Grand Inquisitor Cordovin was certain and sure in his footsteps as he strode down the hallowed halls of the Inquisitorialis Sanctum, the great hall that was the home and headquarters of the recently founded organisation dedicated to smothering vile heresy.
Heresy was like a plague, and for far too long Mistral's rulers had held a laissez-faire attitude towards combating it. They trusted in the ability of the Church to preach against wandering heretics and apostates who spread their vile lies to the easily swayable masses. It was not the fault of the peasantry that the Goddess had seen fit to make them servants when building the world into one of order and sense and sanity, and it was merely a test of their faith when the Goddess saw fit to bless a misguided heretic or foolish apostate with a silver tongue with which they charmed the horde of peasants. They had to challenge the heretic and prove to the people the word of the Goddess, and only Her word, was true.
It did not help matters that the savage Atlesians, barbaric Vacuoans and imbecilic Valeans all held to Gods of their own. The most common was the faith of the Brothers, who in actuality were demons who tried tricking the Goddess and locking her away so that they could rule the world to their whims. The spread of that foolish, disgusting religion had been unfortunately fuelled by the aversion of the Church to its spread in Mistral. To a fool it would seem like an attempt to stop the word of what they believed to be 'true' deities spreading, when it was simply a case of protocol. The Church couldn't stand by and let damaging propaganda spread, not when the souls of believers were at sake, and it did not help that King Alexandros had allowed the false religion to spread.
He argued it was because his family long ago swore to uphold the right of religion to the Mistrali people, but Cordovin did not doubt for a moment the foolish king saw it as a chance to weaken the Church by encouraging a rival religion. The cult of the Brothers had taken root in Atlas and Vale, whereas Vacuo remained held back by their adherence to their desert gods. Mistral remained a bastion of the one true faith, the Inquisition having done its part in the years following its creation to stamp out what heresy had taken root.
King Alexandros' significantly wiser successor, her Imperial Majesty Maxima Regina Deidamia, had created the Inquisition to purge the heresy her father had allowed to take root. Cordovin often found herself struggling to compare the former King, and not Summus Rex as he did not deserve the honour, to his significantly more well-mannered, pious daughter. Rumours had long spread of Regina Deidamia's mother, Queen Mother Deianira, of having an affair with a guard or serving boy or even a slave in the Royal household.
Cordovin was normally above such petty gossiping, but she could not think of any other way a man like Alexandros Nikos could have such a perfect daughter like Deidamia Nikos.
Still, the who and how did not change who her Imperial Majesty was, nor how great a ruler she was. Mistral flourished as the Goddess sent her blessings to the land to reward her believers for finally dealing with the unbelievers who had plagued their lands for too long. Harvests were full and the lands more fertile than ever. The dragons grew less unruly and in some cases even slain, allowing for the expansion of the free areas of Mistral not under their fiery oppression.
The reign of King Alexandros was much less prosperous. The Church found itself strained as it fought against a rising tide of heresy that took away believers and so reduced its incomes. Charity suffered, and the poor grew ever more destitute as their main protector, the Church, grew too poor to effectively care for them. The dragons, perhaps sensing Mistral's growing disunity and weakness, struck suddenly and expanded the domains they dominated, weakening the Kingdom and the Church further and worsening the downward spiral they faced.
King Alexandros had done little to help matters. The disgruntlement with the Church meant it lost power, power it had used to challenge the excesses of the King. Depravity filled the streets as he encouraged artists and poets and playwrights. Some called it a cultural renaissance. Cordovin called it an era of popularised degeneracy. She had even been forced to move from her home in Haven to the outskirts of the frontier town her brother was Lord over after witnessing young men and women dancing together, unchaperoned and wearing revealing clothes that spat in the face of propriety and the modesty encouraged by the benevolent Goddess they owed their existence to.
Thankfully the Goddess had acted to end the reign of the fool, jester King as swiftly as she could. The Goddess had been merciful, giving King Alexandros numerous chances to repent his immoral ways, chances he refused at every corner. So the Goddess had taken him young, sending him a disease that made his flesh rot and his skin peel away. King Alexandros died at the age of twenty-nine, a man in his prime, and so the crown passed to her Imperial Majesty Deidamia, who was merely nine. Due to her youth she could not rule by herself, and so the Queen Mother became her daughters regent. Thankfully Deianira did not share her the poor taste of her husband, and Maxima Regina Deidamia had been raised to be a pious and proper Queen.
