An Excerpt from a New Temple Inquisition, circa 4E 60
Apostle: Reclamations be praised! When my superiors informed me I would be interrogating a prisoner captured at a shrine dedicated to the Mad Corner, I was certain I would be faced with the tedium of extracting a passable confession from an incomprehensible lunatic. I’m pleasantly surprised to learn you are quite sane—for a heretic. It may even come to pass that you will be granted an opportunity for recantation.
Apostate: Lord Sheogorath has prepared my mind for this trial, just as my strength and resolve have been hardened by the Princes Malacath and Mehrunes Dagon, and Lord Molag Bal has warned me of the New Temple’s latest schemes.
Apostle: I see your recalcitrance has festered in the century since you abandoned your initial training for the priesthood. Tell me: from whence springs your dissent, your fidelity to the Four Corners of the House of Troubles?
Apostate: Ultimately I forswore the worship of Boethiah, Azura, and Mephala because of their silence in the face of the Great Presumption. Uncouth though they may be, outcast, devastating, subjugating, and maniacal, at least the Lords of the House of Troubles had the boldness to publicly disavow and openly resist the false divinity of your three newest “saints.”
Apostle: Let me confide in you: personally, I understand and share your disgust for the recent relegation of Almalexia, Sotha Sil, and Vivec to sainthood. They betrayed the Reclamations and deceived our people.
Apostate: At least we agree on something.
Apostle: However, the New Temple has deemed it appropriate to canonize them as historic heroes of Morrowind to help ease the disquiet in the hearts of the Dunmer during this tumultuous time of upheaval and transition, and your heresy remains unresolved. Do not forget: the sin of the false Tribunal began with their abandonment of hallowed Azura, and your feet now trod the same path.
Apostate: I refuse to pardon the Daedra’s silence which damned our people to centuries of benighted ignorance, none more so than my own House, the hierarchs of the Temple.
Apostle: House Indoril erred, as did all the Dunmer, save the nomadic Velothi, but your House bears its penance with dignity by serving the Reclamations. Unswerving loyalty, even to false causes, is not wholly undeserving of commendation, and the New Temple is not without mercy or understanding.
Apostate: Service rendered in repentance unto the Daedric Princes whose silence condemned them in the first place to the falsehoods of Ayem, Seht, and Vehk is disgrace.
Apostle: Have you considered that the silence in the face of ALMSIVI’s irreverence by holy Boethiah, Azura, and Mephala was, in fact, their judgment against the false claims of divinity and their indictment against the naïveté of our ancestors? Why should you accept the judgment of the raucous House of Troubles over and against that of the blessed Reclamations?
Apostate: If I must choose between spiritual guardians, then I wil always choose the articulate instead of the mute.