Arc 2 Chapter 9

With four people we enter the leaders domain. It is a huge apartment, but overall it looks almost empty. There are some lonely pieces of furniture arranged in small groups across the rooms. We greet the leader, who is sitting at the only table and seems to be deep in though. He is a middle aged man and overall he doesn't look special. He is just another guy that survived the apocalypse. But in his eyes there burns a fire, a cold and merciless fire. His soul has the colour and outer appearance of a cold blue fire, it feels like the pure will to revenge those he has lost. It was a normal soul, maybe he could feel his surroundings, but that would be all.

He doesn't take much notice of us. His only response was a short look and a grumble about getting rid of at least one bane of his existence. We begin to 'repair' the lights. For that we walk across the rooms and take some notes. We also open some of the housings of the lamps. There are actually some burnt lights here, which will have to be replaced.

While we work I check with my soul on what he is working on. He can't hope to notice or see my soul while I do so, he isn't powerful enough to do so. Even David who was greatly strengthened through his near death experience only barely noticed me. The papers he is working on are filled with sketches of a strange object. It isn't any type of machine or weapon. But those patterns are strange and strangely familiar at the same time. What have I seen that is similar to them? Just in case I memorize them.

We have done our job and since we don't have any other reason to stay here we have to leave. When we exit the building the old man grumbles “We didn't learn much did we? The only thing I could see were some strange scribbles on his papers. Well I didn't expect to get this far to begin with.” I think roughly the same, sure we entered one of the areas with the highest security, yet we learned next to nothing. There exists only one other highly secure area, the guards quarters.

Since I know that there is probably nobody here that can feel it or at least nobody who can locate me, I scan the whole building, we just left. It brims with activity, but that is nothing unusual in itself. I also located a construct that resembles what I saw in the sketches. Its use still eludes me, it could be a statue or an art installation for all I know. We go to some other places too, but we don't learn anything new.

At the end of the day we go into a bar, where guards often go to drink. Strange how not even an apocalypse could destroy this guilty pleasure of humanity. There we hope to talk with some of the attendants of this golden cage, but sadly they aren't eager to talk at all.

This night I begin my hunt for the elites. The leader will be the last I will kill, it would create to much unrest and conflict if he dies first and the separate parties in this government would begin a fight for supremacy. My work is easily done, only the next day will the bodies be found. Sadly those warmongers that are filled with an endless greed for power don't know anything about their leaders plans. Most only see him as a puppet with lots of charisma. A tool to control the masses, they created and fanned the hate to easily wage their wars. They used what their leader created, yet he himself never took part in the war or its preparations. His whole mind and actions was focused on this strange sculpture. He is possessed by its creation. His whole time is spent on it, for ten whole years.

The next day, there are a lot of rumours on the streets. They talk of deceit and murder, of plots between the chancellors of New Eden, of blood that created rivers on the streets. The last one isn't true though, I didn't shed a single drop of blood. My victims all died of heart attacks or through inner bleeding. Those ways are actually rather cruel, their death took longer than when I would have simply ripped of their heads. But I don't want to draw suspicion. With how I did it, it looks more like a divine punishment or poisoning.

Then a completely different thing spread. News about an event that will take place at today's evening prayers. Everybody has to attend. There are many assumptions circulating. From an official funeral for the deceased to speculations about promotions to refill the council. Again we spend the day spying for information in the government district. We learn only a few new things. We finally find someone who knows about the battle that took place. I guess information has begun to leak now that the higher-ups are gone.

We also learn about the murders or deaths of my victims, but those are rather uninteresting for me. The old man on the other hand talks about them all day long and I lead his speculations on a wild goose chase by giving him wrong hints or thoughts about what could have happened. The last thing we learned on our tour was who has given the order to isolate the citizens. It was the leader, but why wasn't explained, only that it is necessary.

In the evening we walk with all the other people to the biggest plaza in the city. The place is brimming with people, everybody seems to have followed the call. The once spacious park is now filled with people and in the centre of all of it there is a stage and a big covered object. It is the sculpture the leader spend all his time on. All this to show ones art? I doubt it. But except for the form I can't find anything suspicious with it.

