Astraea The Measure
The Last Arbiter of Tu'Lia
The Measure
Long before the Cataclysm, when the Zilart still walked the gardens of their sky city, nobody passed through Ru'Aun toward the Shrine without first being weighed. The one who weighed them was called the Measure, and the last to hold that office was Astraea.
On the day she took it, she bound her eyes with a chain of gold, so that no face, no name and no rank could lean on her scales. The old texts say she never raised her voice, and that no petitioner ever learned which way she leaned until the beam had settled.
The Verdict
When the princes of the Zilart resolved to open the Gate of the Gods, they came down through the gardens with all of Tu'Lia behind them, and Astraea weighed them as she had weighed everyone else. She found them wanting, and she said so.
They walked past her. What came after, the world remembers as the Cataclysm. The sky city broke, and her white armor cracked from collar to hem. She did not leave her post. She mended every crack with gold, took up her sword again and went back to the gardens to wait for whoever came next.
Those Who Come Now
Ten thousand years on, adventurers climb out of the Hall of the Gods in companies, and she meets them on the open plaza below the Shrine. She weighs a company as she once weighed a single soul: whole, and not by its strongest arm.
The pilgrims of old, the texts add, carried water blessed at the Shrine when they came to be weighed, in case the verdict went against them. And they wrote that the Measure was never so still as when the beam hung perfectly level.