Inquisitor’s report on cultists and the threat they pose to the Empire, Year 696 CR.
High Cleric Hermanus,
There are those whose minds are so twisted that they seek dissolution above everything else, and I fear they have once again taken root in the city. Consider this missive as both a plea and a warning, as I believe it is necessary to marry the two. We have long battled those who follow the path of the void. The anarchists. The nihilists. A ‘brotherhood’ only through the most egregious perversion of the word.
Hypocrites. All of them.
Claiming to seek dissolution and instead doing everything in their power to remain among us as enemies.
I have spent a great deal of time studying the enemy. And I believe it is necessary to increase our presence in the darkest places so as to displace them from their burrows.
To bring them to the light.
To deliver them divine judgement.
I shall describe what I know here, so that you, too, may understand what I understand. I am sure you will agree once you do.
The First Order
We shall know them by their words.
The claim to be anarchists. To reject order and stability. Reject the rule of law. Reject the blessings of the gods in favor of blasphemy.
They are pretenders.
This is only the first step in their twisted thinking. It is what allows them to break from what is good, and begin the path to darkness. To nothing. To the void.
First is a choice to wallow in despair.
The Second Order
We shall know them by their deeds.
They begin with simple acts of rebellion. A small defiance of duty. A man who abandons his Lord. A woman who forfeits children. A servant who takes too much from his master. Or, alternately, one who denies his master what is due.
They are selfish.
This is the second step, crossing the space between their twisted mind and the world we share. The consequences must be felt immediately, harshly, lest they be emboldened. Without such, their minds become more twisted. They begin to believe that what they do is of no consequence to the world, and the world of no consequence to them.
Second is a bridge that brings the darkness to the world.
The Third Order
We shall know them by their reaping.
They gather in numbers, finding each other like flies. They scheme and plot, seeking to destroy the Temple and all who stand with it. In each other they find community, but it is a false community. They prey on each other in deviant ways, and, believing the world will not punish them, prey on the innocent.
They are dangerous.
Here, my friend, is the greatest threat. In the many they act. In the many they pillage. In the many they convince others to join them, promising riches or pleasure, and innocent will fall into their ranks. In doing so they are corrupted, and the disease spreads.
Third is the plague that spreads darkness across the land.
The Fourth Order
We shall know them by their madness.
This is what I have learned of the cultists – they seek absolute dissolution. Not just for the Temple, nor the gods, nor the structures of man. No. Once the structures of man have been destroyed – the buildings, the institutions, the cultures – when the darkness has nowhere left, it turns inward, toward themselves.
They are insane.
They claim to hear it. They believe the void calls to them. The great nothing. The absence of anything.
Not the grave.
Not empty space.
Nothing.
Anything else would be something.
They do not give it a name like a god – to name it would give it shape and make it become something. Even referring to the void as an it is to say it is something.
It is nothing.
And if it is nothing, how can it call to them?
They wish to reduce the world to nothing, by whatever means available to them.
Fourth is the end of everything.
Interrogations
I have interrogated the cultists on many occasion, and, rarely, even those of the Fourth Order. They are maddening to listen to, speaking nonsensically for hours. Even removal of their tongues does not quiet them, they simply see it as becoming closer to the nothing they seek.
One girl, young, caught in the sewers beneath the city, nearly spoke it clearly.
“Draw a shape in the mud. Wipe the mud clean. Now describe what is drawn.”
Reclamation failed to save her.
Duty
I implore the order – cut this disease from the city before the infection spreads. Do not fear for their souls. If anything, we shall hasten the completion of their own eventuality. Should we fail in this charge, I fear greatly for the Empire, and our Beloved City.
Humbly,
Darrien