In the Bavarian Alps, just above Salzburg, Germany, a lone figure hiked higher and higher into the jagged peaks. The person carried little with them, save for the hiking pack on their back that contained provisions and extra layers for the chilled mountain nights. Atop the bag was a small tent, large enough for just one person. For this person had grown accustomed to loneliness over the last year or so. Spending savored moments with other people only sporadically, and always with the intent to gather information- rarely for deep, meaningful connection.
The figure raised their right hand to brush the long hair from their face. This person, a young man, had always had that habit of brushing his hair from his forehead, but in the last few months, it was less of a nervous tic and more of a necessity. He had once known a beautiful young woman that stole his heart, But then, because life was the way it was- his heart was broken. He loved her still, and with what amounted to his form of hope, he felt sure she still held her deep feelings for him. But, as they say on social media- “It’s complicated.”
You could say that his job got in the way. Or that he simply had too many demons to deal with for a relationship. You could even say that they became different people.
But those clichés only pointed to more profound truths. Horrific truths.
His job did get in the way. It was dangerous, life-threatening for him, and any that went with him. He had lost almost everything and everyone he had ever loved because of his job- even before he had taken it. Then, for a brief, shining moment, he had a new life. New family, new home, new purpose.
Then Destiny called.
He did, in fact, have too many demons. Only, they were not metaphorical; they were horrifically real. And beastly. And murderous. These demons were massing, forming an evil army under the leadership of one entity. One entity that just so happened to be the greatest evil of all time.
Lucifer.
To make the stand he had to, the man left that family, that new life, and set out to discover who he really was. Which made the man chuckle. The last time he had set out to find himself, he had stumbled into the journey he was now on.
But he had to find himself once again because he had become a completely different person. He was possessed of a new set of supernatural skills. This was due to the interactions of the Zeitgeist Individualism, or “Indy.” One of a family of celestial beings that were empowered by the collective beliefs of human cultures, but at the same time had incredible influence to shape human perspective. He had to leave his new home and face a terrifyingly vast world on his own. During his time abroad, he had learned the Zeitgeists were essentially lower-level angelic beings.
That path had lasted over a year and a half. He had left his home in April of a year ago, and it was now late September of the next year. He had departed as a nineteen-year-old kid, and now he was just a few months shy of turning twenty-one. He had met interesting people, learned his own heritage and lineage, and faced new evils. Each step of this journey had changed him. He liked to think of it as a sort of forging, like the supernatural gladius that bounced on his thigh had once been forged millennia ago, formed from the nails used in the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
The sun broke through the heavy cloud cover in the Eastern European mountains, and a bright ray of yellow fell on the face of Sawyer Shepherd. His face had changed a little in the last year. He was still youthful in appearance, but a new weariness weighed on the corners of his eyes. He wore a few days' stubble where he had once been clean-shaven, and there was the long hair that had once been much shorter. He was heftier in frame from muscle, having been tested in new ways physically in his time abroad. Time that had taken him initially from the United States to England. From England to Germany, then Italy. He sailed on a fishing boat to the Middle East, docking at a small Israeli fishing village before hiking to Jerusalem. He spent time in Iraq and Iran, then hiked the Himalayas. Sawyer then flew in a cargo plane into Russia before making his way to China and eventually Japan. From Japan, he flew to India, where he learned many new things about the practice of being a Judge- a demon hunting, monster-killing protector of the innocent. Finally, he flew back to Eastern Europe because his trail had led him here, singing a Rolling Stones song about traveling and searching for a guide.
And hunting a myth.
In truth, Sawyer hunted myths all the time. Vampires, werewolves, Djinn, even a Yeti-type creature once- all of these he had encountered in his journeys, along with other new beings the American Judges had never seen. The monsters were waking; they were becoming more emboldened. They were joining forces, and so Sawyer had traveled the world to unite Judges. They all welcomed him as a leader, an inspiration. This was because the Zeitgeist Indy had imparted the ability to develop others' skills and strengths to be the best version of themselves. Besides, Sawyer Shepherd was the myth that terrified the monsters.
