EVERY SINGLE PERSON seated in the great room of the emperor's palace is stunned by Archbishop Judas's revelation. Those people are:
Ruler of the Marijuana Empire:
Emperor M. Williams lll
Head of the Church:
Pope Peter Matthew lll
Heads of the Four Houses:
Duke Felix Christianson lll
Duke Philip Thomason lll
Duke Bartholomew Masterson ll
Duke Thaddeus Anderson V
Minister's of the Empire:
Minister of Religion: Archbishop Cariot Judas
Minister of Agriculture: Agatha
Minister of Education: James
Minister of Treasury: Juliette
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Camrose
Minister of Magic: Francis
Minister of Military Affairs: General Jackson
Minister of Trade: Nina
Minister of Reach and Development: Ajax Angelos
"Is that even possible?" Duke Thomason asked.
"It's already been set in motion."
The doors open and the two men are escorted in.
"Explain yourself, Todd! This is a closed door meeting!" Shouts General Jackson getting to his feet.
"Sir, they were invited by Archbishop Judas."
"That is correct. I did in fact invite these two. Thank you Todd, you are dismissed."
The soldier salutes and departs, closing the door behind him.
"Thank you for joining us. You must be tired from such a long journey."
"Not at all, we actually arrived here three nights ago."
"Care to explain who your guests are archbishop."
"Yes of course Your Majesty. Allow me to introduce to you all."
Unus raises a hand stopping the archbishop. "Please allow us."
"Very well. You have the floor." The archbishop takes his seat.
Unus and Dyad intentionally walk slightly slower than normal as they make their way around the massive horseshoe shaped crystalline table to the heels of it. All eyes follow the pair as they go.
Now in front of everyone proper introductions are given. The man in satin speaks first.
"My name is Sir. Unus. It's a pleasure to meet you all."
"My name is Sir. Dyad."
"We are here today to offer up our services."
"What exactly are those services, Sir Unus?" Asked the Emperor.
"We're assassins for hire." Replied Dyad."
"And why should we care about some two-bit killers for hire?" Duke Thomason asked them, not hiding the annoyance.
"Because Duke Philip Thomason the Third you already know of our reputation." Replied Unus.
"H-How do you know my name? I never gave it."
"What do you think we've been doing for these last three days?
Duke Thomason, you have a beautiful wife and four lovely daughters, but you're practically drowning in debt. Maybe you should reign in your family's spending habits.
"Duke Bartholomew Masterson the Second, you are expecting your first child any day now. I hope you two spend many wonderful days playing happily together.
"Duke Thaddeus Anderson the Fifth, you have an obsession with torturing demi-human and beast-kin children. But do your comrades know what else you do to them, especially the males?
"And lastly Duke Felix Christianson the Third, we know your son, Felix Christianson the Forth is representing the Britannia Empire in Hyacinth City for the upcoming tournament."
Dyad then adds, "we also took a look around His Holiness's private quarters; left something before coming here."
"That's impossible!" Shouts General Jackson, "the best of the best guard His Holiness and his accommodations!"
"Then check for yourself. We are more than happy to stand here and wait. It shouldn't take you long if you run."
"General, please verify Dyad's claim."
"Understood Your Holiness." General Jackson runs out the room.
"Gentlemen," said The Emperor, "you've proven you're more than capable of gathering information and possibly infiltrating high guarded areas. So who exactly are you?"
"We are One and Two of The Black Archers." Said Unus.
"I've heard enough of this nonsense!" Shouts Duke Philip, rising to his feet. "We know your names and what you look like. I say we collect their bounties and be done with this farce!"
"If you believe this is what we truly look like then you are a damn fool." Remarks Dyad.
"Say that again! I dare you!"
"You. Are. A. Fool."
"Why you…"
In a stern voice, "sit down, Duke Thomason." Ordered The Emperor.
"You seriously can't be entertaining…"
"YOU FORGET YOUR PLACE, DUKE THOMASON!" Roars The Emperor. "NOW SIT DOWN AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!"
Duke Thomason looks around the room hoping someone would come to his defense, but no one does. With wounded pride he retakes his seat.
The Emperor takes a drink of water, clears his throat, and speaks once again in a calm voice this time. "Now, Sir. Unus, Sir. Dyad, if this is some kind of joke it's in poor taste. What would two of the most wanted criminals want with us?"
"I can answer that," said the archbishop, standing.
"You have the floor archbishop."
"Thank you. I hired The Black Archers to do two jobs which I might add they successfully completed."
"What exactly were these jobs?" Asked Duke Thaddeus Anderson.
"The first was to steal something from the vault of the late Emperor Maxwell Arsenio Sr."
"Which was?"
Judas turns to Unus and Dyad, "gentlemen do you have the item I requested?"
"It's out in the hallway with your guards." Replied Unus.
A commotion is heard coming from the hallway. General Jackson bursts back into the room – sword drawn. Todd and his fellow soldiers follow close behind.
