5.2. The structure of the Abbey and its shady secrets
The structure of the Abbey and its shady secrets
The content of these jade eggs besides being tasty also had sacred energy that helps to hone the powers of exorcists, curators and sacred knights, so the Nascent Sun church labeled the Gouves as sacred animals and that must be created exclusively by the church.
Of course, the nobles with strong powers and the royal family of each country in the Central Continent create these sacred animals in "secret", and can then sell or "offer" as a gift to senior clergy officials.
Anyway, going back to the construction of the abbey.
The buildings were divided into three types, the building of the senior officials of the clergy, the building of travelers and the building of novices. The building of senior clergy officials was a building with a gothic-style, very beautiful and made entirely of stones, which was cold even in the hottest seasons of the year, but when winter came it was necessary to spend a high amount of wood for the fireplaces and buy hot carpets to line the floor of the rooms and the living areas.
The building of the clergy staff was divided into three sections, the bottom belongs to the common priests, the middle part belongs to the exorcist priests and the upper part belongs to the bishops, archbishops, and exorcists who had a powerful family.
The first floor only contained the minimum for survival, the rooms were small, the beds were totally wood without mattress only a pillow and a wool blanket until the fireplace was small and hardly warmed the room.
The second floor was more luxurious than the previous floor, but it was only habitable, but it was not comfortable, had a bed with mattress and a pillow, also had a small fireplace, desk and hardwood chair, had even a bookshelf, a bucket for physiological needs and a simple armchair with a soft wool robe.
The third floor, which is the floor where Emery Darcy was living at the time, was very luxurious, with soft beds and goose feather pillows, large fireplaces built with marble and fine stones, comfortable armchair made with high-grade upholstery, a table, and wooden bed, two padded chairs, a copper bowl to make the needs, carpets covering the entire stone floor and lace curtains for summer and heavy satin curtains for winter.
The ground floor was where the crafts were made, in addition to the large kitchen and the communal bathrooms. Well, they weren't quite bathrooms, but that's a big tank that novices would add hot water and that every round 10 people could go wash up.
Senior clergy officials bathed in their own rooms, where novices carried buckets and more buckets of hot water to fill a wooden tin, and use essential oils to perfume the waters.
After the last pandemic, which plagued the Central Continent, killing half of its population, hygiene increased greatly in countries that suffered heavy losses from the disease.
This pandemic is due to a disease similar to the black plague that plagued Europe and part of the Asian continent on Earth, so not just the churches, but even people who were not rich had to take a bath every four days, the poorest bathed once a week and beggars bathed once a month, at least the town halls made a point of providing materials for beggars to shower once a month.
Not only did hygiene undergo an evolution, but also how to deal with the bodies of the dead, or they were cremated or buried into a land away from water and fertile land.
A body being cremated only happened if the family was unable to elaborate a burial or if it were an indigent, or a great sinner, in this Era funerals and funeral rites are synonymous with status.
Returning, again the construction of the abbey.
The visitors' building was also divided by walking, the first for ordinary travelers, the second for travelers who were merchants and the third for noble travelers. The ground floor was also used to house the officio areas, the large kitchen, and a large bathroom.
Both of these buildings had many windows, but the windows sizes differed from one floor to the other, the first floor had small windows that barely fit an adult's face, while the third-floor windows were the size of an adult.
The third building, which is the novice building, resembled there was a large shed, there were up to 100 rooms and each room lived four novices. The beds were hardwood and there was no pillow, only two wool blankets, there were also no fireplaces and the windows were narrow.
There were only two floors, the first floor was for novices who came from families with weaker power and the second floor belonged to families with powers that could cause some headache to the church.
In the second walk of this building, there were single beds with soft mattresses and pillows with some quality, there was also a small fireplace, a desk and a bowl to bathe. There was also a wooden bookcase to put on the books and a leather armchair.
Not forgetting that there were community toilets, which were a structure not very well cared for to do the basic needs, of course, only novices and humble travelers used these facilities.
Of course, novices with more rights or their families had to show their identities in order to be able to receive better treatment, in the case of the MC of this dark novel, this was not a reality.
The MC had just moved from another abbey and his documents had not been sent yet, moreover, he is a shy and fearful person who did not like conflict. So, he didn't act like a nobleman or showed some power to his family, so many bad things were done with him.
The ground floor was a little different from the other two buildings because there were classrooms in place of the craft rooms, a practice laboratory, and a combat area, in addition to the large kitchen and the bathing area.
In the abbey, there were also forbidden buildings, such as the library that could only be accessed by the bishops and exorcist priests with some prestige and the better-equipped laboratories that could only be accessed by exorcist and healer bishops of higher-grade. In addition to a training area for exorcists to practice the use of swords and some divine instruments.
Moreover, there was the area for the divine knights, it should be emphasized that there were few divine knights in the abbeys outside the capital, in total there was only one unit of 30 divine knights per abbey, only in the capital of each country, there were large quantities of divine knights.
However, the divine knights had their own houses and grounds around the abbey, so they only attended a few meals in the abbey, in addition, each knight had his followers, usually between 20 or 30, between disciples and nobles.
The heavenly summoners and divine messengers only remained in the capital of each kingdom, sometimes traveled between the abbeys of the region, but generally were occupied living among the nobles and visiting the wealthiest families of each kingdom.
Clerics who had the profession of healer could remain in a specific abbey or would be itinerant travelers between the abbeys, at the time, after this pandemic, the healers are traveling through the regions most affected by the disease, only there are two healers allocated to this abbey.
Hello readers!
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Well, I know that the chapter was very descriptive and that's it.
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Below are images of abbeys. That's how I imagine the abbey in this novel. The first image is from the angle of the internal garden and the second is from the corridors. The third would be the front of the Abbey.
Just for everyone to have an idea about the environment that the plot will be developing initially.