When I first joined PIE, my service was almost immediately interrupted by deployment to the warzone. PIE did not have an option of direct enlistment in the war, so I deployed with Taskforce 641. I left before I had the opportunity to fully assume my place within the corporation. My return was therefore not automatic. Before I was permitted to rejoin its ranks, I underwent a series of interviews and examinations, both mental and physical, conducted by Arline Kley. They were intended to determine whether the years of conflict had refined my purpose or fractured it. Only once that question was undoubtably answered was I allowed to stand among PIE again, and it was in the quiet aftermath of that process that I undertook my pilgrimage, not to prove myself, but to ensure that my will, faith, and service were fully aligned before moving forward.
It felt like home as I walked through the doors.
Six months have passed since I completed my pilgrimage, and only now do I fully understand what it asked of me. At the time, I believed it was in part of walking a path of remembrance, honoring the Empire’s past, its sacrifices, and its symbols. I have learned that it was more than that, it was a reckoning, quiet and unyielding, one that did not demand understanding in the moment, only obedience to reflection.
At Amarr Prime, beneath the eternal vigil of the Coronation Honor Guard, I was reminded of humility. The Empire does not revolve around any single will, no matter how capable, but endures through continuity and devotion carried across generations. Among the wreckage of Mekhios and Safizon, I confronted loss without comfort, the cost of hesitation and fracture made manifest in shattered hulls and silent stars. Fort Kumar spoke not of glory, but of endurance, of standing when withdrawal would have been easier, of holding faith when the outcome was uncertain. Huola demanded conviction, faith tested not in ceremony, but in blood and fire, where decisions were swift and consequences absolute.
Each place offered a lesson, though none explained itself. I carried those lessons forward without fully grasping their weight at the time.
I do now.
The pilgrimage did not prepare me for elevation, nor did it seek to refine ambition. It prepared me for accountability. It stripped away pride, impatience, and the need to be seen, leaving only clarity. When I later accepted the mantle of Paladin within PIE, I understood it not as recognition, but as obligation, a continuation of service rather than a culmination of it.
The warzone has change since then, it always flows back and forth, and yet, so have I. The truth revealed during that journey has not faded with time. It guides every command I issue, every system I contest, every decision made in service to the Throne and the people who rely upon it. Faith without vigilance becomes hollow ritual, and vigilance without faith becomes cruelty. Both lessons were written into that pilgrimage long before I was ready to write them.
That duty endures.
((Link to last post: Return to the Light))