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title: Cathedral of Guiding Light
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A grand house of worship dedicated to [[the Keeper]], constructed over the course of eight decades and completed 75 years before the start of our story. The Cathedral of Guiding Light was seen as one of the finest churches in the land, even earning praise from [[Holy Kingdom of Alinor|Alinor]]’s Holy King.

As a symbolic gesture of the Keeper’s unshakable dominance over the chaos of the mortal plane, the Cathedral’s foundations were built directly over the largest entrance to [[the Labyrinth]], a yawning chasm in central [[Vesper Ridge]] known colloquially as “the [[throat of the world]].” Such unstable ground was of course completely unsuitable for the construction of such a massive building, so the expert mages of [[House von Helzen]] joined the [[The Church of the Guiding Way|clergy]] in cooperation to secure the Cathedral’s foundations with potent spatial magic. This project marked the beginning of a long partnership between Vesper Ridge’s Guiding Way clergy and the nobles of House von Helzen, a partnership which persists to this day.

Despite its auspicious beginnings, the Cathedral is in modern times a symbol of deepest shame for the Church of the Guiding Way. Ten years ago, just as his [[The Delving Guild|Delving Guild]] was beginning to take off, the artificer [[Iron Caseval]] shocked [[Vesperite]] society by purchasing the Cathedral of Guiding Light itself, an act that should by all accounts have been utterly impossible for even the [[Aristocracy|wealthiest of industrialists]]. The details of the deal are completely secret, but the common belief in Vesper Ridge (and beyond) is that Caseval must have blackmailed the Cathedral’s archpriests into making the sale. What leverage he possibly could have had over such a powerful organization is the realm of speculation, but his motivation was clear: access to the “throat of the world” beneath the Cathedral’s foundations would give the already-profitable Delving Guild unprecedented access to the Labyrinth and its [[cave horrors]]’ [[tallow]]. Caseval’s Delving Guild has taken full advantage of their acquisition and transformed the Cathedral into a bustling base of operations for their tallow extractions, harvesting more and more raw material each year.