Recaps

Gwen visited Doctor Castel's hospital to help awaken priests of the Silent Temple, who had remained comatose despite Richard's treatments. Nora directed Gwen to perform an awakening ritual with her censer, and the chapter ended just as Gwen prepared to strike the patients.

• Richard welcomed Gwen to the hospital and showed her the unconscious priests he had been unable to wake.
• Richard explained how the hospital used Moth Chasing Flame's [Self-Binding] ability to scan patients, but the scans had not revealed a way to treat the priests.
• Gwen said Nora had taught her a way to wake people by hitting them with a flail, and Nora insisted the weapon was a censer used in an awakening ritual.
• Gwen fetched Nora's censer, lit its hammerheads, and asked what to do next.
• Nora told Gwen to skip reciting the Holy Scripture and simply smash the censer down.

Nora and Gwen attempted to awaken an unconscious Silent Temple priest using a flail as part of a ritual. Gwen’s powerful blows began to rouse him, though she also smashed his helmet to pieces.

• Richard worried that Nora and Gwen might kill the unconscious priest, so Nora explained that Gwen would perform an awakening ritual.
• Gwen accidentally put an Icefield Heavy Armor helmet backward on Nora, then corrected it and placed another helmet on the priest.
• Nora explained how Gwen could channel her will through the flail, which could transmit intent without words.
• Gwen struck the priest with the flail, denting his helmet, and his eyelids began to twitch.
• Gwen kept hitting the priest to wake him, eventually smashing his helmet to pieces while Richard watched anxiously.

Gwen awakened the Silent Temple priests by striking their helmets with a Flail, while Richard treated their injuries. Once Patriarch Ignati awoke, he recalled that the Forgotten Temple had rejected the priests’ ritual and assumed the White Calamity had spread across most of the continent.

• A battered priest awoke and pleaded with Gwen to stop hitting him, confirming that the Silent Temple’s awakening ritual had worked.
• Gwen began awakening the other priests with her Flail, and Richard bandaged the first priest while the others cowered.
• Richard brought steel helmets from Castel’s armaments factory, and Gwen used them to awaken the remaining priests.
• Gwen awakened Patriarch Ignati, who asked what had become of the White Calamity in the Northern Territory.
• Ignati recalled that the Forgotten Temple had rejected the priests’ ritual and overwhelmed his will, then urged Nora to unite against it.
• Nora stayed silent and rolled her eyes when Ignati assumed the White Calamity had occupied more than half the continent.

Nora challenged Patriarch Ignati to consider whether the Silent Temple had done anything beyond repeating its ancient cycle of sacrifice, and pointed to Castel as a possible new path. Ignati agreed to see Castel for himself and began to question whether the Holy Church still needed him as Patriarch.

• Nora acknowledged the Silent Temple's courage in choosing to perish with the White Calamity, but questioned its reliance on sacrificing Buriers.
• Nora argued that Castel's railways, fortresses, and airships showed the people of Bone White Crow could pursue a new path instead of repeating the past.
• Nora urged the Silent Temple's priests to explore Castel, which Count Theus had also allowed them to preach in.
• Richard confirmed that Count Theus had personally authorized the offer, and Nini offered to show the priests around.
• Ignati said he would see Castel for himself and wondered whether the Holy Church still needed a Patriarch if he could offer it only sacrifice.

Ignati and the Silent Temple priests decided to visit Castel and judge for themselves whether it could be a home for the Resistance Army, since their intelligence about the territory was outdated. After waking, the priests met Richard, Gwen, and Nini, whose mention of Banshees triggered their alarm.

• Ignati persuaded the Silent Temple priests to visit Castel and see how its believers were faring.
• The priests admitted that they knew little about Castel because the Candlelight Society had withheld information and they had overlooked changes over the years.
• Richard offered to examine the priests, but Ignati said their injuries came from the Temple of the Forgotten and that their head wounds were superficial.
• Gwen thanked the priests for cooperating and joked that they could come to her for treatment, while privately wondering whether to hit Nora with her chain flail.
• Nini introduced herself as a journalist and offered to show the priests around Castel when the Banshees arrived, frightening them because Gwen had drilled into their minds that Banshees were good people.

