"The first demons emerged from our very catacombs," Prelate Brechet said. "They bore the guises of our honored saints. They knew not what our actual form was."
The screen behind Prelate Brechet begins to play. The screen shifts into six partitions showing intersections of hallways in what was once the pristine Vatican Museums. The hallways, with their hundreds of Renaissance masterpieces, are admired by the museum's tourists.
The video pauses, and Prelate Brechet steps in front of the screen. He draws his notched silver sword from its scabbard. Using it as a pointer he taps at one corner of the segmented screen.
"The camera started to move, shake if you will," Prelat Brechet explained. "It went unnoticed, even by the museum patrons."
The video begins to play, and in the upper left corner of the screen, the segmented image shakes. It's a small thing at first, but then it moves again, this time more erratically.
The Prelate hunched over and stepped out of the line of sight. I noticed it instantly. The crowd, which had been teeming with normal and everyday human movements, was now still. As the video played, I watched people clasp hands, put arms around children, and even draw spouses back from the nearest walls.
"We've no audio, thank the Lord and the Pope," Prelate Brechet said. "It was late January and cold." He shakes his sword at the stilled video. "That grace of our Lord saved many lives."
The video resumed, and the horrors of myth and legend became a reality.
Articulated bones clothed ancient ecclesiastical robes battered through the floors, doors, and walls. Each denizen from below had unnatural strength and vigor as they hammered themselves a path into our world.
The horror of what came next is something I'll not forget. One lady had a skeletal hand grip her shoulder; her efforts to back away ceased as pressure from the beast moved her away from her enshrouding arm. The husband fell mere moments later to a trio of bone walkers, his body eaten, ripped apart, or bludgeoned by bony hands, depending on the attacker's proclivities.
The video does not stop for those in the lecture hall, a new building wrought of stone scrolled with Vatican silver pictorials depicting scenes of the holy church. My peers here know why we are here, even those that are sick quickly return their gazes to the screen.
A hand goes up, and the video pauses, "Yes, Prospect Arbiter Melini?" Prelate Brechet asks.
"Why," Melini says in her soft voice. She gulps, straightens, and continues, "Why do they all attack differently?"
"They are not of our world, Prospect Arbiter Melini," Prelate explains, "Humanities notions and even our civilities are unfathomable to them. At this point, they hadn't even learned to replicate our language. They are here to feed, and to do that, they must kill." He moves to the front of the room, nearer his lecturn. "Who can tell me the five primary attacks you've witnessed in this video," his sword tip flicks to the woman under the skeletal grip
I don't know how I know, but I am sure of it even as his silver-embossed steel-clad left hand points right at me.
I begin to stammer, and the Prelate's face frowns, but I regroup before he can move on. "From the look on her face," I said, "That was a beast of Lust." I stand as I was ought to do before speaking, clasping my hands in front of me as our order does. "The man with her, her husband by the ring on his left hand, fell to beasts of gluttony, wrath, and envy."
"That is four," the Prelate chastizes.
I point to the corner of the screen, the one with the previously shaking monitor. "There, Prelate Brechet. The Swiss guard in the guard station set up to monitor the camera feeds fell to sloth."
Prelate Brechet raises a notched eyebrow, elongating the ragged scar across his forehead and cheek. He turns to the screen and harumphs, "How did you come to that conclusion, Prospect?"
I winced at the biting tone of his question. "Only the one monitor shook during the replay," I said. "You took care to point it out with your Vatican silver blade. You asked for five, but I did not see pride or greed in the video. My gut tells me that the guard was stationed there because of a slothful nature."
There is a deep inhalation from Prelate Brechet, "We don't know what got him. It might have been pride, greed, or, as you mentioned, sloth." The Prelate turned around and looked over the class. "Observation is the single greatest tool you will have as an Arbiter of Faith if you survive your training.