Chapter 496: Unyielding Faith (2/2)

”Yes,” Clive explained. ”So, it doesn't even have to be that small. These messengers, though, can use much harsher means of dimensional travel. Something close to the randomly forming magical streams that carry outworlders between worlds, although it would need to be more regulated and more stable. Methods like that would destroy any of us, but the messengers can endure it because of their gestalt nature. Of course,  creating the kind of dimensional stream is beyond any astral magic we have here. Or had here, before the Builder showed up.”

”But these messengers have it, and they've given it to the church of Purity,” Ken said.

”So it would seem,” Clive said. ”Even with the right knowledge, it would require an almost unconscionable amount of power and resources to accomplish. Even the dam wasn't enough and they had to sacrifice gods know how many people. Even then, it's not a means of dimensional travel that we could use. Only the messengers can survive that kind of journey.”

”And these messengers traverse worlds to imposing their own ideology and order?” Ken asked.

”I don't think they came to increase their between-meal snack options,” Neil muttered.

“You’re right, Ken,” Clive said. “Also, as Gary suggested, they’ll fit Purity’s ideals far better than the Builder. Having them come in and take over may well be the god’s true goal.”

“That’s bad, right?” Neil asked. “That sounds bad.”

“It doesn’t change anything,” Sophie said. “There’s a bunch of pricks coming to our world and we need to punch them a whole lot.”

“We may be getting ahead of ourselves,” Humphrey said. “For all we know, the messengers here are the only ones, and a large portion of them were killed before they could escape. This might be a negligible threat.”

“Humphrey,” Gary said. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention for the last few years, but if you bet on things not getting worse, it won’t be your money you lose. It’ll be your head.”

The group made their way out of the destroyed village and through a woodland path where more wagons of dead were being taken out. These, unlike the ones they’d seen previously, were covered with tarps. The dripping blood gave it away; the smell of death was too pervasive to pinpoint a specific source.

They arrived in a large forest clearing. One of the main ritual sites used to create the portal rings, the ground had been covered in massive ritual circles. It was also covered in blood. Like everywhere else, the original state only remained where not cratered with damage from the ritual being sent awry by Clive and Belinda’s sabotage. It seemed to have been less heavily affected, though, and was crawling with Magic Society investigators. It looked like the bodies had already all been removed from this area, to facilitate the investigation. The last of them had been those they had seen being taken away along the forest path.

”Does it seem to anyone else like there's a surprising amount of blood on the ground?” Humphrey asked.

“There was a battle,” Ken said.

“And people have a lot of blood in them,” Neil said. He was a healer and knew this better than most.

“Yep,” Sophie agreed. “You’d be surprised at how much there is once you take it all out.”

The rest of the group all turned to look at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Over here,” someone called out to them. Miles Cotezee was weaving his way through the craters and the investigators poking around at any trace of ritual circle left behind. He signalled them with a reserved wave as he approached.

“Any word on what the power source here in the valley was yet?” Clive asked immediately.

“Yeah,” Miles said gravely. It was a change from his general air of tiredness at the bureaucratic lot that was his life as an Adventure Society official.

“You know how this place was where all the Purity loyalists brought their families?” Miles asked. “We thought it was to keep the most zealous worshippers safe, but it turns out these evil bastards were just stocking firewood.”

Clive went pale.

“What?” Humphrey asked.

“Ritual sacrifice,” Clive said darkly. “Everyone has magic in their bodies. Even normals. Like the blood Sophie was talking about, there’s a surprising amount once you take all of it out. I've never seen it done myself but it's one of the worse ways to go. What's left after is…”

They all turned to look back the way they came, where they’d seen the covered wagons.

“We need to burn what’s left of this filth religion to the ground,” Miles snarled. “There were kids on those wagons. What used to be kids. I’m never going to unsee that.”

“Can these people get any more foul?” Sophie asked. “I thought I’d met some detestable gutter scum in my life but this is something else. How many people are we talking about?”

“Too many,” Miles said. “With what’s left of them and the general destruction, we’ll never have solid numbers.”

“They sacrificed their own families?”

“From what we’ve been able to tell,” Miles said, “most of them went willingly. The parents, anyway. That’s the kind of faith we’re dealing with. It looks like not all of them were willing to lay down for the cause, though. A lot of these people didn’t go quietly, so it wasn’t all unyielding faith.”

“Most of Purity’s worshippers turned aside from the god as the truth came out,” Ken said. “I knew that only the most zealous orders remained with the church, but I had no idea the ramifications would be this.”

“They’re not a religion anymore,” Neil said. “I’m part of a church and I won’t let them say that they’re the same as me. They’re just some kind of death cult, now.”

“That’s an opinion being mirrored by anyone who had to see this mess,” Miles said. “That’s not what I called you in here for, though. This is way bigger than any of us, now.”

“Our goal hasn’t changed,” Humphrey said. “We want our team member back.”

“Funny you should say that,” Miles said. “Come with me.”

He led them away from the main area and onto a forest path out of the clearing.

“We’ve set up in another clearing that wasn't full of dead... where we’re processing the people who arrived at the bottom of the craters.”

“Any idea who they are?” Humphrey asked.

“Or where they came from?” Clive added.

“Yes, and yes,” Miles said. “The who is outworlders. A hundred and nineteen outworlders, all arrived at the same time. As for the where they’re from, that’s what you’re here for.”

“Why us?” Humphrey asked.

“Because when we told them they’d been brought to another world, they all asked about Jason Asano.”