Across the world, eight young people returned home to find letters delivered with their names on them, but the moment the seals were broken…the world seemed to warp, twist and collapse in on itself. All of them pulled as if on ripcords through endless darkness, wind deafening in its loudness and stinging against their skin. Strange sounds filling their ears as haunting wails and screeches before…most of them hit the ground rather hard: smooth marble the color of silvery white covering the floors, a circular room with matching stone walls with massive windows looking out over different views: eight arched windows nearly twenty feet wide each looking out over varied and strange environments, fluted marble pillars between the windows veined in gold and silver, deeply domed ceiling painted light the night sky with a giant gold chandelier hanging from it, the floor adorned with an eight lined spiral of spirals, but the spirals were not just lines, but creatures: the central one being a massive sea serpent in inlaid tile of blue, green, opal and gold, the second was a rearing goat who’s lower body was a withing mass of serpents, the third was a shark that collapsed into dragonflies and vulture behind it, the fourth was a charging bear with a lion’s mane, back half collapsing into scorpions and snakes, next were thirteen narrower dragon necks and heads twisting in upon themselves, next was a massive fox: tail swirling and exploding into a swarm of toads and frogs, next was a dragon with a lion’s mane that collapsed into flames and lastly was a swirl of spiders. All of the lines were twisted and wrapped around a twelve pointed golden star: the compass points larger and wider with narrower spikes between them with a large disk of opal at the center of the star. All flush to the ground as the people looked around…confused and not really recognizing the people they were around as they looked back towards the mosaics on the ground before the rush of magic flourished as they looked over as a large twist of ice shot out of a rip in the very air, a figure sliding down the wave before twisting in the air as their boots met the stone floor, the ice collapsing behind them into black snowflakes that vanished into nothingness as the rip closed behind them, thick mist and fog trailed behind them like trailing steam, but snowflakes as large as saucers floated idly behind them as they looked around.

            “There all of you are” A voice said making most of them flinch as they looked towards the head of the room, eight thrones in an arch at the head of the room: the central one where the figure spoke from was dark blue marble wrapped in a golden serpent.

            “Prince Kálmán Varga” the figure who slid on the ice said, the others looked towards them, a thick strange accent adorning her voice as she stood there: her accent was neither here nor there, a mashup of various Scandinavian accents mixed with Russian along with a magical one making her voice low, rough and heavy sounding…almost as if her speaking had a physical weight to it. A very, very tall woman dressed heavily: icy pale skin with a defined blush along her cheeks, nose and temples like she had been standing in a blizzard for hours, frost actually gathered along the edge of her ears, lashes and temples, small spikes of ice even grew off the tips of her ears, shoulder length black hair in a messy wolf-cut of brushed out wind tussled waves with frost collected on the bottom into needle like spikes of ice, dark pine green eyes so rich you could barely see the difference between her pupils and irises and sharp, severe angular features adorned with dark, gothic makeup, heavily pointed ears and a hand resting behind her on something on her back over her shoulder. However, the most notable feature of the woman wasn’t a physical feature, but the coat she had on: a floor length evergreen colored coat of scaled leather, gold military embellishments along the front, shoulders and sleeves, belts wrapped and fastened around her chest and lined in extremely thick, wiry, fluffy white fur that trimmed the edges, the cuffs and made this stole of a neckline that if the neck was closed, her entire head would be consumed by the fur, such a huge collar that there could possibly be a hood hidden in its mass, thick and heavy gold making the hardware with a full polar bear skin attached to the left shoulder that hung to just above the floor. A black draw-string tubed shaped bag rested on her back with thick gold cord keeping the bag closed. As she walked forward a few feet, frost burst out from her footsteps, leaving needles of ice rising towards her soles as she lifted her impossibly tall, thin heeled boots. Everyone shivered intensely as long as they were within a few feet of her, the air itself crackling with frost.