Ever since word had gotten around that Sawyer had defied Lucifer himself.
Lucifer was currently masquerading as a big-time lawyer named Lennox Dupree. He was the chief counsel for Lucius Edward Furr (no, seriously), a billionaire developer that was also the Adversary. An Anti-Christ-type figure that had been gaining power and support all over the world. Thanks in part to his control of several Zeitgeists' forces- namely Greed, Patriotism, and Respect. These powers allowed him to tap into the populace's cultural values and beliefs and effectively shape public opinion. And right now, the world was heralding Furr as a savior for his work in feeding the hungry, developing medical cures, and working to bring to light the plight of the downtrodden.
Which sounds great until you realize the fine print states that following Furr means bringing about the end of the world.
A cold breath of air slapped Sawyer across the face and brought him back to the moment. His journey had begun to discover more about his role in this destiny he had- to stop Lucifer and Furr. He had learned much about himself and the line of Judges he had come from, but his task today had more to do with how he was going to stop this ultimate evil.
And it was his job. Fate or Destiny- whatever you called it- was resting on Sawyer’s shoulders. Sawyer had confirmed very early in his journey that he was the direct descendant of Hans Schmidt- the Judge who brought the gladius to America in the 1700s. Schmidt had stayed in America, raised a family, and recruited the first American Judges. Around the outbreak of the Second World War, the Schmidts changed their name to Shepherd- a nickname often given to Judges.
Before Hans Schmidt arrived in Colonial America, the family was the premiere Judge dynasty. They were able to trace their lineage back to the Centurion who witnessed Jesus death on the cross, then collected the nails and forged the gladius Sawyer now possessed.
Sawyer discovered these and many other facts about who he was and the role he now knew he must ultimately play. But it was the information he uncovered in India about his enemies that brought him here, to the Bavarian Alps, searching for an ancient and mythical castle.
Sawyer found it humorous, and as he trudged through the mountains, he was reminded of his mentor, Eli Romer, and the movie they had once watched together: “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” All I need now, thought Sawyer, are some coconuts.
No sooner had he chuckled at this internal joke than he turned the corner of a switchback and saw the massive gray stone structure ahead. It looked worn and unsound in some places, but the fact that it had once been a regal and intimidating fortress still remained. It was the guard towers that were in the worst shape- they had caved in or wholly crumbled. Portions of the keep wall were also down, but the wall was resilient for the most part. The drawbridge (a dry moat seemed to circle the castle) was gone, which meant nothing kept visitors from entering.
Not that anyone had entered the castle in a very long time.
The same legends that drew Sawyer here also warned potential visitors that though no one lived in the castle, it was not exactly vacant. The myth held that the family that once dwelt there had been the black sheep branch of a powerful Austrian family. They had been ostracized because they began to practice witchcraft. Not the earthy, nature-loving Wiccan variety, but rather the serious occult black magic. They had amassed their own wealth and power, which they used to rule their subjects by fear and mysticism.
Eventually, a Judge came to end their tyranny, and that Judge brought a small army. They laid siege to the castle, and gradually, they overtook it. Before the head of the family could be taken, he cast a spell- summoned a house demon that would come to guard the castle until the rightful owner could return. The Judge had killed the master of the castle just after the spell had been cast, and knowing that the demon could actually serve a purpose, he did nothing to exorcise it. Assuming that the entire family had been wiped out, the Judge left the castle and released the villagers from the control of the black magic. But he warned them to stay away from the castle as it was still possessed by an evil spirit- the demon summoned by the family. The Judge knew the demon was bound to the castle and would keep any curious villager from trying to sneak in and take any black magic trinkets— sort of a security system for the old days.
The Judge had been Otto Schmidt, the father of Hans, and his chief lieutenant in the siege had been his son.
But what had drawn Sawyer back here was the legend he learned in India. The story of the Demon Castle of Bavaria was widely known. Still, in a small northern town in India named Gangotri, Sawyer heard for the first time that Otto and Hans had failed in one key aspect of wiping out the occult family.
There had been a survivor.