The Queen Mother had done her best to stabilise Mistral to make her daughters ascent to the throne all the more easier, however the kingdom was still in a dire state when the Maxima Regina finally came of age. The Church seemed on the precipice of defeat against the rising tide of heresy, the dragons seemed like they were ready conquer the entirety of Mistral and the world itself seemed like it was at an end.
The Maxima Regina eased any concerns by creating the Inquisition to hunt down heresy and outlawing any religion other than the one, true faith. There had been protests and riots and violence against the decision, but the Keepers of the Truth helped suppress the heretics and ne'er-do-wellers.
Founded in the waning days of King Alexandros' reign and flourishing in the regency of Maxima Regina Deidamia, the Keepers of the Truth formed to counter the roaming, violent gangs of heretics who sought to violently convert true believers to their false ways and false gods. They were, in all respects, the Inquisition's predecessors, and once the Maxima Regina formed the Inquisition many Keepers of the Truth signed in to join.
Cordovin was ashamed to admit she had not joined the Keepers of the Truth due to her duty to her brother, who contracted an illness he did not recover from and would eventually die to. He had no heir, and as her mother disinherited Cordovin for her misguided, wild actions and decisions she had made as a youth her house had come to an end and the lands her family had ruled over were seized by the Crown. Another family knew ruled her familial lands, though she did not blame anyone but herself for the situation. Of anything it was a blessing from the Goddess she had been a wild youth that her kosher had been forced to disavow. She would be the lady of her lands if she hadn't been, but because she was she had managed to become the Grand Inquisitor of the Inquisition, the very first to hold the role.
It had been a close run thing, especially as many old timers remembered her younger self and the stupid, almost heretical things she had done. But Cordovin's dedication to the faith had worn them down until they had made her their leader, something she swore not to let them down on.
That had been years ago though, and now she found herself struggling to think of what to do next. Heresy had been violently stamped out from its former strongholds in Mistral, the heretics fighting savagely against her dedicated, determined Inquisitors in many a violent battle and ultimately proving the falseness of what they preached and proclaimed by suffering ignominious defeat after ignominious defeat at the hands of her holy warriors.
She shook her head from her musings and entered her office, where she found the waiting figures of her High Librarian and her Chief Inquisitor.
High Librarian Dudley Dee was a tall man who looked more like a warrior than a librarian. However he had a fondness for books and a quietness that sharply contrasted with the brash young man he had been when he had first joined the Inquisition. The battles he fought in since then had cooled the hot-bloodedness of his youth, and Cordovin did not trust anyone else but him to handle the increasingly large Custos Bibliothecae, the grand library of the Inquisition that was home to dozens of sacred texts and scrolls. It even contained forbidden knowledge, ancient writings that could not be trusted in the hands of the less devout. Not even her Imperial Majesty knew of the knowledge that was hidden behind the thick walls and tucked inside the large shelves of the Custos Bibliothecae, as although Cordovin trusted her Imperial Majesty implicitly she could not guarantee her children, who would share the same blood as King Alexandros, to be as devout or pious or true.
Next to High Librarian Dudley sat her Chief Inquisitor, Dew Indigo, the foremost Inquisitor in the Inquisition bar herself and who would command the Inquisitors in the field of battle, something Cordovin could not do due to her old age. Dew, unlike Dudley, had never lost her thirst for battle, which made a confusingly brilliant yet unwise commander. Her success against heretics had meant that Cordovin gave her the benefit of the doubt, but she always made sure to keep a close eye on the potential loose canon.
"Good evening." Cordovin greeted politely, letting the two of them sit again after they stood and bowed. "I hope you did not have to wait long?"
"We didn't Grand Inquisitor." Dudley smiled. "It gave us time to prepare our reports better."
"Then I look forward to hearing them." Cordovin smiled back, taking in the moment to appreciate the younger man's youthful features, from his unblemished skin to his warm eyes to his brown, tied back hair. "Dew, why don't you start?"
"Of course." Dew nodded, face stern as she began. "The last remnants of the Sect of the Brothers have been wiped out in Argus. The north is now completely free of heretical influence and I have directed the bulk of our forces south, where Inquisitor Nebula reported an increase in heretical activity. I do not believe it could be the Sect of the Brothers, too much of their power and influence was concentrated in the north and is now obliterated. It is likely a new cult dedicated to the false gods."
"Troubling." Cordovin mused. "There haven't been any new heretical cults that formed since the Sect themselves rose to prominence."