Nini, Nora, and Gwen led Ignati and the Buriers on a tour of Castel after their peaceful first meeting. Ignati hoped to see the real Castel for himself, and the tour began at the Hospital Knights.

• Gwen’s chain demonstration frightened the Buriers, while Nora assured them that Nini and the Banshees had no Pollution.
• Ignati formally greeted Nini, and the Banshees secretly joked through their Mind Link about Nini writing a newspaper account of the visit.
• Theus watched the encounter and approved Nini’s offer to show the Buriers around Castel, while Richard left to return to his research work.
• Nini, Nora, and Gwen led more than a hundred Buriers out to tour Castel, and Ignati chose to see the city firsthand rather than wait for a formal audience.
• Nini introduced the Hospital Knights and explained that Richard was an acting director and Ash handled fighting rather than administration.

Nini showed Nora and the Silent Temple priests Castel’s hospital and explained its battlefield role, while Ignati discovered that its concrete construction could help rebuild White Crow. Nora chose to see the railway next, and Nini led the group to a subway entrance.

• Nini explained that her field hospital sometimes treated people on the battlefield with weapons like the Gatling Gun, and Gwen asked to spar with her again.
• Ignati recognized the hospital’s sturdy concrete construction, and Nini said Castel would sell its building materials to the Northern Territory and other lands.
• Ignati suspected Castel might offer hope to the Silent Temple and White Crow, while Nini pointed out the hospital’s rooftop Gatling Gun.
• Nora asked to see the railway, so Nini offered to show the group Castel’s subway instead.
• Nini vanished into a network passage entrance beneath their feet and called for the others to follow.

Nini led Ignati and the Silent Temple priests into Castel’s underground network, where Nora explained how its subway system had developed and how its lamps were powered. As the group watched ordinary citizens and workers at the hospital platform, Ignati began to recognize how unusual Castel’s society was.

• Nora explained that Castel’s underground network served as an efficient way to travel, then asked Gwen to carry her into the entrance.
• Ignati led the Silent Temple priests down into the vast, illuminated network, and Nora described how it had grown into a multilayer subway system.
• Nora explained that Castel’s lights used fuel supplied by the Stellar Furnace rather than gas.
• Nini identified the people on the hospital platform as civilians, a Faithguard Army soldier, workers, an engineer, and a patient.
• A subway employee maintained order and directed the crowd, while Ignati observed that ordinary humans could address Nini and Transcendents with calm authority.

The people of the Silent Temple boarded Castel’s subway and explored its unusual, passenger-friendly design. Nini realized the carriage resembled a Silent Temple church and went to see several clergy members praying inside.

• Patriarch Ignati stopped the Buriers from crowding toward the arriving subway before it reached the platform.
• Nini boarded the train and explained how its design differed from the Northern Territory’s trains.
• Nini opened a ceiling panel so she could ride comfortably, while Gwen and Nora tussled over Gwen’s attempt to copy her.
• The Buriers examined the carriage and remarked that its narrow rows of seats looked like a church in the Silent Temple.
• Nini heard that several clergy members were praying in the subway and walked toward them.

Nini explained to Jessica and the Silent Temple priests that Castel’s people treated studying as prayer, and Ignati recognized science and technology as tangible expressions of power. After the priests arrived at the air harbor, they marveled at the subway and searched for the airships they had come to see.

• Nini realized that studying the Holy Scripture could count as practicing Empire Truth’s doctrine and asked Theus whether science was a religion.
• Nini told Jessica that Castel’s people prayed to themselves by learning and growing strong enough to solve their own problems.
• Ignati argued that knowledge, steel, machinery, weapons, and vehicles all represented power, and that the subway carriage could be a sanctuary.
• Gwen lowered Nora after Nora protested that she was not carsick, and Nini led the priests off the subway at the air harbor.
• The Silent Temple priests admired the station and the distant fortress clusters, then wondered where the airships were.

