Chapter 1

Sergeant Igol stood on a stool, in front of the bar. His shoulders were awkwardly placed and his back was bent forward towards the bar. In his hand he held a half-empty bottle of booze. Always half-empty. Story of his life. He felt a feeling courress through his throat. Was that the word? There was something wrong with that word... He burped, and some flem, or possibly just normal old sick (how drunk was he now?), landed with precision on the top of the Ye Olde Arm's tap. Ah well, serves it right for butchering English.

Igol was kicked out of the pub at that point, but he didn't care. He had he half-empty bottle of wine (or was it beer?), and he had a night to waste away. He could waste the whole world away. He took another gulp of the bottle, and, after a long while, discovered that he'd finished the bottle. Sadness dawned upon him, and he ended it then and there, by falling asleep in the alleyway.

The trash bin was a surprisingly comfortable bed.


Crime had increased considerably in Ireland. Ever since the wax museum Irish Sanctuary was destroyed, Cleavers had been in short abundance and morality was weakened. The only surviving Cleavers of the massacre were the ones who had been busy at the time, about ten, and one who had been sick with a hangover. About six had been recruited since then.

Any other day Moral Kosher would have been sacked, probably even if it was a genuine cold. But, when resources are limited, you don't discard them, no matter how useless they were. Cleavers as a profession were also in decline. There was a time when 50 Cleavers would be considered a small amount. These days, they had less than half than that. It was only expectable, what with Cleavers constantly dying. Whenever anything happened, at least one Cleaver would be killed. Or horribly experimented on. Or horribly experimented on and then killed.

Looking back at the past few years, a few instances stuck out, mostly to do with that detestable Pleasant character. Firstly, there was that whole White Cleaver mess that still hasn't been properly sorted out. Then there was that instance with the Grotesquery. And we can't forget about that time where, after fighting a bunch of Hollow Men, the Faceless Ones broke through into the world…

And let's not get started on the pay


The two gangs stared opposite to each other. Gang war was common in this town, not because it was particularly filled with gangs, in fact there were only the two, it was just the two just really liked fighting. Really. Sometimes with swords. Sometimes with magic. Whatever floated their boat at the time. This time, they were using magic and guns.

Two of the West gang members ran with machine guns and snuck up behind the others and attempted to go gangster-crazy on the East side. Bullets burst through one of the East's chest, and they fell to the floor, rather not surprisingly, dead. The others were quicker, activating symbols on their bodies that stopped the bullets from simply tearing through their skins.

One of the Easts rose into the air, waves in the air flying generically, with their eyes turning into pure black orbs. Fire shot one of the Wests in the shoulder, who promptly exploded all over the place.

A West quickly pulled out a handgun, and shot directly at the East's orb eyes, which were rather conveniently somehow unaffected by the symbol magic. The East's eyes turned red, and then topped it off by imploding.

One of the Easts followed this turn of events by running away.