I woke up in a big cage with a lot of other people. Some were sleeping, some were awake. I had the hangover of the decade. The air smelled like shit and the overall atmosphere was that of a slum.

I started to study the cage looking for a way out but my kidnappers clearly planned everything because the cage was extremely secured. I knew that I would be able to escape by portal but I waited to find out what was happening. Somewhere on the side I found the sleeping Sator.

Suddenly I heard somebody calling out:” This is a joke. It’s literally a joke. Your whole cult is just a silly prank I pulled on your god three centuries ago. Call him and tell him Gary is here!”

His provocations worked and two guards whose clothes were painted with arcane symbols (probably cultists) went into the cage. They forced him into a corner and started kicking into the stomach, taking turns. Instead of screaming he just laughed. It was creepy.

This was the moment for my escape. When nobody watched I ported myself into a dark corner outside of the cage. Then I hid behind a rock and waited for something to happen. I could have opened a portal to Haylor.

But I stopped myself from doing that out of two reasons. Firstly because I didn’t know the distance between me and Haylor and secondly I wanted to rescue the other captives.

After half an hour the cultists started to bring captives into a bigger cave. The other captives were left alone. I sneaked to the door and said to the captives:” Please stay calm. I will release you. Don’t make a ruckus.”

 Instantly all eyes fell on me but nobody made a noise. I cut the door open with my astral abilities. One of the captives asked warily:” Who are you and how did you do that?”

I used unveil on him.

Name: Karlos Brahama

Objectives:  -escape the cult of the bleeding moon

                      -find the treasure of Baltasar Talin

 I answered:” I am Adrik and I have some talents which I won’t specify.”

He greeted me with a firm hand shake:” I am Karlos and this is my crew. We were sailors till we were captured by the cult of the bleeding moon.”

“I want to rescue the other prisoners. They were brought into another cave. Will you help me?”

“You are the bravest or the most stupid person I have ever met. What level are you? 4? You will die before you can rescue one other prisoner. We won’t abandon our comrades in the other cave“

We went silently into the second cave and hid on a cliff. The prisoners were strapped to the ground in a specific shape. Sator was in the middle and his whole body was covered in occult symbols. Under them were also different symbols painted.

Karlos asked:” Do you know some of these?”

I replied:” Yeah. I saw some of these in books. They mean god, death, destruction…”

He commented:” I don’t like the direction this is going to.”

“We have to stop whatever they are doing. My guess is that they want to summon a dark entity. I can open a portal to a save place but I will only be able to hold it open for a short amount of time. We should attack as soon as possible.”

In this moment all the cultists started to chant.

“…or we attack now.”

Karlos started to count down:” three, two, one, attack!

In the name of the eternal crab!”

Karlos and his crew jumped down and attacked the cultists. They didn’t have any good weapons but armed with stones they were still fearsome mighty warriors. Some of the cultists stopped their chanting and started to fight the sailors but some went on with chanting.

I for my part used dark thoughts to disrupt an attack of a cultist once and then I damaged the runes with little amounts of mana in form of destructive astral magic, because I had to preserve my manapool in case of an emergency. I destroyed parts of the edges of the runes but the mana already followed the shape of the runes.

The cultists didn’t kill any of the fighters. They only wounded them with their spears after that some of them collapsed. I suspected that the spearheads were coated in some kind of poison. It was a losing battle: more and more sailors were collapsing and the chanting got louder and grew in intensity.

Suddenly the lines started to glow red, the air crackled with energy and a black hole opened. The sacrifices started to bleed out of their eyes and ears. Tentacles and a mass of flesh and other body parts started to ooze out of the black hole. With it came an almost physical presence. All the fighting died down and some of the people collapsed under the pressure of the presence including me.

A thousand different voices spoke at the same time:” Who dares to summon me?”

An especially  bold cultist replied trembling:” O- Oh mi- mighty ma- mas- master, we’ve cal- called you to purge th- this world fr- from the defiled.”

The voices answered a little bit angry:” This is a jest, isn’t it? Whose idea was it? I know it! Gary where are you? I know you are here asshole. Ah there you are!”

The captive who had shouted previously in the cage stood effortless up and gave a tentacle a high five:” Yeah, this is my greatest prank ever. You won’t believe how much time it took to create and stabilize this cult. Admit it this bugged you for centuries. I knew you would hate this kind worshiping.”

The cultist who spoke before got confident:” What are you doing? You are supposed to purge the defiled. You are supposed to be our leader. This isn’t some kind of joke. We are the cult of the bleeding moon and you are our god”

“Little bug, do you really think you can demand something from me. From Me the mighty Guzmantil!? You are nothing more than a grain of dirt. I will show you what you are calling!”

In the next moment the cultist crunched down and wept:” No, no. Why? Demon disappear. You are the healing. No, no….”

After that the mass started to look around the room till it stopped in front of me:” A reincarnated. And a remembering one on top how curios. You bonded yourself to Haylor. I met him once when he was nothing more than a bookshelf. Tell him: Guzmantil said hi. I will watch your future with great interest.”

I wanted to ask a lot of questions but I wasn’t able to open my mouth

“You did really good, Gary. Come with me to our plane and there you can tell me about your journey. I just have to clean up your mess.”

Before anybody could react tentacles slid into the noses of the cultists. Then they collapsed but looked still alive. They both went into the portal which closed behind them.

After the pressure dispatched we slowly recovered and stood up. Luckily none of the sailors were mortally wounded and the poison only put them to sleep. The cultists were completely brainwashed. They only remembered that they were orphans and wanted a good job as builders.

I opened a portal into a small alley next to the magic quarter where a magical manifestation wouldn’t be suspicious. I send the all of them through the portal. Karlos promised that he would introduce them to a friend of his who would get them a job. After that I waited for my mana to regenerate and ported myself into the library.

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Nobody had noticed the little creature that had crawled out of the portal when nobody watched. It wasn’t able to comprehend what happened. It only knew that it was hungry.