#sedef verse

Draga,

It was my first free day since arriving in this god forsaken city so I decided to explore outside the Amet gates today. 

The Avecacher decumanus is a winding, complicated thing - the street goes on for so long that I do not see how the pilgrims do not lose their faith once they reach it. The first sun of the year seemed to have lured the whole city into the streets, including all the folk whose first day alive it apparently was. My situation got so dire after the third person bumped into me that I jumped the nearest fence into someone’s garden and finally managed to slip into one of the side streets.

My nose navigated my stomach through the narrow streets and stopped at the terrace of a tavern called Loze’s Garden of Earthly Delights. The stew of the day lived up to the name of the establishment but I was sadly hurried away as soon as I finished my meal to make way for the ever growing number of patrons. 

I made my way south-east and the stench of the fish market told me I was in the Maine district. The promenade led me down to a shipyard where I spent some time watching shipwrights work. Three young men cursed at each other in different languages loud enough for me to hear over how to best saw a piece of wood and it reminded me of the time Danilo, Una and I had amputation praxis on that stupid doll. Once their little theatre play was over and the piece of wood was sawed off, I headed westward.

I noticed a strange curved wall and decided to follow it to an opening. What I had first assumed to be some kind of small amphitheatre was in fact a churchyard. The graves followed the curves of the walls making ten neat rows of descending levels. Three paths broke up the rows of graves - two leading from each of the two entrances to a statue and one leading from the statue to the church portal. The statue was made of stone and it portrayed a veiled figure with an ornate headdress in mourning. The veil covered them completely but the stonework was incredibly delicate and showed their hands covering their face in great detail, as if the veil was see through. I even dared to touch the grooves on the statue and I felt as if it would recoil from my touch.

I noticed the unusual quiet for something in the center of the city and wondered if the walls, which were as tall as the walls circling the city, made this effect possible. I hadn’t noticed it from outside, but from the inside it was apparent they curved inwards, almost creating a dome. As I headed for the church portal, I passed a couple people in quiet grief. 

From the top to the bottom of the portal snaked an intricate mesh of reliefs and sentences. The sentences I could not decipher on account of my written Commun not being up to par but the reliefs weaved a story of the afterlife with the same mourning figure as the statue sat at the top of the arc. The story seemed to be of levels to the afterlife with perhaps the end goal being some sort of… reincarnation? Or ascension. Or complete obliteration of the soul. It was quite hard to tell, though I am admittedly not an expert in the arts or interpreting them.

I felt someone observing me from the window and when I noticed her, she stepped out of the church. A nun, I assumed. The design on her tabard echoed the architectural elements of the church and a veil hung over her coif and stopped at her elbows, all in shades of dark reds, purples and tanned leather, most notably on her boots, gloves and belt. She looked unusual and all the leather on her seemed a bit out of place for the warm weather, but I wrote it off as either the uniform demanding all this coverage or her own thermal sensitivity. She was of a darker completion than my own, stood barely to my ribcage and supported herself on a walking cane.

After I explained to her how I would like to know more about this place, she invited me for a game of chess which I enthusiastically agreed to. We sat on a bench in the portico and she spoke to me about the church and the Nilleaterites.

This place is called the Depression Basilica of Nilleatere, on account of the descending leveled nature of the space. The Nilleaterite sect is an interesting mixture of ancient  folkloric beliefs held by the people of the region, spiritual beliefs shared by sea trade and the Andula empire’s own Psalmism religion they pushed onto the people some five centuries ago. Nilleatere was a leader during the initial occupation of Avecacher and was deified for her fight for independence, but over time the Psalmist push got too strong and Nilleatere got sneakily squeezed into their confines. There is a cycle they practice with their dead - first they are buried inside the Basilica walls and await for the nearest Solstice or Equinox, after which processions are held to take them to the cemetery proper outside of the city.

The bi-phasal burials piqued my interest and I expressed my concern about the smells and general unsafety of keeping the corpses inside the city walls to which she informed me they never had problems regarding this - the lower levels of the basilica functioned as an ice house and mortuary, and the building had a specialised ventilation system which lead the bad air outside of the city. Intrigued, I asked if I would be able to see the mortuary as a medical student myself but she refused my request with a facial expression I found hard to read but got the sense I had made a mistake in asking and decided not to push the topic. To my inquiry on how they dealt with problems of risen dead, she stated they had no such issues and I got the sense I should stop with my interrogation before I do more damage to the conversation. I couldn’t help the feeling of unease settling in me about night in this city.

