Bethel

**Bethel** (previously Zona, originally Kuum Doona) is a house with meta-entad abilities, able to use any entad within herself to improve her own senses and capabilities. Initially non-sapient, she became aware after being fed the sword Soskanna by Uther Penndraig, and eventually developed an illusory human avatar, which she uses to interact with people. She currently serves as the home of Juniper Smith and his party.

>
> “I was born half-formed, like a child, in some ways, if not others. I had masters rather than parents, and not a one of them was a proper custodian. I was turned to war, and then, once I was alone, I decided on violence. Part of me, a lesser part, was a sword, suited to torture and killing. I murdered thousands in distant, impersonal ways, with cannonfire and lightning strikes. I killed hundreds in more personal ways, taking my time with it.” She took a steadying breath. “I wasn’t in a good place. If I’m being honest, I’m still not.”
>
>
>
> —Bethel, Chapter 140: "Commingling"
>

## Appearance

After consuming the Anyblade, Bethel can take any shape or property within the boundaries of what a house is. Bethel's avatar looks like a nine foot woman with cedar colored skin, with dark brown hair twisted and coiled in a shape reminiscent of rope sitting at the top of her head. She often wears shimmering gossamer robes of a hundred layers.

## Personality

Bethel wants to be a house for someone more than anything else, outright refusing to be exclusively wielded as a weapon by the Party. The idea of 'technically' being a home is abhorrent to her. After years of slavery to Uther and his descendants, Bethel has developed a cruel streak. She likes inflicting pain and terror on people that she perceives as enemies, especially those with ties to Uther. She particularly enjoys the feeling of control over others, a complex which likely stems from how she had no control over her own life in her early years, with all attempts to take ownership of her choices rejected by her notional owners, who saw her as nothing but an object. Over the course of her relationship with Juniper and the party, she has consistently engaged in various forms of psychological manipulation for her own amusement, usually for the sake of her own amusement. Juniper believes, that these were likely attempts at humor.

Subsequent to the events at Sound and Silence, Bethel raped Juniper. Valencia the Red notes, during a confrontation with Bethel that directly results from this, that Bethel had no understanding that what she had done was wrong in the moment, or afterwards. This may have resulted from her own experiences with Uther, who Bethel had previously claimed (also without any understanding of the violation) had molested her avatar under the excuse of teaching her to create a proper illusion of humanity - though the veracity of her claim cannot be verified.

## Biography

Juniper's party initially approached Kuum Doona with the intention of accessing her time chamber, but they unknowingly stumbled into Bethel's trap.House of Solitude

## Trivia

* Bethel means 'House of God' in Aramaic, and was seemingly itself the name of an ancient middle-eastern god.
* Alexander Wales uses the third person feminine to refer to bethel the-entity-herself.

## References

1. ↑ The Anyblade allows me to take on any shape or property within the ill-defined conceptual boundaries of what a house is.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 105: "Notes"
2. ↑ She was momentarily naked, though sexlessly so, until clothes began flowing out from her skin, covering and wrapping her in shimmering, gossamer robes of a hundred layers. Her skin changed color, flickering through different hues, until she settled on a dark brown that gradually grew lighter as she looked at her hands and adjusted it, ending up about the same color as a piece of cedar. Her hair grew and twirled around her, at first a glowing white before finally settling into a dark brown, which twisted and braided itself, becoming almost reminiscent of a rope that then coiled its length around to sit on the top of her head.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 100: "Immanentizing the Eschaton"
3. ↑ He was going to put the entads in me, to make me permanently unliveable, when all I wanted was to be lived in, to be a house for someone, yet ending his life was, somehow, a line I did not want to cross ...
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 97: "Rapping at my Chamber Door"
4. ↑ “I’m not going with,” said Bethel. Her imperious form was in her usual (illusory) seat.

“I missed something?” I asked, grateful that the topic of conversation wasn’t on me and Fenn.

“Amaryllis would wish to wield me like a weapon, much as her ancestors did,” said Bethel.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 117: "Beast of Burden"
5. ↑ The problem was, Bethel didn’t wholly care about us. The idea of being a mobile home, or worse, only technically a home by the definitions that her Anyhouse ability allowed, seemed somewhat abhorrent to her. To temporarily be a thick staff with a fairy house on top was, it seemed, an experience reserved for special occasions.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 118: "Breaking Loose"
6. ↑ “I didn’t want that. I just wanted them to feel pain and terror. The prayer was a manifestation of the terror, certainly, but it was an appeal to me, not something animal.”

“You liked seeing people be animals,” I said.

“Yes,” said Bethel. “Not because I hated them, though I often did, but because I liked the feeling of seeing them lose control of themselves.”

I looked down at one of the dioramas, which showed, in cut-away view, a man limping down a hallway, trailing blood. “And you liked the feeling of control you had over them,” I said.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 140: "Commingling"
7. ↑  “Oh, well that might be hard,” said Bethel, “Because I just told everyone in the house.” She had a wicked smile on her face.

I stopped and stared at her, not knowing what the hell I was supposed to think about that.

Bethel cackled again, her booming laugh seeming to echo through the halls.

“I’m kidding, of course,” said Bethel, watching me closely.

“Okay,” I said, shifting around. She’d thrown me far off-kilter. I pointed at Grak’s door. “I do need to speak with him for a bit. It would probably be better if you weren’t ‘there’ for it.”

Bethel watched me for a moment, then transformed, from Tiff back into the form she’d been wearing for the past month. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Forgiven,” I replied with a wave of my hand. “I get your sense of humor.”

Loyalty Increased: Bethel lvl 10!
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 127: "Full House"
8. ↑ [https://www.reddit.com/r/alexanderwales/comments/bup7tk/wtc\_did\_arthur\_understand\_the\_houses\_name/eph2rmb/ The entity now known as Bethel just took this name, for reasons of her
own, and I suppose I'll just WoG that she (and Juniper) are completely
ignorant of the name's Hebrew meaning, since Hebrew isn't a language
that exists on Aerb, and wouldn't be something that Juniper knew much if
 any of (though I think you could get all that from the text).]