Saint Loretto’s Chapel was a completely different world, isolated from the suffering that brewed in its deepest dungeon and the strife of the demihumans trying to escape the forest surrounding it. If you were to ask any nun or even one of the children going about their day in the Chapel, they’d probably talk about the uneventful life they had.

And yet, despite how disconnected it was, one of the Sisters could feel each of the screams that died on the walls of the dungeon, echoing loudly in her dreams and shaking her sleep.

The skies were already darkening in preparation for a coming storm when Arianna opened her eyes and her consciousness returned from a long and unfulfilling nap. Lethargy abandoned her body at its usual slow pace, while the world around her manifested once again: her bed was still on the furthest nook of the nuns’ quarters, comfortably pressed against one of the corners and away from the annoying windows and their glare of morning light. Not like that was a problem right now —when Sister Arianna sat up on her bed, she could clearly see how everyone else had already left long ago, and the growing darkness outside indicated the coming of twilight..

They were all working already. Either cleaning the chapel, preparing dinner or praying on their own, the life of a nun was not specially relaxed! Anyone else would have been quite stressed to find out they woke up so late in the day, and yet Sister Arianna was free from such concerns.

They are probably still badmouthing me for it, those rats… ugh, they’re all in the bad list.

As Father Enrico’s personal scribe, Arianna was allowed some freedom when it came to her sleeping habits. It was all so she could make up for the nights of endless work! Hers was a very important position, in charge of copying the contents of old Saintified Manuscripts and cranking out new editions of the Prologues of the Saints for any humble man or woman who wished to join their flock (in exchange for a little donation to the chapel, of course). But maybe most important of all, she had the sacred duty of recording and translating all notes Father Enrico made in his private investigation.

Arianna’s already grumpy expression soured even more just by thinking about it, a hand going up from her face to her messy, thick locks of black hair. That damned investigation, an endeavor fitting for an aging, decaying mind and his outrageous, self-aggrandizing ideals. The nun had to physically stop herself from spitting in disgust as she forced her legs back to life, sliding off her warm, comfortable, oh so inviting bed.

Hooray, another day! With some good luck, that old man’s heart will pop today. Either his or mine if I’m lucky enough…

…I’m never lucky enough.

With a rude, loud grunt, the woman stretched both arms up and tried to push the laziness away from her body— to no avail. It was as useless as every morning, for she had been born tired and she would probably die just as tired. Sitting in front of one of the few mirrors in the room just confirmed it: two huge bags hanging from her hazelnut eyes, old friends that never went away no matter how much she slept through the day.

Arianna Blair, you are a disaster.

The nun sighed, shaking her head slowly before rummaging through her things in the one drawer assigned to her: she was looking for her note book and a quill. Before she could do anything else in the day, Ari wanted to be done with last night as soon as possible.

Alright. Today 's task list. First, get done with last night’s log. Secondly, properly wake up. Thirdly, go have food with the others. Fourthly…Hmmmn... Ugh. Just. Go do whatever else and then go to sleep.

Another sigh. Arianna was way too sleepy to make up a list for the day, so she simply tried to focus on the task at hand. The inkwell opened with a soft little pop. Arianna dunked the tip of her quill in the cheap ink and, with a practiced motion, tapped it twice so the excess would drop down before opening the book to quickly summarize.

“On the Seventh Moon of Abrilum, Demiurge Enrico Agapello performed another test with the recently adjusted Divine Coordinator…”

Oh don’t make me laugh!

She had to stop herself there for a moment. Having to speak in such grandiose terms about a deranged man and his broken toy pushed Ari to gag, so she often needed a break or two to put her moral objections down.

There’s a duty to fulfill… just a bit longer, just a bit longer. Don’t worry, we’ll get him, he’s on the bad list.

Taking deep breaths and railing her anger down, the nun went back to write

“Uriel the Sixth has been missing for three months so far, and with negotiations between the Demiurge and our supplier breaking down recently, he has resorted once again to pick a suitable vessel from the Flock.”

Again she needed to pause. To speak of children as if they were livestock, Ari needed to steel her determination a bit more. She simply couldn’t understand how it was so easy for the other Sisters to just go with the flow of the old man’s lunacy, and often she cursed the day she had learned how to read and write. If someone, anyone else knew, they could have been picked for this sort of labor instead of her. But sadly, the surveillance duty had fallen onto her.

