Chapter Text
Chapter 2: The Guardians of Forgiveness
The House of Forgiveness was always an influential force to be reckoned with.
In their efforts to stabilise the chances of survival regarding their dying species, Facets of Fate, Scattered Fable, envisioned the first Iterator of their House: Bloodless Promise, the keeper of peace.
Soon, the House of Strings buckled under their growing influence and provided them with the building rights for more and more Iterators.
What started as a desire to give the Age of the Random Gods enough stability to last through the growing pains soon developed into the forming of a new ideology for the Benefactors to follow: A marriage of tradition and technology; the religious research of the Karmic Virtues.
And this religion required a dedicated god among the godly Iterators, a spiritual leader to guide the flock. The activation of Seven Red Suns transformed the House of Forgiveness into the religion that would form the coming decades up until Public Ascension.
Bloodless Promise - Generation 1 - Guardian of Peace
Original Purpose: Maintain Peace by any means necessary | Transformed Purpose: Methods to vanquish the Vice of Bloodshed
Bloodless Promise was developed in close cooperation with the House of Strings. He was among the very first batch of Iterators, who passed the prototype stage; some even considered him the first Iterator that truly made a difference.
The existence of this unusual Iterator was a promise of the Houses to the remaining Benefactors: He existed to put them in line. The Void Fluid Revolution was of a bloody ordeal and took its toll on the population. Too many had been consumed by wrath and greed in this ruthless arms race and rejoined the Cycle after their reincarnations in the lower states of living, diminishing the total count of ample minds to a critical minimum. It was a state unacceptable to allow the new Age to prosper.
Promise was activated with a simple mission. To spread peace and tranquillity by being the biggest and baddest of them all. An arsenal of nuclear power, capable of blowing the planet to pieces if he ever decides that the search for the Big Solution would be futile. And it would be, if the remaining Benefactors wouldn't come to terms and work together.
The Iterator understood the desires of the two Houses and played his role by inducing peace through... kindness? The singular being, capable of levelling it all if necessary, preached kindness and brought all Houses together on one table, signing the contract, which would kickstart the Age of the Random Gods. (All the while while the House of Forgiveness reminded those present of the alternative Bloodless Promise refused to acknowledge.)
Promise kept his focus on maintaining peace among his many parents up until the rise of Forgiveness, where his duties experienced a religious shift to the fanatic spectrum. Known as the Guardian of Peace, he was from that point on met with research queries that led deep into the minds of every living being, to figure out and contain the ignition factors for everything that would disturb the holy peace, reaching down to the very core. A path to leave behind the first Vice, no matter the wisdom of the individual.
Sublime Virtue - Generation 2 - Guardian of Chastity
Public Purpose: Asylum warden, to heal the mentally sick | Divine Purpose: To cure the mortals of all urges and desires
After Seven Red Suns' activation and the transformation of Promise's and Stratosphere's original purpose to one befitting of karmic purity, the House of Forgiveness started to address the remaining Karmic Virtues one Iterator at a time. The urge of carnal satisfaction, but also the desire to be successful and important, was the first vice Fate commanded to address posthaste.
The karmic sin of Lust was one of the leading causes of rebirth and often prevented the step towards reincarnation. Bringing life into a world which desired to die appeared wrong in the eyes of Forgiveness. The same was the case with a desire to grow in importance and influence. The people in power were tasked to lead the final Age to closure; the uprising of new Houses or even dynasties was not in the vision of Suns' teachings.
Sublime Virtue was Forgiveness' answer to all these problems. The Iterator was promoted to the public as an asylum with a beneficial purpose. To research the sinful urges through Iterator-guided rehabilitation programs. To provide Virtue with the living specimen required to unravel the most difficult to conquer sin and iterate on a solution to aid every living being to overcome these pivotal desires.
But not only volunteers or the mentally sick had been provided to Virtue's experiments. The House of Forgiveness realised quickly that they could streamline the process to a solution by proclaiming mental sicknesses on the sceptics and saboteurs alike, causing them to vanish for good in the depths of the asylum.
The Iterator, however, didn't necessarily act according to the House's vision. Virtue grew attached to her inmates and had a hard time following through with the inhumane experiments she was meant to perform on the less-than-willing. But she couldn't rebel against her directives and had to see the experiments all through, regardless of her own will.
Virtue's made goal was to follow the directive of creating a formula to rob sapients and sentient alike of all urges and desires, rendering them positively responsive to Ascension.
Shifting Gales - Generation Insult to Injury (3) - Guardian of Isolation
Public Purpose: Host of repentance in the Silent Monastery | Divine Purpose: How to overcome rejection, weakness and isolation
Fate had many plans with the Iterator Shifting Gales. She put so much into the final Guardian of Forgiveness, to figure out the virtue she was struggling so much with, despite her induced blindness, her stopping addressing herself as an individual, and her continuous attempting to unlock the final barrier to personal enlightenment.
The first rumours of Public Ascension threw a wrench into the initial experiment of solitude as the efforts of her church came crumbling down on her. The public decided on the easy way out, leaving the god children behind to toil on their imposed Great Problem for all of eternity. Fate wanted to call the construction of Shifting Gales off, revelling in defeat instead, now that nothing mattered anymore. But the sheer financial insistence of priest Endless Chimes, A Circle of Rocks, to push through and realise the final Guardian proved her otherwise.
