Holy Templar Sanctum (Aincrad)

[Apollymi]

Charles thought the things Angelica said could make sense. Of course her words made sense she was a fairly logical individual. Even while they sat in a tent and discussed their strange celestial conversation space, she was content to believe in the things she'd been told. Ah, the singular head nod she gave wouldn't be enough, because in the same moment, Charles completely lost it. Apparently something she'd said was completely out of line.

How far out of line? Far enough that she'd been referred to as 'Luvia'. No one called her Luvia anymore. She almost demanded everyone call her Angelica she wanted her given name completely forgotten by any means necessary, even in pet form. "Who?" she asked with the exact same inflection Charles had when she'd given him the same treatment earlier. The outburst of Charles was met in kind by Angelica in a moment like this, she seemed to think it strange that Charles seemed to be so stunned by the information. Was it really so outlandish? Well it wasn't like she would have said it without cause, "Well excuse me, Charles, I thought we had an entire conversation about the evolutions of beings just a few hours ago. How was I supposed to know that my mother being the Goddess of Justice, retiring and deciding to hand me that the things she had control over was going to be life changing information?!" she exclaimed. She gave it a few seconds of thought and sighed shaking her head with the moments consideration. "Actually, saying it out loud like that, if I heard something like that from someone else I'd have thousands of questions. Actually did, I talked Jeanne's ear off about the whole Holy Grail thing..." she said her own hands up in the air. "But mom wasn't lying, she said her name was Astraea and I can now feel those Authorities she gave me I have a skill now called Protection of the Scales and that came directly from her... she also said my education was lacking though," she said confirming that information within herself. She'd seen Charles sit up and now they were once again sitting across from each other looking dazed. "But I don't get it, what else is crazy about this?" she asked seeming to truly be lost. It was after all not like she'd call her mother a liar or anything but the information that her mother existed wasn't life changing to her at all.

[Bloodedge]

No shortage of ridiculousness was allowed today. In a single sentence, Angelica had given reason to question what was widely regarded as the one true religion, the one path to righteousness and the one history of this world. How was there another god? By Father An's teachings which allegedly came from a singular divine entity, the time known as the 'Age of Gods' had long since come to an end. There was supposedly only one who could influence the world, and that was due to all others treading the wrong path and/or losing status as divinities. How was there an Authority to pass on at all? Things didn't make sense. Why was this information able to fly under the 'one true' God's radar?

Though Angelica snapped back with the same intensity and birthname use as Charlemagne himself, even she came to realize the shock value of her own declaration. Her mother wasn't lying; of this he was sure without Angelica even claiming as much. There were few other logical reasons for that supernatural occurrence. As for what was crazy about this, well... where should he even start? "Well firstly, we're told that at the end of the Age of Gods, the whole pantheon crumbled. One god remained, took on the name God, and is the sole overseer of this world. All others claiming godhood are false, but... I saw your mother. There was nothing evil about her, I'm sure," he stated. Charlemagne was deep in thought, considering all the potentials and ramifications of Aincrad's actions. In the end, it all looped back to one thing. "What if we're mistaken? What if God is mistaken about being the only one left? It would mean... It would mean a lot of things might have been punished for the wrong reasons! What about Jeanne d'Arc? We know how she was. If we can look into this, we can prove that whole situation was a misunderstanding. There's no undoing what happened, but it could clear her name at least!"

[Apollymi]

The problem of this world as far as those of Aincrad would understand it, was that a long time ago the Age of the Gods came to an end and only one remained. Of course, the existence of Angelica's mother made that untrue and beyond that Angelica herself also made that untrue. Ah, but that wasn't all... according to Angelica's mother, there was a mother of the gods who'd managed to free them all somewhat recently, but she hadn't stated what 'freedom' was when it was achieved by Divine beings, nor had she explained how they were locked up in the first place. Charles' first words made her face shift a bit. Is that what the Templars were being told? She didn't talk to her father that much and his teachings to her were more suited to her than that. "Hm, I think there are a lot of things being confused. According to mom... 'The Mother' of the gods, not her, freed them the way my mom freed me. That implies that if I had stayed with my mom I would have been locked up wherever she was before she reached out to me... it also implies the existence of several other divinities," this was what Angelica had to say about the first part of that.

