WHAT THE FUCK IS REDOUBT?!

So, what’s Redoubt? I work for them, but who (or what) are they? The truth is, I dunno. I plan to find out. That’s part of why I’ve taken this job.

Redoubt (noun) rɪˈdaʊt
something that holds or defends a belief or a way of life, especially one that is disappearing or threatened; a small, often hidden building in which soldiers can hide while they are fighting.

The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a "redoubt" as the above. Make of that what you will. I asked my superiors and many others whether this definition has any bearing on what Redoubt itself actually is, or why it’s called that - they didn’t know, and had no straight answers for me. Soror Smirk told me something about how, “Well, we do defend,” but wouldn’t elaborate beyond that. So I don’t know.

Soror Smirk is my main liaison with Redoubt. She recruited me after we connected online. It was a messy series of events and I kinda wonder if they did some divination of a sort and realized I was the perfect desperate person to do their work for them. I ignored the messages after a while, because thought it was a scam of course. I had no idea they’d already marked me down as a potential millennial mage-to-be or whatever.

Either way, Smirk’s not the type of person who gives up easily. She knew exactly where I worked and who my friends were, etc, apparently from sites like TikTok and Instagram. When she showed up at the Freeze-n-Fry, I was shocked, and would’ve been frightened if I hadn’t been so curious. She got her point across by humming the song I had stuck in my head. Now I work for Redoubt, am shielding my mind very fucking well around her, and yes, she’s my direct superior in the organization.

I’d be very very very nervous posting about this on most websites. Deleting my social media was, by the way, a total prerequisite for the job. For some reason, though, they seem unable to find or track Neocities, including this site. Fuck, even my normal-ass roommate Dwayne could’t seem to find it way back when I tried to tell him that the small web existed. It’s like it only loads for me?

Maybe you’re all an hallucination. Redoubt probably isn’t, but Neocities could be. Ironic.

Stuff we Did?

To begin, I’m going to talk about some of the stuff I’ve already done for Redoubt over the past years.

There have been some jackasses on here claiming I am comparable to a cop. I don’t think I’m much like a cop? I’m mostly just an informant. Smirk does the bulk of the work. She casts the majority of the spells and does the workings, though I’m watching and kinda learning from her. We’re not working with normal “law enforcement” either - those people have no idea any of this is even happening. In other words, I am not a cop.

So far, Soror Smirk and I have achsually got a lot of things done, so to speak.

We fucked over some crypto rats who were draining an entire county just north of here. They were using magic to help mine their stupid coins. Redoubt hates mixing magic and technology. Since energy has to come from somewhere, it kind of fucked over other mages in the area, too. You would not believe how much magical power goes into mining bitcoin if you do things that way. So we shut them down. Guys can’t even do basic math now, I heard. That was actually pretty interesting to watch.

This weird hippie chick enchanted this massive horde of cats. She started sending them out to stalk the deadbeat father of her child. It was working out well for her. Kid’s dad was scared as fuck being watched by all these cats looming on him and her knowing his every whereabout. Except people were noticing. We put a stop to it, though. Now both of them have got a phobia of soft animals and I think she’ll only ever own snakes as pets from now on. I didn’t like that idea, but Smirk was insistent.

There was a singer/guitarist guy who was letting a spirit possess him for concerts. Apparently that’s actually okay but it’s not okay that he was fucking the spirit. People aren’t allowed to fuck spirits regardless of how hot they may be. So, Smirk and I took action sadly. Now he can’t play that guitar live anymore, and I doubt he’s on Spotify anymore. At least, there’s nothing new on there. Smirk saw to that.

Guy tried sending a couple tree spirits after his own father, who I guess had done some really abusive shit. We’d kind of have been okay with this, too, except he had no idea what the fuck he was doing. The spirits just started going after anyone who kind of looked or acted like this guy’s dad, so we had to put a stop to it really quick. Tree spirits are back where they belong. The mage involved now believes his dad died of cancer ten years ago. Happy ending for once?

At my lowest point, I pissed on a haunted meth lab. It was not a recreational piss, it was a spell, okay? These guys were trying to pull some Walter White shit with occults, so we ran them out of town. Redoubt intervenes in organized crime sometimes? I’m pretty sure the place caught fire afterwards. It was the scariest case we had yet and there were so many volatile energies. Smirk actually let me have a really active role in it, too, which is rare af. She, uh, turned her back for that spell.

It’s not like any of this was easy. Been hurt, been threatened. I burned my forearm on some kind of apparatus in that stupid magical crypto mine. Smirk had to somehow help knit the skin back together with a charm before it turned messy. The guitarist came at me with a pocketknife, but he wasn’t difficult to handle in the end. The worst part was probably the nightmares the tree spirits visited on me while I was still hunting for the mage controlling them, but even that was manageable.

There are way worse jobs. Probably.

Guidelines from Redoubt

A metric fuckton of people have asked on here about the kind of requirements Redoubt places upon me as an operative or whatever. I can’t really tell you all of them because they came in a book that’s about the size of the Starr Report. I didn’t read the entire thing because I have to work night shift too at the diner on top of all this.

