Richard spotted a cart on the horizon further down the road, and put on some speed. He passed the cart seeing one man riding it, with two horses pulling. Richard made a lazy loop, and pulled up in front of the cart, blocking the road. He stepped off his bike, and pulled out his combat shotgun. That let the man know he meant business. The cart stopped, and the man stepped down with his hands raised. “You know if you rob traders, they'll stay clear of the area. For your sake you should probably just buy some goods.” The trader called.
“Shut up, I'm no simple robber. Put your hands behind your back.”
“Wait, I've heard about you. You're Dick Bandit aren't you?”
“I prefer Rich, actually.”
“Well I prefer not being robbed, so we will both have to be disappointed, eh Dick. Bet a lot of people are disappointed by Dick Bandit, huh.”
“I said shut up!” Richard yelled. He jumped onto the cart, and saw the bed was loaded down with food and other essentials. “This is too much to load. I'll have to take you, and the cart, back to camp.” He told the trader. He took a few steps, putting fifteen feet of distance between him and the guy. Then he dropped one of his triangular mirrors, and watched the man as he showed him his back. He waited nearly a minute for the man to make his move. They always did, they would pull a gun. Then he could feel a little more justified robbing them. He would pull the cord that fired his reversed shotguns, and the birdshot would put them on the ground. To his surprise the man never made a move. Richard figured the crazy trader must go unarmed, a mad thing in this mad world. He covertly collected the mirror, and turned back to the man. “I'll follow you, just keep moving along the road, take the left exit, and you'll hit the camp.”
Richard slowly followed the cart, and after a couple hours they reached the camp. He got off his bike, and directed the cart to the supplies tent. He supervised with Quartermaster, and the trader unload the cart. “So you guys some sort of army?” The trader asked.
“We wait for the Terrible Green Iridescent Friday.” Quartermaster replied.
“Ooooh, you're a cult. Most of you guys wait for things in one place.”
“Shut up,” Richard barked, hoping to end the conversation.
“We are on a pilgrimage to the place we will wait.”
“Do you think you'll be waiting there for long? I might be convinced to call this one a freebie. If you guys are willing to pay for a consistent supply line?”
“We will want for nothing while we wait,” Quartermaster replied fervently. “Do you wish to join in the waiting.”
“I mean I just can't wait for TGI Friday,” The trader replied sarcastically. “What would I have to do to join?”
“You simply have to gaze at the idol.”
The trader paused at that opening his mouth, and seeming to taste the air. “Then you would pay for that stuff?”
“You would give all things freely to bring about TGI Friday.”
“But then you would give me different goods that you don't need, that I could leave with. I then trade for other stuff that you guys do need.” The trader tried to explain.
“Perhaps, if that is the role Priest decides you would play.”
“Lead the way then.”
Richard followed the pair considering what to do. He tried not to capture the people he robbed, to prevent the cult from gaining more converts. This trader seemed to think that he could just look at the idol, and be unchanged. That wasn't how it went though. When someone looked at the idol they would be driven mad, their irises turning the certain shade of green, and join as cultist. It had happened to everyone who looked at it. He figured there was no way to stop this. Before they went in, Richard tied a strip of cloth over the trader's eyes. “Don't want him looking at it without Priest's permission,” he explained.
The three entered the tent where Priest sat worshipping the idol. Priest almost never left the idols side, though most of the cult members couldn't stand to be near it for more than a few hours. The corpses of those vulture-eels were already stacked underneath the idol. They glistened wetly, somehow more atrocious dead than they had been alive. Priest stood up to look at them. “Who is this man?” he questioned.
“A trader Bandit brought in, wanted to look at the idol,” Quartermaster explained.
“Did he have food? Does he have weapons?”
“It was mostly supplies, food, drugs, shoes, he had a horse,” Quartermaster answered. Richard did a quick pat down, not finding any weapons.
