“Master.”

The sibilant whisper of his prime subordinate eventually slithered its way into Dante’s attention. It didn’t interrupt his train of thought though. He knew that the man was quite used to dealing with the vagaries of emotion that had long dictated his actions, and would simply wait patiently until he was ready to speak with him. Dismissing any further action from his mind, he refocused on the object of his attention.

Beneath his steely gaze was a table laid out as a representation of the continent of Vacatine. To the eyes of his subordinate, the faint smile on his face showed he was once more reminiscing over how he had gotten to such a lofty position as Emperor of Salvation, the ruling, and only, power on the continent.

Originally the continent of Vacatine had been home to several races, with Humanity occupying roughly a third of the area, largely in the plains. Upon their initial arrival to the area the wide grasslands had been fairly easy for the weaker humans to almost completely tame, and had been turned into a series of cities surrounded by farmland. Or more precisely, one city surrounded by farmland, that was in turn surrounded by other cities. The outer cites, called the Border Cities, were built specifically to limit entrance to the plains for all monsterkind. Salvation, the name of both the central city and the empire that was ruled from it, had maintained a fairly peaceful existence for centuries. Trade with the neighboring tribes and nations of elves, dwarves, and beastkin kept them all prosperous, and open borders for adventurers kept them all safe from the vagaries of dungeons and random monsters. With the border keeping the larger groupings of monsters from passing through the plains, the adventurers were enough to keep the monster population in the area almost entirely contained in the dungeons. Until things changed.

According to all reports and histories, humanity was the victim of unprovoked hostility on the part of the nearby beastkin tribes. Over a period of five years the tribes fell from being friendly and civilized, into rage and barbarism, culminating in an all out assault on the Empire of Salvation. In a surprise pincer attack, the combined tribes swept through two of the smaller border forts, and fell upon Keystone, one of the border cities. The population of all three were slaughtered to the last man, woman, and child. In retribution, the armies of the Empire of Salvation marched forth from their own lands for the first time ever. At their head were eight men.

These eight men were adventurers, turned mercenaries, turned military commanders. Originally of Earth, like many of the newly arrived humans they too had had trouble finding their place in the world for a time. Having eventually settled in Salvation, with their history of military service they quickly rose through the ranks. When war broke out they stepped up and led the Empire in a dominating campaign of retribution through the beastkin lands. Not only were they brilliant military commanders, each was also exceptionally powerful on their own, often leading their armies from the front, or going out of their way to hunt down the most powerful of their enemies.

Days after their crushing defeat of the beastkin tribes, as the army and its legion of newly acquired slaves were preparing to march home in victory word came of disaster in the capital. The Imperial family had been assassinated. With no remaining heirs to take the throne, the nobles of the capital, and the surrounding border cities were jockeying for position, each looking to take the title of Emperor for themselves. What started out with brides, bribes, and blackmail, quickly turned to arsons, assaults, and assassinations. By the time the so recently victorious imperial armies got wind of the situation, the Empire was on the brink of civil war. The commanders immediately turned their armies around and marched them back to the capital at their highest speed.

The soldiers of the border cities had thought that their day to day life of casually launching ranged attacks at the few monsters still stupid enough to attack the walls had prepared them for war. Early scuffles with the central cities “army” of guardsmen, nobles, and bodyguards showed that they were definitely higher level, and therefore more powerful than their opponents. These easy victories they gathered in subduing these “armies” left them woefully unprepared for the return of the Imperial armies. The ensuing civil war was as brutal as it was brief. The Imperial armies, veterans of the recent war, easily crushed the Border Guards. They barely even slowed as they marched through the border armies, over their corpses, and on to victory. Those few pretenders to the throne left in Salvation were disposed of just as easily.

The eight men who led the imperial army were heralded as the Saviors of Salvation, and installed as the new rulers of the empire. Seven of them formed a Council to handle most issues and judgements, leaving the leader of their group to become the Emperor of Salvation. And under his rule, the perpetrators of the fall of the Imperial Family were quickly discovered. With the revelation that the dwarves had paid a clan of elven assassins to strike while the Empire was at its weakest, once more the armies marched forth for retribution.

Dante’s faint smile wasn’t for becoming Emperor, nor was it for conquering the continent. No, his smile was for accomplishing those feats by deceit. While history held to the version he had just reviewed in his mind, as did every scout, spy, military, and political report available to everyone else, none of it was actually how it really happened. Yes, armies achieved those victories and defeats. People died, rulers were assassinated, and new ones were installed. The Empire of Salvation went to war, fell into civil war, and then marched out to war again, somehow even stronger than before. The slave pits were filled with beastkin, dwarves, and elves. It wasn’t the things that had been done that were where the deceit lay, it was in the why.

