It is a rare moment of peace for Tryzantium. Winter holds the kingdom in an embrace so tight that no army dares brave the snowbound roads and passes (or at least any messenger warning of an attack has yet to reach the capital).
In Lightgarde, spirits are undiminished by the snow as the civilians enjoy the culmination of Yulefest, that time of year when ever the Goddess herself takes a holiday and her followers are granted a modicum of leeway to enjoy feasts and other excess. Braziers have been lit on every street corner. Taverns resound with festive cheer. The abattoirs run with rivers of boar blood for the heitstrenging. The tradition of the Yule Log Run is held each night in Old Town, where crowds gather to cheer as athletes race against flaming logs set tumbling down the steep, narrow streets, twisting ankles and necks in the process.
For the hardworking men and women of the Crimson Order, Yulefest is mere background noise against which their work continues unabated. For as the motto of their college goes, 'Non est pax impiis'. No peace for the wicked.
A background noise that is often unwelcome. The sound of drunken carol singing rises from the snowy streets far below to your attic study as revelers stagger home. "Humbug," you grumble, throwing closed the shutters on the window against the unbearably cheerful noise. You slink back to your desk, moving with the slow, stooped gait of a old man upon a body that looks no older than thirty years. You are Silas Zeno. You are a Crimson Order wizard. In appearance, you are of the dark-and-handsome variety, though your features have become somewhat twisted from a century of cruel sneers and your beard is long and unkempt, your robes and faded ragged with age. When angered, your eyes flicker with flames.
The embers flicker out as you sink back into your desk chair, leaving your eyes tired and red. You are burning the midnight oil tonight, shuffling through the stacks of paperwork that fill the sparse room - notes delivered from informants and other Crimson wizards, tax returns, books of genealogy, purloined letters sent between lovers and conspirators, and a thousand other scraps of information. Straightening the spectacles on your crooked nose, you lift the guest list of the queen's famous yule ball into the candlelight, muttering to yourself. "Countessa of Orrinshire, absent from the ball... short notice... Duke of Goulcrest, also declines to attend... The Duke's entourage are dismissed for the evening. Shortly after, bottles of Orrinshire wine are sent for and delivered to his household."
You rise and carry the candle across to one wall. Upon it have been pinned a hundred or so sheets of parchment, a collage of all VIPs currently within your area of the city. Each person has a sheet of parchment pinned to the wall, with a small portrait and a list of any pertinent information - their holdings, wealth or any powerful items in their possession; family, including all known bastards; allegiances; criminal activities; sexual habits and fetishes; and so on. Anybody who is anybody is here.
Cross-referencing the Duke's taste in women with the Countessa's portrait looks promising. You dip your quill. "Observe for infidelities," you scribble in red ink upon both of their sheets, unpinning and repinning their sheets side by side. Balls of coloured yarn sits nearby. You pick up the pink yarn, knot the end around the Duke's thumb-tack and tie the thread around the Countessa's. The wall is a network of rainbow-coloured yarns. Pink for sexual or romantic relationships, green for debts, black for vendettas, and so on. It is your job to track them, and to know which string to pull to get the desired results.
Aside from saving the world from demonic incursion, this is the one of the most important duties assigned to the Crimson Order, particularly in times of peace. Selecting, studying, and "collecting" people, bringing them under your control for that one day when they can be called upon to aid the institution in its goals, whatever and whenever they might be. Suppose a lord needs to be made to vote a particular way, or to make a donation of gold or men to the order's warchest, or simply abdicate to an heir who will. In that situation, leverage is required.
Leverage can be anything. Bribes work. They often spiral out of control however, and any self-respecting Crimson would be loath to go begging to the Golds for cash. Threats of violence have a tendency to backfire. Seduction is very good. Blackmail is best. Everybody has their dirty little secrets - the nobility most of all. Find out what they are (or engineer some yourself) and you have them by the balls.
Seduction and blackmail, now that was your favourite. You often work alongside brothels, using the whores to draw the rich and powerful into extramarital of (ideally) illegal trysts, which you record. Right now, your study is situated within the attic of the high-class brothel known as the Sweet Sanctum, which sits within the Old Town district and services many well-to-do locals, visiting nobles and foreign diplomats. As well as the whores, a team of informants -mostly street urchins- work under you to gather information on everything happening in your district.
Exploiting the worst of human nature for the betterment of mankind is a Crimson wizards duty, and manipulation is a job you excel at. Not all enjoy it. Even you didn't at first, but it doesn't take long before the Crimson order toll begins its slow, insidious effect upon the mind, tainting it by some aspect of those unnatural, extra-dimensional predators that watch the souls of this plane with hungry eyes. After that, the job becomes a hoot. You have devoted your life to it - weaving your webs, spreading your influence until whole noble houses dance to your tune. There is endless pleasure to be derived prying into dark, private crevices of your targets, often in a very literal manner.
You light your pipe and flick through more correspondence as the smoke shrouds you. Patrician Benikor is a week late paying his taxes, despite claiming to be rich as hell. Bankrupt perhaps? You note to examine his finances further. There has been another "accident" in Sir Castwell's household - the third maid in two months to take a "stumble" on the stairs. The man is a brute worthy of investigation.
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