I just HAD to go through with education, didn’t I…? I could have just been a relatively smart whore! But no. I had to go study…

She forced herself to go on.

“Subject 8 was picked due to her combative nature and already high resonance with Uriel’s former vessel. She was put under and prepared to be connected to the Coordinator, alongside the Neutral element.”

Ah yes, the “Neutral” element for scale. That poor bastard.

That little redhead was one of the few reasons Arianna continued on with this charade. Her unusual physical resistance had made her the perfect test subject, despite her absolutely non-existent attunement to the Arcane. The machine never produced a single positive result on her, and yet the process itself did not kill her… Ari would go as further as to say that she grew more and more resistant to it with each instance.

The idiot has a literal mystery on his hands and he uses her as a testing rat!!

The nun shook her head, trying to keep herself controlled and yet feeling the emotion overwhelm her. It was both curiosity and concern, for she knew the type of man Enrico was, and if she decided to leave the girl in his hands, Gabrielle would be used until she finally broke down. And she desperately needed to stop it, no matter what it took.

“Due to the Scribe’s moral objection, the subject was put under with the usage of mandragora syrup. The Neutral remains immune to its effects despite the high concentration of the dosage.”

Arianna sighed, shaking her head. Gabi did not make things easy in the slightest: no matter how high the concentration, using the “sleep sponge” method on her did not even shake her! A single sniff was enough to knock out any other girl, and even Ari herself felt dizzy when opening the bottle of syrup, but Gabrielle only fell asleep after being pushed through her pain limits.

Why can’t she just fall asleep…? During the night the girl doesn’t wake up at all, yet when we need her to sleep she’s unshakeable!

Sigh.

“After that, subject and neutral were connected to the Coordinator as per usual procedure. Result: Failure, the subject could not withstand the process and her body ceased all functions after ten minutes. The corpse has been disposed off–”

Like a saint’s damned butchered pig, down the damned river!

The nun cut herself off right there, anger being far too much for the nun to endure any longer. She completely disregarded the writing and passed the pages of her book, until finding a particularly rough, discolored page lost among the many empty yellowish ones. With fury pushing through her veins, Arianna almost stabbed the paper as she scratched and wrote:

“I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE.”

Throwing the quill back into the inkwell, Ari stared as the words sunk deeper into the paper, sucked up by its fabric, until fading completely. Magic in its most controlled form, a trick so simple yet so powerful—It was ironic, really, that such a frantic and violent search was looking for magic in all the wrong places, while a little Miracle hid right under the nose of the so-called Demiurge.

Not that an idiot like him could know. If it doesn’t shake the earth beneath his feet, I am sure Enrico wouldn’t accept it as magic.

Soon enough, new words began to emerge from the pale piece of paper, phrases written in an elegant, flowing handwriting. Western dialect, as it was expected of the Chamber Priest: most high ranking members of the Church of the Saints didn’t really bother with any other sort of language, despite how far and wide the religion had expanded in the last two hundred years.

“Sister, I understand your concern and I really wish there was another way, but we cannot have you abandon your post when things are already so close.”

Arianna grumbled out loud, rubbing her face with both hands for a moment. Of course she was expecting him to say that, for that’s exactly the same answer she received every time she hit her wits’ end. It had been years since she saw the Chamber Priest, and yet she could perfectly picture the apologetic grimace on the old man’s face. Worst of all is that she couldn’t really blame him.

He’s still going on the bad list… just, very, very low in it. Maybe the last one before myself.

So many names had been scribbled in the nun’s imaginary “bad list”, and yet she remembered every single one of them. People in desperate need of some retribution going their way, mostly dimwits, cruel tyrants or just some inconvenient sods standing in her way. It was really rare that Arianna did anything about those names in the list, but keeping track of it really did wonders for her anger issues.

The Chamber Priest’ words faded soon enough from the page, sucked into the paper so Ari could write her own answer.

“Every year we have allowed this to happen is more children that die and suffer at the hands of this man. His heretical experiments have gone on long enough!!”

It was a blessing that the Miracle paper could resist the aggressive scratches of Arianna’s righteous indignation. A pause… the words sank and faded away before the woman received her answer.

“I have been trying to call the attention of the rest of the Chamber Council for years now, and you know it. But it is not as easy as simply telling them about this: if I were to spill the beans directly, and cry to the skies about a heretical priest and his experiments, do you know what would happen!?”