About the second though, it seemed that there indeed may have been some sort of misunderstanding. Actually, if there was more than one Divinity remaining then it was likely something really bad. Charles brought up Jeanne d'Arc and Angelica could only look more excited than ever. "Mom did tell me not to turn a blind eye to any slights against Justice past or present," she said giving it a bit of thought. "I always thought it was weird she was declared a heretic. There was never anything about her that implied she was anything but good," she said of Jeanne. Even now she took that woman's advice to heart and missed having her around. "Looking into it would be best, she deserves to not be remembered negatively," she said happy about the prospect. Even so it seemed like a lot to undertake even step by step. How would they even begin going about looking into such a thing if everyone here already assumed the worst? "I want to do this, Jeanne deserves better. But how do we go about it? Jeanne is 1000 years out of the minds of most people," she said carefully. Such a situation as this required careful planning if Angelica was thinking about it right. They couldn't just be completely open about it, she doubted even Charles wouldn't have been skeptical of her, if he'd not been there to witness her interaction with her mother.

[Bloodedge]

Angelica spoke of some divine being called 'The Mother'. If he was remembering properly, Charlemagne could attribute that sort of title to one of the oldest religions in this world. "That sounds like Faith of the Seven. The Mother, The Father, The Smith and uh... the other four," he said, recalling little about that old belief. "That's one of the oldest belief systems ever. If it's a matter of being locked-up, and even that group is in there, there has to be way more to it than we understand."

Damned be thoughts of sin and impropriety, or anything else negatively applied to recent occurrences. Charlemagne stood and pulled up his trunks, behaving as if nothing had ever happened. More important than anything right now, was the list of realizations. If Angelica was to apparently inherit the aspect of Justice, surely she'd be first in line to clearing Jeanne d'Arc's name where possible. Lo and behold, her excitement was apparent once the plan was mentioned. "I thought it was weird too. I mean, I always figured it was a misunderstanding, but most people are willing to just follow the herd! We could right a huge wrong here!" he stated. How would they go about it though? "Hmm. We can't just bring this information to Father An with nothing but hearsay. I got it! If we can get some records together and compare them to old religions, maybe we could link Jeanne's 'demon' to one of the gods? Combining that with what we now know about your mom, we can debunk any assumption that we're talking about some demon!"

[Apollymi]

The Faith of the Seven was apparently an old religion, which worshipped seven entities with titles like 'The Mother' and 'The Father'... She supposed that made sense. If the world was initially run by divinities and they initially had separate aspects like the one her mother just passed to her, it was assumable that each had some large part to play in the initially crafting of the world, as they knew it. "You don't even remember all of it and I was never told of it, there is probably a whole lot that is misunderstood. My mother also apologized to me, she said it wasn't her intention to see me locked into any place," she kept spewing information from that conversation, giving it a true bit of thought. Her mother's intention as a person locked up was freedom for her, which meant that this circumstance she was in wasn't one her mother would have wanted for her. That was some what comforting but it also created a very tiny feeling of unease. There was something about the idea that her mother didn't want this for her, which implied that blame should be placed somewhere else.

