Lord-Inquisitor Brüsà Intaglio

This was my first deployment on official business, to the Imperial Academy in my own city of Provvidenza. The radiant capital was mostly shielded from the so-called Occult Crisis, an event which was allegedly the worst in the history of the ruling dynasty. I was acutely aware of this as I made my way to the academy, as the streets seemed barren and commerce was sparse. I was on task in the north overseeing the Mazzitian line and currying favor with the local spellswords before receiving word of my position back home, to oversee mustering.

That worried me, to be frank. Mustering is not undertaken at academies, much less before honors are bestowed upon the graduating class. Graduation was months out, and from what I heard from the messanger, there will be no graduating class this year as my father had already mustered the oldest of the academy’s sons. So what is my part in this, does my father wish me to deliver the grim news of another class being sent to die?

At least, that was my fear, a fear which had been justified as I met with the cadre of armored Inquisitors at the head of the academy’s gates who welcomed me with honors. They bowed deeply, regarding me as Lord.

My heart fell into my stomach and my soul washed from my body as my skin grew pale. I felt fire burn against my skin as my stomach churned.

I am no lord. and I have no place amidst that title, that is the domain of my father.

Or so I thought, as a grim reality came to bear that no son should ever have to live through, an armored gauntlet grasped my unadorned shoulder as tears streaked down my face, my knees shaking and my legs buckling under their weight as I fell painfully down to the floor against the cobbled streets. Several students were practicing their fencing forms in the courtyard, their gazes drawn by the scene unfolding.

So this was the Occult Crisis, a true crisis, a crisis wherein young men are mustered to die and fathers meet their untimely end. How cruel of them to give this news to me before I do just that, send young men to die. That was my fathers job, and news of his death had to be delivered to me alongside his assignments now left vacant by his demise.

An empty stomach was not enough to placate the suffering within my body, the tremors of grief sending convulsions up my insides as bile streaked the cobbles and greaves of my fellow Inquisitors. They did not sneer nor mock me, rather they shared my pain. My father was a visionary, a brilliant man who drove reform, and a busy man who had not the time to educate his son on his ways. That was for me to uncover now, and today would be a trial by fire.

Rest easy, Father, For your dwindling flame is now mine to uphold.

“We are in an Age of Fire, a neverending crisis that boils beneath the stone and sand that scatters across our domain. I have no plans to die, but I have every intent to avoid the same terror I lived through when the last pot boiled over and thrust this land into ruin. I won’t die on you, Vittorio.“

Lord Brüsà Intaglio