            “Viktoria Claude” the eldest of the warlords said with a lopsided half-smile and a reserved fondness to his tone, making the others start picking themselves up a bit faster, though one of the people on the floor could not unlock their eyes from this woman. “How is old St. Nick, by the way?”

            “Dad is fine, same old, same old” she said before moving one of her arms back before a weapon rested in front of her with a large wooden thud, a crossbow…but extensively large: well over a yard or two tall, thick and heavy dark wood with a reddish tone to it, the stock engraved with snow, ornaments and poinsettia, a maroon leather cuff wrapped around the stock and belted around the wood, gold leaf poinsettia along the length of the crossbow with 12 large cabochons of white stone along the crossbow, the arms of the bow were gilded and the antlers of a reindeer skull at its point, just the upper half serving as the muzzle of the crossbow, the skull adorned with black/gold scrollwork and thick twisted gold wire forming the drawstring. The crossbow as massive as it was…was only about half her height and magic crackled off it intensely, the air around her seemed to drop to polar temperatures and snow formed in the air by the very proximity of her to the humidity of the air, the sheer size of the crossbow pushing her height well past human ranges.

            “Allow me to explain” Kálmán said standing, as the group looked around…they could easily recognize all of the warlords in the arch of thrones at the head of the room, though they were also alerted to the figure who was floating in the air behind the sea serpent throne, dressed in ornate clothing of black, purple and silver, covered in masses of silver jewelry, a mane of extremely curly black hair and glowing purple eyes, though his heeled feet lowered to let his silver pumps touch the ground as his eyes faded off to show their usual miss-matched colors.

            “Please…if you could” Viktoria said, hand softly resting on the back of her crossbow, hand clad in fingerless black gloves and long black nails sharpened to needle like points, frost collected along the nails making them longer, sharper and more needle like.

            “As all of you know…we are the warlords, the children of archdemons and we have found ourselves as…not magical leaders, but we are considered extremely powerful beings about the magical world and have some sense of leadership roles, however…all of you also know that our code, our creed that we have made makes us protectors of the magical world. However, we are only eight people…there are factors of the magical world that we wish to protect, but as ourselves find ourselves…not hindered, but…encumbered by our various duties” he explained, “We have chosen to…ask all of you, a proposition.”

            “A literal deal with a devil” the second figure who picked themselves up from the floor said, walking up to beside Viktoria.

            “Caesar, how are you? Not seen you sense the solstice” Viktoria asked, he laughed softly as he softly gripped her shoulder, about half a foot taller than her or so, warm caramel toned skin with legs fading into chocolate brown rabbit legs, collar length roughly cut matching chocolate brown hair, hot pink eyes and matching brown brows and lashes, softly bucked teeth and a small button nose, huge standing rabbit ears with a creamy interior, lithe and thin in his build and dressed in rather open, showy and flowy clothing with lots of floral elements, lots of jewelry and matching elements, huge bracers of sculpted leather and wood adorned with the elements of spring along them.

            Kálmán laughed softly, “A deal with a devil…yes and no” he said, “We have been pondering the idea of our own form of…lieutenants: beings whom all of us have personally chosen and appointed to their positions to help handle the various aspects of the world that…we would be too powerful and too big of people to handle.”

            “You want to have us help you by handling the small fry?” Viktoria asked, she flicked the brim of her hat, a wide brimmed black hat that fell back limply down to her shoulder ending in a black puff ball adorned with spikes, the brim adorned with a thick ruff of black fur adorned with spikes, a hybrid of witch and Santa with that distinct punk edge.

            “Yes and no” he said, “We also are appointing four of you to much more important duties. All of you will be given the title of a warden, however four of you would be considered the wardens of the seasons: Viktoria for winter, Caesar for spring, Alghu for summer and Gabriel for fall, but the rest of you will also be given a similar title.” He explained

            “Knights to the warlords” Viktoria said, softly drumming her fingers as she pondered the positions.

            “Wardens” he corrected