Necromancers are the reason for such a violation of these sacred boundaries that make all life possible. Through divination, when necromancers visit Uncity to speak with the dead, or through rapturing, when they raise the dead into life, they place a strain on the veil and risk the stability of the Gates. Of course, with the exclusion of one historical event, necromancers have never violated the veil to such a degree as to destroy or even harm it. Rapturing a soul here or there, or paying a visit occasionally to Uncity, is not enough to destabilise the entire system. But once there occurred an event that threatened to destroy everything, and it was only by luck that anyone—the souls of Uncity and the folk of Bratsk—managed to survive.
This episode is known as the Tumult, a cataclysmic event that continued unabated between 1200 and 1520 AU. During this time, the Great Correspondence, the Veil and the Gates were under constant threat, as necromancers in Bratsk worked alongside the Sakr to liberate its lands from the stain of empire. To aid the Sakri’s plight, necromancers raptured hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of souls to fight alongside the liberational forces of the Sakr, and the walls that divided the three spheres of existence came tumbling down.
The veil grew thinner with every soul that passed through it, making it easier and easier for others to ascend and escape Uncity. The beings of the Afterlife were drawn from across their respective worlds—angels and seraphs, ghosts and poltergeists, daemons and devils, and assembled and clamoured on the other side of the Gates, demanding what was rightly theirs—the judged souls of the good, of the bad, of the saints and the sinners. Driven wild from spiritual malnourishment, the daemons behind the Seventh Gate broke through into Uncity itself in 1519 AU, and for months corruption stalked its buildings and chambers and the minds of its people. It was only a matter of time before the necromancers of Bratsk would rapture these daemons too, directly into Bratsk. In Uncity, soul attacked soul, driven mad by the envy and hatred the invading daemons instilled in them, whilst those who remained true quailed in their rooms, kissing their icons for protection, or else were found, beaten, and dragged through the Seventh Gate without any trial.
The Veil’s Restitution
And then, in the spring of 1520 AU, when the Neprev Empire was pushed out of the Sakr lands, the raptures suddenly stopped. Those newly arrived in Uncity spoke of the Empire’s destruction, of Sakr’s liberation, and of necromancers who, having fulfilled their end of the bargain, parted ways with the Sakr, and returned to their homes. Order was restored; the veil grew thick once more, the daemons left Uncity to retake their true place in the Afterlife, and the Court sat in judgement again.
Other stories from Bratsk reached those who had survived the assault on Uncity. The Nekromika, that famed Order of necromancers that had since the beginning of the conflict with Sakr, acted as its faithful servant, had fallen under suspicion for conspiring against the Svyat and his government, helping a foreign power win its independence.
What followed was an extinction event across Bratsk, in which necromancers were steadily rubbed out of existence. Ending in the 1730s, the purge took two hundred years to complete. The Neprev Empire was thorough in its genocide: the Nekromika was outlawed, its members arrested, imprisoned and executed.
Since that terrible time, Uncity has been stable and peaceful. With only a handful of disparate, disconnected necromancers attempting the occasional rapture or short visit to Uncity, the Veil has held strong, the Gates have been protected, and the prosecution of souls has continued unabated. Until now.
