Deacon and the Regulators moved quickly down the hall toward the archway of a door. Deacon immediately noticed there were no guards. That fact led him to believe his quarry felt safe. He knew that feeling would be fleeting very soon. As he approached the double doors, Deacon noticed a strange light coming from the seam between the two wooden partitions. Behind him walked Ralph, Amanda, and Tantus. Five yards from the doorway Ignis hovered in place, not advancing at all. He just bobbed there until Tantus noticed the change in lighting.

“Ignis, we’re going this way,” whispered Tantus.

“No. Not going in there. Unholy power contained within. I’ll wait out here,” Ignis replied with a harrumph.

“Wait, what? How bad is it?” asked Deacon skulking to the back of the line.

“Very,” stated Ignis.

“Well shit. I’m running out of time here. I have to go in. You all wait out here. Let me poke my head inside and see what’s up,” said Deacon as he turned back toward the door.

Deacon was now close enough that his aura was touching the door. Just the door. It didn’t pass through it. That told him he wasn’t going to be able to ghost through the door and would have to open it manually. He crept even closer before placing his hand on the brass ring of a door handle. He pulled on it just enough to allow him to peer through the crack into the room.

Two things alarmed Deacon all at once as he viewed the area beyond through the crack. The first was the layout. It was clearly a temple to Hipag within. There were at least eight rows of pews on each side of a long chamber. Each row had red robed cultists seated shoulder to shoulder, ten to a row. There was a large chandelier with at least twenty burning candles swinging above them all dead center of the chapel. Eerie red and black energy was flowing from everyone of the seated worshipers toward the front of the room. The flow of energy passed over an altar where a shirtless Efimeo lay. Just to the right of that bastard floated three figures bobbing up and down around a bubbling steaming cauldron. They were chanting something Deacon couldn’t make out from here. The three figures had no feet, just wisps of cloak that disappeared into brown motes of energy where their feet should be. Deacon instinctively knew they were the fates. They were tossing single strands of white hair into the cauldron one at a time. On the wall to their right was a single multicolored rip in the fabric of reality.

The second alarming factor was against the back wall beyond the altar with Efiemo on it. It was the destination of all those lines of energy. There was an enormous black and red tinted hand the size of a Toyota corolla reaching up and out from a hole in the ground. The fingers were clasped around a shifting and squirming grey light. Deacon had seen this image before. It was part of the mural the King Edric Reagan showed him that night in the Crystal Cascade. Before everything went south. At least eighty combatants, Efimeo with some kind of painted symbol on his chest, the Fates, and what Deacon now surmised as the hand of Hipag. All of that and he couldn’t access his soul energy beyond the door made for a heaping helping of trouble. Also, the Will-o-wisp didn’t want to go in there. Deacon didn’t blame him.

“What is it?” whispered Ralph.

Deacon just motioned for him to back away from the door before he received a new prompt from his slate.

Divine Quest Update: I’m not my brother’s keeper- You have found the lost God of Order and Bureaucracy, Ryan. Free him or alert your patron to this location before his divine essence is wrung dry. Rewards are variable depending on quest performance.

They all moved back and huddled at the end of the hall before the turn. Crouching down low Deacon explained everything he saw to them in hushed tones. Everything except the information about Ryan. Chimera asked that the quest be kept between just them.

“That’s insane. Even after all those cultists we dealt with there were that many more still down here?” Amanda said.

“It’s worse than that, they are performing some kind of ritual and I’m positive those strands are from Deacon’s head. You said they cut off your hair at one point, right? So, they took your blood, got your family name, and are using your hair as a targeting agent in a grand ritual in front of the Hand of Hipag. A limb of a deposed god. Traditional lore says they can’t be present on the mortal plane. Not enough Mana for them,” Tantus rattled off.

“You all must stay here. My abilities are being suppressed beyond the door. I have to go in there no matter what,” explained Deacon.

“Alone? Not on your many lives. There’s a small army in there. You will need back up and that’s what the Regulators are for Champion, or have you forgotten that?” scolded Ralph.

