help seeds, the earth goddess's children, sprout.

The god of fire then lent his power, making summer the season where the budding life grew to ripeness. However, after that, the crazy god regained his strength and started looking for the earth goddess. Fall is the season where the goddess of winds put all her power into making sure the crazy god couldn't get anywhere near her sister, while helping to ensure that the harvest is finished.

Then, when the brothers and sisters were finally exhausted, it was the crazy god's turn. Once again, he locks up and rapes the earth goddess. Her siblings want to kill the crazy god even more, but if they do that, then no new life can ever be born, so they cannot. So, caught in this irreconcilable dilemma, the siblings are forced to wait through the winter, gathering their strength.

This back-and-forth forms the endless loop of the seasons, it seems. This is a myth that's as full of opportunities for snark as every other.

Incidentally, since the children here were born in the summer, our guardian deity is the zealous, hot-blooded god of the sun, and we have divine favor relating to guidance and rearing children. With that, the head priest concludes his talk of the gods and closes the book.

'Now then, I shall teach you how to worship the gods. If you offer your prayers and gratitude to the gods, then they will surely grant you greater divine favor.'

He wears a very serious expression as he says this, slowly walking out from behind the altar. While he does this, gray-robed priests quickly unroll carpets in front of the blue-robed priests.

The head priest stands in the center of the room, with a line of ten blue-robed priests behind them.

'Now then, before you try it yourself, watch closely...we pray to the gods!'

As he says this, the head priest opens his arms out wide, raises his left knee high, and looks up towards the heavens.

Main choked, trying hard not to snort.

Her stomach is seizing up.

It's the Glico pose she sees in posters as a kid as Shirou, it's freaking ridiculous! Bad enough on a runner, an old man with all his seriousness and grandioseness in doing it is much more hilarious! Who the hell designed this world's religion?!

This man is keeping himself perfectly balanced in such a crisp pose. The head priest slowly places his foot on the ground and lowers his arms, looking like he's doing Tai Chi. If that had been all, she would have been able to keep myself under control, but does this old man have some sort of grudge against her aching sides?

'We give thanks to the gods!'

With elegant movements, like flowing water, the head priest transitions from the Glico pose to the dogeza, getting on his hands and knees and pressing his forehead into the floor. Seeing this is too much to bear.

This is their religion. This is their religion. They are doing this in earnest, laughing is rude.

She took several long, slow breaths, then, steeling herself, raised her head. As she did that, the head priest encourages us all to stand.

'Now, then, please rise. Let us do this together.'

That shattered Main's attempts of control.

Together! Together, he says! Please, have mercy!

Everyone stands up.

Main felt she had to steel herself back and unable to cheat with magic or they'd know it.

She'll laugh all she wants at home.

'We pray to the gods!'

The head priest intones this, raising himself into the Glico pose. This is fine. This is the second time I'm seeing this, so this isn't shocking. I have successfully weathered this crashing wave of laughter. This is a victory for my abdominal muscles.

In the next instant, the blue-robed priests, in perfect unison, lift their arms and legs.

'We pray to the gods!'

Seeing ten priests, standing in a row, with perfectly straight faces, doing the Glico pose is too much. The angle of their hands, the height of their legs, the seriousness of their faces are all perfectly identical.

C'mon, think of other things! Angra Mainyu! Sex with Sakura! Heck, even cooking!

Just so she won't laugh here!

xxx

'Main are you OK? You're red-faced when you left!'

Gunther said worriedly as it's all over.

Main stayed red, looking constipated that worried her family throughout the trip home...

Then at home...

'HEEEHEEHEEHEEHAHAHAHAHAHA!'

Sweatdrops ensued.

'...what's funny?'

Main could not answer her family.

She was laughing hard like crazy, even rolling on the floor in laughing fits it took her a while to recover.

'...did you see anything funny in the temple Tuuli?' Eifa asked her eldest as her youngest is currently...indisposed.

'No.'

'Maybe some idiot made a funny mess.' quipped Gunther.