<div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    <div>


    The rest of the security team was quick to open up about Simon. Apparently, he was a bully and a rat, and never hesitated to throw them under the bus for his own benefit. Even when he kept things to himself it was just to get leverage over the others. Everyone in the ministry hated him, but the father kept him around because he was loyal.


    Of course, that was their opinion, but I wasn’t so sure. Something about this place was…off. The air around us was heavy with misery and unease. I’d noticed it in the town, and even moreso here. I assumed it was a side effect of the brainwashing, but I was starting to think I was getting cause and effect mixed up.


    Simon went out of his way to cause misery, to make people unhappy and stressed. Father Abraham used a mist similar to the stuff in the ocean, but somehow denser and more saturated. But the question was, saturated with what?


    I’d used Dantalion a few times, though I had to wait until I was alone to avoid showing any outward signs. My analysis had shown that my suspicions were accurate. The mist didn’t just brainwash, it FED on negative emotions. The more miserable the people here became, the more insidious the mist got. Simon wasn’t just tormenting them for his own amusement, he was doing it on purpose.


    Which made the choice of venue especially disturbing. Were they feeding on the misery of the desperate people who came here for help? The mist allowed them to slowly erode the will of those nearby, but beyond even that, it induced negative emotions. Hunger, envy, rage. The Pale Ones were basically unstoppable rage ghouls, and they CAME from the mist.


    But again, this was all stuff I figured out through analysis. Most people couldn’t perceive the mist at all, let alone analyze it. Besides I didn’t KNOW Dezcarta. I didn’t want to reveal our position in regards to the Void Child. Who knew how the local power structure interacted with it.


    So I decided to look around in person. Once I finished dinner with the security team, I headed back to the bunk, vaguely mentioning turning in early. Then I went to my bed, the furthest from the door, and triggered Beelzebub. I suppressed the effect substantially, manifesting just a single clone, and then split off a parallel to control it, before having the parallel get in bed.


    Once that was done, I triggered Murmur, then slipped out of the room. Once I was out, I moved slow. The longer I took, the deeper my stealth became, and I wanted the best chance of staying hidden I could get.


    I slowly made my way down the hall, listening in on what was happening as I went. The first thing I came across was a pair of people in a room. Simon was talking snidely to a smaller man, one of the kitchen staff based on the calluses on his hands (Dantalion gave me the extra info). “Look Charles, I don’t know what to tell you. You know we don’t allow smoking here. It doesn’t matter if you went outside or were on a break. The father has a zero tolerance policy. A little gift won’t smooth this over, it’s a very serious offense. I want your wages for the month.”


    “Simon, PLEASE,” the small man begged. “My daughter is SICK. I need that money for  medicine! I know I shouldn’t smoke, but I’ve just been so stressed. I promise I won’t do it again, just please let me off this once!”


    Simon just clicked his tongue, shaking his head in faux sympathy. “It’s a shame when the innocent suffer because of our actions, but rules are rules. If I let you off this time, people will think the rules don’t matter. Then everyone will expect a pass, and before long, we’ll have anarchy? Is that what you want, Charles? Do you want to be responsible for the ministry descending into anarchy?”


    The smaller man’s eyes filled with tears. “I…no, no of course not Simon. You’re right of course,” I saw his shoulders droop. “I can find someone to borrow the money for the medicine from. Of course you deserve to be rewarded for keeping my secret.”


    Simon beamed. “That’s a wonderful attitude Charles. You’re going places here, I just know it.” He held out his hand, and the other man grimly fished out a pile of bone coins and dropped them into his palm. The last time this had happened, I hadn’t noticed anything, but this time, I was in Murmur, which meant I was constantly scanning the surroundings, and I’d been here for a bit listening.


    As the coins dropped into Simon’s hand, there was a flash of black light across the surface of the bone. The energy around Charles, meanwhile, dropped slightly.


    My eyes narrowed. Those coins came from fish in the black ocean. I hadn’t really connected that to the Void Child, but now it seemed like Simon was using the coins as a CARRIER of some sort for the misery he was gathering. Were ALL the coins carriers? Did they collect misery from this place as they were circulated?


    It was a disturbing thought, but I didn’t have much time to think about it, because Simon said his goodbyes to Charles and walked out, strolling right past me as he made his way further into the base. He followed the hallway back, stopping before a full sized portrait of Abraham ministering to the poor. He looked around to be sure no one was watching, then hooked his fingers behind the frame of the picture and pulled. It swung away from the wall like a door, opening onto a small stone landing and a set of stairs leading down.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Stepping onto the landing, Simon started to pull the portrait shut. Cursing, I triggered Double Trouble, appearing behind him as the portrait clicked into place, plunging the whole landing into darkness. There was a scratch and a hiss, and Simon was holding a lit match and a candle stick, the latter of which he ignited before flicking the former into the darkness beside the staircase.