Of course.

Arianna sighed and closed her eyes, pinching the bridge of her nose. Yes, she knew what would happen and she did not like to think about it in the slightest. When the Chamber Council of the Genesis Corps learns of a hotspot of Heresy, they don’t usually take things lightly: they are efficient in their quick arrival and thorough cleansing of the spot.

But they usually didn’t content themselves with just that.

“...Scorched earth.” She wrote.

“Scorched earth.” Answered the Chamber Priest.

Magic has been forbidden for so long, people had forgotten how dangerous it was back in the day! Arianna herself never lived through it, but during her training in the Genesis she learned of the strife, the pain and the anguish caused by mages without proper education. Reality was a fickle thing, tampered with to such an extent that the very Gods punished and rejected Humanity for their hubris. Of course, Ari didn’t use to feel so negatively about magic when she was younger! It’s in the very nature of a human to feel wonder and hope! But since she had been put in charge of looking over this tiny chapel lost in the east… one could say she understood the Gods’ repulsion much better now.

But not to the point where Genesis used to push it.

In a perfect world, Magic would simply be taught and regulated in some way, and that’s what Arianna and other members of her Chamber thought! Their merciful ideals coalesced in Giovanni, their Chamber Priest and representative in the Council. But they were a minority in a cell full of extremists. After all, it was much easier to merely destroy magic when detected, and erase all witnesses to avoid its spread. Magic is an infectious thing, after all…

This sort of ravenous, violent nature, had made the people of Jericho know the Genesis by a far less loving moniker:

The Brotherhood of Black Pages.

For all that could be saved from their visits would be charred books.

A bunch of lunatics and savages…

“I am doing my absolute best to call attention to this situation, enough for it to send some of our people to you and take care of the situation, but not enough for them to freak out and go all out… Please. I know that each life that has been lost is precious, but you’re protecting many more by working with us like this. Just a little longer.”

More words from the priest. Arianna despised his humane attitude, for it made her feel all the more guilty for resenting his slow approach. She couldn’t fault his logic though, not at this point.

“Fine!! But please keep me updated. May the Will push you on.”

The nun smacked her book, closing it with a loud, angry gesture without even bothering to read the man’s polite goodbyes. She wouldn’t even bother finishing her report either, for the anger had dissolved the thick layer of icey cynicism she worked all day on producing. Between the dull work and the lack of sleep, it was harder to care about things.

She went through the daily ordeal of trying to tame the beast that was her hair, dress up on her habit, spray some lemon juice on herself and then simply move on to the door… today would be another long day. Enrico would work on his own tonight, so Ari would have the chance to work on more copies to spread the faith or, at least, get some sleep during work hours…

First to go get some food, secondly to go to the relicarium so I can start working on more copies, thirdly to simply sleep until my sleeping schedule matched once again with the other sisters! It’s a nice, short list today.

But no matter how accommodating the schedule sounded, she could still feel the indignation burn inside her chest. In all honesty, she was mostly concerned about the fate of the few children left in the chapel; if it were in Arianna's hands, she would let all adults in the church burn down with it.

So many people on the bad list, so little time… I swear, if the place ends up burning I wouldn't even bat an eye.

“Look who’s back from sleepyland!”

The voice of Sister Alejandra called from the other side of the door, as Arianna was just opening it. The taller woman on the other side sported a cocky smile, as she often did when speaking to her smaller “comrade” (as Alejandra herself said).

“Are you feeling alright? Enrico is working you to death lately…” Alejandra crossed her arms and shook her head a bit, blond braids waving from side to side. “You must be so hungry, comrade! I secured your portion on today’s dinner so, if we move fast you’ll still get some of the good stuff. Are you coming?”

Arianna didn’t even have time to say hello, and this woman had read her mood like an open book. They had joined the chapel as convent nuns at around the same time, and they had connected so quickly that it even scared Ari herself a little bit. Alejandra was not part of Genesis, she was but another regular member of the cloister… but she was the only one Ari felt some semblance of trust.

“Let’s go then, before Tasce starts feeling too good about my absence.”

Alejandra nodded, pulling Arianna by her sleeve and simply guiding her through the hallways… and in the meantime, the smaller nun just smiled a bit to herself. Ah yes, these were the things that reminded her why she took this job. Why she still tried to care.

Okay, she’s on the good list.