Mibbet really wished her entry into Jussasayme had been welcoming, but it really hadn’t. The entire town gave a feeling of being watched constantly, and judging by the twitchy curtains that was at least partially because they were in fact being watched constantly.

The entire town was wrapped around a hillside, and made up of houses (in a generous sense) each looking more akin to a little box, backed up by a perfectly manicured lawn. With perfectly colour coordinated pansies lined up in little segments. (Mibbet was pretty sure if she looked closely enough she would see a line where the leaves just stop, trimmed to prevent them from entering another sector.

Even the bars all looked identical, and to Mibbet’s relief were something called “malt bars” with not a trace of mouldy wheat water in sight. Just then the main bell on the clocktower struck one, and every door opened all at once, disgorging in perfect synchronicity a group of people pushing exactly the same model of lawn mower, at exactly the same time, on their identical lawns. It gave you the creeps, it really did.

That moment Mibbet saw the most terrifying thing of all though, it was “mom and pops decaffeinated beverage cafe,” and there was one on every street. At that moment she knew for sure evil lurked at the heart of this little town.

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Blake Holsun stood on the edge of his balcony and surveyed his domain. (Seriously, using a slide rule and plumbum.) Noticing slight deviations he noted the details. It seemed people were getting creative. He suppressed a shudder, at this rate he’d soon have to erect another sculpture, as bland and inoffensive as possible of course, to appease them.

No human’s of course, when people sculpted human beings they had a tendency towards frivolity like heroes. Maybe he should hire a few artists, and properly train them until they could sculpt an abstract concept without meaning. That was the way, maybe a plain inoffensive object. Like a sweeping brush. It helped them feel (ugh) frivolous, while not preventing them from being productive.

By now the royal visitor should be on her way, and a priestess of a new god no less? Well he could convince her to take the blessing of Neyt and Ordurlee. But for now he had work to do, and truly the devil was in the details.

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That term may have been more true in Blake’s case than he ever could have imagined. There was indeed a devil in the details, a threat most devout dedicants of Ordurlee are all too aware of. It even mentions it in the holy Filofacs.

Humans are and always should be human, there is a real danger when you forget that. It all starts with numbers (it always does.) A good believer knows how to sum up the essence of a human life in numbers. Biut they can never express a soul, and once you have a human being in numbers what do you do with it? Do you give said person a number? Do you sum up their life in that number? Then tag a number to their name?

Herein lies the danger, that much humanity reduced to their bare figures, it isn’t people anymore. That makes it easier to control things, and soon those numbers become the people.

For a mind like that what is subtracting one or two? They’re just numbers after all, and here is where the devil lurks.

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At the heart of the city, in a nice neat back office a stranger in a grey suit checks the ledger again. If you were to use a word to describe him it would be Grey. From his suit and tie, through his socks. Most worrying of all though is it doesn’t stop there, his skin, his eyes, if you took out his mind that would be grey too.

He glanced at his ledger again, there were new variables to calculate. But no matter how much he tried the end result was the same. They left his careful calculations in disarray. This was unacceptable. What kind of power could do such a thing?

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Mibbet was turning the entire town upside down, desperately searching for more coffee. The supply she had left was running dangerously low. Yet no matter how many places she looked there was no proper coffee to be found. Sure there was decaf, but frankly she’d rather gargle a septic tank, and wash it down with a garbage and chia seed smoothie (with added kale) than drink that. She had tried thirty shops so far, and no luck. She was beginning to accept begrudgingly that there was no coffee to be found within this city. There was something very wrong here, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

Behind her she heard a scuffle as a young woman was accosted by several men. At last, something she could take her temper out on..... I mean oh no, an innocent civilian in danger. Mibbet readied choppy with a grin and stepped forward.

“Excuse me sirs, is there a problem here?” She asked gripping her axe tight.

“Nothing is amiss young lady,” came a reply in the most monotone voice Mibbet had ever heard. “This young lady is merely late for reorientation, she will come with us now.”

She really did not like the sound of that. “Does this young woman wish to join you for reorientation?” Mibbet asked, noticing the lady in question wordlessly shaking her head.

“I see, it seems she doesn’t wanna go with you, and I aint about to let ya snatch a person for no good reason.”

“I see, 86 Log a noncompliance incident at 13:57:25 please, it seems there is more orientation to be done.

The stranger who had to be 86 made a note, as his companion suddenly warped, he was hard to describe. Perfect symmetry is extremely creepy, and that whole grey thing? That was new, but the supernumerary limbs thing? That was the clincher, there was a monster in town.