After another ten minutes the event finally begins. Their leader climbs on the stage and begins his speech. “You all know me. As a leader and as a person that represents and founded our believe. Today I want to share a bit of my story with you. Before the apocalypse that was caused by those damned demons I had a family. A wife and three kids. Now I am alone. I saw how they were killed by those damned demons, not only did they eat them I saw how they robbed them of their souls. Yes I can see them and I don't damn those that learned how to do it. Those who damned them were those that once followed me and died today or yesterday night. I don't doubt that they died by the hands of those they hunted and killed in my name. I don't care about their loss though, they probably left this world and weren't hindered at all. Something that my family couldn't.” he pauses.

Silence lingers over the field as some begin to grasp what they have done and wanted. They wanted to chase and kill people that weren't the cause for all that. That were innocent. They followed a lie.

He breaks the silence. “I gathered you here today, not to reveal the truth to you, but to smite the enemy we should have fought all this time. Those soul stealing mutants that trap the souls of their victims. For that I need your help though. I need your focus and your prayer.” with that he reveals the sculpture. “Focus on this while you pray and together we will send the souls that were stolen back to where they belong, I beg of you to help me free my family and lead her to eternal rest. That was always my goal and today we can achieve it.”

A murmur goes through the mass. Their leader begs for their help, he even lowered himself to his knees and all he asks for is a bit of their time. The murmur grows to a cheer. “I thank you. Now let us pray.” he responds to that. A new murmur erupts on the field. They pray, all of them. There isn't much to see for the naked eye, apart from a huge amount of people bowing their heads in prayer. But my soul-sense reveal something really scary. The soulmist in the area is pushed towards the sculpture. That soulmist finally revealed the secret that it holds, I finally recognise the pattern the inner structure and the patterns on it resemble those on a soul, especially those on the tentacles I use when I manipulate the world.

It seems like their leader found a way to manipulate energies without using his own soul, but by creating something like a spell circle from games. It is just way more complex. No wonder he needed ten years to do that. But what does he want to do? Those forms and patterns aren't something I ever encountered. I only recognised a small part and that reminds me of the anchor in my own soul. But it seems wrong and twisted, as if it is a reversed version of it. If it points to a location, where could that be? I follow the compass by focusing on it. What I find blanches me. It is a place I know far better than I ever wished for. A place I spent what felt like decades in. It leads to the corridor the souls of the dead take.

When I regain my senses, after I lost my focus on the compass. I feel something unsettling. The suction increases with every second. More and more soulmist is pulled towards the centre of the plaza. At least it the bound mist isn't affected, so we wont freeze to death. Then it simply stops. An eerie silence fills the world. The prayers have stopped. Everyone is filled with a feeling of unease. Then the world shakes, not physically, yet there are many that fall down. It feels like the souls that are around us are screaming and shaking, as if the room they fill is arching.

Then it collapses. The sculpture looses all function and the mist that was pressed into it dissipates. Dear god I pray that he failed. I pray that it never was his intention to open a gateway. A gateway to the land of the dead. I can only imagine what could happen. To call it a second soulstorm wouldn't be enough to describe it. An unbelievable pandemonium could break out when the living mingle with the dead.

Then the silence ends. Again they begin to talk, trying to ease their minds of what they felt. I look towards the stage and what I see chills me to the bones. He looks at a point just above the sculpture. And then I notice it, ever so slowly the soulmist begins to move again. The pull gets faster and faster. I finally see it. He succeeded. A tiny gateway was created. It grows with every second. It now is the size of a human head and the first signs of its appearance can now be felt.

In a wave the effect spreads through the crowd. The first to feel it is their leader. His soul is slowly pulled out of his body. The last thing he does isn't noticed by most of the people here, since they begin to panic, due to the strange sensation filling them. But since I began moving towards the stage ever since I checked the compass and arrive now besides him I hear it. His last words. “What have I done...” What foolishness. How could he believe that he could control it? What exactly did he expect would happen? His face that was filled with delight, just moments ago, was now an ugly grimace of a dying person.