Info
Written by by Mctoran. Original concept by
VivamusLudio.
Archival duty: sacrosanct correspondece of His Judging Name
Asigned Custodians of the Law Keepers:
- Marshal Viterico of the Law Keepers
- Custodian Crown
- Custodian Erudito
"Throughout the texts, we shall find justice"
Justice is a much more abstract concept than you might imagine. Have you ever wondered what justice really means?, Many choose to go about their duties without making such considerations. We do not. In our libraries across the backrooms we store texts from all kinds of cultures and write our own, with the goal of discovering a perfect law that finally achieves True Justice.
We, the Law Keepers, hold the duty of collecting, archiving and preserving documents of significance to the Eyes and its cause from over the course of history.
Missives
Of most recent significance to the Law Keepers has been an ancient correspondence between our patron and another being of similar status. This was believed to be the negotiation of the transfer of a prisoner from the other deity into the custody of His Judging Name.
Missive #104
Recovered from the archives of The Lost in an affable exchange of knowledge. Missing, damaged and/or unrecognizable segments have been omitted.
To the master of ways1,
It has come to my attention that you have in your custody a sinner whom I first marked for judgement—one Valerius of the Twisted Spire, who wore false faces before both Gods and mortals, who spoke honeyed lies that led innocents to their doom. The Writ of Mark was laid first by my spear under True Vision, witnessed by Watchers sworn and a Lawcrow of His Judging Name, upon the Grounds of Broken Sky.
I petition once, in brotherly regard and without trespass, for the lawful transfer of the condemned into my custody, that he may answer to the charges enumerated below:
i) Fivefold Perjury before the Eyes, each oath fractured with intent;
ii) Blood-guilt of seventeen innocents within the Eighth Ground’s granite womb, by instrument concealed;
iii) Trafficking in profane sigils to corrupt the wills of men, a craft forbidden by Edict of the Watch;
iv) Flight from summons, and the maiming of a Marshal in evasion.
By the Articles of the Watch, Section XI, the bearer of the First Mark shall pronounce the arraignment and conduct the Final Measure. You know this law, master of ways, for you were present when we set it in stone upon the tablets in Hoofstaad. You know well the weight of such transgressions. To hoard that which does not belong to you—to steal from the Gods themselves—is to invite the wrath of the heavens. And yet, you have seen fit to lock him away in your own domain, as though your judgement supersedes my own.
Time grows short. The longer he remains outside proper judgment, the more his co-conspirators scatter like plague goblins before dawn. Each day of delay is another day their corruption spreads. I demand his transfer to my custody through the Blood Gate, within the cycle of the next full moon. My judgment shall be swift, final, and shall serve as a necessary cauterization of this infection. Past that hour, the Writ compels me to act in fulfillment of the First Mark, and my Watchers will begin their hunt—not by your leave, but by Law. The Grounds stir with unrest, and the Iron men sharpen their hidden teeth. Do not mistake this for a request. It is the execution of a duty we are both bound to, however you may wish to shirk it. Do not force me to retrieve what is mine by right and by rite.
[INDECIPHERABLE]2
Seal your answer with your sigil, and send it by the crow which shadows this letter. I await your response with the patience befitting our eternal nature, yet with the urgency that Justice demands.
In Justice,
He of the Burning Gaze, Patron of the Eyes
[The signature bears the ancient seal of the All-Seeing Eyes, pressed deep into wax beneath the sign of the spear and the single orange star]
Missive #111
Retrieved from The Cygnus Archive, courtesy of Lady Blanche. Missing, damaged and/or unrecognizable segments have been omitted.
Tlamelahuacachinaliztli3,
I understand that your recent ordeal with Atlas and the lingering deaths of our kin have left you troubled. It has neither weighed any less heavily upon my own heart. Yet that does not excuse your presumption to command orders of me as though I am your lesser.
Your insistence upon this matter is as tiresome as it is misplaced. Valerius of the Twisted Spire was delivered into my custody by the very will of the Crossroads — a judgment you seem eager to overlook in your zeal. Have you forgotten that the first doors were locked by my hand before the first spear was raised in your name?
I have reviewed your charges, such as they are, and find them laughably incomplete. Valerius lied to unravel the knots of a conspiracy that would have seen the Iron Fist’s blades at your throat, not my own. The seventeen souls you claim to avenge? They were already marked by Huvvat’s venom, their minds hollowed into vessels for Zephyr’s brood. A mercy, then, that he hastened their end before the transformation completed. And the sigils? A desperate gambit to seal the rift in Domain The One-Hundred-Twelfth, before the entire Ground collapsed into the Maw. Tell me, O Great Arbiter — would you have preferred he allowed the Void to consume yet another region of our domain? Or is it only your own definition of justice that matters, even when it blinds you to the greater ruin?
Your entire missive reeks of the same sanctimonious fervor that led Atlas to his unfortunate end, and before him Claudius and Augustus. Do you truly believe I am unaware of the happenings within my own walls? I find the mere suggestion that I should hand you over my prisoners to be not only ridiculous, but also insulting! I am an authority equally as valid as yourself to judge the beings I see fit.
Should you truly wish to actually contest my decision, and discuss this matter like my brother as you claim to be — rather than the zealot you’ve become — you are welcome to step beyond the Blood Gate. Or, you may attempt to pry him from the walls yourself. But consider this: the next time you raise your spear in my direction, you had best be prepared to use it. I’ve grown weary of your threats.
