Jelbe

[Zanz]

"That's the power of the Spirits!" says Faith Keeper as Hobrazian President Makes Recovery

18 October 5689 (OOC: Backdated)

JEZTRIDOMURA - After reports from Hobrazia of the apparently miraculous recovery of President Vasil Khimshiashvili, Faith Keeper Shlajkai Intrsmorsrmko praised the ancient spirits for guiding the reportedly critically ill Khimshiashvili through his sickness. "We are shown each day that the Spirits provide for us, if only we are open to letting them", Intrsmorsrmko told reporters assembled outside of Jeztridomura today. "The signal fire showed President Khimshiashvili the way to continue his service to his people, and he followed it. That's the power of the Spirits!"

The Faith Keeper was referring to a ceremonial fire he lit on the Jelbek steppe in February, reportedly after being moved to tears by the agony of Khatia Khimshiashvili, daughter of the Hobrazian president, on live late night public broadcasting. The fire itself became the subject of a minor scandal in Jelbe - it was lit with scented wood whose cost the Faith Keeper has been reluctant to confirm, but which is rumored to have been in the tens of thousands of LOD. The Faith Keeper and his surrogates have maintained that questioning the cost of "necessary religious ceremonies" is sacriligious.

The Faith Keeper's remarks have raised eyebrows almost immediately among experts in Jelbe and abroad who note that the Hobrazian press is not renowned for its impartiality and which has already jumped between reports of Khimshiashvili's robust health, utter sickness, and now seeming recovery. Some experts have gone so far as to question even the legitimacy of the portrait of Khimshiashvili released in the reporting from News of the Day, noting that the "Hobrazian strongman" appears not only to have recovered but to have aged backward relative to earlier photographs. Though the Fire Stoker Azi Azisrmko did not outright call the reporting falsified, his prepared remarks to press noted that "Faith Keeper Shlajkai would happily proclaim the Spirits had themselves built the Jeztridomura-Baofluz rail corridor, if he thought his flock would buy it. This is obviously an issue of less than zero consequence to the people of Jelbe. I wish he would feed our people instead of burning incense for a despot."