The rain fell hard in sheets across the lush green and red plains of the Penumbra borderlands, the sky a deep bruised purple of roiling clouds lit only by the occasional flash of unnatural red lightning. Here, on the southern fringes of man's frontier in Tierra Muerta, arcane storms like this were common; a side-effect of the proximity to Penumbra, the dark realm ruled by the Sorcerer Queen Nomeni. The Sorcerer Queen was considered by those who knew of such things to be the significantly lesser of the evils of the four Dark Powers of Tierra Muerta. It was rare that she extended her authority beyond her realm through force, apparently content to send arcane storms to harass the settlers close to her borders.
There were those who believed Nomeni's storms were, in fact, a gift; the heavy rain and crackling energy made the soil of the Penumbra borderlands more fertile than most of the regions of the human frontier. Lush grassland and palm forests lined the border, breaking up the otherwise inhospitable red sand wastelands, and fields of wild red berries and poppies dotted the landscape. Freshwater springs and rivers snaked throughout the region, and life thrived. Little wonder then that here, in the southernmost tip of Tierra Muerta's human frontier, there were groups of men and women who not only tolerated the proximity to The Sorcerer Queen, but worshipped her as a benevolent goddess. The cult of Nomeni was tolerated here by the other settlers; seen as mostly a bothersome inconvenience at worst, and members were known to inevitably make the pilgrimage into Penumbra itself sooner or later anyway, never to be heard from again.
However, Nomeni was not the only goddess worshipped here. In the small township of Extasis, six miles north of the Penumbra border, the Church of Mother Night held sway. While most of the fractured remnants of humanity in Tierra Muerta worshipped The Divine Radiance, the God of Law and Light, or Pan, the intersex deity of Nature, the Land and the Harvest, there were still many who gave their worship to the third deity of man; the unknowable Goddess of Night, The Moon, Feminine Power and Lust: Mother Night. In the Chapel of Dark Ecstasy, on this stormy night, seven new devotants were being inducted and into the church's ranks... Or rather, six new devotants, and one hunter.
The black stone chapel's interior was warm, dry, and lit by sweet-scented candles and braziers of acrid flame. Soft, ethereal music chimed from an ancient brass music box, barely audible over the hammering thrum of rain upon the tiled chapel roof. Seven braziers of black stone, each carved and shaped like a spread vulva with a small, orange flame glowing softly where the clitoris would be, arranged in a seven pointed heptagram shape, lined the stained, deep red carpet of the ritual chamber. In this chamber, Vanity kneeled, naked, part of an inward-facing circle with six other women ranging in age from eighteen to fifty. At each woman's knees were two small marble bowls; one empty, one filled with a warm, sweet-smelling oil. A tall, pale woman, the priestess of the chapel; naked save for a black veil, her large heavy breasts and wide pink areolas shining with oil, slowly walked the circle, stopping at each of the kneeling devotees in turn. Her puffy, freshly shaved pussy, prominent labia already slick, hovered inches from the womens face as she recited an incantation over each one. As she finished, each woman bowed respectfully and kissed her cunt with a long, wet kiss of thanks. Once the blessings had been given and each devotee had kissed her, the priestess stepped back from the circle and clapped once.
From the shadows, a number of figures emerged in deep blue, hooded ceremonial robes; seven in total. Each bowed before the veiled priestess and disrobed, revealing themselves; all men, naked, some with cocks semi-erect, some already fully hard, pre-cum dripping from the tips onto the already stained carpet. They were the male order of devotants to mother night; local men who offered their services in sex magick rituals, some in exchange for blessings, some for payment in silver, others for sex. Whatever payment they received, each man knew it was a great honour to contribute their part to a ritual of the church.
"Give your seed willingly, my brothers in night, so our sisters may be safe in the darkness" the priestess said, her heavily accented, seductive voice from beneath her black veil seeming louder than it ought to in this chamber. Each man bowed reverendly again, and took position in front of a woman...
Vanity had come to Extasis for aid. She had been hunting monsters for two years at this point, since she was sixteen years old. And she was good, despite her youth; she was damn good. As much as he hadn't wanted to, her father had trained her well, and even though he had tried to no avail to forbid her from going out to the world to follow in his footsteps, he could not stop her from leaving; even he could not deny her prowess and ability. She carried a preternatural speed and strength; a gift her parents understood all too well, but one which they had never explained to her. Vanity's skill as a hunter was as impressive as her thirst to kill monsters, but it was neither fortune or glory which drove her.
It was revenge.
It was the disappearance of Vanity's older sister, Chastity Hellsong, which had driven her to this calling. When she was twelve, Vanity's eighteen-year-old sister had been taken from their ranch in the night; violently, screaming, as roiling shadows had filled the farmhouse and her parents, even the retired-but-powerful monster hunter Rudolf Hellsong, had been helpless to stop whatever malevolent force dragged Chastity away.
For over a year, Rudolf had stalked Tierra Muerta relentlessly on a violent crusade against any monsters unfortunate enough to cross his path, hell-bent on finding Chastity; but he never did. He returned to Vanity and her mother Charity a near-broken man. Vanity still recalled, one night, aged fourteen, finding Rudolf slumped in his chair by the fire, drunk, reeking of whiskey; his face in his hands, mumbling, sobbing.
"It's my fault. All of it." He gripped Vanitys shoulder in a strong hand, a desperate grief in his voice. "First you, and now Chastity... It always comes back to me. Years fighting the darkness..." he sobbed, voice cracking with the strain of a year of pent-up self-loathing coming crashing apart before Vanity's young eyes. "What is the point of it all? I spent years, gods-damned years fighting it, and it always finds its way back to avenge itself, to hurt us... Your mother never asked for any of this. Radiance help me what have I done to us..."
Vanity had kneeled by her father; sixty years old by this point, still ruggedly handsome, a once well-trimmed goatee now straggly and unkempt, eyes rimmed red, sunken and framed with deep crows-feet but still a sharp steel-grey; and asked him what he meant by "First you...". His voice cracked as he opened his mouth to reply to Vanity, but instead he grimaced, pulled her close to him and hugged her tightly. "You're my daughter, Van. You're our girl. Nobody's going to take you from us, I'll keep you safe, I promise, I promise, I promise..."
Vanity had held him tight in her arms, breathing in the scent of whiskey on his breath and the musk of sweat and exertion on his skin, and swallowed back tears of anger; her father had always seemed so strong, always the very embodiment of the living legend. For the first time in her young life she saw him as a man; vulnerable, and afraid. It shook her to her core, enraged her. Whatever or whoever had done this to her family, to her father, to her, would pay.
"You want to protect me, daddy? Then teach me."
Rudolf pushed Vanity back, eyes wide in horror.
"No. Vanity, this life... it's too much. It's already taken so much from us, I cannot ask you..."
Young Vanity's purple-blue eyes shone brightly, defiant.