“You don’t understand. I have a plan. It’s crazy but so is this whole situation. If you rush in with me, you’ll get caught up in it. It’s a… volatile,” Deacon said as items from his inventory began to appear around him.

All their eyes went wide and Tantus took a quick step back.

“You’re a mad man. We are underground,” chided Tantus.

“I know, isn’t it great? It’s like they wanted me to do this,” chuckled Deacon before his smile turned into a deep frown at his next slate message.

Notice: you have lost your blessing from Bael.

That was the last straw. Deacon gathered his items up with Polterheist and strode toward the door at the end of the hall. He placed each one down in the sequence he would need to use them based on his reckless and ill advised plan. Deacon hoped he had what it took to get this right the first time. He doubted there would be a second try. He flung the doors wide open allowing them to bang and rebound off of the walls they were attached too.

“Lucy! I’m home!” he yelled.

Multiple things happened at once. Efimeo sat upright shocked to see Deacon whole and hearty standing in the doorway. Upon Efimeo’s right shoulder was the image of a black hand. The same mark Bael had left on him months ago. One of the Fates heads spun around impossibly like an owls as two of the closest cultists stood up and pulled ruby coated weapons. The face of the Fate that spun to see what was happening was old and wrinkled. Three loops of grey hair fell from inside her hood.

“Kill him. He doesn’t have the protection of the god of death anymore. The runes in here prevent him from using his abilities. He’s never been weaker. Do your damn jobs,” screeched the old Fate.

Efimeo hopped off the altar and pulled his knuckle knives from behind his back. Deacon couldn’t see his face through the bloody symbol on the cloth over his face, but he had to be smiling. That’s when Deacon gave the cultists closing on him and the slowly sauntering Efimeo his first surprise. Deacon reached behind him back into the corridor. His dragon claws popped from his fingers as he slammed them into a half-barrel he placed on the ground shortly before entering the chapel. Holding back nothing, Deacon used his full fifty eight points of strength, fifty five plus three thanks to his specialization, to hurl the small barrel at the swinging chandelier above. The two cultists’ heads whipped up and each extended an arm. Beams of unholy energy shot fourth splitting the barrel in half. One side spun toward the left side of the room and the other toward the right. Each spinning and powdering all the pews with a fine white powder, like a baker applying powder sugar to some cakes. Deacon dove back into the hallway where he closed the unevenly hanging doors. Slamming the doors open like he did, forced them to rebound off their respective walls leaving them at an angle. That meant he didn’t need to race to either side of the hall to close them.

The original plan was to let the chandelier light the white phosphorus doing large area of effect damage to the eighty cultists. Efimeo and the Fates would be too far away, but he doubted the white powder would affect the mostly ethereal Fates anyway. Deacon was almost surprised when the cultists used their own unholy powers to spread the powder even further than expected. Of course, plenty of the powder reached the burning candles from the rupturing of the barrel. Deacon thought that was incredibly lucky.

The sound of screaming was music to Deacon’s ears as the crackling of the instant barbecue sifted through the door. He braced himself against the door holding it shut to contain as much of the conflagration as possible. It was a twenty seconds later when the screaming started to die down. Just the screaming. The moaning and calls for help were still very present. His aura was still blocked by whatever they’d done to the interior of that chamber. He hoped that the powder might damage the runes enough that he’d be able to act freely just like the counsel room. He was going to have to get his hands dirty. Deacon thought that was fine. Plan B it is. He opened the door to see the space was now filled with burning corpses from one side of the chapel to the other. Unfortunately, at the far end near the altar was a red and black curtain of fog. In front of that curtain was a solid scorch line that marked where the effects of his plan were abruptly stopped. Just behind the curtain was Efiemo, slowly waiving at him.

“So, I guess that would have been too easy,” Deacon called out.

“Just wait right there. I’ll be with you in a moment. Then we can finish our little dance,” replied Efimeo.

Deacon knew this was a delaying tactic. Time was not on his side the Fates were also behind that curtain and were completely unaffected by what had just happened. Almost eighty lives were snuffed out in an instant. No wonder Captain Pete didn’t want that recipe getting out. Plan B required Deacon to find a way past that barrier.