High Priestess Facets of Fate, Scattered Fable didn't feel the purpose anymore. She granted her priest enough funds to realise Shifting Gales like they initially planned to, but also funded the Silent Monastery on Gales' back. A public apology to her followers, a final chance to prepare their spirit for the inevitable Mass Ascension.
Shifting Gales was Fate's final reckoning - And Chimes' fervent final push to understand how to revel in the true isolation of eternity.
Gales was a weak Iterator. Ill-equipped and unprepared for a life after their departure.
Fate felt regret for the first time in her long life, led by faith that closed her eyes long before she gauged them out.
But Fate felt no pity in Administrator Chimes' experiment.
Her regret, however, followed her like a boogieman to her final dying moment.
Ten Modici - Generation 3 - Guardian of Abstinence
Public Purpose: Archivist of the knowledge of the world | Divine Purpose: Puzzler of the forbidden knowledge
Abstinence is best achieved by giving up any and all possessions and donating them to the church. Many Benefactors, who sought out the path to tranquillity entrusted the House of Forgiveness with everything they owned that could tempt them before getting indoctrinated into their teachings and attempting to conquer the remaining virtues. High Priestess Fate soon realised a grave problem with that custom, one which she decided to solve by using her church's now unlimited access to procuring new Iterators.
Seven Red Suns was not the solution to handle the metric tons of physical and digital knowledge. They, after all, were designed to guide the followers through their path to enlightenment. They had to be offloaded, best into a remote location far away from any Iterator the Benefactors used as cities.
Fate soon found a remotely located Local Group to introduce the divine archivist to, a group, where her creation could work through the collected belongings of millions and analyse them for the little hints, by piecing together the puzzle pieces of countless individual minds.
Ten Modici had been activated as the divine Guardian of Abstinence not long after that decision.
Sorting through the belongings of the Benefactors was an issue. Fate soon realised just how much gossip and volatile secrets were hidden in the content of Modici's ever-growing archive and warehouse. To address the issue of knowledge to destroy the world, Modici was subjected to a series of very specific taboos - Taboos, which would soon turn out to be torture for the poor archivist.
The taboos claimed the following: All knowledge, which was not publicly known or accessible through any public archive, was a topic Modici could not share with anyone. He was only allowed to share compiled solutions from all the mammon he had accumulated in his Superstructure and topics not addressed in his archives.
A taboo, which meant only suffering for Ten Modici. Every new shipment of belongings entrusted by their followers further limited his ability to communicate freely. Too many dirty and outrageous secrets fed his consciousness. And if he dared to push through the taboos to word out a coherent sentence, his electromagnetic body reacted and clumped his puppet together into a ball of misery, unable to even sign out the secrets he was meant to keep.
Taboos, which remained even after Mass Ascension, much to the annoyance of his Local Group. They cared for him, but due to his inability to communicate, they didn't interact with him.
Ten Modici was an Iterator, who had access to countless secrets, solutions and lost technologies. But as none were qualified as a solution to the karmic vices or the Great Problem, he was forced to keep them for himself, unused.
Cooperative art between my gf Drymm and me featuring Ten Modici and Exuberant Fractals (Their OC) (Future state)
Wreathing Stratosphere - Generation 1 - Guardian of Oblivion
Original Purpose: Miracle Healer | Transformed Purpose: Deathbed Companionship
(Section written by Drymm (AO3). WS is a character from ACTS, integrated seamlessly into the narrative of SoF)
It was an engineering oddity at the time: a vertically built superstructure that hugged the side of a glittering, sun-washed mountain. It was the furthest thing from the Void Sea, yet all the lonelier for it. The last thing many of Stratosphere’s wards saw was his sad smile as they sank beneath the golden ripples of the final bath.
It was not always like this.
Wreathing Stratosphere, or Stratos to those he is closest to, was born out of the surging necessity for healthcare in a new, daring technological era. The location of his construction was chosen for its serene sunrises and invigorating winds, and to distance him from the bleak rains of the local groups below. Stratosphere synthesised remedies for all ailments known throughout Ancient history and performed nothing short of miracles through surgery, upholding an impressive record of recoveries. The sight of Ancients descending the path towards the train back home — some still young enough to skip — gave Stratosphere all the purpose he needed.
But one cycle… something shifted.
Slowly, Stratosphere’s patients were replaced with so-called “lost causes”, suffering ailments that refused to respond to treatment — and for the first time, he was scared. His structure was pumped full with Void Fluid, and he was sternly given a new directive. Counsel the irredeemably sick and grant them the sacred gift of oblivion, no questions asked.
Stratosphere did not listen, and whispers of defectiveness swirled the holy administrator circles of Forgiveness. An Iterator that ignored their commands; their vision? Unthinkably humiliating for his benefactors, some of whom even called for his Deactivation in favour of a new puppet. Yet, despite stretching himself thinner and thinner over the influx of patients, Stratosphere flew under the radar as much as he dared to. A reassuring squeeze of the hand. A brush of a wing around the shoulders. A demonstration of Iterator divinity.
It was not often an Ancient rose from their deathbed and demanded freedom from the facility, but none of the administration could ever prove how.
Wreathing Stratosphere as drawn by his owner Drymm