- THE PEOPLE -

Born out of flame.

In life, most people have chosen the Gods to guide them through the Faith. Others have chosen the Sigods. Few brave ones have chosen Rodolve. The teacher. The traitor. Finally, there are those who went even further. The Nassaryotts.

They are not like the Godians and Sigodians, only reading and rereading the texts written and approved by the Faith and the Despots. No, the Nassaryotts have their own “Prophet”. He is referred to only as the “obscure weeper”. No one knows when or where he lived. He only wrote one book, “Nature” or “The Book of Nature” depending on the edition. All Nassaryotts have read it and follow its message with the same zeal we follow our Gods. Yet no one has ever seen the authentic text. They say it was lost in a great fire of Nassa, way before people started counting days and years.

Despite the warnings and threats of heresy and eternal damnation to whoever dares open it, I couldn’t stop myself. In the past, like with Rodolve, talking about such heresies would make me irrationally angry. All these changed with the Revolution however. Many of my most loyal troops turned out to be Nassaryotts. I didn’t choose them, but for some reason they chose me. And stuck by my side through everything. To this day, with death rapidly approaching, they are here. They never left me. And told me all the things didn’t want to hear. All the things I’d shut my eyes to.

So, I made a promise. To become, at least somewhat familiar with their religion. Still, I owe them much more…

The basic idea of “Nature”, at least as I understood it, can be summarized in its following passages:

“Reality is but a mirage of the eternal fire.

Created by no one and subject to no one.

Reality is nothing but time and actions.

And is only understood through death.”

-Nature. Ch2, p.15-

While many of us may find melancholy in those lines, the Nassaryotts have a different way of interpreting them.

They reject the idea our Gods ever existed. To them, deities don’t have a form, and can be neither conceived, nor fully understood. To them, our Gods are fake. Just ordinary people we put on a pedestal and began to blindly worship. Instead, they mostly worship the Destined, the personifications of various concepts. Or, to be precise, it is the concepts behind the Destined they worship. Life, loss, luck and everything else.

The passage of time in particular, is of great importance to them. In their head, time creates us all, then destroys us, and creates us again, in an endless cycle. “No man ever crosses the same river twice” writes the Obscure Weeper. And they all found his saying to be wise and true. The man would be older, and so would the river. It’d have become stale and dirty. But that was life. Time’s arrow marches on. It is not surprising therefor that, out of all Destined, Ereva, the Destined of death, is most beloved among these people. She is the one representing their struggle. Their guide through life’s eternal journey. Through time. Until time’s eventual end comes. Its swan song. Then they’d finally be free.

This obsession with time makes them very sentimental about things symbolising its passage, like a lit candle. Roosters and swans are sacred to them. The former are companions through time, the latter symbolize its end. The Nassaryotts are the only people I’ve met who dare twist the Faith in such a provocative way. Openly worshiping a Destined -not even Una, the main one, while also rejecting every other authority, mortal or divine. No wonder the Dolvetians would always harass them. So would the Riviellotts. Originally, I had no idea of the suffering that came along with being a Nassaryott. Savelier had, I believe, but didn’t care. Matters of humanity were always secondary to him. Artiner did not care either. He’d always help those in need, the Nassaryotts were no different than everyone else in his eyes.

Still though...

Their story supposedly began more than a thousand years ago, before Dolvet was even conceived. Their island, Nassa, was prosperous back then, ruling the Pelagian sea with its fleet. This lasted until the great earthquake, what we call, Una’s decent to the ocean. Many often underestimate the magnitude of this earthquake. It completely destroyed Nassa, scattering its people throughout Deuterria. This the Nassaryotts call their “First Rout”, and it shook them to their core.

Shattered and misplaced, they found refugee wherever they could. Any land, any shore, any town they could reach. Now they lived everywhere, and were hated everywhere. The hate wasn’t new. Their open dismissal of the Gods, their passivity and indifference towards life, their weird customs. Pointing at them was almost too easy. But back then they had the strength of Nassa guarding them. Now they were alone.