"Spread out! Surround those two at once!" Orders General Jackson.
Then he does something completely unexpected. He points his sword at the emperor. "Who the fuck are you?!" He hissed.
"Care to explain yourself, General."
"Of course, Duke Masterson." Replied the general, not taking his eyes off of the emperor. "Upon entering His Holiness' bed chambers, I found Emperor William's severed head."
Gasps of shock circle the room.
"I honestly thought you'd be too incompetent to find it." Remarks Dyad.
"Hard to miss. You left it on the table in the middle of the room."
"I said we left something but never said that we actually left it there. After all, the decay on the head is about four days old. My associate, and I have only been here for three."
As Jackson tries to grasp what he was just told, the fake emperor squirts some type of liquid in the general's face.
Some cover their nose and mouth as a horrible smell permeates the air, while others look away.
"AAAHHH!!!" General Jackson screams in unimaginable pain, dropping his sword, he grabs at his face, pulling bloody chunks of flesh off.
The acid had melted straight through the skins five sublayers: stratum corneum, stratum lucidum, stratum granulosum, stratum spinosum, stratum basale of the epidermis.
Next it destroys the blood vessels, nerves, hair follicles, and sweat glands of the dermis; and lastly the fat cells and connective tissue of the hypodermis. With that gone nothing is anchoring the skin to the underlying muscles.
Now it starts eating away at the facial muscles such as: orbicularis oculi and levator labii superioris alaeque nasi around the eyes; the nasalis and depressor septi nasi around the nose; the orbicularis oris, zygomatic major, and depressor anguli oris around the mouth; and lastly the buccinator that make up the cheeks.
With the muscles out of the way, the acid works its way through the skull, orbital and nasal cavities, teeth, and jawbone.
General Jackson collapses to the ground. It feels like forever, but it's only been a few seconds.
In his last fleeting moments, General Jackson realized that not a single one of his soldiers had come to his aid. The room grows deathly quiet.
"Finally, I thought he'd never fucking die." Said the fake emperor.
Pope Matthew rises, "now we all know that the late Emperor Williams and the now late General Jackson were believers in our empire's doctrine. But they were never 'true believers,' in our cause.
"Some time ago, The Inquisitors discovered that those two along with several of their co-conspirators were making plans to change the way this great empire of ours does things. Isn't that right Minister Agatha, Minister James, Minister Nina, and Minister Camrose."
Minister Agatha opens her mouth to argue, but all that comes out is a partisan spear thrust through the back of her skull.
Her hard and soft palate, sphenoid bone, clivus, ethmoid bone, occipital bone, and temporal bone are compromised.
Two more partisan spears erupt from her chest. Having thoroughly destroyed parts of her spine, heart and lungs as they passed through.
The spears are removed and Agatha's body slumps forward onto the glass table.
Minister James is confused by why he's seeing a sideways view of his surroundings.
It had happened so fast and clean that his brain hadn't even registered that it was removed from the rest of his body.
Minister Nina makes it to her feet, turns and is stuck in the face by a flail.
The high-impact velocity of the swinging spiked ball caves in her face. As Nina lies on the floor – a bloody mess, the soldier with the flail hits her several more times, turning her cranium to paste.
Minister Camrose struggles to breathe as an invisible force strangles him.
His struggle comes to an end when a soldier swings his massive heavy-axe down onto Camrose's head – splitting it like a watermelon.
It doesn't stop there. The heavy-axe cleaves through Camrose's body and chair, all the way to the floor.
Pope Matthew continues speaking like nothing happened.
"As we speak, Inquisitors and Cardinals are rounding up traders to our empire and executing them on site. Any children under the age of fourteen whose parents are traders will bear witness to their parent's execution.
"They will then be sent to a reform school and re-educated to ensure they do not turn out like their parents.
"Bishop Anansi will head this program with help from Archbishop Cariot Judas and myself."
After he finishes speaking Pope Matthew retakes his seat. No one speaks for some time. Time ticks away in relative silence.
"Archbishop Judas…" Minister Francis puts a hand to his mouth. He's not accustomed to witnessing such ghastliness.
Swallowing down the sour bile that rose up in the back of his throat he asks, "can we see the thing you had the Black Archers steal, and what was the other job you had them do?"
It's the fake emperor who answers. "The second job we were hired to do."
He jumps up onto the crystalline table. As he talks he begins peeling off his mask, "was to assassinate the late Emperor Maxwell Arsenio Sr."
He drops the mask on Minister Agatha's slumped over corpse, walks through her blood – leaving a bloody trail as he goes. Jumping off the table he now stands beside Unus and Dyad.
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am Kolme, better known as Three of the Black Archers." He theatrically takes a bow.
"As for what we stole, it's still out in the hallway." Said Unus.
"I shall retrieve your belongings right away." Todd quickly departs and then returns with their belongings.
Unus pulls out a small box and sets it on the table. "In this box is the item we stole." Unus opens the box and pulls out its contents, showing it off.
