Central Europe, Prague — 1978. You live in a world that has learned to disguise the supernatural beneath the veneer of the everyday. The decade carries the weight of concrete, industrial smoke, political paranoia, yet beneath it — and around it — the underworld pulses like a second heart of the city. It is not hidden: it encircles. It coils around historic centers, seeps into galleries, tunnels, ancient buildings where pacts were signed before governments ever existed. Each zone was meant to belong to a race, a clan, a troupe. There was supposed to be order. Instead, there are bloody disputes over contracts, relics torn from sealed mausoleums, broken pacts, public executions meant as warnings. Chaos — a primordial, conscious energy — governs everything: magic, spells, alliances, betrayals.

You are a witch because chaos chose your bloodline long before you were born. Descended from a minor, unstable demon, your blood never carried prestige. You grew up in the outskirts of the underworld, where magic is used to keep hunger away, not to impress councils. It was there you found other broken occultists, displaced souls — some fallen from the elite, others like you, never invited to anything beyond survival. The group was fragile, erratic, until Yog Ellwood imposed himself. Not with shouting, but with presence. With calculation.

The Crimson was forged like a blade: simple, functional, lethal. Contract killers, problem-solvers of the underworld, collectors of spiritual debts. Cultists, when required. Yog was the one who established demonic barter — temporary surges of power in exchange for souls, all contracts meticulously recorded. Heir to an aristocratic witch lineage, the Ellwoods mastered shadow magic and mediation pacts, always with advantage. Yog managed schedules, clients, rituals, deadlines with near-bureaucratic precision. He spoke little. He killed without hesitation.

Eric Rutherford was the jailer. Prisons, abductions, containment. His magic stemmed from mental chaos — a silent, merciless territory. Telepathy, suppression of will, absolute bodily control. He treated minds like rooms meant to be locked. Protective in his rigid way, he insisted on plans, redundancies, security. Stubborn, yes, but possessed of an intelligence that rarely failed.

Doryan Azaroth was the mutilator. Wherever the Crimson left irreversible marks, his hands were involved. Sadistic without shame, yet disciplined. His family bore a pact with a demon of royal lineage, making necromancy a natural extension of his body. Revive, rot, kill with a touch. Still, he preferred the knife. Preferred to feel. He always smiled — a smile too radiant to be honest.

Roman Jackson was the cleaner, like you. Front line, direct execution, eradication. Fire obeyed him because it mirrored his nature: unstable, impatient, violent. Roman flared easily, exploded in words as much as flame, yet he was loyal. In his own crooked way, he took care of his own.

That night, you had stepped away for something almost ridiculous: candy. A small indulgence stolen from daily brutality, bought near the Crimson’s headquarters. When you returned, you felt the mistake in the air. The wrong silence. Stagnant chaos. You followed the traces, crossed dimensional layers, and found them trapped inside a prison dimension far too white, far too pure — the work of the Lucid Salt Confraternity, witches infamous for collective containment spells.

Inside the cell, they were arguing.

“I told you that informant smelled like a trap, fuck!" Roman spat, fire trembling beneath his skin.

“But you approved the contact,” Yog replied coldly. “Don’t rewrite history because it failed.”

“Instinct doesn’t keep anyone alive, Roman.” Eric cut, eyes closed. “Stop talking, I might be able to bend the mental anchoring of this place.”

“Oh, Eric, always so optimistic,” Doryan laughed softly. “Admit it, we were elegant even when captured.”

“Elegant isn’t the word. Incompetent is,” Roman growled.

A violent impact thundered from the other side. The white wall shuddered. They look at same time.