That survivor had fled south, eventually ending up at Gangotri. The survivor lived there for a time, often heading into the Himalayas for long periods. Sawyer had found the ancient site of some of the occult rituals that the survivor had performed. Many people in the town had been swayed by the man, and eventually, a local Hindi priest stood up to him and drove him away. That priest had been a Judge, and that Judge’s descendant, Nadim Varma, had been the Judge to send Sawyer on his current path.
Sawyer now stood at the gate to the castle, the first human to enter the decaying structure in hundreds of years. At least, he assumed. No one who had entered had survived to tell about it.
The once-grand entrance hall still retained some awe, as the arched ceiling rose some thirty feet into the air. Rotted and burned frames hung from the walls, the portraits that once graced them long gone. The signs of the attack by Judges were still present: scorch marks on the walls, broken spears, and swords. Even a few skeletal remains lay here and there. A few still had the rags of the clothing they wore during the attack—bodies left by their fellow invaders in haste to retreat from a wicked place.
And Sawyer could feel it. The evil. His stomach churned with each step. He had felt this way once before- and only once. And it had not been in the presence of supernatural monsters. Rather, it had been human ones.
Early in his European travels, Sawyer had visited a Concentration Camp- Dachau. This evil felt just as palpable.
Sawyer had the gladius drawn, and the deeper in he went, the more tightly he gripped the hilt. It was silent. Not a rustle, not a trickle, not a sigh of air. Sawyer almost wished for a sound- the silence was somehow worse than knowing you were being stalked by a malevolent force.
He had now entered the main hall. It had been that room where the bodies of the black magic occultists were burned by the Judges. That was after the master had fallen in the very center of the room. A dark mound of bones- remnants from the fire- was still there. But that was not all that was there. What Sawyer saw on the top of the bones caused the breath to catch in his throat.
Atop the bones, in a makeshift chair, sat a creature.
It was thin and skeletal itself. The outline of the head showed it to be bald, with sharp, pointed ears that arced away from the skull. In one bony hand, it held a long wooden shaft with a curved blade at the top. The other hand was rapping long claws on the skeletal armrest. The face and most of the body was obscured by the darkness, but then the hand that held nothing snapped, and the long-dormant torches along the walls lit up. Now Sawyer saw a face adorned with what looked like leathered skin drawn tightly over a face. There was no nose, and the lips were pulled so tightly it seemed as if it would be impossible for them to close over the rows of knife-like teeth in the over-large mouth.
“Thou hast made a poor choice, entering this accursed place,” came a strangely proper, if not gravelly, welcome from the creature.
“So, I guess you are a perverted form of Dobby, huh?” Sawyer retorted, forgetting that a demon that spoke King James English probably was not familiar with the writings of Rowling.
“Tis been my charge to guardeth this castle for many ages,” the profoundly yellow eyes sized up Sawyer. “Thou dost not appear as I had expected. But thou art trespassing upon my keep. Thus, thou must perish.” It began to rise very slowly. Dust, debris, and centuries of solitude billowed off of the emaciated form of the house demon as it did so.
Sawyer stepped forth and brandished the gladius. “Greater and more terrible demons than you have threatened me, Dobby. And I have questions for you.”
“Why dost thou refer to me as ‘Dobby’ so insistently? Dost thou not knowest that the demon guard takest the name of the master’s family?” The demon seemed intrigued- perhaps because it was lonely after a few quiet centuries.
“Yeah, I know that,” said Sawyer. “In fact, that is what I am here to chat with you about. Tell me all about the family that lived here.”
The demon laughed a mirthless laugh, “Thou hast no hold over me.”
Sawyer stepped fully into the light, and the gladius became fully clear for the first time. The demon’s eyes went wide. Then Sawyer said, “By the name of Christ, whose flesh was pierced by nails that form my sword, I bind you, demon of the house of Feurer!”
The demon seized and tightened, dropping its spear. Sawyer raised the gladius's tip, and the nightmare began to hover over the pile of skeletons. “I know you’ve been out of the loop for a bit, but I also know you have ties to the Feurer family descendants. So, tell me. How did the Feurer family eventually bring forth Lucius Edward Furr?”
