The answering chattering howls of the monstrous dead fill the underground room with a sense of liveliness. At least, it seems as such to the Goddess of Death.
Magpie’s Mistress looks down upon her soulless soldiers with a pitying and pampering expression of a pious mother. Seeing that the human had distributed the seeds well, She tugs on the strings connecting Her to the Holy Imanjar.
The Goddess strums on the now taut strings as gently and dexterous as a harp player. The notes of her approval travel down to the man in thrumming notes, an internal quivering that seems to clear all else from the mind as the soul resonates.
Having blessed her follower with her approval, she communicates the next command.
Like the whimper of an a sparrow, a question is sent back in a tiny trill.
‘The execution method?’ The inhuman being considers.
Ah, that can be determined by the paltry mortal plaything that dances in her palm, answers to her beck and call, consumes itself for her joy. In her grip is the soul’s dog collar gone slack, a spiritual chain that can choke out all resistance with but a thought. However, isn’t it just too much work to do all the planning Herself? Surely the possession of divinity ought to free one from the most tedious of tasks.
‘As you see fit in accordance to My Will.’
A grimace lies of the face of Magpie. The maddening laughter has all but left him, eyes glistening with the tears of physiological strain. The next challenge has been set forth; the path is unclear, but the feet must go forward to the destination all the same.
He makes his way back up into the café, sealing the door and kicking sacks of legumes back on top.
With a final cursor glance about the room, he proceeds to the kitchen to brew himself a black tar colored drink so vile the dead below might have crinkled their nose in disgust. Luckily, Magpie is only the proprietor, not the cook, of the quaint place.
Muttering to himself, Magpie considers his plan of action.
Bringing together the odd mix of compatriots was always annoying at best.
A sniveling noble brat to monitor the goings-about of the palace. A circus freak of a prophetess to instill the common folk with false ideas of the future. A brutal mercenary leader to serve as a bodyguard. A stupid trade tycoon to provide capital.
And now, finally, a Holy Imanjar to pose as the group’s head, to be the target of the ire of the establishment.
Together, these individuals represent a perfectly good mix of class levels and spheres of influence. On paper, their joint efforts should easily keep a hand on the pulse of the nation.
Magpie shakes his head with a scoff. The imbeciles could barely keep their own heads screwed on.
At least the new Sect Leader seemed the perfect type. A reclusive, proud, hollow personage would be the perfect figurehead. Sil did have a bit of a temper during the last team meeting, but he could understand that on the basis of their common position…
In the end, the little leader is the slave of a spirit, and he is a right hand of a deity. No mortal nor any immortal contest could usurp his own power.
Right now, the brown recluse should be holed up in the tavern room belonging to the merchant group. Communing with the spirit of loneliness, of solitary struggle, of solitude would not take place in the middle of the town square soup slurping contest after all.
The peace of the morning is shattered by a pounding on the café’s front door. With a yank, Magpie pulls open the old wooden thing.
A sharp glare is in his eyes as he beholds a skinny boy in colorful livery. A homeless jester dressed in rags of lady’s parasols would be more comfortably clad than the child of less than a half and a quarter of a score.
A pale, lace-gloved hand shakingly offers a gilded card to the murderous café owner.
Ripping off the seal, Magpie scans the note written in an overly ornate calligraphy.
‘I regret to inform you that I have lost a good deal of money on a new noble pastime.
Hangings have gotten tiresome (the dead criminals are so passive) and so some of my fellows have taken to seeing the murderers and looters while breath still moves their chests.
The royal prison keepers and wardens, not at all opposed to gifts of gold, have offered up the chance to survey and toy with some of the lesser ones.
It appears that a new group of colleagues have joined the bandits of the forest in their rotten rooms and chains of iron: the members of an underground fighting ring have been taken in by a royal task force.
The issue lies in that a mountainous woman of brutish nature and short, unfashionable hair has been identified as one of the interred.
Upon several visits, which have quite frankly tarnished my reputation, I have discovered that this lady (and a friend?) are of your acquaintance.
I hope that you may pick up these mongrels and return them to their natural devices, such that I may lose no more money in the franchise.
I also seek reimbursement.
Signed,
A golden haired master’
Magpie looks up to find the page boy had long already run away.
Getting his teeth, he throws on a greasy overcoat and stalks over to the merchant’s tavern. So much for staying still, so much for staying out of trouble. It appears he, the mighty Holy Imanjar of Death and Mourning, the secret villain of his times, needs to post bail for a few minions.