Nini showed the Silent Temple the Skyveil Behemoth, and Nora confronted its priests with how their reliance on sacrifice had failed the people of White Crow. Ignati questioned Castel’s use of the airship, while Nini argued that Castel no longer needed to rely on military force; the priests faced the choice of whether to fight as Gwen readied her flail.

• Nini revealed that the enormous structure above the Silent Temple was the Skyveil Behemoth, Castel’s largest airship, leaving the priests stunned and frightened.
• Nora told the priests that an airship like Castel’s could have saved people from the White Calamity and condemned the Silent Temple’s reliance on sacrifice.
• Nora wept over the Resistance Army’s endless battles and the suffering of White Crow’s people, while Gwen comforted her.
• Nora warned that the Temple must change or perish, as Patriarch Ignati remained silent and looked at the airship.
• Nini explained that the Skyveil Behemoth carried out construction and cargo work as well as combat missions, and Ignati questioned why Castel used such a powerful machine for peaceful tasks.
• Nini said Castel no longer needed to demonstrate its strength through war and asked Ignati whether he would use force against them, as Gwen swung her flail.

The Silent Temple’s Buriers saw Castel’s airships and were left wondering how their chains could challenge enemies in the sky, while Nini sketched their despair. Theus then rushed to Richard’s testing grounds after hearing of progress in electricity research, where he discovered the site had been enclosed in a massive Faraday cage.

• The Buriers watched Castel’s airships blanket the sky and questioned whether their battlefield strength could match them, while Nora remained silent.
• Nini drew the Buriers facing the airships and a vast, unseen beast in the mist, pleased with her sketch.
• Theus learned that Richard’s electricity research had finally made progress and hurried to the testing grounds with Ash.
• Theus arrived at the coastal cave where the testing grounds had been built and recognized it as the site of Monica’s battle and the former Pollution stockpile.
• Theus entered the fifty-meter concrete enclosure and realized the entire testing ground was a Faraday cage.

Theus investigated dangerous fluctuations in Castel’s electrical experiments after they drove Maeve mad, then learned that his enormous Faraday cage had successfully isolated the interference. He left Richard to continue the now-safer research, with the nature of the entities within electrical currents still unexplained.

• Richard told Theus that unexplained electrical fluctuations had polluted researchers and that Maeve had gone permanently mad after examining their recorded data.
• Theus learned that Maeve remained restrained in the hospital and that the remnants of the paper containing the information had been scorched.
• Richard explained that researchers had continued to suffer pollution and Cognitive Interference even without analyzing the current, halting electrical research.
• Richard reported that the Faraday cage had isolated the evil entities within electrical currents and produced data free from their interference.
• Theus recalled that he had suspected electromagnetic interference and proposed the Faraday cage as a way to block it.

Theus and Richard successfully generated a stable current inside a Faraday cage, and Theus saw electricity as the key to humanity’s future and a path toward the stars. Richard then revealed that he had another, more exciting research result to show Theus outside the cage.

• Theus explained how the Faraday cage shielded the experiments from interference and lightning.
• Richard demonstrated a generator powered by a steam engine, which briefly lit a bulb before its filament melted.
• Theus celebrated the achievement and told Richard to preserve the research for future generations.
• Richard said generating electricity was only a minor result and led Theus toward the testing ground.
• Richard explained that he had considered turning the violent, interference-distorted currents into a weapon.

Theus learned that Richard had turned a ritual inspired by Sea God Church scriptures into an automated storm generator capable of creating lightning. The coyote-powered ritual gathered dark clouds over the testing ground, leaving the storm about to break.

• Theus doubted that lightning could work as a practical weapon because electrical energy was difficult to store and transport.
• Richard explained that lightning was fast, unpredictable, and difficult to defend against, then led Theus underground to a protective Faraday cage.
• Theus discovered that Richard had made a lightning-attracting machine using a ritual rather than conventional electrical equipment.
• Richard showed how a coyote circulated through a glass tube, repeatedly serving as both sacrifice and recipient to power the automated ritual.
• The coyote spun faster as dark clouds gathered overhead, signaling that the storm was coming.