    He descended the steps slowly and casually, and because they wound around, I had a lot of time for Murmur to process the chamber we were circling. We arrived at the bottom in about five minutes, and I followed him to the center of the chamber, where a pool of water sat in front of an altar made of blue green bone, with a dark metal effigy sitting atop it.


    On the altar lay a tarnished silver bowl, and Simon, scooped himself a bowl full of water from the pool and then set the bowl on the altar before dropping the coins he’d collected into it. As the bone hit the water, there was a deep hiss, and the water exploded outward into the air as a plume of mist.


    Simon watched serenely as the mist circled above the altar before being sucked into a small glass orb on a necklace hanging from the tentacles on the face of the black metal figure. The orb glowed with a dark light, almost sucking the brightness from the world around it somehow, and then quieted.


    Leaning in, the greeter squinted at the light. “Damn, still not enough. Useless trash, can’t even suffer properly. I should up the dosage of weakening agent in the food. Maybe have that new thug beat some respect into those whimpering ‘guards’.” His voice was cold and detached, as if everything he was saying was just a matter of course, and I thought he was talking to himself until the pool began to bubble. Simon’s eyes widened, and he dropped to his knees, slamming his head against the floor so quickly it must have caused damage.


    The pool emitted a strange, strangled hiss, and Simon stayed kneeling, listening until it finished, before finally responding. “Apologies, my lord. I meant no disrespect. I was simply venting my frustration about the lower beings.”


    A laugh sounded from above. Abraham descended the stairs, entering the field of Murmur’s detection only seconds after he started laughing. “Oh Simon, how can the master listen to you whine about ‘lower beings’ when you yourself are simply the dregs of this world. It would be like hearing a rat sneer at a cockroach.”


    Simon’s fingers dug into the ground in anger, but he didn’t respond. Abraham walked past him like he wasn’t there, kneeling in supplication, though I noted he only went down on one knee. “Master, your unworthy servant returns. We’ve acquired a new pawn today. He’s a step beyond the mortal dross, and I believe he can be cultivated into a useful tool. Perhaps even more useful than some we already have.” His tone was scathing as he flicked his gaze to where Simon was laying.


    The hissing emerged again, and Abraham beamed. “Of course. I will begin his education. Once he has seen the light, I will usher him into your presence. As your father’s most devoted spawn, I am sure such a paltry will can only crumble under your pressure.”


    Father…ok, that was…interesting. Because it implied this thing wasn’t the actual Void Child. Unless the void itself was sentient and planning to kill us, but i had to believe that even MY bad luck and attraction to nonsense had limits. I would assume for now that this thing was probably the ‘spawn’ of the Void Child. Which was its own kind of disturbing because it meant the Void Child was BREEDING down there, potentially with the horrifying C-rank abomination in the ocean. Fantastic.


    I watched them for a bit longer, and they only traded barbs as they reported to the pool. They were doing…a lot of terrible shit. Just heinous things. Poisoning, beating, stealing. Abraham had apparently arranged for multiple people to be crippled, just so they would be forced to attend the ministry.


    His sermons were also specifically designed to induce nightmares and paranoia, and the people who slept in the building slept with a bone cone unknowingly hidden beneath their mattress (which was apparently designed to be uncomfortable, because I guess they decided they weren’t quite evil enough). By the time they finished talking, I was ready to just straight up murder one or both of them out of sheer moral outrage.


    Instead, I did the prudent thing. I went back upstairs, got my clone, and sent it back to Caladwen with a report. Sadly, apparently hearing them literally CONFESS to a fucking eldritch monstrosity wasn’t evidence (I really hated the term ‘hearsay’). So I was asked to stay under.


    Given my progress though, I was informed the search for my friends was underway, and they would be brought to Ironreach under guard as soon as they were found. That made this a lot more palatable. I still needed to learn more about the monstrosity in the pool and the thing that spawned it, so I wasn’t too upset about staying aside from the general hatred of being around these people.


    I went to sleep that night under guard, with a clone under Murmur watching me sleep, and I slept in Mornax, for an added bit of protection.


    When I woke up the next morning, Simon came to get me, and I resisted the urge to punt his skull off his shoulders like a ball. He chattered cheerfully as we walked, and it made me physically ill to listen to him sound so friendly when I knew what a fucking monster he was. I honestly hated him more than Camden’s cousin, who had been a sociopath who murdered his own sister as a child.


    He escorted me around the ministry, introducing me to workers (including poor Charles, who I planned to visit after this was over to see if I could help his sick daughter with Zagan). Finally, we ended the tour, and he brought me back to the front where the food was served. He beamed at me as we chose a seat. “Now that all the training nonsense is out of the way, you can see the real reason people come here. Father Abraham is a hell of a speaker.” Somehow, I didn’t doubt that at all.