The unprovoked animosity of the beastkin tribes was carefully orchestrated. The patience and planning that went into that operation alone outdid all of the rest. A magical plague, hyper addictive narcotics disguised as medicine to combat said plague, and a years long careful monitoring of withdrawal symptoms for an entire civilization, culminating in an enraged populous charging off to death or slavery. The preparations alone took most of a decade. The plague had to be carefully concocted, along with the drug that cured it while addicting the people. The plague couldn’t be so virulent that it swept through the entire populace faster than it could be controlled, but fast enough to cause worry. Keeping humans immune to it was another major concern. It also had to be deadly enough to cause fear, but not enough to wipe them all out, nor weak enough to be ignored. The drug had similar concerns in regards to addiction and effect, but also needed to scale up as more and more was consumed over time. The final straw was to simply withdraw all of the support and manufacture of the drug, while explaining that there would always be more available in Keystone if the plague returned. Withdrawal had been carefully planned to lean heavily in the direction of rage and irrational behavior. With a large supply of visually identical, but wildly different drugs captured from Keystone, the beastkin were blissfully happy for the first time since the plague swept through their lands. The fact that they were all high as kites when the army arrived was no accident.

And the assassination? Well, one of the seven men who followed the soon to be Emperor during the campaign could not only shapeshift, but could do so with multiple bodies. During some sections of the war, he would disguise himself as some of his fellow commanders, allowing them to sneak off and slaughter the Imperial family. The clues they left behind were found, but mostly ignored until the issue of the interregnum was resolved. Once he rose to Emperor it was easy to reinstate the investigation, and use the expected results to declare war on the rest of the continent.

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The final effects of the very different drug that had been left for the Beastkin to find in Keystone had some interesting after effects. It wiped the debilitating effects of the withdrawal from the original drug, but left them nearly incapable of independent thought and completely docile. In other words, the perfect slaves to keep the Empire running while its armies marched forth to conquer. With proper timing of leave, battles, and the length of the war, the Empire of Salvation had a burgeoning population ready to be pushed into colonization of the newly conquered areas of the continent, and a plethora of newly trained, indoctrinated, and seasoned young soldiers looking forward to the next step for the Empire.

Over the last three decades of war, some things had changed. Foremost were the names by which the Emperor and his men were known. As their power and fame grew, so too did the tales told of them. While the Emperor’s chosen name had never been widely known, he was still greatly amused by what they called him now, The Emperor of Man. It was as though they thought he did what he did for all of Humanity. While it was partially true, it wasn’t his main consideration. As for the seven who followed him, they came to be called The Inferno. At times he still wondered who exactly gave them that name, considering the nature of the members of The Inferno, as well as his own name of Dante. Chuckling at both the names and the remembrance of the path he took to arrive where he was today, Dante pushed up from the table and turned to greet his old friend, another man with a name that weighs on the ones he had been given.

“Virgil, welcome. News first?” The two briefly clasped hands as warriors, around the forearm, before stepping over to the side of the map table into a sitting area.

After they sat, Virgil started his report. “The rest of The Inferno is away. We still don’t know for sure how long the trip will take, but the results are as guaranteed as I can make them.” He had more to say, but waited as Dante raised a hand. The sly smile on the Emperor’s face gave away the upcoming question, causing Virgil to stifle his groan. He hated this part, which is why everyone else took such joy in reminding him of it.

“Did they make their normal exits?” As he spoke the smile went from sly to downright smug.

At that Virgil groaned, dropping his head into a face palm. “Yes,” he grunted out. “Of course they did. Those idiotic children can’t help themselves.”

Laughing, the Emperor responded, “What does that say about you? They are aspects of you, after all. Surely they didn’t get all of your ridiculousness when you spilt, there has to be a little left.” On seeing the glare, he just laughed harder. When they had both calmed down somewhat, he asked, “So, tell me how each of them did.”

Virgil opened his mouth for a scathing remark, but stopped when he saw the look on his friend’s face. Dante enjoyed hearing about the antics of the rest of the Inferno just as much as Virgil hated them, but you don’t refuse The Emperor. With a deep, long suffering sigh, he started retelling the story of the latest idiocy.

