Northern Lantshire. A chasm-filled wasteland, where the Gnostic Hunter headquarters stood—a charnel house feared the world over.
“Merde. Ah, I am fit to be tied. Vexed. Irate!”
One resident was striding down the hall. Fresh from the front lines, she bore the grime of battle—yet whether this witch counted as human was highly dubious. Her clothes clung to her captivating curves, but there were slits cut all over the cloth, and through those gaps peered living eyes. Compared with those, the barely dry blood covering the rest of her was but a fashion statement.
Yet, no one here reacted to these grotesqueries with fear. The warlocks in the hall gave way out of awe. Hierarchies here were downright primal; whoever had and would slaughter the most earned reverence. The means employed were merely in service of their duty.
“Vivere militare est.”
This cypher made the iron doors part of their own accord. The witch stepped into a windowless room, and every gaze turned her direction. There were three individuals within. One was a towering figure nearly touching the ceiling, much of its bulk swaddled in pale cloth like a newborn babe. On this specter’s face was a porcelain mask. The man beside it had replaced the lower half of his body with a spiderlike golem; above that, he appeared to be a gaunt, high-strung young man. And at the far end of the room stood a burly warlock in the prime of life, with all the gravitas of a monarch or a judge.
Few acts were more futile than wondering who these horrors might be. If, by some mistake, an ordinary beheld them, they would be but doom in different shapes. Told this was the entrance to hell that waited beyond their gallows, all would nod in agreement. Here was a place one step outside this realm—and the first sign of humanity, of recognizable displeasure, came from the man-spider. Folding the two extant human limbs, he followed his action with words.
“Hundred, even returning from the front, you can manage a better appearance. Why replace your makeup with grime? Did you split your prey above your head in lieu of a shower?”
“Hold your tongue, Arachne. I’m not in the mood. Can you believe it? I ran into Aldiss in the thick of it. Cleaning up her half-finished meals has left me with a towering rage—would you care to help me vent it?”
“Hrr-hrr-hrr-hrr…!”
A sinister noise emerged from behind the mask. This was accompanied by a gush of drool that quickly formed a puddle on the table. The resulting din resembled nothing more than the death rattle of aging pipes about to burst from the water pressure. The only indication that this was laughter was the way that towering figure shook, with violence approaching writhing. A laugh it was—just not that of anything human.
The woman called Hundred glanced once at the silent warlock in the back, then at her surroundings—then she raised a brow. She had not expected the jeers at her condition to end so soon.
“…Oh, is the geezer not yet here? Did he finally croak?”
An ancient voice crept up behind her. “Well, sorry to let you down.”
She swung around to find a hooked-nose old man covered in rust-colored bandages, his back so bent, it was like his very skeleton had been crushed. The skin on his hands was so dry, it resembled bark. Yet, the eyes lurking in those hollow sockets were lit by a survivor’s obsession powerful enough to override those prior impressions. He was as heinous as he was hideous, like a ghoul clinging to life by eating the guts out of babies.
“You led an assault on a Sacred Light base. How fared you, Hook Nose?”
At last, the warlock in the back broke his silence. A formal query, yet the ancient ghoul responded by spitting at his feet.
“An empty nest— Well, not entirely, but only rank and file left. Waste of my time. Not even a bishop there to amuse me.”
The warlock’s chin wobbled slightly; interpreting this not as a fidget but a nod, the eldritch witch and the ghoulish geezer took their seats. The spider needed no chair. The hefty table between them was held up by four bizarre legs—each a petrified human. No one here even noticed, let alone brought it up.
They were Gnostic Hunters. Those who protected the order of their world, slaughtering Gnostics, fending off contact with the tír. By any means necessary, by every means they could think up and acquire, abandoning morals, ethics, and humanity in exchange—and many of them did not even bother to retain human form. And the elite eliminators among them gradually slew their way to leadership.
Squint, and the proof presented itself. A looming pile of grisly corpses behind them, an aura no mage could possibly miss. This—and this alone—was unshakable evidence that they belonged here.
Collectively, they were known as the Ostrac Five Rods. Defenders of the world—and those who defined it. As threats bore in from tír lurking beyond the sky the masses beheld, the members’ rods stood firm in that path, drawing a boundary between worlds. Like stakes driven upon the border, chains leaving no gaps between, closing off the very world. Looming like a vow to let nothing change. Firing back at anything that tried to step within. No matter who tried, they would kill it, burn it, and leave no ashes behind.
They killed so that the world would remain closed off, so that their order would remain everlasting. They trampled and incinerated any voice praying for salvation from beyond. No exceptions, no generosity, no compromises. The line they drew had never once shifted. Whether outside influence was invited or accidentally allowed in—there was no escape. All would succumb to their cleansing fires.
Naturally, they fundamentally did not employ namby-pamby bullshit like human rights. Acting like there was a baseline standard for dignity of life was equivalent to being picky about their methodology. And that would mean they’d fail to protect anything. If the need arose, they would light the very world on fire, and they firmly believed that the removal of that pretext would allow tír invasions. The resulting way of life was their spell, their magecraft—and in fact, by following it, they kept the world safe.
“Report in,” the warlock said. “Walch, how fares the great sage you sent to Kimberly?”
The spider, Walch, chuckled. As arrogant as he was ghastly. Like he was providing a textbook example of how a mage ought to laugh.
“…They’re stirring the pot, like I hoped,” he said. “Not a word of protest has come our way—we can assume the situation has Esmeralda’s hands tied.”
“She lost three great mages in a row. If it was not her in charge, she’d not be in charge.”
The ghoul cackled as if he was proof that living too long would distort one’s laugh beyond recognition.
Between the two of them, Hundred scratched her head.
“…That bitch’s face has got me pissed off again. Old man Denis, have you any Sundew’s Blight leaves? Those really clear my mind.”
“Uh…yeah, I got ’em. But they’re brainrot poison, y’know. Louisa, you are the one witch alive who smokes ’em like cigarettes.”
“Then fork one over. Or I’ll walk right out this door and have my way with the first man I see. I’m fine with that, but before I report in? Well, that’d be your problem.”
She shook her head as she spoke, and flecks of dried blood in her hair scattered on the table. Walch’s brow furrowed, and his lips pursed.
Plunged indefinitely into frontline fray, Hundred Louisa had long since lost any hygienic impulse; no matter how filthy she looked or how badly she stank of rot, she still had a siren’s charm capable of drowning any man. And she’d honed her self-control to the point of ignoring any unpleasant side effects. Thus, she could not even be bothered to chant a single purification spell.
The ghoul, Denis, sighed, then reached for his pocket, retrieving a long, thin leaf. Louisa snatched it away, pulled a white wand from her hip, and lit the leaf with a wave. Light crimson smoke rose, and she puckered her lips, inhaling it into her lungs.
“Haaah—”
A blissful exhalation. No papers or pipes required—her skill at spatial magic made this effortless. That McFarlane dandy had once said it lacked flair, but the wave of clarity drove that memory from her mind. Louisa was a firm believer in silencing her brain’s attempts to dwell on the trivial.
“…I’m sure…there won’t be a fourth. It’s an internal feud, clearly,” Louisa whispered, crimson smoke curling from her lips.
Walch nodded, fussily brushing the blood flecks off the table. “That’s the most realistic explanation. Grenville, Forghieri, Aristides—if the three of them went down in rapid succession, some smoldering fire in the faculty ranks has likely burst into an inferno. With that lineup, they’re not short on reasons. Still…”