I’ll do my best to summarize as necessary but it’s all really complicated and even now, Smirk has to explain stuff to me again and again. She’s pretty fucking patient, which is good. I guess I can update this page just like all pages with new information as I get it. Anyways, here’s what’s going on with that…

My Job Decription and Duties???

Preventing the consolidation of magic in the hands of the powerful is the primary objective of Redoubt. C’mon. You have to agree with this one. Imagine if that moron who owns the bird site got magical powers. Imagine if Charles Manson had been able to cast spells. It’d have been terrible. They explained this in long, lingering detail how magic can (and has) been abused by bad actors and people seeking power above all else. So we have to stop that at all costs.

Redoubt also seeks to prevent the widespread proliferation of magical abilities. Apparently according to Smirk it’s a horrible idea for more than a small percentage of people to ever know magic exists, let alone be able to use it. She doesn’t want this shit to turn into some kind of giant Harry Potter wizarding world bullshit, and neither does Redoubt. That hasn’t happened yet in human history, and Redoubt wants to keep it that way.

This includes preventing the forging of new magical currents by sorcerers who want to do things their own way. Sorcery is a complicated topic. Of course new doorways to the spirit world get opened sometimes. Every magical current began somewhere as the work of sorcerer, eventually getting passed on to their mage students. But nowadays? Redoubt doesn’t like that happening too much without their approval. I haven’t met a sorcerer yet, but we’ll see.

It also includes obfuscating the public awareness of magic as it actually exists. It’s possible I guess that if people find out these things exist, they’d panic en masse or something and fuck shit up, I don’t know. Or maybe everyone’s going to want a piece of the pie and then we’d have a situation, again, with “ubiquitous” magic, which Smirk (well, Redoubt in general) wants to avoid…

I got to intervene in situations where people are subject to overt harm because of magic if the perpetrators are being really obvious and ostentatious about it. This doesn’t mean I have to jump in there (necessarily) when someone breaks the law, and plenty of times breaking the law with magic is perfectly okay. But screwing people over (in big ways) is not, I guess. I generally go by what Smirk says here, because I struggle to make it through all the papers and clarifying regulations they gave me.

Regulations I (Kinda) Follow-ish

I have to avoid mixing magic with technology as much as humanly possibly. Technically, all human inventions count as technology, but Smirk says to try to avoid enchanting anything made much longer after the Millennium, and I’ll be fine. A dot matrix printer is acceptable; I guess a Nokia is pushing it? I try to be careful because I don’t want to get written up or anything. I guess this isn’t the kind of thing people disappear and get “kicked upstairs” over, but still.

Without authorization from my immediate superior (Smirk herself), I’m not supposed to acknowledge the existence of magic to any party who approaches me, regardless of what they say or do. I have to hide all of my tools and the notebooks where I record (in code) what I’m learning. I can’t mention this to Dwayne, of course. I’ve technically broken this rule by making this site. Neocities itself seems like an odd blind spot for Redoubt, so hopefully things will be okay…

Along with that, obviously, I can’t do anything actually fun or interesting with magic, as far as I can tell. In other words, I’m not supposed to do anything that will draw a bunch of attention to myself or the situations, but then again, they’ve hardly taught me anything that would make that possible anyways. I suspect that was by design because I’ve seen many freelance (non-Redoubt) mages in this area do some cool shit. Perhaps soon I’ll be doing (quiet) cool shit, but that depends on Smirk teaching me.

A huge amount of what I do involves fucking with people’s heads in one way or another. There’s a bunch of rules I had to read about that, and I am keeping track of them, but they amount to only going as far as necessary, not putting ignorant people in danger, and avoiding freaking anyone out too badly. I kind of worry this might just be an optics thing. Do they really want to keep people safe, or just keep the whole thing under wraps?

Sure, magic can be shared. I could, in theory, give you magical powers if we met up in person and I did a small rite to pass my current on to you. But uhh… according to Redoubt, I’m not permitted to enchant anyone else without the direct permission of my superior (Smirk, lol). I know how to do it. It’s actually ridiculously simple like some kind of hat trick or game, but I’m positive if I went that far I’d end up in trouble.

Can you really fucking blame me for struggling to keep track of some of this? The stuff I mentioned above is only a small part of it. Like I said, they gave me pages and pages of rules. A lot of it is ultimately going to be “at my ethical discretion” and there was even a seminar I had to take about how Redoubt wants all operatives to develop strong discernment or something. I do my best when I’m working alone. To be honest, at this point I just do what Smirk tells me and hope for the best most of the time, though…

Why trust ‘em?

Anyways, when I posted this site, I started a poll of visitors. Should I trust Redoubt. A lot of people think I shouldn’t.

And guess what? No, I don’t trust Redoubt, exactly. At least not any further than the ding of the Cashpipe app when I get paid. It would be hard not to trust that at this point, considering the benefit I get from it. Let me lay it out bluntly for you.

I began working for Redoubt to pay off my debts quickly. I’ve got a metric fuckton of those. It’s common but mine are way more than usual. Redoubt was insistent I have a cover job of some sort, though. So, just kept the job I had before, as a line cook. Asides, I do need some kind of health insurances, and these eldritch clowns don’t provide that.

