EPISODE 23: Aftermath
After assisting in the victory in Austria, Orem Black was far from finished. He knew six more Processions still waited to be fulfilled, each a jagged step towards the war the dark wanted. He’d spent his time in hiding quietly rebuilding his army, the Knights of the Black Serpent, though nothing could ever recapture the old days. And though his numbers would never be as strong as they were at his apex, this was about being ready to strike when needed...And to push the pawns of history towards their intended fates.
For the soldiers of the Light, failing to stop the first Procession from being enacted, carried with it the heavy and ominous weight of defeat.
Retreating, Veera and Aolani, bound by battle and grief, sought sanctuary in her homeland of Hawaii. Though the islands whispered of the betrayal and sacrifice of her ancestors’ -- It was a wound she carried, but a home she could not abandon. Herakles joined them as well, acclimating the best he could to the strange, modern world, starting a life of his own.
But for Veera things felt unsettled, with his uncle Banerjee still trapped in the Abyss. No longer able to connect with him mentally, he feared the worst.
Months after last sensing Banerjee, Veera had a familiar dream. The man in the field, blood raining from the sky. But something about this vision was different. Banerjee appeared in it, communicating through planes of existence.
He was at the farthest reaches of the Abyss, a darkness so heavy and thick, it clouded his mind’s eye. But through his deep meditations, he found his way into Veera’s dreams. To his nephew, he revealed further truths discovered in the void. It was about the man in the dream, the nightmare first seen by Reginald Black, leading to the creation of the Order of Wormwood. Spreading to other members and beyond, haunting them all, but giving purpose to the fight of good...
Banerjee learned the mysterious figure everyone saw, was no man at all, but a binding of many. A patchwork of souls, meant to be the Spellbinder. A name first heard in the Abyss, once intended to be Aolani before she escaped back to Earth. The Spellbinder, Banerjee warned, was part of another Procession. One of the last. Orem would have a role in it, but only a piece. If Veera could some how stop him, neutralize him, or even kill him, the side of the Light could fracture the sequence of the Processions all together.
Banerjee visits Veera in a dream - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
But Orem was an Eternal, as Veera and his allies had also become, crossing through planes of existence. Destroying Orem would prove near impossible. But in the dream, Banerjee told Veera there were other ways to stop Orem...
When Veera woke, the dream burned like an ember within. He could see a new, clearer path -- Not to decipher the many Processions yet to be enacted, but to stop just one from ever happening. Thus, halting the progression of them all.
And so, he began training, sharpening his magic. Aolani joined him in his quest. Preparing them for the day when the cycle could be broken.
For Broderick Zayne and Gérard Roux, they would continue their torment of Orem Black -- following him, keeping tabs, always a step ahead, trying to thwart him from finding another copy of the Book of Amar.
After the war, with the Nazis having looted treasures of the world and laid waste to others, it was impossible to know how many copies of the rare text remained. Libraries burned, private collections annihilated, yet even the rumor of an intact volume was enough to send both groups racing.
Orem, and Joseph desperately needed the book to continue deciphering clues to the Processions. They’d made progress before the war, but much of their work was lost in their defeat of 1932. And they were fighting time itself, if they wanted to succeed.
Unlike Orem, Joseph wasn’t an Eternal. Born the same year as his friend, in 1860, he now wore the full weight of his eighty-five years. Orem, however, looked untouched by time, appearing not a day older then when he return from the Abyss.
Joseph, though aged, remained healthy, a result of being possessed by Orem’s copy of the Book of Amar at Black Manor in 1894. The book held his life, similar to Gyan, who was tethered to the same volume for over 200 years before Orem showed up in Allahabad to claim it.
But the only thing that bothered Joseph about the theory was the book was believed to have been destroyed, as Broderick Zayne and Gérard Roux had stolen it from them in their showdown at the Grand Hotel Kronenhof in the Swiss Alps...Unless, of course, the book still lingered somewhere in the world.
Despite it all, Joseph persisted, still at Orem’s side. Though in the years passing he’d not found the power or purpose that Orem had. His advanced age was making him restless, having sacrificed so much, with so little to show for it. Deep down, doubt crept in.
Joseph Frost, 1945 - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
In charge of a new Oracle, a dead soldier they’d reanimated on a moonless battlefield in Europe, they still needed the dark’s assistance in piecing more of the Processions back together.
But when Orem wasn’t around, Joseph used the vessel to commune with his dead father, Fredrick, seeking some much needed guidance.
JOSEPH: Father, we’ve won...yet I feel no victory.
ORACLE: Because triumph is built on hunger. But you’ve seen the other side, Orem drinks from a full cup. He’s lost sight.
JOSEPH: He says that only by fulfilling the Processions can we survive what’s coming.
ORACLE: A serpent always speaks of what’s good for itself as it coils tighter. Tread carefully my son...there’s chatter here that Orem bends prophecies to his own will.
JOSEPH: I thought I was serving a greater purpose. I’ve sacrificed my soul. You sacrificed yourself. But whatever faith I had is slipping.
ORACLE: Then it’s your choice to continue to obey his will or not.
The Army of the Dark was an ever evolving and growing thing. Satan, stripped of many of those who first fell with him, had always sought new emissaries -- clever, ruthless demons to bend mankind to his will. But the journey for a damned soul to mature into a worthy demon could often take millennia.
One such soul was found in a devoted slave in Egypt, in 3152 BCE. Loyal, he was a servant to the Pharaoh. But after the ruler defiled and murdered his sister and covered up the crime, the once faithful vassal, killed the Pharaoh in front of his own followers. The slave was captured and tortured, to set an example. For nine straight days the Pharaoh’s personal guards beat and bludgeoned him until death stole him away.
For the mortal sin of murder, the slave’s soul was cast to Hell. There, reborn in the shadows, he became the demon, Kasson.
At first, only a whisper, a lowly Smoke Demon with no powers but persuasion. Yet Kasson excelled, tempting men into betrayals, sins, and damnations by the thousands. Each soul gaining him rank. Each ruin giving him favor.
In the year 1634, Kasson boldly led other demons to Earth, mass possessing members of the village of Eckubine in the Massachusetts Colony. Controlling the hands of the humans, they started a chain reaction that saw the entire village burn itself to the ground with paranoid townsfolk killing each other for fear they were damned. Risky, but effective, the Dark took notice.
Rendition of the demonic showdown in Eckubine, by Ephraim Bradstreet, 1729 - © 2025 Headless Horseman Productions, LLC
Kasson was shrewd to Satan’s desire to bring about the Absolution, and knew positioning himself the right way, would secure a place for him beside the Dark Prince. Having risen to the rank of a Shapeshifter demon, Kasson made his way to Earth again...and in 1686, was summoned by the mystic Uday the very night Broderick Zayne was banished to the Abyss. Kasson steered Uday’s hand, then his assistant Gyan, ensuring the Book of Amar would eventually be passed to Orem Black.
Shrewdly helping the plan of the Dark along, it was Kasson who planted the dream of the man in the field, in Reginald Black’s mind. He steered Orem Black’s obsession with fate. He was the voice of General Collie, who told Orem to seek the Book of Amar. He placed the Alchemist’s map on Orem’s doorstep leading him to India. And appeared as Reginald in the Abyss, to urge Orem towards the Processions.
Every step, every move, Kasson pulled the strings. One demon, patient, relentless, weaving things all for the coming Absolution...But now, in the quiet chamber through the Oracle, Kasson whispered again from beyond, his voice curling into the ear of Joseph Frost.
TO BE CONTINUED…