Theus watched Richard test the Storm Generator, a lightning weapon powered by a coyote and ritual runes, and urged him to focus future research on practical electrical equipment. Richard revealed that repairing Chloe’s shell and connecting Nora to a body both depended on technology held by the Mechanical Cathedral, whose ties and possible role in the Empress’s assassination troubled Theus.

• Richard activated the Storm Generator, and a lightning bolt struck the testing ground but destroyed a duplicate instead of damaging the target.
• Richard explained that the machine used a coyote as reusable wetware and described plans to adapt it for fortifications and airships.
• Theus praised Richard’s invention but told him Castel should prioritize practical electrical equipment rather than developing more weapons.
• Theus asked about Chloe’s shell and Nora’s operation, and Richard said both projects had stalled because they required Mechanical Cathedral technology.
• Richard said the Mechanical Cathedral could provide body-modification and consciousness-backup technology, while Theus recalled its strange machinery and suspected its involvement in the Empress’s assassination.

Theus considered the churches’ hidden powers and reassigned Richard’s research projects, hoping Gaia would keep weapons development on track. Meanwhile, Gwen and Nora showed the Silent Temple the island’s airships, leaving the priests shaken as Nora grew suspicious of Gwen’s childhood imaginings.

• Theus decided to seek knowledge from the Silent Temple and contact the Mechanical Society about its technology and vessels.
• Theus removed weapons research from Richard and planned to put Gaia in charge, while Richard celebrated the chance to focus on medical research.
• Nini and Gwen showed the Buriers the air harbor, and the Silent Temple priests lost hope after seeing Castel’s fleet of airships.
• Nora questioned Gwen about her imagined friends after learning she had turned a heavy machine gun into an unusual device and summoned the Steel Ark.
• Gwen denied that imaginary friends could become real.

Ignati and the Buriers continued their tour of Castel, reaffirming their resolve despite being overwhelmed by its power. Nini led them toward Castel Cathedral and the Stellar Furnace, while the priests mistook a mocking statue for a monument to a hero.

• The Buriers showed Ignati their battlefield salute, and Nora explained that their courage had endured their doubts about Castel.
• Theus alerted Nini to the Buriers’ confident discussion of their knowledge of Pollution and Transcendence, so she interrupted and invited them to tour Castel Cathedral and see the Stellar Furnace.
• The Buriers suspected Castel was using a calculated soft approach but agreed to visit the cathedral.
• Nini led the priests to the station and explained that her statue of Galahad commemorated his failed charge against a train.
• Nini told the confused priests that people sometimes went crazy after seeing Castel, then hurried them toward the arriving train to visit the Stellar Furnace.

The Silent Temple priests traveled by train to Castel Cathedral and were astonished by Castel’s concrete military fortifications. Helena reflected on the hardships of life in White Crow before spotting a huge fortress and wondering where the cathedral was.

• Nini brought the Silent Temple priests aboard a padded train, where they relaxed despite criticizing Castel’s luxurious seats.
• The train arrived at Castel’s military district, and Nini explained that its concrete fortifications were stronger than the civilian hospital buildings.
• Helena remembered how storms destroyed homes in White Crow and how residents had to shelter in the Temple.
• Helena saw a towering, carefully designed fortress and noticed unfamiliar black tubes and a rooftop monument.
• Nini announced that they had arrived at Castel Cathedral, but Helena could see only the fortress outside.

Helena and the Buriers inspected Castel’s heavily fortified cathedral and learned it housed the Stellar Furnace. When the Buriers saw how many Banshees were in Castel, Nini and the others gathered more of them to stage a frightening display, leaving the visitors stunned by a hall full of armored Banshees.

• Helena found deep old scratches and puncture marks in Castel’s thick concrete walls, then showed the evidence to Ignati.
• Nini explained that Castel’s cathedral had unusually strong defenses because the Stellar Furnace beneath it supplied most of the city’s energy.
• Ignati and the Buriers were shocked to see a squad of more than ten armored Banshees, having believed only a few existed.
• Nini’s fellow Banshees realized the Buriers had outdated information and rushed to the cathedral to surprise them.
• Nini led the Buriers into the cathedral, where they saw over a hundred armored Banshees standing in prayer.

