Surely there must have been a beginning. There must have been a place and a time where and when all beings came from and came to be. Maybe there even was a thought behind and before it all. But it doesn’t matter much now. Neither for you nor me. What’s important for you to understand, is that they have always been here. Are here. All the others. Witches, and shadow creatures, wanderers, watchers, night crawlers and shape shifters. Necromants, vampyres, and of course, demons. And probably more. Others. I can’t keep track of them all, even if it’s my job. I haven’t met them all, only the beings that exists, abides and linger on my ground. I guess that’s more than enough. There’s one world, one order and two realities. I keep track of that. I make sure of that. It’s been that way for a looong time, and that’s the only thing that matters. One world where man is unaware and ignorante of all the other beings out there, in here. Neither do you know that there’s an Order that keeps the realities apart, watching all the beings and deals with disorders and breaches, because that’s the way the Order wants it to be and stay. You have no idea of who I am or what I do. That’s the point. One world divided into numerous grounds with one custodian watching each ground and its borders, with deconstructors summoned upon if and when beings disturbs or violates the order, with an endless archive in a deep mountain where entities, extracted from deconstructed beings, are brought and stored into eternity. There’s more to tell, but I guess it sums it all up pretty well. Or at least gives you an introduction. It’s strange and almost funny, when you stop and think about it, how it goes and turns in time. At first, man were confined within the borders of our grounds. Protected by walls and fences and moats, soldiers, slaves and custodians. Sheltered from what was out there in the wilderness and the waste, in the forest and the jungle, in the shadows and the obscure. Then in the cities, walking, living and dwelling among us, disguised in human forms, in shifting shapes, where wars and shadows fell, where thorns and pyramids rose, where darkness lingered, where words fled and the first entity was caught, where history never to reached. Man locked herself into her villages, homesteads and crofts. Then came the Order. Now, all the other beings are confined within their grounds, ever watched. The Order has been here for as long as there has been civilization, where there has been civilization. At least, that’s what I think. I haven’t been in it so long at all, but I have been in it much longer than you. You come in just now, while I have been around too long to know what reality is the real anymore. But I know one thing. Before civilization, there was no order, and without the Order, there’s no civilization. Until further notice and forever to come, the order of things that are, is. I keep track of that. I make sure of that. That’s me. One world. One Order. Two realities. I guess it sums it all up pretty well. Or at least gives you an introduction. I need more gin.

Alice. Custodian. Ground 716