In the Bavarian Alps, just above Salzburg, Germany, a lone figure hiked higher and higher into the jagged peaks. The person carried little with them, save for the hiking pack on their back that contained provisions and extra layers for the chilled mountain nights. Atop the bag was a small tent, large enough for just one person. For this person had grown accustomed to loneliness over the last year or so. Spending savored moments with other people only sporadically, and always with the intent to gather information- rarely for deep, meaningful connection.
The figure raised their right hand to brush the long hair from their face. This person, a young man, had always had that habit of brushing his hair from his forehead, but in the last few months, it was less of a nervous tic and more of a necessity. He had once known a beautiful young woman that stole his heart, But then, because life was the way it was- his heart was broken. He loved her still, and with what amounted to his form of hope, he felt sure she still held her deep feelings for him. But, as they say on social media- “It’s complicated.”
You could say that his job got in the way. Or that he simply had too many demons to deal with for a relationship. You could even say that they became different people.
But those clichés only pointed to more profound truths. Horrific truths.
His job did get in the way. It was dangerous, life-threatening for him, and any that went with him. He had lost almost everything and everyone he had ever loved because of his job- even before he had taken it. Then, for a brief, shining moment, he had a new life. New family, new home, new purpose.
Then Destiny called.
He did, in fact, have too many demons. Only, they were not metaphorical; they were horrifically real. And beastly. And murderous. These demons were massing, forming an evil army under the leadership of one entity. One entity that just so happened to be the greatest evil of all time.
Lucifer.
To make the stand he had to, the man left that family, that new life, and set out to discover who he really was. Which made the man chuckle. The last time he had set out to find himself, he had stumbled into the journey he was now on.
But he had to find himself once again because he had become a completely different person. He was possessed of a new set of supernatural skills. This was due to the interactions of the Zeitgeist Individualism, or “Indy.” One of a family of celestial beings that were empowered by the collective beliefs of human cultures, but at the same time had incredible influence to shape human perspective. He had to leave his new home and face a terrifyingly vast world on his own. During his time abroad, he had learned the Zeitgeists were essentially lower-level angelic beings.
That path had lasted over a year and a half. He had left his home in April of a year ago, and it was now late September of the next year. He had departed as a nineteen-year-old kid, and now he was just a few months shy of turning twenty-one. He had met interesting people, learned his own heritage and lineage, and faced new evils. Each step of this journey had changed him. He liked to think of it as a sort of forging, like the supernatural gladius that bounced on his thigh had once been forged millennia ago, formed from the nails used in the Crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth.
The sun broke through the heavy cloud cover in the Eastern European mountains, and a bright ray of yellow fell on the face of Sawyer Shepherd. His face had changed a little in the last year. He was still youthful in appearance, but a new weariness weighed on the corners of his eyes. He wore a few days' stubble where he had once been clean-shaven, and there was the long hair that had once been much shorter. He was heftier in frame from muscle, having been tested in new ways physically in his time abroad. Time that had taken him initially from the United States to England. From England to Germany, then Italy. He sailed on a fishing boat to the Middle East, docking at a small Israeli fishing village before hiking to Jerusalem. He spent time in Iraq and Iran, then hiked the Himalayas. Sawyer then flew in a cargo plane into Russia before making his way to China and eventually Japan. From Japan, he flew to India, where he learned many new things about the practice of being a Judge- a demon hunting, monster-killing protector of the innocent. Finally, he flew back to Eastern Europe because his trail had led him here, singing a Rolling Stones song about traveling and searching for a guide.
And hunting a myth.
In truth, Sawyer hunted myths all the time. Vampires, werewolves, Djinn, even a Yeti-type creature once- all of these he had encountered in his journeys, along with other new beings the American Judges had never seen. The monsters were waking; they were becoming more emboldened. They were joining forces, and so Sawyer had traveled the world to unite Judges. They all welcomed him as a leader, an inspiration. This was because the Zeitgeist Indy had imparted the ability to develop others' skills and strengths to be the best version of themselves. Besides, Sawyer Shepherd was the myth that terrified the monsters.