"I believe it because the older groups, even the slightly newer group like the Sect of the Brothers, have mostly been extinguished." Dudley smiled. "We've done too good of a job, and now the heretics need to form new groups as the core of the old ones, including their leaders, have been expunged."
"It is a good thing to be too good at something than too atrocious." Cordovin quipped lightly, before turning back to Dew. "How quickly can you deal with this new cult?"
"As soon as my forces are transferred I will hunt them down and extinguish them." Dew swore. "But I admit it will time to move all my Inquisitors south."
Cordovin nodded and smiled politely, but internally she felt herself fume at the thought of her Inquisitors being claimed by an up jumped second daughter so far down the line of her own families succession she might as well have been a pauper.
"I'm sure that any time lost travelling south will be more than made up for with how quickly you operate Dew." Dudley said confidently, giving the woman sat next to him a warm smile. "You are incredibly effective at rooting out heresy."
"Only because you are so effective at giving me accurate information." Dew smiled back, and Cordovin glared at their antics.
"Then I suppose everything is well and sorted then?" She asked, a hint of frustration biting into her tone. She stuck true to the ways of the Goddess, but that did not mean having temptations like Dudley being strung along in front of her only to be distracted by someone else did not irritate her.
"Almost." Dew said, earning a look from Dudley. "You've grown too used to your power Cordovin. You never deserved to be Grand Inquisitor, and if the rumours of you whoring yourself around for votes are true then you certainly never deserved the position."
"Escuse me?!" Cordovin gasped in outrage. "I will have you know that-argh!"
Cordovin cried out in pain as something struck her, and she blinked when she realised there was a trident stabbed into her heart.
"Oh." Cordovin gasped quietly, before her head fell back and her eyes rolled up in terror as fell unconscious from the grisly sight.
She would not open them again.
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"I can't believe we did it." Dudley admitted, and he felt Dew snicker next to him.
"You can't believe that we killed the old hag or that we did that?" She asked, rolling over next him to wrap her arm over his chest. The feel of her naked body pressed against him made him tingly with fear and excitement.
"Both." Dudley admitted. "To be honest I'm surprised we didn't do it sooner."
"I concur." Dew purred. "Ready to do it again?"
"I-I meant killing Cordovin." Dudley clarified, face heating up as she ran her hand in small circles against his chest. "No-one objected to it."
"My people always hated Cordovin for being such a coward." Dew shrugged. "And you have always been the brains behind the operation of keeping the Inquisitorialis Sanctum, and the rest of the Inquisition by extension, running."
"I didn't do that much." Dudley protested weakly, earning a fierce glare from his partner. The glare grew sharper and angrier as Dew thought of something.
"Did Cordovin ever make you do anything?" She demanded, making him blink. "Anything like this?"
"No." Dudley frowned. "Why in the name of the Goddess would you think that?"
"She looked at you as if you were a lamb and she a starving wolf." Dew snorted, tugging him closer. "Now shut up and kiss me. I'm tired of talking."
Dudley happily obliged her request.
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"Are you sure?"
"I am." Dudley nodded firmly, a smile slipping onto his face. "You'd make a brilliant Grand Inquisitor. The fighters love you and even us boring scholarly types respect you. You can bridge us together and unite us after Cordovin's incompetence nearly ran us into the ground."
"Thank you." Dew smiled, eyes darting around them before tugging him close and kissing him suddenly. "We make a great team you and I. I'll be sure to listen to your input High Librarian."
"L-Likewise, Grand Inquisitor." Dudley replied, cheeks heating up again. Damn this woman and the easy way she wrapped him around her alluring finger.
"I'm not Grand Inquisitor yet." Dew smiled, but the self-assuredness in her tone told him she believed it was only a question of when, not if. Dudley believed her. The Inquisition was eager for a blank slate after Cordovin, and Dew was everything Cordovin was not.
"I'm just glad we'll be able to work with the Church more frequently if you do." Dudley admitted. "They have access to a lot of scriptures we don't, and whenever Cordovin was overly zealous in her pursuit of heresy they always restricted my access to them. Do you remember the massacre of Jincho?"
"I was there, of course I do." Dew replied neutrally, making Dudley wince at his lack of mindfulness.
"The Church threatened to excommunicate Cordovin for sanctioning the killing of believers." Dudley continued carefully. "The forbid any Inquisitor access to the First Book of Truth for several months until you smoothed things over by killing the leader of the Sect of the Brothers."
