your sect may have told you. The refusal to join Gratiano and the other Lasombra was not done out of spite, nor jealousy, nor fear, but out of loyalty and honor for what they knew to be right and just. Loyalty to the dark father, Lasombra.

What is that you're thinking? You ask why Lasombra would lead the Sabbat disguised as Gratiano? That is quite simple. Tell me, have you ever read the Bible? I doubt it by the looks of you. Allow me to share with you a parable from its pages. It is a personal favorite of mine, the story of Job. It seems that God and the Devil get together to argue faith. God says that his followers upon earth are loyal to him and know him as the one and only God above. The devil, always defiant and antagonistic tells God that if he inflicts enough suffering and grief upon just one of his followers that even

the strongest of faith would denounce him, and seek other Gods. The two choose a simple farmer...a man by the name of Job.

Over the course of months, God killed his wife, his children, withered his crops, killed his livestock, and inflicted him with painful boils and disease, put him through hardship after hardship. Throughout his ordeal, despite everybody telling him that God had forsaken him, he refused to stop worshiping God and would not allow his faith in the almighty to falter. God tested him and he past the test.

Chapter 1: Standing Before a Myth

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