Ever since word had gotten around that Sawyer had defied Lucifer himself.
Lucifer was currently masquerading as a big-time lawyer named Lennox Dupree. He was the chief counsel for Lucius Edward Furr (no, seriously), a billionaire developer that was also the Adversary. An Anti-Christ-type figure that had been gaining power and support all over the world. Thanks in part to his control of several Zeitgeists' forces- namely Greed, Patriotism, and Respect. These powers allowed him to tap into the populace's cultural values and beliefs and effectively shape public opinion. And right now, the world was heralding Furr as a savior for his work in feeding the hungry, developing medical cures, and working to bring to light the plight of the downtrodden.
Which sounds great until you realize the fine print states that following Furr means bringing about the end of the world.
A cold breath of air slapped Sawyer across the face and brought him back to the moment. His journey had begun to discover more about his role in this destiny he had- to stop Lucifer and Furr. He had learned much about himself and the line of Judges he had come from, but his task today had more to do with how he was going to stop this ultimate evil.
And it was his job. Fate or Destiny- whatever you called it- was resting on Sawyer’s shoulders. Sawyer had confirmed very early in his journey that he was the direct descendant of Hans Schmidt- the Judge who brought the gladius to America in the 1700s. Schmidt had stayed in America, raised a family, and recruited the first American Judges. Around the outbreak of the Second World War, the Schmidts changed their name to Shepherd- a nickname often given to Judges.
Before Hans Schmidt arrived in Colonial America, the family was the premiere Judge dynasty. They were able to trace their lineage back to the Centurion who witnessed Jesus death on the cross, then collected the nails and forged the gladius Sawyer now possessed.
Sawyer discovered these and many other facts about who he was and the role he now knew he must ultimately play. But it was the information he uncovered in India about his enemies that brought him here, to the Bavarian Alps, searching for an ancient and mythical castle.
Sawyer found it humorous, and as he trudged through the mountains, he was reminded of his mentor, Eli Romer, and the movie they had once watched together: “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” All I need now, thought Sawyer, are some coconuts.
No sooner had he chuckled at this internal joke than he turned the corner of a switchback and saw the massive gray stone structure ahead. It looked worn and unsound in some places, but the fact that it had once been a regal and intimidating fortress still remained. It was the guard towers that were in the worst shape- they had caved in or wholly crumbled. Portions of the keep wall were also down, but the wall was resilient for the most part. The drawbridge (a dry moat seemed to circle the castle) was gone, which meant nothing kept visitors from entering.
Not that anyone had entered the castle in a very long time.
The same legends that drew Sawyer here also warned potential visitors that though no one lived in the castle, it was not exactly vacant. The myth held that the family that once dwelt there had been the black sheep branch of a powerful Austrian family. They had been ostracized because they began to practice witchcraft. Not the earthy, nature-loving Wiccan variety, but rather the serious occult black magic. They had amassed their own wealth and power, which they used to rule their subjects by fear and mysticism.
Eventually, a Judge came to end their tyranny, and that Judge brought a small army. They laid siege to the castle, and gradually, they overtook it. Before the head of the family could be taken, he cast a spell- summoned a house demon that would come to guard the castle until the rightful owner could return. The Judge had killed the master of the castle just after the spell had been cast, and knowing that the demon could actually serve a purpose, he did nothing to exorcise it. Assuming that the entire family had been wiped out, the Judge left the castle and released the villagers from the control of the black magic. But he warned them to stay away from the castle as it was still possessed by an evil spirit- the demon summoned by the family. The Judge knew the demon was bound to the castle and would keep any curious villager from trying to sneak in and take any black magic trinkets— sort of a security system for the old days.
The Judge had been Otto Schmidt, the father of Hans, and his chief lieutenant in the siege had been his son.
But what had drawn Sawyer back here was the legend he learned in India. The story of the Demon Castle of Bavaria was widely known. Still, in a small northern town in India named Gangotri, Sawyer heard for the first time that Otto and Hans had failed in one key aspect of wiping out the occult family.
There had been a survivor.