Then there was the island itself. Nassa never really recovered. Even decades later, only a fraction of what once stood had been rebuilt. With immense willpower, those still remaining on the rubble began putting themselves back together. It took time and patience, but eventually they made a life from the ruins. Nassa would never be the power it once was, but it was healing. Yet, the stigma would remain. Everyone openly hated them now. When Dolvet captured the Pelagian Islands, they burned Nassa to the ground. Everyone the Dolvetians found they either slaughtered, or made a slave. Those who managed to escape, once again took to the sea. The waters filled with boats, rafts and bodies once again. This was their “Second Rout”. Those who managed to hide, banded together once again, and are still trying to rebuild their homes.

As for Riviella, in and around our town we had maybe two thousand Nassaryotts. Maybe more, but certainly not less, all living around their temple, the Communal, as they called it. All were gathered near the end of the Long Bridge, on the other side of the river, separate from the rest of the town. Whatever Riviellotts lived alongside them, across the river, would have a little “X” drawn with chalk on their walls to distinguish themselves. Still, they weren’t that many.

In fact, they were so few, that it was not uncommon for the Tallals -their priests- to pass right in front of their doors every afternoon when calling the Nassaryotts for their evening prayer. They’d walk up and down the streets, shouting:

“The niiiiight… is abooooout… to staaaaart!” and “The blessiiiiings… are abooooout… to staaaaart!”

It was the signal that the day was over, they had to get ready for their evening blessings. To take a bath and light the candles. And after the blessings were done, deep into the night, one could hear the Communarch declare “Up and forth”- to the sky, a signal the pray was over, and them responding “Let it be”. This, more than anything, sent a message. Those streets were theirs, no questions about it. It was their district, their neighbourhoods. The Nassaryottics.

In our town, they were humble. So humble, as if they were afraid of some ancient curse falling upon their heads at any moment. Proper wretches, the most pitiful ones of our town they were.

This was also reflected in their neighbourhoods, which were some of the poorest and dirtiest. Their children were some the sickliest in the entire town, skinny and full of pimples. They’d usually work as baggage carriers, or water merchants, or street sweepers, these kinds of jobs. Their children working by their side, from a very young age. Their women would either cook or clean in various houses, all over the town. Even the town’s brothels, which weren’t many, three or four at most. Still, they would clean them. Such was their poverty.

Yet, to do something more, to learn a trade and become, let’s say, a tailor, or a carpenter, or a smith -that kind of stuff- very few of them would ever even try. They didn’t want to enslave their time, which was the most precious thing they had, irreplaceable and irreversible. At least that was what they’d say in public.

One could only find some faux-gunsmiths, or faux-shoemakers –though I guess a more accurate term would be shoe repairmen- or faux-butchers who’d never sell any rooster or swan. And that was all really. And even them, you would mostly find within the Nassaryottics. Very few went outside. Most of them were middlemen, or owned pawn carriages, their most preferred “trade”, which they had perfected over many generations. They weren’t that many, but could easily be heard throughout the town, they made that kind of noise. Every morning, from the crack of dawn, they’d strap themselves in front of their little carriage and begin dragging it through Riviella, waking up everyone with their shouting.

“The ooooold and uuuuuseless! I’m buyiiiiing all the ooooold and uuuuuseless!”

And people would get mad and throw water at them, or leftovers, or sometimes even rocks.

Other than that, one could find them as “strollers”, walking all around town and selling cheap little trinkets. Most people would often look down on such a feeble job, but they never cared. walked up and down the roads with a large plank hanged around their chest, or a large bag on their back, or pushing a small wooden cart full of all kinds of stuff. Every moment they’d cry, loudly and tirelessly advertising their goods, in their own unique way. It sounded strange, almost like a song, dragging their voice through every word. One could spend hours and hours traversing the districts.

“Hey Nassaryott!” the women would sound from their porches and windows, even though they knew his name.