There remains nothing more to discuss on this matter.
Good day to you, brother.
—G.
[The response ends with the distinct sigil of the Gatekeeper—a stylized key superimposed over a labyrinth—pressed into wax the color of midnight.]
Missive #115
Reconstructed from the shards recovered by Warden Anastasia from The Crossroads. Missing, damaged and/or unrecognizable segments have been omitted.
To The Master of Ways,
Your words are hollow echoes, brother. Your arguments are the desperate thrashings of a drowning man who mistakes a serpent for a lifeline. You speak of ‘greater ruin’ as if you have any concept of it from behind your locked doors, where you clutch at prisoners like a miser hoarding coins — as if your solitary judgment outweighs the law forged in the age of gold. You mistake custody for coronation. The Crossroads may have delivered him through your threshold, but doors do not confer absolution. You are warden of passages, not the conscience of the Grounds. The Writ is clear: he who lays the First Mark bears the burden and the right to mete the Measure. That Mark is mine alone.
If those seventeen truly bore Huvvat’s venom and the brood-sign of Zephyr, then their plight should have been brought to the hands ordained for such ministrations; Philia’s in compassion, or even to my Watchers who would have quarantined the contagion without recourse to lies and clandestine blood. A liar’s blade cannot be baptized as a surgeon’s instrument merely because the wound it opens prevents another. Justice is not a ledger to be balanced by convenience.
As to the One-Hundred-and-Twelfth Ground: the sealing of a rift is no license to profane glyph-work forbidden by the Articles of the Watch. Had you consulted those charged to guard the Edicts, we would have stood with you upon that brink and held the Maw at spear’s length in open rite, with record and witness. Instead you cloak a criminal in the vestments of necessity and then bid me accept your private calculus as law. I will not.
You invoke the deaths of our brothers as though grief excuses your defiance of the Law. Do not presume to lecture me on the fates of our kin. Atlas fell because his pride outstripped his wisdom, a flaw you share in abundance. Claudius and Augustus were consumed by a grief that turned to rage, a fire you seem intent on stoking within me. Their tragedies are a warning, not a shield for your own transgressions. I have not forgotten our laws, nor the oaths we swore. It is you who has forgotten the meaning of brotherhood, the weight of our shared duty. You have traded honor for expediency, and you will find it a poor bargain in the end.
Your defiance is noted, and your arrogance has tipped the scales beyond redemption. You dare lecture me on blindness as you hide sinners in stone and shadow? The corruption of Valerius is a cancer, and a cancer is not negotiated with; it is cut out.
Know this, brother: The Writ of Mark is not a suggestion. It is a covenant, etched in stone and sealed with the blood of the first oath. You have until the next cycle of the crimson moon to deliver the condemned to the Blood Gate. Worry not, for I will not trouble you at your gate. There is no need for such theatrics. Should you fail, I will see to it that my agents hunt your dungeon down until they find it. The Lawcrows already map the echoes of your hidden corridors; the Retributors have been given license to enter any threshold that harbors the Marked; the Watchers have sworn to stand their vigil at every spur and spur-shadow of your Crossroads. They will unmake every lock that bars our way. They will peel back the layers of your domain until every hidden sin is laid bare beneath the Judging Gaze. And when we are finished, when your tower lies in ruins and your prisoners freed, I will stand before you with my spear raised, and you will answer for your obstruction of Justice. You say I should be prepared to use it? Brother, I have been prepared since the day Augustus fell into his own shadow. I have been prepared since Claudius drowned in his own blood. I have been prepared since Y'liad began his feast of grey flesh.
Do not mistake my previous petitions for weakness. They were a final courtesy, extended for the sake of a kinship that you have now spat upon. I would prefer not to test our brotherhood upon stone and steel, but understand me: I will not allow your private vaults to become a sanctuary against Judgment. The patience of Justice is vast, but it is not infinite. Its wrath, however, is.
The Iron Fist sharpens its blades in the darkness, waiting for us to tear ourselves apart. The Greyking’s silence breeds carrion in the alleys of cities, and the Grounds grow fevered. Every day you delay Justice, you hand them another victory. Every criminal you harbor is another crack in our already fractured foundation. In such an hour, we of the elder names must be more constrained, not less. I will not let your weariness, nor mine, nor the weight of the fallen, dilute the Law. But you are too drunken upon your own authority to see it, aren't you? Too intoxicated by it to hear the footsteps of our enemies approaching.
The next letter you receive from me will either be acceptance of your compliance, or it will be nailed to the ruins of your tower as a warning to all who would obstruct the path of righteousness.
Know that the spear has already been lifted, and the eye already fixed upon the door. The Eyes are watching. They are always watching.
In Judgment Eternal,
Tlamelahuacachinaliztli
Bearer of True Sight, Executor of the Final Law
[The letter bears multiple seals — not just the orange star and spear, but dozens of smaller marks, each one the personal sigil of a different Eye of Argos, spreading across the lower half of the parchment. They are pressed so deeply into the wax that the parchment beneath is scored with their impressions. The ink is smudged in places, as though the letter was written in haste, the strokes sharp and jagged.]
This was the last recovered correspondence between the two deities before the assassination of Gatekeeper. Whether Argos ever received a response, or if his threats were carried out, remains lost to time. What is certain is that their relationship never recovered from this exchange, and the schism between them would echo through the ages, even into the modern era where their incarnations — The Keymaster and Argos — maintain a careful, cold distance from one another.