I also want to learn magic and gain cool powers. So far, Smirk taught me how to cause a car’s engine to stall outta nowhere with a few hand gestures, how to ward a room against anyone, and so much more. Why wouldn’t I want that? Who wouldn’t?

And, of course, I really want to learn what the fuck Redoubt is and what’s going on. You’d be just as curious if you were me, especially around someone like Smirk who just generally refuses to give a lot of information, just stares wide-eyed at you, and repeats the same statements. I don’t know if that’s her personal quirk (…unlikely…) or Redoubt itself.

In case you didn’t guess, I don’t trust Smirk herself either. That’s not just because she’s my main superior and liaison with Redoubt itself. There’s something just off hiding beneath that shimmery eye shadow she wears and I can never read her right. Is she happy with me? Is she pissed? I can never tell. Her eyes just freak me out, okay?

Seeing into people’s minds is part of my magic, but Smirk’s not going to let me into her head, duh. Most mages won’t, and it’s a conscious thing for the majority. No qualms there - I wasn’t cool with people reading my mind, either, but most people are easier to read in the normal way, though. Soror Smirk just feels way way way more guarded than anyone else I’ve ever met, and it’s clearly a purposeful thing. Smirk also has this gross habit of rarely blinking that makes me seriously concerned for her eyesight.

A conspiracy?

Technically? Redoubt might count as conspiracy, depending on how you define shit.

I just googled the definition of conspiracy. According to the Oxford whatever, it’s “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful.” I’ve done a couple of “unlawful” things while working for Redoubt so far that might make the cut, and also? I dunno if what they are doing counts as “harmful.” I guess it depends on how you see things? So, I guess by a strict definition given by Oxford people in the UK, I’m totally in a conspiracy!

Despite that Redoubt doesn’t seem to be anything like the kind of stuff people rant about on social media during election season. I don’t like those people and I don’t think they know what they’re talking about. Redoubt is not that. There’s clearly not aliens or like anything involving politicians, at least that I saw. The people training me that I met or talked to online seemed normal asides being enchanted and able to do magic.

But this is not the Illuminati or something like that, I’m sure. I know a lot of those conspiracy theories originate with people just making things up from the get-go. I’ve read and I know where those made-up stories come and, well - Redoubt already proved to me that they’re not making shit up.

Also, Redoubt seems really lowkey considering all the stuff they’ve taught me to do and how powerful it could be in the wrong hands. Very bizarre. I get that part of my job is to keep this magic outta the wrong hands by looking for sorcerers and other people who might be abusing their power or doing weird shit with magic.

But still, it’s surprising that Redoubt itself isn’t doing some kind of weird worldwide manipulation beyond that. Are they?

Redoubt definitely does have a fuckton of money, so I got to take that into account. I have no idea. Maybe they turn lead into gold?? Supposedly ancient alchemists were always trying to do that. Lmao. Smirk never clarified how things are being funded, but some non-Redoubt mages in my local area make a living with magic…

Super-powerful?

Kind of. They seem to have some influence, but they can’t be that powerful or they wouldn’t have hired me, right? Pretty sure of that. Still, if they weren’t powerful enough, they wouldn’t be able to keep this all a secret, and they are. I lowkey think they picked me because I exude desperation and they figured I wouldn’t talk.

Before, I was a line cook. I’m still a line cook when I don’t have a gig with Redoubt. Maybe they’re trying to keep a low profile by using people who already have a low profile as their operatives? That’s the only thing I can think of that might even come close to explaining some of this.

Like I said, they just seem to really really really want to stop magic from becoming “ubiquitous” (lol Smirk loves to hate that word!) and from being misused by people who are powerful, though. I guess that in and of itself counts as a conspiracy of sorts, to keep magic secret and out of most people’s hands. Isn’t that in and of itself sort of sketchy? I guess it makes sense in some ways, but not in others. I’m going with it for now, for the reasons I listed above, but that doesn’t mean I’ve completely made up my mind.

Anyways, my suspicion is that Redoubt is just really decentralized for security reasons. I guess it could just be some kinda Masquerade, like from a edgy goffic 1990s TTRPG? I guess that’s one possibility and frankly it’s probably the best, most likely one. I’d like to believe that’s all it is, anyways. I hope I didn’t accidentally sign up to work for the reaallllly bad guys or some bullshit like that. If they have some kind of hidden agenda, though, I will find out.

I’ve gotten, ahem mixed information on what would happen if I broke the rules. There were people online talking about how some operatives tend to go missing when they go too far and make too many mistakes. That could really mean anything, though. And someone else said that problematic people working for Redoubt often get “kicked upstairs,” whatever that means.

I was unable to talk to anyone with first or even second-hand information though. It was all stupid internet rumors people passed around during the training seminars when higher-ups weren’t in the same chat. At the IRL seminars and stuff, people would never talk about it and got super-uncomfortable, just said “Well don’t break the rules, and you won’t have to find out, okay?”