He’d hear them, and never care they called him Nassaryott. He’d then leave his things down on the porch, or the street, take a moment to catch his breath, and waited for them to come to him. Then the bartering would start, which could go on and on. All these for a ball of string, or a bronze penna, or a cheap belt, or some candles.

The kids would sometimes run behind him, singing loudly:

“Candles, strings and nothing more!

All the Nassaryotts are for!”

He’d never get mad at the kids. They’re just kids. Taking up his sack once more, he’d start going up and down again. Until the Tallals sang. Then he’d slowly begin the long march back across the bridge. Before sleep, he’d gaze upon his priceless goods one more time. Little by little he’d sell them. Day by day. In heat, cold or rain. Despite the misery. Despite the mocking. Until the day Ereva would bless him, when he’d have enough money to open his own shop at the Little Stoas, among the others.

It was a source of great pride for them, their Little Stoas. Since the Riviellotts wouldn’t allow them to set up shops next to them in the proper Stoas, or use the peers in the Planks, the most prominent and wealthy among them came up with a plan. They hired their own architects, and their own builders, and their own carpenters, from outside the town. And right where the Nassaryottics meet the river, they constructed their own little port. With a peer, and a customs house, and a storage room, and all other things necessary. They also built their own marketplace, their Little Stoas, right between the port and the Communal.

All the other merchants of our town wanted them gone, but they wouldn’t dare enter the Nassaryottics. They went to the Belir, but he told them that mobilizing his troops was out of the question. As long as they paid their taxes and customs, in his eyes, they weren’t doing anything illegal. So, the port and the Little Stoas got to stay.

Inside them existed around two hundred Nassaryotts and their stores. Most of them small, some large and powerful –as large and powerful as one could get in such conditions, it was said. They’d sell fabrics, glassware, metal tools, things already manufactured. Finished. Most of them were of dubious quality, and brought directly from Nassa. Things that spoil, or local products like salted pork, they’d almost never sell. Other than that, their stores were indistinguishable from other ones in Riviella. The Nassaryotts themselves also had nothing that made them stand out from everyone else, in grooming or in clothing, like in other places. They’d even try and fix their voice so it wouldn’t drag, with mixed results. Even so, one could tell almost immediately they were Nassaryotts.

There were few, very few, that were actually educated, and knew a proper and respectable trade. Some doctors, some navigators aboard the wherries, a couple of inkmen and scribes in their temple, some translators, and that was it. Architects, or bankers or shipwrights, in Riviella we had none. The town’s climate wouldn’t allow it.

Lastly, there were the ones who put in the money to build the port and the Little Stoas and the Communal. The richest of the Nassaryotts. The grand merchants. They lived, of course, much more comfortably than everyone else. They had better houses and better clothes and even servants, also Nassaryotts. They’d also paid to have a road paved that connected the Little Stoas with the main road, and everyone agreed that it truly was one of Riviella’s best roads. Those people wouldn’t spend time in the Nassaryottics if they didn’t need to. One could usually find them beyond the Long Bridge, in Riviella proper, drinking wine in proper tavernas and talking to all the other good and proper people of our town. They’d sit in pairs and play cards or dice for hours. The loser would pay for the wine.

Both rich and poor however, would go to the Communal every night for the blessings. All of them were very religious. Nobody ever dared to work afternoons, or touch a sacred bird. Before going to the temple they’d take a good bath, as was the custom. Then light a red candle in their home, so Ereva would watch over it for as long as they were at the blessings. Both rich and poor had a weird discipline when it came to traditions, and their way of life in general. All would get married very young, and had a good set of clothes stored away to wear at Ereva’s festival, the last day of summer.

That day, they wouldn’t work at all. The blessings would start early in the morning, and after they were done, the families would cross the bridge and go for a walk down Riviel’s shore. If they could afford it, they’d sit at one of the cabins. The next day they would also skip work, and pray until the evening, when they’d gather at their temple once again, before finally going to sleep.

Another day gone. Lost forever.