“So, I understand you plan on sacrificing my home world to do this? Not content enough with the one you already ruined?” Deacon asked.

“We’ll rebuild this world and make sure monsters like you never get this kind of power again,” replied Efimeo.

“I wasn’t talking to you shit stain. I was talking to those three bitches over there,” said Deacon jutting his chin in their direction.

The old Fate spun her head around again and hissed.

“That’s right you heard me hags. You couldn’t hack it so you’re trying to sacrifice my world for your scheme. Well, it’s not happening. Daddies home now and I’m putting you to bed permanently,” scoffed Deacon as he took one step further from the hall and deeper into the chapel.

“Drop the barrier, let me fight him now. I’ll end it quickly,” barked Efimeo.

“You have no power over us mortal. Do your worst. We will pull the souls from your world while you stand by impotently flailing your pathetic fists at us. Hipag will get all power he needs, and the disposed pantheon will return to remake this world. Go chosen one. Remove this stain from our sight,” replied the old Fate.

Deacon gleaned some interesting information from that reply. The fog curtain slowly began to rise up and Efimeo bounced back and forth on his feet in anticipation of the fight to come. Deacon decided to feed Efimeo’s inflated ego and looked scared as he took a step back closer to the hallway. The whole time Deacon could see the souls of all the cultists he just killed rooted in place over their burnt bodies. Under normal circumstances they would have been drawn into him thanks to his breathing technique. Whatever prevented them from moving was the same thing that prevented him from using his soul energy bar. The one miscalculation Deacon had was how fast the barrier would disappear. Once it raised above Efimeo’s waist he just ducked under it and charged at Deacon. He was still a good fifteen yards from Deacon and the curtain was still raising up. He needed a clear unobstructed line between him and where the fates were still working. He supposed this needed to move over to plan C.

Efimeo leapt into the air to plunge his knives into Deacon from high above. What Efimeo had consistently failed to realize is, that Deacon was not just his powers. He was also filled with extremely high attributes for the mortal plane. As Efimeo was about to skewer him Deacon shot a right job out that Efimeo could barely see. The punch connected with Efimeo’s waist, and it spun him in the air Efimeo was now upside down looking back at the raising barrier with his back to Deacon. Deacon took this opportunity to grab Efimeo by the hips and power bomb him into the floor. Efimeo’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as the force of Deacon’s attack drove the wind out of him. While Efimeo was stunned, Deacon hooked his right arm under Efimeo’s left leg and planted his left foot in Efimeo’s right arm pit. Then he pulled. Deacon heard the snap of tendons in Efimeo’s left hip as the ball joint dislocated. Then Deacon took the screaming Efimeo and proceeded to use his leg like a baseball bat slamming the main body repeatedly into the nearby wall. Efimeo was a bloody smear of meat sliding down the wall after that. The fog curtain was almost clear now, but Deacon knew the blessing would bring Efimeo back from the dead. He kicked the stupid brass knuckle knives away from the body and hefted it up. Then he began to spin like he was in the Hammer Throw in the Olympics. He let loose and the body sailed its way back to the far end of the chapel. It landed with a wet thud close to where Efimeo originally started his run.

“Is that all you got? I didn’t even break a sweat,” said Deacon starring at the Fates.

“How dare you desecrate my temple, my worshipers, and interfere in my plans? Die,” came a booming voice from over by the hand. The index finger of the hand lifted up for the first time and pointed at Deacon.

This completely surprised Deacon. He anticipated having to deal with the Fates and Efimeo, but as light gathered at the tip of that massive digit, Deacon knew he made a fatal mistake. He didn’t have Bael’s blessing anymore so he wouldn’t come back from this. Was all of this effort for nothing in the end? The light pulsed and a slim grey arm reached out from beneath the large index finger and slapped it. The ray that came fourth missed Deacon by a hair and scoured its way through the walls of the chapel before cutting off and leaving phantom shadows in Deacon’s vision. The one thing he could see was his soul energy bar was no longer greyed out.