“Well, Rage still doesn’t seem to understand the game quite right, but there was a bit of a change this time. Once more, he told the elven mages he was going to charge and kill them if they didn’t try their hardest to kill him, then waited for them to cast before diving in. Apparently, one of the mages had seen his party trick before and talked them into something a little different than normal. So instead of the normal Meteor that he would catch with his face, this time he literally dove into a fire twister. It lit him on fire, then shot him about half a mile into the air, before he fell like the Meteors they normally cast. They also stacked gravity crush spells on him on his way down. He landed axe first, so he would have been fine no matter what, but still popped his transport orb just before impact. He also dropped a couple of meat sacks on his way down, so when the dust cleared it looked like he splattered.”

Ignoring The Emperor’s laughter, he just shook his head and got back on track. “The others at least followed the rules, mostly. Libi tried doing a pole dance on a staff he looted from one of the priests a couple cities back. The redhead in charge of our nearest Imperial mage group took exception and had the entire corps volley fireballs at him. Roughly a thousand fireballs later, not a spec was left. Slacker took a nap in a catapult cup and got shot into a wall. Avy drowned face down in a puddle made by a novice water mage when he tripped while trying to loot a command tent, then was squished into the mud by the trunk he was carrying. Cov kept stabbing himself with swords when he tried to take them from people. Strangely, most of the people he was taking swords from carried three or four, so it was blatantly planned, just like falling into a bathtub full of acid. And finally, Wendigo ate himself. Selves. However that works out. He had four of his bodies rip each other to shreds and then stuff those shreds down their throats until only the heads were left. Then the heads floated into the air and attacked each other, culminating in an explosion of blood, leaving nothing behind.”

To Dante, the only thing funnier than the horrendous, ridiculous, and wildly improbable ways in which the Inferno faked their own deaths, was listening to their leader explain the situation in the dead monotone of a chemically neutered man discussing sex. The third best part of the entire joke was that it was an accidental creation of the man who now disparaged it the most.

During a night of drunken revelry years ago the discussion had turned to revenge. Virgil had stated that the best revenge wasn’t wiping out an entire family for three generations, having a threesome with a man’s mom and wife, or living a good life (they’d actually tied the man that offered that last gem up to a post and used him for target practice), but was instead making your opponent doubt your death in the unlikely event that he actually killed you. When confusion was the only response, he had immediately fabricated a number of scenarios where it would be better to fake your own death than to actually kill your target, and use it to run away. Do it enough times, and even if he did manage to kill you the man would never rest easy, particularly if you managed to destroy your body at the time of death.

The rest of The Inferno took up the challenge the next day. When the joke started to get a little stale, they started adding modifiers and points. Points were awarded by the rest of the Inferno to keep it fair, minus Rage who had one idea and never changed it thereafter. By the time of the final battle for the continent the rules were that they needed to “die” by either friendly fire, or improbable accident. If they came back to the fight, they needed to be in costume. Perhaps more amusing than the fake deaths was that the costume every single one of them came back to fight in was Virgil. Crossdresser Virgil.

When his laughter subsided, and he could comfortably breathe again, Dante said, “Thanks, I needed that. Running an empire is more work than it should be. Should have made it a religion, then the priests could have kept everyone in line. Oh well.” He shook his head at the lost chance, cleared his throat, and got down to business. “OK, now that that’s done, what do you think the odds are that they got away unseen?”

Virgil didn’t even need to think about it. The Inferno had all used transport orbs to clear out at the time of their “deaths,” which complicated normal tracking, but some forms of magical tracking could still work. As a result of a healthy dose of paranoia, they had all transported to the same prepared place, a ritual circle designed to disrupt all tracking skills. They stripped off and replaced their gear, went through a series of spells to remove anything attached to them, then used the transport orbs again. After a series of stops performed by rotating through the orbs, they all stopped on a ship hidden behind an illusionary wall of a huge cliff. Nothing could have tracked them to that point. “It would be impossible for anyone to know where they went, but people will know they have gone somewhere, so it’s likely they would assume Verasal.”

Nodding, The Emperor, with a sharp smile of his own, said, “Yes, but no one will expect where on Verasal. Is everything there ready?”

Virgil shrugged, something he clearly wasn’t used to doing. The gesture was performed in a way that it implied he had seen it done, but never used it himself. “We get minimal reports, so I don’t know for sure. However, the plan needs very little prepared before it can start, so I am confident that things will work out. Particularly as I don’t see it being all that useful anyways.”

Dante had a final gem of a statement, “Chaos is only useful to those who can take advantage of it.”