*Journal entry stolen from Celat by Gya, directly following the events of The Hunters:*

“…nobles breed and those below them are expected to support their gluttony. I know because I was a body below, buckling under the weight. Until I realized they needed me more than I needed them. Enough time passed and I realized that I didn’t need them at all.

I had always suspected that the noble class, be they politician, wealthy entrepreneur, royalty, banker, industrialist, merchant, treated the lower classes unfairly. I had seen the abuse firsthand. But it runs deeper than that. The band of disrespect nobles have for those under them is actually black hole of rotting cruelty that demands to be fed, fed a never ending supply of human misery. Nobles merely decide who to cast into the abyss.

Those who suffer under the nobles’ harsh rule look for others to strike out against. Children. Women. Men. But mostly it’s animals. In all my years as a Ranger of Enpelison, I have learned one thing if nothing else. Humans abuse ones lower than them. Cruelty is an accepted part of human society, and one is considered weak if one does not abuse their lesser peers, or if one shows compassion toward beasts and other flora or fauna.

I offer a counterpoint of violence to this logic and show that compassion at its very core is inherently violent. Who does not fight harder than from a place of protection? Love? Hope? Peace? I have fought and repelled conquerors and men and women fighting from places of great cruelty and evil. They have failed. One and all.

It is this very reason why the noble class seek such cruelty and wealth and power over others. Even other nobles. They fear usurpation. They fear it because they are vile and tyrannical. I destroyed a child trafficking ring where nobles treated human beings like holes to be bought, sold, passed, and murdered for pleasure and barter- simply to grease the wheels of corrupt transactions dealing in sums of land, coins, and power. Considering how much blue blood I’ve spilled in the last three weeks, one would think a few names would come to light as the Crown of Enpelison investigates the site of an invasion. But nothing. Not a single name. Just a list of “philanthropists” and “family men and women” that were brutally murdered by a rouge agent of the state. If I destroyed one, I know there are more and I know there are bigger ones. I shudder to think. No, I am nauseous with terror to even consider it, truth be told.

If the public knew what I knew and saw what I saw that night at the fort, the Crown of Enpelison would be broken and bloodied before nightfall and the people would demand a new ruler.

In a world such as Melias, justice does not arrive promptly. It is lazy, often taking decades to arrive properly. This is unacceptable. I, Celat, am the catalyst and reaper of pain, and I have learned time and time again that regardless of consequence. There is no justice except for that which I take.”

*end of entry*