News of the Golden Handprints of Oakhaven traveled faster than a royal decree. Smugglers, merchants, and the Demon King's own Whisperer agents—who were now actively helping spread the Heretics' gospel—carried the tale. The story was simple, powerful, and easily embellished. The Master had, with his own two hands, miraculously healed a wound in his sanctum, leaving his divine signature for all to see.
For High Priest Vorlagos and the scattered, demoralized Heresy, this news was not just a story. It was a divine sign. It was a path forward.
"The fools in the quarantine seek to isolate a man," Vorlagos preached to a secret gathering of his inner circle, his voice filled with a new, burning passion. "But they cannot quarantine an idea! They cannot wall off a miracle! The Master has given us our next weapon, our next tool for spreading his truth."
His new strategy was no longer about infiltration by force, but by craft.
"Our old plan was to bring the people to the Master," he explained. "A fatal error. The Master, in his wisdom, has shown us a new way. We cannot all gaze upon his face, but we can gaze upon his works! The bookshelf, the turnip, the teabag... and now, the Handprints. He is not building a church of followers. He is building a church of artifacts!"
Duke Ferrus, whose family was now under secret, intense scrutiny by the Empire thanks to Valerius's interpretation of the "rotten plank," was a key figure in this new movement. Publicly disgraced but secretly a true believer, he saw this as his path to redemption. "What are you proposing, Your Holiness? That we become relic hunters?"
"Not hunters, my Duke," Vorlagos corrected, a manic gleam in his eye. "Builders. Replicators. The Imperial loyalists guard the original text. We... shall make copies for the masses."
The plan was as insane as it was brilliant. The Heresy would transform. They were no longer a pilgrimage. They would become an order of holy craftsmen. Their sacred mission: to recreate the Master's miracles, to build shrines and relics in his image throughout the Empire, spreading his influence one act of misunderstood holy construction at a time.
Their first project was obvious. The Golden Handprints.
But they couldn't use common gold paint. That would be blasphemy. It had to be a perfect, faithful recreation. For this, Vorlagos summoned a man who was equal parts master artisan and fanatical true believer: a stonemason named Brother Valens.
Valens was a quiet, brawny man with huge, calloused hands, but his eyes held the same fiery devotion as the High Priest himself. He had studied every detail of the Handprint reports, obsessing over their size, the swirl of the gold, their exact placement on the chimney.
"To simply paint the handprints would be a mockery," Valens stated in a low, rumbling voice. "The Master did not add gold to the brick. He transmuted the brick into gold. To truly honor his work, we must do the same."
This was a major problem. Transmutation was a jealously guarded, high-level magical art. They didn't have a single Arch-Mage among their ranks.
"We do not need magic," Valens insisted, a mad look in his eyes. "We need faith. And the correct materials."
His plan was a masterpiece of devotional reverse-engineering.
He didn't need Sun-Steel Bonding Agent. He needed something that symbolized its essence. A week later, after a quiet and significant donation from their demonic benefactor, a shipment arrived. It was a crate of 'Sun-touched Iron Ore,' mined from a meteorite that had fallen to earth ages ago. It naturally shimmered with a golden light.
He ground the ore into a fine, sparkling dust. He mixed it not with water, but with the collected morning dew from a thousand sacred Sun-Petal flowers—a liquid believed to hold the 'memory of light.' To this slurry, he added a single, crucial ingredient to act as a bonding agent: a drop of his own blood, given in a prayer of ultimate devotion.
"Faith is the final alchemical component," he whispered as he finished the mixture.
His tools were not a trowel, but his own two hands.
The first 'Shrine of the Holy Handprints' was to be erected on the outer wall of the Grand Cathedral in the Imperial Capital itself—a bold, defiant act of faith right under the Emperor's nose.
In the dead of night, Brother Valens and a small team of acolytes ascended the cathedral walls. While lookouts, funded and informed by the Demon King's spies, watched for Imperial patrols, Valens went to work.
He did not paint. He found the section of brick that corresponded to the same height and position as the sacred chimney. He placed his own, large hands on the cold stone. He closed his eyes, cleared his mind of everything but the holy image of the Master mending his own home, and he began to pray.
He channeled all his faith, all his devotion, all his masterful knowledge of stone into his palms. And the blood in the alchemical mixture... reacted. A soft, golden light began to glow from beneath his hands. The brick itself, infused with the meteor dust and his unwavering belief, was not being painted. It was being fundamentally changed. The heat was immense, but he did not flinch.
When he finally pulled his hands away, there, permanently burned into the ancient stone of the Grand Cathedral, were two perfect, shimmering golden handprints, identical in every detail to the ones in Oakhaven.
Brother Valens had done the impossible. He had, through sheer force of will, faith, and masterful craftsmanship, replicated a miracle. He was no longer just a stonemason.
He was the first Theotect. A holy architect. A builder of divine things.
The next morning, the citizens of the capital awoke to find a golden miracle on the wall of their most sacred building. The Emperor's guards tried to cordon it off, but it was too late. Crowds gathered to stare in awe. The Heresy's silent, viral campaign had just gone spectacularly public.
Inquisitor Caelia Vance stood at her window, observing the crowds. Her face was a mask of cold fury. This was an escalation. A brilliant one. The Librarian's followers were no longer a rabble. They had become artisans, creating powerful symbols to spread his influence.
Her logical conclusion was immediate and chilling. 'The enemy has deployed a new asset type: a 'Theotect.' A psychological warfare unit specializing in the creation of propaganda installations. Their methods are esoteric, but effective. This is no longer a simple containment operation. This is an ideological war.'
The cold war for the soul of the Empire, a war being fought over a man who had just wanted to patch a leak, was about to get much, much hotter.