Accepting the darkness

Our story begins in a place where ancient values took precedence over the convenience of civilization. Where pure souls lived and humbly served their masters. A place where you might think that time hadn't thought of it.

It stood high up, above the nearby villages, on a huge mountain, where neither the haste of the present nor the sins reached the place. A big monastery. The mountain of the gods, named because of its height and the monastery, protruded from the small mountain range. It was a mountain with untouched nature. Even a small river, which had its source deep in the forest, dared the way through the forest, spared from the building frenzy of modern times. Cities had sprung up like mushrooms, modernity became indispensable in households, and noise and stress took over the formerly quiet everyday life of people. But none of this reached the Götterberg. The monastery, which was named after its founder Amon, had remained in the old days. It was as if the mountain itself wanted to stand as a reminder of the old days. The monastery, which was built partly in the mountain, but also on the mountain, supported this.

It was a monastery full of men. Monks. Still, it wasn't a normal monastery. Not only was its location and name unique, its history too. The line of the elect lived there, leading the monastery from generation to generation. A holy Father, whose status was even higher than that of the Pope, chosen by God personally. Hair as blue as the sky, blue eyes of the same color, a soul as pure as that of a newborn. Entrusted with the task of bringing the message of God to the people as God's only armed forces on earth, called Assiah, to save the world from darkness and unbelief.

The holy and venerable family line of the Talin, founded by the one who built the monastery, Amon Talin!

The Talin have always protected mankind from the power of demons without their knowledge. Holy Father and his entourage, which consisted of specially trained combat monks, watched over the believers high up on this mountain. But times had changed. Modern times had forgotten those stories. Only a handful of believers, including the Holy Father himself, still knew something about the Talin. They were unknown to everyone else. A normal monastery, stopped in time, clinging to old values. A refuge for believers just like any other monastery.

Old stories and virtues were forgotten. The world had turned to the modern age. But not for those initiated. This is how the story begins. There was something in the monastery, something powerful and dark, that surpassed any demon ...

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It was the dead of night when bare feet scurried over the cool stones of the floor. The corridor was long and dark. The stone seemed to reflect the coolness of the night. But the one who disturbed the silence of the night, lit the darkness with a candle in hand, did not care. He couldn't sleep, his soul was restless. He had been too excited to finally return to the place he had to leave so long ago ...

Godric had only returned to his family's monastery a week ago. The monastery was not small, it was huge. It consisted of a main house where prayers were held and many smaller huts that were spread around the main wing. Aside there was a shrine and some halls where martial arts and many other skills were taught. Everything connected by long stone corridors. Almost endless and winding corridors, as the young man found. Godric had not been home in fifteen years since he had been trained to be a priest. He had made his vow to live chaste and only for God. To follow his faith and word to resist all sins. These included sins such as sex, unchaste thoughts, consuming flesh, blasphemy, murder, cursing and much more. Asserting oneself against dark creatures and tempters was also part of it. When the young priest heard about it for the first time in his training, he couldn't believe his ears. But he quickly learned that the world was not just what he saw with the naked eye. There were quite a few dark creatures, and yet no priest, monk or nun was defenseless against them. They only resisted, but did not attack anyone on their own initiative. It did not count as murder if one paved the way for the dark creatures to a better life through defense and prayer. So this monastery was known to produce men who ruled this.

So does Godric. He had received his ordination and was now worthy to be the abbot of that institution. He had learned a lot and knew that he needed all of it. He always wore his black robe with a consecrated cross around his neck. There was a ring on his finger. The only jewelry he was allowed to wear, as it was the family ring and distinguished Godric as the highest priest and abbot of the monastery. It wasn't just any jewelry. It was the sacred ornament of Amon, the founder of this monastery. A mighty ring, the power of which many desired but could never own. He looked for his own owner, a descendant of Amon, and when he put on this ring his hair turned blue as the sky and his eyes as deep blue as water. No matter what their original color was. It was the colors of the first Talin, Amon. The ring could only be removed from the finger again when the chosen one died, which happened as soon as his successor was born, since there could only be one saint. Godric grew up without a father, but had lost his mother at an early age. He couldn't remember her. The former abbot, the student of Godric's father, had taken in the then small baby and raised him. As requested by the Talin.

Except for jewelry, Godric had no wealth. Nobody in this monastery had any. The rooms were empty except for a bed, a closet for robes and robes, and a table with a chair and a lamp. It was lived according to the rules of renunciation and humility and not given in to waste. You only had what you needed to live. No more and no less.

Since Godric could not sleep that night, however, he had resolved to rediscover the corridors he had last explored fifteen years ago. To get used to everything again. He held a candle in one hand. There was no electricity in this monastery. The monks had only allowed themselves the luxury of running water and the associated sanitary facilities, for reasons of hygiene. That was how progressive they wanted to be to prevent diseases.

The blue-haired man walked slowly down the hallways. He had forgotten so many things and he wanted to remember a lot more. For example, how it went back again. Because even a chosen Father was not protected from getting lost, as it had happened to him. He just wanted to explore this part, since he never got around to it during the week he was here. There was nothing he had to do in this part of the monastery. This wing was also built into the mountain a little off the beaten track. As if it was on purpose. On the floor, the walls, corners and pillars, which were for the outside corridor, you could see that this wing had not been used for a long time. The daily work of a monk, in which Godric could not exclude himself, was to keep the monastery clean as it was written on a board in the main corridor. 'Keep your soul and your surroundings pure!' Even Godric, as the highest priest, couldn't shirk the cleaning work, but at least didn't have to do as much as his monks. So he had been spared the preparation of the food, the kitchen work and the rough housework and laundry. He was responsible for ensuring that the scriptures were properly stored in the archives, as no one other than the Talin had access. This, on the other hand, was housework, not less difficult work. The underground family archive, which had existed for millennia, stretched over a long distance. The monastery itself was more than two thousand years old, and so every generation of priests had written and added other writings. In the end, there was a lot to do with the now incumbent Father, also because he should actually read everything in order to be able to use the knowledge of the old generations. But even after fifteen years he hadn't been able to read through even a small part of the archive and had only been able to pick out certain documents for his training. His luck was that the previous generations had worked cleanly. Every book, every scroll, every piece of paper, no matter how small, was organized and sorted under keywords on a shelf. So you could find something quickly if you disregard the amount of keywords ...