From the earliest days of my family the "hospitaller" were a family, a brotherhood of crusaders and knights who had all but founded the island nation of malta. But even before that they held Rhodes and before had a simple trade that was indispensable to the world at the time. The milling of sugar. This is the origin of my line...
My roots are important for there maybe many cousins and brothers of hospitaller amongst maltesians today I doubt they know their history as I do.
The corso was the next advent of our family, issuing letters of mark to raid and receive the rite to raid vessels in the mediterranean.
Piracy and taking slaves as spoils run in our blood. Aside the milling of sugar the hospitallers are given to take care of the sick and destitute. All these things made us children of god with the rights of conquest in the name of christendom.
In the times of the renaissance cannons gave way to concert halls. Our richness and decadence made us soft and victims to the french... nepolian himself shattered our sovereignty and many of us went underground.
If you see me today I still wear my black robe with the white eight pointed cross, the cross of st.john the cross born of amalfi.
Our ancient history became one of who occupied what was considered a dead order... Those that clung to the old identity of the order continued to care for the sick and wounded all through the world wars... Though beyond this the Knight of malta became a title for anyone with the money to claim it...
Today those of us who still keep the sacred relics and the ancient wealth can be counted on one hand.. And only one has made contact with the spirits.
My family.. the Family of Aquinas.
The Aquinian line of healers and doctors ended when the cult was formed by nysk the unforgettable. My father carried the mantle of master teacher for nearly three hundred years.. Of which I was born in the final century. I myself Am old enough to have seen the fields of malta turn into a playground of elites, scoundrels, and finally through the progression of time... timid old men.
While it is true sacrifices in what would call my humanity or human body account for my age this was merely to combat senility. A muddled mind and a rasped body is of little use to the divine and in this liquid cardamine has advanced existence of the faithful beyond anything the poped of the old world could ever imagine.
While its true that the popes, kings, and secret societies of old held wealth in high esteem the true wealth was within the spiritual the power to raise a flock and bring them to enlightenment to ...bring them to the reality of what they can become is the peak of what I as hospitaller could ever do.
The origin of me however does not explain it all.
I have been involved with a cult that has been apart of my family roughly since the hispania. While not members it seemingly was instinctive for them to seek us out at different times.
The most involvement was my own father and myself. Father... well... he had a gift for hearing and seeing that which was not plainly visible to all of us. More of a mystic then a preacher I could see why the spirits were interested in him.
My involvement is.... I am afraid less favored.
I was always skeptical of the aliens, I knew anything truly masterful over the mind as they were would be akin to every angelic idea in the christian mythos, and they are quite beautiful to behold..
perhaps it was this doubt this... seed of mistrust that played havoc on their.. process... Despite my true patriotism for malta and their place in our history and guides... Mistrust or distance breeds distance or so i...."theorise"
I had quite early as a child master the long "qwaked" and debunked art of out of body projection. believe it or don't, it was intensely useful in the fact that while my body was "dying" I was literally able to inhabit the shrine in projected form. And as it turns out I was not the first.
Did the Solomon Ka aHa Ra predict or understand this phenomena? likely and I felt my projection being pushed away.. into the network of light.
A chapel a temple of light that contained feelings, memories, and knowledge of countless apertures.. or.. projected minds.. The Slomon Mindshare is a divinity all its own but not outside comprehension and yet what's tragic is that its parts are un aware of its true self... much like man.
You could ask a man "What are you.?" And hell likely reply "a human being or me".
Slomon will likely reply "Light" Infected or incubi will reply similarly.. but with more of a handle on grammar and metaphor.. the response of all of these examples is rooted in platos concepts of perception.
Shadows on the cave wall... are you what you perceive? or the source of it.
So what am I? I m a freak... I have secrets... when i should not... but only on account my body is not mine. Its their "recreation" of me.. Because I suspect they know I am outside their understanding my humanoid form was not cured of cardamine addiction...
Many failed hybrids share a fate worse then this... terrible deformities.. pain... short life spans. and their "spirit" lives on or rather.. from my perspective.. like a drop of rain into an ocean of salt water.. that drop was fresh but..it quickly is no more.
My deformity? the glandular system "sweating" the base chemicals left after metabolising cardamine. In other words Cyanogen. or Stellar Cyanide.
Why is this important? The Siniestre nebula or the cyanogen that permeates it and other clouds teems with life. This life was integral to the dom k'vosh engineering life in the sector. like any other terraformer, scientist, tinkerers and intelligence with the hubris to play god (but not do all the work) is using what you have to alter whats around you.
There was a major effort undertaken in the Omicron Alpha system.. What I could never truly know as the solomon ka aha ra itself did not retain full memories. It could have even been projected related to their own birth. unlikely..however.
So.. again why is THAT important. Liquid cardamine is both the cause and waste product of cardamine. the key is how it breaks down. What I create is poisonous liquid cardamine breaking the nitrogen bond its almost the same thing...
Its both simple and complex. Easy and difficult. The problem within the solution itself. imagine my realization of all this when I was walking the forests of Carinea as a local variety of python dropped from the canopy misting me with its own biological cocktail of cyanide.
It played havoc with my body.. my link to the light was even severed... not by choice either... these species were obviously adaptively superior because of their presence within the cloud. Laying there helpless literally fading away my link severed I did what I could to assimilate the creature. (Small trick imbedded to the slomon is their ability to bond). I have not incarnated since because since bonding to this serpent I can control my body's toxicity. Though ill still make a room sick.. its better then killing them with odorless poison.
As it turns out the cyanide of the cloud is the primordial keystone, potentially to the entire omicrons and perhaps any alien technology that's native to the sector. I have a particular ruin in mind... protected by automated vessels of all kinds.
So in time... the faithful that will grow will lend the cult strength, but this time it is for a new Malta... her peoples blood run deep with the legacy of christandom and faith is part of her. perhaps our own "spirit" can triumph where it had been so silence by space and pointless blood feuds.