The Power of Ten

Chapter 4-104: Eating Your Own

How dare they invade his home...

Malcolm Morgan III stumbled through the halls, a shotgun clutched in his hands, his head pounding with incredible rage, the fury at being manhandled by some invading non-human here, here in his home, these familiar halls...

They were here, he would find them! He would find them and show them their proper places, under his heels, paying for their effrontery of daring to stand before him as pretenders to equality...

He threw open the door before him, and froze.

Dozens of them turned to stare at him in shock, dressed up in fine suits and dresses, playing at, pretentious, arrogant! Preening elves, disgusting halvyr, those thieving hyn, the filthy urkhar, the contemptible dwarves, the horrid orcs, even the damnable hulking Ancients!

He screamed at them with the full force and fury of Imprus, Castigating them for their unclean lives and bodies, and reveled as they screamed and writhed in panic and fear as the sacred words of the Emperor of all Gods lashed at them.

The spell to give him endless ammunition for several minutes was quick to mutter, and then he began to shoot at these rebellious, damnable non-humans playing at being rich and wealthy and stylish.

The roar of his gun accented all his prayers as he brought up the defenses of Imprus to ward himself from their wrath as he began to drive them from these sacred halls...

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The massacre at the Shining Throne made all the papers, of course, and indeed spread across the news nationwide. A Priest of Imprus raging into a mass of the wealthy parishioners while hopped up on a particularly pure and addictive form of Apop, cursing and condemning them all as unclean, impure monstrosities who only deserved to kneel before him and Imprus, was quite the show, after all. So was the death tally before literally a dozen Casters in the audience blasted him to pieces with concentrated salvoes, overcoming his personal Wards and ripping him to seared, bloody bits of cooked flesh.

He was easily identified by the temple’s ecclesiarchy, of course; a strong and gifted Cleric of Imprus who preferred to work outside the temple’s grounds to further the work of the Imprusar.

The whisper campaigns of the racist attacks and drivel that he was spreading naturally didn’t help anyone’s beliefs, especially when he had killed two children he spat at as hyn thieves and leeches on society right in front of their parents and many disbelieving eyes.

It wasn’t hard to determine that he was hopped up on Apop, and had the carefully-concealed marks of having partaken of it many times, despite his bodyguards having sworn they’d never noticed the fits of anger that came with addiction to the drug...

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Sama watched the black vans enter the non-descript house, and particularly two of the fellows who got out of them. The pretentious twits carefully set their tall, broad-brimmed hats on their heads... trimmed in gold and silver, she smirked, as the Tats around her eyes glowed with magnified sight from the roof of the neighboring house.

Imprusar ‘Inquisitors’, the Witch Hunters. In reality, they were more like Internal Affairs and assassins, carrying out the killing of the disloyal and infiltrators, and also hunting down those who spoke out against the Church of Imprus and arranging their deaths... humiliating ones if possible, quiet disappearances if not.

They also sidelined as aggressive bounty hunters, eagerly hunting and taking down non-human Powered.

They were naturally among the most zealous and fanatical of the Divine Emperor’s servants.

Several figures were bundled out of the back of the vans, bound and gagged, and looking quite afraid. She recognized them as the members of Malcolm Morgan III’s security force, who she had left alive.

That, of course, was a great sin, surviving while your boss was sprayed crimson across the name, face, and image of great Imprus. They would be looking very, very hard to see which of the still-living guards was working with the outsider, and so why they had been left alive.

Then they’d be coming after the Shool, once they got a better image of what had happened, put all the facts together, and decided they needed to blame someone.

But in the meantime, parallel public investigations were getting perilously close to revealing that the sadly drugged mass murderer was actually a drug dealer who dealt in multiple versions of Apop, and him taking his own product to vent his extreme racism and elitism was definitely not out of the question. Alas, his skull had not survived his explosive death intact, so there was no questioning his doubtless Damned spirit.

Sama smiled thinly. She had let the guards live, but with what they knew, and the explosion of shitface coming down on the temple, there was no way they would be allowed to live. The Geases which made sure they wouldn’t speak could be removed by Harsites all too happy to learn the truth of the matter... and once they were, the truth would come out.

Those men were going to be reduced to gibbering wrecks, revealing the cookies they’d stolen as children to their questioners, and then die at the hands of the employers they’d been faithful to.

Someone should inform the authorities that the Imprusar had kidnapped several persons of interest in the case of the Shining Throne Massacre, and where they were holding them...

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The Harsite Inquisitors only got there in time to save two of the nine men... the others had been beheaded and their skulls were crushed and burning in a strong fire by the time the team breached the house and charged down to recover them.

The bodyguards who lived were happy to sing like canaries once their Geases were removed, and then were equally happy to blab to the media over what had happened, taking revenge for their mistreatment and lack of loyalty from their employers.

But they weren’t even Powered, so they were disposable, and the Church simply released a few details of the things that the two had been involved in. It didn’t discredit them entirely, but it did make it plain that they wouldn’t be walking free from what they were doing... but since the temple had already tried to kill them, what was that?

Revenge was revenge. Said leaked details soon exploded into more details of the things the late and well-born Malcolm Morgan had been involved in, and his associates...

The Witch Hunters had escaped the raid by their own means, and gotten enough information to clean up loose ends in other areas. With grim thoroughness, they started cleaning up all the dealers that had been part of MM’s network, making very sure no corroborating stories were going to come to the hands of the public investigation, and with it a total lack of proof behind such silly insinuations.