We continued to play in silence and, despite my losing streak, I quite enjoyed our time together. The churchyard was a calm place and Maria, the nun, had this quiet comfort about her which made it easy to lose track of time. She seemed fond of insects and even helped a grasshopper onto my leg when I wasn’t looking. While I would normally not be entertained by this, her gentleness encouraged a gentleness in me and I took my time to study the freakish little thing. As I did so, she took one of my rooks which protected my king and put it in her mouth. This act bewildered me to such an extent, I had a burst of laughter which disturbed a nearby family and brought a grieving child into a crying fit.

This event burst my bubble of enjoyment and I realised it was getting quite late. If I wanted to meet Inja at the Beacon tavern before the Amet gates closed for the night, I had to hurry. 

I have found myself to be far lonelier than I had hoped on this adventure and Maria is a welcome respite from the chaos of the rest of my world. I hope to see her again. And inquire once more about the access to the mortuary.

Regards, 

Miloš

P.S. If you see mother or Petra, do let them know I am alive.

I have no idea at this point how much I've said about all this demon business but here goes nothing!

Throughout the first part/the backstory, Miloš is being prepped by Stas to become a soul tupperware for them when they become a litch! This ritual ends up going to hell and both Stas and Miloš die.

He is then brought back to life by Maria Mattia who uses soul shards from her sister but they are not enough and she mixes in Stas' as well. It does bring him back but uh oh! Soul shards have this quality that when mixed create/call upon an entity! He is now a huge demon centaur thing!

He spends some time as this thing before he is able to come back and be relatively human again.

This thing feeds on guilt. The specific guilt is of failing to make something of himself once he immigrated and has kept lying to his family of how his life was going. The demon keep manifesting itself by mentally torturing him hit can be kept at bay when he is performing Work which in his case is doing surgery :)

P.s.

Sedef is a story that follows its main character Miloš/Mila through three phases of his/their/her life.

PHASE_1

Miloš is a recent Med School graduate and an immigrant to the city of Saskrije. Desperate for work so he can send money to his family, he accepts a job as an assistant/nurse to eccentric noble, Adel Camille. 

The story develops over the course of nine months throughout which he befriends Maria Mattia, a nun of [deity] under an oath of silence with a penchant for necromancy; he gets swept up in exploring his latent bisexuality and limerence with Veno, the ex pirate turned gang leader; he explores expression and bodily autonomy with Adel. He is taken as a muse to Stas, a powerful warlock and ultimately sacrificed to their patron.

He is briefly used as a god-vessel.

He is brought to un-life by Maria Mattia though his soul is now fused with a shard of Stas' and as a result he suffers lycanthropic bouts of bodily transformation. 

PHASE_2

Miloš is blackmailed into using their medical experience for an evil entity. They grapple with and learn to control their monster form. They fall in love. The world ends (maybe?)

PHASE_3

Maria - Maria's sister was a nun in the cult of [name] but as she was getting transferred to the Saskrije station, she disappeared and when getting the notifying letter, Maria decided to travel there and assume her sister's identity. At the point in the story when we meet her, she had been in the cult for 3 years and has still not uncovered the mystery of her sister's disappearance. When she is not doing work as the church's caretaker, she is secretly studying the magic used in the cult. Her and Miloš get to hang out because originally he likes to sit in empty churches because then he doesn't have to talk to people, however he asks her about where he can send letters and they get into a combination where she can send a letter every 3 months through the pilgrims who come and go. They start talking and playing cards together and end up really connecting. A part of her exploring magic is changing the body and she tries to give herself magical bottom surgery but messes up so now she has Demon Genitals (yet to be designed 😩)

Stas - Stas is a noble sent to the city by their family due to being hard to handle with their poor mental state and sadistic streak (out of sight out of mind their family thought 😒). Stas spends their time often away from Saskrije and at an undisclosed location doing.. well nobody knows what.

We first meet them as they prepare one of their infamous fetish galas for the elite. These are known for being only marginally safe or sane or consensual. They become infatuated with Miloš at this party when he's Adel's entourage and they begin an intense... situationship with him.

They serve an entity which gives them among other things powers of persuasion as well as making them practically immortal (and also they're like. 90 and don't look a day over 60!)

Their entity does periodically up the stakes of the sacrifices they have to give it and at the culmination of the story, they have to sacrifice miloš which they do not fuck with but do anyway.

Veno - Veno was a merchant as a young man. Then he was a pirate after surviving a shipwreck. Then his crew tried to plunder the wrong ship which landed him in the employ of [name], the city's most notorious criminals. In the decades since has become the de facto leader of the group.

The group serves an entity which feels threatened by Stas' and it orders him to take Stas down. So many people die in the attempt.

He uses Miloš to get info on Stas and also they have a sexual relationship in which Miloš is more invested 😩