“Then we can afford another mouth to feed,” Priest ripped off the trader's blindfold. “Gaze at its wonder.” He tilted the man's head towards the idol, and all four men began to stare at it. It had dozens of jade tendrils rising up, twisting together into a pattern that drew the eye down. Everyone's heads slowly drifted lower, following the hideous curves.
Richard wasn't sure if it had been the angle he stood at when he first looked idol. He was now unable to not see the shape, but every time his drifting gaze was interrupted by the realization that the tendrils formed the shape of a penis. He suppressed a giggle at the notion that everyone worshipped the idol, and it lost its horror. Richard looked side eyed to the trader, hoping something might save him.
The man was shaking, his eyes nearly on the alter itself now. Trembling he slowly raised one arm, and in the flash a pistol launched out of his sleeve into his hand. He fired two shots that went high, missing Priest and the idol, putting two small holes into the roof of the tent. A shadow stretched out from the man towards the light. The magical darkness passed between everyone and the idol, breaking the spell of the idol's shape.
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For a moment every stood shocked. Then Priest screeched, and began flailing at the trader. They tumbled out of the tent, and Richard could now see that the trader's shadow seemed to stretch towards light instead of away. “He is cursed,” Priest shouted. “And dared to fire at out god. Kill him, wait no, restrain him. He will be a sacrifice come Friday.” Quartermaster looked to Richard, who sighed and stripped off a coat. He used it to tie up the man, and began dragging him towards the corral. The man's horses and cart, along with a few other pack animals the cult had were there, surrounded by a chickenwire fence.
One of the Guards was on watch, and Richard sent him to find some rope. He propped the trader against one of the stakes, and kept a boot on the man's chest. The trader looked around, gathering his senses. His eyes were still a deep brown, but the idol had clearly shaken him. “Did I hear something about sacrifices?” he asked. Richard nodded in answer.
“Well then, I'm Julius how are you doing? I think your name was Bandit right?”
“Look Julius don't freak out. Just keep quiet, and I'll get you out tonight.”
“That was easier than usual,” Julius replied, seeming pleasantly surprised.
“What are you talking about?”
“It's just that usually it takes a couple hours of humanizing to convince someone to free me. I didn't even mention my buried riches.”
“I've got to go, just keep quiet,” Richard reiterated.
“Wait what's the plan? Because if you look in my cart, in the right wheelwell should be a pill bottle. Two of them in a cup of coffee will put someone unconscious.” Richard felt around in the wheelwell, and felt a latch. Swinging it open a bottle fell into his hand. “Give the guard some coffee, and untie me when he's asleep, I'll take my horses, but show you where all the other hidden spots are on the cart.”
“First tell me why you didn't try to shoot me on the road?” Richard asked. After seeing he had a concealed weapon the thought had bugged him.
“I'm not that good of a shot. Usually when I get robbed its by people who just need a reminder about civilization, not weird cults, no offense.”
“None taken. This happen to you often?”
“I don't know whether you mean the robbery or the cult? More than I'd like for both.”
He heard the footsteps of Guard returning. “Shut up, come Friday you're going on the Idol,” he yelled at Julius.
He was walking to Quartermaster's tent as Hunter fell into step beside him, humming some tune he couldn't place. “Interesting man you brought in,” Hunter commented.
Richard almost missed a step, as he wondered how much Hunter had heard. “He sure talked a lot,” he replied, hoping that covered his bases.
“I heard he shot at the Idol. He must have a strong will to manage anything in its thrall.”
“Whatever,” he replied, changing the subject. “I saw some deer when I was on the road today, would be good eating.”
“I don't like deer, the antlers remind me of the idol,” Hunter replied pensively.
“You could just go after the ones without antlers.”
“It would be bad, no matter what.”
“So not just the men, but the women and the children too,” Richard said. The humming changed abruptly to something more imperial, but shifted back to previous one after a few bars.
“The trader's shadow pointed the wrong way. I saw it through my scope,” Hunter said, changing the subject back.