"They shouldn't be able to do that." Dew frowned. "And I don't understand why me becoming Grand Inquisitor will thaw relations with the Church."
"Why not?" Dudley asked, earning a frustrated look from Dew.
"You still seem to think I'm going to change our policy, to go easier on heretics and our pursuit of them just like the Church wants." Dew frowned, frustration bleeding into her tone until it became angry. "We serve the Queen and the Goddess, not the Church. They only want to weaken us by make us softer so that our existence is called into question and they are no longer unchallenged in being the chief arbiter of religious affairs. We will continue to hunt down and destroy heresy, and we will not allow those who harbour or shelter or help heretics in any way, shape or form live to help another apostate or unbeliever."
"The Church will restrict our access to the holy scriptures if you do." Dudley pointed out, a coil of tension curling his stomach.
"If they do then I will take the scriptures from them so you can add them to the Custos Bibliothecae and care for them properly." Dew shrugged. "By force if needs be."
"You can't be serious." Dudley blinked, and Dew sighed angrily.
"I am, I won't let them railroad us when we've been the only ones defending the faith in recent years." Dew replied, and he shook his head and stepped backwards. "Where are you going?"
"To do my job and think." Dudley replied, leaving Dew behind in the hallway as he ran like the coward he was and tried to put his problems behind him by running from them. Dew's time on the field had changed her, and Dudley was starting to think that she might have grown into the monster she always feared she'd become.
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"It's the massacre of Jincho all over again, or so I've heard."
"Apparently the Maxima Regina is furious and wants to remove the Grand Inquisitor from her position."
"Careful Initiate, it was Cordovin who believed her Imperial Majesty deserved the title of Maxima Regina and campaigned for her to be recognised as such. The new Grand Inquisitor is of a different mind."
"But Queen Deidamia founded the Inquisition! She's as pious as they come!"
"You're preaching to the converted Initiate. It's the Grand Inquisitor and her lackey's who believe otherwise, not me, so spare your words and your breathe.
Dudley barely listened to the raging gossip as he hurried through the hallowed halls of the Inquisitorialis Sanctum towards the office of the Grand Inquisitor, the word of the slaughter at Dinzhau only just reaching him.
Apparently Dew's Inquisitor's had slaughtered an entire town in the south for harbouring heretics belonging to the Cult of the True Gods, the successor cult to the Sect of the Brothers that had arisen in the aftermath of the latter's destruction at Dew's hands in Argus. Their campaign against the heretics had long been stalled due to the ease with which they disappeared from their sermons on the streets in southern cities, and it seemed like Dew had put an entire town to the sword to try and lure them out.
Had this been what they were created for? Was this why Dew fought so fiercely for the right of the Inquisition to exist? So that they could murder their fellow believers due to the actions of small minority?
"What have you done?" Dudley demanded, storming inside Dew's office and making her look up from some paperwork with a look of painfully fake affection.
"I'm well sweetheart, how are you?" She retorted, putting on a mocking tone. "You just know how to brighten my day lover boy."
"Dinzhau!" Dudley barked. "Did you order for that massacre to happen?"
"Of course I did." Dew shrugged indifferently. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Hundreds of believers have been slaughtered because of you!"
"They were traitors who helped vile heretics hide away from the justice they so rightfully deserved." Dew sighed, giving him a sad look before pouring him a drink and gesturing for him to sit. "Sit down and I will explain what happened. There is some information you need to be aware of."
Dudley wanted to protested, but the pleading look on her face made him cave, and he cursed his weak mind. He swore to play nice for now, but if Dew refused to see reason he would have to take the gloves off and make her see sense no matter what.
He sat down with a heavy sigh and accepted the drink, giving it a sip so as to seem polite. The taste was tangy and sweet, and Dudley found himself swaying slightly as a clouded fog descended on his mind.
"I didn't want to do this Dudley, least of all to you." Dew said, her voice echoing in his mind like she was speaking into a cave. He frowned and tried to sleep, only for the words to come out in a slurred gargle. "You need to drink more for it to work Dudley. Drink more."
The command echoed in his mind and he raised the cup to his lips again and downed the rest of the drink. HIs arm fell limp and his eyes closed, his head lolling as Dew's sweet voice echoed in his eyes.
"The Goddess showed me how to make it in a dream Dudley. We, the Inquisition, we have a destiny to fulfil, and I have to lay the foundation for our future greatness. I can't ask you to understand, not in the state you're in now and the state you will be in, but I hope I can have your forgiveness."
