The final notes of an unnamed priest. It was concealed in a hidden corner of a temple for many years before being discovered.
Record of Repentance
I don't know how long I have left to live. I see the black tide flowing into the temple. This place is going to be reduced to rubble, and I am old and feeble. Before I die, there are some things I feel that I must get down in words. I'm not trying to beg for some kind of useless forgiveness — I just don't want to leave this world harboring secrets. I don't want to go into the River of Souls bound in chains of shame and watch myself sink into the murky waters never to achieve release.
It's been fifty-three years.
I have spent the majority of my life in Janusopolis. I worked my way up from being an ignorant trainee priest to a high-ranking position in the priesthood. Now, I am just an old man hiding in a ruin. When I was young, I always thought that I was doing some kind of holy duty and devoting my life to serving the Titans. Looking back now, I realize that I was just another mortal driven by greed.
Or, perhaps, our actions are inherently blasphemous against the Titans. No, perhaps "blasphemy" is the wrong word... What we do is more complicated than that. I still remember... When a young Holy Maiden first entered the Hall of Prophecy, she really could sense some kind of power. I've seen it many times now: Their eyes glaze over, their bodies begin to shake gently, and their mouths begin to spout words that even they don't understand. This is a true prophecy — whispers that come from the other side of the Gate of Infinity. However, these kinds of prophecies are vague and hard to comprehend. They are full of contradictions. It is this lack of clarity that gave us room to interpret their meaning.
In the beginning, we were simply... Tweaking them slightly. Much in the way that a gardener would prune a bush, we would gently trim away any untimely parts of the prophecy and stress the warning signs that would be beneficial. Who could say that this was wrong? A chaotic prophecy would only cause panic after all, while a prophecy that has undergone some organization can guide people.
However, power is a strange thing. It can make you believe that you are doing the right thing until it's too late for you to change. Gradually, we were no longer satisfied with simply changing prophecies. We began to filter the Holy Maidens and search for those candidates that were more obedient and more willing to listen to our "guidance and opinions." We would put medicines in their food and drink and say that they "would aid in meditation." Finally, we even began pre-preparing prophecies ourselves for the Holy Maidens to read out during ceremonies.
...
I remember a young girl named █████. She was the most talented Holy Maiden I had ever seen. There were times when I began to suspect that one of the Titans was actually projecting through her... But her prophecies were always untimely: She would prophesy peace when we needed war and warn of disasters when we coveted stability. The other priests grew most displeased with her because of this. At that time, I thought that I was protecting her. I taught her how to give the "correct" prophecy. Thinking about it now, perhaps she was trying to save us — but we turned down this opportunity time and time again.
A prophecy should be the true words of the gods, but we changed them into our own personal instructions. In truth, what we did was even more subtle than that. The "prophecies" that we created were just like a mirror. They made it easy to see whatever it was you wished to see. When a priest is expecting a prophecy of war, any light breeze can be interpreted as the sound of a blade slipping from its sheath. Perhaps we were not counterfeiting prophecies, but merely choosing to hear what we wanted.
The most ironic thing is that even manipulated prophecies would sometimes reveal the truth. There was a ceremony in which ████ seemed to have lost her mind and started screaming in insanity: "The abyss is opening its jaws! The holy city will be devoured in black water!" In that moment, we thought it was just meaningless ramblings. Looking back now, perhaps the Titans had never left us. We just could no longer hear them.
I often wonder if Janus had been watching over this whole situation. Had the god behind the gate of destiny been mocking our arrogance this whole time? We thought that we were weaving fate. In fact, it was fate that was weaving the ridiculous lives of us mortals.
If you ask me, the future that I saw — the coming of the black tide — may not have been a punishment at all. Perhaps it was a release. It has washed away all of the lies that we carefully constructed to make us face the truth of this world.
...
I bumped into a number of familiar faces in the reflection room at the back of the temple. I still remember how they would dote on me back then... The beautiful jewels, the stacks of gold that would stretch out my silk purse... And all my favorite things from Okhema and Castrum Kremnos that they'd managed to get their hands on in one way or another and gone through hell to have delivered to my room. In what feels like the blink of an eye, these Holy Maidens are all old ladies now, but their eyes are clearer than ever. Strangely, when we spoke about the past, they didn't seem to hate me at all. "Prophecies are naturally chaotic," they said, "perhaps no one can ever understand the will of the Titans."
That's how it is. Though prophecies are chaotic, the food, clothing, and authority of the Holy Maidens were precisely controlled by mortals.
I can see my chances of survival slipping away. The terrifying black tide is growing ever closer. Though no one can see it, it is as clear as day in my pupils. I don't know why, but I feel a sense of calmness. Perhaps this is my final prophecy: After destruction, a new truth will be reborn.