Those in the know in the community watched certain people vanishing from the streets and their homes over several days... and there was a violent and bloody explosion at the holding facility where the blabbermouth bodyguards were being held, regretfully killing both of them.

The insinuation that the Imprusar could get to them anywhere meant the panicking drug dealers didn’t dare go to the cops, and instead tried to go to ground or flee.

If they left the city, they just made themselves more vulnerable to other teams of the faithful in other places waiting to clean up the rats abandoning the sinking ship. Going to ground wasn’t going to work against divine agents with divinatory magic, and they were dug out and quietly put away one by one, flesh-eating acids or convenient furnaces disposing of the remains.

They didn’t have much idea that they were being watched as they did all of this.

Relays of Familiars from several interested Casters informed about all of this going on were basically tracking the Witch Hunter team all the time from very safe distances and positions, rapidly backed up by several people experienced at distant reconnaissance.

They went around murdering, and it was all on film.

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They weren’t too happy when all the lights went on around them.

“Dolfens. That hat looks as ridiculous as always. Why do you even bother?”

The dwarven elder in the grey and white robes of a Senior Cleric of the Order of Justice stepped out from the darkness behind the two dozen Eternal Light spotlights that were trained on them from all directions.

The Witch Hunter team had their guns to their shoulders instantly, but they couldn’t see anything behind those lights. They could, however, hear a great many guns being racked and loaded all around themselves.

“Huvultlesski,” came the dry reply, the Witch Hunter so named aiming both of his 9 mm’s at the dwarven Cleric without hesitation. “I imagine you think you are being clever, announcing yourself like this. Do you think you have us trapped?”

There was a ripple only the Powered might feel, and his hands tensed up on his pistols.

“That Interdiction says yes, so you won’t be escaping like before,” the Justiciar replied with iron calm. “Killing secular Primos outside the Dogma Accords makes this a civilian matter for you and Buccavol there.” The second Witch Hunter grimaced as he was recognized. “So, you see, this is all being filmed to be presented to a court of law. You’ve all been recognized, and tacitly admitted to your identities. You and that drug-pusher have smeared your miserable excuse of a faith with enough dogshit, so I figure adding your kill-team and your record of murdering your own people to the list won’t hurt them any more.”

Dolfens’ lips drew back in a rictus grin. “You think you can take us alive?”

There was a twang, and half a dozen white streaks converged from all directions. One of the men in black grunted, misty white arrows impaling him from every direction, including one through his head. He collapsed without another sound.josei

“You aren’t going to get any spells off,” Elder Huvultesski said gravely, totally unperturbed by the sudden kill. “You have no targets except me, and if you think I am afraid of your guns, you are fooling yourself.” Indeed, the spotlights were moving about, crossing over and under one another, with not even the shadows of people behind them. All they could do at this point was strike out blindly... and that would not be effective at all.

“If you think we will be used against the Church, you are wrong! Sanctity protocol Omega, now!” he shouted, his right hand shifting and pulling the trigger.

The head of the downed man exploded from the bullet, as the other members of the team spun, dropping their guns and converging to shield the two Witch Hunters in the middle of them.

Guns spoke, and there was no resistance from the members of the team as the kill shots destroyed their skulls, leaving only the two Witch Hunters behind, their guns centered on one another’s faces.

There were no words, only grim determination. Both guns spoke in the same instant, and brains exploded out of the back of their skulls.

Both Witch Hunters and their ridiculous hats fell to the ground with their kill team.

The surrounding lights were mostly shuttered in the next few breaths. Shiv came up next to the dwarven Elder, who was merely frowning grimly as he surveyed the scene. “Good call,” she said without emotion.

“The Imprusar will simply disavow them as dangerous renegades, while lauding them in their halls for their loyalty. The public will consider this matter to have come to an end, without caring for the forces behind it. However, the Churches and our people will be informed of the truth behind this matter, so word will spread again, and reaffirm what the Imprusar are.” The older Dwarf sighed. “But this is a matter of faith. We cannot simply eradicate their ideals.”

“That’s true. Why does the arse who calls themself the deity of humans have to be such a prick?” Shiv replied, without batting an eye at the implications...

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In a certain dark and rather smelly large room in a part of the town known for its rough neighbors, a certain three-armed troll opened up the steam-hot wooden pot that had been delivered to him.

He spent five minutes just sniffing it. The array of smells and odors was not something a human could tolerate, but his guts were raging in overdrive just experiencing it.

Nobody made troll-stew this good. It just wasn't done.

His third claw reached out and scooped up a delicate handful, put it into his mouth, where the stringy contents could catch between his iron teeth in a delightful messy slobbering.

Trolls don't use utensils, either.

The grumble from deep, deep in his throat and his eyes rolling back presaged his massive clawed hands reaching out to the pot, thoughtfully angled and curved towards one side, up to his mouth, and proceeding to chug the full thing.

It took him a full steady two minutes. When the last slimey, greasy, stinking bit of the mess within had passed his gullet and was bubbling in his guts so hard his belly was shaking, he let the pot drop from his hands, and fell flat on his back on the many cushions on his floor, hard enough to make the room shake.

His eyes were up in his head, and he was tasting things he had never tasted before, dreaming things only trolls dreamed of.

It would be thirty hours before he came out of his stew-fugue. Nobody made QL 30 troll stew. Nobody...