Trudy Eisernav had been walking through Theolis for nearly an hour, and the city still didn't make sense.
Not in a confusing way. The streets were well marked, the buildings clearly labeled, everyone she'd asked for directions had been almost annoyingly helpful. No, Theolis didn't make sense because it was wrong. Or rather, it should have been wrong, and yet everyone here seemed convinced it was perfectly right.
She stopped at a street corner, pulling out her leather-bound notebook. The pages were already filled with observations, questions, contradictions. Her pencil hovered over a fresh line.
"No churches. No shrines. No religious symbols anywhere. How do they organize society?"
A woman passed by carrying a basket of bread, humming. She nodded cheerfully at Trudy. No prayer before the greeting that is common on her land. No gesture of devotion. Just... friendliness.
Trudy frowned and kept walking.
The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the cobblestones. Nine years. It had been nine years since she'd watched her grandfather and other six people with him get burned, and she could still smell the smoke on days like this. Phantom scent. Phantom memory. The crowd had been chanting hymns while the flames rose, joyful hymns, as if sending him to Afterlife were a celebration.
He'd been smiling.
That was the part that haunted her most. Even as the fire caught his robes, even as the smoke began to rise, her grandfather had smiled. Not a grimace. Not defiance. A genuine, almost amused smile, like he'd finally understood the punchline to a joke the rest of them were still trying to figure out.
"They don't want the truth…" he'd told her the night before his arrest. They'd been sitting in his study, surrounded by books the church had already declared heretical. "They want certainty. They want someone to promise them a perfect world is coming, because they're terrified of the imperfect one they're living in."
"But the Perfect Man taught us how to be happy here" Trudy had said. She'd been ten, still naive enough to think understanding something meant fixing it. "Why don't they listen?"
Her grandfather had smiled then too. that same knowing smile. "Because happiness requires courage, and certainty requires only obedience. Guess which one is easier?"
The next morning, they'd come for him. Three dozen men in white robes, carrying torches and scripture. By sunset, he was ash.
Trudy stopped walking.
She'd arrived at what appeared to be a public square. It was so... normal. So…ordinary?
And yet.
"The Perfect Man was always joyful," her grandfather had once said. "Not because he was pretending. Not because he was trying to set an example. He was joyful because he'd figured out the secret: you don't need God's power to be happy."
The worshippers back home had turned that into doctrine. "Joy Through Obedience". "The Path of Righteous Happiness". They'd built entire institutions around the idea that you earned joy by following rules, by spreading the faith, by burning anyone who dared suggest happiness was simpler than that.
Her grandfather hadn't worshipped the Perfect Man. He'd admired him. Studied him. Tried to understand him not as a God to obey, but as a person who'd figured something out.
And they'd killed him for it.
Trudy opened her notebook again, staring at her earlier observations.
If knowledge comes from observation and experience, why do people prefer faith? Faith offers answers immediately. Knowledge requires work, doubt, and the courage to be wrong.
She underlined the word "courage" twice.
A voice startled her out of her thoughts.
"First time in Theolis?"
Trudy looked up. A young woman stood nearby, maybe mid twenties, with long brown hair and an easy smile. She wore simple, comfortable robes that looks like a mage
"That obvious?" Trudy asked.
"You have the look," the woman said, gesturing vaguely at Trudy's notebook. "New arrivals often try to catalogue us, like we're some kind of strange species"
Despite herself, Trudy smiled. "That's... not far off."
"I'm Gisole Isschar," the woman said. "One of Elite mages of Ellogenes camp, if that means anything to you yet. And you are?"
"Trudy. From..." She hesitated. "Far away."
"Aren't we all?" Gisole's smile widened. She had the kind of face that looked naturally at ease with the world, not forced, not performative, just genuinely content. "Let me guess. You've been walking around for an hour, increasingly disturbed by the lack of churches, wondering how we maintain social order without religious authority, and possibly questioning whether you've accidentally wandered into some kind of elaborate cult?"
Trudy blinked. "How did you-"
"Because everyone thinks that at first." Gisole sat down on the fountain's edge, patting the stone beside her. "Come on. You look like you have about forty questions and exactly zero answers. I can help with at least half of those."
Trudy hesitated, then sat. Her grandfather's voice echoed in her memory: "Never be afraid to ask questions. The only stupid question is the one you're too scared to ask."
"Why no churches?" Trudy asked. "How do you know what's right and wrong without... guidance?"
Gisole tilted her head, considering. "Do you need a churches to tell you when you're happy?"