"That item right there ladies and gentlemen is how we'll employ the plan I laid out to you all earlier." Explained Archbishop Judas.
Unus returns the item to the box.
Dyad then speaks up. "We also killed Kerym Elyra, an elf captain of Britannia's Royal Archers and husband to current General Fiora Elyra of the Templars, also an elf."
"I once had the pleasure of torturing their son Corym." Said Ajax, "I don't recall why, but I healed him and let him go."
Duke Thomason speaks up. "You healed and let an elf go free."
"I did."
"You healed and let an elf go free." Repeats Thomason through clenched teeth.
"Are you fucking deaf old man? He just said he did it."
"Stay out of it Kolme." Cautioned Unus.
"Ajax let him go on my orders." Said His Holiness.
"Why?" Duke Bartholomew Masterson asked.
"It's part of a much larger plan."
"Which is what exactly?"
"Archbishop Judas, you may tell them."
"Yes, of course Your Holiness. About fifty years ago Drows had infiltrated one of our schools and killed many of our people – children too, over the course of six years.
"If memory serves you and Ajax were children when it happened."
"You are correct, Duke Thaddeus. But what you don't know is that I was kidnapped by those same Drows, tortured for days on end for months, and tricked into…" Cariot falls silent, too overcome with grief to continue.
It's Ajax who tells them, "Cariot was tricked into killing my four year old twin sister Annabelle Angelos, who was also taken."
Ajax's words hang heavily in the air.
𝐶𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ
Everyone looks to where the noise is coming from.
𝐶𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ
Kolme had started eating something he brought with him.
𝐶𝑟𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ 𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑐ℎ
"Anyways," continues the archbishop, "I put together a proposal and presented it to His Holiness. Once he approved Ajax and I set that plan in motion."
"Which is?" Asked Minister Juliette.
"We use the same tactic the Drows used at the school, but on a much larger scale.
"We now have spies throughout both the Britannia and Netherlands Empires. Those spies have inserted themselves as key figures within their administration, their military, as servants to the Imperial Family's.
"We've even fully taken over small towns throughout both empires and thanks to Minister Ajax, we now have a massive monster army at our disposal.
And it's also thanks to the Black Archers we can move our plan into its next stage."
Before Archbishop Judas can continue the door opens. In walked General Lu Pinyin, and Bishop Anansi.
"Congratulations General Pinyin, you are now Minister of Military Affairs."
"Thank you, Your Holiness. I see the traitors have been dealt with. Who melted jackasses… ahem, I mean Jackson's face?"
"Do you have a problem with how I killed him?" Kolme asked, an edge in his voice.
"Not at all. He was a traitor and deserved a painful death."
"Ha! I like you. Let's get a drink later and torture someone. Hey Duke Pervert I want a couple of your slaves. Oh, but your adult slaves. I maybe fucked in the head, but not as fucked up as what you do to the children. And no you don't have a say in the matter."
Duke Thaddeus reluctantly nods his head in agreement.
"May I continue?" Asked Judas.
"By all means."
"Yeah fine."
Pinyin takes Jackson's seat, while Bishop Anansi takes the seat Kolme vacated. Judas continues.
"Now once the remaining traitors have been flushed out and dealt with we will begin moving forward with the plan.
Kolme will continue acting as emperor so as not to draw unwanted attention to us. However, His Holiness will be making all the decisions. Until we announce publicly that Emperor Williams is dead and His Holiness to be sole ruler.
"There is still much to discuss but let us break for lunch and meet back here in let's say two hours. That should give the cleaning crew enough time to get this place looking proper again."
****
Ajax crosses his wine cellar to the far back wall and stops dead in his tracks. The section of wall that hides away his secrets is open.
Hearing footsteps coming up the stairs Ajax grabs a vintage bottle of wine by the neck and readies himself.
"Oh, welcome back sir."
"Ah, Charles, apologies. I rarely come home at this time of day. It slipped my mind that you were delivering everyone's lunch."
"Shall I set a place for you at the table?"
"What's on the menu?"
"Borsch."
Ajax flashes back to General Jackson pulling bloody chunks of his face off.
"Sounds good. Pair it with this wine."
"Very good sir." Taking the wine bottle Charles leaves the cellar.
Now standing in the chamber. A suit of white armor and black armor stands in the center of the room. Six other metal doors are fanned out behind them.
"Black Knight, contact the others. Tell them we are finally moving forward with the operation, and I want them all to return as soon as possible."
"Understood my liege."
"Sir, someone was nosing around earlier." Reports White Knight.
"Doesn't surprise me. Three members of The Black Archers are here. Unless they break in down here, leave them be."
"And if they do break in?"
Ajax doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. White Knight has standing orders to kill anyone not authorized to be there.
"Forgive me. Because it's The Black Archers, I needed to be sure. " White Knight places a hand over their heart and bows.
"Unless there is something I must know about right this minute. I'm going to visit with White Queen."
Ajax, also known as Black King, heads for White Queen's chambers.