Whatever, there were more important things directly. The clearing of the name of Jeanne d'Arc for starters. Charles went about putting on his shorts with no real issue. He seemed to be done with any potential shame or awkwardness in favor of going for the change in Jeanne d'Arc's status. According to Charles it would be bad to bring this before Father An without any evidence. That was probably true, it would be bad to come up with just words like, 'Yeah, I talked to my mom and gods still exist so obviously you've messed up!' that was a huge potential problem. "Yeah, everyone was willing to say she was a heretic afterwards, but she'd never done anything but be kind before. I always found it strange how quickly people were willing to ignore everything she'd done before," said Angelica. Though she knew death to be the sort of thing that wasn't necessarily permanent it was still quite rude for people to talk bad about someone just because of 'heresy'. This was becoming especially true if it turned out that 'heresy' technically couldn't exist as a thing. Instead if it was just an understanding to be cleared up and they had the evidence to back it up, then it wouldn't be so much of a big deal. But apparently Charles had an idea. He claimed that if they could get some old records together and link Jeanne's supposed 'demon' to whatever divine entity she was connected to that no one knew about then they could clear her name. "That is a pretty good idea. Aren't you about to move into where she used to live? Maybe you could find something there? If not then there is always the archives right? They are supposed to have a bunch of information about all of the activities of Aincrad," Angelica said. She'd been made aware of that sort of thing, but she couldn't just leave her floor so she'd never been to any of those places, even so it'd likely take only a short amount of time relatively speaking to look into everything.

[Bloodedge]

One would expect a person who'd been trapped in a space themselves to want no such thing for their child. Interest in that matter was waning, however. There was a chance to salvage an age-old situation involving Jeanne d'Arc, and doing so would save many people in the future as well. How many people may have been wrongly sent to execution due to misinformation? Poor Janessa may have taken hundreds of innocent lives in her time. . .

By the time his shorts were properly situated, it seemed the two had reached an agreement. Both knew Jeanne d'Arc had not been the type to be swayed by evil. In fact, her title 'Queen of Saints' probably made her immune in some way. Charlemagne always believed there had to be some mistake, but he'd never acted on that belief. Now, there was something solid that could make up for lost action. "Humans are always quick to follow the group. If 99% believes one thing, nobody wants to be the 1% in the corner," he explained. Now then, how could they go about taking action? Angelica spoke of archives, which he happened to have an easy connection to. Floor 98 was his group's new home. As he had to go there anyway, he could simply bring Angelica along. "Everyone should be in the new place by now. Ivy's the one with archive access, so we could always ask her to pull up the details. Besides, didn't you want to meet more girls? Two birds, one stone!" he said, extending a hand to Angelica. Of things to be done here, they only had to snuff out a flame, collect Angelica's apparent pet fish, and do something about that... monstrosity. It could all be handled in a matter of moments, then they could move on.

[Apollymi]

Beyond the points made, according to Charles, humans didn't like standing out from the crowd. If most of a group thought one way, then the rest of the group followed suit. Angelica found this news to be a bit jarring if she was honest, mostly because it didn't make logical sense to her as a person. "So if the majority is wrong, then everyone is wrong and nothing gets fixed?" she asked in summation. That seemed like a good way for an entire species or civilization to end up wiped off the map. Perhaps there were other factors at play. Humans were pretty weak for the most part, perhaps they were more like animals who lived in groups, being socially accepted was safer than going it alone?

Regardless there were only a few minor things to do, as Charles extended a hand to Angelica she took it. More than happy to move on and perhaps do something meaningful with her thousand year existence. Ah, and Charles even had an idea for what to do about the information they needed. According to him one of his members had access to the archives and probably had access to the information they needed that was great. Said member was also a girl, doubly great. "Yes! That sounds exciting. The only girl I know besides Jeanne is Brada, which is fine but I'd like to meet someone else!" she said seemingly excited.

The end of their endeavor, Angelica was dressed in her usual attire once more with her packed bag over her shoulder, a small coin collection of the things called 'Septims' which seemed odd to her and she couldn't exactly figure out why. She'd hold that one away and keep going on about their adventure to clear the name of Jeanne d'Arc.

[Bloodedge]

Once more, Angelica had a very reasonable view on mankind. Herd mentality was humanity's undoing time and time again, and there was little to be done about it. Regardless, attempts would be made... but first Charlemagne would make a different sort of attempt. They both wanted to clear the name of Jeanne d'Arc, and Angelica wanted to interact with more women than just Bradamante. As such, they eventually dealt with matters at the campsite and recovered their normal state of dress.

