Magic was dangerous.
Every morning, Talbryn Hahn spent an hour in meditative prayer on this very subject. Because danger could mean a very great number of things. Technology was also dangerous, after all— a bit of the wrong powder and carelessness with a flame, and entire city walls could be undone in a catastrophic explosion. Technology, put into the wrong hands, could backfire, be turned on those it was supposed to help, or do so much so quickly there was little hope of stopping it.
But magic was dangerous. It never required that someone have access to anything but their own will. It never came with the failsafe of needing to possess both gunpowder and a flame. It never needed a machine to backfire. Magic, simply by virtue of being magic, just was. And thus, so was the danger of it. It could go so wrong, so quickly, because anyone could be a magic-user. A small child, not knowing anything close to the word "discipline", could call down a storm so terrible it flooded his entire town under feet of mud and mire. An old man, in the process of losing his mind to the ravages of time, could wake up from a disjointed nightmare to find he had summoned the very amalgamations he'd dreamt of in his haze.
And these were the accidental dangers. Nothing malicious. The terrible circumstances of what happened when someone incapable of commanding control held more power than they should. Talbryn couldn't hate them for that— plenty of mages never meant to actually use their powers, and certainly weren't loathsome for the accidents of their birth any more than they were loathsome for the color of their hair or which hand they held a kitchen knife with.
Ignoring that danger, that was loathsome. Feeding their pride over their soul, that was loathsome. And worst of all, for those select mages who succumbed to the darkest of magics, who warped the world to suit their needs and bent the knees of everyone around them in a manic, masturbatory frenzy of self aggrandizement...
That was hateful. That was evil.
Though...
It was always at this point in his prayers that Talbryn was forced to chew on the bitter remnants of his own guilt. Who hadn't done a thing they knew to be ill? Hadn't he, over and over again, entertained twisted fantasies? Indulged himself in depravities simply because it felt good? Lingered too long on a daydream that he should have shaken out of the moment it happened?
Was he really in a place to judge?
But, therein was the difference: he sinned, yes. Oh, God, had he sinned. And as sure as the sun would rise in the morning, he would sin again. He was, shamefully enough, a carnal creature. He knew what he did was wrong, but that didn't stop him for very long when faced with the prospect of a warm bed and a boneless sleep. He tried, now and again, to start anew. Repent, turn away from his old ways, resolve himself to chastity and morality and the righteousness someone of his cloth should be.
He tried. He had yet to succeed.
But the difference was that he tried. He tried to control himself. And he put limits on his depravity. When he lost control, he never caused frost. When he lost control, he never teleported the family's only cow to some distant, unknown location. When Talbryn lost control, it was only of himself. He remained, as always, a man, and damaged only himself in the process.
A magic user, when they lost control, damaged hundreds. Thousands. Potentially, God forbid, doomed them all.
And then there was the truly evil sorts. The ones who might not have lost control, but used their powers to rob others of their own. Who ensnared minds and stole hearts and rendered entire countrysides to mindless, shambling slaves merely because he wanted to. Or, worse still, because whatever dark powers he'd cavorted with wanted him to.
These mages, Talbryn could fight without guilt. It was a meditation all its own, really— facing what was truly wrong with the world made him feel like he had, in his own small way, made amends for his own transgressions. In his own small way, this was penance.
It was with decidedly more cheer, then, that Talbryn followed along the path that would lead them to a small town, said to be under the throes of a sorcerer puppeteer. A monster who wanted to rule as many people as possible, and would use his otherworldly powers to make sure it happened. It took some time to get the scent— longer than Talbryn would've liked. It was a subtle taint, to be sure, and with how remote the town was, it was hard to figure out just which road genuinely led where. By the time the hounds found their path, the sky had turned darker and darker, as if the sun itself knew they were trespassing into cursed lands.
Which made their greeter all the more concerning to behold.
Talbryn had heard plenty of stories of the sorts that could be found in the more southern countries across the mountains. Serendipity, especially, was a veritable smorgasbord of strange, fearsome and utterly enticing creatures. But rarely, if ever, did many make the trip north, and rarer still did they linger.
The Mordecai tightened his grip on the leash, pulling the hound back to his side and considering the beast's reaction. Relaxed. Easy. Sniffing the air but not latched onto a Source. Talbryn looked back at the devil in the town square, even as his fellow Mordecai drew their swords in preparation for a fight, trusting in Ansgar's blessing to keep the worst of it at bay. Assuming it was mortal magics— who knew what someone like this was capable of?
At the very least, caution gave Talbryn time to look a little closer. A sharp pang of guilt mixed with something much warmer in his blood, knowing at the back of his mind that his consideration was not entirely rooted in wariness. He lingered too long on the red devil's face, on the way it was spattered with scales the color of blood, on the fiery color of his eyes and just how twisted a shape he cut standing alone in the center of the town. Monstrous. Animalistic.
Talbryn took a deep breath to steady, and ignored how quickly his heart was beating. Pretended, just for the moment, it was because of nerves before a battle.
"Hark! You stand in violation of Ansgar's holy law— use of magic is forbidden. Surrender yourself now and confess, or suffer Ansgar's wrath."
