Shadow Warriors

This secret brotherhood was raised during the age of the Unified Empire as the swelling ranks of mages began to alarm the state, and its warriors train above all to mask their mana from detection. It ranks among the Empire's covert arms, working the same shadows as a sister cell called Court of the Sacred Staff, while the Magic Special Forces operates out in the open, all of them set to curb spellcasters and smother rebellion. Sixteen years before Serie would attend the Foundation Festival, the reigning emperor of that day ordered the group dissolved.

Secrecy defines the work; their missions are known only to a handful, and assassination is the core of it, operatives striking names off a standing kill list. They pledge themselves wholly to the Empire, obey without questioning the reasons behind an order, and are expected to die for the cause, with desertion judged treason and answered by execution. Many are pulled as children from orphanages and trained to fight from a young age. The structure stays loose rather than military, ground commanders granted wide latitude, free to use force inside the Empire and even to choose their own targets. Each cell falls under a commander, and where the past held several such officers, only one is known to lead in the present.

Commander Löwe heads the order in the present day, with operatives such as Wolf, Schritt, Clematis, Iris, Gazelle, Routine, Lore, and Wehrlos answering to him; he gathers many of them during the Foundation Festival for a strike against the great mage Serie. Others include Kreis, Eleven, and Radaal, the last of whom kept hunting a decades-old target, Frieren, long after his orders should have lapsed, until she persuades him to abandon a mission no one even remembers.