About three weeks ago, in the capital of the Kingdom of God...
It was an hour past dawn and Father Zejianus, acolyte to the Lord Bishop, was slightly concerned. Having ascended the enormous spiral staircase that graced the walls of the Spire, he had stopped before the double doors of the chapel at the top, as per his custom, to await the moment when the Lord Bishop finished singing the morning's devotions. But today, standing there with his master's bread, fish, and ale on a platter in hand, he heard no singing beyond the doors. He hesitated before knocking. He wasn't late - that was a certainty. Zejianus prided himself on his exact punctuality. Had the Lord Bishop finished early? Surely not. His Excellency's practice, like his tone, was honed to perfection. His hour of song was, famously, timed to the second. His rhythm was impeccable. That only left... no, it couldn't be. Anxiety gripped him. If the Lord Bishop was dead, and he was the acolyte to find the body, his career in the Church- he stopped himself there, and made a note to confess and atone for harboring such thoughts later. With a shaking hand, he knocked.
"Enter." As invitations went, it was hard for one to be worded in a more foreboding way; nonetheless, the young priest was relieved. Turning the ornate brightsteel knob on one of the doors, he pushed it inwards, and took in the sight of the chapel as he did every morning. The joy of it never faded in his mind, no matter how many days of this went by. The chapel was truly among the most beautiful sights in the world; a wondrous feat of modern engineering, let alone that of the ancient times in which it originated. A mosaic of stained glass covered the entire dome - floor to ceiling - in a work of art so brilliant, so elaborate, that it could only have been inspired by the divine. Every major scene of their founding Father's ascension is displayed at once: Here, where the sunrise meets the horizon, the colored pieces clearly arrange to show the Nameless Man praying in the morning. There - not far off, a white dove takes an arrow meant for the Voice of God in Kebeth. And in between these two scenes, and any other such proximal, pieces of each overlap to form another, in this case the meeting between the Voice of God and the Magister, Akkhalus. At midday, when the local clergy take their mass here, the chapel is lit from all sides at once, and any part of the full history of their Church to the point of its founding can be viewed with equal clarity. At the bottom of the mural, which weathers sun and storm alike with equal stability, the panels of glass come to rest on floors of smooth, solid stone.
The secret to supporting the chapel's polished-granite floor, suspended so near the top of one of the tallest towers in existence, lay in the brightsteel beams that criss-crossed within it, though one wouldn't know this by looking at the stone blocks from above or below. Nor would they know, in that event, how such long rods of solid metal were crafted, as their length far exceeded that of even the largest professional forge. They would, of course, quite correctly guess that such construction represented an enormous investment of manpower and resources where traditional hardwood flooring might have been used instead, and the reason why this wasn't so became clear very quickly: in the center of the chapel there always burned a ring of flame, about the breadth of a man's head around, the fiery crown of their founder. At least... there usually did. Today, the man formerly known as Lord Bishop Gregorius sat calmly in its place, the crown of fire upon his head. His breakfast platter dropped from his acolyte's hands to the floor.
"You must keep a cooler head, Brother Zejianus," said the Voice of God. "There is much to be done."