The Consecrated Church of Helix is the main church of the village of Helix, a consecrated precinct that the greater undead cannot enter. It sheltered the villagers during the skeletal siege, and its altar was the site of the execution of the warlock Silas.
| Type | Place (church) |
| Location | Center of Helix |
| Authority | Vicar Otar |
| Spanish entry | Iglesia Consagrada de Helix |
Description
A modest, half-ruined building of the southern church sanctuary. It has a central altar with a solar cross — the form of the Sol Invictus church on which the sanctuary remotely depends — statues of saints, a reliquary and liturgical candles. Inside, incense mingles with rot.
The consecration
The consecration works literally: “No pueden entrar en la iglesia los seres así malditos más grandes. Por algo es la iglesia” (“The greater cursed beings cannot enter the church. That is why it is the church”), the vicar told the people. The skeletal hordes summoned by the Knight of Darkness stopped at the outer threshold.
It does not repel everything. Living humans, even corrupted or bound by pacts with demons, can cross; a demon in person cannot. When the demon Quasi escorted his pact-bound humans to the precinct, he stayed outside while they entered.
The siege
When the siege fell on the village, Vicar Otar made the church the people’s last refuge. Children were brought in first; adults formed an inner defense. Outside, hordes advanced, the fort to the north smoked and wounded refugees arrived. Inside, the vicar prayed and the cleric Mortan seconded him.
The day of the altar
The warlock Silas entered, escorted by the two corrupted twin guards, while Quasi stayed outside. At the altar Silas asked for his wish on the Tablet of Chaos. “You will die first,” Otar answered. The vicar and the cleric together invoked the binding that holds men, on all three invaders; none resisted it.
The twins were spared and sent to the dungeon. Otar laid Silas’s head on the consecrated altar and split his skull with a mace. The altar absorbed the blood, and the stain persists on the stone.
The altar
Los Condenados had feared the altar as an instrument of enemy cults; on this day it served the divine order. The church regards the act as a terminal exorcism, not a diabolic sacrifice. The marked altar remains for those who come after, including the Seekers of Ardis Vala, who descend south after being stripped in the octagonal chamber.
Open questions
- Whether the altar’s consecration required a rite of repair afterward is not recorded.