Helena and the priests of the Silent Temple were overwhelmed by the sight of more than a hundred heavily armored Banshees praying in Castel Cathedral, while Ignati realized how outmatched the Temple was by Castel. The Banshees secretly amused themselves through their Mind Link as onlookers noticed their silent prayer.

• Helena assessed the Banshees’ numbers, armor, and strength, then imagined their formation charging through an army.
• The priests of the Silent Temple lost confidence as they realized the Banshees outnumbered the Buriers and dwarfed their own strength.
• Ignati recognized that Castel had conquered the Northern Territory without even relying on the Banshees, and he despaired at the Temple’s odds.
• Nini struggled to suppress her laughter while the praying Banshees secretly joked and planned to turn the scene into reports and illustrations through their Mind Link.
• The Faithguard Army soldiers and others in the cathedral watched in fear as someone pointed out that the Banshees were praying silently.

Kyle discovered the Banshees praying in the church, while Helena and the Silent Temple’s people entered the Sea of Unconsciousness and found an immense ocean-linked anchor. Ignati concluded that Castel drew strength from an evil god, but Nora hinted that the truth would become clear soon.

• Kyle heard the Banshees were praying, reported it, and found them armored and assembled in the church.
• Nini beckoned Kyle over to help her while Helena’s consciousness drifted through the Sea of Unconsciousness.
• Helena found a vast, burning sun as her anchor, then awoke vomiting seawater and a Horse-faced Fish.
• Helena asked Ignati what had happened, and he said the church had been easy to find in the Sea of Unconsciousness.
• Ignati suspected Castel worshipped an ocean-linked evil god, but Nora said Castel intended to rely on such beings for a long time.
• Nora told Ignati he would see the danger soon.

The Silent Temple priests visited Castel Cathedral and were confronted by the Banshees’ intimidating presence and superior weapons. After the Banshees left, the visitors examined the cathedral and found it unusually plain, while Nini guided them toward a tour.

• Nora held back from criticizing the Temple and watched as the Banshees rose from prayer and displayed their imposing armor and unfamiliar weapons.
• The Banshees turned toward the Silent Temple visitors, and Nini introduced the priests before Finier apologized for the interruption.
• The Banshees left in squads, and Ignati thanked Nini for easing the tense encounter.
• Nini offered to show the priests around and glanced toward the walkway to the Stellar Furnace.
• The priests inspected Castel Cathedral and remarked that its spacious, practical interior lacked the decorations and Transcendent features of other religious sites.

Nini led Helena and the Silent Temple priests through Castel Cathedral and revealed the vast Stellar Furnace beneath its courtyard. The furnace’s immense presence overwhelmed Helena, who realized she had lost her anchor and was already lost.

• Helena found Castel Cathedral’s plain, machine-filled halls difficult to admire, though she appreciated the ingenuity of its Paternoster Elevators.
• Nini explained that the courtyard floor had been sealed after people who saw the Stellar Furnace developed Castel Syndrome and risked falling inside.
• With the lord’s permission, Nini had the Banshees open the courtyard floor, revealing pipes and a deep underground chamber filled with furnace heat.
• The Silent Temple priests felt an enormous presence pulse from below, leaving them aware of how insignificant they were before it.
• Helena turned back, discovered she could no longer find her anchor, and realized she was lost.

Helena was nearly assimilated by a colossal being in the Sea of Unconsciousness before a sound from the Stellar Furnace pulled her back to reality. Nini claimed madness was forbidden in Castel Cathedral, and Helena left convinced of the cathedral’s terrifying power as the Banshees woke the other priests.

• Helena drifted too close to a colossal existence and began losing herself in the Sea of Unconsciousness.
• A roar from the real world pulled Helena away as the being’s malicious gaze struck the Stellar Furnace’s observation window.
• Nini lifted Helena away from the railing and told her that the colossal entity was inside the furnace.
• Nini said that the Lord had forbidden madness within Castel Cathedral, and Helena concluded that Castel itself was the true colossal entity.
• Nini revealed that she had been joking and described the claim as psychological suggestion for treating Castel Syndrome.
• Nini summoned the Banshees to restrain and wake the priests who had fallen into episodes.