That survivor had fled south, eventually ending up at Gangotri. The survivor lived there for a time, often heading into the Himalayas for long periods. Sawyer had found the ancient site of some of the occult rituals that the survivor had performed. Many people in the town had been swayed by the man, and eventually, a local Hindi priest stood up to him and drove him away. That priest had been a Judge, and that Judge’s descendant, Nadim Varma, had been the Judge to send Sawyer on his current path.
Sawyer now stood at the gate to the castle, the first human to enter the decaying structure in hundreds of years. At least, he assumed. No one who had entered had survived to tell about it.
The once-grand entrance hall still retained some awe, as the arched ceiling rose some thirty feet into the air. Rotted and burned frames hung from the walls, the portraits that once graced them long gone. The signs of the attack by Judges were still present: scorch marks on the walls, broken spears, and swords. Even a few skeletal remains lay here and there. A few still had the rags of the clothing they wore during the attack—bodies left by their fellow invaders in haste to retreat from a wicked place.
And Sawyer could feel it. The evil. His stomach churned with each step. He had felt this way once before- and only once. And it had not been in the presence of supernatural monsters. Rather, it had been human ones.
Early in his European travels, Sawyer had visited a Concentration Camp- Dachau. This evil felt just as palpable.
Sawyer had the gladius drawn, and the deeper in he went, the more tightly he gripped the hilt. It was silent. Not a rustle, not a trickle, not a sigh of air. Sawyer almost wished for a sound- the silence was somehow worse than knowing you were being stalked by a malevolent force.
He had now entered the main hall. It had been that room where the bodies of the black magic occultists were burned by the Judges. That was after the master had fallen in the very center of the room. A dark mound of bones- remnants from the fire- was still there. But that was not all that was there. What Sawyer saw on the top of the bones caused the breath to catch in his throat.
Atop the bones, in a makeshift chair, sat a creature.
It was thin and skeletal itself. The outline of the head showed it to be bald, with sharp, pointed ears that arced away from the skull. In one bony hand, it held a long wooden shaft with a curved blade at the top. The other hand was rapping long claws on the skeletal armrest. The face and most of the body was obscured by the darkness, but then the hand that held nothing snapped, and the long-dormant torches along the walls lit up. Now Sawyer saw a face adorned with what looked like leathered skin drawn tightly over a face. There was no nose, and the lips were pulled so tightly it seemed as if it would be impossible for them to close over the rows of knife-like teeth in the over-large mouth.
“Thou hast made a poor choice, entering this accursed place,” came a strangely proper, if not gravelly, welcome from the creature.
“So, I guess you are a perverted form of Dobby, huh?” Sawyer retorted, forgetting that a demon that spoke King James English probably was not familiar with the writings of Rowling.
“Tis been my charge to guardeth this castle for many ages,” the profoundly yellow eyes sized up Sawyer. “Thou dost not appear as I had expected. But thou art trespassing upon my keep. Thus, thou must perish.” It began to rise very slowly. Dust, debris, and centuries of solitude billowed off of the emaciated form of the house demon as it did so.
Sawyer stepped forth and brandished the gladius. “Greater and more terrible demons than you have threatened me, Dobby. And I have questions for you.”
“Why dost thou refer to me as ‘Dobby’ so insistently? Dost thou not knowest that the demon guard takest the name of the master’s family?” The demon seemed intrigued- perhaps because it was lonely after a few quiet centuries.
“Yeah, I know that,” said Sawyer. “In fact, that is what I am here to chat with you about. Tell me all about the family that lived here.”
The demon laughed a mirthless laugh, “Thou hast no hold over me.”
Sawyer stepped fully into the light, and the gladius became fully clear for the first time. The demon’s eyes went wide. Then Sawyer said, “By the name of Christ, whose flesh was pierced by nails that form my sword, I bind you, demon of the house of Feurer!”
The demon seized and tightened, dropping its spear. Sawyer raised the gladius's tip, and the nightmare began to hover over the pile of skeletons. “I know you’ve been out of the loop for a bit, but I also know you have ties to the Feurer family descendants. So, tell me. How did the Feurer family eventually bring forth Lucius Edward Furr?”
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