The Dissolution of Things

A short essay by Richard Ashcroft.
I now rove and travel the broken lands of Arathi to investigate the ruins of old Arathi monasteries destroyed in wars past; the monasteries of the Light which now lay abandoned. I come across a particular abbey which interests me and my historian guide, a new gnome "priest" of extensive knowledge in graduation. He has told me a lot about this place in jest. He gestures me forward to the monastery. Up the stairs and into the hollow cloisters which ring out only our hushed voices and the treads of our feet. A deep contrast, I think, to the hymns and scuffles of flat soled shoes of old. He takes me further in, and I can see the excitement on his whiskers. He is waiting to burst out in childish laughter; an anticipation a drunkard might have to the punchline of well rehearsed tavern gossip. Finally, we stop.
This is the Northfold Abbey, and the vertiginous trench into which I stare was its main latrine. 
It is a sad fact that whatever the sublimity and splendour of the ruins of our great ancient heritage to the droves of apathetic 'pilgrims' (more comfortably visitors) this holy monasticism only comes alive when contemplating its excretion arrangements. Not old Arathi monks tripping and trampling the spiral stairs at night at the dark hours of night to sing to the Light of day; not the sound of prayer and praise unceasing sent upwards to the Light's domains from altar and cell; no, what fires our popular imaginations is fecal matter plopping two dozen feet from the reredorter and into old drains.
The Light is dead to pilgrims. Shit lives!
In need of paper of any description, these monks would wipe themselves on scraps of fabric - linen, muslin, tapestries - not unfamilar. They would, as expected, rinse these again and again until discarding them became necessary. But why do these rags garner attention? These pieces of fabric find themselves exhibited proudly by such men as my gnomish guide simply because they are old, they are old things. Something so menial and, in fact, repulsive has become an artefact because of an entropy that has destroyed humans but not these wipes. 
The patron of this abbey whose bones are buried somewhere near our position by the latrine, was Horace. It is conceivable, my guide tempts me, that one of these ancient arsewipes was actually used by this legend. The gnome proceeds to laugh, waiting for a response from me. Admittedly, at its time it would even have been a relic, as revered as the patron was, and credulous pilgrims would come to gaze. Yet, what are these new strange pilgrims? They gaze at these ancient rags, hallowed not by saintly usage, but by time and time alone! They are old. They survived. 
There is an increment even in excrement.
So, santisied by the years and sanctified, they have become relics in their own right. More pilgrims come now to see them and these other remains than ever before in a brighter age of faith. These new pilgrims are differently credulous and their cults wiser, saner, more rational...
I think not.
Theirs is an easier faith. Where these monks once reverenced sanctity we reverence violence and heroic celebrity; they and I, myself, venerate strenuous piety; these 'modernists' supine antiquity. In these eyes of this new breed of hammer-happy paladins and war-tongue priests catechism is "old is good, older is better, ancient is best with a bonus on archaeology because it's the closest to buying new robes and armour."
Whatever these new "brothers of the Light" tell themselves, things matter more to them than people. Not the Exodus of Azeroth, the scattering of peoples and nations, the torments of those left behind, the martyrs, no, what shocks them about the First, Second and Third War (and war in general) is the loss of THINGS! In the case of the monastery, which has its origins in a flight from these dreadful "things", is something of an irony. Thus it is thanks to these villainous destroyers that these monasteries eventually reached their apotheosis.
This new generation of materialistic laymen and knights must not be taken into the Church without full recognition of its ideals. These "pilgrims" focus far too much on what it is their glory can get them, the Light's principles are second place. We must not let them usurp what is good.
Category:Literature
Category:Human
Category:History
Category:The Light