"That's not-"
"Do you need a priest to explain when you're hungry, or tired, or in love?"
"That's different…Those are feelings..."
"So is morality." Gisole said. "Or it should be. You know when you're being cruel because you feel it. You know when you're being kind because you feel that too. Theolis just trusts people to feel those things without needing someone in fancy robes to interpret the feelings for them."
Trudy frowned. "But people disagree. They feel different things. That's why we need structure, laws, doctrine-"
"Oh, we have laws," Gisole interrupted. "Plenty of them. Don't murder, don't steal, don't be an asshole, don't be a rapist, the usual. But we don't have doctrine. No one here claims to have the ultimate truth about existence. We're all just... figuring it out together."
"That's chaos..."
"Is it?" Gisole gestured at the square. "Look around. Does this look like chaos?"
Trudy looked. Most if not everyone looks mentally healthy. Everyone looked... fine. Maybe even more than fine. They looked content.
"It's dangerous…" Trudy insisted, even as doubt crept into her voice. "Without guidance, people could do anything. Believe in anything."
"And with guidance, they do what they're told," Gisole said quietly. "Even if what they're told is terrible. Even if it means burning good people for asking questions."
Trudy's breath caught. "How did you-"
"You're not the first person to arrive here with shadows in your eyes…" Gisole said gently. "Theolis gets a lot of refugees from faith based kingdoms. People who asked the wrong questions. Loved the wrong people. Thought the wrong thoughts." She paused. "Or watched someone they loved pay the price for those things."
Trudy's hand clenched around her notebook.
The smoke…. The chanting… Then his smile.
"My grandfather…" she said quietly, "admired the Perfect Man. Not worshipped…. "admired" Then they burned him for heresy."
Gisole was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was soft. "What was his name?"
"Ingbar. Ingbar Eisernav. they killed him for it. Because he wouldn't pretend that obedience and understanding were the same thing."
"Then he'd probably like it here." Gisole said. "We don't do obedience. We do curiosity, experimentation, and occasionally setting things on fire by accident during magical research. But never people. That's one of our few absolute rules."
Despite everything, Trudy felt the corner of her mouth lift. "Setting things on fire by accident?"
"You'd be surprised how often it happens," Gisole said gravely. "Last month, an apprentice mage tried to summon a flame sprite. Summoned an entire flame cloud. Burned away the clothes of several women. No one was hurt, thankfully, apparently he tried to act creepily and the flame is designed to burn away women's clothings. It was awkward."
Trudy found herself genuinely grinning now. "And… he wasn't punished?"
"Punished for trying? No. We did make him help find good paying work to pay for burned clothes, though. Consequences aren't the same as punishment." Gisole stood, stretching. "Tell you what. You look like you need food, answers, and possibly a strong drink. I know a place that serves all three. I think there's plenty of hot dudes there. Interested?" She winks.
Trudy hesitated. She'd come to Theolis looking for answers, some proof that her grandfather's admiration had been justified, that the Perfect Man's teachings could exist without corruption. Could exist without worship.
But she'd expected a library, a sage, maybe an ancient text.
She hadn't expected someone to just... offer to help. For no reason. With no conditions.
"The Perfect Man helped people because it made him happy, not because he thought he'd earn paradise."
Her grandfather's voice again. Always with her. Always pointing toward something she was still trying to understand.
"Uhh… sure?" Trudy said, standing. "I think I'll pass on the hot dudes part but I'm paying for my own drink."
"Deal!" Gisole said, grinning. "Though fair warning, once people find out you're new, they're going to ask you a million questions. Theolis natives are aggressively curious. Especially on hot people like you~" Gisole winks.
"Aeh.. Haha" Trudy nervous awkward giggle.
They started walking, leaving the square behind. Trudy glanced back once at the fountain, people don't look like mere socializing, it seems they have genuine connections especially boys and girls talking together.
No churches. No doctrine. Just people, being people.
Maybe her grandfather had been right.
Maybe the Perfect Man would have been disappointed by his worshippers.
But honored by her grandfather's admiration.
And maybe…just maybe… he would have liked it here?
Trudy's hand unconsciously touched her notebook, where her grandfather's last words were written on the first page in her ten year old handwriting:
"They only wanted him to give them their perfect ideal world and guidance because they felt helpless and believed they couldn't bend reality to what they wanted. But the Perfect Man taught that there's always a way to make anything you want to happen on your own. And dancing requires joy. Not certainty."
She closed the notebook.
For the first time in nine years, Trudy thought she might finally understand what he'd meant.
[End Chapter 1]