Finding a Haven

[Aurenos]

They had begun moving into the city in small groups. Two here, three there. Never enough to draw attention. As always he sent the bait first, insignificant little members of the cult, the loss of whom would mean nothing to him. They did their job well, continuing their worship unsupervised, scouting out the city, setting up a safe house. The more loyal and useful members followed, cultists actually blessed by the warping touch of their God. They began to set up the real business of the cult, recruiting to grow in numbers and making money for the cult to use. Once the financial base was secured, more safe houses were created for the more powerful, and more perverse, rituals. Investigation of the city's supernatural inhabitants became a priority, and he sent in his most powerful servants to perform that task. Vampires, demons and werewolves, all were scouted and measured as threats. It was only then, after years of preparation and meticulous planning, that his reliquary was shipped in to Melbourne. His imminent arrival spurred his minions into an even greater state of frenzy. The place they would be interring their God's reliquary had been selected to his careful preparations, and they waited now for his presence, to lead the assault.

Nestled underneath the University of Melbourne was a labyrinthine system of rooms, tunnels and secrets, hidden from the eyes of mortal and immortal alike. The warlock like vampires made this place their home, wrapping it carefully in layers of protective magics, magics that were very clear to his eyes. Given the time, he could peel them all apart and enter the place unnoticed by the current masters of this haven of mystical secrets. But time he did not have. The assault would begin in the early hours of the morning, when the vampires were at their weakest. His favored servants carried his reliquary towards the entrance, ready to follow the initial rush. All that was needed was a powerful force to gain entrance through the first layer of dangers.

That hammer would be the God himself. He twisted the soul of one of his cultists apart and devoured its essence as he draped its flesh around him like a costume. It was a slight thing, female, slender and weak, but that no longer mattered. With the spirit of the God driving the flesh, it would be as mighty as was needed. Aurenos had been present at the creation of the universe, there was no little magic trick a vampire could conceive of that would keep him out. As he battered the wards with his immeasurable will, the tiny fist pounded upon the door. The wood warped and shattered, and his cultists streamed past him into the breach. He followed along behind them, a smile twisting the lips of the woman he wore. The hidden chambers would soon be his, and after that, the city.

There was pockets of resistance, of course. A massive gargoyle like creature that killed two of his favored thralls before his most powerful minion struck it down. The vampires possessed dark magics that gave them an advantage, but in the end they fell to the superior numbers of the cultists. Hidden traps and magics killed many more. The losses were far greater than the God had anticipated, and he enjoyed shredding the vampires he found personally to release the anger that flooded him. When the resistance had fallen, and the last of the vampires surrendered, he let the body of the woman fall away, already crumbling from the energies of him that had flooded the mortal body not able to sustain it. His true form, pulled together from motes in the air fueled by the power of the Faith his cult possessed in him, Aurenos, fallen Demon of heaven, twisted God of darkness, arose before his prisoners. The screaming that followed was far worse than anything that had come during the assault.