Introduction: "The Road to Sanctification"

Written by Martyre Chevalier

The group wanders out into a very wide roundabout, framed on all sides by some of the best architectural splendor Vachelous has to offer, radiating with gestures to grandeur, light, and piety, and other pillars of their culture and society. So precise is the engineering of this arena that at this exact hour in the day, the sun aligns vertically with the main centerpiece, it’s rays coming down into the upturned hand of a white statue occupying the center of the arena. It is of an ancient and revered figure, Baudouin de Champsang, one of the great philosophers whose writings remain among the most the most formulative to the Vachelous spiritual identity.
He stands atop a tall column, guarded at its base by famous figures associated with the virtues he promoted through his writings, martyrdom being the chief. The figures include the first Grand Master of the Order of the Martyrs, Naurotuk, his brother General Kartan, Tyreson-III, and Jehanne D’ici. The column is supported by a number of narrowly curved aqueducts, one each to represent the chieftains of peoples who pledged themselves to Ashnuw’s new-born daughter of Vachelous. Each aqueduct drives into the ground where at the base grows a well-trimmed willow. Baudouin overlooks the district, his right arm raised to heaven, holding the sun as it hovers above, his left arm posed in a gesture that is simultaneously forth giving of the suns light and inviting those seeking a higher spiritual calling to turn towards the west, in the direction of Navis Roche, or, here in Elpe, the Mag-Ship station which will carry the pilgrims to Navis Roche to become living martyrs. A large stone wall with an iron gate decorated in blue flags separates the station from the rest of the district, a small gothic castle standing guard. The reason for such a centerpiece as Baudouin is that the city of Elpe rests on a mag-route that is one of the fastest and most traveled routes to the Order’s sky-island fortress. For the mass amounts of those seeking a life of edification that come through, this statue was given to consecrate it as The Road to Sanctification.