Chương 391: 10.ii

There will come a day when one of your charges will call on you to act on their behalf to call forth a departed soul of the dead. Be it for comfort, wisdom or the settling of a debt owed is not of your concern. Whether you are a high and respected high priest in a grand city temple or have only a single shrine in your care, all who work with the stars will hear this request eventually. For it is simply mortal and human to yearn to speak to those that have departed the earth for the beyond of the heavens.

And it is at least initially not our place to refuse this plea. Such a communion with the dead is harmless in the first contact. A small sum of course should be charged, both for offerings to the intermediary star but more so to help sort those that truly desire to reach out to the departed and those merely curious but uninvested. There is in a first meeting little danger to the health or spirit of your charges, in fact it can be a deeply healing moment to close their affairs with the departed!

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. A last speech with a loved one, a child, a parent or even the reconciliation of a rival or enemy can bring a peace to the petitioner that is otherwise impossible. But be on guard for those that revisit you to contact the beyond again and again. Even if it is only once a year, this can eventually grow to a visitation every season, every ten days, every night.

Be vigilant of the signs among your charges of one who has given up life in favor of infatuation with the words of the dead. Men and women have wasted away speaking to the departed, abandoning the care of those that yet live, food and concern for their own well being in order to spend the night speaking to those already gone and if left unchecked such necromantic obsession can hollow out the spirit entirely.

I know some among my peers say there is no harm and that the offerings and silver parted from such desperate wretches can do good elsewhere. But I say it is a poor diviner indeed that does not refuse to be party to such self destruction in those they claim to protect. The best words for the dead from the living is to say a last single good bye. -On the treating with Gods and Grain Watchers by Brother Ordelain, naturalist and Monk of the Hrothfield Monastery in middle Egelheimvin.