Dudley tried to speak, but the best he could do was open and close his mouth weakly.
"Sleep." Dew commanded. Dudley slept.
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"How fares your day High Librarian?" The Grand Inquisitor asked, and Dudley startled at her sudden appearance in the Custos Bibliothecae.
"Grand Inquisitor!" He gasped. "You startled me."
"I sincerely apologise." The Grand Inquisitor smiled, stepping closer towards him in a familiar way that was at odds with what he could remember from the aloof but awe-inspiring Grand Inquisitor. "Apart from being scared by yours truly, how fares you day?"
"Well, thank you very much." He replied, rolling his eyes at her accusation of him being frightened, earning a giggle that startled him. It contrasted sharply with what he knew of her, and for an odd reason it felt familiar. "I've just been searching through old reports to store them away. I intend to have a great storage room filled with reports and orders so that later generations of Inquisitors can learn what we did and, if we made earn, do their best not to repeat our mistakes."
"An honourable initiative High Librarian." The Grand Inquisitor smiled, and he found himself emboldened by the familiarity with which she held herself.
"If I may, why are you here Grand Inquisitor?" He asked curiously, and as politely as he could. "I -we- seldom see you here in the Custos Bibliothecae."
"I...I missed..." She shook her head. "It is nothing. I rarely come here as I have sour memories being made to study here by Grand Inquisitor Cordovin."
"She was a vile woman." Dudley frowned, and the Grand Inquisitor nodded in agreement.
"She was." The Grand Inquisitor said, her voice growing distant as she stared at the paper in his hand. "What is that?"
"This? It's a report, an old one though from a certain Inquisitor Nebula." Dudley answered, looking down to give the paper a proper read through after hearing a strange waver in the Grand Inquisitors tone. "It's about a massacre at...Dinzhau?"
Dudley frowned and looked up at the Grand Inquisitor, seeing tears shining in her eyes. His memories slammed back into his mind like a tidal wave, and her hand slammed over his mouth and forced him back against a bookshelf before he could say anything. He groaned as dizziness blurred his vision after his head thudded against the thick wood, and as he tried to move, tried to speak, tried to push away his former lover he felt something cold slam into his chest.
"I'm sorry." Dew whispered tearfully, her voice echoing in his mind once again but in a significantly different way to when she drugged him. "You always found out. You always realised. The potion never worked on you Dudley...I had to. I'm so sorry but I had to."
Dudley tried to speak, but his words were muffled by her hand and in response she buried her head into the crook of his neck and started to sob, even as she gripped onto the hilt of the dagger she thrust into his chest.
His last thoughts were filled with the irony that the woman he loved had stabbed him through the heart.
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The massacre of Dinzhau, done when the memory of what happened to Jincho was fresh in the mind of Queen Deidamia and the Church and Mistral as a whole, caused backlash against the Inquisition that nearly toppled the institution in its earliest days. All though adamant what occurred had been the right course of action at first, Grand Inquisitor Dew Indigo agreed to hand Inquisitor Nebula Violette, the orchestrator of the massacre, to the Crown to be trialled for her crimes. The Inquisitor pleaded not guilty, but was found guilty and for her crimes she was burned at the stake like a heretic. The Grand Inquisitor agreed to put the Inquisition under the Crown and the Church's oversight in return for the legal ability to recruit promising children into becoming Initiate and later Inquisitors.
The Inquisition would be a minor force for Mistrali politics for decades after, becoming a mere pawn in greater games between the Church and the Crown. After the Church refused to anoint the heir of Queen Deidamia the Second, nearly one hundred years after Deidamia the First crushed the independence of the Inquisition Deidamia the Third gave the Inquisition it's autonomy back in return for Grand Inquisitor Scarlet anointing her Queen.
The Inquisition remained locked in the struggle between Church and Crown, but it became a deciding figure in which side became the more dominant rather than a mere pawn being bickered over by the two. Eventually it would surpass the Church in power and influence, and over time it decided to act more and more like the balancing force checking the otherwise absolute power of the monarch. Questions are constantly raised over its undue influence over Mistral, something that only grew all the more further after it was given further powers to operate in Atlas-Vale following the Great War, a move seen by many as an attempt by the King of Mistral to divert the Inquisition's attention and resources elsewhere, giving the Nikos family greater reign to run Mistral like in the days of old.
Only time will tell if this ploy, if such a ploy existed, will succeed.