Dear Journal,
It looks like Lady Luck has not been kind to me.
And she has even been less kind to the owners of the Inn.
I arrived there at late night. About a mile before or so I could see and smell a smoke trail with the odor of burnt wood and flesh. Keeping my hopes up, I tried not to jump to conclusions, no matter how obvious it was about what I suspected what was going on. But as I approached the destination I knew it was too good to be true.
Of the inn was nothing left but a collapsed, smoking ruin of burnt wood and ashes. To the sides were eight wooden poles put in the ground, four on each side. On the poles were tied the charred remains of what I expect the family that runs it. The bodies were too mutilated to recognize their faces though. Two of them were young children.
It looks like Inquisition did a good job at what they were aiming for. I could imagine they didn't even dare dreaming to execute a few of us "Real Witches". Not that they can tell the difference...
Mostly they torture and kill random people, innocent or not. It's probably to give themselves the impression that their function is not for nothing, and make the people believe they are efficient witch-hunters. Besides, no-one is going to believe them when they would say there aren't that many witches and sorcerers as expected, or even worse: that most of them aren't as bad as popular rumors and beliefs portray them. No, the people want action. They want to see the "bad guys" suffer. They want to feel they are on the side of the victorious, even though they have no idea what it means.
I was surprised they didn't execute the patrons who were present there. Normally they are not very accurate seeing the difference between a healthy acceptable flower, bush or tree, and the parasitic weed that surrounds it.
Or maybe there weren't any patrons present by the time it happened. Maybe someone found out the secrets they were hoarding, and spread the word, a word that eventually became the biggest talk of the Kingdom. If so, I could imagine that it's bad for the inn's business, and that anyone who still deals with them is at risk of losing their own life in a very painful and rather dramatic way.
Flamboyant, impressive and sadistic were the Inquisition's specialties. I saw it with my own eyes as a child for the first time when they found out what my mother was. While blended in a cheering croud I watched them pull out and tear off her organs one by one until she stopped panting and moving. I think the inquisitors were disappointed in her because she didn't scream. They kept telling her that she will be forgiven if she screamed out in pain and begged for mercy (Which I suspect was usually just a lie to suppress their own feelings of guilt and disgust for themselves, because if she did, they would likely say she didn't really mean it). This clearly proved that they didn't understand anything of our little culture. They act as if the threat and sensation of physical pain and death were the worst things that could happen to a human, while we know there are things much worse. Hopefully the world will learn someday. If the prophesies are right, it SHALL learn, and we are the ones whose life-long (and beyond that) task it is to help them realize that, unwittingly or not. We believe it is the most noble goal a man can perform, for the sacrificial price is heavy. The task we are burdened with makes it very unlikely to grant us a cushy spot in the afterlife. But with our convictions and deeds, we can help others realize how to gain favour from the heavens, and why it's so important for mankind to know real peace. But for those who are charmed and tempted by us... I can only say: Welcome to the family, as long as you've been careful what you wished for! Because if you don't know what you need, you won't ever feel at home anywhere!