With all else done, they were on their way to Floor 22's teleport gate, where they would be transported directly to the 98th floor. Much like Floor 100 and Floor 99, this location held one of the major structures of Aincrad. In a brightly-lit mountain range, tucked into the lower half of a smaller mountain, was the Diamond Palace. It was another very shiny building of great stature, which Charlemagne didn't mind nearly as much as Angelica's original abode... or the Ruby Palace. Décor aside, he expected the other members of his Party to be floating around somewhere. On the other hand... he wasn't a massive fan of the walls to his house being diamond. "You know, there was a whole urban legend about Floor 98. 'The walls are made of diamonds,' they said. I hoped it was a metaphor, but... I'm not really sure what I expected after seeing the two floors above this one. Not yours, of course! Well... not after you've fixed it up, at least. I'd rather move up there; this place is too bright for gemstones."

[Apollymi]

And to the 98th Floor they went, finding themselves at the former abode of one Jeanne d'Arc. Both of these individuals wanted to clear the name of that particular woman, making sure that for future generations she wasn't known as something so very dark as a heretic. Whatever the case, the came to floor 98 and Angelica took in the visuals of it and nearly gagged. It truly was one of those strange sights that she couldn't like. Walls made of diamond with a rainbow sheen in it. Charles even had something to say about that, claiming that there was a rumor that the walls up here were made of diamonds and he'd hoped it was untrue. "Yeah, this place is just as gaudy as the other floors. I am kind of scared to even go looking at like floor 97," she claimed though it was mostly in jest.

Like the other floors she considered that the space had good bones, but it definitely needed a face lift. "I had a similar conversation with Jeanne once, she didn't seem to mind the walls so much but she hated that the building looked like a church. I started working on being able to modify things because I wanted to help her feel more at home here. I am sure I could actually fix it up for you guys, if you want," she said carefully. She doubted Jeanne would want to live here again after what had happened, but she was a always a better person than she needed to be, so Angelica always wanted to extend similar kindness to the lass. And now she'd just easily change the look of it for Charles and his peers as a sign of good will and to keep them from having to live in a hideous place.

As for the members of Charlemange's group, several were floating around a bit, including Bradamante, "Our fearless leader finally returns! And... Angie! Hi!" she seemed pretty excited by the prospect. Mostly she'd already settled in and was just waiting for Charlemagne to return. Several others were floating around including Janessa who had on a large hood and managed to look a little gloomy out in the brightness of this area. Angelica looked up carrying a fish and waving with the other hand. Already there was an improvement. And Bradamante's loudness might have meant a few others stirred at the sound of her. Several others were quietly moving about having determined that the lands themselves weren't cursed or anything like that.

[Bloodedge]

Needless to say, the visuals of Floor 98 left much to be desired. Charlemagne wasn't a fan of the main building from outside, and though Angelica spoke in a joking tone, she seemed a hair's breadth away from disgust. He couldn't tell for certain if she was, but he couldn't judge any great distaste in a diamond building. Apparently, Jeanne d'Arc herself wasn't fond of the venue either. Such was how Angelica began dabbling in magical design and restructuring, however she managed to do that. Well... apparently she managed by being born a demigod, as Charlemagne understood things. "Right, demigod stuff. That all makes sense now. I just thought your Skill choices were really eclectic," he mused.

Moments after the realization of a lifetime, Bradamante became the first member of the Party to greet them. What great fortune, that it was her instead of Renaud or... Roland. Speaking of Roland, he'd been the first to appear in Charlemagne's mind. "Please tell me Roland just happens to be on another floor. I'll have a heart attack if one more surprise hits me today," he said immediately, sparing Bradamante a wave as greeting. Prior to any answer Bradamante had, however, Archbishop Turpin joined the fray. He'd been nearby enough to approach upon hearing the blonde girl's shouting, and it just so happened that he had the necessary information. "If only you could be so lucky. As fortune would have it, he and Renaud have gone back to bashing each other's heads in. Make use of the time while you have it." With that said, Turpin bowed in a somewhat casual manner toward Angelica. "My Lady," he said. "Strange. You seem to resemble the princess, but... surely I'm mistaken. I'll just have to forget everything I'm 'not' seeing. The Father needn't know what my tired eyes misinterpret."