"Irreverence compels my hand to scribe,

Let each stroke be a clarion bell of my sin,

My sacrifice writ as ink upon parchment,

Left to dry until only its memory remains,

And I, who ushered it into creation,

Arpha'seae the voiceless at last given voice."

-First passage of Concordat of Proffered Sound

"Blessed Silence, may my unworthy body not disturb for it is unworthy of being wrought in your halls. May my mind not distort for it is unable to fathom the depths of your tranquility. May my unknown voice not distend your holy Quietude. May I be unmade at my utterance or outburst and returned to the nothing before my transgression."

-Last written litany of Saint Arpha'seae, The Sorrowful Scrivener

I came as a petitioner to the Temple, just like all others of my ilk. We came to drown out the sorrowful din of the world, to have even a glimpse within the bastion of solitude. The price you pay for salvation is sacrifice and within those halls no one simply passes through.

I told myself I was willing to give anything, no ask was beyond my desperation, no price too high. But initiation broke me in like all the others whose mind didn't match their mettle.

My first footfall inside was deafening, it broke the tenuous equilibrium held within. Each night I spent in the freezing slopes outside I rationalized what the interior might be. That their tenants of absolute silence would be enforced by some sound dampening architecture. But too late did I realize that nothing was gained by taking the easy road.

Hallways were made too look like beads on a necklace, every 40 paces a spherical room sat with an echo point at its center. Here only the most pious could achieve formless tranquility and only by the collective effort of the Temples faithful could it be maintained.

My footfalls grew softer as I parsed the least intrusive path and still it made my eardrums ache. The volatility of my own movement was laid bare before me mere moments into my induction. How they must have loathed my presence as I can only assume they did for all interlopers. 

I was wordlessly guided to a spartan chamber that I was to make my home. It was occupied by a single blanket and washbowl and laid on the floor there was a chisel. Of course no instruction had been given so I did my best to investigate the adjacent rooms for clues. To my surprise each floor had a strange pattern carved into it, no not a pattern, in fact it was a silhouette. The chisel was to carve my profile into the floor so that I might lay in it to sleep.

This realization brought me months of silent toil and anguish, to carve ones outline into a stone floor without making so much as an audible exhalation was a true test of character. But it was this or the cold. My work culminated in a personalized indent to my exact specifications and finally I could use it to rest. As I settled into the recess it occurred to me its secondary function as another amplifier.

It was impossible to sleep knowing the ringing in my ears was but a phantom of a sound. I couldn't cry out from night terrors in fear of waking every living being at rest within the stone floor. I couldn't weep for any loss for a tear drop would alert them. I began to wonder if my heartbeat was even being monitored at all hours.

I persevered, my face stony during the waking hours, musing if perhaps the others became one with stony silence with time and devotion. I could walk the halls without disturbance now, the only turmoil being within my mind. It irked me that the vow of silence was even extended to that of literature. How then did they posses the holy scriptures we studied? What hypocrisy to study from the philosophy of a Saint they revere for blatant apostasy.

Thoughts festered in my mind, I could leave and make my way in the world again, finally be free from this curse. Oh to talk to another living soul again, to voice my hopes and fears and receive in turn a reply. It was an empty existence to live devoid of sound, no conversations, music, literature, or laughter. I would escape.

That nights after completing my chores I bundled my blanket under my habit and stole my way through the quarters. I wove an unheard path through the ventral hallways and finally to the entryway were I first renounced my freedom. I could almost hear the wind whipping through the high plains now, it should be spring now and the birds would greet me with a chorus.

It felt right to leave something here, a goodbye to this hateful place, something for them to remember me by. So I crept into the Altarhame, intent on desecration, instead finding another figure beside the grand mute organ atop the dais. I halted suddenly, scuffing the stone floor, they turned to me without an ounce of surprise in their eyes. Mirth painted along their unwrinkled visage. I began to speak, a witness would make this revenge all the sweeter, but my voice caught within my throat. Disuse likely rendered my first attempt unfruitful, but I conjured a deep breath to shout my final frustration.

Without warning their hand came to meet my neck in my moment of catharsis, fingers pinching deep into my vocal nerves. Powerless to defy their grasp I flailed in a feeble attempt to escape, but the grip grew tighter. A vial was brought to my unwilling lips as the choking hand glided up my neck to coax some newfound substance rising from my chest. A gentle wisp fled from my mouth and into the vial, sealed tight by their hands.

I screamed. No answer registered in my ears.

They placed the vial in a recess within the machinations of the organ and bid me sit at its keys. No strength was left in me to resist and no voice left to protest I sat. Without prompting I laid my trembling fingers atop the faded ivory and pressed. My ears rang with a choir of wailing, tortured screams and agonized laments. My voice among the hundreds of stolen anguished notes.

And so I played that symphony of slaved screams, each refrain caressing only my ears. And so the inscription on the headpiece read

"Silence is earned."