The Bishop Kasanth Dannor looked down at the strange merchant, and decided caution was the best path. He turned to Knight Captain Orloc Siedermann and said to the thin tall man, “Take thirty Dragonsbane Knights and thirty Goblinsbane Knights and ten Giantsbane Knights and at least a pair of Red Bishop, and alert your father. Inquisitor Mortis Leonin is to be brought before me for judgement as a heretic and blasphemer and for the crimes of Treason, and utilizing dark arts.
Let no man harm him if he comes peaceably NO MATTER WHAT STATE YOU FIND HIM IN.”
The Bishop knew that Mortis was bisexual with a perchance for muscular military types, but in the Colony of Dunesphere any copulation outside of procreation could be grounds for a variety of horrible punishments. So if the paladins found the Inquisitor involved in any trysts of an illicit nature, Kasanth knew they would refrain from driving nails into his offending member as was the customary punishment.
They waited for an hour for Knight Captain Orloc Siedermann to return. Kasanth made them all wait in silence. The anger and distrust etched across his face, despite the extensive church of one tattooing.
When Mortis was brought it, it was obviously a much younger man than the time travelers had seen.
This Mortis Leonin was young and vital. He was dressed in simple monk’s robes, but his face bore a terrible spreading bruise. When Kasanth saw it he rose up and nearly roared at Knight Captain Orloc.
“Who did this?” asked Kasanth.
Orloc Siedermann approached and dropped to one knee, “My master, this wound was inflicted by my father, Inquisitor Lord Siedermann who demanded to be present for the arrest. We found some significant things in Leonin’s quarters. Books of a dark, and obviously non-human origin. I have brought most of them here. My father claimed all the actual artifacts that were found in Leonin’s possessions under Inquisitorial jurisdiction. I apologize my master. Short of killing him, I could not stop him.”
“The Inquisitors will be dealt with,” murmured Kasanth, “Where are the books? I wish to see what Morty was hiding from us.”
Orloc lifted one from his sachel and passed it to the Bishop. The book was stitched together pages of some dark alien skin, dried and tanned. Orloc said, “My master, our chemical analysis does not allow us to identify the skin. If it was a creature, its long extinct. The silvery white ink is luminescent and has elements that led our Red Bishops to believe it was a combination of cerebral fluid and crushed bone matter. This we have matched to bone fragments identified as Nightmare Lord bone fragments. I am sure you see the deep concern this raised.”
Kasanth turned towards the bewildered younger Leonin and said, “Morty, as you were my former Squire, I will not expose you or your noble house to the ridicule and dishonor that an open trial would come to. It will be a closed door trial.”
All known guests were escorted from the room leaving the young Mortis Leonin, Bisop Kasanth, Knight Captain Orloc, and two cherub meks to record the proceedings for Inquisitorial records.
The guests were under heavy guard for four grueling weeks. They were provided food, water and shelter, but they never did learn of the young Leonin’s fate.
Apparently the books delivered to the Bishop Kasanth, and the information they extracted from Leonin allowed the Bishop to piece together ancient rituals it would take him nearly 700 years to perfect in our timeline in a matter of days.
Soul Takers dressed as Priests walked among the people of Dunesphere. Giving consecration and sacrament they also took a page from the Accuser’s book, tricking many into selling their souls by the first Sunday. With hundreds of fiends and malevolents inhabiting the city by two weeks, the newly consecrated Devil Bishop Kasanth Dannor took on the ritual to become the final Qliphoth, one to represent the human sentients and delivered the planet Refuge and the entire timeline hurling into Warmonger’s grasp. Then the demons seized the government, and all of Dunesphere.
By the third week the guests heard the rumors from the servants, that Pope Cristos Dugari and one thousand loyal knights had fled to the north.
By week four, outside the windows of the Grand Manor in which they were guests, they all could see the city of Dunesphere burn. Warmonger’s Dead dressed head to toe in knightly armor that covered their form were openly conscripting thousands into a new army.
In the guests quarters were “the Merchant”, Lord Grimaldus’ former soldiers and scientists now time travelers, and the Terror, who had been using the abandoned Hawk Eyrie above the guests quarters as a base of operations since things hit the fan in Dunesphere.