“I've warned you not to look at people with your gun, it makes them nervous.”
“But you can see who someone truly is through it. It's called being cursed. People can become afflicted by one, but we're already cursed, all of us.”
“What the green eyes?” Richard had been lucky his natural eye color was close enough it went unnoticed.
“I wonder which would have been more powerful, our curse, or his.”
“Yeah,” Richard replied, letting an awkward silence stretch. “Anyways I'm going to get some coffee. We got some off that trader.” He turned towards quartermaster's tent and Hunter didn't follow. A few moments later he realized the tune had been the opening of Friends.
He waited for night, then made the coffee like Julius had instructed. Half an hour after drinking it the guard was slumped against a post, fast asleep. He untied Julius, who stretched and rubbed his wrists. “So now that I'm free, why are you helping me?”
“I'm not actually a member of the cult. I'm hoping to kill them, and their god.”
“I killed a guy who claimed to be a god once, had telekinesis, what was his name? Anyway it wasn't easy, he just caught the bullets. What's your plan?”
“When we climb the mountain the cult is supposed to summon the god. I've been stealing explosives for years now, have over a hundred pounds of all sorts of stuff. So I blow them all to kingdom come.”
“Along with yourself?”
“I don't have much to live for, but I have a timer. Figure I could set it for a couple minutes then haul ass down the mountain. How'd you kill your god?”
“Trampled him with a herd of pigs, but they're all bacon now. I have something that might interest you.” Julius walked over to his cart, and opened a secret compartment inside a secret compartment they had already found. Bags of pills, some gold bars, along with a small case came tumbling out. Julius slid the case over to him “Don't open that up for long, it's Plutonium-238, about a kilogram. Now I'm no nuclear physicist, but you would figure if you shoved that in the middle of your pile of explosives it would help. Maybe not achieve fission, or at least not much, but some radiation poisoning would seem useful. I swear you're supposed to seed an explosion with gold or something, cobalt maybe, to poison people. But that gold already has a purpose.”
Richard gingerly opened up the case and saw a large bag full of tiny silvery pellets, and snapped case shut. “Why do you have this?” he asked.
“I'm a merchant, I buy and sell things. I heard once that magic is like radiation, so I figured actual radioactive material might be worth something.”
“But where did you find it?”
“You would be surprised how many things need radioactive components, space things, and it had to get made somewhere. Also this.” he tossed a bag of twenty or so pills to Richard. “They're uppers, don't take more than four in one day. It's the type of shit they gave to soldiers in 'Nam.”
“I don't know how to repay you?”
“You've already helped me escape sacrifice, just promise that if you make it through all this.” he gestured to the camp. “You contribute to the GPD.”
“What?”
“Don't you guys know, you've found civilization. You're in the New Empire, founded by Julius.”
“Caesar?”
“If that's what you want to call me. I also accept the Big JC, ” Julius replied smirking. “Just remember to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's.” He reached into his shoe, and pulled out a small bag tossing it to Richard. Richard knew he had searched those shoes, but glanced down at the bag. An overstylized JC was stamped onto the bag, containing four white pills. “Are you some drug dealer?”
“That is currency my friend, also oxycotin, but it could be half a pig, or two pairs of shoes.” Julius loaded all his hidden supplies onto one of his horses, then climbed onto the other. Richard wasn't entirely sure he was wrong in his initial impression of the man, he certainly was a mad merchant.
In the morning Julius' escape was noted, but searching for him was determined to be a waste of time. With two horses he would be out of range of a foot search, and could travel to areas they couldn't drive a motorcycle. That was combined with some general rumors about the man's magic powers. That he had summoned a shadow demon to save him from the idol. His escape was obviously facilitated with magic, hexing the guard asleep and cutting his bindings. For a while Richard had been worried someone would put two and two together, but the cultist weren't much for logical thinking. After the brainwashing of the idol they all would believe two plus two equaled five if that was what Priest told them.