Page 77 - Hunter the Vigil - Mortal Remains

CHAPTER THREE: GHOSTWALKERS

out his own special brand of exorcism. To date, Waverly hasn’t At the same time, when roused to anger, these hunters have
achieved any level of success. Yet. seen Fog Men wreak massive destruction, with little regard for
These failed attempts have convinced some hunters that collateral damage. What’s more, or so the Loyalists’ believe, the
helping ghostwalkers find redemption is a waste of time. Fog Men’s numbers swell in direct response to mass killings,
Ghostwalkers are not possessed, as many misguided and foolish so fighting individual Fog Men does nothing to prevent any
hunters believe, but the Antichrist’s active, willing agents. They real danger. That’s why some hunters believe it’s better if the
can be shown no mercy. Indebted spend their efforts elsewhere, to prevent the Fog Men
The Merciful within the order have not given up though. from generating in mass numbers.
These hunters still want to find a way to “cure” ghostwalkers. If The source of the Fog Men is open to debate, and these
they can remove whatever dark spirit haunts their poor, suffering beings often don’t willingly disclose their secrets to the Loyalists.
bodies, then the ghostwalkers will be freed. Unfortunately, ever While some hunters believe the Fog Men bargained for a new
since Waverly’s work has begun to surface, fewer and fewer life with a god of the Underworld, the truth is obscured across
hunters will give a ghostwalker the chance for redemption. Still, many cultures, many battlefields. What’s more, when Fog Men
they do try. do speak of their creators, they address them in mythic terms:
Other, more radical hunters remind the compact the death lords, horsemen, geists, psychopomps, even gods or
arrival of the Four Horsemen’s minions ultimately means good demons.
things for the armies of God. This is the surest sign that the Whatever their origins, the Loyalists have discovered one
Tribulation is underway, and that the major players are taking damning piece of evidence that leads them to belief the Fog
the field. In this way, the arrival of the haunted is cause for Men aren’t human — they can travel through the lands of the
celebration. Still, the compact as a whole is wary of ghostwalkers, dead and reemerge miles away from where they were last seen.
even though they may be excited about their implications.
While many creatures take some examination and prayer The Response
to find where they fit in the Tribulation, the Long Night’s The Indebted’s response to the Fog Men is nuanced, and
view on ghostwalkers is clear. Since these agents of the End hunters are conflicted. The compact, as a whole, agrees that
Times are active, the compact can use ghostwalkers as tools to it’s important to ascertain the threat of any given Fog Man,
show other hunters what is really going on. Maybe then, when and decide if dealing with her is worth the trouble. If it is,
the Long Night shows undeniable proof of their beliefs, the they will likely find a way to trap and not kill her. If not, they’ll
compact will finally convince other hunters to join with them probably keep their heads down to avoid draw their attention.
on the right side for the final battle between good and evil. By this point, the Loyalists have dealt with enough Fog Men
The Loyalists of Thule that they’ve figured out interviews aren’t yielding any new
information, so questioning them isn’t worth the effort.
The Indebted have always known about the Fog Men. In This does not mean, however, that these hunters are idle.
the second World War, these scholars were at ground zero when Instead, they focus their efforts by attempting to locate the doors
the angry dead swarmed Nazi-controlled territories seeking to the Underworld. It seems that the Loyalists have located a
vengeance. The Loyalist’s records carefully record how these few doors in the past, like the doorway in Berlin, and have
creatures stood up after dying from grenades, gunshots, mines, studied them extensively. Until very recently, the Indebted have
as they pressed forward, bleeding fog from their wounds. Many even managed to get some of them open. What they found,
of the Fog Men’s victims were guilty, but others were simply however, has given the Loyalists nightmares.
targets of convenience, everyday workers who had no part in Though they expected to find the Fog Men’s strange mas-
government or the Nazi regime. The Loyalists, however, thought ters, they found an underground land teeming with ghosts;
that the Fog Men held the secret to eternal life, an enigma the some were sentient, some trapped in bizarre vignettes, some
scholars actively sought up until 1945. animalistic. Worse, as the Loyalists peered closer into that un-
In the aftermath of WWII, the Loyalists continued to earthly realm, they noticed that all spirits were drawn deeper
study the Fog Men, but have turned up little new information and deeper into those lands, beyond rivers ferried by mysteri-
in the decades that followed. The Indebted know that the Fog ous and frightening creatures. To date, only one cell has man-
Men were connected to angry ghosts, casualties of war that aged to journey — and return — through that doorway. The trip
originated from concentration camps, the SS, and battlefields was extremely traumatic for them, however, and the hunters
all over Europe. have since begged to be never return.
Now, some Indebted believe the number of Fog Men in Through those doorways, the Indebted may find the an-
the West is a fraction of what existed during the end of World swers they seek. This knowledge has led the Loyalist’s founders
War II. This led to the theory that violent deaths produce more to begin recruiting willing volunteers — both hunters and Fog
Fog Men, and those deaths yield a specialized type of ghost — a Men. Hunters may not trust the haunted, but the founders un-
righter of great wrongs. derstand that the secrets the Fog Men hold can only be uncov-
The Loyalists have also studied how Fog Men tend ered with a guide. To them, navigating the Underworld doesn’t
to protect humans from ghosts, a fact that has piqued the just require skill; it requires a unique ability the Fog Men seem
Indebted’s curiosity, but does not scare them into action. to possess.

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