Victor Donnadieu stood with his leather-bound notebook out, scribbling in details of the events unfolding before him. He scratched at his thick mustache and stubble and felt at the creases at his eyes.

This was a midday ritual, as nighttime burnings were much too intrusive to the peace of the local towns. The last thing anyone wanted was to give a heretic even more attention. And so Inquisitor Donnadieu squinted against the heat of the flames, looking past the yells of panic at the young woman burning before him.

She was in her early twenties, blonde hair, brown eyes, average build. She did not look particularly like a witch - if a witch happened to look like anything in particular. Yet, here she was, tied to the stake with the tinder lit beneath her, writhing and shouting with wild eyes, cursing down at him with hate and spite.

Inquisitor Donnadieu tapped his notebook with his pencil as he stared, waiting. The woman wasn't burning. Her adventurer's clothes were not alight. He sighed, then it happened as it always did.

The sound of glass shattering. The flames erupted into a rage to consume what was dangled in front of it for so long, ripping and tearing into the witch's flesh as she howled in pain and horror. The fire brightened and pulsed with heat.

He hurried to recount into words the sounds, the sights, the smells, the evil spirit which had possessed this poor woman. Now he just needed to sketch her face and—

She was gone.

He snapped the book shut and held out his arms in annoyed surprise, looking around for where she ran off to - if she did - only to find nothing. He sighed and dropped his arms. This was the second time this week a witch had vanished in the middle of a burning, and the sixth time this month. A new form of magic, perhaps, or likely the devil's work. His Holiness the Pope would need to hear of this.

"Monsieur Donnadieu," a voice said. It was the latest pest assigned to him by the church or the king - it seemed to change so often, he stopped caring which - an ordinary middle-aged nobody by the name Marcion. Marcion saw the burning stake where the witch should've been, then looked back at the inquisitor. "Monsieur, we—"

"Call me Vic," he said without bothering to look.

"We have him ready for you, Monsieur Vic."

He walked past him. "Just Vic."

Vic stepped inside the musty barn. The ground was soft with hay. Sunlight poured in from the cracks of the ceiling and the wall, marked by the lines of dust that floated by. A dining table sat in the center and strapped on it, was a man bound and gagged. The specimen was accompanied by two town guards who glanced around nervously with their hands on their sword hilts. They noticed the inquisitor and stepped back from the table, heads lowered in respect.

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Vic stood over the captive. An ordinary male, late teens. White leather vest. Long, fashionable black hair with red discoloration on the ends. A mark of sin? Vic scribbled in his notebook, adding in crude sketches with pointed arrows and explanations. The barn was silent beside the muffled sound of pencil on parchment.

"Mmph!" the warlock mumbled. His chains rattled as he pulled his arms.

Vic looked down at him and tilted his head. This might have been any ordinary peasant or noble, swept up in the lies of the devil or evil magic. A travesty, it was, and even though the young man reminded Vic of his own son, there was work to be done.

Inquisitor Vic pulled the gag from the guy's mouth. "H-holy shit," the young man stammered. "W-what do want? Money? Is this about money?"

Vic replied with his gritty, unamused voice. "You have committed treason against the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

"What?"

"Witchcraft."

"Oh shit."

Vic flicked out a pocket knife from his pocket and rested the tip right over the young man's bare skin, letting only the weight of the blade bear down on him. "Where did you learn this magic, heretic?"

"Wait, wait a second," he pleaded. "I'm just a player. I—"

"A player?" Vic pulled the knife off the man and went back to his notebook.

Marcion sighed and shook his head with disgust.

"I mean," the young man continued. "We were given this magic as a, uh, bonus."

"Bonus," Vic echoed.

"Right. It's... hard to explain." He laughed nervously. "Look, if I die, I go back a few levels, and I'm poor enough already, so if you want, we can cut a deal."

Vic lifted his eyebrows at the words. "A deal." He poked and prodded and stroked at the young man as a doctor would, noting the range of motion in the joints, the tautness of the skin, the thickness of the muscles. All nominal. Nothing unusual.

"As, as I was saying," the young man said. "I can pay you, uh, thirty gold?"

Vic brought out his knife and rested it against the man's thigh as if balancing a nail.

"Okay, okay, fifty."

Vic pushed hard, but the knife wouldn't cut. The specimen scarcely seemed to notice.

"Okay, fine! One hundred gold! It's all I have!"

Vic raised his free hand, balled it into a fist, and slammed down on the knife handle. Thomp. Sparks, as if the knife were digging into chainmail. Thomp, thomp, thomp, crish.

The young man roared in pain, the chains rattled as he struggled. The knife dug deep into him, and the scarlet was dripping into the hay.

Vic returned to scribble more notes. "You call yourself a… player? Is that the name of your cult? The Players? Were you a part of that massacre the other week?"

The man glanced at Marcion, his captor. "Fuck you!" he spat. The table shook, the chains rattled, the man was chanting.

Thak. The young warlock's head toppled against the hay. Marcion wiped his stained blade with an unused cloth.

Vic snapped the book shut. A day's work was done, but the mystery yet unsolved. Vanishing witches, an emerging cult, verifiable magic - and not just folklore. He stared out of the open barn doors and into the distant fields in thought.

And then he saw it.

A distant figure limping away as quickly as he could. White leather vest. Fashionably long hair, red tips. Vic's eyes snapped to the body to find it still there, and back to the field at the man who was running away.

Same clothes, same height, same skin color. There was no doubt - that was the warlock who had just been executed.

Vic stepped outside, the guards right behind him, and they all stared in awe at the one who escaped. There was no point in chasing, for now the man vanished through the tree line.

Inquisitor Vic took a deep breath and shook his head. What was becoming of this world?