POV shift—————————————————

The party was awfully dull, even with copious amounts of booze and the company of the snake. Time slowly ticked by as I taught the snake how play cards. Thankfully I still had my prized deck with me so I didn’t have to worry about the whole no hands thing. The snake was all kinds of giddy when I whipped them out and learned she could use them. Currently, she was having trouble figuring out blackjack but I think she was catching on steadily. In a room surrounded by whispers, heartbeats, and magic, my senses were going haywire but I still kept them at normal capacity in search of attacks.

After a while, I noticed something interesting out of the corner of my eye. The servants were quickly retreating into the back room. Looks like the main event is coming soon. I turned my focus back to the game at hand. There has to be a reason for a gathering like this. It is difficult to gather so many cultists and spirits in one place. As I was lost in thought I heard a joyful hiss and saw the pearly white serpent wiggling in delight. I looked down and saw she finally beat me, bravo.

I gave her a smile and collected the cards before dealing them out again. And after a few more games I collected the cards for good when I felt a surge of magic. The snake was disappointed but understood the reason. The magic was a precursor to a rift that appeared on a retractable stage on the far end of the room. Beside it in a flash of smoke and light out stepped a nicely dressed man with a porcelain mask. He did an exaggerated bow before addressing the room with a slightly chipper voice,

“Welcome, welcome, I’m so glad you could make it,” he said with an exaggerated hand movement, “I can see many unfamiliar faces which just fills my heart with joy. It always brings a smile to my face at the sight of so many potential members.”

Ooh, so a recruiting event perhaps.

“Now, I don’t want to bore you by talking your ear off. And I’m sure that you all know what we do here. So, let’s get started.”

The rift widened into a gate and I got a bad feeling. I knew exactly where it led and I currently didn’t want to be anywhere near it. I quickly looked the room over in search of any good-hearted people and found a disappointing few. The weasels, outwardly bad but good at heart normally, my new acquaintance; the snake, and a group of three cultists. Well, it's not really fair to call them cultists but I could tell they have participated in some of the darker magics. I slipped each of them a strand of magic to protect them from the horrors ahead. This will not be good, not at all. The gate led to the site I just placed a very volatile weapon. My eye twitched at the unexpected development, isn’t that place supposed to be heavily guarded and in deep secret.

With the gate, open everyone will soon be infected. I could already detect the microscopic worms wriggling through. Looks like the weapon did its work. Very quickly the microscopic creatures sought out and burrowed through exposed skin. I secured the surrounding environment to prevent a massive outbreak. The snake looked at me with red eyes glinting with curiosity when she noticed my strand of magic circulating in her magic system. I gave her a small smile and a wink. Not that I can wink with only one eye though.

Through my long life of war and bloodshed I have found the best way to decimate the enemy completely is... disease. Army’s need men close together for formations and ease of living, which lets diseases run rampant. So I developed one so powerful that it caused Alice’s army to fall while I was relaxing in my haunt. It even brought Alice to her knees briefly. I downed the last bits of whiskey at the thought of that poor naive girl.

I pinched the bridge of my nose on my disguised face. I was going to wait a day to go in to do damage control but I guess I could just take a look for now. I wasn’t on board with letting the snake in there while the worms were still volatile but I couldn’t just whisk her away right now with the man on stage staring intently at her for some reason. I guess I can interfere with the gate to send them away and replace them with illusions.

The masked man began to wave through his guests, woefully unaware he was sending them to their deaths. Soon it was our turn to walk through and during the process of transportation, I sent the snake and the others to my territory. With a jerk I arrived at the destination before everyone, I guess a perk from doing this all the time. Instead of standing around and twiddling my thumbs I instantly went to inspect the damage. After the pathetic display of competence from the other place, I was not as worried about traps and the such. I went up to the cliff face and wrenched the door open. I wasn’t worried about anyone noticing because they were more than likely dead or dying.

On the other side sat two guards frozen in time clutching their heads in pain. Terrible lesions and rashes covered every inch of their skin. Despite appearing to be dead they were still living in constant agony in order for the worms to use them as a battery. The usual stuff so far. I walked further in to find more guards dying terrible deaths. A few of them were even in the later stages with what looked like masses of writhing ropes moving under their skin. I continued to walk deeper into the compound using my blessing on the girl as a waypoint.